Sharpe knew he must not show his fears. He found Horatio Havercamp and called him to one side so that the Sergeant walked beside Sharpe's horse in an interval between Companies. 'Sir?

'How much did you make, Horatio?

'Make, sir?

'Horatio Havercamp, I started in this army where you did. I know all the bloody tricks and a few even you haven't bloody learned. How much did you make?

Havercamp grinned. 'We got the poor buggers' wages, sir.

No wonder, Sharpe thought, the sergeants had been so keen to discover any small fault with a man's kit that would deserve a deduction from the pay. Those deductions made up the sergeants' extra income. 'So how much did you make?

'Three pound a week? Varied a bit, of course.

'Five pounds a week, maybe?

'Say four, sir, Havercamp grinned cheerfully. 'But it was all official like! Above board, sir. Orders.

Sharpe looked at the sly face. 'You knew it bloody wasn't.

'Didn't do any harm, sir, did it? The army needs men; they've always paid for crimping, so why not us?

'But didn't you ever wonder what would happen when someone found out?

The Sergeant still had his look of sly enjoyment. 'If you was going to arrest us, sir, you'd have done it. You haven't, which makes me think that you need us. Besides, have you ever seen a better recruiting sergeant than me, sir? He grinned at Sharpe and took from his pocket the two golden guineas which, with his marvellous dexterity, he made come and go between his knuckles. 'It ain't every sergeant who can say he recruited Major Sharpe, is it?

Sharpe smiled. 'Suppose that I think you'd be more useful to me in Spain?

'I always heard you were a sensible man, sir. You find recruits here, sir, not there!

'But there are no profits in it any more, Sergeant.

'No, sir. Sergeant Havercamp smiled happily. He knew the profits were still there, not perhaps of the same magnitude, but recruiters had to carry government cash, and if he organised just two fictional jumpers a week then that was two guineas to be split between himself and his corporals. Sergeant Havercamp knew he would do very nicely, even if, as was the usual practice, officers were sent with each party. Horatio knew how to fix an officer's purse as well as any man's. 'Anything else, sir?

'One thing. Is there a Mother Havercamp? You know, the one the General chats to over the garden gate?

Havercamp laughed. 'Haven't seen the old maggot in years, sir. Don't want to, neither.

Sharpe laughed.

They came to Chelmsford in the middle of the afternoon, flooding the sleepy depot with men, and the problems that had plagued Sharpe before dawn were now magnified a hundred times. It was here that his real work had to begin.

He had been thinking of this moment ever since the idea had come to him across the table from Jane Gibbons. He had tried to anticipate the problems, but even so there were a thousand details he had not thought of, and, outside of d'Alembord, Price, and Harper, he had no capable men to cope with the chaos.

He did not have the proof he needed to shield these men from Lord Fenner, nor, he thought now, would that evidence come. If Jane Gibbons did help him, if she brought the accounts even at the very last moment, then he would be spared the desperate risk he planned, but without such proof he must do what his enemies had already done; he must hide the Battalion.

Not all of them, for not all were ready to do what he would ask of them. He split the four trained Companies away from the others, and to those four Companies he issued uniforms and muskets. The others, the untrained or half-trained recruits, he must leave here and hope that, within the next four days, no one would succeed in taking them away.

'Sir! Charlie Weller broke the ranks of his squad and ran to Sharpe's side. 'Please, sir!

'What is it, Charlie? Sharpe was watching the barracks archway, fearing a messenger from London.

'I want to come with you, sir. Please? Weller gestured at the four Companies in their bright new jackets. 'They're going to Spain, aren't they, sir!

Sharpe smiled. 'You'll get there one day, Charlie.

'Sir! Please! I can do it!

'You're not even musket trained, Charlie! The French are good, you know. Really good.

'I can do it, sir. Give me a chance! There were tears in his eyes. He gestured towards Sharpe's rifle. 'I'll show you, sir!

Sharpe pulled his rifle out of reach. 'So you can shoot a gun, but it's not like shooting rabbits. These bastards fire back.

'Sir!

Sharpe looked at Weller's desperation and he remembered how this boy had run after the recruiting party in the dawn. 'Tell Sergeant Harper you're in Lieutenant Price's Company.

Jubilation exploded in the boy. 'Thank you, sir!

'But don't get killed in your first battle, Charlie.

He wished all the problems were that simple to solve. There were camp kettles to find, billhooks to issue, mules to steal from the militia stable, and all had to be done in a hurry because Sharpe knew he must be away from this place before any orders arrived from London. He split the sergeants between the two units, leaving Sergeant Havercamp to recruit from Chelmsford. He left Brightwell too, as Sergeant Major here beneath Captain Finch. Sharpe was not happy with the arrangement, but if he was successful in the next few days, then Finch and Brightwell would soon be relieved by better men. Sharpe kept Sergeant Lynch with his trained men. Sharpe wanted to have the renegade, vicious Irishman under his own eye.

The ration cattle had not arrived yet, and the coachman claimed that the carriage's splinter-bar was breaking, but relented when Sharpe promised him a gold coin if the wood stayed whole. Captain Carline, appalled by the sudden energy that was infusing the quiet barracks, went pale when Sharpe told him to prepare to march.

'We are coming back this evening, aren't we, sir?

'Why?

'I had dinner arranged. . His voice trailed away.

'Hurry, Captain!

There were still more problems. Half the men's shoes had broken down on the day's brief march, and there were not enough new shoes to be issued. Price went in search of men who had been cobblers before they joined the army. Most of the papers from Foulness were put into the offices, but Sharpe kept the attestation forms. These forms, all now saying that the men were in the First Battalion of the South Essex, would be embarrassing to Sharpe's enemies. They proved no wrong-doing, but the absence of the forms, in an army that thrived on paperwork, would make it almost impossible for Lord Fenner to scatter the men left in Chelmsford to other barracks. The attestation form was a man's passport in this army. Without it, he did not exist. Sharpe kept them in the carriage.

And at last, at seven o'clock, when the midges were dancing in the evening air over the gatehouse and the swallows darting above the Mess roof, the four Companies were ready. They paraded in full marching order, their equipment and weapons heavy on their shoulders. They believed that Sharpe, as an unwelcome exercise, was doing no more than marching them to the outskirts of the town and back. It was a belief that all but his three closest comrades shared.

"Talion! By the front! Harper's voice was huge. 'Quick march!

The four Companies, followed by the coach, went under the archway and turned west towards Chelmsford. Sharpe skirted the town, going north, and it was not until the tallest spire of Chelmsford had disappeared that he allowed himself a small measure of hope. He still kept them marching at a cracking pace, taking them down narrow, thick-grown lanes, losing them in a scented, soft country of orchards, hedges, and gentle hills. He marched them until the sun, huge and glorious, almost touched the western horizon. Then, where a meadow lay by a great covert of oak and beech, he stopped the exhausted column and called the officers to him. 'This, gentlemen, is where we sleep.