As Harper felt what could only be a rat's corpse squish underneath of his foot, he came to a conclusion. He really had to do something to stop Sharpe from getting into these… situations.
He knew as soon as Shapre said "take off your clothes," their predicament was going to go from bad to horrible.
He should have put up more of a fight with that Sarah girl, now all of them were trudging through dirty, slimy, mucky, smelly, and grimy sewers.
Harper felt something brush past his leg, sending a slight shiver up his body. He couldn't say what it was, did he know what it was, did he want to know what that just was? Probably not.
He doesn't think he ever lived in a city with a sewer system. The little village he grew up in in Ireland certainly didn't have one. What exactly did people throw into them?
Leftover food? Probably.
Urine? Definitely, judging by the stench.
Droppings and shit? He wondered as he felt his foot step into something squishy between the rocks lining the sewer. That was a thought he would never get out of his head.
The girl let out another yelp as she stepped in something. Harper winced, he definitely heard a distinctive squishing sound when she took that step.
Sharpe let out a shushing sound, telling them to be quiet. Harper kept his ears open and attuned, but all he could hear were their breaths and the water running past their feet.
"Did you hear that?" Sharpe whispered harshly.
Splash
"Hear what?" Vincente asked.
Drip
"Quiet," Sharpe said.
Then. There, far in the distance from where they had come from, Harper heard some shouts and clanging come echoing through the narrow sewer.
As a breeze came blowing past them, Harper shivered, reminded that they were all still in fact naked.
So that all brought his thoughts back to…
Just how did he and Captain Richard Sharpe keep getting into these predicaments? First they got separated from the army and get chased all throughout the Spanish countryside, then they got separated from the army again, get stuck protecting some house in the countryside and get surrounded by the French stuck in a tower on the top of a hill, then they wind up in a fight and hunt with another group of Spaniards over gold, in which Sharpe takes a bullet to the shoulder and nearly dies…
And now here they are, stuck in some sewer underground, naked, getting some horrible smells permanently imprinted in their skin, all while trying to find an exit and not get caught by some guy Sharpe had pissed off.
He sighed. Harper was definitely going to have to talk to Sharpe one day about all of this. Talk to him in a way that won't get him in trouble, that is.
Harper couldn't say whether Sharpe was incredibly lucky or cursed. Lucky because of the fact that he survived so many impossible messes, and that was only counting the couple of years they knew each other. (Who knew how many problems Sharpe caused while he was in India?) And cursed because he kept winding up in them. One was enough to give normal men nightmares for the rest of their lives. Multiple well…
Harper can only thank God he is still alive now…
And he still needs to talk to Sharpe about all of this.