Headquarters.
All had been done, then, that could be done, and it had been done heavily, reluctantly, because Hogan still had not fully understood that Sharpe was dead. Twice that morning he had seen Rifle Officers walking in the streets and both times his heart had leapt because he thought he saw Sharpe, and then he remembered. Richard Sharpe was dead, and the army would march on without him, and Hogan let the crowds disperse and walked slowly, disconsolately through the streets.
“Sir! Sir!” The voice shouted at him from down the hill. “Major Hogan!”
Hogan looked down the steep street he had been passing. A group of chained prisoners were being led by Provosts, one of whom clubbed with reversed musket at a shackled man. Hogan had recognised the voice. He ran. “Stop it! Stop it!”
The Provosts turned round. They were the police force of the army, universally disliked, and they watched Hogan’s approach with silent truculence. Sergeant Harper, who had shouted, was still on the ground. He looked up at Hogan. “Would you be telling this scum to let me go, sir?”
Hogan felt an immense relief when he saw Patrick Harper. There was something intensely reassuring about his fellow Irishman, and Harper was so inseparable from Sharpe that Hogan felt a sudden, crazy hope that if Harper lived, then Sharpe must, too. He crouched beside the Sergeant who was rubbing his shoulder where the Provost had clubbed him. “I thought you were in the hospital.”
“So I was. I got the hell out.” Harper was angry. He spat on the ground. “I woke up this morning, sir, early, with a head like the very devil. I went to look for the Captain.”
Hogan wondered if Harper did not know yet. He wondered how the big Sergeant came to be arrested. The Provosts stirred sullenly and one suggested to the other that he go and find their own Captain. The man left. Hogan sighed. “I think he’s dead, Patrick.”
Harper shook his head stubbornly. “He’s not, sir.” The chains clinked as he held up a hand to silence Hogan. “The guard on the gate told me he was, he said that he’d been buried with the French.”
“That’s right.” Hogan had told the gate Sergeant at the Irish College. “I’m sorry, Patrick.”
Harper shook his head again. “He’s not there, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“I looked. He’s not there.”
“You looked?” Hogan noticed for the first time that Harper’s trousers were stained with earth.
Harper stood up, towering over the other prisoners. “I slit up more than twenty shrouds, sir, right down to the ones that stank. He wasn’t there.” He shrugged. “I thought at the very least the man should have a proper burial.”
“You mean?” Hogan stopped. The hope fluttered in him, and he pushed it down. He turned to the Provost. “Set him free.”
“Can’t do that, sir. Regulations.”
Hogan was a small man, usually mild, but he could be roused to a wrath that was awesome. He released it on the Provost, threatened him with the same shackles, threatened him with punishment Battalions in the Fever Isles, and the Provost, wilting under the onslaught, knocked the bolts out of the manacles. Harper rubbed his wrists as the other Provost, with his Captain, came back. The Captain took one look at the freed prisoner, saluted Hogan, and launched into an explanation. “The prisoner was found this morning, sir, desecrating the dead…‘
“Quiet.” Hogan’s voice cracked with anger. He looked at Harper. “Where are your weapons?”
Harper jerked his head at the Provosts. “These bastards have them, sir.”
Hogan looked at the Captain. “Sergeant Harper’s weapons are to be delivered to me, Major Hogan, at Army Headquarters, within one hour. They are to be cleaned, polished, and oiled. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Harper stepped on the foot of the man who had hit him with a musket. Hogan saw the man’s face flinch in agony, Harper leaned harder, then the Sergeant stepped away with a surprised look on his face. “Sorry.” He looked at Hogan. “Should we go and look for him, sir?”
Hogan had seen the lump and the blood on Harper’s head. He gestured at it. “How is it?”
“Bloody terrible, sir. Feels as if some bastard scraped my brains out. I’ll live.” Harper set off up the street.
Hogan caught up with him. “Don’t be too hopeful, Patrick.” He did not like saying it, but it had to be said. “He was shot, and the surgeons didn’t see him.” Hogan had to hurry to keep up with the huge Sergeant. “He’s probably buried with the British, Patrick.”
Harper shook his head. “He’s not buried at all, sir. He’s probably sitting up in bed screaming for his breakfast. He always did have a terrible tongue in his head in the morning.”
Hogan shook his head. “You didn’t hear me. They didn’t treat a British officer with a bullet wound.” He hated puncturing Harper’s hopes, yet still the Irish Sergeant seemed unmoved.
“You searched, sir?”
“Yes. Officers’ wards, surgery, the dead in the courtyard.”
“Other ranks’ wards?”
Hogan shrugged. “Sergeant Huckfield looked for you, he didn’t see Sharpe. Why should Sharpe be there?”
Harper screwed his face up with the pain of his head. “They didn’t treat an officer?”
Hogan felt sorry for Harper. At last the truth had sunk in. “I’m sorry, Patrick. They didn’t.”
“Like as not. The bugger wasn’t wearing his jacket, and doubtless they saw the scars on his back.”
“He what?” Hogan dodged round a water-seller who was waving his leather spout hoping the Major would buy.
Harper shrugged. “He left his jacket with the Lieutenant, didn’t he? It was so damned hot out there. Then the surgeons must have seen his back. Like mine.” Both Sharpe and Harper had been flogged and the scars never went.
Hogan swore at the absent Lieutenant Price who had never thought to mention Sharpe’s jacket. He began to run, the hope suddenly giddy inside him, and they took the steps of the college in two leaps. The hope stayed with him as they went into the mens’ wards. Hogan imagined Sharpe’s face when he saw them, the relief, the joking that he had been mistaken for a Private, even a Frenchman, but there was no Sharpe there. They searched each room, twice, and the faces on the floor stayed the same. Harper shrugged. “Perhaps he woke up, told them who he was?”
The orderlies said no. They had seen no officers, no patient complaining about being in the ward. There was no Sharpe. The hope went. Even Harper seemed to be resigned. “I can dig up the British, sir.”
“No, Patrick.”
One of the orderlies had become involved in their search. He still wandered, hopeful, among the crammed wounded. He looked at Hogan and seemed reluctant to speak. “Was he shot bad, sir?”
Hogan nodded. “Yes.”
“Connelley’s kingdom, sir?”
“What?” The orderly pointed out of the window to a small door at the far side of the courtyard. “The death room, sir. The cellar.”
They crossed the grass, beneath the awnings that were still rigged round the wellhead, and Harper pulled open the door.;A stench came up into the sunlight, a stench of pus, blood, vomit, foulness and death. There was a light at the bottom of the steps, a feeble, flickering rushlight, and a great bulk of a man peered up in its illumination.
“Who’s that?”
“Friends. Who are you?”
“Connelley, your honour. Sergeant. Would you be relieving me, of your kindness?”
“We would not.” Harper went down the steps, treading carefully because they were slippery, and the stink of disease and death grew worse. The room was filled with moaning, with small cries, but the bodies lay utterly still as if, in the darkness, they were rehearsing for the grave. “We’re looking for a man with a scarred face, and scarred back. He was shot yesterday.”
Connelley swayed slightly, the drink rank on his breath. “Would you be Irish?”
“I would. Now do you know the man?”
