Sharpe had been offering carrots all week, now, he thought, it was time for a bitterer diet. 'You do what I say, Captain, just what I say. Every god-damned officer from Foulness has deserved worse than you're going to get. Your only chance of survival, of honour, lies in my hands. So don't upset me, or I will recommend your dismissals, trials, and imprisonment. That, after Sharpe's friendliness of the past days, brought silence.
None of them, except d'Alembord and Price, knew what he did. Yet the habit of obedience was strong in them so that, until an officer more senior than Sharpe gave them conflicting orders, they would obey him. That was what had brought Sharpe this far with their dubious help, but now he was taking them into a place that teemed with senior officers, with more Generals than Wellington had Battalions, and, for these crucial hours, he had to bind their obedience with something other than mere habit. He used the threat, and he trusted the threat would keep them docile.
He twisted to stare at the review. He could see the Ring and, flanking it, the two lines of carriages. No one looked his way. He was far from the Hyde Park Gate, but he could see no golden-haired girl in that direction, only a few grooms who exercised horses behind the carriage parks and who thought nothing strange this day about soldiers waiting by the Serpentine. Sharpe stared a long time, looking for Jane Gibbons, but he did not see her. He turned back. 'The main thing, gentlemen, is to enjoy this.
'Enjoy it, sir? Smith asked.
'Of course, Captain. We're going to win a battle. Sharpe laughed, though he felt despair too. 'To your Companies, gentlemen! She had not come. She had not come, and his best hope was gone. Now he must fight.
Sharpe took his place at the head of his men. He was glad to hear the bands playing for it filled him with the right warlike spirit. The music; heart-stirring martial tunes, came faint over the park's grassland, and the big drums punched the warm air like cannon fire. Regimental Sergeant Major Harper, marching Sharpe's force towards the review, unconsciously called the steps to match the music's rhythm. The men marched in silence, muskets shouldered, and, though they marched in the heart of England itself, they were marching to war.
CHAPTER 19
Jane Gibbons' journey to London had not been hard, a carter from Great Wakering had carried her to Rochford, and from there she had paid to travel in a stage that dropped her at Charing Cross, but London filled her with dread. She had visited it before, but never on her own, and she knew no one. She had money, eight of the guineas were left of those that, in a dew-wet dawn, she had rescued from the table in the pergola.
She carried two bags, a reticule, a parasol, and Rascal was on a leash. She was glad of the small white dog. The smells of the city were strange, the people frightening, and the noise overwhelming. She had never seen so many cripples. On her previous visits, insulated from the misery by the glass windows of her uncle's coach, she had not realised how much horror stirred and shuffled on London's pavements. She stooped to pat the dog. 'It's all right, Rascal, it's all right. She wondered how she was to find him food, let alone shelter for herself.
'Missy!
She looked up to see a well-dressed man tipping his hat to her. 'Sir?
'You look lost, Missy. From out of town?
'Yes, sir.
'And in need of lodgings, I warrant? He smiled, and because three of his teeth were missing and the others so blackened that it was hard to see them, she shuddered. He stooped for her large bag. 'You'll allow me to carry it?
'Leave it!
'Now, Miss, I can tell. .
'No! Her voice attracted curious glances. She turned away from the man, struggling with her ungainly luggage and wondering whether it had been truly necessary to pack so many dresses, as well as the silver backed hair-brushes and the picture of the boats she liked so much. She had her jewellery, those small few pieces of her mother's that Sir Henry had not taken, and she had her parents' portraits. She had the first two cantos of Childe Harold, her paints, and a vast iron flintlock pistol taken from her uncle's library wall which she was not sure would work, and for which she had no ammunition, but which she thought might frighten away any assailants. She lugged it all west, past the Royal Mews where, it was said, a great space would be made to commemorate Nelson and Trafalgar. She turned into Whitehall.
Twice again men offered her lodgings. Clean lodgings, they said, respectable, run by a gentlewoman, but Jane Gibbons was not so foolish as to accept. Other men smiled at her, struck by her innocence and beauty, and it was those errant looks, as much as the bolder approach of the pimps, that drove her to seek refuge.
She chose sensibly. She picked her helpers as carefully as Richard Sharpe chose his battlegrounds, and the chosen pair was a gaitered cleric, red-faced and amiable, and his middle-aged wife who, like her husband, gaped at the London sights.
Jane explained that she had been sent to London by her mother, there to meet her father, but he had not been on the Portsmouth stage and she feared he might not now come until the next day. She had money, she explained, and wished no charity, but merely to be directed to a clean, safe place where she might sleep.
The Reverend and Mrs Octavius Godolphin were staying in Tothill Street, at Mrs Paul's Lodgings, a most respectable house that ministered to the visiting clergy, and the Reverend and Mrs Godolphin, whose children were grown and gone from home, were delighted to offer their sheltering wings to Miss Gibbons. A cab was summoned, Mrs Paul was introduced, and nothing would suffice but that Miss Gibbons should accompany them to evensong and then share a shoulder of lamb for which they would not dream of taking payment. She went safe to bed, secured from an evil world by the multiplicity of bolts and bars on Mrs Paul's front door, and the Reverend Godolphin reminded her to say her prayers for her father's safe journey on the morrow. It all seemed, to Jane, like a great adventure.
The next morning, Saturday morning, when prayers had been said around Mrs Paul's great table, Jane persuaded the Reverend and Mrs Godolphin that she had no need of their company to wait at Charing Cross. The persuasion was hard, but she achieved it and, leaving her luggage and Rascal under the watchful eye of Mrs Paul, she took a cab to her uncle's house.
She watched the house from the street corner, half hidden by plane trees, and after a half-hour she saw her uncle leave in his open carriage. Her heart was thumping as she walked down Devonshire Terrace and as she pulled the shiny knob that rang a bell deep in the house. She saw soldiers marching at the end of the street, going towards the Queen's Gate of the park, then the door behind her opened. 'Miss Jane!
'Good morning. She smiled at Cross, her uncle's London butler. 'My uncle sent me to fetch some books for him.
'This is a surprise! Cross, a timid man, smiled as he beckoned her inside. 'He did not mention that you were in London.
'We're with Mrs Grey's sister. Isn't the weather lovely?
'It won't last, Miss Jane. Some books, you said?
'Big red account books. I expect they're in the study, Cross.
'Leather books?
'Yes. The ones he brings to Paglesham every month.
'But I distinctly remember the master took them with him. Just now!
She stared at him, feeling all her hopes crumble. She had so wanted to do this thing for Major Sharpe, a man who had given her hope and pleasure if only because of her uncle's enmity towards him. 'He took them? Her voice was faint.
'Indeed, Miss Jane!
'Cross! A voice barked. 'My boots, Cross! Where the devil are my boots? Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood opened the parlour door and stared into the hall. His eyes widened. 'Jane?