"Remind me why you came here, Sharpe?"
"Orders, sir."
"Very well, " Torrance said.
"At dawn you will go to Colonel Butters's quarters and find an aide who can tell you what is required of us. You then tell Dilip. Dilip then arranges everything. After that you may take your rest. I trust you will not find these duties onerous?"
Sharpe wondered why Torrance had asked for a deputy if the clerk did all the work, then supposed that the Captain was so lazy that he could not be bothered to get up early in the morning to fetch his orders.
"I get tomorrow's orders at dawn, sir, " Sharpe said, 'from an aide of Colonel Butters."
«There!» Torrance said with mock amazement.
"You have mastered your duties, Ensign. I congratulate you."
"We already have tomorrow's orders, sahib, " Dilip said from the table where he was copying a list of the recovered stores into Torrance's report.
"We are to move everything to Deogaum. The pioneers' stores are to be moved first, sahib. The Colonel's orders are on the table, sahib, with the chitties Pioneers' stores first, then everything else."
"Well, I never! " Torrance said.
"See? Your first day's work is done, Sharpe." He drew on the hookah which the woman had relit.
"Excellent,
my dear, " he said, then held out a hand to stop her from leaving. She crouched beside the hammock, averting her eyes from Torrance's naked body. Sharpe sensed her unhappiness, and Torrance sensed Sharpe's interest in her.
"Brick is a widow, Sharpe, " he said, 'and presumably looking for a husband, though I doubt she's ever dared to dream of marrying as high as an ensign. But why not? The social ladder is there to be climbed and, low a rung as you might be, Sharpe, you still represent a considerable advancement for Brick. Before she joined my service she was a mop-squeezer. From mop-squeezer to an officer's wife! There's progress for you. I think the two of you would suit each other vastly well. I shall play Cupid, or rather Dilip will. Take a letter to the chaplain of the 94th, Dilip. He's rarely sober, but I'm sure he can waddle through the marriage ceremony without falling over."
"I can't marry, sir! " Sharpe protested.
Torrance, amused at himself, raised an eyebrow.
"You are averse to women? You dislike dear Brick? Or you've taken an oath of celibacy, perhaps?"
Sharpe blushed.
"I'm spoken for, sir."
"You mean you're engaged? How very touching. Is she an heiress, perhaps?"
Sharpe shrugged.
"She's in Seringapatam, " he said lamely.
"And we're not engaged."
"But you have an understanding, " Torrance said, 'with this ravishing creature in Seringapatam. Is she black, Sharpe? A black bibbi? I'm sure Clare wouldn't mind, would you? A white man in India needs a bibbi or two as well as a wife. Don't you agree, Brick?" He turned to the woman, who ignored him.
"The late Mister Wall died of the fever, " Torrance said to Sharpe, 'and in the Christian kindness of my heart I continue to employ his widow. Does that not speak well of my character?"
"If you say so, sir, " Sharpe said.
"I see my attempt to play Cupid is not meeting with success, " Torrance said.
"So, Sharpe, to business. Tomorrow morning I suggest you go to Deogaum, wherever the hell that is."
"With the bullocks, sir?"
Torrance raised his eyebrows in exasperation.
"You are an officer, Sharpe, not a bullock driver. You don't prod rumps, you leave that to the natives. Go early. Ride there at dawn, and your first duty will be to find me quarters."
"I don't have a horse, " Sharpe said.
"You don't have a horse? Don't have a horse? Good God alive, man, what bloody use are you? You'll just have to bloody well walk then. I shall find you in Deogaum tomorrow afternoon and God help you if you haven't found me decent quarters. A front room, Sharpe, where Dilip can conduct business. A large room for me, and a hole for Brick. I would also like to have a walled garden with adequate shade trees and a small pool."
"Where is Deogaum?" Sharpe asked.
"Northwards, sahib, " Dilip answered.
"Close to the hills."
"Beneath Gawilghur?" Sharpe guessed.
"Yes, sahib."
Sharpe looked back to Torrance.
"Can I ask a favour of you, sir?"
Torrance sighed.
"If you insist."
"At Gawilghur, sir, I'd like permission to join the assault party."
Torrance stared at Sharpe for a long time.
"You want what?" he finally asked.
"I want to be with the attack, sir. There's a fellow inside, see, who killed a friend of mine. I want to see him dead."
Torrance blinked at Sharpe.
"Don't tell me you're enthusiastic! Good God! " A sudden look of terror came to the Captain's face.
"You're not a Methodist, are you?"
"No, sir."
Torrance pointed the hookah's mouthpiece towards a corner of the room.
"There is a linen press, Sharpe, d'you see it? Inside it are my clothes. Amidst my clothes you will find a pistol. Take the pistol, remove yourself from my presence, apply the muzzle to your head and pull the trigger. It is a much quicker and less painful way of dying."
"But you won't mind if I join the attack?"
"Mind? You're not, surely, labouring under the misapprehension that I care about your existence? You think I might mourn you, even after such a short acquaintance? My dear Sharpe, I fear I shall not miss you at all. I doubt I'll even remember your name once you're dead. Of course you can join the assaulting party. Do what you like! Now I suggest you get some sleep. Not here, though, I like my privacy.
Find a tree, perhaps, and slumber beneath its sheltering branches.
Good night to you, Sharpe."
"Good night, sir."
"And don't let any moths in!»
Sharpe negotiated the muslin and slipped out of the door. Torrance listened to the footsteps go away, then sighed.
"A tedious man, Dilip."
"Yes, sahib."
"I wonder why he was made an officer?" Torrance frowned as he sucked on his hookah, then shook his head.
"Poor Naig! Sacrificed to a mere ensign's ambition. How did that wretched Sharpe even know to look in Naig's tent? Did he talk to you?"
"Yes, sahib, " Dilip admitted.
Torrance stared at him.
"Did you let him look at the ledgers?"
"He insisted, sahib."
"You're a bloody fool, Dilip! A bloody, bloody fool. I should thrash you if I wasn't so tired. Maybe tomorrow."
"No, sahib, please."
"Oh, just bugger away off, Dilip, " Torrance snarled.
"And you can go too, Brick."
The girl fled to the kitchen door. Dilip collected his ink bottle and sand-sprinkler.
"Shall I take the chitties now, sahib, for the morning?"
«Go!» Torrance roared.
"You bore me! Go! " Dilip fled to the front room, and Torrance lay back in the hammock. He was indeed bored.
He had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Most nights he would go to Naig's tents and there drink, gamble and whore, but he could hardly visit the green pavilion this night, not after stringing Naig up by the neck.
Damn it, he thought. He glanced at the table where a book, a gift from his father, lay unopened. The first volume of Some Reflections on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians by the Reverend Courtney Mallison, and it would be a frigid day in the devil's house before Torrance read that turgid tome. The Reverend Mallison had been Torrance's childhood tutor, and a vicious beast he had been. A whipper, that was Mallison.
Loved to whip his pupils. Torrance stared at the ceiling. Money. It was all down to money. Everything in the damned world was down to money. Make money, he thought, and he could go home and make Courtney Mallison's life a misery. Have the bastard on his knees. And Mallison's daughter. Have that prim bitch on her back.