Sharpe's Prey Read online

“We’re the men who clean up after the parade, Sharpe. The carriages and kings go by, the bands play, the cavalry prances past like bloody fairies, and what’s left is a mess of dung and litter. We clean it up. The politicians get the world into tangles, then ask their armies to make things right. We do their dirty work, Sharpe, and we’re good at it. Very good. You might not be the best officer in King George’s army, but you’re a bloody fine soldier. And you like the life, don’t tell me you don’t.”

  “Being a quartermaster?” Sharpe sneered.

  “Aye, that too. Someone has to do it, and as often as not they give it to a man up from the ranks.” He glared at Sharpe and then, unexpectedly, grinned. “So you’ve fallen out with Colonel Beckwith too, have you?”

  “I reckon so, sir, yes.”

  “How?”

  Sharpe considered the question and decided it could not be answered truthfully. He could not say he did not fit into the mess, it was too vague, too self-pitying, so he answered with a half-truth. “They’ve marched off, sir, and left me to clean up the barracks. I’ve fought more battles than any of them, seen more enemies and killed more men than all of them put together, but that don’t count. They don’t want me, sir, so I’m getting out.”

  “Don’t be such a bloody fool,” Baird growled. “In a year or two, Sharpe, there’s going to be enough war for every man jack in this army. So far all we’ve been doing is pissing around the edge of the French, but sooner or later we’re going to have to tackle the bastards head-on. We’ll need all the officers we can get then, and you’ll have your chance. You might be a quartermaster now, but ten years from now you’ll be leading a battalion, so just be patient.”

  “I’m not sure Colonel Beckwith will want me back, sir. I’m not supposed to be in London. I’m supposed to be at Shorncliffe.”

  “Beckwith will do what I tell him,” Baird growled, “and I’ll tell him to kiss your bum if you do this job for me.”

  Sharpe liked Baird. Most soldiers liked Baird. He might be a general, but he was as tough as any man in the ranks. He could outswear the sergeants, outmarch the Rifles and outfight any man in green or scarlet. He was a fighter, not a bureaucrat. He had risen high enough in the army, but there were rumors that he had enemies higher still, men who disliked his bluntness. “What kind of job, sir?” Sharpe asked.

  “One where you might die, Sharpe,” Baird said with relish. He drained his glass of port and poured another. “We’re sending a guardsman to Copenhagen. Our interest in Copenhagen is supposed to be secret, but I dare sav every French agent in London already knows it. This fellow is going there tomorrow and I want someone to keep him alive. He’s not a real soldier, Sharpe, but an aide to the Duke of York. Not one of those”-he saw Sharpe glancing at the table of theatergoers-“but the same sort of creature. He’s a courtier, Sharpe, not a soldier. You won’t find a better man for standing sentinel over the royal piss pot, but you wouldn’t want to follow him into a breach, not if you wanted to win.”

  “He’s going tomorrow?” Sharpe asked.

  “Aye, I know, short notice. We had another man ready to hold his hand, but he was the fellow who was murdered two days ago. So the Duke of York tells me to find a replacement. I thought of you, but didn’t know where you were, then God sent me to the theater and I find you guzzling ale afterward. Well done, God. And you won’t mind slitting a few Frog throats?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Our bloody guardsman says he doesn’t need a protector. Says there’s no danger, but what does he know? And his master, the Duke, insists he takes a companion, someone who knows how to fight and, by God, Sharpe, you know how to fight. Almost as well as me!”

  “Almost, sir,” Sharpe agreed.

  “So you’re under orders, Sharpe.” The General gripped the port bottle by the neck and pushed back his chair. “Are you sleeping here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So am I, and I’ve got a carriage coming at seven o’clock to take us to Harwich.” Baird stood, then paused. “It’s a strange thing, Sharpe, but if you do your job properly you’ll stop a war. Odd thing for a soldier to do, don’t you think? Where’s our advancement if we can’t fight? But all the same I doubt we’ll be beating our swords into ploughshares any time soon, not unless the Frogs suddenly see sense. So till tomorrow, young man.” Baird gave Sharpe a brusque nod and went back to his companions, while Sharpe, with a start of surprise, realized he had not been told why the guardsman was being sent to Copenhagen, nor been asked whether he was willing to go with him. Baird, it appeared, had taken his assent for granted, and Baird, Sharpe reckoned, was right, for, like it or not, he was a soldier.

  The the general was in a foul mood at seven o’clock next morning. His aide, a Captain Gordon, mimed the cause of Baird’s ill temper by tipping an imaginary bottle to his lips, thus cautioning Sharpe to tact. Sharpe kept silent, settling on the carriage’s front seat, while Baird grumbled that London stank, the weather was wretched and the coach seats lumpy. The vehicle lurched as the inn servants strapped the General’s luggage on the roof, then there was a further delay as a final passenger appeared and insisted that his own luggage be secured alongside Baird’s. The newcomer was a civilian who looked about thirty years old. He was very thin and had a frail, birdlike face on which, astonishingly, a black velvet beauty patch was glued. He wore a silver coat edged with white lace and carried a gold-topped stick from which a silk handkerchief hung. His hair, black as gunpowder, had been smoothed with a perfumed oil and tied with a silver ribbon. He climbed into the coach and, without a word, sat opposite Sharpe. “You’re late, my lord,” Baird snapped.

  The young man raised a gloved hand, fluttered his fingers as if to suggest Baird was being extremely tiresome and then closed his eyes. Baird, denied sport with his lordship, frowned at Sharpe instead. “There’s still blood on the coat, Sharpe.”

  “Sorry, sir. Tried to wash it out.” The carriage jerked forward.

  “Can’t have you going to Denmark in a bloody coat, man.”

  “One supposes, Sir David,” Captain Gordon cut in smoothly, “that Lieutenant Sharpe will not be wearing uniform in Denmark. The object is secrecy.”

  “Object, my ass,” the General said helpfully. “He’s my nephew,” he informed Sharpe, referring to Captain Gordon, “and talks like a bloody lawyer.”

  Gordon smiled. “Do you have civilian clothes, Sharpe?”

  “I do, sir.” Sharpe indicated his pack.

  “I suggest you don them once you’re aboard your ship,” Gordon said.

  “I suggest you don them.” Baird mimicked his nephew’s voice. “Bloody hellfire. Doesn’t this bloody carriage move at all?”

  “Traffic, Sir David,” Gordon said emolliently. “Essex vegetables for the Saturday market.”

  “Essex bloody vegetables,” the General complained. “I’m forced into a bloody theater. Gordon, then subjected to Essex vegetables. I should have you all shot.” He closed his bloodshot eyes.

  The carriage, drawn by six horses, went first to the Tower of London where, after Sir David had sworn at the sentries, they were allowed through the gates to discover a cart guarded by a dozen guardsmen who appeared to be under the command of a very tall and very good-looking man in a pale-blue coat, silk stock, white breeches and black boots. The young man bowed as Baird clambered down from the carriage. “I have the gold, Sir David.”

  “I should damn well hope you do,” Sir David growled. “Is there a jakes in this damn place?”

  “That way, sir.” The young man pointed.

  “This is Sharpe,” Baird said harshly. “He’s replacing Willsen, God rest his soul, and this”-Baird was talking to Sharpe now-“is the man you’re keeping alive. Captain Lavisser, or should I say Captain and Major Lavisser? The bloody Guards need two ranks. Bloody fools.”

  Lavisser gave Sharpe a rather startled look when he heard that the rifleman was to replace the dead Willsen, but then, as the General went to find the lavatory, the guardsman smiled and his face
, which had looked sour and cynical to Sharpe, was suddenly full of friendly charm. “So you’re to be my companion?” he asked.

  “So it seems, sir.”

  “Then I trust we shall be friends, Sharpe. With all my heart.” Lavisser thrust out a hand. Sharpe took it clumsily, embarrassed by Lavisser’s effusive friendliness. “Poor Willsen,” the Captain went on, clasping Sharpe’s hand in both of his. “To be murdered in the street! And he leaves a widow, it seems, and a daughter too. Just a child, just a child.” He looked pained, then turned to see his guardsmen struggling to move a great wooden chest from the cart. “I think the gold should go inside the carriage,” he suggested.

  “Gold?” Sharpe asked.

  Lavisser turned to him. “You’ve not been told the purpose of our journey?”

  “I’m to keep you alive, sir, that’s all I know.”

  “For which I shall be eternally grateful. But our purpose, Sharpe, is to carry gold to the Danes. Forty-three thousand guineas! We travel rich, eh?” Lavisser hauled open the carriage door, motioned his men to bring the chest of gold, then noticed the carriage’s last passenger, the pale civilian in the silver coat. Lavisser looked astonished. “God, Pumps! Are you here?”

  Pumps, if that was his real name, merely fluttered his fingers again, then shifted his elegantly booted feet as the gold was manhandled onto the carriage floor. An escort of twenty dragoons took their places ahead of the carriage, then Sir David Baird came back and complained that the chest took up all the coach’s leg room. “I suppose we’ll have to endure it,” he grumbled, then rapped on the coach’s roof to signal that the journey could begin.

  The General’s mood improved as the coach jolted through the soot-grimed orchards and vegetable fields about Hackney where a fitful sun chased shadows over woods and low hills. “You know Lord Pumphrey?” Baird asked Lavisser, indicating the frail young man who still seemed to be asleep.

  “William and I were at Eton together,” Lavisser answered.

  Pumphrey opened his eyes, peered at Lavisser as though surprised to see him, shuddered and closed his eyes again.

  “You and I should have been to Eton,” Baird said to Sharpe. “We’d have learned useful things, like which side of the pot to piss in. Did you have breakfast, Lavisser?”

  “The Lieutenant of the Tower was very hospitable, thank you, sir.”

  “They like guardsmen in the Tower,” Baird said, implying that real soldiers would not be so welcome. “Captain Lavisser”-he spoke to Sharpe now-“is an aide to the Duke of York. I told you that, didn’t I? But did I tell you how useless His Royal Highness is? Bloody man thinks he’s a soldier. He buggered up his campaign in Holland in ‘99 and now he’s Commander in Chief. That’s what happens to you, Sharpe, when you’re the King’s son. Fortunately”-Baird, who was plainly enjoying himself, turned to Lavisser-“fortunately for you royal camp-followers the army has still got one or two real soldiers. Lieutenant Sharpe is one of them. He’s a rifleman in case you don’t recognize that bloodstained green rag, and he’s a thug.”

  Lavisser, who had taken no offense as his master was insulted, looked puzzled. “He’s a what, sir?”

  “You weren’t in India, were you?” Sir David asked, making the question sound like an accusation. “A thug, Lavisser, is a killer, a brute, conscienceless and efficient killer. I’m a thug, Lavisser, and so is Mister Sharpe. You are not, and nor are you, Gordon.”

  “I nightly give thanks to the Almighty for that providence,” Baird’s aide said happily.

  “Sharpe’s a good thug,” Baird said. “He came up from the ranks and you don’t do that by being delicate. Tell ‘em what you did in Seringapatam, Sharpe.”

  “Must I, sir?”

  “Yes,” Baird insisted, so Sharpe told the story as briefly as he could. Lavisser listened politely, but Lord Pumphrey, whose presence was still a mystery to Sharpe, opened his eyes and paid very close attention, so close that he unsettled Sharpe. His lordship said nothing, however, when the lame tale was done.

  Lavisser spoke instead. “You impress me, Mister Sharpe,” he said, “you impress me mightily.” Sharpe did not know what to say, so he gazed out of the window at a small wheatfield that looked rain-beaten. Beyond the damp wheat stood a haystack, reminding him that Grace had died between haymaking and the harvest a year before. He felt a lump in his throat. God damn it, he thought, God damn it, would it never go? He could see her in his mind’s eye, see her sitting on the terrace with her hands on her swollen belly, laughing at some poor jest. Oh, Christ, he thought, but let it pass.

  He became aware that Sir David Baird was now talking about Copenhagen. The Danish King, it seemed, was mad, and the country was ruled instead by the Crown Prince. “Is it true you know him?” Baird demanded of Lavisser.

  “The Crown Prince knows me, sir,” Lavisser said carefully. “My grandfather is one of his chamberlains, so I have that introduction. And my master, the Duke, is his first cousin.”

  “That will be enough?”

  “More than enough,” Lavisser said firmly. Lord Pumphrey took a watch from his pocket, fumbled with the catch, consulted it and yawned.

  “Boring you, my lord?” Baird growled.

  “I am forever entertained by your company, Sir David,” Lord Pumphrey said in a very high-pitched voice. He pronounced each word very distinctly, which imbued the statement with an odd authority. “I am enthralled by you,” he added, tucking the watch away and closing his eyes.

  “Bloody fool,” Sir David muttered, then looked at Sharpe. “We’re talking about the Danish fleet,” he explained. “It’s a damn great fleet that’s holed up in Copenhagen and doing bugger all. Just moldering away. But the Frogs would like to get their damned hands on it and replace the ships we took from them at Trafalgar. So they’re thinking of invading little Denmark and stealing their ships.”

  “And if the French do invade,” Lavisser smoothly continued the General’s explanation, “then they will dominate the entrance to the Baltic and so cut off Britain’s trade. Denmark is neutral, of course, but such circumstances have hardly deterred Bonaparte in the past.”

  “It’s the Danish fleet he’s after,” Baird insisted, “because the bloody man will use it to invade Britain. So we have to stop him stealing it.”

  “How do you do that, sir?” Sharpe asked.

  Baird grinned greedily. “By stealing it first, of course. The Foreign Office have a fellow over there trying to persuade the Danish government to send their ships to British ports, but they’re saying no. Captain Lavisser is going to change their minds.”

  “You can do that?” Sharpe asked him.

  Lavisser shrugged. “I intend to bribe the Crown Prince, Sharpe.” He patted the wooden chest. “We are carrying Danegeld, and we shall dazzle His Majesty with glitter and befuddle him with treasure.”

  Lord Pumphrey groaned. Everyone ignored him as Baird took up the explanation. “Captain Lavisser’s going to bribe the Crown Prince, Sharpe, and if the Frogs catch wind of what he’s doing they’ll do their best to stop him. A knife in the back will do that very effectively, so your job is to protect Lavisser.”

  Sharpe felt no qualms at such a task, indeed he rather hoped he would get a chance to tangle with some Frenchmen. “What happens if the Danes won’t give us the fleet, sir?” he asked Baird.

  “Then we invade,” the General said.

  “Denmark?” Sharpe was astonished. The woman at the Frog Prick had suggested as much, but it still seemed surprising. Fighting Denmark? Denmark was not an enemy!

  “Denmark!” Baird confirmed. “Our fleet’s ready and waiting in Harwich, and the Danes, Sharpe, ain’t got no choice. They either put their fleet under our protection or I’ll bloody take it from them.”

  “You, sir?”

  “Lord Cathcart’s in charge,” Baird allowed, “but he’s an old woman. I’ll be there, Sharpe, and God help the Danes if I am. And your friend Wellesley”-he said the name sourly-“is tagging along to see if he can learn somethin
g.”

  “He’s no friend of mine, sir,” Sharpe said. It was true that Wellesley had made him into an officer, but Sharpe had not seen the General since India. Nor did he relish any such meeting. Grace had been a cousin of Wellesley’s, a very distant cousin, but disapproval of her behavior had spread into the furthest reaches of her aristocratic family.

  “I’m your friend, Mister Sharpe,” Baird said wolfishly, “and I don’t mind admitting I want you to fail. A fight in Denmark? I could relish that. No more talk of a man who can only fight in India.” The bitterness was naked. Baird felt he had been unfairly treated in India, mostly because Wellesley had been offered the preferments that Baird believed he deserved. No wonder he wanted war, Sharpe thought.

  They reached Harwich in the evening. The fields surrounding the small port were filled with tented camps while the damp pastures were crammed with cavalry and artillery horses. Guns were parked in the town streets and were lined wheel to wheel on the stone quay where, beside a small pile of expensive leather baggage, a man as tall and broad as Baird stood waiting. The man was dressed in servant’s black and Sharpe at first took him to be a laborer wanting a tip for carrying the baggage onto a boat, but then the man bowed his head to Lavisser who clapped him familiarly on the shoulder. “This is Barker,” Lavisser told Sharpe, “my man. And this is Lieutenant Sharpe, Barker, who has replaced the unfortunate Willsen.”

  Barker turned a flat gaze on Sharpe. Another thug, Sharpe thought, a hardened, scarred and formidable thug. He nodded at the servant who did not return the greeting, but just looked away.

  “Barker was a footpad, Sharpe,” Lavisser said enthusiastically, “before I taught him manners and morals.”

  “Don’t see why you need me,” Sharpe said, “if you’ve got a footpad on your side.”

  “I doubt I do need you, Sharpe,” Lavisser said, “but our masters insist I have a protector, so come you must.” He gave Sharpe another of his dazzling smiles.

  A small crowd had gathered on the quay to gape at the fleet of great warships that lay in the river’s mouth, while transports, frigates and brigs were either anchored or moored nearer the small harbor where a falling tide was exposing long stretches of mud. Closest to the quay were some ungainly ships, much smaller than frigates, with low freeboards and wide hulls. “Bomb ships,” Gordon, Baird’s nephew, remarked helpfully.