‘Ladders are necessary.’
‘I suppose so,’ Fox said reluctantly and felt in a pocket. He brought out a handful of gold coins, all of them twenty-franc pieces. ‘One should be enough,’ he suggested, ‘more than enough?’
Sharpe reached out and took three Napoleons, the gold coins showing the Emperor’s head. ‘This will do,’ he said, ‘you’ll have your ladders.’ He put the coins in his pouch and beckoned Harper. ‘We have to go back to the battalion, Pat.’
The two men walked westwards through the city. Sharpe grumbled most of the way, ignoring Harper’s enthusiastic tales of monkey mischief. ‘It’s a bloody waste of time, Pat. We shouldn’t be wasting time with paintings, we should be killing Lanier.’
‘You think the Italian fellow would give me a monkey?’
‘You’d have to feed it, and the bugger would shit everywhere.’
‘Sounds like a recruit. We could give him a green jacket!’
‘Lanier’s not going to give up. I should talk to the Duke.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Because he’ll tell me to do what I’m told and leave Lanier to the Prussians.’
‘Sounds sensible to me. Corporal Collins’s wife would do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Make a small green jacket! She’s handy with a needle.’
‘You do not need a monkey,’ Sharpe growled. They were passing the Dowager’s house. ‘Go in there, Pat, and have Price bring the Light Company to the battalion. We’re moving out.’
‘Going where, sir?’
‘The bloody Louvre.’
He walked on alone, brooding. Lanier had dared send men to the Champs-élysées with orders to kill Sharpe! And if he tried once, Sharpe thought, he could try again. And doubtless Lanier knew where Sharpe was quartered, and Sharpe had just stripped away the men guarding that house. And all for some goddamned paintings!
There were pictures in Lucille’s house in Normandy. There was a drawing of the church where she had married her late husband, and two paintings of the river meadows which her mother had done, while up in the bedroom, there was a gloomy picture of the Virgin Mary which Sharpe hated, but Lucille would not move. She claimed it was very old and very precious, and Sharpe had pointed out that the chateau needed a new roof, in which case …? That suggestion had gone nowhere and the Virgin Mary stayed, looking down disapprovingly on the bed. Sharpe had seen the excitement on Fox’s face as he noted down which paintings to remove, and he suspected Fox was hoping to remove a couple for his own benefit. Was that true? And could one of them pay for roofing slate? He bridled at the thought. He had been a thief in his youth, but now? It’s just loot, he told himself, but still the thought repelled him. Lucille, he knew, would never approve of it and, damn it, he was an officer now.
Sergeant Reddish was with the sentries guarding the battalion’s encampment. He grinned at Sharpe. ‘Good to see you, Mister Sharpe.’
‘Thanks Lennie. It’s damn hard being honest, don’t you think?’
‘Sir?’
‘Never mind,’ Sharpe paused. ‘Any of your men speak Italian?’
‘Most can’t speak English, sir.’
I asked for that, Sharpe thought as he strode towards Morris’s tent. The Major was seated at a camp table going through papers, but stood nervously as Sharpe approached. ‘Colonel,’ he said warily.
‘We’re moving,’ Sharpe said, ‘pack up, be ready to go in an hour.’
He left Morris looking astonished and walked to the tables where at least half the battalion’s officers were seated over the remnants of a long ago lunch. ‘We’ll be moving,’ he said, ‘one hour! And do any of your men speak Italian?’
‘Italian?’ Captain Brown said, as if he’d never heard of such a language.
‘Pat Bee does,’ a Lieutenant said.
‘Pat Bee?’
‘Patrick Bee, sir. He was in the draft that arrived after the battle, with …’ he paused and jerked his head towards Morris’s tent.
‘I know Private Bee,’ Sharpe said, ‘send him to me and start packing up.’
‘He’s in Harry Price’s company, sir.’
‘Then he’ll be back here soon.’
‘Where are we going, sir?’
‘The Louvre.’
One hour later the battalion paraded and Sharpe walked their ranks, noting that though their uniforms were shabby, the muskets were clean. Harry Price had brought the Light Company back and Sharpe kept most of them, but sent Price and fifteen men back to the Dowager’s house with orders to guard it. ‘Tell Lucille I’ll be in the Louvre,’ he told Price, ‘and for God’s sake keep her and the boy safe.’
‘I will,’ Price said.
‘And you can forget about posting a picquet to watch the Delaunay estate,’ Sharpe went on, ‘the Prussians will do it instead.’
Morris was mounted, and Sharpe wished he had his own horse back. ‘Pat,’ he said to Harper, ‘did Fox tell you what he did with our horses?’
‘He said they were safely stabled.’
‘I want mine.’
‘Me too!’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Sharpe said, then turned as Harry Price approached with the frail-looking Private Bee, who looked terrified as he approached Sharpe. ‘Sir?’
‘You speak Italian, Bee?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good Italian?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When did you learn it?’
‘My mother’s Italian, sir,’ Bee said. ‘Irish father and Italian mother, sir.’
‘Good boy,’ Harper put in.
Sharpe took one of the twenty-franc Napoleons from his pouch and gave it to Harper. ‘You’ll go with Sergeant Harper,’ he told Bee, ‘and tell an Italian we’re buying his ladders. He’s using them to show off some monkeys, but we need the damned ladders more than the monkeys do.’ He looked at Harper. ‘You’ll need men to carry the things, Pat, so you can take the rest of the Light Company. And you do not, repeat not, bring back a monkey.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Harper said.
‘Come with us to the Louvre, Pat, and then take Private Bee and get the ladders. Nothing else!’
‘Nothing else, sir,’ Harper said solemnly.
Sharpe called for Captain Jefferson, his most aristocratic officer, and sent him to tell General Haskell that he was moving the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers to the Louvre. ‘I’m buggered if we bivouac here,’ Sharpe explained, looking around the damp woodland, ‘so we’ll billet ourselves in the museum.’ The Duke had expressly forbidden such a move, but Sharpe reckoned there was little sense in leaving the galleries unguarded during the night. ‘Tell Haskell it’s at the Duke’s request, and then find the Duke and tell him it was Haskell’s idea.’
Then the battalion marched. Sharpe led, with Harper and Bee beside him. ‘The funny thing, Private Bee,’ Sharpe said as they marched eastwards, ‘is that less than twenty years ago I was a Private too. Now I’m sending messengers to the Duke of Wellington.’
‘And buying monkey ladders,’ Harper put in.
‘And my point, Bee, is that you can do the same!’
‘Me, sir?’
‘If you’re smart, keep your nose clean, why not? Become a Sergeant, learn to read. The army needs good officers.’
‘I can read, sir.’
‘You can?’