A third blow reverberated round the room, and this time the bracket holding the bolt was wrenched out of the wall and the door swung in onto the muslin screen. Torrance saw a robed figure sweep the screen aside, then he threw himself over the room and pawed through his discarded clothes to find his guns.
A hand gripped his wrist.
"You won't need that, sir, " a familiar voice said, and Torrance turned, wincing at the strength of the man's grip.
He saw a figure dressed in blood-spattered Indian robes, with a tulwar scabbarded at his waist and a face shrouded by a head cloth. But Torrance recognized his visitor and blanched.
"Reporting for duty, sir, " Sharpe said, taking the pistol from Torrance's unresisting gripTorrance gaped. He could have sworn that the blood on the robe was fresh for it gleamed wetly. There was more blood on a short-bladed knife in Sharpe's hand. It dripped onto the floor and Torrance gave a small pitiful mew.
"It's Sajit's blood, " Sharpe said.
"His penknife too." He tossed the wet blade onto the table beside the gold coins.
"Lost your tongue, sir?"
"Sharpe?"
"He's dead, sir, Sharpe is, " Sharpe said.
"He was sold to Jama, remember, sir? Is that the blood money?" Sharpe glanced at the rupees on the table.
«Sharpe,» Torrance said again, somehow incapable of saying anything else.
"I'm his ghost, sir, " Sharpe said, and Torrance did indeed look as though a spectre had just broken through his door. Sharpe tutted and shook his head in self-reproof.
"I'm not supposed to call you «sir», am I, sir? On account of me being a fellow officer and a gentleman. Where's Sergeant Hakeswill?"
«Sharpe!» Torrance said once more, collapsing onto a chair.
"We heard you'd been captured!»
"So I was, sir, but not by the enemy. Leastwise, not by any proper enemy." Sharpe examined the pistol.
"This ain't loaded. What were you hoping to do, sir? Beat me to death with the barrel?"
"My robe, Sharpe, please, " Torrance said, gesturing to where the silk robe hung on a wooden peg.
"So where is Hakeswill, sir?" Sharpe asked. He had pushed back his head cloth and now opened the pistol's friz zen and blew dust off the pan before scraping at the layer of caked powder with a fingernail.
"He's on the road, " Torrance said.
"Ah! Took over from me, did he? You should keep this pistol clean, sir. There's rust on the spring, see? Shame to keep an expensive gun so shabbily. Are you sitting on your cartridge box?"
Torrance meekly raised his bottom to take out his leather pouch which held the powder and bullets for his pistols. He gave the bag to Sharpe, thought about fetching the robe himself, then decided that any untoward move might upset his visitor.
"I'm delighted to see you're alive, Sharpe, " he said.
"Are you, sir?" Sharpe asked.
"Of course."
"Then why did you sell me to Jama?"
"Sell you? Don't be ridiculous, Sharpe. No! " The cry came as the pistol barrel whipped towards him, and it turned into a moan as the barrel slashed across his cheek. Torrance touched his face and winced at the blood on his fingers.
"Sharpe' he began.
"Shut it, sir, " Sharpe said nastily. He perched on the table and poured some powder into the pistol barrel.
"I talked to Jama last night. He tried to have me killed by a couple ofjettis. You know what jet tis are, sir?
Religious strongmen, sir, but they must have been praying to the wrong God, for I cut one's throat and left the other bugger blinded." He paused to select a bullet from the pouch.
"And I had a chat with
Jama when I'd killed his thugs and he told me lots of interesting things. Like that you traded with him and his brother. You're a traitor, Torrance."
"Sharpe- "I said shut it! " Sharpe snapped. He pushed the bullet into the pistol's muzzle, then drew out the short ramrod and shoved it down the barrel.
"The thing is, Torrance, " he went on in a calmer tone, "I know the truth. All of it. About you and Hakeswill and about you and Jama and about you and Naig." He smiled at Torrance, then slotted the short ramrod back into its hoops.
"I used to think officers were above that sort of crime. I knew the men were crooked, because I was crooked, but you don't have much choice, do you, when you've got nothing?
But you, sir, you had everything you wanted. Rich parents, proper schooling." Sharpe shook his head.
"You don't understand, Sharpe."
"But I do, sir. Now look at me. My ma was a whore, and not a very good one by all accounts, and she went and died and left me with nothing.
Bloody nothing! And the thing is, sir, that when I go to General Wellesley and I tells him about you selling muskets to the enemy, who's he going to believe? You, with your proper education, or me with a dead frow as a mother?" Sharpe looked at Torrance as though he expected an answer, but none came.
"He's going to believe you, sir, isn't he? He'd never believe me, on account of me not being a proper gentleman who knows his Latin. And you know what that means, sir?"
"Sharpe?"
"It means justice won't be done, sir. But, on the other hand, you're a gentleman, so you knows your duty, don't you?" Sharpe edged off the table and gave the pistol, butt first, to Torrance.
"Hold it just in front of your ear, " he advised Torrance, 'or else put it in your mouth. Makes more mess that way, but it's surer."
«Sharpe!» Torrance said, and found he had nothing to say. The pistol felt heavy in his hand.
"It won't hurt, sir, " Sharpe said comfortingly.
"You'll be dead in the blink of an eyelid." He began scooping the coins off the table into Torrance's pouch. He heard the heavy click as the pistol was cocked, then glanced round to see that the muzzle was pointing at his face.
He frowned and shook his head in disappointment.
"And I thought you were a gentleman, sir."
"I'm not a fool, Sharpe, " Torrance said vengefully. He stood and took a pace closer to the Ensign.
"And I'm worth ten of you. Up from the ranks? You know what that makes you, Sharpe? It makes you a brute, a lucky brute, but it don't make you a real officer. You're not going to be welcome anywhere, Sharpe. You'll be endured, Sharpe, because officers have manners, but they won't welcome you because you ain't a proper officer. You weren't born to it, Sharpe." Torrance laughed at the look of horrified outrage on Sharpe's face.
"Christ, I despise you! " he said savagely.
"You're like a dressed-up monkey, Sharpe, only you can't even wear clothes properly! I could give you lace and braid, and you'd still look like a peasant, because that's what you are, Sharpe. Officers should have style! They should have wit!
And all you can do is grunt. You know what you are, Sharpe? You're an embarrassment, you're.. " He paused, trying to find the right insult, and shook his head in frustration as the words would not come.
"You're a lump, Sharpe! That's what you are, a lump! And the kindest thing is to finish you off." Torrance smiled.
"Goodbye, Mister Sharpe." He pulled the trigger.
The flint smashed down on the steel and the spark flashed into the empty pan.
Sharpe reached out in the silence and took the pistol from Torrance's hand.
"I loaded it, sir, but I didn't prime it. On account of the fact that I might be a lump, but I ain't any kind of fool." He pushed Torrance back into the chair, and Torrance could only watch as Sharpe dropped a pinch of powder into the pan. He flinched as Sharpe closed the friz zen then shuddered as Sharpe walked towards him.
"No, Sharpe, no!»
Sharpe stood behind Torrance.
"You tried to have me killed, sir, and I don't like that." He pressed the pistol into the side of the Captain's head.
«Sharpe!» Torrance pleaded. He was shaking, but he seemed powerless to offer any resistance, then the muslin curtain from the kitchen was swept aside and Clare Wall came into the room. She stopped and stared with huge eyes at Sharpe.