Now the regiment had marched away, going to fight somewhere abroad, but Sharpe, the morose quartermaster, had been left behind. “It’ll be a chance,” Colonel Beckwith had told Sharpe, “to clean out the hutments. Give them a damn good scouring, eh? Have everything ready for our return.”

“Yes, sir,” Sharpe had said, and thought Beckwith could go to hell. Sharpe was a soldier, not a damned barracks cleaner, but he had hidden his anger as he watched the regiment march north. No one knew where it was going. Some said Spain, others said they were going to Stralsund, which was a British garrison on the Baltic, though why the British held a garrison on the southern coast of the Baltic no one could explain, and a few claimed the regiment was going to Holland. No one actually knew, but they all expected to fight and they marched in fine spirits. They were the green jackets, a new regiment for a new century, but with no place for Richard Sharpe. So Sharpe had decided to run. Damn Beckwith, damn the greenjackets, damn the army and damn everything. He had reckoned he would sell his commission, take the money and find a new life. Except he could not sell because of the bloody regulations. God damn it, Grace, he thought, what do I do?

Only he knew what he was going to do. He was still going to run. Yet to start a new life he needed money, which was why he had made certain it was a Friday. Now he edged down the greasy stairs at the foot of Tower Hill and nodded to a waterman. “Wapping Steps,” he said, settling in the boat’s stern.

The waterman shoved off, letting the river current carry him downstream past Traitor’s Gate.