Sharpe made his cross. Giles Marriott, inevitably, complained.

Harper, standing outside, heard the whining voice and groaned. 'Stupid bastard!

'I protest! Marriott was shouting at the clerk. 'It's not fair!

Nor was it. They had each been promised a bounty of twenty-three pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence. Sergeant Havercamp had dazzled the recruits with his cascade of gold in Sleaford, and the guinea they had each received at their attestation had compounded the promise, but now-came the reality.

The paper they signed confirmed that there was no bounty, or rather, that each recruit was deemed to have already spent it.

The army had charged them for their Necessaries. It had charged them for the food they had eaten on their journey, and for the ale and rum they had drunk in Sergeant Havercamp's generous company. It charged them for the laundry they had not had washed, for the army hospitals at Chelsea and Kilmainham that most had never heard of and, by one deduction after another, it was proved to them that, far from the army owing them the balance of their bounty, the recruits all owed money which would be deducted from their pay.

Of course it was not fair, but the army would have no recruits unless it made the extravagant promise, and no money to fight the war if it kept it. Nevertheless, Sharpe had never known so much to be stripped from the bounty. Someone, he reflected as Marriott's shrill protest continued, was making a fine profit from each recruit.

'Filth! The voice came from behind them, startling them, making them turn to see a small, immaculately uniformed Sergeant pacing towards them with a face of such concentrated fury and hatred that the recruits instinctively shrank back, letting the small, dark-faced man stride into the clerk's hut.

There was a shriek from inside, followed by a yelp of protest, then Marriott came backwards from the door, tripped, fell, and the Sergeant followed, slashed him about the head with his cane and kicked him in the shins with his gleaming boots.

'Up, filth! Up!

Marriott, shaking, stood. He was a head taller than the Sergeant who, once Marriott was standing, punched him in the belly. 'You've got a complaint, filth?

'They promised us. .

The sergeant punched him again, harder. 'You've got a complaint, filth?

'No, Sergeant.

'I can't hear you, filth!

'No, Sergeant! There were tears on Marriott's cheeks.

The Sergeant snapped his head round to look at the other recruits, then past them to where Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood approached with his retinue. 'Filth! He shouted at them all. 'Fall in!

Lieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood was a man soured by life, a man mistreated by life, a man that few understood. He was a soldier, he regarded himself as a great soldier, but he had never, not once, been allowed to go into battle. The closest he had come to war had been in Ireland, but he despised fighting against peasants; and even when the peasants had decimated his troops and run him ragged round the damp countryside, he had still despised them. Those he caught, he hanged, those he did not catch, he ignored. He dreamed only of fighting the French, and could not understand an army that had not allowed him to go to Spain.

'Filth! The Sergeant screamed the word. 'Shun! The recruits shuffled to attention. Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, with his eye for military punctilio, noticed the two men who did it properly, whose thumbs were against the seams of their ragged trousers and whose heads and shoulders were back and whose feet were angled at a precise thirty degrees. Two old soldiers, two men easy to train, and two men who, because they knew all the tricks, he must watch like a hawk. He watched them now, seeing the scarred face of the older man and the hugeness of the younger, and he made the strange, snarling noise in his throat that was supposed to be a warning to them. He glared at the scarred man. 'What regiment were you?

Sharpe, who knew better than to stare into an officer's face, was nevertheless fascinated by the rock hard, gleaming black moustache that contrasted so oddly with the white, scraped skin of Girdwood's face. 'Thirty-third, sir!

'Discharged?

'Sir!

Girdwood glanced at the huge man, instinctively disliking Harper because he was so tall. 'You?

'Fourth Dragoon Guards, sir!

Sharpe, who was amused that Harper had chosen such an elegant regiment for his supposed past, sensed that Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood's hostility had been increased by the big man's answer. Girdwood made the odd, snarling noise in his throat once more, then tapped his left palm with the silver-topped cane. 'The Royal Irish! He said it slowly, with savage dislike. 'Then listen to me, soldier, this is not an Irish regiment. I'll have none of your damned insolence here, do you understand me?

'Sir!

'None of it! Girdwood's voice was a harsh shriek that startled the other recruits whom he glared at, staring at them one by one as if, by the sheer force of his dark, harsh gaze, he could fill them with fear and respect.

He seemed to stare at them for a long, long time, saying nothing, but in his head the angry thoughts uncoiled. Peasants, he thought, nothing but peasants! Scum, filth. Horrid, stinking, foul, stupid, lax, undisciplined scum. Civilians!

His gaze came back to Harper's stolid, expressionless face. 'Who's the King of Ireland?

'King George, sir!

Girdwood's polished black moustache was level with the second button of Harper's fatigue jacket. The Colonel glared up at the huge man. 'And what are the rebels?

Harper paused. Sharpe, standing next to him, prayed that the Irishman would lie. Harper, if an accident of hunger and fate had not driven him into the British Army, would doubtless have been one of the rebels who had fought so hopelessly against the British in Ireland. Harper, who liked his job, and who fought the French as enthusiastically as any man, had never lost his love for Ireland, any more than had most of the Irishmen who made up a third of Wellington's army in Spain.

'Well? Gird wood asked.

Harper chose dumb stupidity as his best tactic. 'Don't know, sir!

'Scum! Pig-shit! Bastards! Irish! That's what they are! Sergeant Lynch!

'Sir! The small Sergeant who had so effectively silenced Giles Marriott took one pace forward. He looked as if he could have been Girdwood's twin; they were two moustached, small, black-haired, manikins.

Girdwood pointed with his cane at Harper. 'You'll note this man, Sergeant Lynch?

‘I’ll do that, sir!

‘I’ll not have Irish tricks, by Christ I will not!

'No, sir!

Sharpe, who was feeling relief that the Colonel had not demanded that Harper repeat his litany against the Irish rebels, now saw that the Colonel was staring with apparent shock towards the end of the line of recruits. Girdwood raised his cane. It was shaking. 'Sergeant Lynch! Sergeant Lynch!

Lynch turned. He too froze. When he spoke, in seemingly equal shock, his voice had a sudden touch of the Irish accent that he had worked so hard to lose. 'A dog, sir? One of the filth has a dog, sir!

Buttons, sensing the sudden interest in him, wagged his muddy tail, ducked his head, and started forward to be petted by these new men who stared at him.

Girdwood stepped back. 'Get it away from me! His voice betrayed true panic.

Sergeant Lynch darted forward. Charlie Weller stepped forward too, but a corporal tripped him just as Sergeant Lynch kicked the dog, a brutal, rib-breaking kick that forced a yelp out of the animal and lifted it into the air to fly, screaming as it went, a full five yards away. Charlie Weller, his face aghast, tried to stand up, but the corporal kicked him in the head, and kicked again to keep the boy down.

Buttons, his ribs broken, came whimpering and limping back towards his master. He flinched away from Sergeant Lynch, but the Sergeant stood over the dog, lifted his heel and smashed it down onto the dog's skull. Buttons shrieked again, the heel was forced slowly, grindingly down, and the recruits stood in horror as the dog slowly died.