Grand Review - the 95th Rifles

All the preparations were over and Sharpe's men were either ready or not as he chivvied them into place ready for the review. This was the first occasion of this sort since he'd ended up in charge of his ragtag bunch of men And although he'd taken part in several reviews and inspections over the course of his Army career, he was more nervous now than he could remember being at any other time.

He loosened his long heavy sword in its sheath, and waited for the General to arrive.

Carty stood in line, the top of his shako bobbing at about the same level as Sergeant Harper's ear, not quite hopping from one foot to the other but definitely shifting his weight. His rifle was perfect, he knew: as clean as a whistle, beautifully oiled, new flint in the lock, even the strap polished, but his uniform was a state. His remaining buttons gleamed, but the uniform was too big and fell in untidy folds around him, and even the most enthusiastic scrubbing could not make it look anything other than faded, muddied and darned all over.

"Stop your fidgiting, Carty," Harper said. "Do you want the General to think you need to piss? And don't you look at me like that; I'm not your mother. Eyes in front." He looked at Sharpe, noticing the tightness of his jaw, and his hand wrapped tight around the grip of his strange sword. "Don't you worry now, sir."

Harris was aware of Carty, who had never had to face this sort of thing before, but did not glance down at the boy. All across the fields, lieutenants were inspecting their men, most of them hoarse with whispering their orders and complaints and irritable comments. Their Mr Sharpe was probably as nervous as any: Harris suspected that it was the first time he had been reviewed as an officer in charge of a company, even if they were a very under-sized and disreputable-looking company.

And Sharpe's nervousness was now being communicated - to Carty, and even to the Sergeant.

Harris and Sergeant Harper had explained to him enough times what was going to happen, or had tried to - the General and his staff would wander about all the regiments, inspecting weapons and uniforms and... Surely they had demonstrated their capabilities yesterday? Carty risked another glance at Mister Sharpe - he looked more nervous than he had ever seen him. He'd seen Mister Sharpe charge into a French cavalry charge and not look half so nervous. Maybe it was the General, he thought sagely to himself. He remember how nervous he had been when the General came to see those bodies, and he and Ben had laughed about throwing up over him in nerves. It did not seem so desperately amusing now.

A review was a review. The difference was, this time Sharpe was an officer in charge of his own group of men. He realised that he was nervous, and was acting as though he was, and let go of his sword hilt. Well, he could damn well act confident, couldn't he? He turned to look at his men.

"Carty, I won't say owt if it ain't there, but it looks like you've missed a button." He indicated the lad's jacket. "And Harris? Try to straighten the plume on your shako a bit. It looks half drunk."

All in all, they looked, really, as ready as they would ever be, short of being issued new uniforms. And that was nobody's fault, not even Wellesley's.

Carty looked down at his jacket. He glanced at Harris, wondering if he should say he had not had that button for months now, and only had the one above it because Harper had donated one of the decorative side buttons from his own jacket so that Carty's would stay closed.

None of them had the full tally of buttons, Harris thought. At least Carty's were all the right buttons: a close inspection of some of the others would reveal buttons from other regiments, even some French.

He brushed his hand across the plume. It would not lie flat, so he took the shako off, used a bit more force on the feathers, and put it back on. It would be quite unfair if his plume was drunk while he was sober, and likely to remain so, if they were due to march out tomorrow.

To their right, the green jackets with red facings of Captain Vickery's men, and beyond them the red jackets of the Line Regiments. He could see the Colonel of the 62nd on his earth-coloured horse, waiting with what seemed like practiced patience for the General and his staff to arrive.

Harper looked down towards the 60th, and whispered in Sharpe's ear when he saw the unmistakable horse. "Nosey's here, sir." He didn't need to say it, if his Lieutenant's posture was anything to go by. "It'll be fine, so."

"Yes, Pat, I do have eyes in me head, you know," Sharpe said, hoping against hope that the General would do more than look down his long nose at him as though he were something nasty that Wellesley had stepped in. "You just keep on believin' it'll be all right. You never know, it might even turn out that way."

"What could be wrong with us?" Harper cast an eye over their motely crew, and decided that a qualifier was in order. "Sure, we're no toy soldiers, but we're real ones instead. Nosey respects that."

Sharpe grinned. "We ain't got two score of proper buttons between us, Pat. And your trousers have definitely seen better days."

He hoped Harper was right, though it wasn't as though they were parading next to the Guards. Standing even a little removed from the 62nd was bad enough, and even the 60th actually had access to replacement uniforms and kit - or had had that access a lot more recently than Sharpe and his men had.

Were Sharpe one of the men Harper might have retorted with "Your face has seen better days", but officer he was, so he grinned instead. "But I'd bet my nose that every rifle is better than new. Carty got up an hour early to clean it again, and Hagman's going to ask you for permission to marry his one of these days."

That made Sharpe grin properly. "Dan bin sleepin' with it, has he? At least he knows it won't run off with another man. And you'd better remind Carty the barrel is s'posed to stay brown so as not to give him away in a skirmish."

"I tell you what though, we'd have the best damn soldiers in the British army - real rifle-men, ha!" Harper looked over his shoulder. "I think I'm more worried about his habit of sticking that moon-face over every wall or bush he hides behind. He'll get it blown off one of these days, or at least lose an ear." At the moment, Carty's unfortunate ears were the only things stopping his shako from falling over his eyes.

"Teach him the trick of puttin' his shako on his ramrod to make sure his head ain't goin' to get taken off," Sharpe said, and glanced at the lad. "And someone better find him a smaller shako one o' these days." It was probably adjusted as small as it would go, too. "He did real good yesterday; they all did. Never expected him to put his name forward for the shootin' match, though."

"I don't think he did either - Cooper was a little pressing in his persuasion, I think. I'll have a word, sir. He seemed all right last night - quiet like before, but he'll pick up again. Hagman's smarting fierce over that Cotton though, for all his placid looks."

"I reckon Cotton would've been just as happy if it had been a draw. Least, that's what I heard him sayin'. And Carty's young yet; he'll be one to watch in a couple of years." He was determined that Carty would have his white cord by then, unless something went horribly wrong.

"If Harris keeps on at him for the English," Harper said critically. "He sounds like a halfwit at the moment, and considering that he looks like one as well it's a bad combination. As for Dan, he'll ask Cotton for rematch next time they get a chance, I reckon."

"He's doin' pretty well considerin' he didn't have a word of English before he 'listed. And if Cotton and Dan do have a rematch, either Dan'll win it and prove they're both just as good as each other... or he'll realise he's met the one man in the army who's better than he is." And privately Sharpe thought the first one of those two alternatives was the most likely.

"But officers who don't know that think he's a halfwit. Like that Lieutenant in the 62nd," Harper said, casting a dirty look at the guilty regiment.

"That officer in the 62nd can mind his own bloody business and stop provin' to t'rest of us that he ain't worth the paper his Commission's printed on," Sharpe said sourly. "Carty's one of us, and if anyone tries owt, I will have 'em for breakfast."

"It's you he's after, sir," Harper said warningly, thinking the same thing.

"I know. But tryin' to get my men ain't goin' to do him no good at all. An' the sooner the little prick learns that, the better."

As if he didn't have enough to think about with Hakeswill being in this Division. Bugger them both backwards.

"Colonel seems fair enough."