“Are we under arrest?” Sharpe asked.

“No, sir,” but there was a very slight hesitation.

“Go on,” Sharpe ordered.

Salmon hesitated again, then shrugged. “If you refuse to accompany me, sir, then I’m ordered to arrest you.”

For a moment Sharpe wondered if this was some practical joke being played by an old acquaintance, yet Salmon’s demeanour suggested this was no jest. And clearly the summons presaged trouble. “For Christ’s sake,” Sharpe protested, “we only kicked a pimp in the balls!”

“I don’t know anything about that, sir.”

“Then what is this about?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Then who wants us?” Sharpe insisted.

“I don’t know, sir.” Salmon still spoke woodenly. “You’re both to bring your baggage, sir. All of it. I’ll have your servants fetch it to the prefecture.”

“I don’t have a servant,” Frederick said, “so you’ll have to fetch my baggage yourself, Salmon.”

Salmon ignored the gibe. “If you’re ready, gentlemen?”

“I need to speak to my servant first.” Sharpe leaned on a desk to show he would not move until Harper was fetched.

The Irishman was summoned and ordered to bring both officers’ baggage to the prefecture. A provost would show Harper the way. As soon as Harper was gone, Sharpe and Frederickson were ordered to leave. They filed out of the room, down the stairs, and into the flogging yard where Salmon’s grim squad closed about them. The two Riflemen might not have been under arrest, but it felt and looked just as if they were. The man being flogged gave a pathetic moan, then the drummer boys laid on again with their whips. Beyond the wall the man’s wife and children sobbed.

“Welcome to the peacetime army, sir,” Frederickson said.

Then they were marched away.

CHAPTER 5

“This tribunal,” Lieutenant-Colonel Wigram solemnly intoned, “has been convened by and under the authority of the Adjutant-General.” Wigram was reading from a sheaf of papers and did not look up to catch the Riflemen’s eyes as he read. He went on to recite his own commission to chair this tribunal, then the separate authorities for the presence of every other person in the room.

The room was a magnificent marbled chamber in Bordeaux’s prefecture. Four tables had been arranged in the form of a hollow square in the very centre of the room. The top table, where the tribunal itself sat, was an extraordinary confection of carved and gilded legs on which was poised a slab of shining green malachite. To its left was a humble deal table where two clerks busily recorded the proceedings, while to the right was a table for the official observers and witnesses. Completing the square, and facing the magnificent malachite table, was another cheap deal table which had been reserved for Sharpe and Frederickson. The two Rifle officers had been fetched straight up the prefecture stairs and into the room. Captain Salmon had reported to Wigram that their baggage was being fetched, then had left. Sharpe and Frederickson had still not been given any indication why they had been summoned or why this pompous tribunal had been convened.

Sharpe gazed malevolently at Wigram who, apparently oblivious of the baleful look, droned on. Wigram was a man Sharpe had met before, and had disliked mightily.

He was a staff Colonel, a petty-minded and meticulous bore; a clerk in a Colonel’s uniform. Wigram, Sharpe also remembered only too well, had been an avid supporter of Captain Bampfylde in the days before the Teste de Buch expedition had sailed. Surely this tribunal could have nothing to do with the man Sharpe had fought above a dawn-grey ocean? Yet that seemed only too possible, for one of the official observers on Sharpe’s left was a Naval officer.

Wigram tonelessly introduced the other two members of the tribunal; both Lieutenant-Colonels from the Adjutant-General’s department. One of the two was a uniformed lawyer, the other a provost officer. Both men had sallow and unfriendly faces. The Naval officer was introduced to Sharpe and Frederickson as Captain Harcourt. The second man at Harcourt’s table was, strangely, a civilian French lawyer.

“The purpose of this tribunal,” Wigram at last reached the meat of his document, “is to enquire into certain happenings at the Teste de Buch fort, in the Bay of Arcachon, during the month of January this year.”

Sharpe felt an initial pulse of relief. His conscience was entirely clear about the fight at the Teste de Buch fort, yet the relief did not last, for the formality of this tribunal was very chilling. Papers and pens had been provided on the Riflemen’s table and Sharpe wrote a question for Frederickson, “Why a French lawyer?”

“God alone knows,” Frederickson scribbled in reply.

“I shall begin,” Wigram selected a new sheaf of paper, “by recapitulating the events which took place at the Teste de Buch fortress.”

It had been decided, Wigram informed the tribunal, to capture the fort in an attempt to deceive the enemy into thinking that a sea-borne invasion might follow. The expedition was under the overall command of Captain Horace Bampfylde, RN. The land troops were commanded by Major Richard Sharpe. Wigram looked up at that point and found himself staring into Sharpe’s unfriendly eyes. The staff officer, who wore small round-lensed spectacles, quickly looked back to his paper.

The fort had been successfully captured, Wigram went on, though, there was disagreement between Captain Bampfylde and Major Sharpe as to the exact manner in which that success had been achieved.

“Wrong,” Sharpe said, and his interruption so astonished the room that no one objected to it. “Any disagreement between Captain Bampfylde and myself,” Sharpe said harshly, “was ended by a duel. He lost.”

“I was about to point out,” Wigram said icily, “that all the indications reveal that the predominant credit for the fort’s capture must be given to you, Major Sharpe. Or is it that you wish this tribunal to investigate a clearly illegal occurrence of duelling?”

The Naval Captain smiled, then hastily looked more solemn as Wigram continued. Among those captured at the fort, Wigram said, had been an American Privateer, Captain Cornelius Killick. Killick had been promised good treatment by Captain William Frederickson and, when it appeared that promise was being broken by Bampfylde, Major Sharpe had released the American and his crew.

“Is that accurate, Major?” It was the provost Lieutenant-Colonel who asked the question.

“Yes,” Sharpe answered.

“Yes, sir,” Wigram corrected Sharpe.

“Yes, it is accurate,” Sharpe said belligerently.

There was a pause, and Wigram evidently decided not to press the issue.

Major Sharpe, Wigram continued, had subsequently marched inland with all the army troops, plus a contingent of Royal Marines under the command of Captain Neil Palmer.

“May one enquire,” it was the army lawyer who now interrupted Wigram, “why Captain Palmer is not here to present his evidence?”

“Captain Palmer has been sent on a voyage to Van Dieman’s Land,” Wigram replied.

“He would have been,” Frederickson said loudly enough for the whole room to hear.

The lawyer ignored Frederickson. “We nevertheless have an affidavit from Captain Palmer?”

“There was no opportunity to secure one.” Wigram was clearly discomfited by the questions.

“There wouldn’t have been,” Frederickson said sardonically.

Sharpe laughed aloud. He wondered how Bampfylde had so conveniently managed to have Palmer sent all the way to Australia, then he wondered how Bampfylde had managed to have this tribunal instituted. God damn the man! He had lost a duel, but had somehow continued the fight. How? The man had lied, had been a coward, yet here, in this captured prefecture, it was Sharpe and Frederickson who were being questioned.

During Sharpe’s absence from the fort, Wigram pressed on with his account, the weather conditions were such that Captain Bampfylde deemed it sensible to take his ships off shore. Bampfylde’s decision was made easier by intelligence which claimed that Major Sharpe and all his men had been defeated and captured. That intelligence later proved to be false.