Early the next morning, the light company was on its way to the Spanish border, heading to Badajoz to prepare to begin a siege of the fortified town. Sergeant Harper had been assigned to watch the new recruits along the march, which left the green-coated riflemen to Obadiah Hakeswill's tender ministrations.
As the entire company was about to head out, Sergeant Hakeswill made a beeline to where the riflemen were collecting their gear. At first, the men purposely ignored the scrawny sergeant, which obliged him to formally call them to attention.
"Ten…SHUN," Hakeswill bawled, irritated by the slowness by which these men reluctantly obeyed his orders. "Quit dawdling, you lazy sons of bitches and listen up!"
The veteran sergeant knew that he was going to enjoy breaking these men and making proper soldiers out of them in the coming weeks. Sharpie had been coddling this lot of motley miscreants, but all that was about to come to an end, now that Obadiah was here. These shiftless bastards would learn to work hard, like soldiers were meant to do, if he had anything to say about it. New, red uniforms had not yet arrived for them, but there was no reason not to work them hard in the meantime.
Pointing to a wagon filled with shovels and other tools, he told them, "You needs to go along with that wagon and guard it. It's filled with tools to be diggin' trenches with, which is what you lot will be doing once we gets to Badajoz."
The riflemen each glanced at each other in dismay. They'd never before been asked to do such menial tasks like ordinary infantrymen. They were riflemen - the elite - and didn't do common labour.
Noticing the disgruntled looks on their faces, Hakeswill twitched, then sneered, "Thinks you're too good for diggin', eh? I got news for you; you ain't no better than no other soldier, so's you can do any kind of work, just like anybody else."
Walking back and forth in front of the unhappy riflemen, he glared balefully at them. "Any man jack of you who don't wants to follow orders, just step right up, and I'll have you flogged for disobeying a direct order, mark my words." He paused for a moment, then demanded, "Well? Any takers."
When nobody moved, Obadiah cackled, then muttered, "I didn't think so." Pointing to the wagon again, he urged, "Now get to it, 'cos we'll be moving out shortly."
As the group of green coated men grudgingly obeyed Hakeswill, grumbling incoherently as they walked to the wagon, Obadiah cackled again gleefully as he went to find his donkey. He'd be riding it up and down the line of march, but he'd not stray far from the group of riflemen, as he intended to keep a sharp eye on them, just in case one of them slipped and did something he could punish them for.
Noticing Private Clayton standing around nearby, doing nothing, he pointed at him and barked. "You, too, you lazy bastard. You're going to earn your pay for once today!"
Clayton sighed loudly, then trudged slowly to follow the others.
Several hours later, Obadiah Hakeswill was riding alongside the long column, a little ways back from the detail accompanying the wagon full of shovels. He squirmed frequently as he proceeded down the rutted road, his bony arse now nearly numb. A donkey was better than walking all the way and wearing out boot leather, but at this moment he missed his old horse, Trouble, more than ever. While the column continued to slowly trudge along, Obadiah stopped the donkey, then ran behind a bush to take a leak.
Returning to the patiently waiting animal moments later, Hakeswill felt somewhat more comfortable with an empty bladder as he began moving forward again. As he went around a bend in the road, he saw that the equipment wagon had gone slightly off the road, tipping part of its contents into a ditch.
He scowled as he spied Richard Sharpe talking to the men, who had been struggling to right the wagon before he arrived.
No sooner had he spotted his nemesis than Sharpe summoned him.
"Come here, Sergeant!" Sharpe called out in a peremptory tone.
Obadiah decided to pretend to be befuddled. "Who sir? Me, sir? Yes, sir." He got off the donkey and walked briskly over to where the blond headed officer was standing, looking at him with narrowed eyes.
"What does a Chosen Man do with shovels, Hakeswill?" Sharpe demanded in irritation.
"Chose man, sir?" Hakeswill didn't have to pretend confusion on this one. He'd never heard the term before.
Pulling on one of the riflemen's sleeves to call attention to a horizontal white stripe on it, Sharpe said "What do you think this is, eh, Obadiah?"
"Bless me, Lieutenant, sir!" Hakeswill said in a bemused tone. "It's a stripe, sir!"
"I know it's a stripe, Sergeant," Sharpe said, rolling his eyes in frustration, as he let go of the rifleman's sleeve. "This man is a soldier, not a labourer. Chosen Men do not do duty except under arms."
"Well, I never, Lieutenant, sir!" Hakeswill shot back, twitching to cover up him rolling his eyes in return. It was apparent to him that nothing had changed with Richard Sharpe since India. He was still the same filthy scum that thought the rules were for other soldiers and not for him and his cronies.
"You waste men, Obadiah," Sharpe sneered in disgust. "It's your pleasure."
"Work needed doin' sir," Hakeswill said stoutly, entirely without apology. "These men wasn't doin' nothing, so I put them to work, I did."
Ignoring the sergeant, Sharpe turned to the oldest rifleman and asked, "Where's your rifle, Hagman?"
"It's been taken from me, sir," Hagman said mournfully. "We're getting muskets, sir." After an outraged pause, he added, "Orders."
"Who gave such an order?" Sharpe demanded, thoroughly put out.
"Captain Rymer, sir," Hakeswill informed him, malevolently gleeful. "Gentleman who commands the light company, which you don't."
"Eh?" Sharpe was nonplussed.
"And they're going to look smart," the sergeant continued calmly. "In red coats and pipeclay, sir."
"What? Lose their green jackets?" Richard Sharpe could not believe his ears.
"Captain Rymer's orders, sir," Hakeswill reiterated, twitching. "On account of them bein' in the South Essex now, and not the 95th Rifles. Sir." Cackling contentedly, he added, "Look just as smart as the rest of us, they will."
Before Sharpe could comment, a wagon full of camp followers came around the bend. Sally Clayton, sitting inside the open wagon, saw her husband among the rifleman by the wagon
"I can see you, Private Clayton!" Sally called out playfully, not noticing Hakeswill standing nearby.
"Oh, my word. Sal!" Clayton replied, glad to see her happy and safe. He, too, had forgotten about Hakeswill's baleful presence.
Turning to Richard Sharpe, she admonished, "You look after him, Mr Sharpe. I want him kept whole."
"Go on Sal," Sharpe said, laughing. "Plenty more where he came from."
Sally fell silent then, when she finally noticed Hakeswill staring at her, shuddering as the wagon rolled on.
Standing close by, Obadiah leered at Sally, muttering, "Nice piece, that one was. Fine pair of tits she has, too."
Catching the last bit of what the scrawny sergeant had said, Sharpe whirled on him. "Begone!" He'd had enough of Obadiah Hakeswill for one day.
Cackling insolently, Obadiah strolled off, still muttering, "And I'll have her again, I will."
As he went to collect the donkey, he overheard Sharpe complaining to Major Nairn about the duties he'd been assigned to. Hakeswill shook his head when he heard Sharpie inform the superior officer that he wasn't a "bloody clerk", and then to beg to lead the Forlorn Hope in Badajoz.
Richard Sharpe hadn't changed at all; he was still just as conceited as ever, thinking that he and his men were above certain kinds of duty. And the stupid bugger had no earthly clue on how to manipulate superior officers - it was a bloody wonder how he'd managed to function as an officer at all, when he wasn't fit to be anything more than a private soldier.
Hakeswill was convinced that Sharpe was delusional to think that volunteering to lead a forlorn hope would get him anywhere. If he managed not to be killed and get himself promoted, he'd still not be accepted because he'd still be an ex-ranker to the officers born to it and would never fit in. The man hadn't learned how best to work the system to his advantage and never would. The sergeant chortled to himself as he mounted the donkey thinking that if he was lucky, Sharpie would end up as another useless casualty, lying dead on the breach into Badajoz. That is, unless he didn't get a chance to kill his nemesis, first.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Back in England, Anna Hakeswill sat in a comfortable chair in the sitting room as she re-read the last letter from Obadiah. Having lost her last two babies, she was taking extra special precautions to make sure this one would be born alive.
Earlier that day, the new Lady Perkins had paid her and Catherine, now the Dowager Lady Perkins, a call, at which time Catherine had tea served to her daughter in law. It had become painfully obvious to both women that this was merely a perfunctory social call, as stilted as the conversation had been. The younger woman did not like her mother in law; if she'd had her druthers, she'd have had Catherine ejected from the estate entirely.
The visit had been distressing for Anna, seeing her beloved aunt treated with barely concealed disdain. The woman had not endeared herself to the young mother when she'd asked about Obadiah and had then rolled her eyes and said "how amusing" when told he was a sergeant in the army. After hearing that, she'd spent the rest of the visit haughtily looking down her nose at Anna. Fortunately, the visit had been mercifully short, and now Anna was blissfully relaxing as Catherine finished giving Bridget her music lesson.
After she finished re-reading Obadiah's most recent letter, the pregnant women rose and walked back to the kitchen to see how dinner was progressing.
Anna smelled the mouth-watering aroma as she entered the room, but she was startled when she saw a young man sitting at the kitchen table as Mrs Harris prepared the food.
Noticing the confused expression on her employer's face, Mrs Harris said, "This is me son, Thomas, Mrs Hakeswill. He was workin' for an elderly lady in London, but when she died a few days ago, her son dismissed all the help. Now, he's come back to me 'til he can find himself another job."
"I…see," Anna said quietly.
Taking a deep breath, the cook asked, "Beggin' your pardon, Mrs Hakeswill, I was wonderin' if you and Lady Perkins might could use a man to help out 'round here. There's quite a bit of things that needs doin', but me and Bessie and Abby can't do ourselves. Men's work."
"It's not a bad idea," Anna said thoughtfully. "But I must discuss it with Lady Perkins before I can give you an answer."
"Thank you, Mrs Hakeswill," Thomas Harris said deferentially. He was a tall strapping young man in his early 30s. "I wouldn't need all that much pay beyond me room and board, I wouldn't."
"I'll let you know after I discuss it with Lady Perkins," Anna said with a smile. "Meanwhile, you can bunk in the stable. There's a room there for a servant, but I daresay that it will need to be cleaned before it's acceptably habitable."
"I'll do it meself," Thomas promised. "I know all about cleaning, I do."
"Excellent," Anna said, still smiling. "Bessie will give you some linens to use for your bunk."
After dinner, Catherine and Anna settled down for a quiet evening in the sitting room, with both women knitting by the fire. The children were in the adjacent library working on the day's schoolwork.
"I have something to discuss with you," Anna said, once they'd settled themselves to knit. "Mrs Harris' son arrived today from London. It seems as if his employer died suddenly and the woman's son dismissed all the help. To make a long story short, he's asked if we can take him on here to do any sort of heavy labour we might need. I told him I'd have to speak with you first before giving him an answer. I put him in the stable room for the night to wait for your decision."
"You know, I've been thinking we could use a man around here ever since Obadiah left," Catherine confided. "There are tasks that would be too much for the women, and the grounds and shrubbery will begin to look weedy and neglected if we don't get someone to attend to them.' After a moment's though she added, "I'm not sure we can afford another servant, though."
"He said he'd not need much pay beyond room and board," Anna told her aunt. "He said he'd be happy to accept whatever we can afford."
"All right, then," Catherine said decisively. "We'll tell him in the morning."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
A few days later, Sergeant Hakeswill was supervising Sharpe's riflemen as they reluctantly dug a trench. It had rained recently, so the trench was uncomfortably muddy. Obadiah wore his greatcoat over his uniform, which helped only a bit to keep him protected from the rain, which fell intermittently.
Hakeswill had been meanly satisfied when Sharpe's protests about these men digging trenches had fallen on deaf ears. Both Colonel Windham and Captain Rymer had been of the same opinion as Obadiah had been; that these men were just as eligible to do this sort of work as needed as any other infantryman.
The sergeant stood holding his pike, leaning up against the back trench wall, as the men groused and grumbled as they worked. Hakeswill tolerated a certain amount of this, as he knew that unhappy men were easier for him to manipulate. But he had his limits on how much he was willing to listen to at any given time.
When one of the riflemen, Harris, set his shovel down to take a drink from his canteen, the bony sergeant was on him in an instant.
"Dig!" he bawled. "If you don't dig, you don't eat! We ain't got forever to finish this damned thing."
"Officer coming," Rifleman Cooper warned.
"He ain't an officer," Hakeswill sneered. "I've known Mr Lieutenant Sharpe near on twenty years now. I'm the one what recruited him into the army in the first place and I taught him all he knows about bein' a soldier. He done come from the gutter, same as me and you, and ain't no better than the rest of us."
"Oh yes, oh yes," Cooper replied, knowing it was better to humour the malevolent sergeant than to antagonize him.
Hakeswill scrambled up the bank to higher ground to acknowledge Sharpe.
"Ten SHUN!" he barked, twitching, as he saluted Sharpe, adhering to protocol despite his loathing of the man. "Come to show these lazy bastards how it's done, eh, sir?"
Sharpe didn't immediately reply, but moved closer to Hakeswill and threw up his arm and saluted, knocking the sergeant back into the ditch onto his arse in the mud.
"Carry on, Sergeant," Sharpe said, smirking at him, with the men joining in with gales of laughter.
After a few more jibes, with the men still laughing at him sprawled in the mud, Sharpe moved on to go talk to Captain Rymer, who was standing nearby.
Glaring at the riflemen, who were still leaning on their shovels, Hakeswill growled, "Get back to work, you miserable miscreants, before I have your pay docked! Make no bones, but I will!"
No sooner than Hakeswill had stood up again and brushed the worst of the muck off him, than the French began firing on them from the town walls. Sharpe and Captain Rymer jumped into the trench with them, where they all huddled to stay out of the line of fire because none of the men had their weapons with them and Hakeswill only had a pike.
When there was a lull in the shooting, Sharpe gave the order for everyone to retreat, as there was no way to defend themselves against the French with no weapons. Everyone ran to a safe distance, where they stopped and began catcalling to the enemy soldiers. Obadiah just kept on running back to the camp area, as he realized he'd just been given the perfect opportunity to set the annoying Patrick Harper up to be flogged and lose his sergeant's stripes to boot.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw the men running back at the French, armed with whatever things they could find to use as weapons: axes, sticks, knives, etc. Stupid buggers, all of them, he thought as he continued to run. Nevertheless, he was glad they would be occupied for awhile, which would give him the chance to rifle the officer's baggage and steal a few choice items.
Obadiah glanced around as he approached the area where the officers' baggage was piled. Listening carefully, he could hear the women down by the creek, doing laundry. He was shielded from view by dozens of tents, so he was quite confident his pilfering would go unobserved. With one more glance around, he began rifling through the bags, systematically working through each bag, spending less than a minute on each one.
As well as finding a generous amount of guineas in most of the bags, he found a nice pair of gold earrings, which he intended to save for Anna. Moving on to the next bag, he found a gold watch, which the sergeant knew he could sell for a good price. In another was a portrait in a solid silver frame, which he recognized as belonging to Colonel Windham. His wife, no doubt. Hakeswill had no interest in keeping this item, so it would be the perfect thing to plant in Harper's bags. He also found Sharpie's telescope among his dirty clothes, and took that as well. Obadiah had no real use for that either, but he took it anyway, just to annoy his enemy.
In less than five minutes, he was done. After cutting the portrait out of the frame and tossing it into some nearby bushes, he hurried to Harper's tent, which was right by his own, and stuck the ornate frame into Harper's pack.
Chortling with glee as he left the Irishman's tent, he again looked all around, carefully observing his surroundings before leaving. Obadiah hurried away from the area to stash the loot he was keeping for himself, before someone caught him with it. He went down the road for a couple of hundred feet, then slipped down a slight incline to where there was a large rock close to a mature tree, half hidden under a bush.
Kneeling down, Hakeswill pushed the rock out of the way, then scrabbled into the soft dirt to find the strongbox he'd buried there, filled with loot from earlier plundering. He added the new loot into the box, then sealed it back before burying it once again and replacing the rock to mark the spot.
The wily sergeant made it back just in time, mixing in unnoticed with a group of soldiers walking back to camp from the trench area after the minor skirmish with the crapauds. As he entered the camp along with this group, no one was any the wiser that he'd not been with them the entire time.
Moments later, he heard the indignant exclamations of officers who'd discovered they'd been robbed. Obadiah stood around, looking just as clueless as the other men in the area. He watched as Colonel Windham waited while Richard Sharpe was fetched from the trench area, since he'd been the one responsible for the security of the baggage.
He moved to his tent just before Sharpe arrived, knowing that there would soon be a search conducted to look for the missing items.
Hakeswill didn't have long to wait, as the call came within moments for everyone to bring their bags out of their tents to be inspected. He waited impassively as Sharpe and the drunken Lieutenant Price slowly made their way down the line, followed by Colonel Windham, inspecting each man.
As they stopped in front of him, Obadiah calmly opened his bags, showing them everything inside as he insolently looked Sharpe straight in the eye.
He watched avidly as they moved on to Harper, where the silver portrait frame was quickly discovered.
"Oh, damn, Harper," Sharpe said, wincing in sympathy, as the frame was uncovered.
"You shall be flogged raw for this!" Colonel Windham declared, his voice shaking with rage. "As soon as I may order it by count martial. Where, you scum, did you toss the portrait of my wife?"
Harper, completely stunned, stood there dumbly, not able to even form a reply.
Richard Sharpe looked over at a smug Obadiah Hakeswill, who gave him a twisted grin, then muttered, sotto voce, "Done, Sharpie."
Things were indeed turning out well for Obadiah Hakeswill.