“Trouble for you, Dick,” Pierce tried to warn his old friend. “He’s never on his own.”
“I’ll be all right. You can buy me an ale afterward.”
Pierce left and Sharpe went into the stinking room. The badgers were all in wire cages stacked against one wall while the rest of the room was occupied by a table on which a dim oil lamp burned, and by an incongruous bed that was plump with sheets, blankets and pillows. Lumpy’s girls, the ones who sold gin and hot pies, used the room for their other business, but it would suit Sharpe perfectly. He put his pack and greatcoat on the table, then unsheathed the saber which he placed on the badger cages with the hilt toward him. The beasts, pungent and sullen, stirred behind their wire.
He waited, listening to the sounds fading in the shed. A year ago he had been living in a house with eight rooms that he and Grace had rented close to Shorncliffe. He had fitted in with the battalion well enough then, for Grace had charmed the other officers, but why should he have ever thought it could last? It had been like a dream. Except Grace’s brothers and their lawyers kept intruding on the dream, demanding she leave Sharpe, even offering her money if she did the decent thing, and other lawyers had tied up her dead husband’s will in a tangle of words, delay and obfuscation. Get her out of your head, he told himself, but she would not leave and when the footsteps sounded outside the storeroom Sharpe’s sight was blurred with tears. He brushed his eyes as the door opened.
Jem Hocking came in with the girl, leaving the door ajar with the two young men just outside. The child was thin, frightened, red-haired and pale. She glanced at Sharpe then began to cry silently. “This is Emily,” Jem Hocking said, tugging the girl’s hand. “The nice man wants to play games with you, ain’t that right, Major?”
Sharpe nodded. The anger he was feeling was so huge that he did not trust himself to speak.
“I don’t want her hurt bad,” Hocking said. He had a face the color of beefsteak and a nose erupting with broken veins. “I want her back in one piece. Now, Major, the money?” He patted the satchel that was hanging from his shoulder. “Ten pounds.”
“In the pack,” Sharpe said, nodding at the table, “just open the top flap.” Hocking turned to the table and Sharpe edged the door closed with his shoulder as he moved to Emily’s side. He picked her up and placed her on the bed, then whipped the blanket up over her head. She cried aloud as she was smothered in woollen darkness and Hocking turned as Sharpe pulled the saber off the cage tops. Hocking opened his mouth, but the blade was already against his throat. “Not a word,” Sharpe said. He shot the door bolt. “All your money, Jem. Put the satchel on the table and empty your pockets into it.”
Jem Hocking, despite the saber at his throat, did not look alarmed. “You’re mad,” he said calmly.
“Money, Jem, on the table.”
Jem Hocking shook his head in puzzlement. This was his kingdom and it did not seem possible that anyone would dare challenge him. He took a deep breath, plainly intending to call for help, but the saber’s tip was suddenly hard in the flesh of his neck, drawing a trickle of blood.
“On the table, Jem,” Sharpe said, the softness of his voice belying the anger in his soul.
Hocking still did not obey. He frowned instead. “Do I know you?”
“No,” Sharpe said.
“You ain’t getting a penny of mine, son,” Hocking said.
Sharpe twisted the blade. Hocking stepped back, but Sharpe kept the saber in his neck. He had only broken Hocking’s skin, nothing more, but he pushed a little harder and twisted again. “Money,” he said, “on the table.”
“Daft as a pudding, boy,” Hocking said. “You ain’t going anywhere, not now. I’ve got lads out there and they’ll cut you into tatters.”
“Money,” Sharpe said, and reinforced the demand by whipping the saber’s tip twice across Hocking’s face to leave long thin cuts in his cheeks and nose. Hocking looked astonished. He touched a finger to his cheek and seemed not to believe the blood he saw.
There was a knock on the door. “Mister Hocking?” a voice called.
“We’re just settling the money,” Sharpe shouted, “aren’t we, Jem? On the table or I’ll bloody fillet you.”
“You ain’t an officer, are you? You dress up, don’t you, but you picked the wrong man this time, son.”
“I’m an officer,” Sharpe said, and drew blood from Hocking’s neck. “A real officer,” he added. “Now empty your pockets.”
Hocking dropped the satchel on the table, then thrust a hand into his greatcoat pocket. Sharpe waited to hear the chink of coins, but there was no such sound and so, as Hocking brought his hand out of the pocket, Sharpe slashed down hard with the saber. He slit the ball of Hocking’s thumb, then slashed the blade again and Hocking, who had been drawing a small pistol from his coat pocket, let the weapon go to clutch at his wounded fingers. The pistol fell to the floor.
“Empty your damned pockets,” Sharpe said.
Hocking hesitated, wondering whether to call for help, but there was an implacability about Sharpe that suggested he had best humor him. He flinched as he used his wounded right hand to pull coins from his pocket. The door rattled as someone tried the latch. “Wait!” Sharpe called. He saw gold coins among the silver and copper. “Keep going, Jem,” he said.
“You’re a dead man,” Hocking grumbled, but found more cash that he piled on the table. “That’s all,” he said.
“Back against the cages, you bastard,” Sharpe said and prodded Hocking toward the badgers. Then, still holding the saber in his right hand, Sharpe forced handfuls of the coins into the satchel. He could not look closely at the money, for he needed to watch Hocking, but he reckoned there was at least eighteen or nineteen pounds there.
The click saved Sharpe. It came from behind him and he recognized the sound of a pistol being cocked and he stepped to one side and risked a quick glance to see that there was a hole in the wooden wall. Lumpy’s peephole, no doubt, and one of the young men outside must have seen what was happening and Sharpe stepped to the bed just as a pistol flamed through the hole to mist the room with smoke. Emily screamed from beneath her blanket and Jem Hocking snatched a badger cage and hurled it at Sharpe.
The cage bounced heavily off Sharpe’s shoulder. Hocking was scrabbling for the pistol when Sharpe kicked him in the face, then slashed the saber across his head. Hocking sprawled by the table. Sharpe snatched up the small pistol and fired it at the wall beside the peephole. The timber splintered, but no shout sounded on the far side. Then he knelt on Hocking’s belly and held the saber against the big man’s throat. “You do know me,” Sharpe said. “You bloody do know me.”
He had not intended to reveal his name. He had told himself he would rob Hocking, but now, smelling the gun smoke, he knew he had always wanted to kill the bastard. No, he had wanted more. He had wanted to see Hocking’s face when the man learned that one of his children had come back, but come back as a jack pudding. Sharpe smiled, and for the first time there was fear on Hocking’s face. “I really am an officer, Jem, and my name’s Sharpe. Dick Sharpe.“ He saw the disbelief on Hocking’s face. Disbelief, astonishment and fear. That was reward enough. Hocking stared, wide-eyed, recognizing Sharpe and, at the same time, unable to comprehend that one of his boys was now an officer. Then the incomprehension turned to terror for he understood that the boy wanted revenge. ”You bastard,“ Sharpe said, “you goddamned piece of shit.” The anger was livid now. “Remember whipping me?” he asked. “Whipping me till the blood ran? I remember, Jem. That’s why I came back.”