Sharpe's Fortress Part 25

"He's a lying, thieving b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Sharpe said vehemently.

"Sharpe! Please!" Torrance's voice was pained.

"How can you say such wicked things? You don't even know the fellow."

"Oh, I know him, sir. I served under him in the Havercakes."

"You did?" Torrance smiled.

"I see we are in for interesting times.

Perhaps I should keep the two of you apart. Or perhaps not. Brick!"

The last word was shouted towards a door that led to the back of the commandeered house.

The door opened and the black-haired woman slipped past the muslin.

"Captain?" she asked. She blushed when she saw Torrance was naked, and Torrance, Sharpe saw, enjoyed her embarra.s.sment.

"Brick, my dear," Torrance said, 'my hookah has extinguished itself.

Will you attend to it? Dilip is busy, or I would have asked him. Sharpe?

May I have the honour of naming you to Brick? Brick? This is Ensign Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe? This is Brick."

"Pleased to meet you, sir," the woman said, dropping a brief curtsey before she stooped to the hookah. She had clearly not told Torrance that she had met Sharpe earlier.

"Ma'am," Sharpe said.

"Ma'am!" Torrance said with a laugh.

"She's called Brick, Sharpe."

"Brick, sir?" Sharpe asked sourly. The name was utterly unsuited to the delicate-featured woman who now deftly disa.s.sembled the hookah.

"Her real name is Mrs. Wall," Torrance explained, 'and she is my laundress, seamstress and conscience. Is that not right, little Brick?"

"If you say so, sir."

"I cannot abide dirty clothes," Torrance said.

"They are an abomination unto the Lord. Cleanliness, we are constantly told by tedious folk, is next to G.o.dliness, but I suspect it is a superior virtue. Any peasant can be G.o.dly, but it is a rare person who is clean. Brick, however, keeps me clean. If you pay her a trifle, Sharpe, she will doubtless wash and mend those rags you are pleased to call a uniform."

"They're all I've got, sir."

"So? Walk naked until Brick has serviced you, or does the idea embarra.s.s you?"

"I wash my own clothes, sir."

"I wish you would," Torrance said tartly.

"Remind me why you came here, Sharpe?"

"Orders, sir."

"Very well," Torrance said.

"At dawn you will go to Colonel b.u.t.ters'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 b.u.t.ters."

"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 ravis.h.i.+ng 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.