Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page A

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    afternoon and he had vomited when he saw the horror inside the cactus-thorn wall.
    Sharpe had made his report to Roberts who had sent it by messenger to Hurryhur, the

    army's headquarters, then dismissed Sharpe.
    “There'll be an enquiry, I suppose,” Roberts had told Sharpe, 'so doubtless your

    evidence will be needed, but you might as well wait in Seringapatam."
    And so Sharpe, with no other orders, had walked home. He had returned the bag of rupees

    to Major Stokes, and now, obscurely, he wanted some punishment from the Major, but

    Stokes was far more concerned about the angle of the quoin.
    “I've seen screws shatter because the angle was too steep, and it ain't no good having

    broken screws in battle. I've seen Frog guns with metal led quoins, but they only rust.

    Can't trust a Frog to keep them greased, you see. You're brooding, Sharpe.”
    “Can't help it, sir.”
    “Doesn't do to brood. Leave brooding to poets and priests, eh? Those sorts of fellows are

    paid to brood. You have to get on with life. What could you have done?”
    “Killed one of the bastards, sir.”
    “And they'd have killed you, and you wouldn't have liked that and nor would I. Look at that

    angle! Look at that! I do like a fine angle, I declare I do. We must check it against the

    templates. How's your head?”
    “Mending, sir.” Sharpe touched the bandage that wrapped his forehead.
    “No pain now, sir.”
    “Providence, Sharpe, that's what it is, providence. The good Lord in His ineffable

    mercy wanted you to live.” Stokes released the vice and restored the quoin to the

    carriage.
    “A touch of paint on that trail and it'll be ready. You think the Rajah might give me one

    roof beam?”
    “No harm in asking him, sir.”
    “I will, I will. Ah, a visitor.” Stokes straightened as a horseman, swathed against the

    rain in an oilcloth cape and with an oilcloth cover on his cocked hat, rode into the

    armoury courtyard leading a second horse by the reins. The visitor kicked his feet from

    the stirrups, swung down from the saddle, tiien tied both horses' reins to one of the

    shed's pillars.
    Major Stokes, his clothes just in their beginning stage of becoming dirty and

    dishevelled, smiled at the tall newcomer whose cocked hat and sword betrayed he was an

    officer.
    “Come to inspect us, have you?” the Major demanded cheerfully.
    “You'll discover chaos! Nothing in the right place, records all muddled, woodworm in

    the timber stacks, damp in the magazines and the paint completely addled.”
    “Better that paint is addled than wits,” the newcomer said, then took off his cocked hat

    to reveal a head of white hair.
    Sharpe, who had been sitting on one of the finished gun carriages, shot to his feet,

    tipping the surprised cat into the Major's wood shavings.
    “Colonel McCandless, sir!”
    “Sergeant Sharpe!” McCandless responded. The Colonel shook water from his cocked hat

    and turned to Stokes.
    “And you, sir?”
    “Major Stokes, sir, at your service, sir. Horace Stokes, commander of the armoury and,

    as you see, carpenter to His Majesty.”
    “You will forgive me, Major Stokes, if I talk to Sergeant Sharpe?”
    McCandless shed his oilskin cape to reveal his East India Company uniform.
    “Sergeant Sharpe and I are old friends.”
    “My pleasure, Colonel,” Stokes said.
    "I have business in the foundry.
    They're pouring too fast. I tell them all the time! Fast pouring just bubbles the metal,

    and bubbled metal leads to disaster, but they won't listen. Ain't like making temple

    bells, I tell them, but I might as well save my breath." He glanced wistfully towards the

    happy men making the giant's head for the Dusshera festival.
    “And I have other things to do,” he added.
    “I'd rather you didn't leave, Major,” McCandless said very formally.
    "I
    suspect what I have to say concerns you. It is good to see you, Sharpe."
    “You too, sir,” Sharpe said, and it was true. He had been locked in the