Sharpe's Triumph [181-011-3.5]

By: Bernard Cornwell

Category: fiction historical

Synopsis:

India, 1803.

siege of Seringapatarh, and four years in which Sharpe seems to have

discovered the easiest billet in the British army. But that comfort is

rudely shattered when he witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an

English officer who has defected from the East India Company to join

the mercenary army of the Mahratta Confederation commanded by the

flamboyant Hanoverian, Anthony Pohlmann.

Sharpe is ordered to join the hunt for the renegade Englishman, a hunt

that will take him deep into the enemy's territory where he will face

temptations more subtle than he has ever dreamed of. And behind him,

relentlessly stalking him, comes his worst enemy, the baleful,

twitching Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill who is determined to break Sharpe

once and for all.

The paths of treachery all lead to the small village of Assaye where

Sir Arthur Wellesley, with a tiny British army, faces the Mahratta

horde. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wellesley decides to fight, and

Sergeant Richard Sharpe is plunged into the white heat of a battle that

will make Wellesley's reputation. It will make Sharpe's name too, but

only if he can survive the carnage and killing frenzy, for it is at

Assaye that he at last realizes his ambition and has a chance to seize

it.

?ckoned to b greatest achievement. It will delight the millions of

readers who have enjoyed Sharpe's.later adventures in the Peninsular

War and at Waterloo.

By the same author The Sharpe novels (in chronological order)

SHARPE'S TIGER

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Senngapatam, 1799

SHARPE'S RIFLES

Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, "January 1809

SHARPF'S EAGLE

Richard Sharpe and the Talavna Campaign, July 1809

SHARPE'S GOLD

Richard Sharpe and the Destruction ofAlmeida, August 1810

SHARPE'S BATTLE

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811

SHARPE'S COMPANY

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz.

January to April 1812

SHARPE'S SWORD

Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812

SHARPE'S ENEMY

Richard Sharpe and the Defence of Portugal, Christmas 1812

SHARPE'S HONOUR

Richard Sharpe and the lritona Campaign, February to June 1813

SHARPE'S REGIMENT

Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of France, June to November 1813

SHARPE'S SIEGE

Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814

SHARPE'S REVENGE

Richard Sharpe and the Peace of 1814

SHARPE'S WATERLOO

Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign, 75 June to 18 June 1815

SHARPE'S DEVIL Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820 -21 The Starbuck

Chronicles

REBEL

COPPERHEAD

BATTLE FLAG

THE BLOODY GROUND

SHARPE'S

TRIUMPH

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803

BERNARD CORN WELL

HarperCollins/Publishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London

W6 8JB Published by HarperCollinsPwAfaAeK 1998 Copyright (c) Bernard

Gornwell 1998 The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as

the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library ISBN o oo 225630 4 Map by Ken Lewis Set in

Postscript Monotype Baskerville and Linotype Meridien by Rowland

Phototvpesetting Ltd, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk Printed and bound in

Great Britain by Caledonian International Book Manufacturing Ltd,

Glasgow All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form

or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

otherwise, without the permission of the publishers.

Sharpens Triumph is for Joel Gardner, who walked Ahmednuggur and Assaye

with me

CHAPTER 1

It was not Sergeant Richard Sharpe's fault. He was not in charge. He

was junior to at least a dozen men, including a major, a captain, a sub

adar and two jemadars, yet he still felt responsible. He felt

responsible, angry, hot, bitter and scared. Blood crusted on his face

where a thousand flies crawled. There were even flies in his open

mouth.

But he dared not move.

The humid air stank of blood and of the rotted egg smell made by powder

smoke. The very last thing he remembered doing was thrusting his pack,

haversack and cartridge box into the glowing ashes of a fire, and now

the ammunition from the cartridge box exploded. Each blast of powder

fountained sparks and ashes into the hot air. A couple of men laughed

at the sight. They stopped to watch it for a few seconds, poked at the

nearby bodies with their muskets, then walked on.

Sharpe lay still. A fly crawled on his eyeball and he forced himself

to stay absolutely motionless. There was blood on his face and more

blood had puddled in his right ear, though it was drying now. He

blinked, fearing that the small motion would attract one of the

killers, but no one noticed.

Chasalgaon. That's where he was. Chasalgaon; a miserable, thorn

walled fort on the frontier of Hyderabad, and because the Rajah of

Hyderabad was a British ally the fort had been garrisoned by a hundred

sepoys of the East India Company and fifty mercenary horsemen from

Mysore, only when Sharpe arrived half the sepoys and all of the

horsemen had been out on patrol.

Sharpe had come from Seringapatam, leading a detail of six privates and

carrying a leather bag stuffed with rupees, and he had been greeted by

Major Crosby who commanded at Chasalgaon. The Major proved to be a

plump, red-faced, bilious man who disliked the heat and hated

Chasalgaon, and he had slumped in his canvas chair as he unfolded

Sharpe's orders. He read them, grunted, then read them again.

"Why the hell did they send you?" he finally asked.

"No one else to send, sir."

Crosby frowned at the order.

"Why not an officer?"

"No officers to spare, sir."

"Bloody responsible job for a sergeant, wouldn't you say?"

"Won't let you down, sir," Sharpe said woodenly, staring at the leprous

yellow of the tent's canvas a few inches above the Major's head.

"You'd bloody well better not let me down," Crosby said, pushing the

orders into a pile of damp papers on his camp table.

"And you look bloody young to be a sergeant."

"I was born late, sir," Sharpe said. He was twenty-six, or thought he

was, and most sergeants were much older.

Crosby, suspecting he was being mocked, stared up at Sharpe, but there

was nothing insolent on the Sergeant's face. A good-looking man,

Crosby thought sourly. Probably had the bibb is of Seringapatam

falling out of their saris, and Crosby, whose wife had died of the

fever ten years before and who consoled himself with a two-rupee

village whore every Thursday night, felt a pang of jealousy.

"And how the devil do you expect to get the ammunition back to

Seringapatam?" he demanded.

"Hire ox carts, sir." Sharpe had long perfected the way to address

unhelpful officers. He gave them precise answers, added nothing

unnecessary and always sounded confident.

"With what? Promises?"

"Money, sir." Sharpe tapped his haversack where he had the bag of

rupees.

"Christ, they trust you with money?"

Sharpe decided not to respond to that question, but just stared

impassively at the canvas. Chasalgaon, he decided, was not a happy

place. It was a small fort built on a bluff above a river that should

have been overflowing its banks, but the monsoon had failed and the

land was cruelly dry. The fort had no ditch, merely a wall made of

cactus thorn with a dozen wooden fighting platforms spaced about its

perimeter. Inside the wall was a beaten-earth parade ground where a

stripped tree served as a flagpole, and the parade ground was

surrounded by three mud-walled barracks thatched with palm, a cook

house tents for the officers and a stone-walled magazine to store the

garrison's ammunition. The sepoys had their families with them, so the

fort was overrun with women and children, but Sharpe had noted how

sullen they were. Crosby, he thought, was one of those crabbed

officers who were only happy when all about them were miserable.

"I suppose you expect me to arrange the ox carts?" Crosby said

indignantly.

"I'll do it myself, sir."

"Speak the language, do you?" Crosby sneered.

"A sergeant, banker and interpreter, are you?"

"Brought an interpreter with me, sir," Sharpe said. Which was over

egging the pudding a bit, because Davi Lal was only thirteen, an urchin

off the streets of Seringapatam. He was a smart, mischievous child

whom Sharpe had found stealing from the armoury cook house and, after

giving the starving boy a clout around both ears to teach him respect

for His Britannic Majesty's property, Sharpe had taken him to Lali's

house and given him a proper meal, and Lali had talked to the boy and

learned that his parents were dead, that he had no relatives he knew

of, and that he lived by his wits. He was also covered in lice.

"Get rid of him," she had advised Sharpe, but Sharpe had seen something

of his own childhood in Davi Lal and so he had dragged him down to the

River Cauvery and given him a decent scrubbing.

After that Davi Lal had become Sharpe's errand boy. He learned to pipe

clay belts, blackball boots and speak his own version of English which,

because it came from the lower ranks, was liable to shock the gentler

born.

"You'll need three carts," Crosby said.

"Yes, sir," Sharpe said.

"Thank you, sir." He had known exactly how many carts he would need,

but he also knew it was stupid to pretend to knowledge in the face of

officers like Crosby.

"Find your damn carts," Crosby snapped, 'then let me know when you're

ready to load up."

"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir." Sharpe stiffened to attention,

about turned and marched from the tent to find Davi Lal and the six

privates waiting in the shade of one of the barracks.

"We'll have dinner," Sharpe told them, 'then sort out some carts this

afternoon."

"What's for dinner?" Private Atkins asked.

"Whatever Davi can filch from the cook house Sharpe said, 'but be nippy

about it, all right? I want to be out of this damn place tomorrow

morning."

Their job was to fetch eighty thousand rounds of prime musket ii

cartridges that had been stolen from the East India Company armoury in

Madras. The cartridges were the best quality in India, and the thieves

who stole them knew exactly who would pay the highest price for the

ammunition. The princedoms of the Mahratta Confederation were forever

at war with each other or else raiding the neighbouring states, but

now, in the summer of 1803, they faced an imminent invasion by British

forces. The threatened invasion had brought two of the biggest

Mahratta rulers into an alliance that now gathered its forces to repel

the British, and those rulers had promised the thieves a king's ransom

in gold for the cartridges, but one of the thieves who had helped break

into the Madras armoury had refused to let his brother join the band

and share in the profit, and so the aggrieved brother had betrayed the

thieves to the Company's spies and, two weeks later, the caravan

carrying the cartridges across India had been ambushed by sepoys not

far from Chasalgaon. The thieves had died or fled, and the recaptured

ammunition had been brought back to the fort's small magazine for

safekeeping. Now the eighty thousand cartridges were to be taken to

the armoury at Seringapatam, three days to the south, from where they

would be issued to the British troops who were readying themselves for

the war against the Mahrattas. A simple job, and Sharpe, who had spent

the last four years as a sergeant in the Seringapatam armoury, had been

given the responsibility.

Spoilage, Sharpe was thinking while his men boiled a cauldron of I

river water on a bullock-dung fire. That was the key to the next few

days, spoilage. Say seven thousand cartridges lost to damp? No one in

Seringapatam would argue with that, and Sharpe reckoned he could sell

the seven thousand cartridges on to Vakil Hussein, so long, of course,

as there were eighty thousand cartridges to begin with. Still, Major

Crosby had not quibbled with the figure, but just as Sharpe was

thinking that, so Major Crosby appeared from his tent with a cocked hat

on his head and a sword at his side.

"On your feet!" Sharpe snapped at his lads as the Major headed towards

them.

"Thought you were finding ox carts?" Crosby snarled at Sharpe.

"Dinner first, sir."

"Your food, I hope, and not ours? We don't get rations to feed King's

troops here, Sergeant." Major Crosby was in the service of the East

India Company, and though he wore a red coat like the King's army,

there was little love lost between the two forces.

"Our food, sir," Sharpe said, gesturing at the cauldron in which rice j

and kid meat, both stolen from Crosby's stores, boiled.

"Carried it with us, sir."

A hamldar shouted from the fort gate, demanding Crosby's attention, but

the Major ignored the shout.

"I forgot to mention one thing, Sergeant."

"Sir?"

Crosby looked sheepish for a moment, then remembered he was talking to

a mere sergeant.

"Some of the cartridges were spoiled. Damp got to them."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir," Sharpe said straight-faced.

"So I had to destroy them," Crosby said.

"Six or seven thousand as I remember."

"Spoilage, sir," Sharpe said.

"Happens all the time, sir."

"Exactly so," Crosby said, unable to hide his relief at Sharpe's easy

acceptance of his tale, 'exactly so," then he turned towards the

gate.

"Humidor?"

"Company troops approaching, sahibV "Where's Captain Leonard? Isn't he

officer of the day?" Crosby demanded.

"Here, sir, I'm here." A tall, gangling captain hurried from a tent,

tripped on a guy rope, recovered his hat, then headed for the gate.

Sharpe ran to catch up with Crosby who was also walking towards the

gate.

"You'll give me a note, sir?"

"A note? Why the devil should I give you a note?"

"Spoilage, sir," Sharpe said respectfully.

"I'll have to account for the cartridges, sir."

"Later," Crosby said, 'later."

"Yes, sir," Sharpe said.

"And sod you backwards, you miserable bastard," he added, though too

softly for Crosby to hear.

Captain Leonard clambered up to the platform beside the gate where

Crosby joined him. The Major took a telescope from his tail pocket and

slid the tubes open. The platform overlooked the small river that

should have been swollen by the seasonal rains into a flood, but the

failure of the monsoon had left only a trickle of water between the

flat grey rocks. Beyond the shrunken river, up on the skyline behind a

grove of trees, Crosby could see red-coated troops led by a European

officer mounted on a black horse, and his first thought was that it

must be Captain Roberts returning from patrol, but Roberts had a

piebald horse and, besides, he had only taken fifty sepoys whereas this

horse man led a company almost twice that size.

"Open the gate," Crosby ordered, and wondered who the devil it was. He

decided it was probably Captain Sullivan from the Company's post at

Milladar, another frontier fort like Chasalgaon, but what the hell was

Sullivan doing here? Maybe he was marching some new recruits to

toughen the bastards, not that the skinny little brutes needed any

toughening, but it was uncivil of Sullivan not to warn Crosby of his

coming.

"Jemadar," Crosby shouted, 'turn out the guard!"

"Sahibl' The Jemadar acknowledged the order. Other sepoys were

dragging the thorn gates open.

He'll want dinner, Crosby thought sourly, and wondered what his

servants were cooking for the midday meal. Kid, probably, in boiled

rice.

Well, Sullivan would just have to endure the stringy meat as a price

for not sending any warning, and damn the man if he expected Crosby to

feed his sepoys as well. Chasalgaon's cooks had not expected visitors

and would not have enough rations for a hundred more hungry sepoys.

"Is that Sullivan?" he asked Leonard, handing the Captain the

telescope.

Leonard stared for a long time at the approaching horseman.

"I've never met Sullivan," he finally said, "so I couldn't say."

Crosby snatched back the telescope.

"Give the bastard a salute when he arrives," Crosby ordered Leonard,

'then tell him he can join me for dinner." He paused.

"You too, he added grudgingly.

Crosby went back to his tent. It was better, he decided, to let

Leonard welcome the stranger, rather than look too eager himself. Damn

Sullivan, he thought, for not sending warning, though there was a

bright side, inasmuch as Sullivan might have brought news. The tall,

good-looking Sergeant from Seringapatam doubtless could have told

Crosby the latest rumours from Mysore, but it would be a chill day in

hell before Crosby sought news from a sergeant. But undoubtedly

something was changing in the wider world, for it had been nine weeks

since Crosby last saw a Mahratta raider, and that was decidedly odd.

The purpose of the fort at Chasalgaon was to keep the Mahratta horse

raiders out of the Rajah of Hyderabad's wealthy territory, and Crosby

fancied he had done his job well, but even so he found the absence of

any enemy marauders oddly worrying. What were the bastards up to? He

sat behind his table and shouted for his clerk. He would write the

damned armoury Sergeant a note explaining that the loss of seven

thousand cartridges was due to a leak in the stone roof of Chasalgaon's

magazine. He certainly could not admit that he had sold the ammunition

to a merchant.

"What the bastard did," Sharpe was saying to his men, 'was sell the

bloody stuff to some heathen bastard."

"That's what you were going to do, Sergeant," Private Phillips said.

"Never you bleeding mind what I was going to do," Sharpe said.

"Ain't that food ready?"

"Five minutes," Davi Lal promised.

"A bloody camel could do it faster," Sharpe grumbled, then hoisted his

pack and haversack.

"I'm going for a piss."

"He never goes anywhere without his bleeding pack," Atkins commented.

"Doesn't want you thieving his spare shirt," Phillips answered.

"He's got more than a shirt in that pack. Hiding something he is."

Atkins twisted round.

"Hey. Hedgehog!" They all called Davi Lal "Hedgehog' because his hair

stuck up in spikes; no matter how greasy it was or how short it was

cut, it still stuck up in unruly spikes.

"What does Sharpie keep in the pack?"

Davi Lal rolled his eyes.

"Jewels! Gold. Rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and pearls."

"Like sod he does."

Davi Lal laughed, then turned back to the cauldron. Out by the fort's

gate Captain Leonard was greeting the visitors. The guard presented

arms as the officer leading the sepoys rode through the gate. The

visitor returned the salute by touching a riding crop to the brim of

his cocked hat which, worn fore and aft, shadowed his face. He was a

tall man, uncommonly tall, and he wore his stirrups long so that he

looked much too big for his horse, which was a sorry, sway-backed beast

with a mangy hide, though there was nothing odd in that. Good horses

were a luxury in India, and most Company officers rode decrepit nags.

"Welcome to Chasalgaon, sir," Leonard said. He was not certain he

ought to call the stranger 'sir', for the man wore no visible badge of

rank on his red coat, but he carried himself like a senior officer and

he reacted to Leonard's greeting with a lordly nonchalance.

"You're invited to dine with us, sir," Leonard added, hurrying after

the horseman who, having tucked his riding crop under his belt, now led

his sepoys straight onto the parade ground. He stopped his horse under

the flagpole from which the British flag drooped in the windless air,

then waited as his company of red-coated sepoys divided into two units

of two ranks each that marched either side of the flagpole. Crosby

watched from inside his tent. It was a flamboyant entrance, the Major

decided.

"Halt!" the strange officer shouted when his company was in the very

centre of the fort. The sepoys halted.

"Outwards turn! Ground fire locks

Good morning!" He at last looked down at Captain Leonard.

"Are you Crosby?"

"No, sir. I'm Captain Leonard, sir. And you, sir?" The tall man

ignored the question. He scowled about Chasalgaon's fort as though he

disapproved of everything he saw. What the hell was this? Leonard

wondered. A surprise inspection?

"Shall I have your horse watered, sir?"

Leonard offered.

"In good time, Cartfain, all in good time," the mysterious officer

said, then he twisted in, his saddle and growled an order to his

company.

"Fix bayonets!" The sepoys pulled out their seventeen-inch blades and

slotted them onto the muzzles of their muskets.

"I like to offer a proper salute to a fellow Englishman," the tall man

explained to Leonard.

"You are English, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Too many damned Scots in the Company," the tall man grumbled.

"Have you ever noticed that, Leonard? Too many Scots and Irish. Glib

sorts of fellow, they are, but they ain't English. Not English at

all." The visitor drew his sword, then took a deep breath.

"Company!" he shouted.

"Level arms!"

The sepoys brought their muskets to their shoulders and Leonard saw,

much too late, that the guns were aimed at the troops of the

garrison.

"No!" he said, but not loudly, for he still did not believe what he

saw.

"Fire!" the officer shouted, and the parade ground air was murdered by

the double ripple of musket shots, heavy coughing explosions that

blossomed smoke across the sun-crazed mud and slammed lead balls into

the unsuspecting garrison.

"Hunt them now!" the tall officer called.

"Hunt them! Fast, fast, fast!"

He spurred his horse close to Captain Leonard and, almost casually,

slashed down with his sword, ripping the blade hard back once it had

bitten into the Captain's neck so that its edge sawed fast and deep

through the sinew, muscle and flesh.

"Hunt them! Hunt them!" the officer shouted as Leonard fell. He drew

a pistol from his saddle holster and rode towards the officers' tents.

His men were screaming their war cries as they spread through the small

fort to chase down every last sepoy of Chasalgaon's garrison. They had

been ordered to leave the women and children to the last and hunt down

the men first.

Crosby had been staring in horror and disbelief, and now, with shaking

hands, he started to load one of his pistols, but suddenly the door of

his tent darkened and he saw that the tall officer had dismounted from

his horse.

"Are you Crosby?" the officer demanded.

Crosby found he could not speak. His hands quivered. Sweat was

pouring down his face.

"Are you Crosby?" the man asked again in an irritated voice.

"Yes," Crosby managed to say.

"And who the devil are you?"

"Dodd," the tall man said, "Major William Dodd, at your service." And

Dodd raised his big pistol so that it pointed at Crosby's face.

"No!" Crosby shouted.

Dodd smiled.

"I assume you're surrendering the fort to me, Crosby?"

"Damn you," Crosby riposted feebly.

"You drink too much, Major," Dodd said.

"The whole Company knows you're a sot. Didn't put up much of a fight,

did you?" He pulled the trigger and Crosby's head was snatched back in

a mist of blood that spattered onto the canvas.

"Pity you're English," Dodd said.

"I'd much rather shoot a Scotsman." The dying Major made a terrible

gurgling sound, then his body jerked uncontrollably and was finally

still.

"Praise the Lord, pull down the flag and find the pay chest," Dodd said

to himself, then he stepped over the Major's corpse to see that the pay

chest was where he expected it to be, under the bed.

"SubadaA' "Sahib?"

"Two men here to guard the pay chest."

"Sahibr Major Dodd hurried back onto the parade ground where a small

group of redcoats, British redcoats, were offering defiance, and he

wanted to make sure that his sepoys took care of them, but a havildar

had anticipated Dodd's orders and was leading a squad of men against

the half-dozen soldiers.

"Put the blades in!" Dodd encouraged them.

"Hard in!

Twist them in! That's the way! Watch your left! Left!" His voice

was urgent for a tall sergeant had suddenly appeared from behind the

cook house a white man with a musket and bayonet in his hands, but one

of the sepoys still had a loaded musket of his own and he twisted,

aimed and fired and Dodd saw another mist of bright blood sparkle in

the sunlight. The sergeant had been hit in the head. He stopped,

looked surprised as the musket fell from his hands and as blood

streamed down his face, then he fell backwards and was still.

"Search for the rest of the bastards!" Dodd ordered, knowing that

there must still be a score of the garrison hidden in the barracks.

Some of the men had escaped over the thorn wall, but they would be

hunted down by the Mahratta horsemen who were Dodd's allies and who

should by now have spread either side of the fort.

"Search hard!" He himself went to look at the horses of the garrison's

officers and decided that one of them was marginally better than his

own. He moved his saddle to the better horse, then led it into the

sunlight and picketed it to the flagpole. A woman ran past him,

screaming as she fled from the red-coated killers, but a sepoy caught

and tripped her and another pulled the said off her shoulder. Dodd was

about to order them away from the woman, then he reckoned that the

enemy was well beaten and so his men could take their pleasure in

safety.

"Subadar?" he shouted.

"Sahib?"

"One squad to make sure everyone's dead. Another to open the armoury.

And there are a couple of horses in the stable. Pick one for yourself,

and we'll take the other back to Pohlmann. And well done, Gopal."

"Thank you, sahib," Subadar Gopal said.

Dodd wiped the blood from his sword, then reloaded his pistol. One of

the fallen redcoats was trying to turn himself over, so Dodd crossed to

the wounded man, watched his feeble efforts for a moment, then put a

bullet into the man's head. The man jerked in spasm, then was still.

Major Dodd scowled at the blood that had sprayed his boots, but he

spat, stooped and wiped the blood away. Sharpe watched the tall

officer from the corner of his eye. He felt responsible, angry, hot,

bitter and scared.

The blood had poured from the wound in his scalp. He was dizzy, his

head throbbed, but he was alive. There were flies in his mouth. And

then his ammunition began to explode and the tall officer whipped

round, thinking it was trouble, and a couple of men laughed at the

sight of the ashes bursting into the air with each small crack of

powder.

Sharpe dared not move. He listened to women screaming and children

crying, then heard hooves and he waited until some horsemen came into

view. They were Indians, of course, and all wild-looking! men with

sabres, matchlocks, spears, lances and even bows and arrows.! They

slid out of their saddles and joined the hunt for loot.

Sharpe lay like the dead. The crusting blood was thick on his face.

The blow of the musket ball had stunned him, so that he did not

remember dropping his own musket or falling to the ground, but he

sensed that the blow was not deadly. Not even deep. He had a

headache, and the skin of his face felt taut with the crusted blood,

but he knew head wounds always bled profusely. He tried to make his

breathing shallow, left his mouth open and did not even gag when a fly

crawled down to the root of his tongue, and then he could smell

tobacco, arrack, leather and sweat and a horseman was bending over him

with a horrid-looking curved knife with a rusty blade and Sharpe feared

his throat was about to be cut, but instead the horseman began slashing

at the pockets of Sharpe's uniform.

He found the big key that opened Seringapatam's main magazine, a key

that Sharpe had ordered cut in the bazaar so that he would not always

have to fill in the form in the armoury guardhouse. The man tossed the

key away, slit another pocket, found nothing valuable and so moved on

to another body. Sharpe stared up at the sun.

Somewhere nearby a garrison sepoy groaned, and almost immediately he

was bayoneted and Sharpe heard the hoarse exhalation of breath as the

man died and the sucking sound as the murderer dragged the blade back

from the constricting flesh. It had all happened so fast! And Sharpe

blamed himself, though he knew it was not his fault. He had not let

the killers into the fort, but he had hesitated for a few seconds to

throw his pack, pouches and cartridge box onto the fire, and now he

chided himself because maybe he could have used those few seconds to

save his six men.

Except most of them had already been dead or dying when Sharpe had

first realized there was a fight. He had been pissing against the back

wall of the cook house store hut when a musket ball ripped through the

reed-mat wall and for a second or two he had just stood there,

incredulous, hardly believing the shots and screams his ears

registered, and he had not bothered to button his trousers, but just

turned and saw the dying campfire and had thrown his pack onto it, and

by the time he had cocked the musket and run back to where his men had

been expecting dinner the fight was almost over. The musket ball had

jerked his head back and there had been a stabbing pain either side of

his eyes, and the next he knew he was lying with blood crusting on his

face and flies crawling down his gullet.

But maybe he could have snatched his men back. He tortured himself

with the thought that he could have saved Davi Lal and a couple of the

privates, maybe he could have crossed the cactus-thorn wall and run

into the trees, but Davi Lal was dead and all six privates were dead

and Sharpe could hear the killers laughing as they carried the

ammunition out of the small magazine.

"Subadar!" the tall officer shouted.

"Fetch that bloody flag down! I wanted it done an hour ago!"

Sharpe blinked again because he could not help himself, but no one

noticed, and then he closed his eyes because the sun was blinding him,

and he wanted to weep out of anger and frustration and hatred. Six men

dead, and Davi Lal dead, and Sharpe had not been able to do a damned

thing to help them, and he wondered who the tall officer was, and then

a voice provided the answer.

"Major Dodd, sahib?"

"Subadar?"

"Everything's loaded, sahib."

"Then let's go before their patrols get back. Well done, Subadart Tell

the men there'll be a reward."

Sharpe listened as the raiders left the fort. Who the hell were

they?

Major Dodd had been in East India Company uniform, and so had all his

men for that matter, but they sure as hell were not Company troops.

They were bastards, that's what they were, bastards from hell and they

had done a thorough piece of wicked work in Chasalgaon. Sharpe doubted

they had lost a single man in their treacherous attack, and still he

lay silent as the sounds faded away. A baby cried somewhere, a woman

sobbed, and still Sharpe waited until at last he was certain that Major

Dodd and his men were gone, and only then did Sharpe roll onto his

side. The fort stank of blood and buzzed with flies. He groaned and

got to his knees. The cauldron of rice and kid had boiled dry and so

he stood and kicked it off its tripod.

"Bastards," he said, and he saw the surprised look on Davi Lal's face

and he wanted to weep for the boy.

A half-naked woman, bleeding from the mouth, saw Sharpe stand from

among the bloodied heap of the dead and she screamed before snatching

her child back into a barracks hut. Sharpe ignored her. His musket

was gone. Every damn weapon was gone.

"Bastards!" he shouted into the hot air, then he kicked at a dog that

was sniffing at Phillips's corpse. The smell of blood and powder and

burned rice was thick in his throat. He gagged as he walked into the

cook house and there found a jar of water. He drank deep, then

splashed the water onto his face and rubbed away the clotted blood. He

wet a rag and flinched as he cleaned the shallow wound in his scalp,

then suddenly he was overcome with horror and pity and he fell onto his

knees and half sobbed. He swore instead.

"Bastards!" He said the word again and again, helplessly and

furiously, then he remembered his pack and so he stood again and went

into the sunlight.

The ashes of the fire were still hot and the charred canvas remnants of

his pack and pouches glowed red as he found a stick and raked through

the embers. One by one he found what he had hidden in the fire. The

rupees that had been for hiring the carts, then the rubies and

emeralds, diamonds and pearls, sapphires and gold. He fetched a sack

of rice from the cook house and he emptied the grains onto the ground

and filled the sack with his treasure. A king's ransom, it was, and it

had been taken from a king four years before in the Water Gate at

Seringapatam where Sharpe had trapped the Tippoo Sultan and shot him

down before looting his corpse.

Then, with the treasure clutched to his midriff, he knelt in the stench

of Chasalgaon and felt guilty. He had survived a massacre. Anger

mingled with his guilt, then he knew he had duties to do. He must find

any others who had survived, he must help them, and he must work out

how he could take his revenge.

On a man called Dodd.

Major John Stokes was an engineer, and if ever a man was happy with his

avocation, it was Major John Stokes. There was nothing he enjoyed so

much as making things, whether it was a better gun carriage, a garden

or, as he was doing now, improvements to a clock that belonged to the

Rajah of Mysore. The Rajah was a young man, scarcely more than a boy

indeed, and he owed his throne to the British troops who had ejected

the usurping Tippoo Sultan and, as a result, relations between the

palace and Seringapatam's small British garrison were good. Major

Stokes had found the clock in one of the palace's antechambers and

noted its appalling accuracy, which is why he had brought it back to

the armoury where he was happily taking it apart.

"It isn't signed," he told his visitor, 'and I suspect it's local work.

But a Frenchman had his hand in it, I can tell that. See the

escapement? Typical French work, that."

The visitor peered at the tangle of cogwheels.

"Didn't know the Frogs had it in them to make clocks, sir," he said.

"Oh, indeed they do!" Stokes said reprovingly.

"And very fine clocks they make! Very fine. Think of Lepine! Think

of Berthoud! How can you ignore Montandon? And Breguet!" The Major

shook his head in mute tribute to such great craftsmen, then peered at

the Rajah's sorry timepiece.

"Some rust on the mainspring, I see. That don't help. Soft metal, I

suspect. It's catch as catch can over here. I've noticed that.

Marvellous decorative work, but Indians make shoddy mechanics.

Look at that mainspring! A disgrace."

"Shocking, sir, shocking." Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill did not know a

mainspring from a pendulum, and could not have cared less about either,

but he needed information from Major Stokes so it was politic to show

an interest.

"It was striking nine when it should have struck eight," the Major

said, poking a finger into the clock's entrails, 'or perhaps it was

striking eight when it ought to have sounded nine. I don't recall. One

to seven it copes with admirably, but somewhere about eight it becomes

wayward." The Major, who was in charge of Seringapatam's armoury, was

a plump, cheerful fellow with prematurely white hair.

"Do you understand clocks, Sergeant?"

"Can't say as I does, sir. A simple soldier, me, sir, who has the sun

as his clock." The Sergeant's face twitched horribly. It was an

uncontrollable spasm that racked his face every few seconds.

"You were asking about Sharpe," Major Stokes said, peering into the

clock.

"Well, I never! This fellow has made the bearings out of wood! Good

Lord above. Wood! No wonder she's wayward! Harrison once made a

wooden clock, did you know? Even the gearings! All from timber."

"Harrison, sir? Is he in the army, sir?"

"He's a clock maker Sergeant, a clock maker A very fine clock maker

too."

"Not a Frog, sir?"

"With a name like Harrison? Good Lord, no! He's English, and he makes

a good honest clock."

"Glad to hear it, sir," Hakeswill said, then reminded the Major of the

purpose of his visit to the armoury.

"Sergeant Sharpe, sir, my good friend, sir, is he here?"

"He is here," Stokes said, at last looking up from the clock, 'or

rather he was here. I saw him an hour ago. But he went to his

quarters. He's been away, you see. Involved in that dreadful business

in Chasalgaon."

"Chiseldown, sir?"

"Terrible business, terrible! So I told Sharpe to clean himself up.

Poor fellow was covered in blood! Looked like a pirate. Now that is

interesting."

"Blood, sir?" Hakeswill asked.

"A six-toothed scape wheel With a bifurcated locking piece! Well, I

never! That is enriching the pudding with currants. Rather like

putting an Egg lock on a common pistol! I'm sure if you wait.

Sergeant, Sharpe will be back soon. He's a marvelous fellow. Never

lets me down."

Hakeswill forced a smile for he hated Sharpe with a rare and single

minded venom.

"He's one of the best, sir," he said, his face twitching.

"And will he be leaving Seringapatam soon, sir? Off on an errand

again, would he be?"

"Oh no!" Stokes said, picking up a magnifying glass to look more

closely into the clock.

"I need him here, Sergeant. That's it, you see!

There's a pin missing from the strike wheel. It engages the cogs here,

do you see, and the gearing does the rest. Simple, I suppose." The

Major looked up, but saw that the strange Sergeant with the twitching

face was gone. Never mind, the clock was far more interesting.

Sergeant Hakeswill left the armoury and turned left towards the

barracks where he had temporary accommodation. The King's 33rd was

quartered now in Hurryhur, a hundred and fifty miles to the north, and

their job was to keep the roads of western Mysore clear of bandits and

so the regiment ranged up and down the country and, finding themselves

close to Seringapatam where the main armoury was located, Colonel Gore

had sent a detachment for replacement ammunition. Captain Morris of

the Light Company had drawn the duty, and he had brought half his men

and Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill to protect the shipment which would

leave the city next morning and be carried on ox carts to Arrakerry

where the regiment was currently camped. An easy task, but one that

had offered Sergeant Hakeswill an opportunity he had long sought.

The Sergeant stopped in one of the grog shops and demanded arrack.

The shop was empty, all but for himself, the owner and a legless beggar

who heaved himself towards the Sergeant and received a kick in the rump

for his trouble.

"Get out of here, you scabby bastard!" Hakeswill shouted.

"Bringing the flies in, you are. Go on! Piss off." The shop thus

emptied to his satisfaction, Hakeswill sat in a dark corner

contemplating life.

"I chide myself," he muttered aloud, worrying the shop's owner who

feared the look of the twitching man in the red coat.

"Your own fault, Obadiah," Hakeswill said.

"You should have seen it years ago! Years! Rich as a Jew, he is. Are

you listening to me, you heathen darkie bastard?" The shop's owner,

thus challenged, fled into the back room, leaving Hakeswill grumbling

at the table.

"Rich as a Jew, Sharpie is, only he thinks he hides it, which he don't,

on account of me having tumbled to him. He don't even live in

barracks! Got himself some rooms over by the Mysore Gate. Got a

bleeding servant boy. Always got cash on him, always! Buys drinks."

Hakeswill shook his head at the injustice of it all. The 33rd had

spent the last four years patrolling Mysore's roads and Sharpe, all

that while, had been living in Seringapatam's comforts. It was not

right, not fair, not just. Hakeswill had worried about it, wondering

why Sharpe was so rich. At first he had assumed that Sharpe had been

fiddling the armoury stores, but that could not explain Sharpe's

apparent wealth.

"Only so much milk in a cow," Hakeswill muttered, 'no matter how hard

you squeeze the teats." Now he knew why Sharpe was rich, or he thought

he knew, and what he had learned had filled Obadiah Hakeswill with a

desperate jealousy. He scratched at a mosquito bite on his neck,

revealing the old dark scar where the hangman's rope had burned and

abraded his skin. Obadiah Hakeswill had survived that hanging, and as

a result he fervently believed that he could not be killed. Touched by

God, he claimed he was, touched by God.

But he was not rich. Not rich at all, and Richard Sharpe was rich.

Rumour had it that Richard Sharpe used Lali's house, and that was an

officers-only brothel, so why was Sergeant Sharpe allowed inside?

Because he was rich, that was why, and Hakeswill had at last discovered

Sharpe's secret.

"It was the Tippoo!" he said aloud, then thumped the table with his

tin mug to demand more drink.

"And hurry up about it, you black-faced bastard!"

It had to be the Tippoo. Had not Hakeswill seen Sharpe lurking about

the area where the Tippoo had been killed? And no soldier had ever

claimed the credit for killing the Tippoo. It was widely thought that

one of those Suffolk bastards from the south had caught the King in the

chaos at the siege's end, but Hakeswill had finally worked it out. It

had been Sharpe, and the reason Sharpe had kept quiet about the killing

was because he had stripped the Tippoo of all his gems and he did not

want anyone, least of all the army's senior officers, to knowj that he

possessed the jewels.

"Bloody Sharpe!" Hakeswill said aloud.

So all that was needed now was an excuse to have Sharpe brought back to

the regiment. No more clean and easy duty for Sharpie! No more merry

rides in Lali's house for him. It would be Obadiah Hakeswill's turn to

live in luxury, and all because of a dead king's treasure.

"Rubies," Hakeswill said aloud, lingering over the word, 'and emeralds

and sapphires, and diamonds like stars, and gold thick as butter." He

chuckled. And all it would need, he reckoned, was a little cunning. A

little cunning, a confident lie and an arrest.

"And that will be your end, Sharpie, that will be your end," Hakeswill

said, and he could feel the beauty of his scheme unfold like a lotus

blossoming in Seringapa-tam's moat. It would work! His visit to Major

Stokes had established that Sharpe was in the town, which meant that

the lie could be told and then, just like Major Stokes's clockwork,

everything would go right. Every cog and gear and wheel and spike

would slot and click and tick and tock, and Sergeant Hakeswill's face

twitched and his hands contracted as though the tin mug in his grip

were a man's throat. He would be rich.

It took Major William Dodd three days to carry the ammunition back to

Pohlmann's compoo which was camped just outside the Mahratta city of

Ahmednuggur. The compoo was an infantry brigade of eight battalions,

each of them recruited from among the finest mercenary warriors of

north India and all trained and commanded by European officers.

Dowlut Rao Scindia, the Maharajah of Gwalior, whose land stretched from

the fortress of Baroda in the north to the fastness of Gawilghur in the

east and down to Ahmednuggur in the south, boasted that he led a

hundred thousand men and that his army could blacken the land like a

plague, yet this compoo, with its seven thousand men, was the hard

heart of his army.

One of the compoo's eight battalions was paraded a mile outside the

encampment to greet Dodd. The cavalry that had accompanied the sepoys

to Chasalgaon had ridden ahead to warn Pohlmann of Dodd's return and

Pohlmann had organized a triumphant reception. The battalion stood in

white coats, their black belts and weapons gleaming, but Dodd, riding

at the head of his small column, had eyes only for the tall elephant

that stood beside a yellow-and-white-striped marquee. The huge beast

glittered in the sunlight, for its body and head were armoured with a

vast leather cape onto which squares of silver had been sewn in

intricate patterns. The silver covered the elephant's body,

continued across its face and then, all but for two circles that had

been cut for its eyes, cascaded on down the length of its trunk. Gems

gleamed between the silver plates while ribbons of purple silk

fluttered from the crown of the animal's head. The last few inches of

the animal's big curved tusks were sheathed in silver, though the

actual points of the tusks were tipped with needle-sharp points of

steel. The elephant driver, the mahout, sweated in a coat of

old-fashioned chain mail that had been burnished to the same gleaming

polish as his animal's silver armour, while behind him was a howdah

made of cedar wood on which gold panels had been nailed and above which

fluttered a fringed canopy of yellow silk. Long files of

purple-jacketed infantrymen stood to attention on either flank of the

elephant. Some of the men carried muskets, while others had long pikes

with their broad blades polished to resemble silver.

The elephant knelt when Dodd came within twenty paces and the occupant

of the howdah stepped carefully down onto a set of silver-plated steps

placed there by one of his purple-coated bodyguards then strolled into

the shade of the striped marquee. He was a European, a tall man and

big, not fat, and though a casual glance might think him overweight, a

second glance would see that most of that weight was solid muscle. He

had a round sun-reddened face, big black moustaches and eyes that

seemed to take delight in everything he saw. His uniform was of his

own devising: white silk breeches tucked into English riding boots, a

green coat festooned with gold lace and aiguillettes and, on the coat's

broad shoulders, thick white silk cushions hung with short golden

chains. The coat had scarlet facings and loops of scarlet braid about

its turned-back cuffs and gilded buttons. The big man's hat was a

bicorne crested with purple-dyed feathers held in place by a badge

showing the white horse of Hanover; his sword's hilt was made of gold

fashioned into the shape of an elephant's head, and gold rings glinted

on his big fingers. Once in the shade of the open-sided marquee he

settled himself on a divan where his aides gathered about him. This

was Colonel Anthony Pohlmann and he commanded the compoo, together with

five hundred cavalry and twenty-six field guns. Ten years before, when

Scindia's army had been nothing but a horde of ragged troopers on

half-starved horses, Anthony Pohlmann had been a sergeant in a

Hanoverian regiment of the East India Company; now he rode an elephant

and needed two other beasts to carry the chests off gold coin that

travelled everywhere with him.

Pohlmann stood as Dodd climbed down from his horse.

"Well done, Major!" the Colonel called in his German-accented

English.

"Exceedingly well done!" Pohlmann's aides, half of them European and

half Indian, joined their commander in applauding the returning hero,

while the bodyguard made a double line through which Dodd could advance

to meet the resplendent Colonel.

"Eighty thousand cartridges," Pohlmann exulted, 'snatched from our

enemies!"

"Seventy-three thousand, sir," Dodd said, beating dust off his

breeches.

Pohlmann grinned.

"Seven thousand spoiled, eh? Nothing changes."

"Not spoiled by me, sir," Dodd growled.

"I never supposed so," Pohlmann said.

"Did you have any difficulties?"

"None," Dodd answered confidently.

"We lost no one, sir, not even a scratch, while not a single enemy

soldier survived." He smiled, cracking the dust on his cheeks.

"Not one."

"A victory!" Pohlmann said, then gestured Dodd into the tent.

"We have wine, of sorts. There is rum, arrack, even water! Come,

Major."

Dodd did not move.

"My men are tired, sir," he pointed out.

"Then dismiss them, Major. They can take refreshment at my cook

tent."

Dodd went to dismiss his men. He was a gangling Englishman with a long

sallow face and a sullen expression. He was also that rarest of

things, an officer who had deserted from the East India Company, and

deserted moreover with one hundred and thirty of his own sepoy troops.

He had come to Pohlmann just three weeks before and some of Pohlmann's

European officers had been convinced that Lieutenant Dodd was a spy

sent by the British whose army was readying to attack the Mahratta

Confederation, but Pohlmann had not been so sure. It was true that no

other British officer had ever deserted like Dodd, but few had reasons

like Dodd, and Pohlmann had also recognized Dodd's hunger, his

awkwardness, his anger and his ability. Lieutenant Dodd's record

showed he was no mean soldier, his sepoys liked him, and he had a

raging ambition, and Pohlmann had believed the Lieutenant's defection

to be both wholehearted and real. He had made Dodd into a major, then

given him a test. He had sent him to Chasalgaon. If Dodd proved

capable of killing his old comrades then he was no spy, and Dodd had

passed the test triumphantly and Scindia's army was now better off by

seventy-three thousand cartridges.

Dodd came back to the marquee and was given the chair of honour on the

right side of Pohlmann's divan. The chair on the left was occupied by

a woman, a European, and Dodd could scarcely keep his eyes from her,

and no wonder, for she was a rare-looking woman to discover in India.

She was young, scarce more than eighteen or nineteen, with a pale face

and very fair hair. Her lips were maybe a trifle too thin and her

forehead perhaps a half inch too wide, yet there was something oddly

attractive about her. She had a face, Dodd decided, in which the

imperfections added up to attractiveness, and her appeal was augmented

by a timid air of vulnerability. At first Dodd assumed the woman was

Pohlmann's mistress, but then he saw that her white linen dress was

frayed at the hem and some of the lace at its modest collar was crudely

darned, and he decided that Pohlmann would never allow his mistress to

appear so shabbily.

"Let me introduce Madame Joubert to you," Pohlmann said, who had

noticed how hungrily Dodd had stared at the woman.

"This is Major William Dodd."

"Madame Joubert?" Dodd stressed the "Madame', half rising and bowing

from his chair as he acknowledged her.

"Major," she said in a low voice, then smiled nervously before looking

down at the table that was spread with dishes of almonds.

Pohlmann snapped his fingers for a servant, then smiled at Major

Dodd.

"Simone is married to Captain Joubert, and that is Captain Joubert." He

pointed into the sunlight where a short captain stood to attention in

front of the paraded battalion that stood so stiff and still in the

biting sun.

Joubert commands the battalion, sir?" Dodd asked.

"No one commands the battalion," Pohlmann answered.

"But until three weeks ago it was led by Colonel Mathers. Back then it

had five European officers; now it has Captain Joubert and Lieutenant

Silliere."

He pointed to a second European, a tall thin young man, and Dodd, who

was observant, saw Simone Joubert blush at the mention of Silliere's

name. Dodd was amused. Joubert looked at least twenty years older

than his wife, while Silliere was only a year or two her senior.

"And we must have Europeans," Pohlmann went on, stretching back on the

divan that creaked under his weight.

"The Indians are fine soldiers, but we need Europeans who understand

European tactics."

"How many European officers have you lost, sir?" Dodd asked.

"From this compoo? Eighteen," Pohlmann said.

"Too many." The men who had gone were the British officers, and all

had possessed contracts with Scindia that excused them from fighting

against their own countrymen, and to make matters worse the East India

Company had offered a bribe to any British officer who deserted the

Mahrattas and, as a result, some of Pohlmann's best men were gone. It

was true that he still had some good officers left, most of them

French, with a handful of Dutchmen, Swiss and Germans, but Pohlmann

knew he could ill afford the loss of eighteen European officers. At

least none of his artillerymen had deserted and Pohlmann put great

faith in the battle-winning capacity of his guns. Those cannon were

served by Portuguese, or by half-breed Indians from the Portuguese

colonies in India, and those professionals had stayed loyal and were

awesomely proficient.

Pohlmann drained a glass of rum and poured himself another. He had an

extraordinary capacity for alcohol, a capacity Dodd did not share, and

the Englishman, knowing his propensity for getting drunk, restrained

himself to sips of watered wine.

"I promised you a reward, Major, if you succeeded in rescuing the

cartridges," Pohlmann said genially.

"Knowing I've done my duty is reward enough," Dodd said. He felt

shabby and ill-uniformed among Pohlmann's gaudy aides and had decided

that it was best to play the bluff soldier, a role he thought would

appeal to a former sergeant. It was said that Pohlmann kept his old

East India Company uniform as a reminder of just how far he had

risen.

"Men do not join Scindia's army merely for the pleasures of doing their

duty," Pohlmann said, 'but for the rewards such service offers. We are

here to become rich, are we not?" He unhooked the elephant-hilted

sword from his belt. The scabbard was made of soft red leather and was

studded with small emeralds.

"Here." Pohlmann offered the sword to Dodd.

"I can't take your sword!" Dodd protested.

"I have many, Major, and many finer. I insist."

Dodd took the sword. He drew the blade from the scabbard and saw that

it was finely made, much better than the drab sword he had worn as a

lieutenant these last twenty years. Many Indian swords were made of

soft steel and broke easily in combat, but Dodd guessed this blade had

been forged in France or Britain, then given its beautiful elephant

hilt in India. That hilt was of gold, the elephant's head made the

pommel, while the handguard was the beast's curved trunk. The grip was

of black leather bound with gold wire.

"Thank you, sir," he said feelingly.

"It is the first of many rewards," Pohlmann said airily, 'and those

rewards will shower on us when we beat the British. Which we shall,

though not here." He paused to drink rum.

"The British will attack any day now," he went on, 'and they doubtless

hope I'll stay and fight them here, but I don't have a mind to oblige

them. Better to make the bastards march after us, eh? The rains may

come while they pursue us and the rivers will hold them up. Disease

will weaken them. And once they are weak and tired, we shall be

strong. All Scindia's compoos will join together and the Rajah of

Berar has promised his army, and once we are all gathered we shall

crush the British. But that means I have to give up Ahmednuggur."

"Not an important city," Dodd commented. He noticed that Simone

Joubert was sipping wine. She kept her eyes lowered, only occasionally

glancing up at her husband or at Lieutenant Silliere. She took no

notice of Dodd, but she would, he promised himself, she would. Her

nose was too small, he decided, but even so she was a thing of pale and

fragile wonder in this hot, dark-skinned land. Her blonde hair, which

was hung with ringlets in a fashion that had prevailed ten years before

in Europe, was held in place by small mother-of-pearl clips.

"Ahmednuggur is not important," Pohlmann agreed, 'but Scindia hates

losing any of his cities and he stuffed Ahmednuggur full of supplies

and insisted I post one regiment inside the city." He nodded towards

the white-coated troops.

"That regiment, Major. It's probably my best regiment, but I am forced

to quarter it in Ahmednuggur."

Dodd understood Pohlmann's predicament.

"You can't take them out of the city without upsetting Scindia," he

said, 'but you don't want to lose the regiment when the city falls."

"I can't lose it!" Pohlmann said indignantly.

"A good regiment like that? Mathers trained it well, very well. Now

he's gone to join our enemies, but I can't lose his regiment as well,

so whoever takes over from Mathers must know how to extricate his men

from trouble."

Dodd felt a surge of excitement. He liked to think that it was not

just for the money that he had deserted the Company, nor because of his

legal troubles, but for the long overdue chance of leading his own

regiment. He could do it well, he knew that, and he knew what Pohlmann

was leading up to.

Pohlmann smiled.

"Suppose I give you Mathers's regiment, Major?

Can you pull it out of the fire for me?"

"Yes, sir," Dodd said simply. Simone Joubert, for the first time since

she had been introduced to Dodd, looked up at him, but without any

friendliness.

"All of it?" Pohlmann asked.

"With its cannon?"

"All of it," Dodd said firmly, 'and with every damned gun."

"Then from now it is Dodd's regiment," Pohlmann said, 'and if you lead

it well, Major, I shall make you a colonel and give you a second

regiment to command."

Dodd celebrated by draining his cup of wine. He was so overcome with

emotion that he hardly dared speak, though the look on his face said it

all. His own regiment at last! He had waited so long for this moment

and now, by God, he would show the Company how well their despised

officers could fight.

Pohlmann snapped his fingers so that a servant girl brought him more

rum.

"How many men will Wellesley bring?" he asked Dodd.

"No more than fifteen thousand infantry," the new commander of Dodd's

regiment answered confidently.

"Probably fewer, and they'll be split into two armies. Boy Wellesley

will command one, Colonel Stevenson the other."

"Stevenson's old, yes?"

"Ancient and cautious," Dodd said dismissively.

"Cavalry?"

"Five or six thousand? Mostly Indians."

"Guns?"

"Twenty-six at most. Nothing bigger than a twelve-pounder."

"And Scindia can field eighty guns," Pohlmann said, 'some of them

twenty-eight-pounders. And once the Rajah of Berar's forces join us,

we'll have forty thousand infantry and at least fifty more guns." The

Hanoverian smiled.

"But battles aren't just numbers. They're also won by generals. Tell

me about this Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley."

"Boy Wellesley?" Dodd responded scathingly. The British General was

younger than Dodd, but that was not the cause of the derisory nickname.

Rather it was envy, for Wellesley had connections and wealth, while

Dodd had neither.

"He's young," Dodd said, 'only thirty four

"Youth is no barrier to good soldiering," Pohlmann said chidingly,

though he well understood Dodd's resentment. For years Dodd had

watched younger men rise up through the ranks of the King's army while

he had been stuck in the Company's hidebound ranks. A man could not

buy promotion in the Company, nor were promotions given by merit, but

only by seniority, and so forty-year-old men like Dodd were still

lieutenants while, in the King's army, mere boys were captains or

majors.

"Is Wellesley good?" Pohlmann asked.

"He's never fought a battle," Dodd said bitterly, 'not unless you count

Malavelly."

"One volley?" Pohlmann asked, half recalling stories of the

skirmish.

"One volley and a bayonet charge," Dodd said, 'not a proper battle."

"He defeated Dhoondiah."

"A cavalry charge against a bandit," Dodd said scornfully.

"My point, sir, is that Boy Wellesley has never faced artillery and

infantry on a real battlefield. He was jumped up to major general

solely because his brother is Governor General. If his name had been

Dodd instead of Wellesley he'd be lucky to command a company, let alone

an army."

"He's an aristocrat?" Pohlmann enquired.

"Of course. What else?" Dodd asked.

"His father was an earl."

"So .. ." Pohlmann put a handful of almonds in his mouth and paused to

chew them.

"So," he went on, 'he's the younger son of a nobleman, sent into the

army because he wasn't good for anything else, and his family purchased

him up the ranks?"

"Exactly, sir, exactly."

"But I hear he is efficient?"

"Efficient?" Dodd thought about it.

"He's efficient, sir, because his brother gives him the cash. He can

afford a big bullock train. He carries his supplies with him, so his

men are well fed. But he still ain't ever seen a cannon's muzzle, not

facing him, not alongside a score of others and backed by steady

infantry."

"He did well as Governor of Mysore," Pohlmann observed mildly.

"So he's an efficient governor? Does that make him a general?"

"A disciplinarian, I hear," Pohlmann said.

"He sets a lovely parade ground," Dodd agreed sarcastically.

"But he isn't a fool?"

"No," Dodd admitted, 'not a fool, but not a general either. He's been

promoted too fast and too young, sir. He's beaten bandits, but he took

a beating himself outside Seringapatam."

"Ah, yes. The night attack." Pohlmann had heard of that skirmish, how

Arthur Wellesley had attacked a wood outside Seringapatam and there

been roundly thrashed by the Tippoo's troops.

"Even so," he said, 'it never serves to underestimate an enemy."

"Overestimate him as much as you like, sir," Dodd said stoutly, 'but

the fact remains that Boy Wellesley has never fought a proper battle,

not with more than a thousand men under his command, and he's never

faced a real army, not a trained field army with gunners and

disciplined infantry, and my guess is that he won't stand. He'll run

back to his brother and demand more men. He's a careful man."

Pohlmann smiled.

"So let us lure this careful man deep into our territory where he can't

retreat, eh? Then beat him." He smiled, then hauled a watch from his

fob and snapped open the lid.

"I have to be going soon," he said, 'but some business first." He took

an envelope from his gaudy coat's pocket and handed the sealed paper to

Dodd.

"That is your authority to command Mathers's regiment, Major," he said,

'but remember, I want you to bring it safely out of Ahmednuggur.

You can help the defence for a time, but don't be trapped there. Young

Wellesley can't invest the whole city, he doesn't have enough men, so

you should be able to escape easily enough. Bloody his nose, Dodd, but

keep your regiment safe. Do you understand?"

Dodd understood well enough. Pohlmann was setting Dodd a difficult and

ignoble task, that of retreating from a fight with his command

intact.

There was little glory in such a manoeuvre, but it would still be a

difficult piece of soldiering and Dodd knew he was being tested a

second time. The first test had been Chasalgaon, the second would be

Ahmednuggur. 'I can manage it," he said dourly.

"Good!" Pohlmann said.

"I shall make things easier for you by taking your regiment's families

northwards. You might march soldiers safely from the city's fall, but

I doubt you can manage a horde of women and children too. And what

about you, Madame?" He turned and laid a meaty hand on Simone

Joubert's knee.

"Will you come with me?" He talked to her as though she were a

child.

"Or stay with Major Dodd?"

Simone seemed startled by the question. She blushed and looked up at

Lieutenant Silliere.

"I shall stay here, Colonel," she answered in English.

"Make sure you bring her safe home, Major," Pohlmann said to Dodd.

"I shall, sir."

Pohlmann stood. His purple-coated bodyguards, who had been standing in

front of the tent, hurried to take their places on the elephant's

flanks while the mako ut who had been resting in the animal's capacious

shade, now mounted the somnolent beast by gripping its tail and

clambering up its backside like a sailor swarming up a rope. He edged

past the gilded howdah, took his seat on the elephant's neck and turned

the beast towards Pohlmann's tent.

"Are you sure' -Pohlmann turned back to Simone Joubert - 'that you

would not prefer to travel with me?

The howdah is so comfortable, as long as you do not suffer from

seasickness."

"I shall stay with my husband," Simone said. She had stood and proved

to be much taller than Dodd had supposed. Tall and somewhat gawky, he

thought, but she still possessed an odd attraction.

"A good woman should stay with her husband," Pohlmann said, 'or

someone's husband, anyway." He turned to Dodd.

"I shall see you in a few days, Major, with your new regiment. Don't

let me down."

"I won't, sir, I won't," Dodd promised as, holding his new sword, he

watched his new commander climb the silver steps to the howdah. He had

a regiment to save and a reputation to make, and by God, Dodd thought,

he would do both things well.

CHAPTER 2

Sharpe sat in the open shed where the armoury stored its gun carriages.

It had started to rain, though it was not the sheeting downpour of the

monsoon, just a miserable steady grey drizzle that turned the mud in

the yard into a slippery coating of red slime. Major Stokes, beginning

the afternoon in a clean red coat, white silk stock and polished boots,

paced obsessively about a newly made carriage.

"It really wasn't your fault, Sharpe," he said.

"Feels like it, sir."

"It would, it would!" Stokes said.

"Reflects well on you, Sharpe, 'pon my soul, it does. But it weren't

your fault, not in any manner."

"Lost all six men, sir. And young Davi."

"Poor Hedgehog," Stokes said, squatting to peer along the trail of the

carriage.

"You reckon that timber's straight, Sharpe? Bit hog-backed, maybe?"

"Looks straight to me, sir."

"Ain't tight-grained, this oak, ain't tight-grained," the Major said,

and he began to unbuckle his sword belt. Every morning and afternoon

his servant sent him to the armoury in carefully laundered and pressed

clothes, and within an hour Major Stokes would be stripped down to

breeches and shirtsleeves and have his hands full of spoke-shaves or

saws or awls or adzes.

"Like to see a straight trail," he said.

"There's a number four spokeshave on the wall, Sharpe, be a good

fellow."

"You want me to sharpen it, sir?"

"I did it last night, Sharpe. I put a lovely edge on her." Stokes

unpeeled his red jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

"Timber don't season here properly, that's the trouble." He stooped to

the new carriage and began running the spokeshave along the trail,

leaving curls of new white wood to fall away.

"I'm mending a clock," he told Sharpe while he worked, 'a lovely-made

piece, all but for some crude local gearing.

Have a look at it. It's in my office."

"I will, sir."

"And I've found some new timber for axletrees, Sharpe. It's really

quite exciting!"

"They'll still break, sir," Sharpe said gloomily, then scooped up one

of the many cats that lived in the armoury. He put the tabby on his

lap and stroked her into a contented purr.

"Don't be so doom-laden, Sharpe! We'll solve the axletree problem yet.

It's only a question of timber, nothing but timber. There, that looks

better." The Major stepped back from his work and gave it a critical

look. There were plenty of Indian craftsmen employed in the armoury,

but Major Stokes liked to do things himself, and besides, most of the

Indians were busy preparing for the feast of Dusshera which involved

manufacturing three giant-sized figures that would be paraded to the

Hindu temple and there burned. Those Indians were busy in another

open-sided shed where they had glue bubbling on a fire, and some of the

men were pasting lengths of pale cloth onto a wicker basket that would

form one of the giants' heads. Stokes was fascinated by their activity

and Sharpe knew it would not be long before the Major joined them.

"Did I tell you a sergeant was here looking for you this morning?"

Stokes asked.

"No, sir."

"Came just before dinner," Stokes said, 'a strange sort of fellow." The

Major stooped to the trail and attacked another section of wood.

"He twitched, he did."

"Obadiah Hakeswill," Sharpe said.

"I think that was his name. Didn't seem very important," Stokes

said.

"Said he was just visiting town and looking up old companions. D'you

know what I was thinking?"

"Tell me, sir," Sharpe said, wondering why in holy hell Obadiah

Hakeswill had been looking for him. For nothing good, that was

certain.

"Those teak beams in the Tippoo's old throne room," Stokes said,

'they'll be seasoned well enough. We could break out a half-dozen of

the things and make a batch of axletrees from them!"

"The gilded beams, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Soon have the gilding off them, Sharpe. Plane them down in twof

shakes!"

"The Rajah may not like it, sir," Sharpe said.

Stokes's face fell.

"There is that, there is that. A fellow don't usually like his

ceilings being pulled down to make gun carriages. Still, the Rajah's

usually most obliging if you can get past his damned courtiers.

The clock is his. Strikes eight when it should ring nine, or perhaps

it's the other way round. You reckon that quoin's true?"

Sharpe glanced at the wedge which lowered and raised the cannon

barrel.

"Looks good, sir."

"I might just plane her down a shade. I wonder if our templates are

out of true? We might check that. Isn't this rain splendid? The

flowers were wilting, wilting! But I'll have a fine show this year

with a spot of rain. You must come and see them."

"You still want me to stay here, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Stay here?" Stokes, who was placing the quoin in a vice, turned to

look at Sharpe.

"Of course I want you to stay here, Sergeant. Best man I've got!"

"I lost six men, sir."

"And it wasn't your fault, not your fault at all. I'll get you another

six."

Sharpe wished it was that easy, but he could not chase the guilt of

Chasalgaon out of his mind. When the massacre was finished he had

wandered about the fort in a half-daze. Most of the women and children

still lived, but they had been frightened and had shrunk away from him.

Captain Roberts, the second in command of the fort, had returned from

patrol that afternoon and he had vomited when he saw the horror inside

the cactus-thorn wall.

Sharpe had made his report to Roberts who had sent it by messenger to

Hurryhur, the army's headquarters, then dismissed Sharpe.

"There'll be an enquiry, I suppose," Roberts had told Sharpe, 'so

doubtless your evidence will be needed, but you might as well wait in

Seringapatam."

And so Sharpe, with no other orders, had walked home. He had returned

the bag of rupees to Major Stokes, and now, obscurely, he wanted some

punishment from the Major, but Stokes was far more concerned about the

angle of the quoin.

"I've seen screws shatter because the angle was too steep, and it ain't

no good having broken screws in battle. I've seen Frog guns with metal

led quoins, but they only rust. Can't trust a Frog to keep them

greased, you see. You're brooding, Sharpe."

"Can't help it, sir."

"Doesn't do to brood. Leave brooding to poets and priests, eh? Those

sorts of fellows are paid to brood. You have to get on with life. What

could you have done?"

"Killed one of the bastards, sir."

"And they'd have killed you, and you wouldn't have liked that and nor

would I. Look at that angle! Look at that! I do like a fine angle, I

declare I do. We must check it against the templates. How's your

head?"

"Mending, sir." Sharpe touched the bandage that wrapped his

forehead.

"No pain now, sir."

"Providence, Sharpe, that's what it is, providence. The good Lord in

His ineffable mercy wanted you to live." Stokes released the vice and

restored the quoin to the carriage.

"A touch of paint on that trail and it'll be ready. You think the

Rajah might give me one roof beam?"

"No harm in asking him, sir."

"I will, I will. Ah, a visitor." Stokes straightened as a horseman,

swathed against the rain in an oilcloth cape and with an oilcloth cover

on his cocked hat, rode into the armoury courtyard leading a second

horse by the reins. The visitor kicked his feet from the stirrups,

swung down from the saddle, tiien tied both horses' reins to one of the

shed's pillars.

Major Stokes, his clothes just in their beginning stage of becoming

dirty and dishevelled, smiled at the tall newcomer whose cocked hat and

sword betrayed he was an officer.

"Come to inspect us, have you?" the Major demanded cheerfully.

"You'll discover chaos! Nothing in the right place, records all

muddled, woodworm in the timber stacks, damp in the magazines and the

paint completely addled."

"Better that paint is addled than wits," the newcomer said, then took

off his cocked hat to reveal a head of white hair.

Sharpe, who had been sitting on one of the finished gun carriages, shot

to his feet, tipping the surprised cat into the Major's wood

shavings.

"Colonel McCandless, sir!"

"Sergeant Sharpe!" McCandless responded. The Colonel shook water from

his cocked hat and turned to Stokes.

"And you, sir?"

"Major Stokes, sir, at your service, sir. Horace Stokes, commander of

the armoury and, as you see, carpenter to His Majesty."

"You will forgive me, Major Stokes, if I talk to Sergeant Sharpe?"

McCandless shed his oilskin cape to reveal his East India Company

uniform.

"Sergeant Sharpe and I are old friends."

"My pleasure, Colonel," Stokes said.

"I have business in the foundry.

They're pouring too fast. I tell them all the time! Fast pouring just

bubbles the metal, and bubbled metal leads to disaster, but they won't

listen. Ain't like making temple bells, I tell them, but I might as

well save my breath." He glanced wistfully towards the happy men

making the giant's head for the Dusshera festival.

"And I have other things to do," he added.

"I'd rather you didn't leave, Major," McCandless said very formally.

"I

suspect what I have to say concerns you. It is good to see you,

Sharpe."

"You too, sir," Sharpe said, and it was true. He had been locked in

the Tippoo's dungeons with Colonel Hector McCandless and if it was

possible for a sergeant and a colonel to be friends, then a friendship

existed between the two men. McCandless, tall, vigorous and in his

sixties, was the East India Company's head of intelligence for all

southern and western India, and in the last four years he and Sharpe

had talked a few times whenever the Colonel passed through

Seringapatam, but those had been social conversations and the Colonel's

grim face suggested that this meeting was anything but social.

"You were at Chasalgaon?" McCandless demanded.

"I was, sir, yes."

"So you saw Lieutenant Dodd?"

Sharpe nodded.

"Won't ever forget the bastard. Sorry, sir." He apologized because

McCandless was a fervent Christian who abhorred all foul language. The

Scotsman was a stern man, honest as a saint, and Sharpe sometimes

wondered why he liked him so much. Maybe it was because McCandless was

always fair, always truthful and could talk to any man, rajah or

sergeant, with the same honest directness.

"I never met Lieutenant Dodd," McCandless said, 'so describe him to

me."

"Tall, sir, and thin like you or me."

"Not like me," Major Stokes put in.

"Sort of yellow-faced," Sharpe went on, 'as if he'd had the fever once.

Long face, like he ate something bitter." He thought for a second.

He had only caught a few glimpses of Dodd, and those had been

sideways.

"He's got lank hair, sir, when he took off his hat. Brown hair.

Long nose on him, like Sir Arthur's, and a bony chin. He's calling

himself Major Dodd now, sir, not Lieutenant. I heard one of his men

call him Major."

"And he killed every man in the garrison?" McCandless asked.

"He did, sir. Except me. I was lucky."

"Nonsense, Sharpe!" McCandless said.

"The hand of the Lord was upon you."

"Amen," Major Stokes intervened.

McCandless stared broodingly at Sharpe. The Colonel had a hard planed

face with oddly blue eyes. He was forever claiming that he wanted to

retire to his native Scotland, but he always found some reason to stay

on in India. He had spent much of his life riding the states that

bordered the land administered by the Company, for his job was to

explore those lands and report their threats and weaknesses to his

masters. Little happened in India that escaped McCandless, but Dodd

had escaped him, and Dodd was now McCandless's concern.

"We have placed a price on his head," the Colonel said, 'of five

hundred guineas."

"Bless me!" Major Stokes said in astonishment.

"He's a murderer," McCandless went on.

"He killed a goldsmith in Seedesegur, and he should be facing trial,

but he ran instead and I want you, Sharpe, to help me catch him. And

I'm not pursuing the rogue because I want the reward money; in fact

I'll refuse it. But I do want him, and I want your help."

Major Stokes began to protest, saying that Sharpe was his best man and

that the armoury would go to the dogs if the Sergeant was taken away,

but McCandless shot the amiable Major a harsh look that was sufficient

to silence him.

"I want Lieutenant Dodd captured," McCandless said implacably, 'and I

want him tried, and I want him executed, and I need someone who will

know him by sight."

Major Stokes summoned the courage to continue his objections.

"But I need Sergeant Sharpe," he protested.

"He organizes everything! The duty rosters, the stores, the pay chest,

everything!"

"I need him more," McCandless snarled, turning on the hapless Major.

"Do you know how many Britons are in India, Major? Maybe twelve

thousand, and less than half of those are soldiers. Our power does not

rest on the shoulders of white men, Major, but on the muskets of our

sepoys. Nine men out of every ten who invade the Mahratta states will

be sepoys, and Lieutenant Dodd persuaded over a hundred of those men to

desert! To desert! Can you imagine our fate if the other sepoys

follow them? Scindia will shower Dodd's men with gold, Major, with

lucre and with spoil, in the hope that others will follow them. I have

to stop that, and I need Sharpe."

" Major Stokes recognized the inevitable.

"You will bring him back, sir?"

"If it is the Lord's will, yes. Well, Sergeant? Will you come with

me?"

Sharpe glanced at Major Stokes who shrugged, smiled, then nodded

his permission.

"I'll come, sir," Sharpe said to the Scotsman.

"How soon can you be ready?"

"Ready now, sir. "Sharpe indicated the newly issued pack and musket

that lay at his feet.

"You can ride a horse?"

Sharpe frowned.

"I can sit on one, sir."

"Good enough," the Scotsman said. He pulled on his oilcloth cape, then

untied the two reins and gave one set to Sharpe.

"She's a docile thing, Sharpe, so don't saw on her bit."

"We're going right now, sir?" Sharpe asked, surprised by the

suddenness of it all.

"Right now," McCandless said.

"Time waits for no man, Sharpe, and we have a traitor and a murderer to

catch." He pulled himself into his saddle and watched as Sharpe

clumsily mounted the second horse.

"So where are you going?" Stokes asked McCandless.

"Ahmednuggur first, and after that God will decide." The Colonel

touched his horse's flanks with his spurs and Sharpe, his pack hanging

from one shoulder and his musket slung on the other, followed.

He would redeem himself for the failure at Chasalgaon. Not with 1

punishment, but with something better: with vengeance.

Major William Dodd ran a white-gloved finger down the spoke of a gun

wheel He inspected his fingertip and nearly nine hundred men, or at

least as many of the nine hundred on parade who could see the , Major,

inspected him in return.

No mud or dust on the glove. Dodd straightened his back and glowered

at the gun crews, daring any man to show pleasure in having achieved a

near perfect turn-out. It had been hard work, too, for it had rained

earlier in the day and the regiment's five guns had been dragged

through the muddy streets to the parade ground just inside

Ahmednuggur's southern gate, but the gunners had still managed to clean

their weapons meticulously. They had removed every scrap of mud,

washed the mahogany trails, then polished the barrels until their alloy

of copper and tin gleamed like brass.

Impressive, Dodd thought, as he peeled off the glove. Pohlmann had

left Ahmednuggur, retreating north to join his compoo to Scindia's

gathering army, and Dodd had ordered this surprise inspection of his

new command. He had given the regiment just one hour's notice, but so

far he had found nothing amiss. They were impressive indeed; standing

in four long white-coated ranks with their four cannon and single

howitzer paraded at the right flank. The guns themselves, despite

their gleam, were pitiful things. The four field guns were mere four

pounders while the fifth was a five-inch howitzer, and not one of the

pieces fired a ball of real weight. Not a killing ball.

"Peashooters!" Dodd said disparagingly.

"Monsieur?" Captain Joubert, the Frenchman who had desperately hoped

to be given command of the regiment himself, asked.

"You heard me, Monsewer. Peashooters!" Dodd said as he lifted a

limber's lid and hoisted out one of the four-pounder shots. It was

half the size of a cricket ball.

"You might as well spit at them, Monsewer!"

Joubert, a small man, shrugged.

"At close range, Monsieur .. ." he began to defend the guns.

"At close range, Monsewer, close range!" Dodd tossed the shot to

Joubert who fumbled the catch.

"That's no use at close range! No more use than a musket ball, and the

gun's ten times more cumbersome than a musket." He rummaged through

the limber.

"No canister? No grape?"

"Canister isn't issued for four-pounder guns," Joubert said.

"It isn't even made for them."

"Then we make our own," Dodd said.

"Bags of scrap metal, Monsewer, strapped to a sabot and a charge. One

and a half pounds of powder per round. Find a dozen women in the town

and have them sew up the bags.

Maybe your wife can help, Monsewer?" He leered at Joubert who showed

no reaction. Dodd could smell a man's weakness, and the oddly

attractive Simone Joubert was undoubtedly her husband's weakness, for

she clearly despised him and he, just as clearly, feared losing her.

"I want thirty bags of grape for each gun by this time tomorrow," Dodd

ordered.

"But the barrels, Major!"Joubert protested.

"You mean they'll be scratched?" Dodd jeered.

"What do you want, Monsewer? A scratched bore and a live regiment? Or

a clean gun and a row of dead men? By tomorrow, thirty rounds of

canister per gun, and if there ain't room in the limbers then throw out

that bloody round shot.

Might as well spit cherrystones as fire those pebbles."

Dodd slammed down the limber's lid. Even if the guns fired makeshift

grapeshot he was not certain that they were worth keeping. Every

battalion in India had such close-support artillery, but in Dodd's

opinion the guns only served to slow down a regiment's manoeuvres. The

weapons themselves were cumbersome, and the livestock needed to haul

them was a nuisance, and if he were ever given his own compoo he would

strip the regiments of field guns for if a battalion of infantry could

not defend itself with fire locks what use was it? But he was stuck

with the five guns, so he would use them as giant shotguns and open

fire at three hundred yards. The gunners would moan about the damage

to their barrels, but damn the gunners.

Dodd inspected the howitzer, found it as clean as the other guns, and

nodded to the gunner-sub adar He offered no compliment, for Dodd did

not believe in praising men for merely doing their duty.

I Praise was due to those who exceeded their duty, punishment for those

I who fell short, and silence must serve the rest.

I Once the five guns had been inspected Dodd walked slowly down the

white-jacketed infantry ranks where he looked every man in the ; eye

and did not change his grim expression once, even though the soldiers

had taken particular care to be well turned out for their new

commanding officer. Captain Joubert followed a pace behind Dodd and

there was something ludicrous about the conjunction of the tall,

long-legged Dodd and the diminutive Joubert who needed to scurry to

keep up with the Englishman. Once in a while the Frenchman would make

a comment.

"He's a good man, sir," he might say as they passed a soldier, but Dodd

ignored all the praise and, after a while, Joubert fell silent and just

scowled at Dodd's back. Dodd sensed the ; Frenchman's dislike, but did

not care.

Dodd showed no reaction to the regiment's appearance, though all the

same he was impressed. These men were smart and their weapons were

as clean as those of his own sepoys who, re-issued with white jackets,

now paraded as an extra company at the regiment's left flank where, in

British regiments, the skirmishers paraded. East India Company

battalions had no skirmishers, for it was believed that sepoys were i'

no good at the task, but Dodd had decided to make his loyal sepoys into

the finest skirmishers in India. Let them prove the Company , wrong,

and in the proving they could help destroy the Company.

Most of the men looked up into Dodd's eyes as he walked by,

although few of them looked at him for long, but instead glanced

quickly away. Joubert saw the reaction, and sympathized with it for

there was something distinctly unpleasant about the Englishman's long

sour face that edged on the frightening. Probably, Joubert decided,

this Englishman was a flogger. The English were notorious for using

the whip on their own men, reducing redcoats' backs to welters of

broken flesh and gleaming blood, but Joubert was quite wrong about

Dodd.

Major Dodd had never flogged a man in his life, and that was not just

because the Company forbade it in their army, but because William Dodd

disliked the lash and hated to see a soldier flogged. Major Dodd liked

soldiers. He hated most officers, especially those senior to him, but

he liked soldiers. Good soldiers won battles, and victories made

officers famous, so to be successful an officer needed soldiers who

liked him and who would follow him. Dodd's sepoys were proof of that.

He had looked after them, made sure they were fed and paid, and he had

given them victory. Now he would make them wealthy in the service of

the Mahratta princes who were famous for their generosity.

He broke away from the regiment and marched back to its colours, a pair

of bright-green flags marked with crossed tulwars. The flags had been

the choice of Colonel Mathers, the Englishman who had commanded the

regiment for five years until he resigned rather than fight against his

own countrymen, and now the regiment would be known as Dodd's regiment.

Or perhaps he should call it something else. The Tigers? The Eagles?

The Warriors of Scindia? Not that the name mattered now. What

mattered now was to save these nine hundred well trained men and their

five gleaming guns and take them safely back to the Mahratta army that

was gathering in the north. Dodd turned beneath the colours.

"My name is Dodd!" he shouted, then paused to let one of his Indian

officers translate his words into Marathi, a language Dodd did not

speak. Few of the soldiers spoke Marathi either, for most were

mercenaries from the north, but men in the ranks murmured their own

translation and so Dodd's message was relayed up and down the files.

"I

am a soldier! Nothing but a soldier! Always a soldier!" He paused

again.

The parade was being held in the open space inside the gate and a crowd

of townsfolk had gathered to gape at the troops, and among the crowd

was a scatter of [ the robed Arab mercenaries who were reputed to be

the fiercest of all the Mahratta troops. They were wild-looking men,

armed with every conceivable weapon, but Dodd doubted they had the

discipline of his regiment.

"Together," he shouted at his men, 'you and I shall fight and we shall

win." He kept his words simple, for soldiers always liked simple

things. Loot was simple, winning and losing were simple ideas, and

even death, despite the way the damned preachers tried to tie it up in

superstitious knots, was a simple concept.

"It is my intent," he shouted, then waited for the translation to

ripple up and down the ranks, 'for this regiment to be the finest in

Scindia's service! Do your job well and I shall reward you. Do it

badly, and I shall let your fellow soldiers decide on your punishment."

They liked that, as Dodd had known they would.

"Yesterday," Dodd declaimed, 'the British crossed our frontier!

Tomorrow their army will be here at Ahmednuggur, and soon we shall

fight them in a great battle!" He had decided not to say that the

battle would be fought well north of the city, for that might

discourage the listening civilians.

"We shall drive them back to Mysore. We shall teach them that the army

of Scindia is greater than any of their armies. We shall win!" The

soldiers smiled at his confidence.

"We shall take their treasures, their weapons, their land and their

women, and those things will be your reward if you fight well. But if

you fight badly, you will die." That phrase sent a shudder through the

four white-coated ranks.

"And if any of you prove to be cowards," Dodd finished, "I shall kill

you myself."

He let that threat sink in, then abruptly ordered the regiment back to

its duties before summoning Joubert to follow him up the red stone

steps of the city wall to where Arab guards stood behind the merlons

ranged along the fire step Far to the south, beyond the horizon, a

dusky cloud was just visible. It could have been mistaken for a

distant rain cloud, but Dodd guessed it was the smear of smoke from the

British campfires.

"How long do you think the city will last?" Dodd asked Joubert.

The Frenchman considered the question.

"A month?" he guessed.

"Don't be a fool," Dodd snarled. He might want the loyalty of his men,

but he did not give a fig for the good opinion of its two European

officers. Both were Frenchmen and Dodd had the usual Englishman's

opinion of the Frogs. Good dancing masters, and experts in tying a

stock or arranging lace to fall prettily on a uniform, but about as

much use in a fight as spavined lap dogs Lieutenant Silliere, who had

followed Joubert to the fire step was tall and looked strong, but Dodd

mistrusted a man who took such care with his uniform and he could have

sworn he detected a whiff of lavender water coming from the young

Lieutenant's carefully brushed hair.

"How long are the city walls?" he asked Joubert.

The Captain thought for a moment.

"Two miles?"

"At least, and how many men in the garrison?"

"Two thousand."

"So work it out, Monsewer," Dodd said.

"One man every two yards?

We'll be lucky if the city holds for three days." Dodd climbed to one

of the bastions from where he could stare between the crenellations at

the great fort which stood close to the city. That

two-hundred-year-old fortress was an altogether more formidable

stronghold than the city, though its very size made it vulnerable, for

the fort's garrison, like the city's, was much too small. But the

fort's high wall was faced by a big ditch, its embrasures were crammed

with cannon and its bastions were high and strong, although the fort

was worth nothing without the city.

The city was the prize, not the fort, and Dodd doubted that General

Wellesley would waste men against the fort's garrison. Boy Wellesley

would attack the city, breach the walls, storm the gap and send his men

to slaughter the defenders in the rat's tangle of alleys and

courtyards, and once the city had fallen the redcoats would hunt for

supplies that would help feed the British army. Only then, with the

city in his possession, would Wellesley turn his guns against the fort,

and it was possible that the fort would hold the British advance for

two or three weeks and thus give Scindia more time to assemble his

army, and the longer the fort held the better, for the overdue rains

might come and hamper the British advance. But of one thing Dodd was

quite certain; as Pohlmann had said, the war would not be won here, and

to William Dodd the most important thing was to extricate his men so

that they could share that victory.

"You will take the regiment's guns and three hundred men and garrison

the north gate," Dodd ordered Joubert.

The Frenchman frowned.

"You think the British will attack in the north?"

"I think, Monsewer, that the British will attack here, in the south.

Our orders are to kill as many as we can, then escape to join Colonel

Pohlmann. We shall make that escape through the north gate, but even

an idiot can see that half the city's inhabitants will also try to

escape through the north gate and your job, Joubert, is to keep the

bastards from blocking our way. I intend to save the regiment, not

lose it with the city. That means you open fire on any civilian who

tries to leave the city, do you understand?" Joubert wanted to

argue,

J]

but one look at Dodd's face persuaded him into hasty agreement.

"I

shall be at the north gate in one hour," Dodd said, 'and God help you,

Monsewer, if your three hundred men are not in position."

Joubert ran off. Dodd watched him go, then turned to Silliere.

"When were the men last paid?"

Tour months ago, sir."

"Where did you learn English, Lieutenant?"

"Colonel Mathers insisted we speak it, sir."

"And where did Madame Joubert learn it?"

Silliere gave Dodd a suspicious glance.

"I would not know, sir."

Dodd sniffed.

"Are you wearing perfume, Monsewer?"

"No!" Silliere blushed.

"Make sure you never do, Lieutenant. And in the meantime take your

company, find the kill adar and tell him to break open the city

treasury.

If you have any trouble, break the damn thing open yourself with one of

our guns. Give every man three months' pay and load the rest of the

money on pack animals. We'll take it with us."

Silliere looked astonished at me order.

"But the kill adar Monsieur .. ." he began.

"The kill adar Monsewer, is a wretched little man wit ii the balls of a

mouse! You are a soldier. If we don't take the money, the British

will get it. Now go!" Dodd shook his head in exasperation as the

Lieutenant went. Four months without pay! There was nothing unusual

in such a lapse, but Dodd disapproved of it. A soldier risked his life

for his country, and the least his country could do in return was pay

him promptly.

He walked eastwards along the fire step trying to anticipate where the

British would site their batteries and where they would make a breach.

There was always a chance that Wellesley would pass by Ahmednuggur and

simply march north towards Scindia's army, but Dodd doubted the enemy

would choose that course, for then the city and fort would lie athwart

the British supply lines and the garrison could play havoc with the

convoys carrying ammunition, shot and food to the redcoats.

A small crowd was gathered on the southernmost ramparts to gaze towards

the distant cloud that betrayed the presence of the enemy army. Simone

Joubert was among them, sheltering her face from the westering sun with

a frayed parasol. Dodd took off his cocked hat. He always felt oddly

awkward with women, at least white women, but his new rank gave him an

unaccustomed confidence.

"I see you have come to observe the enemy, Ma'am," he said.

"I like to walk about the walls, Major," Simone answered, 'but today,

as you see, the way is blocked with people."

"I can clear a path for you, Ma'am," Dodd offered, touching the gold

hilt of his new sword.

"It is not necessary, Major," Simone said.

"You speak good English, Ma'am."

"I was taught it as a child. We had a Welsh governess."

"In France, Ma'am?"

"In the lie de France, Monsieur," Simone said. She was not looking at

Dodd as she spoke, but staring into the heat-hazed south.

"Mauritius," Dodd said, giving the island the name used by the

British.

"The lie de France, Monsieur, as I said."

"A remote place, Ma'am."

Simone shrugged. In truth she agreed with Dodd. Mauritius was remote,

an island four hundred miles east of Africa and the only decent French

naval base in the Indian Ocean. There she had been raised as the

daughter of the port's captain, and it was there, at sixteen, that she

had been wooed by Captain Joubert who was on passage to India where he

had been posted as an adviser to Scindia. Joubert had dazzled Simone

with tales of the riches that a man could make for himself in India,

and Simone, bored with the small petty society of her island, had

allowed herself to be swept away, only to discover that Captain Joubert

was a timid man at heart, and that his impoverished family in Lyons had

first claim on his earnings, and whatever was left was assiduously

saved so that the Captain could retire to France in comfort. Simone

had expected a life of parties and jewels, of dancing and silks, and

instead she scrimped, she sewed and she suffered. Colonel Pohlmann had

offered her a way out of poverty, and now she sensed that the lanky

Englishman was clumsily attempting to make the same offer, but Simone

was not minded to become a man's mistress just because she was bored.

She might for love, and in the absence of any love in her life she was

fighting an attraction for Lieutenant Silliere, although she knew that

the Lieutenant was almost as worthless as her I husband and the dilemma

was making her think that she was going! mad. She wept about it, and

the tears only added to her self-diagnosis I of insanity.

"When will the British come, Major?" she asked Dodd.

"Tomorrow, Ma'am. They'll establish batteries the next day, knock at

the wall for two or three days, make their hole and then come in."

She looked at Dodd beneath the hem of her parasol. Although he was a

tall man, Simone could still look him in the eye.

"They'll take the city that quickly?" she asked, showing a hint of

worry.

"Nothing to hold them, Ma'am. Not enough men, too much wall, not

enough guns."

"So how will we escape?"

"By trusting me, Ma'am," Dodd said, offering Simone a leering smile.

"What you must do, my dear, is pack your luggage, as much as can be

carried on whatever packhorses your husband might possess, and be ready

to leave. I shall send you warning before the attack, and at that time

you go to the north gate where you'll find your husband. It would

help, of course, Ma'am, if I knew where you were lodged?"

"My husband knows, Monsieur," Simone said coldly.

"So once the rosbifs arrive I need do nothing for three days except

pack?"

Dodd noted her use of the French term of contempt for the English, but

chose to make nothing of it.

"Exactly, Ma'am."

"Thank you, Major," Simone said, and made a gesture so that two

servants, whom Dodd had not noticed in the press of people, came to

escort her back to her house.

"Cold bitch," Dodd said to himself when she was gone, 'but she'll thaw,

she'll thaw."

The dark fell swiftly. Torches flared on the city ramparts, lighting

the ghostly robes of the Arab mercenaries who patrolled the bastions.

Small offerings of food and flowers were piled in front of the garish

gods and goddesses in their candlelit temples. The inhabitants of the

city were praying to be spared, while to the south a faint glow in the

sky betrayed where a red-coated army had come to bring Ahmednuggur

death.

Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Gore had taken command of the King's 33rd in

succession to Sir Arthur Wellesley and it had not been a happy

battalion when Gore arrived. That unhappiness was not Sir Arthur's

fault for he had long left the battalion for higher responsibilities,

but in his absence the 33rd had been commanded by Major John Shee who

was an incompetent drunk. Shee had died, Gore had received command,

and now he was slowly mending the damage. That mending could have been

a great deal swifter if Gore had been able to rid himself of some of

the battalion's officers, and of all those officers it was the lazy and

dishonest Captain Morris of the Light Company whom he would have most

liked to dismiss, but Gore was helpless in the matter. Morris had

purchased his commission, he was guilty of no of fences against the

King's regulations and thus he had to stay. And with him stayed the

malevolent, unsettling, yellow-faced and perpetually twitching Sergeant

Obadiah Hakeswill.

"Sharpe was always a bad man, sir. A disgrace to the army, sir,"

Hakeswill told the Colonel.

"He should never have been made into a sergeant, sir, 'cos he ain't the

material of what sergeants are made, sir.

He's nothing but a scrap of filth, sir, what shouldn't be a corporal,

let alone a sergeant. It says so in the scriptures, sir." The

Sergeant stood rigidly at attention, his right foot behind his left,

his hands at his sides and his elbows straining towards the small of

his back. His voice boomed in the small room, drowning out the sound

of the pelting rain.

Gore wondered whether the rain was the late beginning of the monsoon.

He hoped so, for if the monsoon failed utterly then there would be a

lot of hungry people in India the following year.

Gore watched a spider crawl across the table. The house belonged to a

leather dealer who had rented it to the 33rd while they were based in

Arrakerry and the place seethed with insects that crawled, flew, slunk

and stung, and Gore, who was a fastidious and elegant man, rather

wished he had used his tents.

"Tell me what happened," Gore said to Morris, 'again. If you would be

so kind."

Morris, slouching in a chair in front of Gore's table with a thick

bandage on his head, seemed surprised to be asked, but he straightened

himself and offered the Colonel a feeble shrug.

"I don't really recall, sir.

It was two nights ago, in Seringapatam, and I was hit, sir."

Gore brushed the spider aside and made a note.

"Hit," he said as he wrote the word in his fine copperplate hand.

"Where exactly?"

"On the head, sir," Morris answered.

Gore sighed.

"I see that, Captain. I meant where in Seringapatam?"

"By the armoury, sir."

"And this was at night?"

Morris nodded.

"Black night, sir," Hakeswill put in helpfully, 'black as a

blackamoor's backside, sir."

The Colonel frowned at the Sergeant's indelicacy. Gore was resisting

the urge to push a hand inside his coat and scratch his belly. He

feared he had caught the Malabar Itch, a foul complaint that would

condemn him to weeks of living with a salve of lard on his skin, and if

the lard failed he would be reduced to taking baths in a solution of

nitric acid.

"If it was dark," he said patiently, 'then surely you had no chance to

see your assailant?"

"I didn't, sir," Morris replied truthfully.

"But I did, sir," Hakeswill said, 'and it was Sharpie. Saw him clear

as daylight, sir."

"At night?" Gore asked sceptic ally

"He was working late, sir," Hakeswill said, 'on account of him not

having done his proper work in the daylight like a Christian should,

sir, and he opened the door, sir, and the lantern was lit, sir, and he

came out and hit the Captain, sir."

"And you saw that?"

"Clear as I can see you now, sir," Hakeswill said, his face racked with

a series of violent twitches.

Gore's hand strayed to his coat buttons, but he resisted the urge.

"If you saw it, Sergeant, why didn't you have Sharpe arrested? There

were sentries present, surely?"

"More important to save the Captain's life, sir. That's what I deemed,

sir. Get him back here, sir, into Mister Micklewhite's care. Don't

trust other surgeons, sir. And I had to clean up Mister Morris, sir, I

did."

"The blood, you mean?"

Hakeswill shook his head.

"The substances, sir." He stared woodenly over Colonel Gore's head as

he spoke.

"Substances?"

Hakeswill's face twitched.

"Begging your pardon, sir, as you being a gentleman as won't want to

hear it, sir, but Sergeant Sharpe hit Captain Morris with a jakes pot,

sir. A full Jakes pot, sir, liquid and solids."

"Oh, God," Gore said, laying down his pen and trying to ignore the

fiery itch across his belly.

"I still don't understand why you did nothing in Seringapatam," the

Colonel said.

"The Town Major should have been told, surely?"

"That's just it, sir," Hakeswill said enthusiastically, 'on account of

there not being a Town Major, not proper, seeing as Major Stokes does

the duties, sir, and the rest is up to the Rajah's hlladar and I don't

like seeing a redcoat being arrested by a darkie, sir, not even Sharpe.

It ain't right, that. And Major Stokes, he won't help, sir. He

likes

Sharpe, see? He lets him live comfortable, sir. Off the fat of the

land, sir, like it says in the scriptures. Got himself a set of rooms

and a bibbi, he has, and a servant, too. Ain't right, sir. Too

comfortable, sir, whiles the rest of us sweats like the soldiers we

swore to be."

The explanation made some sort of sense, or at least Gore appreciated

that it might convince Sergeant Hakeswill, yet there was still

something odd about the whole tale.

"What were you doing at the armoury after dark, Captain?"

"Making certain the full complement of wagons was there, sir," Morris

answered.

"Sergeant Hakeswill informed me that one was missing."

"And was it?"

"No, sir," Morris said.

"Miscounted, sir," Hakeswill said, 'on account of it being dark,

sir."

Hakeswill had indeed summoned Morris to the armoury after dark, and

there he had hit the Captain with a baulk of timber and, for good

measure, had added the contents of a chamber pot that Major Stokes had

left outside his office. The sentries had been sheltering from the

rain in the guardhouse and none had questioned the sight of Hakeswill

dragging the recumbent Morris back to his quarters, for the sight of

drunken officers being taken home by sergeants or privates was too

common to be remarkable. The important thing was that Morris had not

seen who assaulted him and was quite prepared to believe Hakes-will's

version, for Morris relied utterly on Hakeswill in everything.

"I blames myself, sir," Hakeswill went on, 'on account of not chasing

Sharpie, but I thought my duty was to look after my Captain, sir, on

account of him being drenched by a slop pot."

"Enough, Sergeant!" Gore said.

"It ain't a Christian act, sir," Hakeswill muttered resentfully.

"Not with a jakes pot, sir. Says so in the scriptures."

Gore rubbed his face. The rain had taken the edge off the damp heat,

but not by much, and he found the atmosphere horribly oppressive.

Maybe the itch was just a reaction to the heat. He rubbed his hand

across his belly, but it did not help.

"Why would Sergeant Sharpe assault you without warning, Captain?" he

asked.

Morris shrugged.

"He's a disagreeable sort, sir," he offered weakly.

"He never liked the Captain, sir, Sharpie didn't," Hakeswill said, 'and

it's my belief, sir, that he thought the Captain had come to summon him

back to the battalion, where he ought to be soldiering instead of

living off the fat of the land, but he don't want to come back, sir, on

account of being comfortable, sir, like he's got no right to be.

He never did know his place, sir, not Sharpe, sir. Got above himself,

sir, he has, and he's got cash in his breeches. On the fiddle, I dare

say."

Gore ignored the last accusation.

"How badly are you hurt?" he asked Morris.

"Only cuts and bruises, sir." Morris straightened in the chair.

"But it's still a court-martial offence, sir."

"A capital offence, sir," Hakeswill said.

"Up against the wall, sir, and God have mercy on his black soul, which

I very much doubts God will, God having better things to worry about

than a sorry piece of scum like Sharpie."

Gore sighed. He suspected there was a great deal more to the story

than he was hearing, but whatever the real facts Captain Morris was

still right. All that mattered was that Sergeant Sharpe was alleged to

have struck an officer, and no excuse in the world could explain away

such an offence. Which meant Sergeant Sharpe would have to be tried

and very probably shot, and Gore would regret that for he had heard

some very good things of the young Sergeant Sharpe.

"I had great hopes of Sergeant Sharpe," the Colonel said sadly.

"Got above himself, sir," Hakeswill snapped.

"Just 'cos he blew the mine at Seringapatam, sir, he thinks he's got

wings and can fly. Needs to have his feathers clipped, sir, says so in

the scriptures."

Gore looked scornfully at the twitching Sergeant.

"And what did you do at the assault of the city, Sergeant?" he

asked.

"My duty, sir, my duty," Hakeswill answered.

"What is all I ever expects any other man to do, sir."

Gore shook his head regretfully. There really was no way out of this

dilemma. If Sharpe had struck an officer, then Sharpe must be

punished.

"I suppose he'll have to be fetched back here," Gore admitted.

"Of course," Morris agreed.

Gore frowned in irritation. This was all such a damned nuisance!

Gore had desperately hoped that the 33rd would be attached to

Wellesley's army which was about to plunge into Mahratta territory, but

instead the battalion had been ordered to stay behind and guard Mysore

against the bandits who still plagued the roads and hills. Now, it

seemed, overstretched as the battalion was, Gore would have to detach a

party to arrest Sergeant Sharpe.

"Captain Lawford could go for him," he suggested.

"Hardly a job for an officer, sir," Morris said.

"A sergeant could do the thing just as well."

Gore considered the matter. Sending a sergeant would certainly be less

disruptive to the battalion than losing an officer, and a sergeant

could surely do the job as well as anyone.

"How many men would he need?" Gore asked.

"Six men, sir," Hakeswill snapped.

"I could do the job with six men."

"And Sergeant Hakeswill's the best man for the job," Morris urged.

He had no particular wish to lose Hakeswill's services for the few days

that it would take to fetch Sharpe, but Hakeswill had hinted that there

was money in this business. Morris was not sure how much money, but he

was in debt and Hakeswill had been persuasive.

"By far the best man," he added.

"On account of me knowing the little bugger's cunning ways, sir,"

Hakeswill explained, 'if you'll excuse my Hindi."

Gore nodded. He would like nothing more than to rid himself of

Hakeswill for a while, for the man was a baleful influence on the

battalion. Hakeswill was hated, that much Gore had learned, but he was

also feared, for the Sergeant declared that he could not be killed. He

had survived a hanging once, indeed the scar of the rope was still

concealed beneath the stiff leather stock, and the men believed that

Hakeswill was somehow under the protection of an evil angel. The

Colonel knew that was a nonsense, but even so the very presence of the

Sergeant made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"I'll have my clerk write the orders for you, Sergeant," the Colonel

said.

"Thank you, sir!" Hakeswill said.

"You won't regret it, sir. Obadiah Hakeswill has never shirked his

duty, sir, not like some as I could name."

Gore dismissed Hakeswill who waited for Captain Morris under the

building's porch and watched the rain pelt onto the street. The

Sergeant's face twitched and his eyes held a peculiar malevolence that

made the single sentry edge away. But in truth Sergeant Obadiah

Hakeswill was a happy man. God had put Richard Sharpe into his grasp

and he would pay Sharpe back for all the insults of the last few years

and especially for the ghastly moment when Sharpe had hurled Hakeswill

among the Tippoo Sultan's tigers. Hakeswill had thought the beasts

would savage him, but his luck had held and the tigers had ignored him.

It seemed they had been fed not an hour before and thus the guardian

angel who preserved Hakeswill had once again come to his rescue.

So now Obadiah Hakeswill would have his revenge. He would choose six

men, six bitter men who could be trusted, and they would take Sergeant

Sharpe, and afterwards, somewhere on the road home from Seringapatam

where there were no witnesses, they would find Sharpe's money and then

finish him. Shot while attempting to escape, that would be the

explanation, and good riddance too. Hakeswill was happy and Sharpe was

condemned.

Colonel McCandless led Sharpe north towards the wild country where the

frontiers of Hyderabad, Mysore and the Mahratta states met.

"Till I hear otherwise," McCandless told Sharpe, I'm assuming our

traitor is in Ahmednuggur."

"What's that, sir? A city?"

"A city and a fort next to each other," the Colonel said. McCandless's

big gelding seemed to eat up the miles, but Sharpe's smaller mare

offered a lumpy ride. Within an hour of leaving Seringapatam Sharpe's

muscles were sore, within two he felt as though the backs of his thighs

were burning, and by late afternoon the stirrup leathers had abraded

through his cotton trousers to grind his calves into bloody patches.

"It's one of Scindia's frontier strongholds," the Colonel went on, 'but

I doubt it can hold out long. Wellesley plans to capture it, then

strike on north."

"So we're going to war, sir?"

"Of course." McCandless frowned.

"Does that worry you?"

"No, sir," Sharpe said, nor did it. He had a good life in

Seringapatam, maybe as good a life as any soldier had ever had

anywhere, but in the four years between the fall of Seringapatam and

the massacre at Chasalgaon Sharpe had not heard a shot fired in anger,

and a part of him was envious of his old colleagues in the 33rd who

fought brisk skirmishes against the bandits and rogues who plagued

western Mysore.

"We're going to fight the Mahrattas," McCandless said.

"You know who they are?"

"I hear they're bastards, sir."

McCandless frowned at Sharpe's foul language.

"They are a confederation of independent states, Sharpe," he said

primly, 'that dominate much of western India. They are also warlike,

piratical and

untrustworthy, except, of course, for those which are our allies, who

are romantic, gallant and heroic."

"Some are on our side, sir?"

"A few. The Peshwa, for one, and he's their titular leader, but small

notice they take of him. Others are staying aloof from this war, but

two of the biggest princes have decided to make a fight of it. One's

called Scindia, and he's the Maharajah of Gwalior, and the other's

called Bhonsla, and he's the Rajah of Berar."

Sharpe tried standing in the stirrups to ease the pain in his seat, but

it only made the chafing of his calves worse.

"And what's our quarrel with those two, sir?"

"They've been much given to raiding into Hyderabad and Mysore lately,

so now it's time to settle them once and for all."

"And Lieutenant Dodd's joined their army, sir?"

"From what we hear, he's joined Scindia's army. But I haven't heard

much." The Colonel had already explained to Sharpe how he had been

keeping his ears open for news of Dodd ever since the Lieutenant had

persuaded his sepoys to defect, but then had come the terrible news of

Chasalgaon, and McCandless, who had been travelling north to join

Wellesley's army, had seen Sharpe's name in the report and so had

turned around and hurried south to Seringapatam. At the same time he

had sent some of his own Mahratta agents north to discover Dodd's

whereabouts.

"We should meet those fellows today," the Colonel said, 'or tomorrow at

the latest."

The rain had not stopped, but nor was it heavy. Mud spattered up the

horses' flanks and onto Sharpe's boots and white trousers. He tried

sitting half sideways, he tried leaning forward or tipping himself

back, but the pain did not stop. He had never much liked horses, but

now decided he hated them.

"I'd like to meet Lieutenant Dodd again, sir," he told McCandless as

the two men rode under dripping trees.

"Be careful of him, Sharpe," McCandless warned.

"He has a reputation."

"For what, sir?"

"A fighter, of course. He's no mean soldier. I've not met him, of

course, but I've heard tales. He's been up north, in Calcutta mostly,

and made a name for himself there. He was first over the pettah wall

at Panhapur. Not much of a wall, Sharpe, just a thicket of cactus

thorn really, but it took his sepoys five minutes to follow him, and by

the time they reached him he'd killed a dozen of the enemy. He's a

tall man who can use a sword and is a fine pistol shot too. He is, in

brief, a killer."

"If he's so good, sir, why is he still a lieutenant?"

The Colonel sighed.

"I fear that is the way of the Company's army, Sharpe. A man can't buy

his way up the ladder as he can in the King's army, and there's no

promotion for good service. It all goes by seniority.

Dead men's shoes, Sharpe. A fellow must wait his turn in the Company,

and there's no way round it."

"So Dodd has been waiting, sir?"

"A long time. He's forty now, and I doubt he'd have got his captaincy

much before he was fifty."

"Is that why he ran, sir?"

"He ran because of the murder. He claimed a goldsmith cheated him of

money and had his men beat the poor fellow so badly that he died. He

was court-martial led of course, but the only sentence he got was six

months without pay. Six months without pay! That's sanctioning

murder, Sharpe! But Wellesley insisted the Company discharge him, and

he planned to have Dodd tried before a civilian court and condemned to

death, so Dodd ran." The Colonel paused.

"I wish I could say we're pursuing him because of the murder, Sharpe,"

he went on, 'but that isn't so. We're pursuing him because he

persuaded his men to defect. Once that rot starts, it might never

stop, and we have to show the other sepoys that desertion will always

be punished."

Just before nightfall, when the rain had stopped and Sharpe thought his

sore muscles and bleeding calves would make him moan aloud in agony, a

group of horsemen came cantering towards them. To Sharpe they looked

like silladars, the mercenary horsemen who hired themselves, their

weapons and their horses to the British army, and he pulled his mare

over to the left side of the road to give the heavily armed men room to

pass, but their leader slowed as he approached, then raised a hand in

greeting.

"Colonel!" he shouted.

"Sevajee!" McCandless cried and spurred his horse towards the oncoming

Indian. He held out his hand and Sevajee clasped it.

"You have news?" McCandless asked.

Sevajee nodded.

"Your fellow is inside Ahmednuggur, Colonel. He's been given Mathers's

regiment." He was pleased with his news, grinning broadly to reveal

red-stained teeth. He was a young man dressed in the remnants of a

green uniform Sharpe did not recognize. The jacket had European

epaulettes hung with silver chains, and over it was

strapped a sword sling and a sash, both of white silk and both stained

brown with dried blood.

"Sergeant Sharpe," McCandless made the introductions, 'this is Syud

Sevajee."

Sharpe nodded a wary greeting.

"Sahib," he said, for there was something about Syud Sevajee that

suggested he was a man of rank.

"The Sergeant has seen Lieutenant Dodd," McCandless explained.

"He'll make sure we capture the right man."

"Kill all the Europeans," Sevajee suggested, 'and you'll be sure." The

suggestion, it seemed to Sharpe, was not entirely flippant.

"I want him captured alive," McCandless said irritably.

"Justice must be seen to be done. Or would you rather that your people

believe a British officer can beat a man to death without any

punishment?"

"They believe that anyway," Sevajee said carelessly, 'but if you wish

to be scrupulous, McCandless, then we shall capture Mister Dodd."

Sevajee's men, a dozen wild-looking warriors armed with everything from

bows and arrows to lances, had fallen in behind McCandless.

"Syud Sevajee is a Mahratta, Sharpe," McCandless explained.

"One of the romantic ones, sir?"

"Romantic?" Sevajee repeated the word in surprise.

"He's on our side, if that's what you mean," McCandless said.

"No," Sevajee hurried to correct the Colonel.

"I am opposed to Beny Singh, and so long as he lives I help the enemies

of my enemy."

"Why's this fellow your enemy, sir, if you don't mind me asking?"

Sharpe asked.

Sevajee touched the hilt of his tulwar as if it was a fetish.

"Because he killed my father, Sergeant."

"Then I hope you get the bastard, sir."

"Sharpe!" McCandless said in reprimand.

Sevajee laughed.

"My father," he explained to Sharpe, 'led one of the Rajah of Berar's

compoos. He was a great warrior, Sergeant, and Beny Singh was his

rival. He invited my father to a feast and served him poison. That

was three years ago. My mother killed herself, but my younger brother

serves Beny Singh and my sister is one of his concubines. They too

will die."

"And you escaped, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"I was serving in the East India Company cavalry, Sergeant," Sevajee

answered.

"My father believed a man should know his enemy, so sent me to

Madras."

"Where we met," McCandless said brusquely, 'and now Sevajee serves

me."

"Because in return," Sevajee explained, 'your British bayonets will

hand Beny Singh to my revenge. And with him, of course, the reward for

Dodd. Four thousand, two hundred rupees, is it not?"

"So long as he's taken alive," McCandless said dourly, 'and it might be

increased once the Court of Directors hears what he did at

Chasalgaon."

"And to think I almost caught him," Sevajee said, and described how he

and his few men had visited Ahmednuggur posing as brindanies who were

loyal to Scindia.

"Brindarrie?" Sharpe asked.

"Like silladars," McCandless told him.

"Freelance horsemen. And you saw Dodd?" he asked Sevajee.

"I heard him, Colonel, though I never got close. He was lecturing his

regiment, telling them how they would chase you British out of

India."

McCandless scoffed.

"He'll be lucky to escape from Ahmednuggur!

Why has he stayed there?"

"To give Pohlmann a chance to attack?" Sevajee suggested.

"His compoo was still close to Ahmednuggur a few days ago."

"Just one compoo, sir?" Sharpe suggested.

"One compoo won't beat Wellesley."

Sevajee gave him a long, speculative look.

"Pohlmann, Sergeant," he said, 'is the best infantry leader in Indian

service. He has never lost a battle, and his compoo is probably the

finest infantry army in India. It already outnumbers Wellesley's army,

but if Scindia releases his other compoos, then together they will

outnumber your Wellesley three to one. And if Scindia waits until

Berar's troops are with him, he'll outnumber you ten to one."

"So why are we attacking, sir?"

"Because we're going to win," McCandless said firmly.

"God's will."

"Because, Sergeant," Sevajee said, 'you British think that you are

invincible. You believe you cannot be defeated, but you have not

fought the Mahrattas. Your little army marches north full of

confidence, but you are like mice waking an elephant."

"Some mice," McCandless snorted.

"Some elephant," Sevajee said gently.

"We are the Mahrattas, and if we did not fight amongst ourselves we

would rule all India."

"You've not faced Scottish infantry yet," McCandless said confidently,

'and Wellesley has two Scottish regiments with him.

Besides, you forget that Stevenson has an army too, and he's not so

very far away." Two armies, both small, were invading the Mahratta

Confederation, though Wellesley, as the senior officer, had control of

both.

"I reckon the mice will startle you yet," McCandless said.

They spent that night in a village. To the north, just beyond the

horizon, the sky glowed red from the reflection of flames on the smoke

of thousands of campfires, the sign that the British army was just a

short march away. McCandless bargained with the headman for food and

shelter, then frowned when Sevajee purchased a jar of fierce local

arrack. Sevajee ignored the Scotsman's disapproval, then went to join

his men who were gaming in the village's tavern. McCandless shook his

head.

"He fights for mercenary reasons, Sharpe, nothing else."

"That and vengeance, sir."

"Aye, he wants vengeance, I'll grant him that, but once he's got it

he'll turn on us like a snake." The Colonel rubbed his eyes.

"He's a useful man, all the same, but I wish I felt more confident

about this whole business."

"The war, sir?"

McCandless shook his head.

"We'll win that. It doesn't matter by how many they outnumber us, they

won't outfight us. No, Sharpe, I'm worried about Dodd."

"We'll get him, sir," Sharpe said.

The Colonel said nothing for a while. An oil lamp flickered on the

table, attracting huge winged moths, and in its dull light the

Colonel's thin face looked more cadaverous than ever. McCandless

finally grimaced.

"I've never been one for believing in the supernatural, Sharpe, other

than the providences of Almighty God. Some of my countrymen claim they

see and hear signs. They tell of foxes howling about the house when a

death is imminent, or seals coming ashore when a man's to be lost at

sea, but I never credited such things. It's mere superstition, Sharpe,

pagan superstition, but I can't chase away my dread about Dodd." He

shook his head slowly.

"Maybe it's age."

"You're not old, sir."

McCandless smiled.

"I'm sixty-three, Sharpe, and I should have retired ten years ago,

except that the good Lord has seen fit to make me useful, but the

Company isn't so sure of my worth now. They'd like to give me a

pension, and I can't blame them. A full colonel's salary is a heavy

item on the Company's accounts." McCandless offered Sharpe a rueful

look.

"You fight for King and country, Sharpe, but I fight and die for the

shareholders."

"They'd never replace you, sir!" Sharpe said loyally.

"They already have," McCandless admitted softly, 'or Wellesley has.

He has his own head of intelligence now, and the Company knows it, so

they tell me I am a "supernumerary upon the establishment"." He

shrugged.

"They want to put me out to pasture, Sharpe, but they did give me this

one last errand, and that's the apprehension of Lieutenant William

Dodd, though I rather think he's going to be the death of me."

"He won't, sir, not while I'm here."

"That's why you are here, Sharpe," McCandless said seriously.

"He's younger than I am, he's fitter than I am and he's a better

swordsman than I am, and that's why I thought of you. I saw you fight

at Seringapa-tam and I doubt Dodd can stand up to you."

"He won't, sir, he won't," Sharpe said grimly.

"And I'll keep you alive, sir."

"If God wills it."

Sharpe smiled.

"Don't they say God helps those who help themselves, sir? We'll do the

job, sir."

"I pray you're right, Sharpe," McCandless said, "I pray you're

right."

And they would start at Ahmednuggur, where Dodd waited and where

Sharpe's new war would begin.

CHAPTER 3

Colonel McCandless led his small force into Sir Arthur Wellesley's

encampment late the following afternoon. For most of the morning they

had been shadowed by a band of enemy horsemen who sometimes galloped

close as if inviting Sevajee's men to ride out and fight, but

McCandless kept Sevajee on a tight leash and at midday a patrol of

horsemen in blue coats with yellow facings had chased the enemy away.

The blue-coated cavalry were from the igth Light Dragoons and the

Captain leading the troop gave McCandless a cheerful wave as he

cantered after the enemy who had been prowling the road in hope of

finding a laggard supply wagon. Four hours later McCandless topped a

gentle rise to see the army's lines spread across the countryside

while, four miles farther north, the red walls of Ahmednuggur stood in

the westering sun. From this angle the fort and the city appeared as

one continuous building, a vast red rampart studded with bastions.

Sharpe cuffed sweat from his face.

"Looks like a brute, sir," he said, nodding at the walls.

"The wall's big enough," the Colonel said, 'but there's no ditch, no

glacis and no outworks. It'll take us no more than three days to punch

a hole."

"Then pity the poor souls who must go through the hole," Sevajee

commented.

"It's what they're paid to do," McCandless said brusquely.

The area about the camp seethed with men and animals. Every cavalry

horse in the army needed two lascars to gather forage, and those men

were busy with sickles, while nearer to the camp's centre was a vast

muddy expanse where the draught bullocks and pack oxen were picketed.

Puckalees, the men who carried water for the troops and the animals,

were filling their buckets from a tank scummed with green. A thorn

hedge surrounded six elephants that belonged to the gunners,

while next to the great beasts was the artillery park with its

twenty-six cannon, and after that came the sepoys' lines where children

shrieked, dogs yapped and women carried patties of bullock dung on

their heads to build the evening fires. The last part of the journey

took them through the lines of the 778th, a kilted Highland regiment,

and the soldiers saluted McCandless and then looked at the red facings

on Sharpe's coat and called out the inevitable insults.

"Come to see how a real man fights, Sergeant?"

"You ever done any proper fighting?" Sharpe retorted.

"What's a Havercake doing here?"

"Come to teach you boys a lesson."

"What in? Cooking?"

"Where I come from," Sharpe said, 'it's the ones in skirts what does

the cooking."

"Enough, Sharpe," McCandless snapped. The Colonel liked to wear a kilt

himself, claiming it was a more suitable garment for India's heat than

trousers.

"We must pay our respects to the General," McCandless said, and turned

towards the larger tents in the centre of the encampment.

It had been two years since Sharpe had last seen his old Colonel and he

doubted that Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley would prove any

friendlier now than he ever had. Sir Arthur had always been a cold

fish, sparing with approval and frightening in his disapproval, and his

most casual glance somehow managed to make Sharpe feel both

insignificant and inadequate, and so, when McCandless dismounted

outside the General's tent, Sharpe deliberately hung back. The

General, still a young man, was standing beside a line of six picketed

horses and was evidently in a blazing temper. An orderly, in the

blue-and-yellow coat of the igth Dragoons, was holding a big grey

stallion by its bridle and Wellesley was alternately patting the horse

and snapping at the halfdozen aides who cowered nearby. A group of

senior officers, majors and colonels, stood beside the General's tent,

suggesting that a council of war had been interrupted by the horse's

distress. The grey stallion was certainly suffering. It was

shivering, its eyes were rolling white and sweat or spittle was

dripping from its drooping head.

Wellesley turned as McCandless and Sevajee approached.

"Can you bleed a horse, McCandless?"

"I can put a knife in it, sir, if it helps," the Scotsman answered.

"It does not help, damn it!" Wellesley retorted savagely.

"I don't want him butchered, I want him bled. Where is the farrier?"

"We're looking for him, sir," an aide replied.

"Then find him, damn it! Easy, boy, easy!" These last three words

were spoken in a soothing tone to the horse which had let out a feeble

whinny.

"He's fevered," Wellesley explained to McCandless, 'and if he ain't

bled, he'll die."

A groom hurried to the General's side carrying a fleam and a blood

stick, both of which he mutely offered to Wellesley.

"No good giving them to me," the General snapped, "I can't bleed a

horse." He looked at his aides, then at the senior officers by the

tent.

"Someone must know how to do it," Wellesley pleaded. They were all men

who lived with horses and professed to love them, though none knew how

to bleed a horse for that was a job left to servants, but finally a

Scottish major averred that he had a shrewd idea of how the thing was

done, and so he was given the fleam and its hammer. He took off his

red coat, chose a fleam blade at random and stepped up to the shivering

stallion. He placed the blade on the horse's neck and drew back the

hammer with his right hand.

"Not like that!" Sharpe blurted out.

"You'll kill him!" A score of men stared at him while the Scottish

Major, the blade un hit looked rather relieved.

"You've got the blade the wrong way round, sir," Sharpe explained.

"You have to line it up along the vein, sir, not across it." He was

blushing for having spoken out in front of the General and all the

army's senior officers.

Wellesley scowled at Sharpe.

"Can you bleed a horse?"

"I can't ride the things, sir, but I do know how to bleed them. I

worked in an inn yard," Sharpe added as though that was explanation

enough.

"Have you actually bled a horse?" Wellesley demanded. He showed not

the slightest surprise at seeing a man from his old battalion in the

camp, but in truth he was far too distracted by his stallion's distress

to worry about mere men.

"I've bled dozens, sir," Sharpe said, which was true, but those horses

had been big heavy carriage beasts, and this white stallion was plainly

a thoroughbred.

"Then do it, damn it," the General said.

"Don't just stand there, do it!"

Sharpe took the fleam and the blood stick from the Major. The fleam

looked like a mis-shapen penknife, and inside its brass case were

folded a dozen blades. Two of the blades were shaped as hooks, while

the rest were spoon-shaped. He selected a middle-sized spoon, checked

that its edge was keen, folded the other blades away and then

approached the horse.

"You'll have to hold him hard," he told the dragoon orderly.

"He can be lively, Sergeant," the orderly warned in a low voice,

anxious not to provoke another outburst from Wellesley.

"Then hang on hard," Sharpe said to the orderly, then he stroked the

horse's neck, feeling for the jugular.

"How much are you going to let out?" Wellesley asked.

"Much as it takes, sir," Sharpe said, who really had no idea how much

blood he should spill. Enough to make it look good, he reckoned.

The horse was nervous and tried to pull away from the orderly.

"Give him a stroke, sir," Sharpe said to the General.

"Let him know it ain't the end of the world."

Wellesley took the stallion's head from the orderly and gave the

beast's nose a fondling.

"It's all right, Diomed," he said, 'we're going to make you better. Get

on with it, Sharpe."

Sharpe had found the jugular and now placed the sharp curve of the

spoon-blade over the vein. He held the knife in his left hand and the

blood stick in his right. The stick was a small wooden club that was

needed to drive the fleam's blade through a horse's thick skin.

"All right, boy," he murmured to the horse, 'just a prick, nothing

bad," and then he struck the blade hard with the stick's blunt head.

The fleam sliced through hair and skin and flesh straight into the

vein, and the horse reared up, but Sharpe, expecting the reaction, held

the fleam in place as warm blood spurted out over his shako.

"Hold him!" he snapped at Wellesley, and the General seemed to find

nothing odd in being ordered about by a sergeant and he obediently

hauled Diomed's head down.

"That's good," Sharpe said, 'that's good, just keep him there, sir,

keep him there," and he skewed the blade slightly to open the slit in

the vein and so let the blood pulse out. It ran red down the white

horse's flank, it soaked Sharpe's red coat and puddled at his feet.

The horse shivered, but Sharpe sensed that the stallion was calming.

By relaxing the pressure on the fleam he could lessen the blood flow

and after a while he slowed it to a trickle and then, when the horse

had stopped shivering, Sharpe pulled the blade free. His right hand

and arm were drenched in blood.

He spat on his clean left hand, then wiped the small wound.

"I

reckon he'll live, sir," he told the General, 'but a bit of ginger in

his feed might help." That was another trick he had learned at the

coaching tavern.

Wellesley stroked Diomed's nose and the horse, suddenly unconcerned by

the fuss all about him, lowered his head and cropped at a miserable

tuft of grass. The General smiled, his bad mood gone.

"I'm greatly obliged to you, Sharpe," Wellesley said, relinquishing the

bridle into the orderly's grasp.

"Pon my soul, I'm greatly obliged to you," he repeated enthusiastically.

"As neat a blood-letting as ever I did see." He put a hand into his

pocket and brought out a haideri that he offered to Sharpe.

"Well done, Sergeant."

"Thank you, sir," Sharpe said, taking the gold coin. It was a generous

reward.

"Good as new, eh?" Wellesley said, admiring the horse.

"He was a gift."

"An expensive one," McCandless observed drily.

"A valued one," Wellesley said.

"Poor Ashton left him to me in his will. You knew Ashton,

McCandless?"

"Of course, sir." Henry Ashton had been Colonel of the i2th, a Suffolk

regiment posted to India, and he had died after taking a bullet in the

liver during a duel.

"A damned shame," Wellesley said, 'but a fine gift. Pure Arab blood,

McCandless."

Most of the pure Arab blood seemed to be on Sharpe, but the General was

delighted with the horse's sudden improvement. Indeed, Sharpe had

never seen Wellesley so animated. He grinned as he watched the horse,

then he told the orderly to walk Diomed up and down, and he grinned

even more widely as he watched the horse move. Then, suddenly aware

that the men about him were taking an amused pleasure from his own

delight, his face drew back into its accustomed cold mask.

"Obliged to you, Sharpe," he said yet again, then he turned and walked

towards his tent.

"McCandless! Come and give me your news!"

McCandless and Sevajee followed the General and his aides into the

tent, leaving Sharpe trying to wipe the blood from his hands. The

dragoon orderly grinned at him.

"That's a six-hundred-guinea horse you just bled, Sergeant," he said.

"Bloody hell!" Sharpe said, staring in disbelief at the dragoon.

"Six hundred!"

"Must be worth that. Best horse in India, Diomed is."

"And you look after him?" Sharpe asked.

The orderly shook his head.

"He's got grooms to look after his horses, and the farrier to bleed and

shoe them. My job is to follow him into battle, see? And when one

horse gets tired I give him another."

"You drag all those six horses around?" Sharpe asked, astonished.

"Not all six of them," the dragoon said, 'only two or three. But he

shouldn't have six horses anyway. He only wants five, but he can't

find anyone to buy the spare. You don't know anyone who wants to buy a

horse, do you?"

"Hundreds of the buggers," Sharpe said, gesturing at the encampment.

"Every bleeding infantryman over there for a start."

"It's theirs if they've got four hundred guineas," the orderly said.

"It's that bay gelding, see?" He pointed.

"Six years old and good as gold."

"No use looking at me," Sharpe said.

"I hate the bloody things."

"You do?"

"Lumpy, smelly beasts. I'm happier on my feet."

"You see the world from a horse's back," the dragoon said, 'and catch

women's eyes."

"So they're not entirely useless," Sharpe said and the orderly

grinned.

He was a happy, round-faced young man with tousled brown hair and a

ready smile.

"How come you're the General's orderly?" Sharpe asked him.

The dragoon shrugged.

"He asked my Colonel to give him someone and I was chosen."

"You don't mind?"

"He's all right," the orderly said, jerking his head towards

Wellesley's tent.

"Don't crack a smile often, leastwise not with the likes of you and me,

but he's a fair man."

"Good for him." Sharpe stuck out his bloodied hand.

"My name's Dick Sharpe."

"Daniel Fletcher," the orderly said, 'from Stoke Poges."

"Never heard of it," Sharpe said.

"Where can I get a scrub?"

"Cook tent, Sergeant."

"And riding boots?" Sharpe asked.

"Find a dead man in Ahmednuggur," Fletcher said.

"It'll he cheaper than buying them off" me."

"That's true," Sharpe said, then he limped to the cook tent. The limp

was caused by the sore muscles from long hours in the saddle. He had

purchased a length of cotton cloth in the village where they had spent

the night, then torn the cloth into strips that he had wrapped about

his calves to protect them from the stirrup leathers, but his calves

still hurt.

God, he thought, but he hated bloody horses.

He washed the worst of Diomed's blood from his hands and face, diluted

what was on his uniform, then went back to wait for McCandless.

Sevajee's men still sat on their horses and stared at the distant city

that was topped by a smear of smoke. Sharpe could hear the murmur of

voices inside the General's tent, but he paid no attention. It wasn't

his business. He wondered if he could scrounge a tent for his own use

for it had already rained earlier in the day and Sharpe suspected it

might rain again, but Colonel McCandless was not a man much given to

tents. He derided them as women's luxuries, preferring to seek shelter

with local villagers or, if no peasant house or cattle byre was

available, happily sleeping beneath the stars or in the rain. A pint

of rum, Sharpe thought, would not go amiss either.

"Sergeant Sharpe!" Wellesley's familiar voice broke into his thoughts

and Sharpe turned to see his old commanding officer coming from the big

tent.

"Sir!" Sharpe stiffened to attention.

"So Colonel McCandless has borrowed you from Major Stokes?"

Wellesley asked.

"Yes, sir," Sharpe said. The General was bareheaded and Sharpe saw

that his temples had turned prematurely grey. He seemed to have

forgotten Sharpe's handiwork with his horse, for his long-nosed face

was as unfriendly as ever.

"And you saw this man Dodd at Chasalgaon?"

"I did, sir."

"Repugnant business," Wellesley said, 'repugnant. Did he kill the

wounded?"

"All of them, sir. All but me."

"And why not you?" Wellesley asked coldly.

"I was covered in blood, sir. Fair drenched in it."

"You seem to be in that condition much of the time, Sergeant,"

Wellesley said with just a hint of a smile, then he turned back to

McCandless.

"I wish you joy of the hunt, Colonel. I'll do my best to help you, but

I'm short of men, woefully short."

"Thank you, sir," the Scotsman said, then watched as the General went

back into his big tent which was crammed with red-coated officers.

"It seems," McCandless said to Sharpe when the General was gone, 'that

we're not invited to supper." l "Were you expecting to be, sir?"

"No," McCandless said, 'and I've no business in that tent tonight

either. They're planning an assault for first light tomorrow."

Sharpe thought for a moment that he must have misheard. He looked

northwards at the big city wall.

"Tomorrow, sir? An assault? But they only got here today and there

isn't a breach!"

"You don't need a breach for an escalade, Sergeant," McCandless said.

"An escalade is nothing but ladders and murder."

Sharpe frowned.

"Escalade?" He had heard the word, but was not really sure he knew

what it meant.

"March straight up to the wall, Sharpe, throw your ladders against the

ramparts and climb." McCandless shook his head.

"No artillery to help you, no breach, no trenches to get you close, so

you must accept the casualties and fight your way through the

defenders. It isn't pretty, Sharpe, but it can work." The Scotsman

still sounded disapproving. He was leading Sharpe away from the

General's tent, seeking a place to spread his blanket. Sevajee and his

men were following, and Sevajee was walking close enough to listen to

McCandless's words.

"Escalades can work well against an unsteady enemy," the Colonel went

on, 'but I'm not at all convinced the Mahrattas are shaky. I doubt

they're shaky at all, Sharpe. They're dangerous as snakes and they

usually have Arab mercenaries in their ranks."

"Arabs, sir? From Arabia?"

"That's where they usually come from," McCandless confirmed.

"Nasty fighters, Sharpe."

"Good fighters," Sevajee intervened.

"We hire hundreds of them every year. Hungry men, Sergeant, who come

from their bare land with sharp swords and long muskets."

"Doesn't serve to underestimate an Arab," McCandless agreed.

"They fight like demons, but Wellesley's an impatient man and he wants

the business over. He insists they won't be expecting an escalade and

thus won't be ready for one, and I pray to God he's right."

"So what do we do, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"We go in behind the assault, Sharpe, and beseech Almighty God that our

ladder parties do get into the city. And once we're inside we hunt for

Dodd. That's our job."

"Yes, sir," Sharpe said.

"And once we have the traitor we take him to Madras, put him on trial

and have him hanged," McCandless said with satisfaction, as though the

job was as good as done. His gloomy forebodings of the previous night

seemed to have vanished. He had stopped at a bare patch of ground.

"This looks like a fair billet. No more rain in the offing, I think,

so we should be comfortable."

Like hell, Sharpe thought. A bare bed, no rum, a fight in the morning,

and God only knew what kind of devils waiting across the wall, but he

slept anyway.

And woke when it was still dark to see shadowy men straggling past with

long ladders across their shoulders. Dawn was near and it was time for

an escalade. Time for ladders and murder.

Sanjit Pandee was kill adar of the city, which meant that he commanded

Ahmednuggur's garrison in the name of his master, Dowlut Rao Scindia,

Maharajah of Gwalior, and in principle every soldier in the city,

though not in the adjacent fortress, was under Pandee's command.

So why had Major Dodd ejected Pandee's troops from the northern

gatehouse and substituted his own men? Pandee had sent no orders, but

the deed had been done anyway and no one could explain why, and when

Sanjit Pandee sent a message to Major Dodd and demanded an answer, the

messenger was told to wait and, so far as the kill adar knew, was still

waiting.

Sanjit Pandee finally summoned the courage to confront the Major

himself. It was dawn, a time when the kill adar was not usually

stirring, and he discovered Dodd and a group of his white-coated

officers on the southern wall from where the Major was watching the

British camp through a heavy telescope mounted on a tripod. Sanjit

Pandee did not like to disturb the tall Dodd who was being forced to

stoop awkwardly because the tripod was incapable of raising the glass

to the level of his eye. The kill adar cleared his throat, but that

had no effect, and then he scraped a foot on the fire step and still

Dodd did not even glance at him, so finally the kill adar demanded his

explanation, though in very flowery terms just in case he gave the

Englishman offence. Sanjit Pandee had already lost the battle over the

city treasury which Dodd had simply commandeered without so much as a

by-your-leave, and the kill adar was nervous of the scowling

foreigner.

"Tell the bloody man," Dodd told his interpreter without taking his eye

from the telescope, 'that he's wasting my bloody time. Tell him to go

and boil his backside."

Dodd's interpreter, who was one of his younger Indian officers,

courteously suggested to the kill adar that Major Dodd's attention was

wholly consumed by the approaching enemy, but that as soon as he had a

moment of leisure, the Major would be delighted to hold a conversation

with the honoured kill adar

The kill adar gazed southwards. Horsemen, British and Indian, were

ranging far ahead of the approaching enemy column. Not that Sanjit

Pandee could see the column properly, only a dark smudge among the

distant green that he supposed was the enemy. Their feet kicked up no

dust, but that was because of the rain that had fallen the day

before.

"Are the enemy truly coming?" he enquired politely.

"Of course they're not bloody coming," Dodd said, standing upright and

massaging the small of his back.

"They're running away in terror."

"The enemy are indeed approaching, sahib," the interpreter said

deferentially.

The kill adar glanced along his de fences and was reassured to see the

bulk of Dodd's regiment on the fire step and alongside them the robed

figures of his Arab mercenaries.

"Your regiment's guns," he said to the interpreter, 'they are not

here?"

"Tell the interfering little bugger that I've sold all the bloody

cannon to the enemy," Dodd growled.

"The guns are placed where they will prove most useful, sahib' the

interpreter assured the kill adar with a dazzling smile, and the kill

adar who knew that the five small guns were at the north gate where

they were pointing in towards the city rather than out towards the

plain, sighed in frustration. Europeans could be so very difficult.

"And the three hundred men the Major has placed at the north gate?"

Sanjit Pandee said.

"Is it because he expects an attack there?"

"Ask the idiot why else they would be there," Dodd instructed the

interpreter, but there was no time to tell the kill adar anything

further because shouts from the ramparts announced the approach of

three enemy horsemen. The emissaries rode beneath a white flag, but

some of the Arabs were aiming their long-barrelled matchlocks at the

approaching horsemen and the kill adar quickly sent some aides to

tell

the mercenaries to hold their fire.

"They've come to offer us cowle," the kill adar said as he hurried

towards the south gate. Cowle was an offer of terms, a chance for the

defenders to surrender rather than face the horrors of assault, and the

kill adar hoped he could prolong the negotiations long enough to

persuade Major Dodd to bring the three hundred men back from the north

gate.

The kill adar could see that the three horsemen were riding towards the

south gate which was topped by a squat tower from which flew Scindia's

gaudy green and scarlet flag. To reach the tower the kill adar had to

run down some stone steps because the stretch of wall just west of the

gate possessed no fire step but was simply a high, blank wall of red

stone. He hurried along the foot of the wall, then climbed more steps

to reach the gate tower just as the three horsemen reined in beneath.

Two of the horsemen were Indians while the third was a British officer,

and the three men had indeed come to offer the city cowle. If the kill

adar surrendered, one of the Indians shouted, the city's defenders

would be permitted to march from Ahmednuggur with all their hand

weapons and whatever personal belongings they could carry. General

Wellesley would guarantee the garrison safe passage as far as the River

Godavery, beyond which Pohlmann's compoo had withdrawn. The officer

finished by demanding an immediate answer.

Sanjit Pandee hesitated. The cowle was generous, surprisingly

generous, and he was tempted to accept because no man would die if he

took the terms. He could see the approaching column clearly now, and

it looked to him like a red stain smothering the plain. There would be

guns there, and the gods alone knew how many muskets. Then he glanced

to his left and right and he saw the reassuring height of his walls,

and he saw the white robes of his fearsome Arabs, and he contemplated

what Dowlut Rao Scindia would say if he meekly surrendered Ahmednuggur.

Scindia would be angry, and an angry Scindia was liable to put whoever

had angered him beneath the elephant's foot. The kill adar task was to

delay the British in front of Ahmednuggur while Scindia gathered his

allies and so prepared the vast army that would crush the invader.

Sanjit Pandee sighed.

"There can be no cowle," he called down to Wellesley's three

messengers, and the horsemen did not try to change his mind. They just

tugged on their reins, spurred their horses and rode away.

"They want battle," the kill adar said sadly, 'they want loot."

"That's why they come here," an aide replied.

"Their own land is barren."

"I hear it is green," Sanjit Pandee said.

"No, sahib, barren and dry. Why else would they be here?"

News spread along the walls that cowle had been refused. No one had

expected otherwise, but the kill adar reluctant defiance cheered the

defenders whose ranks thickened as townsfolk climbed to the fire step

to see the approaching enemy.

Dodd scowled when he saw that women and children were thronging the

ramparts to view the enemy.

"Clear them away!" he ordered his interpreter.

"I want only the duty companies up here." He watched as his orders

were obeyed.

"Nothing's going to happen for three days now," he assured his

officers.

"They'll send skirmishers to harass us, but skirmishers can't hurt us

if we don't show our heads above the wall. So tell the men to keep

their heads down. And no one's to fire at the skirmishers, you

understand? No point in wasting good balls on skirmishers. We'll open

fire after three days."

"In three days, sahib?" a young Indian officer asked.

"It will take the bastards one day to establish batteries and two to

make a breach," Dodd forecast confidently.

"And on the fourth day the buggers will come, so there's nothing to get

excited about now."

The Major decided to set an example of insouciance in the face of the

enemy.

"I'm going for breakfast," he told his officers.

"I'll be back when the bastards start digging their breaching

batteries."

The tall Major ran down the steps and disappeared into the city's

alleys. The interpreter looked back at the approaching column, then

put his eye to the telescope. He was looking for guns, but at first he

could see only a mass of men in red coats with the odd horseman among

their ranks, and then he saw something odd. Something he did not

comprehend.

Some of the men in the front ranks were carrying ladders. He frowned,

then saw something more familiar beyond the red ranks and tilted the

glass so that he could see the enemy's cannon. There were only five

guns, one being hauled by men and the four larger by elephants, and

behind the artillery were more redcoats. Those redcoats wore patterned

skirts and had high black hats, and the interpreter was glad that he

was behind the wall for somehow the men in skirts looked fearsome.

He looked back at the ladders and did not really understand what

he saw. There were only four ladders, so plainly they did not mean to

lean them against the wall. Maybe, he thought, the British planned to

make an observation tower so that they could see over the de fences and

that explanation made sense and so he did not comprehend that there was

to be no siege at all, but an escalade. The enemy was not planning to

knock a hole in the wall, but to swarm straight over it. There would

be no waiting, no digging, no saps, no batteries and no breach. There

would just be a charge, a scream, a torrent of fire, and then death in

the morning sun.

"The thing is, Sharpe," McCandless said, 'not to get yourself

killed."

"Wasn't planning on it, sir."

"No heroics, Sharpe. It's not your job. We just follow the heroes

into the city, look for Mister Dodd, then go back home."

"Yes, sir."

"So stay close to me, and I'm staying close to Colonel Wallace's party,

so if you lose me, look for him. That's Wallace there, see him?"

McCandless indicated a tall, bare-headed officer riding at the front of

the 74th.

"I see him, sir," Sharpe said. He was mounted on McCandless's spare

horse and the extra height allowed him to see over the heads of the

King's 74th who marched in front of him. Beyond the Highlanders the

city wall looked dark red in the early sun, and on its summit he could

see the occasional glint of a musket showing between the dome-shaped

merlons that topped the wall. Big round bastions stood every hundred

yards and those bastions had black embrasures which Sharpe assumed hid

the defenders' cannon. The brightly coloured statues of a temple's

tower showed above the rampart while a slew of flags drooped over the

gate. No one fired yet. The British were within cannon range, but the

defenders were keeping their guns quiet.

Most of the British force now checked a half-mile from the walls while

the three assault parties organized themselves. Two of the attacking

groups would escalade the wall, one to the left of the gate and the

other to the right, and both would be led by Scottish soldiers with

sepoys in support. The King's 778th, the kilted regiment, would attack

the wall to the left while their fellow Highlanders of the 74th would

assault to the right. The third attack was in the centre and would be

led by the 74th's Colonel, William Wallace, who was also commander of

one of the two infantry brigades and evidently an old friend of

McCandless for, seeing his fellow Scot, Wallace rode back through his

regiment's ranks to greet him with a warm familiarity. Wallace would

be leading men of the 74th in an assault against the gate itself and

his plan was to run a six-pounder cannon hard up against the big timber

gates then fire the gun to blast the entrance open.

"None of our gunners have ever done it before," Wallace told

McCandless, 'and they've insisted on putting a round shot down the gun,

but I swear my mother told me you should never load shot to open gates.

A double powder charge, she instructed me, and nothing else."

"Your mother told you that, Wallace?" McCandless asked.

"Her father was an artilleryman, you see, and he brought her up

properly. But I can't persuade our gunners to leave out the ball.

Stubborn fellows, they are. English to a man, of course. Can't teach

them anything." Wallace offered McCandless his canteen.

"It's cold tea, McCandless, nothing that will send your soul to

perdition."

McCandless took a swig of the tea, then introduced Sharpe.

"He was the fellow who blew the Tippoo's mine in Seringapatam," he told

Wallace.

"I heard about you, Sharpe!" Wallace said.

"A damn fine day's work, Sergeant, well done." And the Scotsman leaned

across to give Sharpe his hand. He was a middle-aged man, balding,

with a pleasant face and a quick smile.

"I can tempt you to some cold tea, Sharpe?"

"I've got water, sir, thank you," Sharpe said, patting his canteen

which was filled with rum, a gift from Daniel Hetcher, the General's

orderly.

"You'll forgive me if I'm about my business," Wallace said to

McCandless, retrieving his canteen.

"I'll see you inside the city, McCandless. Joy of the day to you

both." Wallace spurred back to the head of his column.

"A very good man," McCandless said warmly, 'a very good man indeed."

Sevajee and his dozen men cantered up to join McCandless. They all

wore red jackets, for they planned to ride into the city with

McCandless and none wanted to be mistaken for the enemy, yet somehow

the unbuttoned jackets, which had been borrowed from a sepoy battalion,

made them look more piratical than ever. They all carried naked

tulwars, curved sabres that they had honed to a razor's edge at dawn.

Sevajee reckoned there would be no time for aiming fire locks once they

were inside Ahmednuggur. Ride in, charge whoever still put up a fight

and cut down hard.

The two escalade parties started forward. Each had a pair of ladders,

and each party was led by those men who had volunteered to be first up

the rungs. The sun was fully above the horizon now and Sharpe could

see the wall more plainly. He reckoned it was twenty foot high, give

or take a few inches, and the glint of guns in every embrasure and

loophole showed that it would be heavily defended.

"Ever seen an escalade, Sharpe?" McCandless asked.

"No, sir."

"Risky business. Frail things, ladders. Nasty being first up."

"Very nasty, sir."

"And if it fails it gives the enemy confidence."

"So why do it, sir?"

"Because if it succeeds, Sharpe, it lowers the enemy's spirits. It

will make us seem invincible. Veni, vidi, vici."

"I don't speak any Indian, sir, not proper."

"Latin, Sharpe, Latin. I came, I saw, I conquered. How's your reading

these days?"

"It's good, sir, very good," Sharpe answered enthusiastically, though

in truth he had not read very much in the last four years other than

lists of stores and duty rosters and Major Stokes's repair orders. But

it had been Colonel McCandless and his nephew, Lieutenant Lawford, who

had first taught Sharpe to read when they shared a cell in the Tippoo

Sultan's prison. That was four years ago now.

"I shall give you a Bible, Sharpe," McCandless said, watching the

escalade parties march steadily forward.

"It's the one book worth reading."

"I'd like that, sir," Sharpe said straight-faced, then saw that the

picquets of the day were running ahead to make a skirmish line that

would pepper the wall with musket fire. Still no one fired from the

city wall, though by now both the picquets and the two ladder parties

were well inside musket range.

"If you don't mind me asking, sir," Sharpe said to McCandless, 'what's

to stop that bugger sorry, sir what's to stop Mister Dodd from escaping

out the other side of the city, sir?"

"They are, Sharpe," McCandless said, indicating the cavalry that now

galloped off on both sides of the city. The British igth Dragoons rode

in a tight squadron, but the other horsemen were Mahratta allies or

else silladars from Hyderabad or Mysore, and they rode in a loose

swarm.

"Their job is to harass anyone leaving the city," McCandless went on.

"Not the civilians, of course, but any troops."

"But Dodd's got a whole regiment, sir."

McCandless dismissed the problem.

"I doubt that two whole regiments will serve him. In a minute or two

there'll be sheer panic inside Ahmednuggur, and how's Dodd to get away?

He'll have to fight his way through a crowd of terrified civilians. No,

we'll find him inside the place if he's still there."

"He is," Sevajee put in. He was staring at the wall through a small

telescope.

"I can see the uniforms of his men on the fire step White jackets." He

pointed westwards, beyond the stretch of wall that would be attacked by

the 778th.

The picquets suddenly opened fire. They were scattered along the

southern edge of the city, and their musketry was sporadic and, to

Sharpe, futile. Men firing at a city? The musket balls smacked into

the red stone of the wall which echoed back the crackle of the gunfire,

but the defenders ignored the threat. Not a musket replied, not a

cannon fired. The wall was silent. Shreds of smoke drifted from the

skirmish line which went on chipping the big red stones with lead.

Colonel Wallace's assault party was late in starting, while the kilted

men of the 778th, who were assaulting the wall to the left of the gate,

were now far in advance of the other attackers. They were running

across open ground, their two ladders in plain sight of the enemy, but

still the defenders ignored them. A regiment of sepoys was wheeling

left, going to add their musket fire to the picquet line. A bagpiper

was playing, but he must have been running for his instrument kept

giving small ignominious hiccups. In truth it all seemed ignominious

to Sharpe. The battle, if it could even be called a battle, had begun

so casually, and the enemy was not even appearing to regard it as a

threat. The skirmishers' fire was scattered, the assault parties

looked under strength and there seemed to be no urgency and no

ceremony. There ought to be ceremony, Sharpe considered. A band

should be playing, flags should be flying, and the enemy should be

visible and threatening, but instead it was ramshackle and almost

unreal.

"This way, Sharpe," McCandless said, and swerved away to where Colonel

Wallace was chivvying his men into formation. A dozen blue coated

gunners were clustered about a six-pounder cannon, evidently the gun

that would be rammed against the city gate, while just beyond them was

a battery of four twelve-pounder cannon drawn by elephants and, as

Sharpe and McCandless urged their horses towards Wallace, the four

mahouts halted their elephants and the gunners hurried to unharness the

four guns. Sharpe guessed the battery would spray the wall with

canister, though the silence of the defenders seemed to suggest that

they had nothing to fear from these impudent attackers. Sir Arthur

Wellesley, mounted on Diomed who seemed no worse for his bloodletting,

rode up behind the guns and called some instruction to the battery

commander who raised a hand in acknowledgement. The General was

accompanied by three scarlet-coated aides and two Indians who, from the

richness of their robes, had to be commanders of the allied horsemen

who had ridden to stop the flight of fugitives from the city's northern

gate.

The attackers from the 778th were just a hundred paces from the wall

now. They had no packs, only their weapons. And still the enemy

treated them with lordly disdain. Not a gun fired, not a musket

flamed, not a single rocket slashed out from the wall.

"Looks like it will be easy, McCandless!" Wallace called.

"I pray as much!" McCandless said.

"The enemy has been praying too," Sevajee said, but McCandless ignored

the remark.

Then, suddenly and appallingly, the silence ended.

The enemy was not ignoring the attack. Instead, from serried loopholes

in the wall and from the bastions' high embrasures and from the merlons

along the parapet, a storm of gunfire erupted. One moment the wall had

been clear in the morning sun, now it was fogged by a thick screen of

powder smoke. A whole city was rimmed white, and the ground about the

attacking troops was pitted and churned by the strike of bullets.

"Ten minutes of seven," McCandless shouted over the noise, as though

the time was important. Rockets, like those Sharpe had seen at

Seringapatam, seared out from the walls to stitch their smoke trails in

crazy tangles above the assaulting parties' heads, yet, despite the

volume of fire, the defenders' opening volley appeared to do little

harm. One redcoat was staggering, but the assault parties still went

forward, and then a pain-filled squeal made Sharpe look to his right to

see that an elephant had been struck by a cannonball. The beast's

mahout was dragging on its tether, but the elephant broke free and,

maddened by its wound, charged straight towards Wallace's men. The

Highlanders scattered. The gunners had begun to drag their loaded

six-pounder forward, but they were right in the injured beast's path

and now sensibly abandoned the gun to flee from the crazed animal's

charge. The wrinkled skin of the elephant's left flank was sheeted in

red. Wallace shouted incoherently, then spurred his horse out of the

way. The elephant, trunk raised and eyes white, thumped past

McCandless and Sharpe.

"Poor girl," McCandless said.

"It's a she?" Sharpe asked.

"AD draught animals are female, Sharpe. More docile."

"She ain't docile, sir," Sharpe said, watching the elephant burst free

of the army's rear and trample through a field of stubble pursued by

her mahout and an excited crowd of small skinny children who had

followed the attacking troops from the encampment and now whooped

shrilly as they enjoyed the chase. Sharpe watched them, then

involuntarily ducked as a musket ball whipped just over his shako and

another ricocheted off the six-pounder's barrel with a surprisingly

musical note.

"Not too close now, Sharpe," McCandless warned, and Sharpe obediently

reined in his mare.

Colonel Wallace was calling his men back into formation.

"Damned animals!" he snarled at McCandless.

"Your mother had no advice on elephants, Wallace?"

"None I'd repeat to a godly man, McCandless," Wallace said, then

spurred his horse towards the six-pounder's disordered gunners.

"Pick up the traces, you rogues. Hurry!"

The 778th had reached the wall to the left of the gate. They rammed the

foot of their two ladders into the soil, then swung the tops up and

over onto the wall's parapet.

"Good boys," McCandless shouted warmly, though he was far too distant

for the attackers to hear his encouragement.

"Good boys!" The first kilted Highlanders were already scrambling up

the rungs, but then a man was hit by a bullet from the flanking bastion

and he stopped, clung to the ladder, then slowly toppled sideways. A

crowd of Highlanders jostled at the bottom of the ladders to be the

next up the rungs. Poor bastards, Sharpe thought, so eager to climb to

death, and he saw that the leading men on both ladders were officers.

They had swords. The men climbed with their bayonet-tipped muskets

slung over their shoulders, but the officers climbed sword in hand. One

of them was struck and the man behind unceremoniously shoved him off

the ladder and hurried up to the parapet and there, inexplicably, he

stopped.

His comrades shouted at him to get a bloody move on and scramble

7Q

over the wall, but the man did nothing except to unsling his musket,

and then he was hurled backwards in a misting spray of blood. Another

man took his place, and the same happened to him. The officer at the

top of the second ladder was crouching on the top rung, occasionally

peering over the coping of the wall between two of the dome-shaped

merlons, but he was making no attempt to cross the parapet.

"They should have more than two ladders, sir," Sharpe grumbled.

"Wasn't time, laddie, wasn't time," McCandless said.

"What's holding them?" he asked as he stared with an agonized

expression at the stalled men. The Arab defenders in the nearest

bastion were being given a fine target and their musketry was having a

terrible effect on the crowded ladders. The noise of the defenders'

fire was continuous; a staccato crackle of musketry, the hiss of

rockets and the thunderous crash of cannon. Men were blasted off the

ladders, and their place was immediately taken by others, but still the

men at the top of the rungs did not try to cross the wall, and still

the defenders fired and the dead and injured heaped up at the foot of

the ladders and the living pushed them aside to reach the rungs and so

offer themselves as targets to the unending gunfire. One man at last

heaved himself onto the wall and straddled the coping where he unslung

his musket and fired a shot down into the city, but almost immediately

he was hit by a blast of musket fire. He swayed for a second, his

musket clattered down the wall's red face, then he followed it to the

ground. The new man at the top of the ladder heaved himself up, then,

just like the rest, he checked and ducked back.

"What's holding them?" McCandless cried in frustration.

"In God's name! Go!"

"There's no bloody fire step Sharpe said grimly.

McCandless glanced at him.

"What?"

"Sorry, sir. Forgot not to curse, sir."

But McCandless was not worried about Sharpe's language.

"What did you say, man?" he insisted.

"There's no fire step there, sir." Sharpe pointed at the wall where

the Scotsmen were dying.

"There's no musket smoke on the parapet, sir."

McCandless looked back.

"By God, you're right."

The wall had merlons and embrasures, but not a single patch of musket

smoke showed in those de fences which meant that the castellation was

false and there was no fire step on the wall's far side where defenders

could stand. From the outside the stretch of wall looked like any

other part of the city's de fences but Sharpe guessed that once the

Highlanders reached the wall's summit they were faced with a sheer drop

on the far side, and doubtless there was a crowd of enemies waiting at

the foot of that inner wall to massacre any man who survived the fall.

The 778th were attacking into thin air and being bloodied mercilessly by

the jubilant defenders.

The two ladders emptied as the officers at last realized their

predicament and shouted at their men to come down. The defenders

cheered the repulse and kept firing as the two ladders were carried

back from the ramparts.

"Dear God," McCandless said, 'dear God."

"I warned you," Sevajee said, unable to conceal his pride in the

fighting qualities of the Mahratta defenders.

"You're on our side!" McCandless snarled, and the Indian just

shrugged.

"It ain't over yet, sir," Sharpe tried to cheer up the Scotsman.

"Escalades work by speed, Sharpe," McCandless said, 'and we've lost

surprise now "It will have to be done properly," Sevajee remarked

smugly, 'with guns and a breach."

But the escalade was not defeated yet. The assault party of the 74th

had now reached the wall to the right of the gate and their two ladders

were swung up against the high red stones, but this stretch of wall did

possess a fire step and it was crowded with eager defenders who rained

a savage fire down onto the attackers. The British twelve-pounders had

opened fire, and their canister was savaging the defenders, but the

dead and wounded were dragged away to be replaced by reinforcements who

quickly learned that if they let the attackers come up the two ladders

then the cannon would cease fire, and so they let the Scots climb the

rungs and then hurled down baulks of wood that could scrape a ladder

clear in seconds. Then a cannon in one of the flanking bastions

hammered a barrel load of stones and scrap iron into the men crowding

about the foot of the ladders.

"Oh, dear God," McCandless prayed again, 'dear God." More men began to

climb the ladders while the wounded crawled and limped back from the

walls, pursued by the musket fire of the defenders. A Scottish

officer, claymore in hand, ran up one of the ladders with the facility

of a sailor swarming up rigging. He cut the claymore at a lunging

bayonet, somehow survived a musket blast, put a hand on the coping, but

then a spear took him in the throat and he seemed to shake like a

gaffed fish before tumbling backwards and carrying two men down to the

ground with him. The sound of the defenders' musketry was punctuated

by the deeper crash of the small cannon that were mounted in the hidden

galleries of the bastions. One of those cannon now struck a ladder in

the flank and Sharpe watched appalled as the whole flimsy thing buckled

and broke, carrying seven men down to the ground in its wreckage. The

778th had been repulsed and the 74th had lost one of their two

ladders.

"This is not good," McCandless said grimly, 'not good at all."

"Fighting Mahrattas," Sevajee said smugly, 'is not like fighting men

from Mysore."

Colonel Wallace's party was still a good hundred yards from the gate,

slowed by the weight of their six-pounder cannon. It seemed to Sharpe

that Wallace needed more men to handle the cumbersome gun and the

enemy's musket fire was taking its toll of the few men he did have

shoving at the wheels or dragging at the traces. Wellesley was not far

behind Wallace, and just behind the General, mounted on one of his

spare horses and with a second on a leading rein, was Daniel

Fletcher.

The musket fire spurted scraps of dried mud all around Wellesley and

his aides, but the General seemed to have a charmed life.

The 778th returned to the attack on the left, only this time they ran

their two ladders directly at the bastion which flanked the wall where

their first attempt had failed. The threatened bastion reacted with an

angry explosion of musket fire. One of the ladders fell, its carriers

hard hit by the volley, but the other swung on up and as soon as its

top struck the bastion's summit a kilted officer climbed the rungs.

"No!" McCandless cried, as the officer was hit and fell. Other men

took his place, but the defenders tipped a basket of stones over the

parapet and the tumbling rocks scoured the ladder clear. A volley of

musketry made the defenders duck and when the smoke cleared Sharpe saw

that the kilted officer was again ascending the ladder, this time

without his tall hat. He carried his claymore in his right hand and

the big sword hampered him. An Arab fleetingly appeared at the top of

the ladder with a lump of timber that he hurled down at the attacker,

and the officer was thrown back a second time.

"No!" McCandless lamented again, but then the same officer appeared a

third time. He was determined to have the honour of being first into

the city, and this time he had tied his red waist-sash to his wrist and

let his claymore hang by its hilt from a loop of the silk, thus leaving

both hands free and allowing him to climb much faster. He kept

climbing, and his men crowded behind him in their big bearskin hats,

and the loopholes in the bastion's galleries spat flame and smoke as

they scrambled past the bastion's storeys, but magically the officer

survived the fusillade and Sharpe had his heart in his mouth as the man

drew nearer and nearer to the top. He expected to see a defender

appear at any moment, but the attackers who were not queuing at the

foot of the ladder were now hammering the bastion's summit with musket

fire and under its cover the bareheaded officer scrambled up the last

few rungs, paused to take hold of his claymore's hilt, then leaped over

the top of the wall. Someone cheered, and Sharpe caught a distinct

view of the officer's claymore rising and falling above the red wall's

coping. More Highlanders were clambering up the ladder and though some

were blasted off by musket fire from the bastion's loopholes, others

were at last reaching the high parapet and following their officer onto

the de fences The second ladder was swung into place and the trickle

of attackers became a stream.

"Thank God," McCandless said fervently, 'thank God indeed."

The 778th were in the bastion, and now the 74th, which had been reduced

to just one ladder, also made their lodgement. An officer had

organized two companies to give the parapet a blast of musketry just as

a sergeant reached the top of the ladder, and the fusillade cleared the

embrasures as the sergeant clambered over the wall. His bayonet

stabbed down, then he reeled backwards as a defender slashed at him

with a tulwar, but a lieutenant was behind him and he hacked down with

his claymore and then kicked the defender in the face. A third man

crossed, the fourth was killed, and then another man was on the wall

and the Scotsmen screamed their war cries as they began the grim job of

clearing the defenders off the fire step Sharpe could hear the clash

of blades on the wall, and see a cloud of powder smoke above the

crenellations where the Scots of the 74th were fighting their way along

the parapet, but he could see nothing on the bastion where the kilted

778th were fighting. He guessed they were clearing the bastion floor by

floor, charging down the steep stone steps and carrying their bayonets

to the gunners and infantrymen who manned the lower galleries.

The Scots at last reached the bastion's ground floor where they killed

one last defender and then burst out of the tower's inner doorway to be

faced by a horde of Arabs who poured a volley of matchlock fire into

the attackers' ranks.

"Charge the bastards! Charge them!" The same young officer who had

led the assault now rallied his men and led them against the robed

defenders who were reloading their longbarrelled muskets. The

Highlanders attacked with bayonets and a ferocity born of

desperation.

The Scots were inside the city, but so far the only route to reinforce

them was up the three remaining ladders, and one of those was bending

dangerously after being struck by a small round shot. Wellesley was

shouting at Wallace to get the gate open, and Colonel Wallace was

bellowing at his gunners to get their damned weapon into place. The

defenders above the gate did their best to stop the advancing cannon,

but Wallace ordered a company of infantry to help the gunners roll the

cannon forward and those men cheered as they bounced and rattled the

heavy gun towards the gate.

"Give them fire," Wallace shouted, 'give them fire!" and his remaining

infantrymen blasted a ragged volley up at the gate's defenders. The

flags above the rampart twitched as the balls snatched at the silk. The

six-pounder rumbled forward, thumping over the uneven road surface that

was being pocked by musket balls spat from the gatehouse loopholes. A

bagpipe was playing and the savage music made a fine accompaniment to

the gun's wild charge.

"Keep firing," Wallace shouted at his infantry, 'keep firing!" His

men's musket balls struck tiny puffs of dust and flakes of stone from

the gate that was wreathed in smoke, smoke so thick that the gun seemed

to disappear in fog as it rolled the last few yards, but then Sharpe

heard the resounding thump as the gun's muzzle was rammed hard against

the big wooden gate.

"Get back," the gun commander shouted, 'get back!" and the men who had

hauled the gun scrambled clear.

"Make ready!" Wallace shouted, and his men stopped their firing and

dragged out bayonets that they slotted over their blackened musket

muzzles.

"Fire the gun!" Wallace shouted.

"Fire it! For God's sake, fire!" A rocket seethed out of the smoke,

trailing sparks, and for a second Sharpe thought it would plunge into

the heart of Wallace's waiting men, but then it arced up into the clear

blue sky and blazed safely away.

Inside the city the Arabs who had tried to defend the bastion now

retreated in front of the battle-maddened Scots who swarmed out of the

bastion's inner door. The Arabs might come from a hard, warlike

country, but so did the kilted men who came snarling into the city.

Sepoys were climbing the ladders now and they joined the Highlanders.

Their instinct was to charge across the cleared space inside the wall

and so reach the cover of the city's alleyways, but the young officer

who led the attack knew that the defenders could still rally if he did

not open the gate and so let in a flood of attackers.

"To the gate!" he shouted, and led his men along the inner face of the

wall to reach the south gate. The Arabs waiting just inside the arch

turned and fired as the Scots approached, but the young officer seemed

invincible. He screamed as he charged, then his reddened claymore

slashed down, and his men's bayonets lunged forward. Two sepoys joined

them, stabbing and screaming, and the outnumbered Arabs died or fled.

"Open the gate!" the young officer shouted, and one of the sepoys ran

forward to lift the heavy locking bar out of its iron brackets.

"Fire!" Colonel Wallace shouted on the gate's far side.

The gun captain touched his port fire to the priming reed. There was a

fizz of spark, a wisp of smoke and then the double-charged gun leaped

back and the sound of its massive discharge was magnified by the echo

that bounced deafeningly off the gate's high archway. The doors

splintered, and the sepoy who had been lifting the bar was cut in two

by the six-pound ball and by the wicked-edged scraps of shattered

timber that exploded into the city. The other attackers on the inner

side of the gate reeled away from the smoke and flame of the blast, but

the bar was lifted and the cannon's discharge swung the gates open.

"Charge!" Wallace shouted, and his men screamed as they ran into the

smoke-shrouded arch and pushed past the gun and trampled over the

bloody halves of the slaughtered sepoy.

"Come on, Sharpe, come on!" McCandless had his own claymore drawn and

the old man's face was alight with excitement as he spurred his horse

towards the doomed city. The assault troops who had been waiting to

climb the ladders now joined the surge of men running towards the

broken gates.

For Ahmednuggur had fallen, and from the first shot until the opening

of the gate it had taken just twenty minutes. And now the redcoats

went for their reward and the suffering inside the city could begin.

Major William Dodd had never reached his breakfast. Instead he had

hurried back to the walls the moment he heard the first muskets fire

and, once on the fire step he had stared appalled at the ladder parties

for he had never once anticipated that the British would attempt an

escalade. Of all the methods of taking a city, an escalade was the

riskiest, but Dodd realized he should have foreseen it. Ahmednuggur

had no ditch, nor any glacis, indeed the city had no obstacle outside

its ramparts and that made it a prime candidate for escalade, though

Dodd had never believed that Boy Wellesley would dare try such a

stratagem.

He thought Wellesley too cautious.

None of the assaults was aimed at the stretch of wall where Dodd's men

were positioned, so all they could do was fire their muskets obliquely

at the advancing British, but the distance was too great for their fire

to be effective and the thick powder smoke of their muskets soon

obscured their aim and so Dodd ordered them to cease fire.

"I can only see four ladders," his interpreter said.

"Must have more than four," Dodd remarked.

"Can't do it with just four."

For a time it seemed the Major must be right for the defence was making

a mockery of the attack, while Dodd's men were troubled by nothing more

threatening than a scatter of sepoy skirmishers who fired ineffectually

at his stretch of the wall. He showed his derision of the skirmishers'

fire by standing openly in an embrasure from where he could watch the

enemy's cavalry ride about the city's flank to cut off any escape from

the northern gate. He could deal with a few cavalrymen, he decided. A

scrap of stone was driven from the coping beside him by a musket ball.

The stone flake rapped against the leather sword belt that was buckled

round Dodd's new white coat. He did not like wearing white.

It showed the dirt, but worse, it made any wound look much worse than

it really was. Blood on a red coat hardly showed, but even a small

amount of blood on a white coat could make a nervous man terrified.

He wondered if Pohlmann or Scindia would agree to the cost of new

jackets. Brown, maybe, or dark blue.

The interpreter came to where the Major stood in the embrasure.

"The kill adar requests that we form up behind the gate, sir."

"Noted," Dodd said curtly.

"He says the enemy are approaching the gate with a gun, sahib."

"Sensible of them," Dodd said, but otherwise ignored the request.

Instead he stared eastwards and saw a Scottish officer suddenly appear

at the summit of a bastion. Kill him, he silently urged the Arabs in

the bastion, but the young officer jumped down and began laying about

him with his claymore, and suddenly there were more kilted

Scotsmen crossing the wall.

"I do hate the bloody Scots," he said.

"Sahib?" The interpreter asked.

"Priggish bastards, they are," Dodd said, but the priggish bastards

looked as if they had just captured the city and Dodd knew it would be

madness to get involved in a doomed fight to save it. That way he

would lose his regiment.

"Sahib'?" the interpreter interrupted Dodd nervously.

"The killadarwas insistent, sir."

"Bugger the kill adar Dodd said, jumping down from the embrasure.

"I

want the men off the wall," he ordered, 'and formed in companies on the

inner esplanade." He pointed down to the wide space just inside the

wall.

"Now," he added and, with one last glance at the attackers, he ran down

the steps.

"Jemadar]? he shouted to Gopal, whom he had promoted as a reward for

loyalty.

"Sahib?

"Form up! March by companies to the north gate! If any civilians

block your path, open fire!"

"Kill them?" the Jemadar asked.

"I don't want you to bloody tickle them, Gopal. Slaughter them!"

The interpreter had listened to this exchange and stared appalled at

the tall Englishman.

"But, sir.. ." he began to plead.

"The city's lost," Dodd growled, 'and the second rule of war is not to

reinforce failure."

The interpreter wondered what the first rule was, but knew this was not

the time to ask.

"But the kill adar sir .. ."

"Is a lily-livered mouse and we are men. Our orders are to save the

regiment so it can fight again. Now, go!"

Dodd saw the first redcoats burst out of the inner door of the bastion,

heard the Arab volley that threw some of the attackers down into the

bloodied dust, but then he turned away from the fight and followed his

men into the city's streets. It went against the grain to abandon a

fight, but Dodd knew his duty. The city might die, but the regiment

must live.

Captain Joubert should be holding the north gate safe where Dodd's guns

waited, and where his own saddle horses and pack mule were ready, and

so he called for his other French officer, the young Lieutenant

Silliere, and told him to take a dozen men to rescue Simone Joubert

from the panic that he knew was about to engulf the city. Dodd had

rather hoped he could fetch Simone himself, posing as her protector,

but he knew that the fall of the city was imminent and there 8?

would be no time for such gallantries.

"Bring her safe, Lieutenant."

"Of course, sir," Silliere said and, glad to be given such a duty, he

ordered a dozen men to follow him into the alleys.

Dodd gave one backward glance towards the south, then marched away from

the fight. There was nothing for him here but failure. It was time to

go north, for it was there, Dodd knew, beyond the wide rivers and among

the far hills and a long way from their supplies, that the British

would be lured to their deaths.

But Ahmednuggur, and everything inside it, was doomed.

CHAPTER 4

Sharpe followed McCandless into the gatehouse's high archway, using the

weight of his mare to push through the sepoys and Highlanders who

jostled in the narrow roadway that was still half blocked by the six

pounder cannon. The mare shied from the thick powder smoke that hung

in the air between the scorched and smoking remnants of the two gates

and Sharpe, gripping the mane to keep in the saddle, kicked his heels

back so that the horse shot forward and trampled through the fly-blown

intestines of the sepoy who had been struck in the belly by the

six-pound shot. He hauled on the reins, checking the mare's fright

among the sprawled bodies of the Arabs who had died trying to defend

the gate.

The fight here had been short and brutal, but there was no resistance

left in the city by the time Sharpe caught up with McCandless who was

staring in disapproval at the victorious redcoats who hurried into

Ahmednuggur's alleyways. The first screams were sounding.

"Women and drink," McCandless said disapprovingly.

"That's all they'll be thinking of, women and drink."

"Loot too, sir," Sharpe corrected the Scotsman.

"It's a wicked world, sir," he added hastily, wishing he could be let

off the leash himself to join the plunderers. Sevajee and his men were

through the gate now, wheeling their horses behind Sharpe, who glanced

up at the walls to see, with some surprise, that many of the city's

defenders were still on the fire step though they were making no effort

to fire at the red-coated enemy who flooded through the broken gate.

"So what do we do, sir?" he asked.

McCandless, usually so sure of himself, seemed at a momentary loss, but

then he saw a wounded Mahratta crawling across the cleared space inside

the wall and, throwing his reins to Sharpe, he dismounted and crossed

to the casualty. He helped the wounded man into the shelter of a

doorway and there propped him against a wall and gave him a drink from

his canteen. He spoke to the wounded man for a few seconds. Sevajee,

his tulwar still drawn, came alongside Sharpe.

"First we kill them, then we give them water," the Indian said.

"Funny business, war, sir," Sharpe said.

"Do you enjoy it?" Sevajee asked.

"Don't rightly know, sir. Haven't seen much." A short skirmish in

Flanders, the swift victory of Malavelly, the chaos at the fall of

Seringapatam, the horror of Chasalgaon and today's fierce escalade;

that was Sharpe's full experience of war and he harboured all the

memories and tried to work out from them some pattern that would tell

him how he would react when the next violence erupted in his life. He

thought he enjoyed it, but he was dimly aware that perhaps he ought not

to enjoy it.

"You, sir?" he asked Sevajee.

"I love it, Sergeant," the Indian said simply.

"You've never been wounded?" Sharpe guessed.

"Twice. But a gambler does not stop throwing dice because he loses."

McCandless came running back from the wounded man.

"Dodd's heading for the north gate!"

"This way," Sevajee said, sawing his reins and leading his cut-throats

off to the right where he reckoned they would avoid the press of

panicked people crowding the centre of the city.

"That wounded man was the kill adar,"I McCandless said as he fiddled

his left boot into the stirrup, then hauled himself into the saddle.

"Dying, poor fellow. Took a bullet in the stomach."

"Their chief man, eh?" Sharpe said, looking up at the gatehouse where

a Highlander was ripping down Scindia's flags.

"And he was bitterly unhappy with our Lieutenant Dodd," McCandless said

as he spurred his horse after Sevajee.

"It seems he deserted the de fences

"He's in a hurry to get away, sir," Sharpe suggested.

"Then let us hurry to stop him," McCandless said, quickening his horse

so that he could push through Sevajee's men to reach the front ranks of

the pursuers. Sevajee was using the alleyways beneath the eastern

walls and for a time the narrow streets were comparatively empty, but

then the crowds increased and their troubles began. A dog yapped at

the heels of McCandless's horse, making it rear, then a holy cow with

blue painted horns wandered into their path and Sevajee insisted they

wait for the beast, but McCandless angrily banged the cow's bony rump

with the flat of his claymore to drive it aside, then his horse shied

again as a blast of musketry sounded just around the corner. A group

of sepoys were shooting open a locked door, but McCandless could not

spare the time to stop their depredations.

"Wellesley will have to hang some of them," he said, spurring on.

Refugees were fleeing into the alleys, hammering on locked doors or

scaling mud walls to find safety. A woman, carrying a vast bundle on

her head, was knocked to the ground by a sepoy who began slashing at

the bundle's ropes with his bayonet. Two Arabs, both armed with

massive matchlock guns with pearl-studded stocks, appeared ahead of

them and Sharpe unslung his musket, but the two men were not disposed

to continue a lost fight and so vanished into a gateway. The street

was littered with discarded uniform jackets, some green, some blue,

some brown, all thrown off by panicking defenders who now tried to pass

themselves off as civilians. The crowds thickened as they neared the

city's northern edge and the air of panic here was palpable. Muskets

sounded constantly in the city and every shot, like every scream, sent

a shudder through the crowds that eddied in hopeless search of an

escape.

McCandless was shouting at the crowds, and using the threat of his

sword to make a passage. There were plenty of men in the streets who

might have opposed the Colonel's party, and some of those men still had

weapons, but none made any threatening move. Ahmednuggur's surviving

defenders only wanted to live, while the civilians had been plunged

into terror. A crowd had invaded a Hindu temple where the women swayed

and wailed in front of their garlanded idols. A child carrying a

birdcage scurried across the road and McCandless wrenched his horse

aside to avoid trampling the toddler, and then a loud volley of

musketry sounded close ahead. There was a pause, and Sharpe imagined

the men tearing open new cartridges and ramming the bullets into their

muzzles, and then, exactly at the moment he expected it, the second

volley sounded. This was not the ragged noise of plundering men

blasting open locked doors, but a disciplined infantry fight.

"I warrant that fight's at the north gate!" McCandless called back

excitedly.

"Sounds heavy, sir," Sharpe said.

"It'll be panic, man, panic! We'll just ride in and snatch the

fellow!"

McCandless, so close to his quarry, was elated. A third volley

sounded, and this time Sharpe heard the musket balls smacking against

mud walls or ripping through the thatched roofs. The crowds were

suddenly thinner and McCandless drove back his spurs to urge his big

gelding closer to the firefight. Sevajee was alongside him, tulwar

shining, and his men just behind. The city walls were close to their

right-hand side, and ahead, over a jumble of thatched and slate roofs,

Sharpe could see a blue and-green-striped flag flying over the ramparts

of a square tower like the bastion that crowned the south gate. The

tower had to be above the north gate, and he kicked his horse on and

hauled back the cock of his musket.

The horsemen cleared the last buildings and the gate was now only

thirty yards ahead on the far side of an open, paved space, but the

moment McCandless saw the gate he wrenched his reins to swerve his

horse aside. Sevajee did the same, but the men behind, Sharpe

included, were too late. Sharpe had thought that the disciplined

volleys must be being fired by redcoats or sepoys, but instead two

companies of white jacketed soldiers were barring the way to the gate

and it was those men who were firing to keep the space around the gate

clear for other white coated companies who were marching in

double-quick time to escape the city. The volleys were being fired

indiscriminately at civilians, redcoats and fugitive defenders alike,

their aim solely to keep the gate free for the white-coated companies

that were under the command of an unnaturally tall man mounted on a

gaunt black horse. And just as Sharpe saw the man, and recognized him,

so the left-hand company aimed at the horsemen and fired.

A horse screamed. Blood spurted fast and warm over the cobbles as the

beast fell, trapping its rider and breaking his leg. Another of

Sevajee's men was down, his tulwar ringing as it skittered across the

stones. Sharpe heard the whistle of musket balls all about him and he

tugged on the reins, wrenching the mare back towards the alley, but she

protested his violence and turned back towards the enemy. He kicked

her.

"Move, you bitch!" he shouted.

"Move!" He could hear ramrods rattling in barrels and he knew it would

only be seconds, before another volley came his way, but then

McCandless was beside him and the Scotsman leaned over, seized Sharpe's

bridle and hauled! him safely into the shelter of an alley.

"Thank you, sir," Sharpe said. He had lost control of his horse and

felt ashamed. The mare was quivering and he patted her neck just as

Dodd's next volley hammered its huge noise through the city. The balls

thumped into the mud-brick walls, shattered tiles and tore handfuls out

of the palm thatch. McCandless had dismounted, so Sharpe now kicked

his feet from the stirrups, dropped from the saddle and ran to join the

Colonel at the mouth of the alley. Once there, he looked for Dodd

through the clearing smoke, found him and aimed the musket.

McCandless hurriedly pushed the musket down.

"What are you doing, man?"

"Killing the bugger, sir," Sharpe snarled, remembering the stench of

blood at Chasalgaon.

"You'll do no such thing, Sergeant," McCandless growled.

"I want him alive!"

Sharpe cursed, but did not shoot. Dodd, he saw, was very calm. He had

caused another massacre here, but this time he had been killing

Ahmednuggur's civilians to prevent them from crowding the gateway, and

his killers, the two white-coated companies, still stood guard on the

gate even though the remaining companies had all vanished into the

sunlit country beyond the archway's long dark tunnel. So why were

those two companies lingering? Why did Dodd not extricate them before

the rampaging sepoys and Highlanders caught up with him? The ground

ahead of the two rear guard companies was littered with dead and dying

fugitives and a horrid number of those corpses and casualties were

women and children, while more weeping and shrieking people, terrified

by the volley fire and equally frightened of the invaders spreading

into the city behind them, were crammed into every street or alley that

opened onto the cleared space by the gate.

"Why doesn't he leave?" McCandless wondered aloud.

"He's waiting for something, sir," Sharpe said.

"We need men," McCandless said.

"Go and fetch some. I'll keep an eye on Dodd."

"Me, sir? Fetch men?"

"You're a sergeant, aren't you?" McCandless snapped.

"So behave like one. Get me an infantry company. Highlanders,

preferably. Now go!"

Sharpe cursed under his breath, then sprinted back into the city. How

the hell was he expected to find men? There were plenty of redcoats in

sight, but none was under discipline, and demanding that looters

abandon their plunder to go into another fight would like as not prove

a waste of time if not downright suicidal. Sharpe needed to find an

officer, and so he bullied his way through the terrified crowd in hope

of discovering a company of Highlanders that was still obeying

orders.

A splintering crash directly above his head made him duck into a

doorway just seconds before a flimsy balcony collapsed under the weight

of three sepoys and a dark wooden trunk they had dragged from a

bedroom. The trunk split apart when it hit the street, spilling out a

trickle of coins, and the three injured sepoys screamed as they were

trampled by a rush of soldiers and civilians who plunged in to collect

the loot. A tall Scottish sergeant used his musket butt to clear a

space about the broken trunk, then knelt and began scooping the coins

into his upturned bearskin. He snarled at Sharpe, thinking him a rival

for the plunder, but Sharpe stepped over the Sergeant, tripped on the

broken leg of one of the sepoys, and shoved on. Bloody chaos!

A half-naked girl ran out of a potter's shop, then suddenly stopped as

her unwinding said jerked her to a halt. Two redcoats hauled her back

towards the shop. The girl's father, blood on his temple, was slumped

just outside the doorway amidst the litter of his wares. The girl

stared into Sharpe's eyes and he saw her mute appeal, then the door of

the shop was slammed shut and he heard the bar dropping into place.

Whooping Highlanders had discovered a tavern and were setting up shop,

while another Highlander was calmly reading his Bible while sitting on

a brassbound trunk he had pulled from a goldsmith's shop.

"It's a fine day, Sergeant," he said equably, though he took care to

keep his hand on his musket until Sharpe had safely gone past.

Another woman screamed in an alley, and Sharpe instinctively headed

towards the terrible sound. He discovered a riotous mob of sepoys

fighting with a small squad of white-jacketed soldiers who had to be

among the very last of the city's defenders still in recognizable

uniforms.

They were led by a very young European officer who flailed a slender

sword from his saddle, but just as Sharpe caught sight of him, the

officer was caught from behind by a bayonet. He arched his back, and

his mouth opened in a silent scream as his sword faltered, then a mass

of dark hands reached up and hauled him down from his white-eyed horse.

Bayonets plunged down, then the officer's blood-soaked uniform was

being rifled for money.

Beyond the dead officer, and also on horseback, was a woman. She was

wearing European clothes and had a white net veil hanging from the brim

of her straw hat, and it was her scream that Sharpe had heard. Her

horse had been trapped against a wall and she was clinging to a roof

beam that jutted just above her head. She was sitting sidesaddle,

facing the street and screaming as excited sepoys clawed at her. Other

sepoys were looting a pack mule that had been following her horse, and

she turned and shouted at them to stop, then gasped as two men caught

her legs.

"No!" she shouted. A small riding whip hung from a loop about her

right wrist and she tried letting go of the roof beam and slashing down

with the leather thong, but the defiance only made her predicament

worse.

Sharpe used his musket butt to hammer his way through the sepoys.

He was a good six inches taller than any of them, and much stronger,

and he used his anger as a weapon to drive them aside. He kicked a man

away from the slaughtered officer, stepped over the body, and swung the

musket butt into the skull of one of the men trying to pull the woman

from her horse. That man went down and Sharpe turned the musket and

drove its muzzle into the belly of the second sepoy. That man doubled

over and staggered backwards, but just then a third man seized the

horse's bridle and yanked it out from the wall so fast that the woman

fell back onto the roadway. The sepoys, seeing her upended with her

long legs in the air, shouted in triumph and surged forward and Sharpe

whirled the musket like a club to drive them backwards. One of them

aimed his musket at Sharpe who stared him in the eyes.

"Go on, you bastard," Sharpe said, "I dare you."

The sepoys decided not to make a fight of it. There were other women

in the city and so they backed away. A few paused to plunder the dead

European officer, while others finished looting the woman's pack mule

which had been stripped of its load and grinning sepoys now tore apart

her linen dresses, stockings and shawls. The woman was kneeling behind

Sharpe, shaking and sobbing, and so he turned and took her by the

elbow.

"Come on, love," he said, 'you're all right now. Safe now."

She stood. Her hat had come off when she fell from her horse and her

dishevelled golden hair hung about her pale face. Sharpe saw she was

tall, had an impression that she was pretty even though her blue eyes

were wide with shock and she was still shaking. He stooped for her

hat.

"You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, you do,"

he said, then shook the dust off her hat and held it out to her. Her

horse was standing free in the street, so he grabbed the beast's bridle

then led woman and animal to a nearby gateway that opened into a

courtyard.

"Have to look after your horse," he said, 'valuable things, horses. You

know how a trooper gets a replacement mount?" He was not entirely sure

why he was talking so much and he did not even know if the woman

understood him, but he sensed that if he stopped talking she would

burst into tears again and so he kept up his chatter.

"If a trooper loses his horse he has to prove it's died, see?

To show he hasn't sold it. So he chops off a hoof. They carry little

axes for that, some of them do. Can't sell a three-footed horse, see?

He shows the hoof to his officers and they issue a new horse."

There was a rope bed in the courtyard and he led the woman to it.

She sat and cuffed at her face.

"They said you wouldn't come for three more days," she said bitterly in

a strong accent.

"We were in a hurry, love," Sharpe said. She had still not taken the

hat so he crouched and held it close to her.

"Are you French?"

She nodded. She had begun to cry again and tears were running down her

cheeks.

"It's all right," he said, 'you're safe now." Then he saw the wedding

ring on her finger and a terrible thought struck him. Had the

white-coated officer been her husband? And had she watched him hacked

down in front of her?

"That officer," he said, jerking his head towards the street where

sepoys were kicking at doors and forcing shuttered windows with their

fire locks 'was he your husband, love?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, no," she said, 'no. He was a lieutenant. My husband is a

captain." She at last took the hat, then sniffed. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Sharpe said, 'except you had a nasty

fright. It's all right now."

She took a deep breath, then wiped her eyes.

"I seem to be crying always." She looked into Sharpe's eyes.

"Life is always tears, isn't it?"

"Not for me, love, no. Haven't had a weep since I was a kid, not that

I can remember."

She shrugged.

"Thank you," she said, gesturing towards the street where she had been

assailed by the sepoys.

"Thank you."

Sharpe smiled.

"I didn't do anything, love, 'cept drive the buggers off. A dog could

have done that as well as me. Are you all right? You weren't hurt?"

"No."

He patted her hand.

"Your husband went without you, did he?"

"He sent Lieutenant Silliere to fetch me. No, he didn't. Major Dodd

sent Silliere."

"Dodd?" Sharpe asked.

The woman heard the interest in Sharpe's voice.

"You know him?"

she asked.

"I know of him," Sharpe said carefully.

"Ain't met him, not properly."

She studied Sharpe's face.

"You don't like him?"

"I hate him, Ma'am."

"I hate him too." She shrugged.

"I am called Simone. Simone Joubert."

"It's a pretty name, Ma'am. Simone? Very pretty."

She smiled at his clumsy gallantry.

"You have a name?"

"Richard Sharpe, Ma'am, Sergeant Richard Sharpe, King's 33rd."

"Richard," she said, trying it out, 'it suits you. Richard the Lion

Heart yes?"

"He was a great one for fighting, Ma'am."

"For fighting the French, Sergeant," she said reprovingly.

"Someone has to," Sharpe said with a grin, and Simone Joubert laughed

and at that moment Sharpe thought she was the prettiest girl he had

seen in years. Maybe not really pretty, but vivacious and blue eyed

and golden-haired and smiling. But an officer's woman, Sharpe told

himself, an officer's woman.

"You must not fight the French, Sergeant," Simone said.

"I won't let you."

"If it looks like it's going to happen, Ma'am, then I'll let you know

and you'll have to hold me down."

She laughed again, then sighed. A fire had broken out not far away and

scraps of burning thatch were floating in the warm air.

One of the smuts landed on Simone's white dress and she brushed at it,

smearing the black ash into the weave.

"They have taken everything," she said sadly.

"I had little enough, but it is gone. All my clothes! All!"

"Then you get more," Sharpe said.

"What with? This?" She showed him a tiny purse hanging from her

waist.

"What will happen to me, Sergeant?"

"You'll be all right, Ma'am. You'll be looked after. You're an

officer's wife, aren't you? So our officers will make sure you're all

right. They'll probably send you back to your husband."

Simone gave him a dutiful smile and Sharpe wondered why she was not

overjoyed at the thought of being reunited with her captain, then he

forgot the question as a ragged volley of shots sounded in the street

and he turned to see an Arab staggering in the gateway, his robes

bright with blood, and an instant later a half-dozen Highlanders leaped

onto the twitching body and began to tear its clothing apart. One of

them slit the victim's robes with his bayonet and Sharpe saw that the

dying man had a fine pair of riding boots.

"There's a woman!" one of the looters shouted, seeing Simone in the

courtyard, but then he saw Sharpe's levelled musket and he raised a

placatory hand.

"All yours, eh? No trouble, Sergeant, no trouble." Then the man

twisted to look down the street and shouted a warning to his comrades

and the six men took to their heels. A moment later a file of sepoys

showed in the gateway under the command of a mounted officer. They

were the first disciplined troops Sharpe had seen in the city and they

were restoring order. The officer peered into the courtyard, saw

nothing amiss, and so ordered his men onwards. A half company of

kilted redcoats followed the sepoys and Sharpe assumed that Wellesley

had ordered the picquets of the day into the city. The picquets, who

provided the sentries for the army, were made up of half companies from

every battalion.

There was a well in the corner of the yard and Sharpe hauled up its

leather bucket to give himself and Simone a drink. He brought up more

water for the Frenchwoman's horse, and just then heard McCandless

shouting his name through the streets.

"Here, sir!" he called back.

"Here!"

It took a moment or two for McCandless to find him, and when he did the

Scotsman was furious.

"Where were you, man?" the Colonel demanded querulously.

"He got away! Clean away! Marched away like a toy soldier!" He had

remounted his gelding and stared imperiously down on Sharpe from his

saddle.

"Got clean away!"

"Couldn't find men, sir, sorry, sir," Sharpe said.

"Just one company! That's all we needed!" McCandless said angrily,

then he noticed Simone Joubert and snatched off his hat.

"Ma'am," he said, nodding his head.

"This is Colonel McCandless, Ma'am," Sharpe made the introduction.

"And this is Simone, sir." He could not recall her surname.

"Madame Joubert," Simone introduced herself.

McCandless scowled at her. He had ever been awkward in the presence of

women, and he had nothing to say to this young woman so he just

glowered at Sharpe instead.

"All I needed was one company, Sharpe. One company!"

"He was rescuing me, Colonel," Simone said.

"So I surmised, Madame, so I surmised," the Colonel said unhappily,

implying that Sharpe had been wasting his time. More smuts swirled in

the smoke down to the yard, while in the street beyond the gateway the

picquets were hauling looters from the shops and houses. McCandless

stared irritably at Simone who gazed placidly back. The Scotsman was a

gentleman and knew the woman was now his responsibility, but he

resented the duty. He cleared his throat, then found he still had

nothing to say.

"Madame Joubert's husband, sir," Sharpe said, 'serves in Dodd's

regiment."

"He does, does he?" McCandless asked, showing sudden interest.

"My husband hoped to take command of the regiment when Colonel Mathers

left," Simone explained, 'but, alas, Major Dodd arrived." She

shrugged.

The Colonel frowned.

"Why didn't you leave with your husband?"

he demanded sternly.

"That is what I was trying to do, Colonel."

"And you were caught, eh?" The Colonel patted his horse which had been

distracted by one of the burning scraps of straw.

"Tell me, Ma'am, do you have quarters in the city?"

"I did, Colonel, I did. Though if anything is left now .. . ?" Simone

shrugged again, implying that she expected to find the quarters

ransacked.

"You have servants?"

"The landlord had servants and we used them. My husband has a groom,

of course."

"But you have somewhere to stay, Ma'am," McCandless demanded.

"I suppose so, yes." Simone paused.

"But I am alone, Colonel."

"Sergeant Sharpe will look after you, Ma'am," McCandless said, then a

thought struck him forcibly.

"You don't mind doing that, do you, Sharpe?" he enquired anxiously.

"I'll manage, sir," Sharpe said.

"And I am just to stay here?" Simone demanded fiercely.

"Nothing else? That is all you propose, Colonel?"

"I propose, Ma'am, to reunite you with your husband," McCandless said,

'but it will take time. A day or two. You must be patient."

"I am sorry, Colonel," Simone said, regretting the tone of the

questions she had shot at McCandless.

"I'm sorry to give you so unfortunate a duty, Sharpe," McCandless said,

'but keep the lady safe till we can arrange things. Send word to me

where you are, and I'll come and find you when everything's

arranged."

"Yes, sir."

The Colonel turned and spurred out of the courtyard. His spirits,

which had collapsed when Dodd had marched out of the city's northern

gate, were reviving again for he saw in Simone Joubert a God-sent

opportunity to ride into the heart of his enemy's army. Restoring the

woman to her husband might do nothing to visit the vengeance of the

Company on Dodd, but it would surely be an unparalleled opportunity to

scout Scindia's forces and so McCandless rode to fetch Wellesley's

permission for such an excursion, while Simone led Sharpe through the

exhausted streets to find her house. On their way they passed an ox

cart that had been tipped backwards and weighted down with stones so

that its single shaft pointed skywards. A sepoy hung from the shaft's

tip by his neck. The man was not quite dead yet and so made small

spasmodic motions, and officers, both Scottish and Indian, were forcing

sheepish and half-drunken men to stare at the dying sepoy as a reminder

of the fate that awaited plunderers. Simone shuddered and Sharpe

hurried her past, her horse's reins in his left hand.

"Here, Sergeant," she said, leading him into an alley that was littered

with discarded plunder. Above them smoke drifted across a city where

women wept and redcoats patrolled the walls. Ahmednuggur had fallen.

Major Dodd had misjudged Wellesley, and that misjudgement shook him. An

escalade seemed too intrepid, too headstrong, for the man Dodd derided

as Boy Wellesley. It was neither what Dodd had expected nor what he

had wanted from Wellesley. Dodd had wanted caution, for a cautious

enemy is more easily defeated, but instead Wellesley had shown a

scathing contempt for Ahmednuggur's defenders and launched an assault

that should have been easily beaten back. If Dodd's men had been on

the ramparts directly in the path of the assault then the attack would

have been defeated, of that Dodd had no doubt, for there had only been

four ladders deployed and that small number made the ease and swiftness

of the British victory even more humiliating. It suggested that

General Sir Arthur Wellesley possessed a confidence that neither his

age nor experience should have provided, and it also suggested that

Dodd might have underestimated Wellesley, and that worried him. Dodd's

decision to desert to Pohlmann's army had been forced on him by

circumstance, but he had not regretted the decision, for European

officers who served the Mahratta chiefs were notorious for the riches

they made, and the Mahratta armies far outnumbered their British

opponents and were thus likely to be the winners of this war, but if

the British were suddenly to prove invincible there would be no riches

and no victory. There would only be defeat and ignominious flight.

And so, as he rode away from the fallen city, Dodd was inclined to

ascribe Wellesley's sudden success to beginner's luck. Dodd persuaded

himself that the escalade must have been a foolish gamble that had been

unfairly rewarded with victory. It had been a rash strategy, Dodd told

himself, and though it had succeeded, it could well tempt Wellesley

into rashness again, and next time the rashness would surely be

punished.

Thus Dodd attempted to discover good news within the bad.

Captain Joubert could find no good news. He rode just behind Dodd and

continually turned in his saddle for a glimpse of Simone's white dress

among the fugitives that streamed from the northern gate, but there was

no sign of her, nor of Lieutenant Silliere, and each disappointment

made Pierre Joubert's loss harder to bear. He felt a tear prickle at

the corner of his eye, and then the thought that his young Simone might

be raped made the tear run down his cheek.

"What the hell are you blubbing about?" Dodd demanded.

"Something in my eye," Joubert answered. He wished he could be more

defiant, but he felt belittled by the Englishman and unable to stand up

to his bullying. In truth Pierre Joubert had felt belittled for most

of his life. His small stature and timid nature made him a target, and

he had been the obvious choice when his regiment in France had been

ordered to find one officer who could be sent as an adviser to Scindia,

the Maharajah of Gwalior. They had chosen Joubert, the one officer no

one would miss, but the unpopular posting had brought Joubert the one

stroke of good fortune that had ever come his way when the ship

bringing him to India had stopped at the lie de France. He had met

Simone, he had wooed her, he had won her, and he was proud of her,

intensely proud, for he knew other men found her attractive and Joubert

might have enjoyed that subtle flattery had he not known how

desperately unhappy she was. He put her unhappiness down to the

vagaries of a newly married woman's temperament and to the heat of

India. He consoled himself with the thought that in a year or two he

would be summoned back to France and there Simone would learn

contentment in the company of his huge family. She would become a

mother, learn to keep house and so accept her comfortable fate. So

long, that was, as she had survived Ahmednuggur's fall. He spurred his

horse alongside Dodd's.

"You were right, Colonel," the Frenchman said grudgingly.

"There was nothing to be gained by fighting."

He was making conversation in order to keep his mind away from his

fears for Simone.

Dodd acknowledged the compliment with a grunt.

"I'm sorry about Madame Joubert," he forced himself to say.

"The British will send news, I'm sure," Joubert said, clinging to a

hope that Simone would have been rescued by some gallant officer.

"But a soldier's best off without a woman," Dodd said, then twisted in

his saddle to look at the rear guard

"Sikal's company is lagging," he told Joubert.

"Tell the buggers to hurry up!" He watched Joubert ride away, then

spurred to the head of the column where his vanguard marched with fixed

bayonets and charged muskets.

The regiment might have escaped from Ahmednuggur, but it was not yet

clear of all danger. British and Mahratta cavalry had ridden around

the city to harass any of the garrison who might succeed in escaping,

and those horsemen now threatened both flanks of Dodd's column, but

their threat was small. Scores of other men were fleeing the city, and

those fugitives, because they were not marching in disciplined

formations, made much easier targets for the horsemen who gleefully

swooped and circled about the refugees. Dodd watched as lances and

sabres slashed into the scattered fugitives, but if any of the horsemen

came too close to his own white-jacketed ranks he called a company to

halt, turned it outwards and made them level their muskets. The threat

of a volley was usually enough to drive the horsemen to search for

easier pickings, and not one of the enemy came within pistol shot of

Dodd's ranks. Once, when the column was some two miles north of the

city, a determined squadron of British dragoons tried to head off the

regiment's march, but Dodd ordered two of fl|s small cannon to be

unlimbered and their paltry round shots, bouncing across the flat, dry

ground, were sufficient to make the blue-coated horsemen veer away to

find another angle of attack. Dodd reinforced the threat by having his

lead company fire one volley of musketry which, even though it was at

long range, succeeded in unhoiJng one dragoon. Dodd watched the

defeated horsemen ride away and felt a surge of pride in his new

regiment. This was the first time he had observed them in action, and

though the excited cavalry was hardly a worthy foe, the men's calmness

and efficiency were entirely praiseworthy. None of them hurried, none

shot a ramrod out in panic, none seemed unsettled by the sudden, savage

fall of the city and none had shown any reluctance to fire on the

civilians who had threatened to obstruct their escape through the north

gate. Instead they had bitten the enemy like a cobra defending itself,

and that gave Dodd an idea. The Cobras! That was what he would call

his regiment, the Cobras! He reckoned the name would inspire his men

and put fear into an enemy. Dodd's Cobras. He liked the thought.

Dodd soon left his pursuers far behind. At least four hundred other

men, most of them Arabs, had attached themselves to his regiment and he

welcomed them for the more men he brought from the disaster, the higher

his reputation would stand with Colonel Pohlmann. By early afternoon

his Cobras had reached the crest of the escarpment that looked across

the vast Deccan plain to where, far in the hazy distance, he could see

the brown River Godavery snaking through the dry land.

Beyond that river was safety. Behind him the road was empty, but he

knew it would not be long before the pursuing cavalry reappeared. The

regiment had paused on the escarpment's edge and Dodd let them rest for

a while. Some of the fugitive Arabs were horsemen and Dodd sent those

men ahead to find a village that would yield food for his regiment.

He guessed he would need to camp short of the Godavery, but tomorrow he

would find a way to cross, and a day or so later he would march with

flying colours into Pohlmann's camp. Ahmednuggur might have fallen

like a rotted tree, but Dodd had brought his regiment out for the loss

of only a dozen men. He regretted those twelve men, though not the

loss of Silliere, but he particularly regretted that Simone Joubert had

failed to escape from the city. Dodd had sensed her dislike of him,

and he had taken a piquant delight in the thought of cuckolding her

despised husband in spite of that dislike, but it seemed that pleasure

must be forgotten or at least postponed. Not that it mattered. He had

saved his regiment and saved his guns and the future promised plenty of

profitable employment for both.

So William Dodd marched north a happy man.

Simone led Sharpe to three small rooms on an upper floor of a house

that smelt as though it belonged to a tanner. One room had a table and

four mismatched chairs, two of which had been casually broken by

looters, the second had been given over to a huge hip bath, while the

third held nothing but a straw mattress that had been slit open and its

stuffing scattered over the floorboards.

"I thought men joined Scindia to become rich," Sharpe said in

wonderment at the cramped, ill-furnished rooms.

Simone sat on one of the undamaged chairs and looked close to tears.

Tierre is not a mercenary," she said, 'but an adviser. His salary is

paid by France, not by Scindia, and what money he makes, he saves."

"He certainly doesn't spend it, does he?" Sharpe asked, looking about

the small grubby rooms.

"Where are the servants?"

"Downstairs. They work for the house owner."

Sharpe had spotted a broom in the stable where they had put Simone's

horse, so now he went and fetched it. He drew a pail of water from the

well and climbed the steps that ran up the side of the house to

discover that Simone had not moved, except to hide her face in her

hands, and so he set about cleaning up the mess himself. Whichever men

had searched the rooms for loot had decided to use the bath as a

lavatory, so he began by dragging it to the window, throwing open the

shutters and pouring the contents into the alley. Then he sloshed the

bath with water and scrubbed it with a dirty towel.

"The landlord is very proud of the bath' Simone had come to the door

and was watching him 'and makes us pay extra."

"I've never had a proper bath." Sharpe gave the zinc tub a slap. He

assumed it must have been brought to India by a European, for the

outside was painted with square-rigged ships.

"How do you fill it?"

"The servants do it. It takes a long time, and even then it's usually

cold."

"I'll have them fill it for you, if you want."

Simone shrugged.

"We need food first."

"Who cooks? Don't tell me, the servants downstairs?"

"But we have to buy the food." She touched the purse at her waist.

"Don't worry about money, love," Sharpe said.

"Can you sew?"

"My needles were on the packhorse."

"I've got a sewing kit," Sharpe said, and he took the broom through to

the bedroom and swept up the straw and stuffed it into the slit

mattress.

Then he took the sewing kit from his pack, gave it to Simone, and told

her to sew the mattress together.

"I'll find some food while you do that," he said, and went out with his

pack. The city was silent now, its survivors cowering from their

conquerors, but he managed to barter a handful of cartridges for some

bread, some lentil paste and some mangoes. He was stopped twice by

patrolling redcoats and sepoys, but his sergeant's stripes and Colonel

McCandless's name convinced the officers he was not up to mischief. He

found the body of the Arab who had been shot just outside the courtyard

where he had sheltered Simone and dragged the riding boots off the

corpse. They were fine boots of red leather with hawk-claw steel

spurs, and Sharpe hoped they would fit. Nearby, in an alley, he

discovered a pile of silk saris evidently dropped by a looter and he

gathered up the whole bundle before hurrying back to Simone's rooms.

He pushed open the door.

"Even got you some sheets," he called, then dropped the bundle of silks

because Simone had screamed from the bedroom. Sharpe ran to the door

to see her facing three Indians who now turned to confront him. One

was an older man dressed in a dark tunic richly embroidered with

flowers, while the younger two were in simple white robes.

"You got trouble?" Sharpe asked Simone.

The older man snarled at Sharpe, letting loose a stream of words in

Marathi.

"Shut your face," Sharpe said, "I was talking to the lady."

"It is the house owner," Simone said, gesturing to the man in the

embroidered tunic.

"He wants you out?" Sharpe guessed, and Simone nodded.

"Reckons he can get a better rent from a British officer, is that it?"

Sharpe asked. He put his food on the floor, then walked to the

landlord.

"You want more rent? Is that it?"

The landlord stepped back from Sharpe and said something to his two

servants who closed in on either side of the redcoat. Sharpe slammed

his right elbow into the belly of one and stamped his left foot onto

the instep of the other, then grabbed both men's heads and brought them

together with a crack. He let go of them and they staggered away in a

daze as Sharpe pulled the bayonet from its sheath and smiled at the

landlord.

"She wants a bath, you understand? Bath."

He pointed at the room where the bath stood.

"And she wants it hot, you greedy bastard, hot and steaming. And she

needs food." He pointed at the miserable pile of food.

"You cook it, we eat it, and if you want to make any other changes, you

bastard, you talk to me first.

Understand?"

One of the servants had recovered enough to intervene and was unwise

enough to try to tug Sharpe away from his master. The servant was a

big and young man, but he had none of Sharpe's ferocity. Sharpe hit

him hard, hit him again, kneed him in the crotch, and by then the

servant was halfway across the living-room floor and Sharpe pursued

him, hauled him upright, hit him again and that last blow took the

servant onto the small balcony at the top of the outside stairs.

"Go and break a leg, you sod," Sharpe said, and tipped the man over the

balustrade. He heard the man cry out as he fell into the alley, but

Sharpe had already turned back towards the bedroom.

"Have we still got a problem?" he demanded of the landlord.

The man did not understand a word of English, but he understood Sharpe

by now. There was no problem. He backed out of the rooms, followed by

his remaining servant, and Sharpe went with them to the stairs.

"Food," he said, pushing the bread, lentils and fruit into the hands of

the cowed landlord.

"And Madame's horse needs cleaning and watering. And feeding. Horse,

there, see?" He pointed into the courtyard.

"Feed the bugger," he ordered. The servant he had pushed over the

balcony had propped himself against the alley's far wall where he was

gingerly touching his bleeding nose. Sharpe spat on him for good

measure, then went back inside.

"I never did like landlords," he said mildly.

Simone was half laughing and half afraid that the landlord would exact

a terrible vengeance.

"Pierre was afraid of him," she explained, 'and he knows we are

poor."

"You're not poor, love, you're with me," Sharpe said.

"Rich Richard?" Simone said, pleased to have made a joke in a foreign

language.

"Richer then you know, love. How much thread is left?

"Thread? Ah, for the needle. You have plenty, why?"

"Because, my love, you can do me a favour," he said, and he stripped

off his pack, his belt and his jacket.

"I'm not that handy with a needle," he explained.

"I can patch and darn, of course, but what I need now is some fine

needlework. Real fine." He sat, and Simone, intrigued, sat opposite

and watched as he tipped out the contents of his pack. There were two

spare shirts, his spare foot cloths, a blacking ball, a brush and the

tin of flour he was supposed to use on his clubbed hair, though ever

since he had ridden from Seringapatam with McCandless he had let his

hair go un powdered He took out his stock, which he had similarly

abandoned, then the copy of Gulliver's Travels that Mister Lawford had

given him so he could practise his reading. He had neglected that

lately, and the book was damp and had lost some of its pages.

"You can read?" Simone asked, touching the book with a tentative

finger.

"I'm not very good."

"I like to read."

"Then you can help me get better, eh?" Sharpe said, and he pulled out

the folded piece of leather that was for repairing his shoes, and

beneath that was a layer of sacking. He took that out, then tipped the

rest of the pack's contents onto the table. Simone gasped. There were

rubies and emeralds and pearls, there was gold and more emeralds and

sapphires and diamonds and one great ruby half the size of a hen's

egg.

"The thing is," Sharpe said, 'that there's bound to be a battle before

this Scindia fellow learns his lesson, and as like as not we won't wear

packs in a battle, on account of them being too heavy, see? So I don't

want to leave this lot in my pack to be looted by some bastard of a

baggage guard."

Simone touched one of the stones, then looked up at Sharpe with

wonderment in her eyes. He was not sure that it was wise to show her

the treasure, for such things were best kept very secret, but he knew

he was trying to impress her, and it was evident that he had.

"Yours?" she asked.

"All mine," he said.

Simone shook her blonde head in amazement, then began arranging the

stones into ranks and files. She formed platoons of emeralds, platoons

of rubies and another of pearls, there was a company of sapphires and a

skirmish line of diamonds, and all of them were commanded by the great

ruby.

"That belonged to the Tippoo Sultan," Sharpe said, touching the ruby.

"He wore it in his hat."

"The Tippoo? He's dead, isn't he?" Simone asked.

"And me it was who killed him," Sharpe said proudly.

"It wasn't really a hat, it was a cloth helmet, see? And the ruby was

right in the middle, and he reckoned he couldn't die because the hat

had been dipped in the fountain of Zum-Zum."

Simone smiled.

"Zum-Zum?"

"It's in Mecca. Wherever the hell Mecca is. Didn't work, though. I

put a bullet in his skull, right through the bloody hat. Might as well

have dunked it in the Thames for all the good it did him."

"You are rich!" Simone said.

The problem was how to stay rich. Sharpe had not had time to make

false compartments in the new pack and pouch that had replaced those he

had burned at Chasalgaon, and so he had kept the stones loose in his

pack. He had a layer of emeralds at the bottom of his new cartridge

pouch, where they would be safe enough, but he needed secure hiding

places for the other jewels. He gave a file of diamonds to Simone and

she tried to refuse, then shyly accepted the stones and held one

against the side of her nose where fashionable Indian women often wore

just such a jewel.

"How does it look?" she asked.

"Like a piece of expensive snot."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"It's beautiful," she said. She peered at the diamond that still had

its black velvet backing so that the stone would shine more brightly,

then she opened her purse.

"Are you sure?"

"Go on, girl, take them."

"How do I explain them to Pierre?"

"You say you found them on a dead body after the fight. He'll believe

that." He watched her put the diamonds in the purse.

"I have to hide the rest," he explained to her. He reckoned some of

the stones could go in his canteen, where they would rattle a bit when

it was dry, and he would have to take care when drinking in case he

swallowed a fortune, but that still left a mound of gems unhidden. He

used his knife to slit open a seam of his red coat and began feeding

the small rubies into the slot, but the stones bunched along the bottom

hem and the bulge was an advertisement to every soldier that he was

carrying plunder.

"See what I mean?" He showed Simone the bulging seam.

She took the coat, fetched Sharpe's sewing kit from the bedroom, and

then began to trap each gem in its own small pouch of the opened

seam.

The job took her all afternoon, and when she was finished the red coat

was twice as heavy. The most difficult stone to hide was the huge

ruby, but Sharpe solved that by unwinding his long hair from the shot

weighted bag that clubbed it, then slitting open the bag and emptying

the shot. He filled the bag with the ruby and with whatever small

stones were left, then Simone rewound his hair about the bag. By

nightfall the jewels had vanished.

They ate by lamplight. The bath had never been filled, but Simone said

she had taken one a week before so it did not matter. Sharpe had made

a brief excursion in the dusk and had returned with two clay bottles

filled with arrack, and they drank the liquor in the gloom. They

talked, they laughed, and at last the oil in the lamp ran dry and the

flame flickered out to leave the room lit by shafts of moonlight coming

through the filigree shutters. Simone had fallen silent and Sharpe

knew she was thinking of bed.

"I brought you some sheets." He pointed to the saris.

She looked up at him from under her fringe.

"And where will you sleep, Sergeant Sharpe?"

"I'll find a place, love."

It was the first time he had slept in silk, not that he noticed, so

showing her the gems had not been such a bad idea after all.

He woke to the crowing of cockerels and the bang of a twelve pounder

gun, a reminder that the world and the war went on.

Major Stokes had decided that the real problem with the Rajah's clock

was its wooden bearings. They swelled in damp weather, and he was

happily contemplating the problem of making a new set of bearings out

of brass when the twitching Sergeant reappeared in his office.

"You again," the Major greeted him.

"Can't remember your name."

"Hakeswill, sir. Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill."

"Punishment on Edom, eh?" the Major said, wondering whether to cast or

drill the brass.

"Edom, sir? Edom?"

"The prophet Obadiah, Sergeant, foretells punishment on Edom," the

Major said.

"He threatened it with fire and captivity, as I recall."

"He doubtless had his reasons, sir," Hakeswill said, his face jerking

in its uncontrollable spasms, 'like I have mine. It's Sergeant Sharpe

I'm after, sir."

"Not here, Sergeant, alas. The place falls apart!"

"He's gone, sir?" Hakeswill demanded.

"Summoned away, Sergeant, by higher authority. Not my doing, not my

doing at all. If it was up to me I'd keep Sharpe here for ever, but a

Colonel McCandless demanded him and when colonels demand, mere majors

comply. So far as I know, which isn't much, they went to join General

Wellesley's forces." The Major was now rummaging through a wooden

chest.

"We had some fine augers, I know. Same ones we use on touch-holes. Not

that we ever did. Haven't had to rebore a touch-hole yet."

"McCandless, sir?"

"A Company colonel, but still a colonel. I'll need a round-file too, I

suspect."

"I knows Colonel McCandless, sir," Hakeswill said gloomily. He had

shared the Tippoo's dungeons with McCandless and Sharpe, and he knew

the Scotsman disliked him. Which did not matter by itself, for

Hakeswill did not like McCandless either, but the Scotsman was a

colonel and, as Major Stokes had intimated, when colonels demand, other

men obey. Colonel McCandless, Hakeswill decided, could be a problem.

But a problem that could wait. The urgent need was to catch up with

Sharpe.

"Do you have any convoys going north, sir? To the army, sir?"

"One leaves tomorrow," Stokes said helpfully, 'carrying ammunition.

But have you authority to travel?"

"I have authority, sir, I have authority." Hakeswill touched the pouch

where he kept the precious warrant. He was angry that Sharpe had gone,

but knew there was little point in displaying the anger. The thing was

to catch up with the quarry, and then God would smile on Obadiah

Hakeswill's fortunes.

He explained as much to his detail of six men as they drank in one of

Seringapatam's soldiers' taverns. So far the six men only knew that

they were ordered to arrest Sergeant Sharpe, but Hakeswill had long

worked out that he needed to share more information with his chosen men

if they were to follow him enthusiastically, especially if they were to

follow him northwards to where Wellesley was fighting the Mahrattas.

Hakeswill considered them all good men, by which he meant that they

were all cunning, violent and biddable, but he still had to make sure

of their loyalty.

"Sharpie's rich," he told them.

"Drinks when he likes, whores when he likes. He's rich."

"He works in the stores," Private Kendrick explained.

"Always on the fiddle, the stores."

"And he never gets caught? He can't be fiddling that much," Hakeswill

said, his face twitching.

"You want to know the truth of Dick Sharpe? I'll tell you. He was the

lucky bugger what caught the Tippoo at Seringapatam."

"Course he

weren't!" Flaherty said.

"So who was it?" Hakeswill challenged them.

"And why was Sharpie made up into a sergeant after the battle? He

shouldn't be a sergeant! He ain't experienced."

"He fought well. That's what Mister Lawford says."

no

"Mister bloody Lawford," Hakeswill said scathingly.

"Sharpie didn't get noticed for fighting well! Bleeding hell, boys,

I'd be a major-general if that's all it took! No, it's my belief he

paid his way up to the stripes."

"Paid?" The privates stared at Hakeswill.

"Stands to reason. No other way. Says so in the scriptures! Bribes,

boys, bribes, and I knows where he got the money. I know 'cos I

followed him once. Here in Seringapatam. Down to the goldsmiths'

street, he went, and he did his business and after he done it I went to

see the fellow he did it with. He didn't want to tell me what the

business was, but I thumped him a bit, friendly like, and he showed me

a ruby.

Like this it was!" The Sergeant held a finger and thumb a quarter-inch

apart.

"Sharpie was selling it, see? And where does Sharpie get a prime bit

of glitter?"

"Off the Tippoo?" Kendrick said wonderingly.

"And do you know how much loot the Tippoo had? Weighed down with it,

he was! Had more stones on him than a Christmas whore, and you know

where those stones are?"

"Sharpe," Flaherty breathed.

"Right, Private Flaherty," Hakeswill said.

"Sewn into his uniform seams, in his boots, hidden in his pouches,

tucked away in his hat. A bloody fortune, lads, which is why when we

gets him, we don't want him to get back to the battalion, do we?"

The six men stared at Hakeswill. They knew they were his favourites,

and all of them were in his debt, but now they realized he was giving

them even more reason to be grateful.

"Equal shares, Sergeant?" Private Lowry asked.

"Equal shares?" Hakeswill exclaimed.

"Equal? Listen, you horrid toad, you wouldn't have no chance of any

share, not one, if it wasn't for my loving kindness. Who chose you to

come on this parish outing?"

"You did, Sergeant."

"I did. I did. Kindness of my heart, and you repays it by wanting

equal shares?" HakeswilPs face shuddered.

"I've half a mind to send you back, Lowry." He looked aggrieved and

the privates were silent.

"Ingratitude," Hakeswill said in a hurt voice, 'sharp as a serpent's

tooth, it is. Equal shares! Never heard the like! But I'll see you

right, don't you worry." He took out the precious orders for Sharpe's

arrest and smoothed the paper on the table, carefully avoiding the

spills of arrack.

"Look at that, boys," he breathed, 'a fortune. Half for me, and you

leprous toads get to share the other half. Equally." He paused to

prod in

Lowry in the chest.

"Equally. But I gets one half, like it says in the scriptures." He

folded the paper and put it carefully in his pouch.

"Shot while escaping," Hakeswill said, and grinned.

"I've waited four years for this chance, lads, four bloody years." He

brooded for a few seconds.

"Put me in among the tigers, he did! Me! In a tigers' den!" His face

contorted in a rictus at the memory.

"But they spared me, they spared me. And you know why? Because I

can't die, lads! Touched by God, I am! Says so in the scriptures."

The six privates were silent. Mad, he was, mad as a twitching hatter,

and no one knew why hatters were mad either, but they were. Even the

army was reluctant to recruit a hatter because they dribbled and

twitched and talked to themselves, but they had taken on Hakeswill and

he had survived; malevolent, powerful and apparently indestructible.

Sharpe had put him among the Tippoo's tigers, yet the tigers were dead

and Hakeswill still breathed. He was a bad man to have as an enemy,

and now the piece of paper in Hakeswill's pouch put Sharpe into his

power and Obadiah could taste the money already. A fortune.

All that was needed was to travel north, join the army, produce the

warrant and skin the victim. Obadiah shuddered. The money was so near

he could almost spend it already.

"Got him," he said to himself, 'got him. And I'll piss on his rotten

corpse, I will. Piss on it good.

That'll learn him."

The seven men left Seringapatam in the morning, travelling north.

CHAPTER 5

Sharpe was curiously relieved when Colonel McCandless found him next

morning, for the mood in the small upper rooms was awkward.

Simone seemed ashamed by what had happened in the night and, when

Sharpe tried to speak to her, she shook her head abruptly and would not

meet his eye. She did try to explain to him, mumbling about the arrack

and the jewels, and about her disappointment in marriage, but she could

not frame her words in adequate English, though no language was needed

to show that she regretted what had happened, which was why Sharpe was

glad to hear McCandless's voice in the alley beyond the staircase.

"I thought I told you to let me know where you were!" McCandless

complained when Sharpe appeared at the top of the steps.

"I did, sir," Sharpe lied.

"I told an ensign of the 778th to find you, sir."

"He never arrived!" McCandless said as he climbed the outside

stairs.

"Are you telling me you spent the night alone with this woman,

Sergeant?"

"You told me to protect her. sir."

"I didn't tell you to risk her honour! You should have sought me

out."

"Didn't want to bother you, sir."

"Duty is never a bother, Sharpe," McCandless said when he reached the

small balcony at the stair head.

"The General expressed a wish to dine with Madame Joubert and I had to

explain she was indisposed. I lied, Sharpe!" The Colonel thrust an

indignant finger at Sharpe's chest.

"But what else could I do? I could hardly admit I'd left her alone

with a sergeant!"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"There's no harm done, I suppose," McCandless said grudgingly,

then took off his hat as he followed Sharpe into the living room where

Simone sat at the table.

"Good morning, Madame," the Colonel boomed cheerfully.

"I trust you slept well?"

"Indeed, Colonel," Simone said, blushing, but McCandless was far too

obtuse to see or to interpret the blush.

"I have good news, Madame," the Scotsman went on.

"General Wellesley is agreeable that you should rejoin your husband.

There is, however, a difficulty." It was McCandless's turn to blush.

"I can provide no chaperone, Madame, and you do not possess a maid. I

assure you that you may rely utterly upon my honour, but your husband

might object if you lack a female companion on the journey."

Tierre will have no objection, Colonel," Simone said meekly.

"And I warrant Sergeant Sharpe will behave like a gentleman,"

McCandless said with a fierce look at Sharpe.

"He does, Colonel, he does," Simone said, offering Sharpe a very shy

glance.

"Good!" McCandless said, relieved to be done with such a delicate

topic. He slapped his cocked hat against his leg.

"No rain again," he declared, 'and I dare say it'll be a hot day. You

can be ready to ride in an hour, Madame?"

"In less, Colonel."

"One hour will suffice, Madame. You will do me the honour, perhaps, of

meeting me by the north gate? I'll have your horse ready, Sharpe."

They left promptly, riding northwards past the battery that had been

dug to hammer the fort's big walls. The battery's four guns were mere

twelve-pounders, scarce big enough to dent the fort's wall, let alone

break it down, but General Wellesley reckoned the garrison would be so

disheartened by the city's swift defeat that even a few twelve-pound

shots might persuade them into surrender. The four guns had opened

fire at dawn, but their firing was sporadic until McCandless led his

party out of the city when they suddenly all fired at once and Simone's

horse, startled by the unexpected noise, skittered sideways. Simone

rode side-saddle just behind the Colonel, while Sevajee and his men

brought up the rear. Sharpe was wearing boots at last; the tall red

leather boots with steel spurs that he had dragged from the body of an

Arab.

He glanced back as they rode away. He saw the huge jet of smoke burst

from a twelve-pounder's muzzle and a second later heard the percussive

thump of the exploding charge and, just as that sound faded, a crack as

the ball struck the wall of the fort. Then the other three guns fired

and he imagined the steam hissing into the air as the gunners poured

water on the overheated barrels. The fort's red walls blossomed with

smoke as the defenders' cannon replied, but the pioneers had dug the

gunners a deep battery and protected it with a thick wall of red earth,

and the enemy's fire wasted itself in those de fences Then Sharpe rode

past a grove of trees and the distant fight was hidden and the sound of

the guns grew fainter and fainter as they rode farther north until, at

last, the sound of the cannonade was a mere grumbling on the horizon.

Then they dropped down the escarpment and the noise of the guns faded

away altogether.

It was a disconsolate expedition. Colonel McCandless had nothing to

say to Simone who was still withdrawn. Sharpe tried to cheer her up,

but his clumsy attempts only made her more miserable and after a time

he too fell silent. Women were a mystery, he thought. During the

night Simone had clung to him as though she were drowning, but since

the dawn it had seemed as if she would prefer to be drowned.

"Horsemen on our right, Sergeant!" McCandless said, his tone a reproof

that Sharpe had not spotted the cavalry first.

"Probably ours, but they could be enemy."

Sharpe stared eastwards.

"They're ours, sir," he called, kicking his horse to catch up with

McCandless. One of the distant horsemen carried the new Union flag and

Sharpe's good eyes had spotted the banner. The flag was easier to

recognize at a distance these days, for since the incorporation of

Ireland into the United Kingdom a new red diagonal cross had been added

to the flag, and though the new-faingled design looked odd and

unfamiliar, it did make the banner stand out.

The cavalry left a plume of dust as they rode to intercept McCandless's

party. Sevajee and his men cantered to meet them and Sharpe saw the

two groups of horsemen greet each other warmly. The strangers turned

out to be bnndarries from the Mahratta states who, like Sevajee, had

sided with the British against Scindia. These mercenaries were under

the command of a British officer and, like Sevajee's men, they carried

lances, tulwars, matchlock guns, flintlocks, pistols and bows and

arrows.

They wore no uniform, but a handful of the sixty men possessed

breastplates and most had metal helmets that were crested with feathers

or horsehair plumes. Their officer, a dragoon captain, fell in

alongside

McCandless and reported seeing a white-coated battalion on the far side

of the River Godavery.

"I didn't try and cross, sir," the Captain said, 'for they weren't

exactly friendly."

"But you're sure they had white coats?"

"No doubts at all, sir," the Captain said, thus confirming that Dodd

must have crossed the river already. He added that he had questioned

some grain merchants who had travelled south across the Godavery and

those men had told him that Pohlmann's compoo was camped close to

Aurungabad. That city belonged to Hyderabad, but the merchants had

seen no evidence that the Mahrattas were preparing to besiege the city

walls. The Captain tugged his reins, turning his horse southwards so

he could carry his news to Wellesley.

"Bid you good day, Colonel. Your servant, Ma'am." The dragoon officer

touched his hat to Simone, then led his brigands away.

McCandless decreed that they would camp that night on the south bank of

the River Godavery where Sharpe rigged two horse blankets as a tent for

Simone. Sevajee and his men made their beds on the bluff above the

river, a score of yards from the tent, and McCandless and Sharpe spread

their blankets alongside. The river was high, but it had still not

filled the steep-sided ravine that successive monsoons had scarred into

the flat earth and Sharpe guessed that the river was only at half

flood. If the belated monsoon did arrive the Godavery would swell into

a swirling torrent a full quarter-mile wide, but even half full the

river looked a formidable obstacle as it surged westwards with its

burden of flotsam.

"Too deep to wade," McCandless said as the sun fell.

"Current looks strong, sir."

"It'll sweep you to your death, man."

"So how's the army to cross it, sir?"

"With difficulty, Sharpe, with difficulty, but discipline always

overcomes difficulty. Dodd got across, so we surely can." McCandless

had been reading his Bible, but the falling dark now obscured the pages

and so he closed the book. Simone had eaten with them, but she had

been uncommunicative and McCandless was glad when she withdrew behind

her blankets.

"Women upset matters," the Scotsman said unhappily.

"They do, sir?"

"Perturbations," McCandless said mysteriously, 'perturbations." The

small flames of the campfire made his already gaunt face seem

skeletal.

He shook his head.

"It's the heat, Sharpe, I'm convinced of it. The further south you

travel, the more sin is provoked among womankind. It makes sense, of

course. Hell is a hot place, and hell is sin's destination."

"So you think that heaven's cold, sir?"

"I like to think it's bracing," the Colonel answered seriously.

"Something like Scotland, I imagine. Certainly not as hot as India,

and the heat here has a very bad effect on some women. It releases

things in them." He paused, evidently deciding he risked saying too

much.

"I'm not at all convinced India is a place for European women," the

Colonel went on, 'and I shall be very glad when we're rid of Madame

Joubert.

Still, I can't deny that her predicament is propitious. It enables us

to take a look at Lieutenant Dodd."

Sharpe poked a half-burned scrap of driftwood into the hottest part of

the fire, provoking an up draught of sparks.

"Are you hoping to capture Lieutenant Dodd, sir? Is that why we're

taking Madame back to her husband?"

McCandless shook his head.

"I doubt we'll get the chance, Sharpe.

No, we're using a heaven-sent opportunity to take a look at our

enemy.

Our armies are marching into dangerous territory, for no place in India

can raise armies the size of the Mahratta forces, and we are precious

few in number. We need intelligence, Sharpe, so when we reach them,

watch and pray! Keep your eyes skinned. How many battalions? How

many guns? What's the state of the guns? How many limbers? Look hard

at the infantry. Matchlocks or fire locks In a month or so we'll be

fighting these rogues, so the more we know of them the better." The

Colonel scuffed earth onto the fire, dousing the last small flames that

Sharpe had just provoked.

"Now sleep, man. You'll be needing all your strength and wits in the

morning."

Next morning they rode downstream until they found a village next to a

vast empty Hindu temple, and in the village were small basket boats

that resembled Welsh coracles and McCandless hired a half-dozen of

these as ferries. The unsaddled horses were made to swim behind the

boats. It was a perilous crossing, for the brown current snatched at

the light vessels and whirled them downstream. The horses, white-eyed,

swam desperately behind the reed boats that Sharpe noted had no

caulking of any kind, but depended on skilful close weaving to keep the

water out, and the tug of the horses' leading reins strained the light

wooden frames and stretched the weave so that the boats let in water

alarmingly. Sharpe used his shako to bail out his coracle, but the

boatmen just grinned at his futile efforts and dug their paddles in

harder. Once a half-submerged tree almost speared Sharpe's boat, and

if the trunk had struck them the boat must surely have been tipped

over, but the two boatmen skilfully spun the coracle away, let the tree

pass, then paddled on.

It took half an hour to land and saddle the horses. Simone had shared

a coracle with McCandless and the brief voyage had soaked the bottom

half of her thin linen dress so that the damp weave clung to her legs.

McCandless was embarrassed, and offered her a horse blanket for

modesty's sake, but Simone shook her head.

"Where do we go now, Colonel?" she asked.

"Towards Aurungabad, Ma'am," McCandless said gruffly, keeping his eyes

averted from her beguiling figure, 'but doubtless we shall be

intercepted long before we reach that city. You'll be with your

husband by tomorrow night, I don't doubt."

Sevajee's men rode far ahead now, spread into a picquet line to give

warning of any enemy. This land all belonged to the Rajah of

Hyderabad, an ally of the British, but it was frontier land and the

only friendly troops now north of the Godavery were the garrisons of

Hyderabad's isolated fortresses. The rest were all Mahrattas, though

Sharpe saw no enemies that day. The only people he saw were peasants

cleaning out the irrigation channels in their stubble fields or tending

the huge brick kilns that smoked in the sunlight. The brick-workers

were all women and children, greasy and sweaty, who gave the travellers

scarcely a glance.

"It's a hard life," Simone said to Sharpe as they passed one half-built

kiln where an overseer lazed under a woven canopy and shouted at the

children to work faster.

"All life's hard unless you've got money," Sharpe said, grateful that

Simone had at last broken her silence. They were riding a few paces

behind the Colonel and kept their voices low so he could not hear

them.

"Money and rank," Simone said.

"Rank?" Sharpe asked.

"They're usually the same thing," Simone said.

"Colonels are richer than captains, are they not?" And captains are

generally richer than sergeants, Sharpe thought, but he said nothing.

Simone touched the pouch at her waist.

"I should give you back your diamonds."

"Why?"

"Because .. ." she said, but then fell silent for a while.

"I do not want you to think.. ." she tried again, but the words would

not come.

Sharpe smiled at her.

"Nothing happened, love," he told her.

"That's what you say to your husband. Nothing happened, and you found

the diamonds on a dead body."

"He will want me to give them to him. For his family."

"Then don't tell him."

"He is saving money," Simone explained, 'so his family can live without

work."

"We all want that. Dream of life without work, we do. That's why we

all want to be officers."

"And I think to myself," she went on as if Sharpe had not spoken, 'what

shall I do? I cannot stay here in India. I must go to France. We are

like ships, Sergeant, who look for a safe harbour."

"And Pierre is safe?"

"He is safe," Simone said bleakly, and Sharpe understood what she had

been thinking for the last two days. He could offer her no security,

while her husband could, and although she found Pierre's world

stultifying, she was terrified by the alternative. She had dared taste

that alternative for one night, but now shied away from it.

"You do not think badly of me?" she asked Sharpe anxiously.

I'm probably half in love with you," Sharpe told her, 'so how can I

think badly of you?"

She seemed relieved, and for the rest of that day she chattered happily

enough. McCandless questioned her closely about Dodd's regiment, how

it had been trained and how it was equipped, and though she had taken

scant interest in such things, her replies satisfied the Colonel who

pencilled notes in a small black book.

They slept that night in a village, and next day rode even more

warily.

"When we meet the enemy, Sharpe," McCandless advised him, 'keep your

hands away from your weapon."

"Yes, sir."

"Give a Mahratta one excuse to think you're hostile," the Colonel said

cheerfully, 'and he'll use you as an archery butt. They don't make

decent heavy horsemen, but as raiders they're unsurpassed. They attack

in swarms, Sharpe. A horde of horsemen. Like watching a storm

approach. Nothing but dust and the shine of swords. Magnificent!"

"You like them, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"I like the wild, Sharpe," McCandless said fiercely.

"We've tamed ourselves at home, but out here a man still lives by his

weapon and his wits. I shall miss that when we've imposed order."

"So why tame it, sir?"

"Because it is our duty, Sharpe. God's duty. Trade, order, law, and

Christian decency, that's our business." McCandless was gazing ahead

to where a patch of misty white hung just above the northern horizon.

It was dust kicked into the air, and maybe it was nothing more than a

herd of cattle or a flock of sheep, but the dust smear grew and

suddenly Sevajee's men veered sharply away to the west and galloped out

of sight.

"Are they running out on us, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"The enemy will likely enough treat you and me with respect, Sharpe,"

McCandless said, 'but Sevajee cannot expect courtesy from them. They'd

regard him as a traitor and execute him on the spot. We'll meet up

with him when we've delivered Madame Joubert to her husband. He and I

have arranged a rendezvous."

The dust cloud drew nearer and Sharpe saw a sliver of reflected

sunlight glint in the whiteness and he knew he was seeing the first

sign of McCandless's magnificent wild horsemen. The storm was

coming.

The Mahratta cavalrymen had spread into a long line as they approached

McCandless's small party. There were, Sharpe guessed, two hundred or

more of the horsemen and, as they drew nearer, the flanks of their line

quickened to form a pair of horns that would encircle their prey.

McCandless feigned not to notice the threat, but kept riding gently

ahead while the wild horns streamed past in a flurry of dust and

noise.

They were, Sharpe noticed, small men on small horses. British cavalry

were bigger and their horses were heavier, but these nimble horsemen

still looked effective enough. The curved blades of their drawn

tulwars glittered like their plumed helmets which rose to a sharp point

decorated with a crest. Some of the crests were horse-tails, some

vultures' feathers and some just brightly coloured ribbons. More

ribbons were woven into their horses' plaited manes or were tied to the

horn tips of the archers' bows. The horsemen pounded past McCandless,

then turned with a swerve, a slew of choking dust, a skid of hooves, a

jangle of curb chains and the thump of scabbarded weapons.

The Mahratta leader confronted McCandless who pretended to be surprised

to find his path blocked, but nevertheless greeted the enemy with an

elaborate and confident courtesy. The cavalry commander was a wildly

bearded man with a scarred cheek, a wall eye and lank hair that hung

far below his helmet's cloth-rimmed edge. He held his tulwar

menacingly, but McCandless ignored the blade's threat, indeed he

ignored most of what the enemy commander said, and instead boomed his

own demands in a voice that showed not the least nervousness. The

Scotsman towered over the smaller horsemen and, because he seemed to

regard his presence among them as entirely natural, they meekly

accepted his version of what was happening.

"I have demanded that they escort us to Pohlmann," the Scotsman

informed Sharpe.

"They probably planned on doing that anyway, sir."

"Of course they did, but it's far better that I should demand it than

that they should impose it," McCandless said and then, with a lordly

gesture, he gave permission for the Mahratta chief to lead the way and

the enemy dutifully formed themselves into an escort either side of the

three Europeans.

"Fine-looking beggars, are they not?" McCandless asked.

"Wicked, sir."

"But sadly out of date."

"They could fool me, sir," Sharpe said, for though many of the Mahratta

horsemen carried weapons that might have been more usefully employed at

Agincourt or Crecy than in modern India, all had fire locks in their

saddle holsters and all had savagely curved tulwars.

McCandless shook his head.

"They may be the finest light horsemen in the world, but they won't

press a charge home and they can't stand volley fire. There's rarely

any need to form square against men like these, Sharpe. They're fine

for picquet work, unrivalled at pursuit, but chary of dying in front of

the guns."

"Can you blame them?" Simone asked.

"I don't blame them, Madame," McCandless said, 'but if a horse can't

stand fire, then it's of scant use in battle. You don't gain victories

by rattling across country like a pack of hunters, but by enduring the

enemy's fire and overcoming it. That's where a soldier earns his pay,

hard under the enemy muzzles."

And that, Sharpe thought, was something he had never really done.

He had faced the French in Flanders years before, but those battles had

been fleeting and rain-obscured, and the lines had never closed on each

other. He had not stared at the whites of the enemy's eyes, heard his

volleys and returned them. He had fought at Malavelly, but that battle

had been one volley and a charge, and the enemy had not contested the

day, but fled, while at Seringapatam Sharpe had been spared the horror

of going through the breach. One day, he realized, he would have to

stand in a battle line and endure the volleys, and he wondered whether

he would stand or instead break in terror. Or whether he would even

live to see a battle, for, despite McCandless's blithe confidence,

there was no assurance that he would survive this visit to the enemy's

encampment.

They reached Pohlmann's army that evening. The camp was a short march

south of Aurungabad and it was visible from miles away because of the

great smear of smoke that hung in the sky. Most of the campfires were

burning dried cakes of bullock dung and the acrid smoke caught in

Sharpe's throat as he trotted through the lines of infantry shelters.

It all looked much like a British camp, except that most of the tents

were made from reed matting rather than canvas, but the lines were

still neatly arrayed, muskets were carefully stacked in threes and a

disciplined ring of picquets guarded the camp's perimeter. They passed

some European officers exercising their horses, and one of those men

spurred to intercept the newcomers. He ignored McCandless and Sharpe,

raising his plumed hat to Simone instead.

"Bonsoir, Madame."

Simone did not look at the man, but just tapped her horse's rump with

her riding crop.

"That fellow's French, sir," Sharpe said to McCandless.

"I do speak the language, Sergeant," the Colonel said.

"So what's a Frog doing here, sir?"

"The same as Lieutenant Dodd, Sharpe. Teaching Scindia's infantry how

to fight."

"Don't they know how to fight, sir? Thought it came natural."

"They don't fight as we do," McCandless said, watching the rebuffed

Frenchman canter away.

"How's that, sir?"

"The European, Sergeant, has learned to close the gap fast. The closer

you are to a man, the more likely you are to kill him; however, the

closer you get, the more likely you are to be killed, but it's no use

entertaining that fear in battle. Get up close, hold your ranks and

start killing, that's the trick of it. But given a chance an Indian

will hold back and try to kill at long range, and fellows like Dodd are

teaching them how to close the gap hard and fast. You need discipline

for that, discipline and tight ranks and good sergeants. And no doubt

he's teaching them how to use cannon as well." The Colonel spoke

sourly, for they were trotting beside an artillery park that was

crammed with heavy cannon. The guns looked odd to Sharpe, for many of

them had been cast with ornate patterns on their barrels, and some were

even painted in gaudy colours, but they were neatly parked and all had

limbers and full sets of equipment; rammers and worm screws and

handspikes and buckets. The axles gleamed with grease and there was

not a spot of rust to be seen on the long barrels. Someone knew how to

maintain guns, and that suggested they also knew how to use them.

"Counting them, Sharpe?" McCandless asked abruptly.

"No, sir."

"Seventeen in that park, mostly nine-pounders, but there are some much

heavier brutes at the back. Keep your eyes open, man. That's why

we're here."

"Yes, sir, of course, sir."

They passed a line of tethered camels, then a compound where a dozen

elephants were being brought their supper of palm leaves and

butter-soaked rice. Children followed the men carrying the rice to

scavenge what slopped from the pails. Some of the Mahratta escort had

spurred ahead to spread news of the visitors and curious crowds

gathered to watch as McCandless and his two companions rode still

deeper into the huge encampment. Those crowds became thicker as they

drew close to the camp's centre which was marked by a spread of large

tents. One of the tents was made of blue-and-yellow-striped canvas,

and in front of it were twin flagpoles, though the wind was slack and

the brightly coloured banners just hung from their tall poles.

"Leave the talking to me," McCandless ordered Sharpe.

"Of course, sir."

Simone suddenly gasped. Sharpe turned and saw she was staring across

the heads of the curious crowd towards a group of European officers.

She looked at Sharpe suddenly and he saw the sadness in her eyes. She

gave him a half-smile.

"Pierre," she offered in brief explanation, then she shrugged and

tapped her horse with her crop so that it hurried away from Sharpe. Her

husband, a small man in a white coat, gazed in disbelief, then ran to

meet her with a look of pleasure on his face. Sharpe felt oddly

jealous of him.

"That's our main duty discharged," McCandless said happily.

"A

disobliging woman, I thought."

"Unhappy, sir."

"Doesn't have enough to keep her busy, that's why. The devil likes

idle hands, Sharpe."

"Then he must hate me, sir, most of the time." He stared after Simone,

watching as she slid down from the saddle and was embraced by her

shorter husband. Then the crowds hid the couple from him.

Someone shouted an insult at the two British horsemen and the other

spectators jeered or laughed, but Sharpe, despite their hostility, took

some consolation from McCandless's confidence. The Scotsman, indeed,

was in a happier mood than he had shown for days, for he revelled being

in his enemy's lines.

A group of men emerged from the big striped tent. They were almost all

Europeans, and in their forefront was a tall muscled man in

shirtsleeves who was attended by a bodyguard of Indian soldiers wearing

purple coats.

"That's Colonel Pohlmann," McCandless said, nodding towards the big

red-faced man.

"The fellow who used to be a sergeant, sir?"

"That's him."

"You've met him, sir?"

"Once, a couple of years back. He's an affable sort of man, Sharpe,

but I doubt he's trustworthy."

If Pohlmann was surprised to see a British officer in his camp, he did

not show it. Instead he spread his arms in an expansive gesture of

welcome.

"Are you new recruits?" he shouted in greeting.

McCandless did not bother to answer the mocking question, but just slid

from his horse.

"You don't remember me, Colonel?"

"Of course I remember you," Pohlmann said with a smile.

"Colonel Hector McCandless, once of His Majesty's Scotch Brigade, and

now in the service of the East India Company. How could I forget you,

Colonel? You tried to make me read the Bible." Pohlmann grinned,

displaying tobacco-stained teeth.

"But you haven't answered my question, Colonel. Have you come to join

our army?"

"I am the merest emissary, Colonel," McCandless said, beating dust from

the kilt that he had insisted on wearing in honour of meeting the

enemy. The garment was causing some amusement to Pohlmann's

companions, though they took care not to let their smiles show if

McCandless glanced their way.

"I brought you a woman," McCandless added in explanation.

"How do you say in England, Colonel," Pohlmann asked with a puzzled

frown, 'coals to Newcastle?"

"I offered safe conduct to Madame Joubert," the Scotsman said

stiffly.

"So that was Simone I saw riding past," Pohlmann said.

"I did wonder.

And she'll be welcome, I dare say. We have enough of everything in

this army; cannon, muskets, horses, ammunition, men, but there can

never really be enough women in any army, can there?" He laughed, then

summoned two of his purple-coated bodyguards to take charge of the

horses.

"You've ridden a long way, Colonel," Pohlmann said to McCandless, 'so

let me offer you refreshment. You too, Sergeant," he included Sharpe

in his invitation.

"You must be tired."

"I'm sore after that ride, sir," Sharpe said, dropping clumsily and

gratefully from the saddle.

"You're not used to horses, eh?" Pohlmann crossed to Sharpe and draped

a genial arm about his shoulders.

"You're an infantryman, which means you've got hard feet and a soft

bum. Me, I never like being on a horse. You know how I go to battle?

On an elephant.

That's the way to do it, Sergeant. What's your name?"

"Sharpe, sir."

"Then welcome to my headquarters, Sergeant Sharpe. You're just in time

for supper." He steered Sharpe into the tent, then stopped to let his

guests stare at the lavish interior which was carpeted with soft rugs,

hung with silk drapes, lit with ornate brass chandeliers and furnished

with intricately carved tables and couches. McCandless scowled at such

luxury, but Sharpe was impressed.

"Not bad, eh?" Pohlmann squeezed Sharpe's shoulders.

"For a former sergeant."

"You, sir?" Sharpe asked, pretending not to know Pohlmann's history.

"I was a sergeant in the East India Company's Hanoverian Regiment,"

Pohlmann boasted, 'quartered in a rat hole in Madras. Now I command a

king's army and have all these powdered fops to serve me." He gestured

at his attendant officers who, accustomed to Pohlmann's insults, smiled

tolerantly.

"Need a piss, Sergeant?" Pohlmann asked, taking his arm from Sharpe's

shoulders.

"A wash?"

"Wouldn't mind both, sir."

"Out the back." He pointed the way.

"Then come back and drink with me."

McCandless had watched this bonhomie with suspicion. He had also smelt

the reek of strong liquor on Pohlmann's breath and suspected he was

doomed to an evening of hard drinking in which, even though

McCandless himself would refuse all alcohol, he would have to endure

the drunken badinage of others. It was a grim prospect, and one he did

not intend to endure alone.

"Not you, Sharpe," he hissed when Sharpe returned to the tent.

"Not me what, sir?"

"You're to stay sober, you hear me? I'm not mollycoddling your sore

head all the way back to the army."

"Of course not, sir," Sharpe said, and for a time he tried to obey

McCandless, but Pohlmann insisted Sharpe join him in a toast before

supper.

"You're not an abstainer, are you?" Pohlmann demanded of Sharpe in

feigned horror when the Sergeant tried to refuse a beaker of brandy.

"You're not a Bible-reading abstainer, are you? Don't tell me the

British army is becoming moral!"

"No, sir, not me, sir."

"Then drink with me to King George of Hanover and of England!"

Sharpe obediently drank to the health of their joint sovereign, then to

Queen Charlotte, and those twin courtesies emptied his beaker of brandy

and a serving girl was summoned to fill it so that he could toast His

Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales.

"You like the girl?" Pohlmann asked, gesturing at the serving girl who

swerved lithely away from a French major who was trying to seize her

said.

"She's pretty, sir," Sharpe said.

"They're all pretty, Sergeant. I keep a dozen of them as wives,

another dozen as servants, and God knows how many others who merely

aspire to those positions. You look shocked, Colonel McCandless."

"A man who dwells among the tents of the ungodly," McCandless said,

'will soon pick up ungodly ways."

"And thank God for it," Pohlmann retorted, then clapped his hands to

summon the supper dishes.

A score of officers ate in the tent. Half a dozen were Mahrattas, the

rest Europeans, and just after the bowls and platters had been placed

on the tables, Major Dodd arrived. Night was falling and candles

illuminated the tent's shadowed interior, but Sharpe recognized Dodd's

face instantly. The sight of the long jaw, sallow skin and bitter eyes

brought back sharp memories of Chasalgaon, of flies crawling on

Sharpe's eyes and in his gullet, and of the staccato bangs as men

stepped over the dead to shoot the wounded. Dodd, oblivious of

Sharpe's glare, nodded to Pohlmann.

"I apologize, Colonel Pohlmann, for being late," he announced with

stiff formality.

"I expected Captain Joubert to be late," Pohlmann said, 'for a man

newly reunited with his wife has better things to do than hurry to his

supper, if indeed he takes his supper at all. Were you also welcoming

Simone, Major?"

"I was not, sir. I was attending to the picquets."

"Major Dodd's attention to his duty puts us all to shame," Pohlmann

said.

"Do you have the pleasure of knowing Major Dodd, Colonel?" he asked

McCandless.

"I know the Company will pay five hundred guineas for Lieutenant Dodd's

capture," McCandless growled, 'and more now, I dare say, after his

bestiality at Chasalgaon."

Dodd showed no reaction to the Colonel's hostility, but Pohlmann

smiled.

"You've come for the reward money, Colonel, is that it?"

"I wouldn't touch the money," McCandless said, 'for it's tainted by

association. Tainted by murder, Colonel, and by disloyalty and

dishonour."

The words were spoken to Pohlmann, but addressed to Dodd whose face

seemed to tighten as he listened. He had taken a place at the end of

the table and was helping himself to the food. The other guests were

silent, intrigued by the tension between McCandless and Dodd.

Pohlmann was enjoying the confrontation.

"You say Major Dodd is a murderer, Colonel?"

"A murderer and a traitor."

Pohlmann looked down the table.

"Major Dodd? You have nothing to say?"

Dodd reached for a loaf of flat bread that he tore in half.

"When I had the misfortune to serve in the Company, Colonel," he said

to Pohlmann, "Colonel McCandless was well known as the head of

intelligence. He did the dishonourable job of spying on the Company's

enemies, and I've no doubt that is his purpose here. He can spit all

he likes, but he's here to spy, Colonel."

Pohlmann smiled.

"Is that true, McCandless?"

"I returned Madame Joubert to her husband, Pohlmann, nothing more,"

McCandless insisted.

"Of course it's more," Pohlmann said.

"Major Dodd is right! You're head of the Company's intelligence

service, are you not? Which means that you saw in dear Simone's

predicament a chance to 'nspect our army."

"You infer too much," McCandless said.

"Nonsense, Colonel. Do try the lamb. It's seethed in milk curds. So

what do you wish to see?"

"My bed," McCandless said curtly, waving away the lamb dish. He never

touched meat.

"Just my bed," he added.

"And see it you shall," Pohlmann said genially. The Hanoverian paused,

wondering whether to re-ignite the hostility between McCandless and

Dodd, but he must have decided that each had insulted the other

sufficiently.

"But tomorrow, Colonel, I will provide a tour of inspection for you.

You may see whatever you like, McCandless. You can watch our gunners

at work, you may inspect our infantry, you may go wherever you wish and

talk to whoever you desire. We have nothing to hide." He smiled at

the astonished McCandless.

"You are my guest, Colonel, so I must show you a proper hospitality."

He was as good as his word, and next morning McCandless was invited to

inspect all of Pohlmann's compoo.

"I wish there were more troops here," Pohlmann said, 'but Scindia is a

few miles northwards with Saleur's and Dupont's compoos. I like to

think they're not as able as mine, but in truth they're both very good

units. Both have European officers, of course, and both are properly

trained. I can't say as much for the Rajah of Berar's infantry, but

his gunners are the equal of ours."

McCandless said very little all morning, and Sharpe, who had learned to

read the Scotsman's moods, saw that he was severely discomfited. And

no wonder, for Pohlmann's troops looked as fine as any in the Company's

service. The Hanoverian commanded six and half thousand infantry, five

hundred cavalry and as many pioneers who served as engineers, and

possessed thirty-eight guns. This compoo alone outnumbered the

infantry of Wellesley's army, and was much stronger in guns, and there

were two similar compoos in Scindia's service let alone his horde of

cavalry. It was no surprise, Sharpe thought, that McCandless's spirits

were falling, and they fell even further when Pohlmann arranged for a

demonstration of his artillery and the Scotsman, feigning gratitude to

his host, was forced to watch as teams of gunners served a battery of

big eighteen-pounder guns with all the alacrity and efficiency of the

British army.

"Well-made pieces, too," Pohlmann boasted, leading McCandless up to the

hot guns that stood behind the swathes of burnt grass caused by their

muzzle fire.

"A little gaudy, perhaps, for European tastes, but none the worse for

that." The guns were all painted in bright colours and some had names

written in a curly script on their breeches.

"Mega-wati," Pohlmann read aloud, 'the goddess of clouds. Inspect

them, Colonel!

They're well made. Our axletrees don't break, I can assure you."

Pohlmann was willing to show McCandless even more, but after dinner the

Scotsman elected to spend the afternoon in his borrowed tent.

He claimed he wished to rest, but Sharpe suspected the Scotsman had

endured enough humiliation and wanted some quiet in which to make notes

on all he had seen.

"We'll leave tonight, Sharpe," the Colonel said.

"You can occupy yourself till then?"

"Colonel Pohlmann wants me to ride with him on his elephant, sir." The

Colonel scowled.

"He likes to show off." For a moment he seemed about to order Sharpe

to refuse the invitation, then he shrugged.

"Don't get seasick."

The motion of the elephant's howdah was indeed something like a ship,

for it swayed from side to side as the beast plodded northwards and at

first Sharpe had to grip onto the edge of the basket, but once he had

accustomed himself to the motion he relaxed and leaned back on the

cushioned seat. The howdah had two seats, one in front of the other,

and Sharpe had the rearmost, but after a while Pohlmann twisted in his

seat and showed how he could raise his own backrest and lay it flat so

that the whole howdah became one cushioned bed that could be concealed

by the curtains that hung from the wicker-framed canopy.

"It's a fine place to bring a woman, Sergeant," Pohlmann said as he

restored the backrest to its upright position, 'but the girth straps

broke once and the whole thing fell off! It fell slowly, luckily, and

I still had my breeches on so not too much dignity was lost."

"You don't look like a man who worries much about dignity, sir."

"I

worry about reputation," Pohlmann said, 'which isn't the same thing. I

keep my reputation by winning victories and giving away gold. Those

men' he gestured at his purple-coated bodyguards who marched on either

flank of the elephant 'are each paid as much as a lieutenant in British

service. And as for my European officers!" He laughed.

"They're all making more money than they dreamed possible. Look at

'em!" He jerked his head at the score of European officers who

followed the elephant. Dodd was among them, but riding apart from the

others and with a morose expression on his long face as though he

resented having to pay court to his commanding officer. His horse was

a sway-backed, hard-mouthed mare, a poor beast as ungainly and sullen

as her master.

"Greed, Sharpe, greed, that's the best motive for a soldier," Pohlmann

said.

"Greed will make them fight like demons, if our lord and master ever

allows us to fight."

"You think he won't, sir?"

Pohlmann grinned.

"Scindia listens to his astrologers rather more than he listens to his

Europeans, but I'll slip the bastards some gold when the time comes,

and they'll tell him the stars are propitious and he'll give me the

whole army and let me loose."

"How big is the whole army, sir?"

Pohlmann smiled, recognizing that Sharpe was asking questions on behalf

of Colonel McCandless.

"By the time you face us, Sergeant, we should have over a hundred

thousand men. And of those? Fifteen thousand infantry are first

class, thirty thousand infantry are reliable, and the rest are horsemen

who are only good for plundering the wounded. We'll also have a

hundred guns, all of them as good as any in Europe. And how big will

your army be?"

"Don't know, sir," Sharpe said woodenly.

Pohlmann smiled.

"Wellesley has, maybe, seven and a half thousand men, infantry and

cavalry, while Colonel Stevenson has perhaps another seven thousand so

together you'll number, what? Fourteen and a half thousand? With

forty guns? You think fourteen thousand men can beat a hundred

thousand? And what happens, Sergeant Sharpe, if I manage to catch one

of your little armies before the other can support it?" Sharpe said

nothing, and Pohlmann smiled.

"You should think about selling me your skills, Sharpe."

"Me, sir?" Sharpe answered lightly.

"You, Sergeant Sharpe," Pohlmann said forcibly, and the Hanoverian

twisted in his seat to stare at Sharpe.

"That's why I invited you this afternoon. I need European officers,

Sharpe, and any man as young as you who becomes a sergeant must have a

rare ability. I am offering you rank and riches, Sharpe. Look at me!

Ten years ago I was a sergeant like you, now I ride to war on an

elephant, need two more to carry my gold and have three dozen women

competing to sharpen my sword. Have you ever heard of George

Thomas?"

"No, sir."

"An Irishman, Sergeant, and not even a soldier! George was an

illiterate seaman out of the gutters of Dublin, and before he drank

himself to death, poor man, he'd become the Begum Somroo's general. I

think he was her lover too, but that ain't any distinction with that

particular lady, but before he died George needed a whole herd of

elephants to haul his gold about. And why? Because the Indian

princes, Sergeant, need our skills. Equip yourself with a good

European and you win your wars. I captured seventy-two guns at the

battle of Malpura and I demanded the weight of one of those guns in

pure gold as my reward. I got it, too. In ten years you could be as

rich as you want, rich as Benoit de Boigne. You must have heard of

him?"

"No, sir."

"He was a Savoyard, Sergeant, and in just four years he made a hundred

thousand pounds and then he went off home and married a

seventeen-year-old girl fresh from her father's castle. In only four

years!

From being a captain in Savoy's army to being governor of half

Scindia's territory. There's a fortune to be made here and rank and

birth don't come into it. Only ability counts. Nothing but ability."

Pohlmann paused, his eyes on Sharpe.

"I'll make you a lieutenant tomorrow, Sergeant, and you can fight in my

compoo, and if you're any damn good then you'll be a captain by month's

end." Sharpe looked at the Hanoverian, but said nothing. Pohlmann

smiled.

"What are your chances of getting a commission in the British army?"

Sharpe grinned.

"No chance, sir."

"So? I offer you rank, wealth and as many bibb is as you can

handle."

"Is that why Mister Dodd deserted, sir?"

Pohlmann smiled.

"Major Dodd deserted, Sharpe, because he faces execution for murder,

and because he's sensible, and because he wants my job. Not that he'll

admit to that." The Hanoverian twisted in the howdah.

"Major Dodd!" he shouted.

The Major urged his awkward horse to the elephant's side and looked up

into the howdah.

"Sir?"

"Sergeant Sharpe wants to know why you joined us."

Dodd gave Sharpe a suspicious look, but then shrugged. 'I ran because

there's no future in the Company," he said.

"I was a lieutenant for twenty-two years, Sergeant, twenty-two years!

It don't matter to the Company how good a soldier you are, you have to

wait your turn, and all the while I watched wealthy young fools buying

themselves majorities in the King's ranks and I had to bow and scrape

to the useless bastards. Yes, sir, no, sir, three bloody bags full,

sir, and can I

carry your bags, sir, and wipe your arse, sir." Dodd had been getting

angrier and angrier as he spoke, but now made an effort to control

himself.

"I couldn't join the King's army, Sergeant, because my father runs a

grist mill in Suffolk and there ain't no money to buy a King's

commission. That meant I was only fit for the Company, and King's

officers treat Company men like dirt. I can outfight twenty of the

bastards, but ability don't count in the Company. Keep your nose

clean, wait your turn, then die for the shareholders when the Court of

Directors tells you." He was becoming angry again.

"That's why," he finished curtly.

"And you, Sergeant?" Pohlmann asked.

"What opportunities will the army offer you?"

"Don't know, sir."

"You do know," Pohlmann said, 'you do know." The elephant had stopped

and the Hanoverian now pointed ahead and Sharpe saw that they had come

to the edge of a wood, and a half-mile away was a great city with walls

like those the Scots had climbed at Ahmednuggur.

The city walls were bright with flags, while its embrasures glinted

with the reflection of sunlight from gun barrels.

"That's Aurungabad," Pohlmann said, 'and everyone inside those walls is

pissing themselves in fear that I'm about to start a siege."

"But you're not?"

I'm looking for Wellesley," Pohlmann said, 'and you know why?

Because I've never lost a battle, Sharpe, and I'm going to add a

British major-general's sword to my trophies. Then I'll build myself a

palace, a bloody great marble palace, and I'll line the halls with

British guns and hang British colours to shield my bedroom from the sun

and I'll bounce my bibb is on a mattress stuffed with the hair of

British horses."

Pohlmann luxuriated in that dream for a while and then, with a last

glance at the city, ordered the mahout to turn the elephant about.

"When is McCandless leaving?" he asked Sharpe.

"Tonight, sir."

"After dark?"

"Around midnight, sir, I think."

"That gives you plenty of time to think, Sergeant. To think of your

future. To contemplate what the red coat offers you, and what I offer

you. And when you have thought about those things, come to me."

I'm thinking on it, sir," Sharpe said, "I'm thinking on it." And he

was.

CHAPTER 6

Colonel McCandless excused himself from Pohlmann's supper, but did not

forbid Sharpe to attend "But don't get drunk," he warned the Sergeant,

'and be at my tent at midnight. I want to be back at the River

Godavery by dawn."

"Yes, sir," Sharpe said dutifully, then went to Pohlmann's tent where

most of the compoo's officers had gathered. Dodd was there, and so

were a half-dozen wives of Pohlmann's European officers and among them

was Simone Joubert, though there was no sign of her husband.

"He is in charge of the army picquets tonight," Simone explained when

Sharpe asked her, 'and Colonel Pohlmann invited me to eat."

"He invited me to join his army," Sharpe told her.

"He did?" Her eyes widened as she stared up from her chair.

"And will you?"

"It would mean I'd be close to you, Ma'am," Sharpe said, 'and that's an

inducement."

Simone half smiled at the clumsy gallantry.

"I think you would not be a good soldier if you changed your loyalty

for a woman, Sergeant."

"He says I'll be an officer," Sharpe said.

"And is that what you want?"

Sharpe squatted on his heels so that he could be closer to her. The

other European wives saw him crouch and pursed their mouths with a

disapproval born of envy, but Sharpe was oblivious of their gaze.

"I

think I'd like to be an officer, yes. And I can think of one very good

reason to be an officer in this army."

Simone blushed.

"I am a married woman, Sergeant. You know that."

"But even married women need friends," Sharpe said, and just then a

large hand took unceremonious hold of his clubbed hair and hauled him

to his feet.

Sharpe turned belligerently on whoever had manhandled him, then '33

saw that it was a smiling Major Dodd.

"Can't have you stooping to women, Sharpe," Dodd said before offering

an ungainly bow to Simone.

"Good evening, Madame."

"Major," Simone acknowledged him coldly.

"You will forgive me, Madame, if I steal Sergeant Sharpe from you?"

Dodd asked.

"I want a word with him. Come on, Sharpe." He plucked Sharpe's arm,

guiding him across the tent. The Major was very slightly drunk and

evidently intent on becoming more drunk for he snatched a whole jug of

arrack from a servant, then scooped up two beakers from a table.

"Fancy Madame Joubert, do you?" he asked Sharpe.

"I like her well enough, sir."

"She's spoken for, Sergeant. Remember that if you join us, she's

spoken for."

"You mean she's married, sir?"

"Married?" Dodd laughed, then poured the arrack and gave one beaker to

Sharpe.

"How many European officers can you see here?

And how many European women? And how many of them are young and pretty

like Madame Joubert? Work it out, lad. And you're not jumping the

queue." Dodd smiled as he spoke, evidently meaning his tone to be

jocular.

"But you are joining us, aren't you?"

"I'm thinking about it, sir."

"You'll be in my regiment, Sharpe," Dodd said.

"I need European officers. I've only got Joubert and he's no damn use,

so I've spoken with Pohlmann and he says you can join my Cobras. I'll

give you three companies of your own to look after, and God help you if

they're not kept in prime condition. I like to look after the men,

because come battle they look after you, but God help any officer who

lets me down."

He paused to drink half his arrack and pour some more.

"I'll work you hard, Sharpe, I'll work you damned hard, but there'll be

plenty of gold washing round this army once we've thrashed Boy

Wellesley. Money's your reward, lad, money."

"Is that why you're here, sir?"

"It's why we're all here, you fool. All except Joubert, who was posted

here by his government and is too damned timid to help himself to

Scindia's gold. So report to me in the morning. We're marching north

tomorrow night, which means you'll have one day to learn my ropes and

after that you're Mister Sharpe, gentleman. Come to me tomorrow

morning, Sharpe, at dawn, and get rid of that damned red coat." He

poked Sharpe's chest hard.

"I see a red coat," he went on, 'and I want to start killing." He

grinned, showing yellow teeth.

"Is that what happened at Chasalgaon, sir?" Sharpe asked.

Dodd's grin vanished.

"Why the hell do you ask that?" he growled.

Sharpe had asked because he had been remembering the massacre, and

wondering if he could ever serve under a man who had ordered such a

killing, but he said none of that. He shrugged instead.

"I heard tales, sir, but no one ever tells us anything proper. You

know that, sir, so I just wondered what happened there."

Dodd considered that answer for a moment, then shrugged.

"I didn't take prisoners, Sharpe, that's what happened. Killed the

bastards to the last man."

And to the last boy, Sharpe thought, remembering Davi Lal. He remained

impassive, not letting a hint of memory or hate show.

"Why not take prisoners, sir?"

"Because it's war!" Dodd said vehemently.

"When men fight me, Sergeant, I want them to fear me, because that way

the battle's half won before it's started. It ain't kind, I'm sure,

but who ever said war was kind? And in this war, Sergeant' he waved

his hand towards the officers clustering about Colonel Pohlmann - 'it's

dog eat dog. We're all in competition, and you know who'll win? The

most ruthless, that's who. So what did I do at Chasalgaon? I made

sure of a reputation, Sharpe. Made a name for myself. That's the

first rule of war, Sergeant.

Make the bastards fear you. And you know what the second rule is?"

"Don't ask questions, sir?"

Dodd grinned.

"No, lad. the second rule is never to reinforce failure, and the

third, lad, is to look after your men. You know why I had that

goldsmith thrashed? You've heard of that, haven't you? I'll tell you.

It wasn't because he'd cheated me, which he did, but because he cheated

some of my men. So I looked after them and let them give him a solid

kicking, and the bastard died. Which he deserved to do, rich fat

bastard that he was." The Major turned and scowled at the servants

bringing dishes from Pohlmann's cook tent.

"And they're just as bad here, Sharpe. Look at all that food! Enough

to feed two regiments there, Sharpe, and the men are going hungry. No

proper supply system, see? It costs money, that's why. You don't get

issued food in this army, you go out and steal it." He plainly

disapproved.

"I've told Pohlmann, I have.

Lay on a commissary, I said, but he won't, because it costs money. Scindia hoards food in his fortresses, but he won't issue it, not unless he's paid, and Pohlmann won't give up a penny of profit, so no food ever comes. It just rots in the warehouses while we have to keep moving, because after a week we've stripped one set of fields bare and have to go on to the next. It's no bloody way to run an army."

"Maybe one day you'll change the system, sir," Sharpe said.

"I will!" Dodd said vigorously.

"I bloody will! And if you've any sense, lad, you'll be here helping

me. You learn one thing as a miller's son, Sergeant, and that's not

just how to grind corn, but that a fool and his money are easily

parted. And Scindia's a fool, but given a chance I'll make the bugger

into the Emperor of India." He turned as a servant beat a gong with a

muffled stick.

"Time for our vittles."

It was a strangely subdued supper, though Pohlmann did his best to

amuse his company. Sharpe had tried to manoeuvre himself into a seat

beside Simone, but Dodd and a Swedish captain beat him to it and Sharpe

found himself next to a small Swiss doctor who spent the whole meal

quizzing Sharpe about the religious arrangements in British

regiments.

"Your chaplains are godly men, yes?"

"Drunken bastards, sir, most of them."

"Surely not!"

"I hauled two of them out of a whorehouse not a month ago, sir.

They didn't want to pay, see?"

"You are not telling me the truth!"

"God's honour, sir. The Reverend Mister Cooper was one of them, and

it's a rare Sunday that he's sober. He preached a Christmas sermon at

Easter, he was that puzzled."

Most of the guests left early, Dodd among them, though a few diehards

stayed on to give the Colonel a game of cards. Pohlmann grinned at

Sharpe.

"You wager, Sharpe?"

I'm not rich enough, sir."

Pohlmann shook his head in mock exasperation at the answer. 'I will

make you rich, Sharpe. You believe me?"

"I do, sir."

"So you've made up your mind? You're joining me?"

"I still want to think a bit, sir."

Pohlmann shrugged.

"You have nothing to think about. You either become a rich man or you

die for King George."

Sharpe left the remaining officers at their cards and walked away into

the encampment. He really was thinking, or trying to think, and he

sought a quiet place, but a crowd of soldiers were wagering on dog

fights, and their cheers, as well as the yelps and snarls of the dogs,

carried far through the darkness. Sharpe settled on an empty stretch

of ground close to the picketed camels that carried Pohlmann's supply

of rockets, and there he lay and stared up at the stars through the

mist of smoke. A million stars. He had always thought there was an

answer to all life's mysteries in the stars, yet whenever he stared at

them the answer slipped out of his grasp. He had been whipped in the

foundling home for staring at a clear night's sky through the workshop

skylight.

"You ain't here to gawp at the dark, boy," the overseer had snapped,

'you're here to labour," and the whip had slashed down across his

shoulders and he had dutifully looked down at the great tarry lump of

hemp rope that had to be picked apart. The old ropes had been twisted

and tightened and tarred into vast knots bigger than Sharpe himself,

and they had been used as fenders on the London docks, but when the

grinding and thumping of the big ships had almost worn the old fenders

through they were sent to the foundling home to be picked apart so that

the strands could be sold as furniture stuffing or to be mixed into

wall plaster.

"Got to learn a trade, boy," the master had told him again and again,

and so Sharpe had learned a trade, but it was not hemp-picking.

He learned the killing trade. Load a musket, ram a musket, fire a

musket. And he had not done much of it, not yet, but he liked doing

it.

He remembered Malavelly, remembered firing the volley at the

approaching enemy, and he remembered the sheer exultation as all his

unhappiness and anger had been concentrated into his musket's barrel

and been gouted out in one explosive rush of flame, smoke and lead.

He did not think of himself as unhappy. Not now. The army had been

good to him in these last years, but there was still something wrong in

his soul. What that was, he did not know, because Sharpe did not

reckon he was any good at thinking. He was good at action, for

whenever there was a problem to be solved Sergeant Sharpe could usually

find the solution, but he was not much use at simply thinking. But he

had to think now, and he stared at the smoke-dimmed stars in the hope

that they would help him, but all they did was go on shining.

Lieutenant Sharpe, he thought, and was surprised to realize that he saw

nothing very odd in that idea. It was ridiculous, of course. Richard

Sharpe, an officer? But somehow he could not shake the idea loose.

It was a laughable idea, he tried to convince himself; at least in the

British army it was, but not here. Not in Pohlmann's army, and

Pohlmann had once been a sergeant.

"Bloody hell," he said aloud, and a camel belched in answer.

The cheers of the spectators greeted the death of a dog, and, nearer, a

soldier was playing one of the strange Indian instruments, plucking its

long strings to make a sad, plangent music. In the British camp,

Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here.

They were too hungry, though hunger did not stop a man from fighting.

It had never stopped Sharpe. So these hungry men could fight, and they

needed officers, and all he had to do was stand up, brush the dirt away

and stroll across to Pohlmann's tent and become Lieutenant Sharpe.

Mister Sharpe.

And he would do a good job. He knew that. Better than Morris, better

than most of the army's junior officers. He was a good sergeant, a

bloody good sergeant, and he enjoyed being a sergeant. He got respect,

not just because of the stripes on his red sleeves, and not just

because he had been the man who blew the mine at Seringapatam, but

because he was good and tough. He wasn't frightened of making a

decision, and that was the key to it, he reckoned. And he enjoyed

making decisions, and he enjoyed the respect that decisiveness brought

him, and he realized he had been seeking respect all his life. Christ,

he thought, but would it not be a joy to walk back into the foundling

home with braid on his coat, gold on his shoulders and a sword at his

side? That was the respect he wanted, from the bastards in Brewhouse

Lane who had said he would never amount to anything and who had whipped

him bloody because he was a bastard off the streets. By Christ, he

thought, but gqing back there would make life perfect! Brewhouse Lane,

him in a braided coat and a sword, and with Sirrione on his arm and a

dead king's jewels about her neck, and them all touching their hats and

bobbing like ducks in a pond. Perfect, he thought, just perfect, and

as he indulged himself in that dream an angry shout came from the tents

close to Pohlmann's marquee and an instant later a gun sounded.

There was a moment's pause after the gunshot, as if its violence had

checked a drunken fight, then Sharpe heard men laughing and the sound

of hoofbeats. He was standing now, staring towards the big marquee.

The horses went by quite close to him, then the noise of their hooves

receded into the dark.

"Come back!" a man shouted in English, and Sharpe recognized

McCandless's voice.

Sharpe began running.

"Come back!" McCandless shouted again, and then there was another

gunshot and Sharpe heard the Colonel yelp like a whipped dog. A score

of men were shouting now. The officers who had been playing cards were

running towards McCandless's tent and Pohlmann's bodyguards were

following them. Sharpe dodged round a fire, leaped a sleeping man,

then saw a figure hurrying away from the commotion. The man had a

musket in his hand and he was half crouching as if he did not want to

be seen, and Sharpe did not hesitate, but just swerved and ran at the

man.

When the fugitive heard Sharpe coming, he quickened his pace, then

realized he would be caught and so he turned on his pursuer. The man

whipped out a bayonet and screwed it onto the muzzle of his musket.

Sharpe saw the glint of moonlight on the long blade, saw the man's

teeth white in the dark, then the bayonet lunged at him, but Sharpe had

dropped to the ground and was sliding forward in the dust beneath the

blade. He wrapped his arms around the man's legs, heaved once and the

man fell backwards. Sharpe cuffed the musket aside with his left hand,

then hammered his right hand down onto the moon-whitened teeth. The

man tried to kick Sharpe's crotch, then clawed at his eyes, but Sharpe

caught one of the hooked fingers in his mouth and bit hard. The man

screamed in pain, Sharpe kept biting and kept hitting, then he spat the

severed fingertip into the man's face and gave him one last thump with

his fist.

"Bastard," Sharpe said, and hauled the man to his feet. Two of

Pohlmann's officers had arrived now, one still with a fan of cards in

his hand.

"Get his bloody musket," Sharpe ordered them. The man struggled in

Sharpe's hands, but he was much smaller than Sharpe and a good kick

between his legs brought him to order.

"Come on, you bastard," Sharpe said.

One of the officers had picked up the fallen musket and Sharpe reached

over and felt the muzzle. It was hot, showing that the weapon had just

been fired.

"If you killed my Colonel, you bastard, I'll kill you," Sharpe said and

dragged the man through the campfires to the knot of officers who had

gathered about the Colonel's tent.

McCandless's two horses were gone. Both the mare and the gelding had

been stolen, and Sharpe realized it was their hoofbeats he had heard go

past him. McCandless, woken by the noise of the horse thieves, had

come from the tent and fired his pistol at the men, and one of them had

fired back and the bullet had buried itself in the '39

Colonel's left thigh. He was lying on the ground now, looking horribly

pale, and Pohlmann was bellowing for his doctor to come quickly.

"Who's that?" he demanded of Sharpe, and nodding at the prisoner.

"The bastard who fired at Colonel McCandless, sir. Musket's still

hot."

The man proved to be one of Major Dodd's sepoys, one of the men who had

deserted with Dodd from the Company, and he was put into the charge of

Pohlmann's bodyguard. Sharpe knelt beside McCandless who was trying

not to cry aloud as the newly arrived doctor, the Swiss man who had sat

beside Sharpe at dinner, examined his leg.

"I was sleeping!" the Colonel complained.

"Thieves, Sharpe, thieves!"

"We'll find your horses," Pohlmann reassured the Scotsman, 'and we'll

find the thieves."

"You promised me safety!" McCandless complained.

"The men will be punished," Pohlmann promised, then he helped Sharpe

and two other men lift the wounded Colonel and carry him into the tent

where they laid him on the rope cot. The doctor said the bullet had

missed the bone, and no major artery was cut, but he still wanted to

fetch his probes, forceps and scalpels and try to pull the ball out.

"You want some brandy, McCandless?" Pohlmann asked.

"Of course not. Tell him to get on with it."

The doctor called for more lanterns, for water and for his instruments,

and then he spent ten excruciating minutes looking for the bullet deep

inside McCandless's upper thigh. The Scotsman uttered not a sound as

the probe slid into his lacerated flesh, nor as the long-necked forceps

were pushed down to find a purchase on the bullet. The Swiss doctor

was sweating, but McCandless just lay with eyes tight shut and teeth

clenched.

"It comes now," the doctor said and began to pull, but the flesh had

closed on the forceps and he had to use almost all his strength to drag

the bullet up from the wound. It came free at last, releasing a spill

of bright blood, and McCandless groaned.

"All done now, sir," Sharpe told him.

"Thank God," McCandless whispered, 'thank God." The Scotsman opened

his eyes. The doctor was bandaging the thigh and McCandless looked

past him to Pohlmann.

"This is treachery, Colonel, treachery! I was your guest!"

"Your horses will be found, Colonel, I promise you," Pohlmann said, but

though his men made a search of the camp, and though they searched

until morning, the two horses were not found. Sharpe was the only man

who could identify them, for Colonel McCandless was in no state to

walk, but Sharpe saw no horses that resembled the stolen pair, but nor

did he expect to for any competent horse thief knew a dozen tricks to

disguise his catch. The beast would be clipped, its coat would be dyed

with blackball, it would be force-fed an enema so that its head

drooped, then it would as likely as not be put among the cavalry mounts

where one horse looked much like another. Both McCandless's horses had

been European bred and were larger and officer quality than most in

Pohlmann's camp, yet even so Sharpe saw no sign of the two animals.

Colonel Pohlmann went to McCandless's tent and confessed that the

horses had vanished.

"I shall pay you their value, of course," he added.

"I won't take it!" McCandless snapped back. The Colonel was still

pale, and shivering despite the heat. His wound was bandaged, and the

doctor reckoned it should heal swiftly enough, but there was a danger

that the Colonel's recurrent fever might return.

"I won't take my enemy's gold," McCandless explained, and Sharpe

reckoned it must be the pain speaking for he knew the two missing

horses must have cost the Colonel dearly.

"I shall leave you the money," Pohlmann insisted anyway, 'and this

afternoon we shall execute the prisoner."

"Do what you must," McCandless grumbled.

"Then we shall carry you northwards," the Hanoverian promised, 'for you

must stay under Doctor Viedler's care."

McCandless levered himself into a sitting position.

"You'll not take me anywhere!" he insisted angrily.

"You leave me here, Pohlmann. I'll not depend on your care, but on

God's mercy." He let himself drop back onto the bed and hissed with

pain.

"And Sergeant Sharpe can tend me."

Pohlmann glanced at Sharpe. The Hanoverian seemed about to say that

Sharpe might not wish to stay with McCandless, but then he just nodded

his acceptance of McCandless's decision.

"If you wish to be abandoned, McCandless, so be it."

'1 have more faith in God than in a faithless mercenary like you,

Pohlmann."

"As you wish, Colonel," Pohlmann said gently, then backed from the tent

and gestured for Sharpe to follow.

"He's a stubborn fellow, isn't he?" The Hanoverian turned and looked

at Sharpe.

"So, Sergeant? Are you coming with us?"

"No, sir," Sharpe said. Last night, he reflected, he had very nearly

decided to accept the Hanoverian's offer, but the theft of the horses

and the single shot fired by the sepoy had served to change Sharpe's

mind.

He could not leave McCandless to suffer and, to his surprise, he felt

no great disappointment in thus having the decision forced on him. Duty

dictated he should stay, but so did sentiment, and he had no regret.

"Someone has to look after Colonel McCandless, sir," Sharpe explained,

'and he's looked after me in the past, so it's my turn now."

I'm sorry," Pohlmann said, 'truly I am. The execution will be in one

hour. I think you should see it, so you can assure your Colonel that

justice was done."

"Justice, sir?" Sharpe asked scornfully.

"It ain't justice, shooting that fellow. He was put up to it by Major

Dodd." Sharpe had no proof of that, but he suspected it strongly.

Dodd, he reckoned, had been hurt by McCandless's insults and must have

decided to add horse-thieving to his catalogue of crimes.

"You have questioned your prisoner, haven't you, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Because he must know that Dodd was up to his neck in the business."

Pohlmann smiled wearily.

"The prisoner told us everything, Sergeant or I assume he did, but what

use is that? Major Dodd denies the man's story, and a score of sepoys

swear the Major was nowhere near McCandless's tent when the shots were

fired. And who would the British army believe? A desperate man or an

officer?" Pohlmann shook his head.

"So you must be content with the death of one man, Sergeant."

Sharpe expected that the captured sepoy would be shot, but there was no

sign of any firing squad when the moment arrived for the man's death.

Two companies from each of Pohlmann's eight battalions were paraded,

the sixteen companies making three sides of a hollow square with

Pohlmann's striped marquee forming the fourth side. Most of the other

tents had already been struck ready for the move northwards, but the

marquee remained and one of its canvas walls had been brailed up so

that the compoo's officers could witness the execution from chairs set

in the tent's shade. Dodd was not there, nor were any of the

regiment's wives, but a score of officers took their places and were

served sweetmeats and drink by Pohlmann's servants.

The prisoner was fetched onto the makeshift execution ground by four of

Pohlmann's bodyguards. None of the four carried a musket, instead they

were equipped with tent pegs, mallets and short lengths of rope. The

prisoner, who wore nothing but a strip of cloth around his loins,

glanced from side to side as if trying to find an escape route, but, on

a nod from Pohlmann, the bodyguards kicked his feet out from beneath

him and then knelt beside his sprawling body and pinioned it to the

ground by tying the ropes to his wrists and ankles, then fastening the

bonds to the tent pegs. The condemned man lay there, spreadeagled

gazing up at the cloudless sky as the mallets banged the eight pegs

home.

Sharpe stood to one side. No one spoke to him, no one even looked at

him, and no wonder, he thought, for this was a farce. All the officers

must have known that Dodd was the guilty man, yet the sepoy must die.

The paraded troops seemed to agree with Sharpe, for there was a

sullenness in the ranks. Pohlmann's compoo might be well armed and

superbly trained, but it was not happy.

The four bodyguards finished tying the prisoner down, then walked away

to leave him alone in the centre of the execution ground. An Indian

officer, resplendent in silk robes and with a lavishly curved tulwar

hanging from his belt, made a speech. Sharpe did not understand a

word, but he guessed that the watching soldiers were being harangued

about the fate which awaited any thief. The officer finished, glanced

once at the prisoner, then walked back to the tent and, just as he

entered its shade, so Pohlmann's great elephant with its silver-encased

tusks and cascading metal coat was led out from behind the marquee. The

mahout guided the beast by tugging on one of its ears, but as soon as

the elephant saw the prisoner it needed no guidance, but just plodded

across to the spreadeagled man. The victim shouted for mercy, but

Pohlmann was deaf to the pleas.

The Colonel twisted round.

"You're watching, Sharpe?"

"You've got the wrong man, sir. You should have Dodd there."

"Justice must be done," the Colonel said, and turned back to the

elephant that was standing quietly beside the victim who twisted in his

bonds, thrashed, and even managed to free one hand, but instead of

using that free hand to tug at the other three ropes that held him, he

flailed uselessly at the elephant's trunk. A murmur ran through the

watching sixteen companies, but the jemadars and havildars shouted and

the sullen murmur ceased. Pohlmann watched the prisoner struggle for a few more seconds, then took a deep breath.

"Haddahl' he shouted.

Had daM The prisoner screamed in anticipation as, very slowly, the

elephant lifted one ponderous forefoot and moved its body slightly

forward. The great foot came down on the prisoner's chest and seemed

to rest there.

The man tried to push the foot away, but he might as well have

attempted to shove a mountain aside. Pohlmann leaned forward, his

mouth open, as, slowly, very slowly, the elephant transferred its

weight onto the man's chest. There was another scream, then the man

could not draw breath to scream again, but still he jerked and twitched

and still the weight pressed on him, and Sharpe saw his legs try to

contract against the bonds at his ankles, and saw his head jerk up, and

then he heard the splinter of ribs and saw the blood spill and bubble

at the victim's mouth.

He winced, trying to imagine the pain as the elephant pressed on down,

crushing bone and lung and spine. The prisoner gave one last jerk, his

hair flapping, then his head fell back and a great wash of blood

brimmed from his open mouth and puddled beside his corpse.

There was a last crunching sound, then the elephant stepped back and a

sigh sounded gently through the watching ranks. Pohlmann applauded,

and the officers joined in. Sharpe turned away. Bastards, he thought,

bastards.

And that night Pohlmann marched north.

Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was not an educated man, and he was not even

particularly clever unless slyness passed for wits, but he did

understand one thing very well, and that was the impression he made on

other men. They feared him. It did not matter whether the other man

was a raw private, fresh from the recruiting sergeant, or a general

whose coat was bright with gold lace and heavy with braid. They all

feared him, all but two, and those two frightened Obadiah Hakeswill.

One was Sergeant Richard Sharpe, in whom Hakeswill sensed a violence

that was equal to his own, while the other was Major General Sir Arthur

Wellesley who, when he had been colonel of the 33rd, had always been

serenely impervious to Hakeswill's threats.

So Sergeant Hakeswill would have much preferred not to confront General

Wellesley, but when his convoy reached Ahmednuggur his enquiries

established that Colonel McCandless had ridden north and had taken

Sharpe with him, and the Sergeant had known he could do nothing further

without Wellesley's permission and so he had gone to the General's tent

where he announced himself to an orderly who had informed an aide who

had commanded the Sergeant to wait in the shade of a banyan tree.

He waited the best part of a morning while the army readied itself to

leave Ahmednuggur. Guns were being attached to limbers, oxen harnessed

to carts and tents being struck by lascars. The fortress of

Ahmednuggur, fearing the same fate as the city, had meekly surrendered

after a few cannon shots and, with both the city and its fort safe in

his hands, Wellesley was now planning to march north, cross the

Godavery and seek out the enemy army. Sergeant Hakeswill had no great

wish to take part in that adventure, but he could see no other way of

catching up with Sharpe and so he was resigned to his fate.

"Sergeant Hakeswill?" An aide came from the General's big tent.

"Sir!" Hakeswill scrambled to his feet and stiffened to attention.

"Sir Arthur will see you now, Sergeant."

Hakeswill marched into the tent, snatched off his shako, turned smartly

to the left, quick-marched three short paces, then slammed to a halt in

front of the camp table where the General was doing paperwork.

Hakeswill stood quivering at attention. His face shuddered.

"At ease, Sergeant," Wellesley, bare-headed, had barely glanced up from

his papers as the Sergeant entered.

"Sir!" Hakeswill allowed his muscles to relax slightly.

"Papers for you, sir!" He pulled the warrant for Sharpe's arrest from

his pouch and offered it to the General.

Wellesley made no move to accept the warrant. Instead he leaned back

in his chair and examined Hakeswill as though he had never seen the

Sergeant before. Hakeswill stood rigid, his eyes staring at the tent's

brown wall above the General's head. Wellesley sighed and leaned

forward again, still ignoring the warrant.

"Just tell me, Sergeant," he said, his attention already returned to

the documents on his desk. An aide was taking whatever sheets the

General signed, sprinkling sand on the signatures, then placing more

papers on the table.

"I'm ordered here by Lieutenant Colonel Gore, sir. To apprehend

Sergeant Sharpe, sir."

Wellesley looked up again and Hakeswill almost quailed before the cold

eyes. He sensed that Wellesley could see right through him, and the

sensation made his face quiver in a series of uncontrollable

twitches.

Wellesley waited for the spasms to end.

"On your own, are you, Sergeant?" the General asked casually.

"Detail of six men, sir."

"Seven of you! To arrest one man?"

"Dangerous man, sir. I'm ordered to take him back to Hurryhur, sir, so

he can "Spare me the details," Wellesley said, looking back to the next

paper needing his signature. He tallied up a list of figures.

"Since when did four twelves and eighteen yield a sum of sixty-eight?"

he asked no one in particular, then corrected the calculation before

signing the paper.

"And since when did Captain Lampert dispose of the artillery train?"

The aide wielding the sand-sprinkler blushed.

"Colonel Eldredge, sir, is indisposed." Drunk, if the truth was known,

which it was, but it was impolitic to say that a colonel was drunk in

front of a sergeant.

"Then invite Captain Lampert to supper. We must feed him some

arithmetic along with a measure of common sense," Sir Arthur said. He

signed another paper, then rested his pen on a small silver stand

before leaning back and looking at Hakeswill. He resented the

Sergeant's presence, not because he disliked Sergeant Hakeswill, though

he did, but rather because Wellesley had long ago left behind the cares

of being the commander of the 33rd and he did not want to be reminded

of those duties now. Nor did he want to be in a position to approve or

disapprove of his successor's orders for that would be an

impertinence.

"Sergeant Sharpe is not here," he said coldly.

"So I hear, sir. But he was, sir?"

"Nor am I the person you should be troubling with this matter,

Sergeant," Wellesley went on, ignoring Hakeswill's question. He took

up the pen again, dipped it in ink, and crossed a name from a list

before adding his signature.

"In a few days," he continued, "Colonel McCandless will return to the

army and you will report to him with your warrant and I've no doubt he

will give the matter its due attention.

Till then I shall employ you usefully. I won't have seven men idling

while the rest of the army works." Wellesley turned to the aide.

"Where do we lack men, Barclay?"

The aide considered for a moment.

"Captain Mackay could certainly use some assistance, sir."

"Very well." Wellesley pointed the pen's steel nib at Hakeswill.

"You'll attach yourself to Captain Mackay. Captain Mackay commands our

bullock train and you will do whatever he desires until Colonel

McCandless relieves you of that duty. Dismissed."

"Sir!" Hakeswill said dutifully, but inwardly he was furious that the

General had not shared his indignation about Sharpe. He about-turned,

stamped from the tent, and went to find his men.

"Going to the dogs," he said bitterly.

"Sergeant?" Flaherty asked.

"The dogs. Time was in this army when even a general officer respected

sergeants. Now we're to be bullock guards. Pick up your bleeding fire

locks

"Sharpe ain't here, Sergeant?"

"Of course he ain't here! If he was here we wouldn't be ordered to

wipe bullocks' arses, would we? But he's coming back. General's word

on it. Just a few days, lads, just a few days and he'll be back with

all his glittering stones hidden away." Hakeswill's fury was abating.

At least he had not been ordered to attach himself to a fighting

battalion, and he was beginning to realize that any duty attached to

the baggage animals would give him a fine chance to fillet the army

stores. Pickings were to be made there, and more than just the

pickings of stores, for the baggage always travelled with the army's

tail of women and that meant more opportunity. It could be worse,

Hakeswill thought, so long as this Captain Mackay was no martinet.

"You know what the trouble is with this army?" Hakeswill demanded.

"What?" Lowry asked.

"Full of bleeding Scotchmen." Hakeswill glowered.

"I hates Scotchmen. Not English, are they? Peasant bleeding

Scotchmen.

Sawney creatures, they are, sawney! Should have killed them all when

we had the chance, but we takes pity on them instead. Scorpions in our

bosoms, that's what they are. Says so in the scriptures. Now get a

bleeding move on!"

But it would only be a few days, the Sergeant consoled himself, only a

few days, and Sharpe would be finished.

Colonel Pohlmann's bodyguard carried McCandless to a small house that

lay at the edge of the encampment. A widow and three children lived

there, and the woman shrank away from the Mahratta soldiers who had

raped her, stolen all her food and fouled her well with their sewage.

The Swiss doctor left Sharpe with strict instructions that the dressing

on the Colonel's leg was to be kept damp.

"I'd give you some medicine for his fever, but I have none," the doctor

said, 'so if the fever gets worse just keep him warm and make him

sweat." The doctor shrugged.

"It might help."

Pohlmann left food and a leather bag of silver coins.

"Tell McCandless that's for his horses," he told Sharpe.

"Yes, sir."

"The widow will look after you," Pohlmann said, 'and when the Colonel's

well enough you can move him to Aurungabad. And if you change your

mind, Sharpe, you know I'll welcome you." The Colonel shook Sharpe's

hand, then mounted the silver steps to his howdah. A horseman unfurled

his banner of the white horse of Hanover.

"I'll spread word that you're not to be molested," Pohlmann called

back, then his mahout tapped the elephant's skull and the great beast

set off northwards.

Simone Joubert was the last to say farewell.

"I wish you were staying with us," she said unhappily.

"I can't."

"I know, and maybe it's for the best." She looked left and right to

make certain no one was watching, then leaned swiftly forward and

kissed Sharpe on the cheek.

"Au revoir, Richard."

He watched her ride away, then went back into the hovel which was

nothing but a palm thatch roof set above walls made of decayed reed

mats. The interior of the hut was blackened by years of smoke, and its

only furniture was the rope cot on which McCandless lay.

"She's an outcast," the Colonel told Sharpe, indicating the woman.

"She refused to jump onto her husband's funeral fire, so her family

sent her away." The Colonel flinched as a stab of pain scythed through

his thigh.

"Give her the food, Sergeant, and some cash out of that bag. How much

did Pohlmann leave us?"

The coins in Pohlmann's bag were of silver and copper, and Sharpe

sorted and counted each different denomination, and McCandless then

translated their rough worth into pounds.

"Sixty!" He announced the total bitterly.

"That might just buy one cavalry hack, but it won't buy a horse that

can stay over country for days on end."

"How much did your gelding cost, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Five hundred and twenty guineas," McCandless said ruefully.

"I

bought him four years ago, when you and I were released from

Seringapatam, and I prayed he'd be the last horse I'd ever buy. Except

for the mare, of course, but she was just a remount. Even so she cost

me a hundred and forty guineas. A bargain, too! I bought her in

Madras, fresh off the boat and she was just skin and bones then, but

two months of pasture put some muscle on her."

The figures were almost incomprehensible to Sharpe. Five hundred and

twenty guineas for a horse? A man could live his whole life on five

hundred and forty-six pounds, and live well. Ale every day.

"Won't the Company replace the horses, sir?" he asked.

McCandless smiled sadly.

"They might, Sharpe, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much."

"Why not, sir?"

"I'm an old man," the Scotsman said, 'and my salary is a heavy impost

on the Company's debit column. I told you they'd like me to retire,

Sharpe, and if I indent for the value of two horses they might well

insist on my retirement." He sighed.

"I knew this pursuit of Dodd was doomed.

I felt it in my bones."

"We'll get you another horse, sir," Sharpe said.

McCandless grimaced.

"How, pray?"

"We can't have you walking, sir. Not a full colonel. Besides, it was

my fault, really."

"Your fault? Don't be absurd, Sharpe."

"I should have been with you, sir. But I wasn't. I was off

thinking."

The Colonel looked at him steadily for what seemed a long while.

"I

should imagine, Sergeant," he said at last, 'that you had a lot to

think about. How was your elephant ride with Colonel Pohlmann?"

"He showed me Aurungabad, sir."

"I think he took you to the mountain top and showed you the kingdoms of

this world," the Colonel said.

"What did he offer you? A lieutenancy?"

"Yes, sir." Sharpe blushed to admit as much, but it was dark inside

the widow's hovel and the Colonel did not see.

"He told you of Benoit de Boigne," McCandless asked, 'and of that rogue

George Thomas? And he said you could be a rich man in two or three

years, aren't I right?"

"Something like that, sir."

McCandless shrugged.

"I won't deceive you, Sharpe, he's right.

Everything he told you is true. Out there' he waved towards the

setting sun which glinted through the chinks in the reed-mat walls' is

a lawless society that for years has rewarded the soldier with gold.

The soldier, mark me, not the honest farmer or the hard-working

merchant. The princedoms grow fat, Sharpe, and the people grow lean,

but there is nothing to stop you serving those princes. Nothing but

the oath you took to serve your King."

"I'm still here, sir, aren't I?" Sharpe said indign andy

"Yes, Sharpe, you are," McCandless said, then he closed his eyes and

groaned.

"I fear the fever is going to come. Maybe not."

"So what do we do, sir?"

"Do? Nothing. Nothing helps the fever except a week of shivering in

the heat."

"I meant about getting you back to the army, sir. I could go to

Aurungabad and see if I can find someone to take a message."

"Not unless you speak their language, you won't," McCandless said, then

he lay for a while in silence.

"Sevajee will find us," he went on eventually.

"News carries far in this countryside, and Sevajee will smell us out in

the end." Again he fell silent, and Sharpe thought he had fallen

asleep, but then he saw the Colonel shake his head.

"Doomed," the Colonel said.

"Lieutenant Dodd is going to be the end of me."

"We'll capture Dodd, sir, I promise."

"I pray so, I pray so." The Colonel pointed to his saddlebags in the

corner of the hut.

"Would you find my Bible, Sharpe? And perhaps you'd read to me while

there's still a little light? Something from the Book of Job, I

think."

McCandless fell into days of fever and Sharpe into days of isolation.

For all he knew the war might have been won or lost, for he saw no one

and no news came to the thatched hovel under its thin-leaved trees. To

keep himself busy he cleared out an old irrigation ditch that ran

northwards across the woman's land, and he hacked at the brush, killed

snakes and shovelled earth until he was rewarded by a trickle of

water.

That done, he tackled the hovel's roof, laying new palm thatch on the

old and binding it in place with twists of frond. He went hungry, for

the woman had little food other than the grain Pohlmann had left and

some dried beans. Sharpe stripped to the waist when he worked and his

skin went as brown as the stock of his musket. In the evenings he

played with the woman's three children, making forts out of the red

soil that they bombarded with stones and, in one memorable twilight,

when a toy rampart proved impregnable to thrown pebbles, Sharpe laid a

fuse of powder and blew a breach with three of his musket cartridges.

He did his best to tend McCandless, washing the Colonel's face,

reading him the scriptures and feeding him spoonfuls of bitter

gunpowder diluted in water. He was not sure that the powder helped,

but every soldier swore that it was the best medicine for the fever,

and so Sharpe forced spoonfuls of the salty mixture down the Colonel's

throat.

He worried about the bullet wound in McCandless's thigh, for the widow

had shyly pushed him aside one day when he was dampening the dressing

and had insisted on untying the bandage and putting a poultice of her

own making onto the raw wound. There were moss and cobwebs in the

poultice, and Sharpe wondered if he had done the right thing by letting

her apply the mixture, but as the first week passed the wound did not

seem to worsen and, in his more lucid moments, the Colonel claimed the

pain was lessening.

Once the irrigation ditch was cleared Sharpe tackled the widow's

well.

He devised a dredge out of a broken wooden bucket and used it to scoop

out handfuls of foul-smelling mud from the base of the well, and all

the while he thought about his future. He knew Major Stokes would

welcome him back to the Seringapatam armoury, but after a time the

regiment would surely remember his existence and want him back and that

would mean rejoining the Light Company with Captain Morris and Sergeant

Hakeswill, and Sharpe shuddered at that thought. Maybe Colonel Gore

would transfer him? The lads said that Gore was a decent fellow, not

as chilling as Wellesley, and that was good news, yet even so Sharpe

often wondered whether he should have accepted Pohlmann's offer.

Lieutenant Sharpe, he muttered it aloud, Lieutenant Sharpe. Why not?

And in those moments he would daydream of the joy of going back to the

foundling home in Brewhouse Lane. He would wear a sword and a cocked

hat, have braid on his jacket and spurs at his heels, and for every

lash the bastards had ever laid on small Richard Sharpe he would pay

them back tenfold. He felt a terrible anger when he remembered those

beatings and he would haul at his makeshift dredge as if he could slake

the anger with hard work.

But in all those daydreams he never once returned to Brewhouse Lane in

a white coat, or in a purple coat, or in any other coat except a red

one.

No one in Britain had ever heard of Anthony Pohlmann, and why should

they care that a child had gone from the gutters of Wapping to a

commission in the Maharajah of Gwalior's army? A man might as well

claim to be Colonel of the Moon for all anyone would care. Unless it

was a red coat, they would condemn him as a flash bastard, and be done

with him, but if he walked back in Britain's scarlet coat then they

would take him seriously and that meant he had to become an officer in

his own army.

So one night, when the rain was beating on the widow's repaired thatch

and the Colonel was sitting on the rope bed declaring that his fever

was abating, Sharpe asked McCandless how a man became an officer in

Britain's army.

"I mean I know it can be done, sir," he said awkwardly, 'because we had

a Mister Devlin back in England and he came up from the ranks. He'd

been a shepherd's boy on the dales before he took the shilling, but he

was Lieutenant Devlin when I knew him."

And was most likely to die as an old and embittered Lieutenant Devlin,

McCandless thought, but he did not say as much. Instead he paused

before saying anything. He was even tempted to evade the question

altogether by pretending that his fever had suddenly taken a turn for

the worse for he understood only too well what lay behind Sharpe's

question. Most officers would have mocked the ambition, but Hector

McCandless was not a mocker. But he also knew that for a man to aspire

to rise from the ranks to the officers' mess was to risk two

disappointments: the disappointments of both failure and success. The

most likely outcome was failure, for such promotions were as scarce as

hens' teeth, but a few men did make the leap and their success

inevitably led to unhappiness. They lacked the education of the other

officers, they lacked their manners and they lacked their confidence.

They were generally disdained by the other officers, and set to work as

quartermasters in the belief that they could not be trusted to" lead

men in battle. And there was even some truth to that belief, for the

men themselves did not like their officers to have come from the ranks,

but McCandless decided Sharpe knew all that for himself and so he

spared him the need to listen to it all over again.

"There are two ways, Sharpe," McCandless said.

"First you can buy a commission. The rank of ensign will cost you four

hundred pounds, but you'll need another hundred and fifty to equip

yourself, and even that will only buy a barely adequate horse, a

four-guinea sword and a serviceable uniform, and you'll still need a

private income to cover your mess bills. An ensign earns close to

ninety-five pounds a year, but the army stops some of that for expenses

and more for the income tax. Have you heard of that new tax,

Sharpe?"

"No, sir."

"A pernicious thing. Taking from a man what he has honestly earned!

It's thievery, Sharpe, disguised as government." The Colonel

scowled.

"So an ensign is lucky to see seventy pounds out of his salary, and

even if he lives frugal that won't cover his mess bills. Most

regiments charge an officer two shillings for dinner every day, a

shilling for wine, though of course you could go without wine well

enough and water's free, but there's sixpence a day for the mess

servant, another sixpence for breakfast and sixpence for washing and

mending. You can't live as an officer without at least a hundred

pounds a year on top of your salary. Have you got the money?"

"No, sir," Sharpe lied. In truth he had enough jewels sewn into his

red coat to buy himself a majority, but he did not want McCandless to

know that.

"Good," McCandless said, 'because that isn't the best way. Most

regiments won't look at a man buying himself out of the ranks. Why

should they? They've got plenty of young hopefuls coming from the

shires with their parents' cash hot in their purses, so the last thing

they need is some half-educated ranker who can't meet his mess bills.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Any regiment posted to the West Indies

will sell you an ensign's post cheap, but that's because they can't get

anyone else on account of the yellow fever. A posting to the West

Indies is a death sentence. But if a man wants to get into anything

other than a West Indies-bound regiment, Sharpe, then he must hope for

the second route.

He must be a sergeant and he must be able to read and write, but

there's a third requirement too. The fellow must perform a quite

impossibly gallant act. Leading a Forlorn Hope will do the trick, but

any act, so long as it's suicidal, will serve, though of course he must

do it under the General's eye or else it's all a waste of time."

Sharpe sat in silence for a while, daunted by the obstacles that lay in

the way of his daydream's fulfilment.

"Do they give him a test, sir?" he asked.

"In reading?" That thought worried him for, although his reading was

improving night by night, he still stumbled over quite simple words. He

claimed that the Bible's print was too small, and McCandless was kind

enough to believe the excuse.

"A test in reading? Good Lord, no! For an officer!" McCandless

smiled tiredly.

"They take his word, of course." The Colonel paused for a second.

"But I've often wondered, Sharpe," he went on, 'why a man from the

ranks would want to be an officer?"

So he could go back to Brewhouse Lane, Sharpe thought, and kick some

teeth in.

"I was just wondering about it, sir," he said instead.

"Just thinking, sir."

"Because in many ways," McCandless said, 'sergeants have more influence

with the men. Less formal prestige, perhaps, but certainly more

influence than any junior officer. Ensigns and lieutenants, Sharpe,

are very insignificant creatures. They're really of very little use

most of the time. It's not till a man reaches his captaincy that he

begins to be valuable."

"I'm sure you're right, sir," Sharpe said lamely.

"I was just thinking." That night the Colonel relapsed into fever, and

Sharpe sat in the hut doorway and listened to the rain beat on the

land. He could not shake the daydream, could not drive away the

picture of him ducking through the gate in Brewhouse Lane and seeing

the faces he hated. He wanted it, he wanted it terribly, and so he

dreamed on, dreaming the impossible, but unable to check the dream. He

did not know how, but he would somehow make the leap. Or else die in

the attempt.

CHAPTER 7

Dodd called his new gelding Peter.

"Because it's got no balls, Monsewer," he informed Pierre Joubert, and

he repeated the poor joke a dozen times in the next two days just to

make certain that its insult was understood. Joubert smiled and said

nothing, and the Major would launch himself into a panegyric on Peter's

merits. His old horse had whistling lungs, while this one could be

ridden all day and still had its head up and a spring in its long

stride.

"A thoroughbred, Captain," he told Joubert, 'an English thoroughbred.

Not some screw-backed old French nag, but a proper horse."

The men in Dodd's Cobras liked to see their Major on his fine big

horse. It was true that one man had died in the beast's acquisition,

yet the theft had still been a fine piece of banditry, and the men had

laughed to see the English Sergeant searching the camp while all the

while Major Dodd's jemadar, Gopal, was hiding the horses a long way to

the north.

Colonel Pohlmann was less amused.

"I promised McCandless safe conduct, Major," he growled at Dodd the

first time he saw the Englishman on his new gelding.

"Quite right, sir."

"And you've added horse-thieving to your catalogue of crimes?"

"I can't think what you mean, sir," Dodd protested in mock innocence.

"I purchased this beast off a horse trader yesterday, sir.

Gypsy-looking fellow from Korpalgaon. Took the last of my savings."

"And your jemadar's new horse?" Pohlmann asked, pointing to Gopal who

was riding Colonel McCandless's mare.

"He bought her from the same fellow," Dodd said.

"Of course he did, Major," Pohlmann said wearily. The Colonel knew it

was pointless to chide a man for theft in an army that was encouraged

to steal for its very existence, yet he was offended by

Dodd's abuse of the hospitality that had been extended to McCandless.

The Scotsman was right, Pohlmann thought, Dodd was a man without

honour, yet the Hanoverian knew that if Scindia employed none but

saints then he would have no European officers.

The theft of McCandless's horses only added more reason for Pohlmann to

dislike William Dodd. He found the Englishman too dour, too jealous

and too humourless, yet still, despite his dislike, he recognized that

the Major was a fine soldier. His rescue of his regiment from

Ahmednuggur had been an inglorious operation executed superbly, and

Pohlmann, at least, understood the achievement, just as he appreciated

that Dodd's men liked their new commanding officer. The Hanoverian was

not certain why Dodd was popular, for he was not an easy man; he had no

small talk, he smiled rarely, and he was punctilious about details that

other officers might let pass, yet still the men liked him. Maybe they

sensed that he was on their side, wholly on their side, recognizing

that nothing is achieved in war by officers without men, and a good

deal by men without officers, and for that reason, if no other, they

were glad he was their commanding officer. And men who like their

commanding officer are more likely to fight well than men who do not,

and so Pohlmann was glad that he had William Dodd as a regimental

commander even if he did disdain him as little better than a common

thief.

Pohlmann's compoo had now joined the rest of Scindia's army, which had

already been swollen by the troops of the Rajah of Berar, so that over

a hundred thousand men and all their animals now wandered the Deccan

Plain in search of grazing, forage and grain. The vast army hugely

outnumbered its enemy, but Scindia made no attempt to bring Wellesley

to battle. Instead he led his horde in an apparently aimless fashion.

They went south towards the enemy, then withdrew north, they made a

lumbering surge to the east and then retraced their steps to the west,

and everywhere they marched they stripped the farms, slashed down

crops, broke into granaries, slaughtered livestock and rifled humble

homes in search of rice, wheat or lentils. Every day a score of

cavalry patrols rode south to find the enemy armies, but the Mahratta

horsemen rarely came close to the redcoats for the British cavalry

counter-patrolled aggressively and each day left dead horses on the

plain while Scindia's great host wandered mindlessly on.

"Now that you have such a fine horse," Pohlmann said to Dodd a week

after the Major's theft, 'perhaps you can lead a cavalry patrol?"

"Gladly, sir."

"Someone has to find out what the British are doing," Pohlmann

grumbled.

Dodd rode south with some of Pohlmann's own cavalry and his patrol

succeeded where so many others had failed, but only because the Major

donned his old red coat so that it would appear as if his score of

horsemen were under the command of a British officer, and the ruse

worked for Dodd came across a much smaller force of Mysore cavalry who

rode unsuspecting into the trap. Six enemy escaped, eight died, and

their leader yielded a mass of information before Dodd shot him through

the head.

"You might have brought him back to us," Pohlmann remonstrated gently

when Dodd returned.

"I could have talked with him myself," the Colonel added, peering down

from his green-curtained howdah. The elephant plodded behind a

purple-coated horseman who carried Pohlmann's red flag emblazoned with

the white horse of Hanover.

There was a girl with Pohlmann, but all Dodd could see of her was a

dark languid hand bright with gems hanging over the howdatfs edge.

"So tell me what you learned, Major," Pohlmann ordered.

"The British are back close to the Godavery, sir, but they're still

split into two forces and neither has more than six thousand

infantry.

Wellesley's nearest to us while Stevenson's moving off to the west.

I've made a map, sir, with their dispositions." Dodd held the paper up

towards the swaying howdah.

"Hoping to pincer us, are they?" Pohlmann asked, reaching down to

pluck the map from the Major's hand.

"Not now, Lwbchen," he added, though not to Dodd.

"I imagine they're staying divided because of the roads, sir," Dodd

said.

"Of course," Pohlmann said, wondering why Dodd was teaching him to suck

eggs. The British need for decent roads was much greater than the

Mahrattas', for the British carried all their foodstuffs in ox wagons

and the cumbersome vehicles could not manage any country other than the

smoothest grass plains. Which meant that the two enemy armies could

only advance where the ground was smooth or the roads adequate. It

made their movements clumsy, and it made any attempt to pincer

Scindia's army doubly difficult, though by now, Pohlmann reflected, the

British commander must be thoroughly confused about Scindia's

intentions. So was Scindia, for that matter, for the Maharajah was

taking his tactical advice from astrologers rather than from his

European officers which meant that the great horde was impelled to its

wanderings by the glimmer of stars, the import of dreams and the

entrails of goats.

"If we marched south now," Dodd urged Pohlmann, 'we could trap

Wellesley's men south of Aurungabad. Stevenson's too far away to

support him."

"It does sound a good idea," Pohlmann agreed genially, pocketing Dodd's

map.

"There must be some plan," Dodd suggested irritably.

"Must there?" Pohlmann asked airily.

"Higher up, Liebchen, just there!

That's good!" The bejewelled hand had vanished inside the howdah.

Pohlmann closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them and smiled

down on Dodd.

"The plan," the Hanoverian said grandly, 'is to wait and see whether

Holkar will join us." Holkar was the most powerful of all the Mahratta

chieftains, but he was biding his time, uncertain whether to join

Scindia and the Rajah of Berar or whether to sit out the war with his

huge forces intact.

"And the next part of the plan," Pohlmann went on, 'is to hold a

durbar. Have you ever attended a durbar, Dodd?"

"No, sir."

"It is a council, a committee of the old and the wise, or rather of the

senile and the talkative. The war will be discussed, as will the

position of the stars and the mood of the gods and the failure of the

monsoon and, once the durbar is over, if indeed it ever ends, we shall

commence our wandering once again, but perhaps a decision of sorts will

have been made, though whether that decision will be to retire on

Nagpoor, or to advance on Hyderabad, or to choose a battlefield and

allow the British to attack us, or simply to march from now until the

Day of Judgment, I cannot yet tell you. I shall offer advice, of

course, but if Scindia dreams of monkeys on the night before the durbar

then not even Alexander the Great could persuade him to fight."

"But Scindia must know better than to let the two British forces unite,

sir?" Dodd said.

"He does, he does, indeed he does. Our lord and master is no fool, but

he is inscrutable. We are waiting for the omens to be propitious."

"They're propitious now," Dodd protested.

"That is not for you or me to decide. We Europeans can be relied upon

to fight, but not to read the messages of the stars or to understand

the meaning of dreams. But when it comes to the battle, Major, you can

be sure that the stars and the dreams will be ignored and that Scindia

will leave all the decisions to me." Pohlmann smiled benignly at Dodd,

then gazed out at the horde of cavalry that covered the plain. There

must have been fifty thousand horsemen in view, but Pohlmann would

happily have marched with only a thousand. Most of the Mahratta

horsemen were only present for the loot they hoped to steal after

victory and, though they were all fine riders and brave fighters, they

had no conception of picquet duty and none was willing to charge into

the face of an infantry unit. They did not understand that a cavalry

troop needed to take horrific casualties if it was to break infantry;

instead they reckoned Scindia's great guns and his mercenary infantry

would do the shattering and they would then pursue the broken enemy

like hornets, and until that happy moment they were just so many

useless mouths to feed. If they all went away tomorrow it would make

no difference to the war's outcome for the victory would still be won

by the artillery and the infantry. Pohlmann knew that and he imagined

lining his guns wheel to wheel in batteries, with his infantry formed

just behind and then watching the redcoats walk into a tumult of fire

and iron and death. A flail of fire! A storm of metal whipping the

air into a gale of bloody ruin amongst which the British would be

chopped into butcher's scraps.

"You're hurting me," the girl said.

"Liebchen, I'm so sorry," Pohlmann said, releasing his grip.

"I was thinking."

"Sir?" Dodd asked, thinking the Hanoverian was speaking to him.

"I was thinking, Dodd, that it is no bad thing that we wander so

aimlessly."

"It isn't?" Dodd retorted with astonishment.

"Because if we do not know where we are going, then nor will the

British, so one day they will march a few miles too far and then we

shall pounce on them. Someone will blunder, Dodd, because in war

someone always does blunder. It is an immutable rule of war; someone

will blunder. We must just have patience." In truth Pohlmann was just

as impatient as Dodd, but the Colonel knew it would not serve any

purpose to betray that impatience. In India, he had learned, matters

moved at their own pace, as imponderable and unstoppable as an

elephant. But soon, Pohlmann reckoned, one of the British forces would

make a march too far and find itself so close to the vast Mahratta army

that even Scindia could not refuse battle. And even if the two enemy

armies joined, what did that matter? Their combined forces were small,

the Mahratta horde was vast, and the outcome of their meeting as

certain as anything could be in war. And Pohlmann was confident that

Scindia would eventually give him command of the army, and Pohlmann

would then roll over the enemy like the great Juggernaut of Hindu

legend and with that happy prospect he was content.

Dodd looked up to say something more, but the howdah's green curtains

had been drawn shut. The girl giggled, while the mahout, seated just

in front of the closed howdah, stared impassively ahead. The Mahrattas

were on the march, covering the earth like a swarm, just waiting for

their enemies to blunder.

Sharpe was tired of being hungry so one day he took his musket and

walked in search of game. He reckoned anything would do, even a tiger,

but he hoped to find beef. India seemed full of beeves, but that day

he saw none, though after four miles he found a herd of goats grazing

in a small wood. He drew his bayonet, reckoning it would be easier to

cut one of the beast's throats than shoot it and so attract the

attention of the herd's vengeful owner, but when he came close to the

animals a dog burst out of the trees and attacked him.

He clubbed the dog down with his musket butt, and the brief commotion

put the goats to flight and it took him the best part of an hour to

find the animals again and by then he could not have cared if he

attracted half the population of India and so he aimed and fired, and

all he succeeded in doing was wounding one poor beast that started

bleating pitifully. He ran to it, cut its throat, which was harder

than he had thought, then hoisted the carcass onto his shoulder.

The widow boiled the stringy flesh which tasted foul, but it was still

meat and Sharpe wolfed it down as though he had not eaten in months.

The smell of the meat roused Colonel McCandless who sat up in his bed

and frowned at the pot.

"I could almost eat that," he said.

"You want some, sir?"

"I haven't eaten meat in eighteen years, Sharpe, I won't start now."

He ran a hand through his lank white hair.

"I do declare I'm feeling better, God be praised."

The Colonel swung his feet onto the floor and tried to stand.

"But I'm weak as a kitten," he said.

ifin

"Plate of meat will put some strength in you, sir."

' "Get thee behind me, Satan," the Colonel said, then put a hand on one

of the posts which held up the roof and hauled himself to his feet.

"I might take a walk tomorrow."

"How's the leg, sir?"

"Mending, Sharpe, mending." The Colonel put some weight on his left

leg and seemed pleasantly surprised that it did not buckle.

"God has preserved me again."

"Thank God for that, sir."

"I do, Sharpe, I do."

Next morning the Colonel felt better still. He ducked out of the hut

and blinked in the bright sunlight.

"Have you seen any soldiers these last two weeks?"

"Not a one, sir. Nothing but farmers."

The Colonel scraped a hand across the white bristles on his chin.

"A

shave, I think. Would you be so kind as to fetch my box of razors? And

perhaps you could heat some water?"

Sharpe dutifully put a pot of water on the fire, then stropped one of

the Colonel's razors on a saddle's girth strap. He was just perfecting

the edge when McCandless called him from outside the house.

"Sharpe!"

Something in McCandless's voice made Sharpe snatch up his musket, then

he heard the beat of hooves as he ducked under the low doorway and he

hauled back the musket's cock in expectation of enemies, but McCandless

waved the weapon down.

"I said Sevajee would find us!"

the Colonel said happily.

"Nothing stays secret in this countryside, Sharpe."

Sharpe lowered the musket's flint as he watched Sevajee lead his men

towards the widow's house. The young Indian grinned at McCandless's

dishevelled condition.

"I heard there was a white devil near here, and I knew it would be

you."

"I wish you'd come sooner," McCandless grumbled.

"Why? You were ill. The folks I spoke to said you would die." Sevajee

slid out of the saddle and led his horse to the well.

"Besides, we've been too busy."

"Following Scindia, I trust?" the Colonel asked.

"Here, there and everywhere." Sevajee hauled up a skin of water and

held it under his horse's nose.

"They've been south, east, back north again. But now they're going to

hold a durbar, Colonel."

"A durbar]' McCandless brightened, and Sharpe wondered what on earth a

durbar was.

"They've gone to Borkardan," Sevajee announced happily.

"All of them! Scindia, the Rajah of Berar, the whole lot! A sea of

enemies."

"Borkardan," McCandless said, summoning a mental map in his head.

"Where's that? Two days' march north?"

"One for a horseman, two on foot," Sevajee agreed.

McCandless, his shave forgotten, stared northwards.

"But how long will they stay there?"

"Long enough," Sevajee said gleefully, 'and first they have to make a

place fit for a prince's durbar and that will take them two or three

days, and then they'll talk for another two or three days. And they

need to rest their animals too, and in Borkardan they've found plenty

of forage."

"How do you know?" McCandless asked.

"Because we met some brin dames Sevajee said with a smile, and turned

at the same time to indicate four small, lean and riderless horses that

were the trophies of that meeting.

"We had a talk with them," Sevajee said airily, and Sharpe wondered how

brutal that talk had been.

"Forty thousand infantry, sixty thousand cavalry," Sevajee said, 'and

over a hundred guns."

McCandless limped back into the house to fetch paper and ink from his

saddlebag. Then, back in the sunlight, he wrote a despatch and Sevajee

detailed six of his horsemen to take the precious news south as fast as

they could. They would need to search for Wellesley's army and Sevajee

told them to whip their horses bloody because, if the British moved

fast, there was a chance to catch the Mahrattas while they were

encamped for their durbar and then to attack them before they could

form their battle array.

"That would even things up," McCandless announced happily.

"A surprise attack!"

"They're not fools," Sevajee warned, 'they'll have a host of

picquets."

"But it takes time to organize a hundred thousand men, Sevajee, a lot

of time! They'll be milling about like sheep while we march into

battle!"

The six horsemen rode away with the precious despatch and McCandless,

tired again, let Sharpe shave him.

"All we can do now is wait," the Colonel said.

"Wait?" Sharpe asked indignantly, believing that McCandless was

implying that they would do nothing while the battle was being

fought.

"If Scindia's at Borkardan," the Colonel said, 'then our armies will

have to march this way to reach him. So we might as well wait for them

to come to us. Then we can join up again."

It was time to stop dreaming. It was time to fight.

Wellesley's army had crossed the Godavery and marched towards

Aurungabad, then heard that Scindia's forces had gone far to the east

before lunging south towards the heartland of Hyderabad, and the report

made sense for the old Nizam had just died and left a young son on the

throne and a young ruler's state could make for rich pickings, and so

Wellesley had turned his small army and hurried back to the Godavery.

They laboriously recrossed the river, swimming the horses, bullocks and

elephants to the southern bank, and floating the guns, limbers and

wagons across on rafts. The men used boats made from inflated

bladders, and it took two whole days to make the crossing and then,

after a day's march south towards threatened Hyderabad, more news came

that the enemy had turned about and gone back northwards.

"Don't know what they're bleeding doing," Hakeswill declared.

"Captain Mackay says we're looking for the enemy," Private Lowry

suggested helpfully.

"Looking for his arse, more like. Bloody Wellesley." Hakeswill was

sitting beside the river, watching the bullocks being goaded back into

the water to cross once again to the north bank.

"In the water, out the water, up one road, down the next, walk in

bleeding circles, then back through the bleeding river again." His

blue eyes opened wide in indignation and his face twitched.

"Arthur Wellesley should never be a general."

"Why not, Sarge?" Private Kendrick asked, knowing that Hakeswill

wanted the opportunity to explain.

"Stands to reason, lad, stands to reason." Hakeswill paused to light a

clay pipe.

"No bleeding experience. You remember that wood outside Seringapatam?

Bloody chaos, that's what it was, bloody chaos and who caused it? He

did, that's who." He gestured at Wellesley who, mounted on a tall

white horse, had come to the bluff above the river.

"He's a general," Hakeswill explained, 'because his father's an earl

and because his elder brother's the Governor General, that's why. If

my father had been a bleeding earl, then I'd be a bleeding general,

says so in the scriptures. Lord Obadiah Hakeswill, I'd be, and you

wouldn't see me buggering about like a dog chasing fleas up its arse.

I'd bleeding well get the job done. On your feet, lads, look smart

now!"

The General, with nothing to do except wait while his army crossed the

river, had turned his horse up the bank and his path brought him close

to where Hakeswill had been seated. Wellesley looked across,

recognized the Sergeant and seemed about to turn away, but then an

innate courtesy overcame his distaste for speaking with the lower

ranks.

"Still here, Sergeant?" he asked awkwardly.

"Still here, sir," Hakeswill said. He was quivering at attention, his

clay pipe thrust into a pocket and his firelock by his side.

"Doing my duty, sir, like a soldier."

"Your duty?" Wellesley asked.

"You came to arrest Sergeant Sharpe, isn't that right?"

"Sir!" Hakeswill affirmed.

The General grimaced.

"Let me know if you see him. He's with Colonel McCandless, and they

both seem to be missing. Dead, probably." And on that cheerful note

the General tugged on his reins and spurred away.

Hakeswill watched him go, then retrieved his clay pipe and sucked the

tobacco back to glowing life. Then he spat onto the bank.

"Sharpie ain't dead," he said malevolently.

"I'm the one who's going to kill Sharpie. Says so in the

scriptures."

Then Captain Mackay arrived and insisted that Hakeswill and his six men

help organize the transfer of the bullocks across the river. The

animals carried packs loaded with spare round shot for the artillery,

and the Captain had been provided with two rafts for that precious

ammunition.

"They're to transfer the shot to the rafts, understand?

Then swim the beasts over. I don't want chaos, Sergeant. Make them |,

line up decently. And make sure they don't roll the shot into the

river w to save themselves the bother of reloading it." y "It isn't a

soldier's job," Hakeswill complained when the Captain was || gone.

"Chivvying bullocks? I ain't a bleeding Scotchman. That's all ?l

they're good for, chivvying bullocks. Do it all the time, they do,

down "' the green roads to London, but it ain't a job for an

Englishman." But [ he nevertheless did an effective job, using his

bayonet to prod men and animals into the queue which slowly snaked its

way down to the water. By nightfall the whole army was over, and next

morning, long | before dawn, they marched north again. They camped

before midday, thus avoiding the worst of the heat, and by

mid-afternoon me first 164.

enemy cavalry patrols showed in the distance and the army's own cavalry

rode out to drive the horsemen away.

They did not move at all for the next two days. Cavalry scouts tried

to discover the enemy's intentions, while Company spies spread gold

throughout the north country in search of news, but the gold was wasted

for every scrap of intelligence was contradicted by another. One said

Holkar had joined Scindia, another said Holkar was declaring war on

Scindia, then the Mahrattas were said to be marching west, or east, or

perhaps north, until Wellesley felt he was playing a slow version of

blind man's buff.

Then, at last, some reliable news arrived. Six Mahratta horsemen in

the service of Syud Sevajee came to Wellesley's camp with a hastily

written despatch from Colonel McCandless. The Colonel regretted his

absence and explained that he had taken a wound that had been slow to

heal, but he could assure Sir Arthur that he had not abandoned his duty

and could thus report, with a fair degree of certainty, that the forces

of Dowlut Rao Scindia and the Rajah of Berar had finally ceased their

wanderings at Borkardan. They planned to stay there, McCandless wrote,

to hold a durbar and to let their animals recover their strength, and

he estimated those intentions implied a stay in Borkardan of five or

six days. The enemy numbered, he reported, at least eighty thousand

men and possessed around a hundred pieces of field artillery, many of

inferior calibre, but an appreciable number throwing much heavier

shot.

He reckoned, from his own earlier observations in Pohlmann's camp, that

only fifteen thousand of the enemy's infantry were trained to Company

standards, while the rest were make weights but the guns, he added

ominously, were well served and well maintained. The despatch had been

written in a hurry, and in a shaky hand, but it was concise, confident

and comprehensive.

The Colonel's despatch drove the General to his maps and then to a

flurry of orders. The army was readied to march that night, and a

galloper went to Colonel Stevenson's force, west of Wellesley's, with

orders to march north on a parallel course. The two small armies

should combine at Borkardan in four days' time.

"That will give us, what?"

Wellesley thought for a second or two.

"Eleven thousand prime infantry and forty-eight guns." He jotted the

figures on the map, then absentmindedly tapped the numbers with a

pencil.

"Eleven thousand against eighty," he said dubiously, then grimaced.

"It will serve," he concluded, 'it will serve very well."

"Eleven against eighty will serve, sir?" Captain Campbell asked with

astonishment. Campbell was the young Scottish officer who had thrice

climbed the ladder to be the first man into Ahmednuggur and his reward

had been a promotion and an appointment as Wellesley's aide.

Now he stared at the General, a man Campbell considered as sensible as

any he had ever met, yet the odds that Wellesley was welcoming seemed

insane.

"I'd rather have more men," Wellesley admitted, 'but we can probably do

the job with eleven thousand. You can forget Scindia's cavalry,

Campbell, because it won't manage a thing on a battlefield, and the

Rajah of Berar's infantry will simply get in everyone else's way, which

means we'll be fighting against fifteen thousand good infantry and

rather too many well-served guns. The rest don't matter. If we beat

the guns and the infantry, the rest of them will run. Depend on it,

they'll run."

"Suppose they adopt a defensive position, sir?" Campbell felt impelled

to insert a note of caution into the General's hopes.

"Suppose they're behind a river, sir? Or behind walls?"

"We can suppose what we like, Campbell" but supposing is only fancy,

and if we take fright at fancies then we might as well abandon

soldiering. We'll decide how to deal with the rogues once we find

them, but the first thing to do is find them." Wellesley rolled up the

map.

"Can't kill your fox till you've run him down. So let's be about our

business."

The army marched that night. Six thousand cavalry, nearly all of them

Indian, led the way, and behind them were twenty-two pieces of

artillery, four thousand sepoys of the East India Company and two

battalions of Scots, while the great clumsy tail of bullocks, wives,

children, wagons and merchants brought up the rear. They marched hard,

and if any man was daunted by the size of the enemy's army, they showed

no sign of it. They were as well trained as any men that had ever worn

the red coat in India, they had been promised victory by their

long-nosed General, and now they were going for the kill. And,

whatever the odds, they believed they would win. So long as no one

blundered.

Borkardan was a mere village with no building fit for a prince, and so

the great durbar of the Mahratta chiefs was held in an enormous tent

that was hastily made by sewing a score of smaller tents together, then

lining the canvas with swathes of brightly coloured silk, and it would

have made a marvellously impressive structure had the heavens not

opened when the durbar began so that the sound of men's voices was half

drowned by the beat of rain on stretched canvas and if the hastily made

seams had not opened to let the water pour through in streams.

"It's all a waste of time," Pohlmann grumbled to Dodd, 'but we have to

attend." The Colonel was fixing his newly tied stock with a diamond

studded pin.

"And it isn't a time for any European opinion except mine,

understand?"

"Yours?" Dodd, who had rather hoped to make a case for boldness, asked

dourly.

"Mine," Pohlmann said forcibly.

"I want to twist their tails, and I need every European officer nodding

like a demented monkey in agreement with me."

A hundred men had gathered under the dripping silk. Scindia, the

Maharajah of Gwalior, and Bhonsla, the Rajah of Berar, sat on musnuds,

elegant raised platform-thrones that were draped in brocade and

sheltered from the intrusive rain by silk parasols. Their Highnesses

were cooled by men waving long-handled fans while the rest of the

durbar sweltered in the close, damp heat. The high-class brahmins, all

in baggy trousers cut from gold brocade, white tunics and tall white

turbans, sat closest to the two thrones, while behind them stood the

military officers, Indian and European, who were perspiring in their

finest uniforms. Servants moved unobtrusively through the crowd

offering silver dishes of almonds, sweetmeats or raisins soaked in

arrack. The three senior European officers stood together. Pohlmann,

in a purple coat hung with golden braid and loops of chain, towered

over Colonel Dupont, a wiry Dutchman who commanded Scindia's second

compoo, and over Colonel Saleur, a Frenchman, who led the infantry of

the Begum Somroo. Dodd lingered just behind the trio and listened to

their private durbar. The three men agreed that their troops would

have to take the brunt of the British attack, and that one of them must

exercise overall command. It could not be Saleur, for the Begum Somroo

was a client ruler of Scindia's, so her commander could hardly take

precedence over her feudal overlord's officers, which meant that it had

to be either Dupont or Pohlmann, but the Dutchman generously ceded the

honour to the Hanoverian.

"Scindia would have chosen you anyway," Dupont said.

"Wisely," Pohlmann said cheerfully, 'very wisely. You're content,

Saleur?"

"Indeed," the Frenchman said. He was a tall, dour man with a badly

scarred face and a formidable reputation as a disciplinarian. He was

also reputed to be the Begum Somroo's lover, a post that evidently

accompanied the command of that lady's infantry.

"What are the bastards talking about now?" he asked in English.

Pohlmann listened for a few seconds.

"Discussing whether to retreat to Gawilghur," he said. Gawilghur was a

hill fort that lay north and east of Borkardan and a group of brahmins

were urging the army to retire there and let the British break their

skulls against its cliffs and high walls.

"Goddamn brahmins," Pohlmann said in disgust.

"Don't know a damn thing about soldiering. Know how to talk, but not

how to fight."

But then an older brahmin, his white beard reaching to his waist, stood

up and declared that the omens were more suitable for battle.

"You have assembled a great army, dread Lord," he addressed Scindia,

'and you would lock it away in a citadel?"

"Where did they find him?" Pohlmann muttered.

"He's actually talking sense!"

Scindia said little, preferring to let Surjee Rao, his chief minister,

do the talking, while he himself sat plump and inscrutable on his

throne.

He was wearing a rich gown of yellow silk that had emeralds and pearls

sewn into patterns of flowers, while a great yellow diamond gleamed

from his pale-blue turban.

Another brahmin pleaded for the army to march south on Seringapatam,

but he was ignored. The Rajah of Berar, darker-skinned than the pale

Scindia, frowned at the durbar in an attempt to look warlike, but said

very little.

"He'll run away," Colonel Saleur growled, 'as soon as the first gun is

fired. He always does."

Beny Singh, the Rajah's warlord, argued for battle.

"I have five hundred camels laden with rockets, I have guns fresh from

Agra, I have infantry hungry for enemy blood. Let them loose!"

"God help us if we do," Dupont growled.

"Bastards don't have any discipline."

"Is it always like this?," Dodd asked Pohlmann.

"Good God, no!" the Hanoverian said.

"This durbar is positively decisive!

Usually it's three days of talk and a final decision to delay any

decision until the next time."

"You think they'll come to a decision today?" Saleur asked

cynically.

"They'll have to," Pohlmann said.

"They can't keep this army together for much longer. We're running out

of forage! We're stripping the country bare." The soldiers were still

receiving just enough to eat, and the cavalrymen made certain their

horses were fed, but the camp followers were near starvation and in a

few days the suffering of the women and children would cause the army's

morale to plummet. Only that morning Pohlmann had seen a woman sawing

at what he had assumed was brown bread, then realized that no Indian

would bake a European loaf and that the great lump was actually a piece

of elephant dung and that the woman was crumbling it apart in search of

undigested grains. They must fight now.

"So if we fight," Saleur asked, 'how will you win?"

Pohlmann smiled.

"I think we can give young Wellesley a problem or two," he said

cheerfully.

"We'll put the Rajah's men behind some strong walls where they can't do

any damage, and we three will line our guns wheel to wheel, hammer them

hard for their whole approach, then finish them off with some smart

volleys. After that we'll let the cavalry loose on their remnants."

"But when?" Dupont asked.

"Soon," Pohlmann said, 'soon. Has to be soon. Buggers are eating dung

for breakfast these days." There was a sudden silence in the tent and

Pohlmann realized a question had been addressed to him. Surjee Rao, a

sinister man whose reputation for cruelty was as widespread as it was

deserved, raised an eyebrow to the Hanoverian.

"The rain, Your Serene Excellency," Pohlmann explained, 'the rain

deafened me so I could not hear your question."

"What my Lord wishes to know," the minister said, 'is whether we can

destroy the British?"

"Oh, utterly," Pohlmann said as though it was risible to even ask the

question.

"They fight hard," Beny Singh pointed out.

"And they die like other men when fought hard in return," Pohlmann said

dismissively.

Scindia leaned forward and whispered in Surjee Rao's ear.

"What the Lord of our land and the conqueror of our enemy's lands

wishes to know," the minister said, 'is how you will beat the

British?"

"In the way that His Royal Highness suggested, Excellency, when he gave

me his wise advice yesterday," Pohlmann said, and it was true that he

had enjoyed a private talk with Scindia the day before, though the

advice had all been given by Pohlmann, but if he was to sway this

durbar then he knew he must let them think that he was simply repeating

Scindia's suggestions.

"Tell us, please," Surjee Rao, who knew full well that his master had

no ideas except how to increase the tax yields, asked suavely.

"As we all know," Pohlmann said, 'the British have divided their forces

into two parts. By now both those small armies will know that we are

here at Borkardan and, because they are fools eager for death, they

will both be marching towards us. Both armies lie to our south, but

they are separated by some miles. They nevertheless hope to join

together, then attack us, but yesterday, in his unparalleled wisdom,

His Royal Highness suggested that if we move eastwards we shall draw

the enemy's eastern most column towards us and so make them march away

from their allies. We can then fight the two armies in turn, defeat

them in turn, and then let our dogs chew the flesh from their

carcasses. And when the last enemy is dead, Excellency, I shall bring

their General to our ruler's tents in chains and send their women to be

his slaves." More to the point, Pohlmann thought, he would capture

Wellesley's food supplies, but he dared not say that in case Scindia

took the words as a criticism. But Pohlmann's bravado was rewarded by

a scatter of applause that was unfortunately spoiled as a whole section

of the tent roof collapsed to let in a deluge of rain.

If the British are doomed," Surjee Rao asked when the commotion had

subsided, 'why do they advance on us?"

It was a good question, and one that had worried Pohlmann slightly,

though he believed he had found an answer.

"Because, Excellency," he said, 'they have the confidence of fools.

Because they believe that their combined armies will prove sufficient.

Because they do not truly understand that our army has been trained to

the same level as their own, and because their General is young and

inexperienced and too eager for a reputation."

"And you believe, Colonel, that we can keep their two armies apart?"

If we march tomorrow, yes."

"How big is the British General's army?"

Pohlmann smiled.

"Wellesley has five thousand infantrymen, Excellency, and six thousand

cavalry. We could lose as many men as that and not even notice they

were gone! He has eleven thousand men, but the only ones he relies on

are his five thousand infantry. Five thousand men! Five thousand!" He

paused, making sure that everyone in the tent had heard the figure.

"And we have eighty thousand men. Five against eighty!"

"He has guns," the minister observed sourly.

"We have five guns for every one of his. Five against one. And our

guns are bigger and they are served just as well as his."

Scindia whispered to Surjee Rao who then demanded that the other

European officers give their advice, but all had been forewarned by

Pohlmann to sing his tune. March east, they said, draw one British

army into battle, then turn on the other. The minister thanked the

foreign officers for their advice, then pointedly turned back to the

brahmins for their comments. Some advised that emissaries should be

sent to Holkar, begging his help, but Pohlmann's confidence had worked

its magic and another man indignantly demanded to know why Holkar

should be offered a share in the glory of victory. The tide of the

durbar was turning in Pohlmann's favour, and he said nothing more, but

nor did he need to.

The durbar talked all day and no course of action was formally agreed,

but at dusk Scindia and the Rajah of Berar conferred briefly, then

Scindia took his leave between rows of brahmins who bowed as their

ruler passed. He paused in the huge tent's doorway while his servants

brought the palanquin that would preserve him from the rain.

Only when the palanquin was ready did he turn and speak loudly enough

for all the durbar to hear.

"We march east tomorrow," he said, 'then we shall ponder another

decision. Colonel Pohlmann will make the arrangements." He stood for

a second, looking up at the rain, then ducked under the palanquin's

canopy.

"Praise God," Pohlmann said, for he reckoned that the decision to march

eastwards was sufficient to bring on battle. The enemy was closing all

the time, and so long as the Mahrattas did not run northwards, the two

sides must eventually meet. And if Scindia's men went eastwards then

they would meet on Pohlmann's terms. He rammed on his cocked hat and

stalked from the tent, followed by all the European officers.

"We'll march east along the Kaitna!" he said excitedly.

"That's where we'll march tomorrow, and the river bank will be our

killing ground." He whooped like an excited child.

"One short march, gentlemen, and we shall be close to Wellesley's men,

and in two or three days we'll fight whether our lords and masters want

it or not."

The army marched early next morning. It covered the earth like a dark

swarm that flowed beneath the clearing clouds alongside the muddy River

Kaitna which slowly deepened and widened as the army followed it

eastwards. Pohlmann gave them a very short march, a mere six miles, so

that the leading horsemen had reached Pohlmann's chosen campsite long

before dawn and by nightfall the slowest of the Mahratta infantry had

reached a small, mud-walled village that lay just two miles north of

the Kaitna. Scindia and the Rajah of Berar pitched their lavish tents

just outside the village, while the Rajah's infantry was ordered to

barricade the streets and make loopholes in the thick mud walls of the

outermost houses.

The village lay on the southern bank of the River Juah, a tributary of

the Kaitna, and south of the village stretched two miles of open

farmland that ended at the steep bank of the River Kaitna. Pohlmann

placed his best infantry, his three compoos of superbly trained

killers, south of the village on the high bluff of the Kaitna's

northern bank, and in front of them he ranged his eighty best guns.

Wellesley, if he wished to reach Borkardan, must come to the Kaitna and

he would find his path blocked by a river, by a fearsome line of heavy

guns, by an array of infantry and, behind them, like a fortress, a

village crammed with the Rajah of Berar's troops. The trap was laid.

In the fields of a village called Assaye.

The two British armies were close to each other now, close enough for

General Wellesley to ride across country to see Colonel Stevenson, the

commander of the second army. The General rode with his aides and an

escort of Indian cavalry, but they saw no enemy on their way westwards

across a long flat plain greened by the previous day's rain. Colonel

Stevenson, old enough to be Wellesley's father, was alarmed by his

General's high spirits. He had seen such elation in young officers

before, and seen "it crushed by humiliating defeats brought on by

overconfidence.

"Are you sure you're not hurrying too much?" he asked.

"We must hurry, Stevenson, must." Wellesley unrolled a map onto the

Colonel's table and pointed to Borkardan.

"We hear they're likely to stay there, but they won't stay for ever. If

we don't close on them now, they'll slip away."

"If the bastards are that close," Stevenson said, peering at the map,

'then maybe we should join forces now?"

"And if we do," the General said, 'it will take us twice as long to

reach Borkardan." The two roads on which the armies advanced were

narrow and, a few miles south of the River Kaitna, those roads followed

passes through a small but steep range of hills. Every wheeled vehicle

in both armies would have to be fed through those defiles in the hills,

and if the two small armies combined the cumbersome business of

negotiating the pass would take a whole day, a day in which the

Mahrattas might escape northwards.

Instead the two armies would advance separately and meet at

Borkardan.

"Tomorrow night," Wellesley ordered, 'y u camp here' he made a cross on

the map at a village called Hussainabad - 'and we'll be here." The

pencil made another cross at a village called Naulniah which lay four

miles south of the River Kaitna. The villages were ten miles apart,

and both about the same distance south of Borkardan.

"On the twenty-fourth," Wellesley said, 'we march and join here." He

dashed a circle about the village of Borkardan.

"There!" he added, jabbing the pencil down and breaking its point.

Stevenson hesitated. He was a good soldier with a long experience of

India, but he was cautious by nature and it seemed to him that

Wellesley was being headstrong and foolish. The Mahratta army was

vast, the British armies small, yet Wellesley was rushing into battle.

There was a dangerous excitement in the usually cool-headed Wellesley,

and Stevenson now tried to rein it in.

"We could meet at Naulniah," he suggested, thinking it better if the

armies combined the day before the battle rather than attempt to make

their junction under fire.

"We have no time," Wellesley declared, 'no time!" He swept aside the

weights holding down the map's corners so that the big sheet rolled up

with a snap.

"Providence has put their army within striking distance, so let us

strike!" He tossed the map to his aide, Campbell, then ducked out of

the tent into the day's late sunlight and there found himself staring

at Colonel McCandless who was mounted on a small, bony horse.

"You!"

Wellesley said with surprise.

"I thought you were wounded, McCandless?"

"I am, sir, but it's healing." The Scotsman patted his left thigh.

"So what are you doing here?"

"Seeking you, sir," McCandless answered, though in truth he had come to

Stevenson's army by mistake. One of Sevajee's men, scouting the area,

had seen the redcoats and McCandless had thought it must be Wellesley's

men.

"And what on earth are you riding?" Wellesley asked, pulling himself

onto Diomed's back.

"Looks like a gypsy nag, McCandless. I've seen ponies that are

bigger."

McCandless patted the captured Mahratta horse.

"She's the best I can do, sir. I lost my own gelding."

'For four hundred guineas you can have my spare. Give me a note,

McCandless, and he's all yours. Aeolus, he's called, a six-year-old

gelding out of County Meath. Good lungs, got a capped hock, but it

don't stop him. I'll see you in two days, Colonel," Wellesley now

addressed Stevenson.

"Two days! We'll test our Mahrattas, eh? See if their vaunted

infantry can stand some pounding. Good day, Stevenson!

Are you coming, McCandless?"

"I am, sir, I am."

Sharpe fell in beside Daniel Fletcher, the General's orderly.

"I've never seen the General so happy," Sharpe said to Fletcher.

"Got the bit between his teeth," Fletcher said.

"He reckons we're going to surprise the enemy."

"He ain't worried? There are thousands of the buggers."

"He ain't showing nothing if he is frightened," Fletcher said.

"Up and at them, that's his mood."

"Then God help the rest of us," Sharpe said.

The General talked with McCandless on his way back, but nothing the

Scotsman said diminished Wellesley's eagerness, even though McCandless

warned him of the effectiveness of the Mahratta artillery and the

efficiency of the infantry.

"We knew all that when we declared war," Wellesley said testily, 'and

if it didn't deter us then, why should it now?"

"Don't underestimate them, sir," McCandless said grimly.

"I rather hope they'll underestimate me!" Wellesley said.

"You want that gelding of mine?"

"I don't have the money, sir."

"Oh come, McCandless! You on a Company colonel's salary! You must

have a fortune stacked away!"

"I've some savings, sir, for my retirement, which is not far off."

"I'll make it three hundred and eighty guineas, seeing as it's you, and

in a couple of years you can sell him for four hundred. You can't go

into battle on that thing." He gestured at the Mahratta horse.

"I'll think on it, sir, I'll think on it," McCandless said gloomily. He

prayed that the good Lord would restore his own horse to him, along

with Lieutenant Dodd, but if that did not happen soon then he knew he

would have to buy a decent horse, though the prospect of spending such

a vast sum grieved him.

"You'll take supper with me tonight, McCandless?" Wellesley asked.

"We have a fine leg of mutton. A rare leg!"

"I eschew meat, sir," the Scotsman answered.

"You eschew meat? And chew vegetables?" The General decided this was

a splendid joke and frightened his horse by uttering a fierce neigh of

a laugh.

"That's droll! Very. You eschew meat to chew vegetables.

Never mind, McCandless, we shall find you some chewable shrubs."

McCandless chewed his vegetables that night, and afterwards, excusing

himself, went to the tent that Wellesley had lent to him. He was

tired, his leg was throbbing, but there had been no sign of the fever

all day and for that he was grateful. He read his Bible, knelt in

prayer beside the cot, then blew out the lantern to sleep. An hour

later he was woken by the thump of hooves, the sound of suppressed

voices, a giggle, and the brush of someone half falling against the

tent.

"Who is it?" McCandless demanded angrily.

"Colonel?" Sharpe's voice answered.

"Me, sir. Sorry, sir. Lost my footing, sir."

"I was sleeping, man."

"Didn't mean to wake you, sir, sorry, sir. Stand still, you bugger!

Not you, sir, sorry, sir."

McCandless, dressed in shirt and breeches, snatched the tent flap

open.

"Are you drunk?" he demanded, then fell silent as he gazed at the

horse Sharpe was holding. The horse was a gelding, a splendid bay

gelding with pricked ears and a quick, nervous energy.

"He's six years old, sir," Sharpe said. Daniel Fletcher was trying to

hammer in the picket and doing a very bad job because of the drink

inside him.

"He's got a capped hock, sir, whatever that is, but nothing that'll

stop him. Comes from Ireland, he does. All that green grass, sir,

makes a good horse. Aeolus, he's called."

"Aeolus," McCandless said, 'the god of the wind."

"Is he one of those Indian idols, sir? All arms and snake heads?"

"No, Sharpe, Aeolus is Greek." McCandless took the reins from Sharpe

and stroked the gelding's nose.

"Is Wellesley lending him to me?"

"Oh no, sir." Sharpe had taken the mallet from the half-drunk

Fletcher and now banged the picket firmly into the soil.

"He's yours, sir, all yours."

"But.. ." McCandless said, then stopped, not understanding the

situation at all.

"He's paid for, sir," Sharpe said.

"Paid for by whom?" McCandless demanded sternly.

"Just paid for, sir."

"You're blithering, Sharpe!"

"Sorry, sir."

"Explain yourself!" the Colonel demanded.

General Wellesley had said much the same thing when, just forty minutes

before, an aide had told him that Sergeant Sharpe was begging to see

him and the General, who was just bidding goodnight to the last of his

supper guests, had reluctantly agreed.

"Make it quick, Sergeant," he had said, his fine mood disguised by his

usual coldness.

"It's Colonel McCandless, sir," Sharpe said woodenly.

"He's decided to buy your horse, sir, and he sent me with the money."

He stepped forward and tipped a bag of gold onto the General's map

table. The gold was Indian, from every state and princedom, but it was

real gold and it lay shining like butter in the candle flames.

Wellesley gazed in astonishment at the treasure.

"He said he didn't have the money!"

"He's a Scotsman, sir, the Colonel," Sharpe had said, as though that

explained everything, 'and he's sorry it ain't real money, sir.

Guineas.

But it's the full price, sir. Four hundred."

"Three hundred and eighty," Wellesley said.

"Tell the Colonel I'll return some to him. But a note would have done

just as well! I'm supposed to carry gold on me?"

"Sorry, sir," Sharpe had said lamely, but he could never have provided

a note for the General, so instead he had sought out one of the

bhinjanies who followed the army, and that merchant had exchanged

emeralds for gold. Sharpe suspected he had been cheated, but he had

wanted to give the Colonel the pleasure of owning a fine horse and so

he had accepted the bhinjarrie's price.

"Is it all right, sir?"

he had asked Wellesley anxiously.

"Extraordinary way to do business," Wellesley had said, but he had

nodded his agreement.

"A fair sale, Sergeant," he said, and he had almost held out his hand

to shake Sharpe's as a man always shook hands on the sale of a horse,

then he remembered that Sharpe was a sergeant and so he had hastily

converted his gesture into a vague wave.

And after Sharpe had gone and while he was scooping the coins into

their bag, the General also remembered Sergeant Hakeswill. Not that it

was any of his business, so perhaps it had been sensible not to mention

the Sergeant's presence to Sharpe.

McCandless now admired the gelding.

"Who paid for it?"

"Good-looking horse, ain't he, sir?" Sharpe said.

"Good as your other, I'd say."

"Sharpe! You're blithering again. Who paid for it?"

Sharpe hesitated, but knew he was not going to be spared the

interrogation.

"In a manner of speaking, sir," he said, 'the Tippoo did."

"The Tippoo? Are you mad?"

Sharpe blushed.

"The fellow that killed the Tippoo, sir, he took some jewels off

him."

"A king's ransom, I should imagine," McCandless snorted.

"So I persuaded the fellow to buy the horse, sir. As a gift for you,

sir."

McCandless stared at Sharpe.

"It was you."

"It was me who did what, sir?"

"You killed the Tippoo." It was almost an accusation.

"Me, sir?" Sharpe asked innocently.

"No, sir."

McCandless stared at the gelding.

"I can't possibly accept, Sergeant."

"He's no good to me, sir. A sergeant can't own a horse. Not a proper

horse from Ireland, sir. And if I hadn't been day-dreaming in

Pohlmann's camp, sir, I might have stopped those thieves, so it's only

fair that you should let me get you another."

"You can't do this, Sharpe!" McCandless protested, embarrassed by the

generosity of the gift.

"Besides, in a day or two I hope to get my own horse back along with

Mister Dodd."

Sharpe had not thought of that, and for a second he cursed himself for

throwing away his money. Then he shrugged.

"It's done anyway, sir. General's got the money and you've got the

horse. Besides, sir, you've always been fair to me, so I wanted to do

something for you."

"It's intolerable!" McCandless protested.

"Uncalled for. I shall have to repay you."

"Four hundred guineas?" Sharpe asked.

"That's the price of an ensign's commission, sir."

"So?" McCandless stared fiercely at Sharpe.

"So we're going into battle, sir. You on that horse, and me on a

Mahratta pony. It's a chance, sir, a chance, but if I do well, sir,

real well, I'll need you to talk to the General." Sharpe blushed as he

spoke, amazed at his own temerity.

"That's how you repay me, sir, but that's not why I bought him. I just

wanted you to have a proper horse, sir. Colonel like you shouldn't be

sitting on a scabby native pony, sir."

McCandless, appalled at Sharpe's ambition, did not know what to say.

He stroked the gelding, felt tears in his eyes and could not tell

whether they were for Sharpe's impossible dreams or because he had been

so touched by the Sergeant's gift.

"If you do well, Sharpe," he promised, "I'll talk to Colonel Wallace.

He's a good friend. It's possible he'll have a vacant ensign's post,

but don't raise your hopes too high!" He paused, wondering if emotion

had driven him to promise far too much.

"How did the Tippoo die?" he asked after a while.

"And don't lie to me, Sharpe, it must have been you who killed him."

"Like a man, sir. Bravely. Facing front, he was. Never gave up."

"He was a good soldier," McCandless said, reflecting that the Tippoo

had been beaten by a better one.

"I trust you've still got some of his jewels?"

"Jewels, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"I don't know about jewels, sir."

"Of course not," McCandless said. If the Company ever heard that

Sharpe was carrying the Tippoo's gems their prize agents would descend

on the Sergeant like locusts.

"Thank you, Sharpe," McCandless said fulsomely, 'thank you very much. I

shall repay you, of course, but you've touched me.

"Pon my soul, you have touched me." He insisted upon shaking Sharpe's

hand, then watched the Sergeant walk away with the General's orderly.

So much sin there, McCandless thought, and so much goodness. But why

had Pohknann ever put the idea of a commission into Sharpe's head? It

was an impossible dream, doomed to disappointment.

Another man also watched Sharpe walk away. It was Private Lowry, of

the King's 33rd, who now hurried back to the baggage camp. Tt was him,

Sergeant," he told Hakeswill.

"You sure?"

"Large as life."

"God bless you, Lowry, God bless you." And God, Hakeswill thought, had

certainly blessed him. He had feared that he would have to endure a

battle, but now Sharpe had come and Hakeswill could produce his

precious warrant and be on his way south. Let the army fight its

battle, and let it win or lose, Hakeswill did not care, for Sergeant

Hakeswill had what he wanted and he would be rich.

CHAPTER 8

General Wellesley was like a gambler who had emptied his purse onto the

table and now had to wait for the cards to fall. There was still time

to scoop the money back and walk away from the game, but if he ever

felt that temptation, he did not betray it to his aides, nor to any of

the army's senior officers. The colonels in his army were all older

than Wellesley, some much older, and Wellesley courteously sought their

advice, though he largely ignored it. Orrock, a Company colonel and

commander of the 78th Madras Infantry, recommended an extravagant

outflanking march to the east, though so far as Wellesley could

determine the only ambition of such a manoeuvre was to remove the army

as far as possible from the enemy horde. The General was forced to pay

more attention to his two Williams, Wallace and Harness, the commanding

officers of his two Scottish battalions who were also his brigade

leaders.

"If we join Stevenson, sir, we might manage the business," Wallace

opined, his tone making it clear that, even combined, the two British

armies would be dangerously outnumbered.

"I've no doubt Harness will agree with me, sir," Wallace added, though

William Harness, the commander of the 778th, seemed surprised to have

his opinion sought.

"Your business how you fight them, Wellesley," he growled.

"Point my men and I warrant they'll fight. The bastards had better

fight. I'll flog the scum witless if they don't."

Wellesley forbore to point out that if the 778th refused to fight then

there would be no one left to flog, for there would be no army. Harness

would not have listened anyway, for he had taken the opportunity to

lecture the General on the ameliorative effects of a flogging.

"My first colonel liked to see one well-scourged back a week,

Wellesley," he said.

"He reckoned it kept the men to their duty. He once flogged a

sergeant's wife, I recall. He wanted to know if a woman could take the

pain, you see, and she couldn't. The lass was fair wriggling." Harness

sighed, recalling happier days.

"D'you dream, Wellesley?"

"Dream, Harness?"

"When you sleep."

"At times."

"A flogging will stop it. Nothing to bring on a good night's sleep

like a well-whipped back." Harness, a tall black-browed man who seemed

to wear a constant expression of wide-eyed disapproval, shook his head

sadly.

"A dreamless sleep, that's what I dream of! Loosens the bowels too,

y'know?"

"Sleep?"

"A flogging!" Harness snapped angrily.

"Stimulates the blood, y'see?"

Wellesley disliked making enquiries about senior officers, but he took

care to ride alongside his new aide, Colin Campbell.

"Was there much flogging in the ySth?" he asked the aide who, until

the siege of Ahmednuggur, had served under Harness.

"There's been much recent talk of it, sir, but not in practice."

"Your Colonel seems much enamoured of the practice."

"His enthusiasms come and go," Campbell said blandly.

"But until a few weeks ago, sir, he was not a man for enthusiasms. Now,

suddenly, he is. He encouraged us to eat snakes in July, though he

didn't insist on it.

I gather he tried some cobra seethed in milk, but it didn't agree with

him."

"Ah!" the General said, understanding the carefully phrased message.

So Harness was going out of his wits? Wellesley chided himself for not

guessing as much from the Colonel's fixed glare.

"The battalion has a doctor?"

"You can take a horse to water, sir," Campbell said carefully.

"Indeed, indeed." Not that the General could do anything about

Harness's incipient madness now, nor had the Colonel done anything that

deserved dismissal. Indeed, mad or not, he led a fine battalion and

Wellesley would need the Scotsmen when he came to Borkardan.

He thought constantly of Borkardan, though what that place was other

than a mark on the map, he did not know. He simply imagined the

village as swirls of dust and bellowing noise, a place of galloping

horses where big guns would flatten the air with their hot thumps and

the sky would be ripped apart with shrieking metal and murderous

volleys. It would be Wellesley's first field battle. He had fought

skirmishes enough, and led a cavalry charge that rode a bandit army

into bloody oblivion, but he had never commanded guns and horse and

infantry together, and he had never tried to impose his own will on an

enemy general. He did not doubt his ability, nor did he doubt that he

would stay calm amidst the dust and smoke and flame and blood, but he

did fear that some unlucky shot would kill or maim him and the army

would then be in the hands of a man without a vision of victory.

Stevenson or Wallace would be competent enough, though Wellesley

privately thought them both too cautious, but God help an army guided

by Harness's enthusiasms.

The other colonels, all Company men, echoed Wallace's advice to make

sure of the junction with Stevenson before battle was joined, and

Wellesley recognized the wisdom of that opinion, even while he refused

to deflect his army to join Stevenson before they both reached

Borkar-dan.

There was no time for such a nicety, so instead whichever army first

came to the enemy must engage him first, and the other must join the

battle, to which end Wellesley knew he must keep his left flank open,

for that was where Stevenson's men would join his own. The General

reckoned he must put the bulk of his cavalry on the left and station

one of his two Highland regiments to serve as a bulwark on that flank,

but beyond that he did not know what he would do once he reached

Borkardan except attack, attack and attack again. He reasoned that

when a small army faced a great horde then the small army had better

keep moving and so destroy the enemy piece by piece, but if the small

army stayed still then it risked being surrounded and pulverized into

surrender.

Borkardan on the twenty-fourth day of September, that was the goal, and

Wellesley marched his men hard. The cavalry vanguard and the infantry

picquets of the day were roused at midnight and, an hour later, just as

the rest of the army was being stirred into sullen wakefulness, those

men would start the northwards march. By two o'clock the whole army

was moving. Dogs barked as the cavalry vanguard clattered through the

villages, and after the horsemen came heavy guns hauled by oxen,

marching Highlanders and long ranks of sepoys under their leather-cased

colours. Ten miles to the west Stevenson's army marched parallel to

Wellesley's, but ten miles was a half-day's march and if either force

was confronted by the enemy then the other could do nothing to help.

Everything hinged on their meeting at Borkardan.

Most of the men had little idea of what waited for them. They sensed

the sudden urgency and guessed it presaged battle, but though the

rumours spoke of the enemy as a numberless horde, they marched

confidently. They grumbled, of course, for all soldiers grumble. They

complained about being hungry, they swore at being made to tramp

through the cavalry's manure, and they cursed the oppressive heat that

seemed scarcely alleviated by marching at night. Each march finished

by midday when the men would rig their tents and sprawl in the shade

while the picquets set guards, the cavalry watered horses and the

commissary butchered bullocks to provide ration meat.

The cavalry were the busiest men. Their job was to ride ahead and to

the flanks of the army to drive any enemy scouts far away so that

Scindia would not know that the two red-coated armies marched to trap

him, but each morning, as the eastern horizon turned grey, then flushed

with pink, then glowed gold and red before finally exploding into

light, the patrols searched in vain for any enemies. The Mahratta

horse seemed to be staying home, and some of the cavalry officers

feared that their enemy might have slipped away again.

As they were nearing Naulniah which would be Wellesley's last resting

place before he marched through the night to Borkardan, the General

called his patrols closer to the army, ordering them to ride just a

mile or two in front of his column. If the enemy was asleep, he

explained to his aides, then it was best to do nothing to wake him. It

was Sunday, and if the enemy was still engaged in its durbar, then the

next day would bring battle. One day to let fears harass hope, though

Wellesley's aides seemed careless enough as they marched the last few

miles to Naulniah. Major John Blackiston, an engineer on Wellesley's

staff, was needling Captain Campbell by saying that the Scots had no

harvest to speak of.

"Oats alone, isn't that it, Captain?"

"You've not seen barley, Major, till you've been to Scotland," Campbell

declared.

"You could hide a regiment in a field of Scottish barley."

"Can't think why you'd want to do such a thing, but doubtless you have

your reasons. But as I understand it, Campbell, you heathen Scots have

no order of service to give thanks to God for a harvest?"

"You've not heard of the kirn, Major? The mell feast?"

"Kirn?"

"Harvest-home, you call it, when you scavenge those few weeds in

England, then beg us generous Scots to send you food. Which we do,

being Christian folk who take pity on those less fortunate than

ourselves.

And talking of the less fortunate, Major, here's the sick list."

Campbell handed Blackiston a piece of paper on which was tallied the

number of men from each regiment who were too sick to march. Those men

were now being carried on the ox carts of the baggage train and,

routinely, those who were unlikely to recover quickly were sent

southwards on returning convoys, but Blackiston knew the General would

not want to detach any cavalry to protect a convoy just before a

battle.

"Tell Sears the sick can all wait in Naulniah," Blackiston ordered,

'and warn Captain Mackay to have at least a score of empty wagons

ready."

He did not specify why Mackay should prepare empty wagons, but nor did

he need to do so. The wagons would carry the men wounded in battle,

and Blackiston fervently prayed that no more than a score of ox carts

would be needed.

Captain Mackay had anticipated the need for empty wagons and had

already put chalk marks on those whose burdens were light and could be

transferred to other carts. Once at Naulniah he would have the cargoes

rearranged, and he sought out Sergeant Hakeswill to supervise the

business, but Obadiah Hakeswill had other plans.

"My criminal's back with the army, sir."

"And you haven't arrested him already?" Mackay asked in surprise.

"Can't march a man in irons, sir, not at this pace. But if you're

establishing a camp, sir, at Naulniah, sir, I can hold my prisoner

under guard like my duties say I should."

"So I shall be losing your services, Sergeant?"

"It ain't what I want, sir," Hakeswill lied, 'but I has my

responsibilities, sir, and if we're leaving baggage at Naulniah, sir,

then I shall have to stay there with my prisoner. Colonel Gore's

orders, sir. Is that Naulniah up ahead, sir?"

"It seems to be," Mackay said, for the distant village was busy with

men laying out the lines for the regiments' tents.

"Then, if you'll forgive, sir, I have to be about my duties."

Hakeswill had deliberately waited for this moment, reckoning that it

would be far too great a bother to keep marching northwards with Sharpe

under escort. It would be better to wait until the army had

established the baggage camp where Hakeswill could keep Sharpe while

the battle was fought, and if one more redcoat died that day, who would

miss him? So now, freed from Mackay's baggage guard, the Sergeant

hurried his six men up the column to find Colonel McCandless.

McCandless's leg was still throbbing, and the fever had left him weak,

but his spirits had recovered, because riding Aeolus had convinced him

that no finer horse had ever stepped on earth. The gelding was

tireless, McCandless declared, and better schooled than any horse he

had ever ridden. Sevajee was amused by the Colonel's enthusiasm.

"You sound like a man with a new woman, McCandless."

"If you say so, Sevajee, if you say so," McCandless said, not rising to

the Indian's bait.

"But isn't he a beauty?"

"Magnificent."

"County Meath," the Colonel said.

"They breed good hunters in County Meath. They have big hedges! Like

jumping a haystack."

"County Meath is in Ireland?" Sevajee asked.

"It is, it is."

"Another country beneath Britain's heel?"

"For a man beneath my heel, Sevajee," the Colonel said, 'you look in

remarkably fine fettle. Can we talk about tomorrow? Sharpe! I want

you to listen."

Sharpe urged his small Mahratta horse alongside the Colonel's big

gelding. Like Wellesley, Colonel McCandless was planning what he would

do at Borkardan and, though the Colonel's task was much smaller than

the General's, it was no less important to him.

"Let us assume, gentlemen, that we shall win this battle at Borkardan

tomorrow," he said, and waited for the invariable riposte from Sevajee,

but the tall Indian said nothing.

"Our task, then," the Colonel went on, 'is to hunt Dodd among the

fugitives. Hunt him and capture him."

If he still lives," Sevajee remarked.

"Which I pray God he does. He must face British justice before he goes

to God's condemnation. So when the battle is joined, gentlemen, our

task is not to get involved with the fighting, but to search for Dodd's

men. It won't be difficult. So far as I know they're the only

regiment in white jackets, and once we have them, we stay close. Stay

close till they break, then we pursue."

"And if they don't break?" Sevajee asked.

"Then we march again and fight again," the Colonel answered grimly.

"But by God's grace, Sevajee, we shall find this man even if we have to

hunt him into the deserts of Persia. Britain has more than a heavy

heel, Sevajee, it has a long arm."

"Long arms are easily cut off," Sevajee said.

Sharpe had stopped listening. He had heard a commotion behind as a

group of army wives were thrust off the road and had turned to see who

had barged the women aside and, at first, all he had seen was a group

of redcoats. Then he had recognized the red facings on the jackets and

he had wondered what on earth men of the 33rd were doing here, and then

he had recognized Sergeant Hakeswill.

Obadiah Hakeswill! Of all people, Hakeswill! Sharpe stared in horror

at his long-time enemy and Obadiah Hakeswill caught his eye and grinned

maliciously and Sharpe knew that his appearance boded no good.

Hakeswill broke into a lumbering run so that his haversack, pouches,

bayonet and musket thumped against his body.

"Sir!" he called up to Colonel McCandless.

"Colonel McCandless, sir!"

McCandless turned and frowned at the interruption, then, like Sharpe,

he stared at the Sergeant as though he did not believe his eyes.

McCandless knew Hakeswill, for Hakeswill had been imprisoned in the

Tippoo Sultan's dungeons at the same time as Sharpe and the Colonel,

and what McCandless knew he did not like. The Scotsman scowled.

"Sergeant Hakeswill? You're far from home."

"As are we all, sir, doing our duties to King and country in an eat hen

land, sir." Hakeswill slowed to a march, keeping pace with the

Scotsman's horse.

"I'm ordered to see you, sir, by the General himself, sir. By Sir

Arthur Wellesley, sir, God bless him, sir."

"I know who the General is, Sergeant," McCandless said coldly.

"Glad to hear it, sir. Got a paper for you, sir. Urgent paper, sir,

what needs your urgent attention, sir." Hakeswill gave a venomous

glance at Sharpe, then held the warrant up to McCandless.

"This paper, sir, what I've been carrying in my pouch, sir, on Colonel

Gore's orders, sir."

McCandless unfolded the warrant. Sevajee had hurried ahead, going to

find somewhere to billet his men in the village and, while McCandless

read the orders for Sharpe's arrest, Hakeswill fell back so that he was

walking beside Sharpe.

"We'll have you off that horse in a quick minute, Sharpie," he said.

"Go and boil your head, Obadiah."

"You always did have ideas above your station, Sharpie. Won't do!

Not in this army. We ain't the Frogs. We don't wear pretty long red

boots like yours, we don't, 'cos we don't have airs and graces, not in

this army. Says so in the scriptures."

Sharpe tugged on his rein so that his small horse swerved into

Hakeswill's path. The Sergeant skipped aside.

"Under arrest, you are, Sharpie!" Hakeswill crowed.

"Under arrest! Court-martial offence. Be a shooting job, I dare say."

Hakeswill grinned, showing his yellow teeth.

"Bang bang, you're dead. Taken me a long time, Sharpie, but I'm going

to be evens with you. All over for you, it is. Says so in the

scriptures."

"It says nothing of the sort, Sergeant!" McCandless snapped, turning

in his saddle and glaring at the Sergeant.

"I've had occasion to speak to you before about the scriptures, and if

I hear you cite their authority one more time I shall break you,

Sergeant Hakeswill, I shall break you!"

"Sir!" Hakeswill acknowledged. He doubted that McCandless, a Company

officer, could break anyone in the King's army, at least not without a

deal of effort, but he did not let his scepticism show for Obadiah

Hakeswill believed in showing complete subservience to all officers.

"Never meant to upset you, sir," he said, 'apologize, sir. No offence

meant, sir."

McCandless read the warrant a third time. Something about the wording

worried him, but he could not quite place his concern.

"It says here, Sharpe," McCandless said, 'that you struck an officer on

August the fifth this year."

"I did what, sir?" Sharpe asked, horrified.

"Assaulted Captain Morris. Here." And McCandless thrust the warrant

towards Sharpe.

"Take it, man. Read it."

Sharpe took the paper and while he read Sergeant Hakeswill embellished

the charge to Colonel McCandless.

"An assault, sir, with a jakes pot, sir. A full one, sir. Liquids and

solids, sir, both. Right on the Captain's head, sir."

"And you were the only witness?" McCandless asked.

"Me and Captain Morris, sir."

"I don't believe a word of it," McCandless growled.

"Up to a court to decide, sir, begging your pardon. Your job, sir, is

to deliver the prisoner to my keeping."

"You do not instruct me in my duties, Sergeant!" McCandless said

angrily.

"I just knows you will do your duty, sir, like we all does. Except for

some as I could mention." Hakeswill smiled at Sharpe.

"Finding the long words difficult, are we, Sharpie?"

McCandless reached over and took the warrant back from Sharpe, who had,

indeed, been finding some of the longer words difficult. The Colonel

had expressed his disbelief in the charge, but that was more out of

loyalty to Sharpe than from any conviction, though there was still

something out of kilter in the warrant.

"Is it true, Sharpe?" McCandless now asked.

"No, sir!" Sharpe said indignantly.

"He was always a good liar, sir," Hakeswill said helpfully.

"Lies like a rug, sir, he does. Famous for it." The Sergeant was

becoming breathless as he hurried to keep pace with the Scotsman's

horse.

"So what do you intend to do with Sergeant Sharpe?" McCandless

asked.

"Do, sir? Do my duty, of course, sir. Escort the prisoner back to

battalion, sir, as is ordered." Hakeswill gestured at his six men who

marched a few paces behind.

"We'll guard him nice and proper, sir, all the way home and then have

him stand trial for his filthy crime."

McCandless bit his right thumb and shook his head. He rode in silence

for a few paces, and when Sharpe protested he ignored the indignant

words. He put the warrant in his right hand again and seemed to read

it yet another time. Far off to the east, at least a mile away, there

was a sudden flurry of dust and the sparkle of sword blades catching

the sun. Some enemy horsemen had been waiting in a grove of trees from

where they had been watching the British march, but now they were

flushed out by a troop of Mysore horsemen who pursued them northwards.

McCandless glanced at the distant action.

"So they'll know we're here now, more's the pity. How do you spell

your name, Sharpe?

With or without an "e"?"

"With, sir."

"You will correct me if I'm wrong," McCandless said, 'but it seems to

me that this is not your name." He handed the warrant back to Sharpe

who saw that the 'e' at the end of his name had been smeared out.

There was a smudge of black ink there, and beneath it the impression of

the 'e' made by the steel nib in the paper, but the ink had been

diluted and nearly erased.

Sharpe hid his astonishment that McCandless, a stickler for honesty and

straight-dealing, had resorted to such a subterfuge.

"Not my name, sir," Sharpe said woodenly.

Hakeswill looked from Sharpe to McCandless, then back to Sharpe and

finally at McCandless again.

"Sir!" The word exploded from him.

"You're out of breath, Sergeant," McCandless said, taking the warrant

back from Sharpe.

"But you will see here that you are expressly ordered to arrest a

sergeant whose name is Richard Sharp. No "e", Sergeant. This Sergeant

Sharpe uses an "e" on his name so he cannot be the man you want, and I

certainly cannot release him to your custody on the authority of this

piece of paper. Here." McCandless held the warrant out, letting it

drop a heartbeat before Hakeswill could take it.

The paper fluttered down to the dusty road.

Hakeswill snatched the warrant up and peered at the writing.

"Ink's run, sir!" he protested.

"Sir?" He ran after McCandless's horse, stumbling on the uneven

road.

"Look, sir! Ink's run, sir."

McCandless ignored the offered warrant.

"It is clear, Sergeant Hakeswill, that the spelling of the name has

been corrected. In all conscience I cannot act upon that warrant. What

you must do, Sergeant, is send a message to Lieutenant Colonel Gore

asking him to clear up the confusion. A new warrant, I think, would be

best, and until such time as I see such a warrant, legibly written, I

cannot release Sergeant Sharpe from his present duties. Good day,

Hakeswill."

"You can't do this, sir!" Hakeswill protested.

McCandless smiled.

"You fundamentally misunderstand the hierarchy of the army, Sergeant.

It is I, a colonel, who define your duties, not you, a sergeant, who

define mine.

"I say to a man, go, and he goeth." It says so in the scriptures. I

bid you good day." And with that the Scotsman touched his spurs to the

gelding's flanks.

Hakeswill's face twitched as he turned on Sharpe.

"I'll have you, Sharpie, I will have you. I ain't forgotten

nothing."

"You ain't learned nothing either," Sharpe said, then spurred after the

Colonel. He lifted two fingers as he passed Hakeswill, then left him

behind in the dust.

He was, for the moment, free.

Simone Joubert placed the eight diamonds on the window ledge of the

tiny house where the wives of Scindia's European officers had been

quartered. She was alone for the moment, for the other women had gone

to visit the three compoos that were stationed on the Kaitna's northern

bank, but Simone had not wanted their company and so she had pleaded a

turbulent stomach, though she supposed she ought to visit Pierre before

the battle, if indeed there was to be a fight. Not that Simone cared

much. Let them have their battle, she thought, and at the end of it,

when the river was dark with British blood, her life would be no

better. She gazed at the diamonds again, thinking about the man who

had given them to her. Pierre would be angry if he learned she was

concealing such wealth, but once his anger had passed he would sell the

stones and send the money back to his rapacious family in France.

"Madame Joubert!" A voice hailed her from outside the window and

Simone guiltily swept the diamonds into her small purse, though,

because she was on an upper floor, no one could see the gems. She

peered down from the window and saw a cheerful Colonel Pohlmann in

shirtsleeves and braces standing among the straw in the courtyard of

the neighbouring house.

"Colonel," she responded dutifully.

"I am hiding my elephants," the Colonel said, gesturing at the three

beasts which were being led into the courtyard. The tallest carried

Pohlmann's howdah, while the other two were burdened with the wooden

chests in which the Colonel was reputed to keep his gold.

"Might I leave you to guard my menagerie?" the Colonel asked.

"From what?" Simone asked.

"From thieves," the Colonel said happily.

"Not the British?"

"They will never reach this far, Madame," Pohlmann said, 'except as

prisoners." And Simone had a sudden vision of Sergeant Richard Sharpe

again. She had been raised to believe that the British were a

piratical race, a nation without a conscience who mindlessly impeded

the spread of French enlightenment, but perhaps, she thought, she liked

pirates.

"I will guard your elephants, Colonel," she called down.

"And have some dinner with me?" Pohlmann asked.

"I have some cold chicken and warm wine."

"I have promised to join Pierre," Simone said, dreading the two-mile

ride across the drab fields to where Dodd's Cobras waited beside the

Kaitna.

"Then I shall escort you to his side, Madame," Pohlmann said

courteously. Once the battle was over he reckoned he might mount an

assault on Madame Joubert's virtue. It would be an amusing diversion,

but not, he thought, an especially difficult campaign. Unhappy women

yielded to patience and sympathy, and there would be plenty of time for

both once Wellesley and Stevenson had been destroyed. And there would

be a pleasure, too, in beating Major Dodd to the prize of Simone's

virtue.

Pohlmann detailed twenty of his bodyguard to guard the three elephants.

He never rode one of the beasts in battle, for an elephant became the

target of every enemy gunner, but he looked forward to mounting the

howdah for a great victory parade after the campaign. And victory

would leave Pohlmann rich, rich enough to start building his great

marble palace in which he planned to hang the captured banners of his

enemy. From sergeant to princeling in ten years, and the key to that

princedom was the gold that he was storing in Assaye. He ordered his

bodyguard that no one, not even the Rajah of Berar whose troops were

garrisoning the village, should be allowed into the courtyard, then he

instructed his servants to detach the golden panels from the howdah and

add them to the boxes of treasure.

"If the worst should happen," he told the sub adar who was in charge of

the men guarding the treasure, "I'll join you here. Not that it will,"

he added cheerfully.

A clatter of hooves in the alley outside the courtyard announced the

arrival of a patrol of horsemen returning from a foray south of the

Kaitna. For three days Pohlmann had kept his cavalry on a tight rein,

not wanting to alarm Wellesley as the British General marched north

towards the trap, but that morning he had released a few patrols

southwards and one of those now returned with the welcome news that the

enemy was only four miles south of the Kaitna. Pohlmann already knew

that the second British army, that of Colonel Stevenson, was still ten

miles off to the west, and that meant that the British had blundered.

Wellesley, in his eagerness to reach Borkardan, had brought his men to

the waiting arms of the whole Mahratta army.

The Colonel thought about waiting for Madame Joubert, then decided he

could not afford the time and so he mounted the horse he rode in battle

and, with those of his bodyguard not deputed to guard his gold, and

with a string of aides surrounding him, he galloped south from Assaye

to the Kaitna's bank where his trap was set. He passed the news to

Dupont and Saleur, then rode to prepare his own troops. He spoke with

his officers, finishing with Major William Dodd.

"I hear the British are making camp in Naulniah," Pohlmann said, 'so

what we should do is march south and hammer him. It's one thing to

have Wellesley so close, but it's quite another to bring him to

battle."

"So why don't we march?" Dodd asked.

"Because Scindia won't have it, that's why. Scindia insists we fight

on the defensive. He's nervous." Dodd spat, but made no other comment

on his employer's timidity.

"So there's a nasty danger," Pohlmann went on, 'that Wellesley won't

attack us at all, but will retreat towards Stevenson."

"So we beat them both at once," Dodd said confidently.

"As we shall, if we must," Pohlmann agreed drily, 'but I'd rather fight

them separately." He was confident of victory, no soldier could ;

be more confident, but he was no fool and given the chance to defeat (

two small armies instead of one medium-sized force, he would prefer }

the former.

"If you have a god, Major," he said, 'pray that Wellesley ; } is

over-confident. Pray that he attacks us." I It was a fervent prayer,

for if Wellesley did attack he would be forced to send his men across

the Kaitna which was some sixty or seventy paces broad and flowing

brown between high banks that were over a hundred paces apart. If the

monsoon had come the river would have filled its bed and been twelve or

fifteen feet deep, while now it was only six or seven, though that was

quite deep enough to stop an army crossing, but right in front of

Pohlmann's position there was a series of fords, and Pohlmann's prayer

was that the British would try to cross the fords and attack straight

up the road to Assaye. Wellesley would have no other choice, not if he

wanted a battle, for Pohlmann had summoned farmers from every village

in the vicinity, from Assaye and Waroor, from Kodully, Taunklee and

Peepulgaon, and asked them where a man could drive a herd of cattle

through the river. He had used the example of a herd of oxen because

where such a herd could go so could oxen drawing guns, and every man

had agreed that in this season the only crossing places were the fords

between Kodully and Taunklee. A man could drive his herds upriver to

Borkardan, they told Pohlmann's interpreter, and cross there, but that

was a half-day's walk away and why would be a man be that foolish when

the river provided eight safe fords between the two villages?

"Are there any crossing places downstream?" Pohlmann asked.

A score of dark faces shook in unison.

"No, sahib, not in the wet season."

"This season isn't wet."

"There are still no fords, sahib." They were sure, as sure as only

local men who had lived all their lives bounded by the same water and

trees and soil could be sure.

Pohlmann had still been unconvinced.

"And if a man does not want to drive a herd, but just wants to cross

himself, where would he cross?"

The villagers provided the same answer.

"Between Kodully and Taunklee, sahib."

"Nowhere else?"

Nowhere else, they assured him, and that meant Wellesley would be

forced to cross the river in the face of Pohlmann's waiting army. The

British infantry and guns would have to slither down the steep southern

bank of the Kaitna, cross a wide expanse of mud, wade through the

river, then climb the steep northern bank, and all the while they would

be under fire from the Mahratta guns until, when they reached the green

fields on the northern shore, they would re-form their ranks and march

forward into a double storm of musketry and artillery. Wherever the

British crossed the Kaitna, anywhere between Kodully and Taunklee, they

would find the same murderous reception waiting, for Pohlmann's three

prime compoos were arrayed in one long line that fronted that whole

stretch of the river. There were eighty guns in that line, and though

some threw nothing but a five- or six-pound ball, at least half were

heavy artillery and all were manned by Goanese gunners who knew their

business. The cannon were grouped in eight batteries, one for each

ford, and there was not an inch of ground between the batteries that

could not be flailed by canister or beaten by round shot or scorched by

shells.

Pohlmann's well-trained infantry waited to pour a devastating weight of

volley fire into red-coated regiments already deafened and demoralized

by the cannon fire that would have torn their ranks into shreds as they

struggled across the bloody fords. The numberless Mahratta cavalry

were off to the west, strung along the bank towards Borkardan, and

there it would wait until the British were defeated and Pohlmann

released the horsemen to the joys of pursuit and slaughter.

The Hanoverian reckoned that his battle line waiting at the fords would

decimate the enemy and the horsemen would turn the British defeat into

a bloody rout, but there was always a small chance that the enemy might

survive the river crossing and succeed in gaining the Kaitna's northern

bank in good order. He doubted the British could force his three

compoos back, but in case they did Pohlmann planned to retreat two

miles to the village of Assaye and invite the British to waste more men

in an assault on what was now a miniature fortress. Assaye, like every

other village on the plain, lived in fear of bandit raids and so the

outermost houses had high, windowless walls made of thick mud, and the

houses were joined so that their walls formed a continous rampart as

high as the wall at Ahmednuggur. Pohlmann had blocked the village's

streets with ox carts, he had ordered loopholes hacked in the outer

wall, he had placed all his smaller guns, a score of two- and

three-pounder cannon, at the foot of the wall and then he had

garrisoned the houses with the Rajah of Berar's twenty thousand

infantrymen. Pohlmann doubted that any of those twenty thousand men

would need to fight, but he had the luxury of knowing they were in

reserve should anything go wrong at the Kaitna.

He had just one problem left and to solve it he asked Dodd to accompany

him eastwards along the river bank.

"If you were Wellesley," he asked Dodd, 'how would you attack?"

Dodd considered the question, then shrugged as if to suggest that the

answer was obvious.

"Concentrate all my best troops at one end of the line and hammer my

way through."

"Which end?"

Dodd thought for a few seconds. He had been tempted to say that

Wellesley would attack in the west, at the fords by Kodully, for that

would keep him closest to Stevenson's army, but Stevenson was a long

way away and Pohlmann was deliberately riding eastwards.

"The eastern end?" Dodd suggested diffidently.

Pohlmann nodded.

"Because if he drives our left flank back he can place his army between

us and Assaye. He divides us."

"And we surround him," Dodd observed.

"I'd rather we weren't divided," Pohlmann said, for if Wellesley did

succeed in driving back the left flank he might well succeed in

capturing Assaye, and while that would still leave Pohlmann's compoos

on the field, it would mean that the Colonel would lose his gold. So

the Colonel needed a good hard anchor at the eastern end of his line to

prevent his left flank being turned, and of all the regiments under his

command he reckoned Dodd's Cobras were the best. The left flank was

now being held by one of Dupont's regiments, a good one, but not as

good as Dodd's.

Pohlmann gestured at the Dutchman's brown-coated troops who looked

across the river towards the small village of Taunklee.

"Good men," he said, 'but not as good as yours."

"Few of them are."

"But we'd best pray those fellows hold," Pohlmann said, 'because if I

was Wellesley that's where I'd put my sharpest attack. Straight up,

turn our flank, cut us off from Assaye. It worries me, it does."

'94

Dodd could not see that it was overmuch cause for worry, for he doubted

that the best troops in the world could survive the river crossing

under the massed fire of Pohlmann's batteries, but he did see the left

flank's importance.

"So reinforce Dupont," he suggested carelessly.

Pohlmann looked surprised, as though the idea had not already occurred

to him.

"Reinforce him? Why not? Would you care to hold the left, Major?"

"The left?" Dodd said suspiciously. Traditionally the right of the

line was the station of honour on a battlefield and, while most of

Pohlmann's troops neither cared nor knew about such courtesies, William

Dodd certainly knew, which was why Pohlmann had let the Major suggest

that the left should be reinforced rather than simply order the touchy

Dodd to move his precious Cobras.

"You would not be under Dupont's orders, of course not," Pohlmann

reassured Dodd.

"You'll be your own master, Major, answerable to me, only to me."

Pohlmann paused.

"Of course, if you'd rather not take post on the left I'd entirely

understand, and some other fellows can have the honour of defeating the

British right."

"My fellows can do it!" Dodd said belligerently.

"It is a very responsible post," Pohlmann said diffidently.

"We can do it, sir!" Dodd insisted.

Pohlmann smiled his gratitude.

"I was hoping you'd say so. Every other regiment is commanded by a

Frog or a Dutchman, Major, and I need an Englishman to fight the

hardest battle."

"And you've found one, sir," Dodd said.

I've found an idiot, Pohlmann thought as he rode back to the line's

centre, but Dodd was a reliable idiot and a hard-fighting man. He

watched as Dodd's men left the line, and as the line closed up to fill

the gap, and then as the Cobras took their place on the left flank. The

line was complete now, it was deadly, it was anchored firmly, and it

was ready. All it needed was the enemy to compound their blunder by

trying to attack, and then Pohlmann would crown his career by filling

the Kaitna with British blood. Let them attack, he prayed, just let

them attack, and the day, with all its glory, would be his.

The British camp spread around Naulniah. Lines of tents sheltered

infantry, quartermasters sought out the village headman and arranged

that the women of the village would bake bread in return for rupees,

'95

while the cavalry led their horses down to drink from the River Purna

which flowed just to the north of the village. One squadron of the

igth Dragoons was ordered to cross the river and ride a couple of miles

north in search of enemy patrols and those troopers dropped their bags

of forage in the village, watered their horses, washed the dust from

their faces, then remounted and rode on out of sight.

Colonel McCandless picked a broad tree as his tent. He had no servant,

nor wanted one, so he brushed down Aeolus with handfuls of straw while

Sharpe fetched a pail of water from the river. The Colonel, in his

shirtsleeves, straightened as Sharpe came back.

"You do realize, Sergeant, that I am guilty of some dishonesty in the

matter of that warrant?"

"I wanted to thank you, sir."

"I doubt I deserve any thanks, except that my deception might have

staved off a greater evil." The Colonel crossed to his saddlebags and

brought out his Bible which he gave to Sharpe.

"Put your right hand on the scriptures, Sergeant, and swear to me you

are innocent of the charge."

Sharpe placed his right palm on the Bible's worn cover. He felt

foolish, but McCandless's face was stern and Sharpe made his own face

solemn.

"I do swear it, sir. I never touched the man that night, didn't even

see him." His voice proclaimed both his indignation and his innocence,

but that was small consolation. The warrant might be defeated for the

moment, but Sharpe knew such things did not go away.

"What will happen now, sir?"

"We'll just have to make certain the truth prevails," McCandless said

vaguely. He was still trying to decide what had been wrong with the

warrant, but he could not identify what had troubled him. He took the

Bible, stowed it away, then put his hands in the small of his back and

arched his spine.

"How far have we come today? Fourteen miles?

Fifteen?"

"Thereabouts, sir."

I'm feeling my age, Sharpe, feeling my age. The leg's mending well

enough, but now my back aches. Not good. But just a short march

tomorrow, God be thanked, no more than ten miles, then battle." He

pulled a watch from his fob pocket and snapped open the lid.

"We have fifteen minutes, Sergeant, so it might be wise to prepare our

weapons."

"Fifteen minutes, sir?"

"It's Sunday, Sharpe! The Lord's day. Colonel Wallace's chaplain will

be holding divine service on the hour, and I expect you to come with

me. He preaches a fine sermon. But there's still time for you to

clean your musket first."

The musket was cleaned with boiling water which Sharpe poured down the

barrel, then sloshed about so that the very last remnants of powder

residue were washed free. He doubted the musket needed cleaning, but

he dutifully did it, then oiled the lock and put a new flint into the

dog head He borrowed a sharpening stone from one of Sevajee's men and

honed the bayonet's point so that the tip shone white and deadly, then

he dabbed some oil on the blade before sliding it home into its

scabbard. There was nothing else to do now except listen to the

sermon, sleep and do the mundane tasks. There would be a meal to cook

and the horses to water again, but those commonplace jobs were

overshadowed by the knowledge that the enemy was just a short march

away at Borkardan. Sharpe felt a shudder of nerves. What would battle

be like? Would he stand? Or would he turn out like that corporal at

Boxtel who had started to rave about angels and then had run like a

spring hare through the Flanders rain?

A half-mile behind Sharpe the baggage train began to trudge into a wide

field where the oxen were hobbled, the camels picketed and the

elephants tethered to trees. Grass-cutters spread out into the

countryside to find forage for the animals which were watered from a

muddy irrigation channel. The elephants were fed piles of palm leaves

and buckets of rice soaked in butter, while Captain Mackay scurried

through the chaos on his small bay horse, making sure that the

ammunition was being properly stowed and the animals suitably fed.

He suddenly caught sight of a disconsolate Sergeant Hakeswill and his

six men.

"Sergeant! You're still here? I thought you'd have your rogue safely

pinioned by now?"

"Problems, sir," Hakeswill said, standing rigidly to attention.

"Easy, Sergeant, stand easy. No rogue?"

"Not yet, sir."

"So you're back in my command, are you? That's splendid, just

splendid." Mackay was an eager young officer who did his best to see

the good in everybody, and though he found the Sergeant from the 33rd

somewhat daunting, he did his best to communicate his own enthusiasm.

"Puckalees, Sergeant," he said brightly, pucka lees

Hakeswill's face wrenched in a series of spasms.

"Puckalees, sir?"

"Water carriers, Sergeant."

"I knows what a pucka lee is, sir, on account of having lived in this

heathen land more years than I can count, but begging your pardon, sir,

what has a pucka lee to do with me?"

"We have to establish a collecting point for them," Mackay said. The

pucka lees were all on the strengths of the individual regiments and in

battle their job was to keep the fighting men supplied with water.

"I need a man to watch over them," Mackay said.

"They're good fellows, all of them, but oddly frightened of bullets!

They need chivvying along. I'll be busy enough with the ammunition

wagons tomorrow, so can I rely on you to make sure the puckakes do

their job like the stout fellows they are?"

The 'stout fellows' were boys, grandfathers, cripples, the half-blind

and the half witted

"Excellent! Excellent!" the young Captain said.

"A problem solved! Make sure you get some rest, Sergeant. We'll all

need to be sprightly tomorrow. And if you feel the need for some

spiritual refreshment you'll find the 74th are holding divine service

any moment now." Mackay smiled at Hakeswill, then set off in pursuit

of an errant group of bullock carts.

"You! You! You with the tents! Not there! Come here!"

"Puckalees," Hakeswill said, spitting, pucka lees None of his men

responded for they knew well enough to leave Sergeant Hakeswill alone

when he was in a more than usually foul mood.

"Could be worse, though," he said.

"Worse?" Private Flaherty ventured.

Hakeswill's face twitched.

"We has a problem, boys," he said dourly, 'and the problem is one

Scottish Colonel who is attempting to bugger up the good order of our

regiment. I won't abide it, I won't. Regimental honour is at stake,

it is. He's been wool-pulling, ain't he? And he thinks he's pulled it

clean over our eyes, but he ain't, because I've seen through him, I

have, I've seen through his Scotch soul and it's as rotten as rotten

eggs. Sharpie's paying him off, ain't he? Stands to reason!

Corruption, boys, nothing but corruption." Hakeswill blinked, his mind

racing.

"If we're flogging pucka lees halfway across bleeding India tomorrow,

lads, then we will have our moment and the regiment would want us to

seize it."

"Seize it?" Lowry asked.

"Kill the bugger, you block headed toad."

"Kill Sharpie?"

"God help me for leading half wits Hakeswill said.

"Not Sharpie!

We wants him private like, where we can fillet him fair and square. You

kills the Scotchman! Once Mister bleeding McCandless is gone,

Sharpie's ours."

"You can't kill a colonel!" Kendrick said aghast.

"You points your firelock, Private Kendrick," Hakeswill said, ramming

his own musket's muzzle hard into Kendrick's midriff.

"You cocks your musket, Private Kendrick' Hakeswill pulled back the dog

head and the heavy lock clicked into place 'and then you shoots the

bugger clear through." Hakeswill pulled his trigger. The powder in

the pan exploded with a small crackle and fizz, and Kendrick leaped

back as the smoke drifted away from the lock, but the musket had not

been charged.

Hakeswill laughed.

"Got you, didn't I? You thought I was putting a goalie in your belly!

But that's what you do to McCandless. A goo he in his belly or in his

brain or in any other part what kills him. And you do it tomorrow."

The six men looked dubious, and Hakeswill grinned.

"Extra shares for you all if it happens, boys, extra shares. You'll be

paying the officers' whores when you get home, and all it will take is

one goo he He smiled wolfishly.

"Tomorrow, boys, tomorrow."

But across the river, where the blue-coated patrol of the igth Dragoons

was exploring the countryside south of the Kaitna, everything was

changing.

Wellesley had dismounted, stripped off his jacket and was washing his

face from a basin of water held on a tripod. Lieutenant Colonel

Orrock, the Company officer who commanded the picquets that day, was

complaining about the two galloper guns that were supposedly attached

to his small command.

"They wouldn't keep up, sir. Laggards, sir. I found myself four

hundred yards ahead of them! Four hundred yards!"

"I asked you to set a brisk pace, Orrock," the General said, wishing

the fool would go away. He reached for a towel and vigorously scrubbed

his face dry.

"But if we'd been challenged!" Orrock protested.

"Gallopers can move briskly when they must," the General said, then

sighed as he realized the prickly Orrock needed placating.

"Who commanded the guns?"

"Barlow, sir."

"I'll speak to him," the General promised, then turned as the patrol of

iqth Dragoons that had crossed the River Purna to reconnoitre the

ground on the far bank came threading through the rising tents towards

him. Wellesley had not expected the patrol back this scon and their

return puzzled him, then he saw they were escorting a group

ofbkinjarries, the black-cloaked merchants who traversed India buying

and selling food.

"You'll excuse me, Orrock," the General said, plucking his coat from a

stool.

"You will talk with Barlow, sir?" Orrock asked.

"I said so, didn't I?" Wellesley called as he walked towards the

horsemen.

The patrol leader, a captain, slid off his horse and gestured at the

bhinjarries' leader.

"We found these fellows a half-mile north of the river, sir. They've

got eighteen pack oxen loaded with grain and they reckon the enemy

ain't in Borkardan at all. They were planning to sell the grain in

Assaye."

"Assaye?" The General frowned at the unfamiliar name.

"It's a village four or five miles north of here, sir. He says it's

thick with the enemy."

"Four or five miles?" Wellesley asked in astonishment.

"Four or five?"

The cavalry captain shrugged.

"That's what they say, sir." He gestured at the grain merchants who

stood impassively among the mounted troopers.

Dear God, Wellesley thought, four or five miles? He had been

humbugged! The enemy had stolen a march on him, and at any moment that

enemy might appear to the north and launch an attack on the British

encampment and there was no chance for Stevenson to come to his help.

The 74th were singing hymns and the enemy was five miles away, maybe

less? The General spun round.

"Barclay! Campbell! Horses!

Quick now!"

The flurry of activity at the General's tent sent a rumour whipping

through the camp, and the rumour was fanned into alarm when the whole

of the igth Dragoons and the 4th Native Cavalry trotted through the

river on the heels of the General and his two aides. Colonel

McCandless had been walking with Sharpe towards the 74th's lines, but

seeing the sudden excitement, he turned and hurried back towards his

horse.

"Come on, Sharpe!"

"Where to, sir?"

"We'll find out. Sevajee?"

"We're ready."

McCandless's party left the camp five minutes after the General.

They could see the dust left by the cavalry ahead and McCandless

hurried to catch up. They rode through a landscape of small fields cut

by deep dry gulches and cactus-thorn hedges. Wellesley had been

following the earth road northwards, but after a while the General

swerved westwards onto a field of stubble and McCandless did not

follow, but kept straight on up the road.

"No point in tiring the horses unnecessarily," he explained, though

Sharpe suspected the Colonel was merely impatient to go north and see

whatever had caused the excitement. The two British cavalry regiments

were in sight to the east, but there was no enemy visible.

Sevajee and his men had ridden ahead, but when they reached a crest

some two hundred yards in front of McCandless they suddenly wrenched on

their reins and swerved back. Sharpe expected to see a horde of

Mahratta cavalry come boiling over the crest, but the skyline stayed

empty as Sevajee and his men halted a few yards short of the ridge and

there dismounted.

"You'll not want them to see you, Colonel," Sevajee said drily when

McCandless caught up.

Them?"

Sevajee gestured at the crest.

"Take a look. You'll want to dismount."

McCandless and Sharpe both slid from their saddles, then walked to the

skyline where a cactus hedge offered concealment and from where they

could stare at the country to the north and Sharpe, who had never seen

such a sight before, simply gazed in amazement.

It was not an army. It was a horde, a whole people, a nation.

Thousands upon thousands of the enemy, all in line, mile after mile of

them. Men and women and children and guns and camels and bullocks and

rocket batteries and horses and tents and still more men until there

seemed to be no end to them.

"Jesus!" Sharpe said, the imprecation torn from him.

"Sharpe!"

"Sorry, sir." But no wonder he had sworn, for Sharpe had never

imagined that an army could look so vast. The nearest men were no more

than half a mile away, beyond a discoloured river that flowed between

steep mud banks. A village lay on the nearer bank, but on the northern

side, just beyond the mud bluff, there was a line of guns.

Big guns, the same painted and sculpted cannon that Sharpe had seen in

Pohlmann's camp. Beyond the guns was the infantry and behind the

infantry, and spreading far out of sight to the east, was a mass of

cavalry and beyond them the myriad of camp followers. More infantry

were posted about a distant village where Sharpe could just see a

cluster of bright flags.

"How many are there?" he asked.

"At least a hundred thousand men?" McCandless ventured.

"At least," Sevajee agreed, 'but most are adventurers come for loot."

The Indian was peering through a long ivory-clad telescope.

"And the cavalry won't help in a battle."

"It'll be down to these fellows," McCandless said, indicating the

infantry just behind the gun line.

"Fifteen thousand?"

"Fourteen or fifteen," Sevajee said.

"Too many."

"Too many guns," McCandless said gloomily.

"It'll be a retreat."

"I thought we came here to fight!" Sharpe said belligerentiy.

"We came here expecting to rest, then march on Borkardan tomorrow,"

McCandless said testily.

"We didn't come here to take on the whole enemy army with just five

thousand infantry. They know we're coming, they're ready for us and

they simply want us to walk into their fire. Wellesley's not a fool,

Sharpe. He'll march us back, link up with Stevenson, then find them

again."

Sharpe felt a pang of relief that he would not discover the realities

of bat de but the relief was tempered by a tinge of disappointment. The

disappointment surprised him, and the relief made him fear he might be

a coward.

"If we retreat," Sevajee warned, 'those horsemen will harry us all the

way."

"We'll just have to fight them off," McCandless said confidently, then

let out a long satisfied breath.

"Got him! There, the left flank!" He pointed and Sharpe saw, far away

at the very end of the enemy gun line a scatter of white uniforms.

"Not that it helps us," McCandless said wryly, 'but at least we're on

his heels."

"Or he's on ours," Sevajee said, then he offered his telescope to

Sharpe.

"See for yourself, Sergeant."

Sharpe rested the glass's long barrel on a thick cactus leaf. He moved

the lens slowly along the line of infantry. Men slept in the shade,

some were in their small tents and others sat in groups and he could

have sworn a few were gambling. Officers, Indian and European,

strolled behind their men, while in front of them the massive line of

guns waited with their ammunition limbers. He moved the glass to the

very far left of the enemy line and saw the white jackets of Dodd's

men, and saw something else. Two huge guns, much bigger than anything

he had seen before.

"They've got their siege guns in the line, sir," he told McCandless,

who trained his own telescope.

"Eighteen-pounders," McCandless guessed, 'maybe bigger?" The Colonel

collapsed his glass.

"Why aren't they patrolling this side of the river?"

"Because they don't want to frighten us away," Sevajee said.

"They want us to stroll up to their guns and die in the river, but

they'll still have some horsemen hidden on this bank, waiting to tell

them when we retreat."

The sound of hooves made Sharpe whip round in expectation of those

enemy cavalry, but it was only General Wellesley and his two aides who

cantered along the lower ground beneath the crest.

"They're all there, McCandless," the General shouted happily.

"So it seems, sir."

The General reined in, waiting for McCandless to come down from the

skyline and join him.

"They seem to presume we'll make a frontal attack," Wellesley said

wryly, as though he found the idea amusing.

"They're certainly formed for it, sir."

"They must assume we're blockheads. What time is it?"

One of his aides consulted a watch.

"Ten minutes of noon, sir."

"Plenty of time," the General murmured.

"Onwards, gentlemen, stay below the skyline. We don't want to frighten

them away!"

"Frighten them away?" Sevajee asked with a smile, but Wellesley

ignored the comment as he spurred on eastwards, parallel with the

river. Some troops of Company cavalry were scouring the fields and at

first Sharpe thought they were looking for concealed enemy picquets,

then he saw they were hunting down local farmers and harrying them

along in the General's wake.

Wellesley rode two miles eastwards, a string of horsemen behind him.

The farmers were breathless by the time they reached the place where

his horse was picketed just beneath a low hill. The General was

kneeling on the crest, staring east through a glass.

"Ask those fellows if there are any fords east of here!" he shouted

down to his aides.

A hurried consultation followed, but the farmers were quite sure there

was no ford. The only crossing places, they insisted, were directly in

front of Scindia's army.

"Find a clever one," Wellesley ordered, 'and bring him up here.

Colonel? Maybe you'd translate?"

McCandless picked one of the farmers and led him up the hill.

Sharpe, without being asked, followed and Wellesley did not order him

back, but just muttered that they should all keep their heads low.

"There' the General pointed eastwards to a village on the Kaitna's

southern bank 'that village, what's it called?"

Teepulgaon," the farmer said, and added that his mother and two sisters

lived in the huddle of mud-walled houses with their thatched roofs.

Peepulgaon lay only a half-mile from the low hill, but it was all of

two miles east of Taunklee, the village that was opposite the eastern

extremity of the Mahratta line. Both villages were on the river's

southern bank while the enemy waited on the Kaitna's northern side, and

Sharpe did not understand Wellesley's interest.

"Ask him if he has any relatives north of the river," the General

ordered McCandless.

"He has a brother and several cousins, sir," McCandless translated.

"So how does his mother visit her son north of the river?" Wellesley

asked.

The farmer launched himself into a long explanation. In the dry

season, he said, she walked across the river bed, but in the wet

season, when the waters rose, she was forced to come upstream and cross

at Taunklee. Wellesley listened, then grunted in apparent disbelief.

He was staring intently through the glass.

"Campbell?" he called, but his aide had gone to another low rise a

hundred yards westwards that offered a better view of the enemy

ranks.

"Campbell?" Wellesley called again and, getting no answer, turned.

"Sharpe, you'll do. Come here."

"Sir?"

"You've got young eyes. Come here, and keep low."

Sharpe joined the General on the crest where, to his surprise, he was

handed the telescope.

"Look at the village," Wellesley ordered, 'then look at the opposite

bank and tell me what you see."

It took Sharpe a moment to find Peepulgaon in the lens, but suddenly

its mud walls filled the glass. He moved the telescope slowly, sliding

its view past oxen, goats and chickens, past clothes set to dry on

bushes by the river bank, and then the lens slid across the brown water

of the River Kaitna and up its opposite bank where he saw a muddy bluff

topped by trees and, just beyond the trees, a fold of land. And in the

fold of land were roofs, straw roofs.

"There's another village there, sir," Sharpe said.

"You're sure?" Wellesley asked urgently.

"Pretty sure, sir. Might just be cat de sheds."

"You don't keep cattle sheds apart from a village," the General said

scathingly, 'not in a country infested by bandits." Wellesley twisted

round.

"McCandless? Ask your fellow if there's a village on the other side of

the river from Peepulgaon."

The farmer listened to the question, then nodded.

"Waroor," he said, then helpfully informed the General that his cousin

was the village headman, the naique.

"How far apart are those villages, Sharpe?" Wellesley asked.

Sharpe judged the distance for a couple of seconds.

"Three hundred yards, sir?"

Wellesley took the telescope back and moved away from the crest.

"Never in my life," he said, 'have I seen two villages on opposite

banks of a river that weren't connected by a ford."

"He insists not, sir," McCandless said, indicating the farmer.

"Then he's a rogue, a liar or a blockhead," Wellesley said

cheerfully.

"The latter, probably." He frowned in thought, his right hand drumming

a tattoo on the telescope's barrel.

"I'll warrant there is a ford," he said to himself.

"Sir?" Captain Campbell had run back from the western knoll.

"Enemy's breaking camp, sir."

"Are they, by God!" Wellesley returned to the crest and stared through

the glass again. The infantry immediately on the Kaitna's north bank

were not moving, but far away, close to the fortified village, tents

were being struck.

"Preparing to run away, I daresay," Wellesley muttered.

"Or readying to cross the river and attack us," McCandless said

grimly.

"And they're sending cavalry across the river," Campbell added

ominously.

"Nothing to worry us," Wellesley said, then turned back to stare at the

opposing villages of Peepulgaon and Waroor.

"There has to be a ford," he said to himself again, so quietly that

only Sharpe could hear him.

"Stands to reason," he said, then he went silent for a long time.

"That enemy cavalry, sir," Campbell prompted him.

Wellesley seemed startled.

"What?"

"There, sir." Campbell pointed westwards to a large group of enemy

horsemen who had appeared from a grove of trees, but who seemed content

to watch Wellesley's group from a half-mile away.

"Time we were away," Wellesley said.

"Give that lying blockhead a rupee, McCandless, then let's be off."

"You plan to retreat, sir?" McCandless asked.

Wellesley had been hurrying down the slope, but now stopped and stared

in surprise at the Scotsman.

"Retreat?"

McCandless blinked.

"You surely don't intend to fight, sir, do you?"

"How else are we to do His Majesty's business? Of course we'll

fight!

There's a ford there." Wellesley flung his arm east towards

Peepulgaon.

"That wretched farmer might deny it, but he's a blockhead! There has

to be a ford. We'll cross it, turn their left flank and pound them

into scraps! But we must hurry! Noon already. Three hours,

gentlemen, three hours to bring on battle. Three hours to turn his

flank." He ran on down the hill to where Diomed, his white Arab horse,

waited.

"Good God," McCandless said.

"Good God." For five thousand infantry would now cross the Kaitna at a

place where men said the river was uncross able then fight an enemy

horde at least ten times their number.

"Good God," the Colonel said again, then hurried to follow Wellesley

south. The enemy had stolen a march, the redcoats had journeyed all

night and were bone tired, but Wellesley would have his bat de

CHAPTER 9

"There!" Dodd said, pointing.

"I can't see," Simone Joubert complained.

"Drop the telescope, use your naked eye, Madame. There! It's

flashing."

"Where?"

"There!" Dodd pointed again.

"Across the river. Three trees, low hill."

"Ah!" Simone at last saw the flash of reflected sunlight from the lens

of a telescope that was being used on the far bank of the river and

well downstream from where Dodd's Cobras held the left of Pohlmann's

line.

Simone and her husband had dined with the Major who was grimly happy in

anticipation of a British attack which, he claimed, must inevitably

fall hardest on his Cobras.

"It will be slaughter, Ma'am," Dodd said wolfishly, 'sheer slaughter!"

He and Captain Joubert had walked Simone to the edge of the bluff above

the Kaitna and shown her the fords, and demonstrated how any men

crossing the fords must be caught in the mangling crossfire of the

Mahratta cannon, then maintained that the British had no option but to

walk forward into that weltering onslaught of canister, round shot and

shell.

"If you wish to stay and watch, Madame," Dodd had offered, "I can find

a place of safety for you." He gestured towards a low rise of ground

just behind the regiment.

"You could watch from there, and I credit no British soldier will come

near you."

"I could not bear to watch a slaughter, Major," Simone had said

feelingly.

"Your squeamishness does you credit, Ma'am," Dodd had answered.

"War is man's work." It was then that Dodd had spotted the British

soldiers on the opposite bank and had trained his telescope on the

distant men. Simone, knowing now where to look, rested the glass on

her husband's shoulder and trained its lens on the far hill. She could

see two men there, one in a cocked hat and the other in a shako. Both

were keeping low.

"Why are they so far down the river?" she asked.

"They're looking for a way round our flank," Dodd said.

"Is there one?"

"No. They must cross here, Ma'am, or else they don't cross at all."

Dodd gestured at the fords in front of the compoo. A band of

cavalrymen was galloping through the shallow water, spraying silver

from their horses' hooves as they crossed to the Kaitna's south bank.

"And those horsemen," Dodd explained, 'are going to see whether they

will cross or not."

Simone collapsed the telescope and handed it back to the Major.

"They might not attack?"

"They won't," her husband answered in English for Dodd's benefit.

"They have too much sense."

"Boy Wellesley don't have sense," Dodd said scathingly.

"Look how he attacked at Ahmednuggur? Straight at the wall! A hundred

rupees says he will attack."

Captain Joubert shook his head. 'I do not gamble, Major."

"A soldier should relish risk," Dodd said.

"And if they don't cross," Simone asked, 'there is no battle?"

"There'll be a battle, Ma'am," Dodd said grimly.

"Pohlmann's gone to fetch Scindia's permission for us to cross the

river. If they won't come to us, we'll go to them."

Pohlmann had indeed gone to find Scindia. The Hanoverian had dressed

for battle, donning his finest coat, which was a blue silk jacket,

trimmed in scarlet and decorated with loops of gold braid and black

aiguillettes. He wore a white silk sash on which was blazoned a star

of diamonds and from which hung a gold-hiked sword, though Dupont, the

Dutchman, who accompanied Pohlmann to meet Scindia, noted that the

Colonel's breeches and boots were old and shabby.

"I wear them for luck," Pohlmann said, noting Dupont's puzzled glance

at his decrepit breeches.

"They're from my old East India Company uniform." The Hanoverian was

in a fine mood. His short march eastwards had achieved all he had

desired, for it had brought one of the two small British armies into

his lap while it was still far away from the other.

All he needed to do now was snap it up like a minnow, then march on

Stevenson's force, but Scindia had been insistent that no infantry were

to cross the Kaitna's fords without his permission and Pohlmann now

needed that permission. The Hanoverian did not plan to cross

immediately, for first he wanted to be certain that the British were

retreating, but nor did he wish to wait for permission once he heard

news of the enemy's withdrawal.

"Our lord and master will be scared at the thought of attacking,"

Pohlmann told Dupont, 'so we'll flatter the bugger. Slap on the ghee

with a shovel, Dupont. Tell him he'll be lord of all India if he lets

us loose."

"Tell him there are a hundred white women in Wellesley's camp and he'll

lead the attack himself," Dupont observed drily.

"Then that is what we shall tell him," Pohlmann said, 'and promise him

that every little darling will be his concubine."

Except that when Pohlmann and Dupont reached the tree-shaded stretch of

ground above the River Juah where the Maharajah of Gwalior had been

awaiting his army's victory, there was no sign of his lavish tents.

They had been struck, all of them, together with the striped tents of

the Rajah of Berar, and all that remained were the cook tents that even

now were being collapsed and folded onto the beds of a dozen ox

carts.

All the elephants but one were gone, the horses of the royal bodyguards

were gone, the concubines were gone and the two princes were gone.

The one remaining elephant belonged to Surjee Rao and that minister,

ensconced in his howdah where he was being fanned by a servant, smiled

benevolently down on the two sweating and red-faced Europeans.

"His Serene Majesty deemed it safer to withdraw westwards," he

explained airily, 'and the Rajah of Berar agreed with him."

"They did what?" Pohlmann snarled.

"The omens," Surjee Rao said vaguely, waving a bejewelled hand to

indicate that the subtleties of such supernatural messages would be

beyond Pohlmann's comprehension.

"The bloody omens are propitious!" Pohlmann insisted.

"We've got the buggers by the balls! What more omens can you want?"

Surjee Rao smiled.

"His Majesty has sublime confidence in your skill, Colonel."

"To do what?" the Hanoverian demanded.

"Whatever is necessary," Surjee Rao said, then smiled.

"We shall wait in Borkardan for news of your triumph, Colonel, and

eagerly anticipate seeing the banners of our enemies heaped in triumph

at the foot of

His Serene Majesty's throne." And with that hope expressed he snapped

his fingers and the mahout prodded the elephant which lumbered away

westwards.

"Bastards," Pohlmann said to Dupont, loudly enough for the retreating

minister to hear.

"Lily-livered bastards! Cowards!" Not that he cared whether Scindia

and the Rajah of Berar were present at the battle;

indeed, given the choice, he would much prefer to fight without them,

but that was not true of his men who, like all soldiers, fought better

when their rulers were watching, and so Pohlmann was angry for his men.

Yet, he consoled himself as he returned southwards, they would still

fight well. Pride would see to that, and confidence, and the promise

of plunder.

And Surjee Rao's final words, Pohlmann decided, had been more than

enough to give him permission to cross the River Kaitna. He had been

told to do whatever was necessary, and Pohlmann reckoned that gave him

a free hand, so he would give Scindia a victory even if the yellow

bastard did not deserve it.

Pohlmann and Dupont cantered back to the left of the line where they

saw that Major Dodd had called his men out from the shade of the trees

and into their ranks. The sight suggested that the enemy was

approaching the Kaitna and Pohlmann spurred his horse into a gallop,

clamping one hand onto his extravagantly plumed hat to stop it falling

off. He slewed to a stop just short of Dodd's regiment and stared

above their heads across the river.

The enemy had come, except this enemy was merely a long line of

cavalrymen with two small horse-drawn galloper guns. It was a screen,

of course. A screen of British and Indian horsemen intended to stop

his own patrols from discovering what was happening in the hidden

country beyond.

"Any sign of their infantry?" he called to Dodd.

"None, sir."

"The buggers are running!" Pohlmann exulted.

"That's why they've put up a screen." He suddenly noticed Simone

Joubert and hastily took off his feathered hat.

"My apologies for my language, Madame." He put his hat back on and

twisted his horse about.

"Harness the guns!" he shouted.

"What is happening?" Simone asked anxiously.

"We're crossing the river," her husband said quietly, 'and you must go

back to Assaye."

Simone knew she must say something loving to him, for was that not

expected of a wife at a moment such as this?

"I shall pray for you," she said shyly.

"Go back to Assaye," her husband said again, noting that she had not

given him any love, 'and stay there till it is all over."

It would not take long. The guns needed to be attached to their

limbers, but the infantry were ready to march and the cavalry were

eager to begin their pursuit. The existence of the British cavalry

screen suggested that Wellesley must be withdrawing, so all Pohlmann

needed to do was cross the river and then crush the enemy. Dodd drew

his elephant-hilted sword, felt its newly honed edge and waited for the

orders to begin the slaughter.

The Mahratta cavalry pursued Wellesley's party the moment they saw that

the General was retreating from his observation post above the river.

"We must look to ourselves, gentlemen!" Wellesley had called and

driven back his heels so that Diomed had sprung ahead. The other

horsemen matched his pace, but Sharpe, on his small captured Mahratta

horse, could not keep up. He had mounted in a hurry, and in his haste

he could not fit his right boot into the stirrup and the horse's

jolting motion made it all the more difficult, but he dared not curb

the beast for he could hear the enemy's shouts and the beat of their

hooves not far behind. For a few moments he was in a panic. The thud

of the pursuing hooves grew louder, he could see his companions drawing

ever farther ahead of him and his horse was blowing hard and trying to

resist the frantic kicks he gave, and each kick threatened to unseat

him so that he clung to the saddle's pommel and still his right boot

would not find the stirrup. Sevajee, racing free on the right flank,

saw his predicament and curved back towards him.

"You're not a horseman, Sergeant."

"Never bloody was, sir. Hate the bloody things."

"A warrior and his horse, Sergeant, are like a man and a woman,"

Sevajee said, leaning over and pushing the stirrup iron onto Sharpe's

boot. He did it without once checking his own horse's furious pace,

then he slapped Sharpe's small mare on the rump and she took off like

one of the enemy's rockets, almost tipping Sharpe backwards.

Sharpe clung on to the pommel, while his musket, which was hanging by

its sling from his left elbow, banged and thumped his thigh. His shako

blew off and he had no time to rescue it, but then a trumpet sounded

off to his right and he saw a stream of British cavalrymen riding to

head off the pursuit. Still more cavalrymen were spurring north from

Naulniah and Wellesley, as he passed them, urged them on towards the

Kaitna.

"Thank you, sir," Sharpe said to Sevajee.

"You should learn horsemanship."

"I'll stay a foot soldier, sir. Safer. Don't like sitting on things

with hooves and teeth."

Sevajee laughed. Wellesley had slowed now and was patting the neck of

his horse, but the brief pursuit had only increased his high spirits.

He turned Diomed to watch the Mahratta cavalry spur away.

"A good omen!"

he said happily.

'For what, sir?" Sevajee asked.

Wellesley heard the Indian's sceptical tone.

"You don't think we should give battle?"

Sevajee shrugged, seeking some tactful way of expressing his

disagreement with Wellesley's decision.

"The battle isn't always to the largest army, sir."

"Always, no," Wellesley said, 'but usually, yes? You think I am being

impetuous?" Sevajee refused to be drawn and simply shrugged again in

answer.

"We shall see, we shall see," the General said.

"Their army looks fine, I grant you, but once we break the regular

compoos, the others will run."

"I do hope so, sir."

"Depend on it," Wellesley said, then spurred on.

Sharpe looked at Sevajee.

"Are we mad to fight, sir?"

"Quite mad," Sevajee said, 'completely mad. But maybe there's no

choice."

"No choice?"

"We blundered, Sergeant. We marched too far and came too close to the

enemy, so either we attack him or run away from him, and either way we

have to fight. By attacking him we just make the fight shorter." He

twisted in the saddle and pointed towards the now hidden Kaitna.

"Do you know what's beyond that river?"

"No, sir."

"Another river, Sharpe, and they meet just a couple of miles

downstream' he pointed eastwards towards the place where the waters met

'and if we cross that ford we shall find ourselves on a tongue of land

and the only way out is forward, through a hundred thousand

Mahrattas. Death on one side and water on the other." Sevajee

laughed.

"Blundering, Sergeant, blundering!"

But if Wellesley had blundered he was still in high spirits. Once back

at Naulniah he ordered Diomed unsaddled and rubbed down, then began

issuing commands. The army's baggage would stay at Naulniah, dragged

into the village's alleyways which were to be barricaded so that no

marauding Mahratta cavalry could plunder the wagons which would be

guarded by the smallest battalion of sepoys. McCandless heard that

order given, understood its necessity, but groaned aloud when he

realized that almost five hundred infantrymen were thus being shorn

from the attacking army.

The cavalry that remained in Naulniah were ordered to saddle their

horses and ride to the Kaitna, there to form a screen on the southern

bank, while the tired infantry, who had marched all morning, were now

rousted from their tents and chivvied into ranks.

"No packs!" the sergeants called.

"Firelocks and cartridge boxes only. No packs! Off to a Sunday

battle, lads! Save your bleeding prayers and hurry up! Come on,

Johnny, boots on, lad! There's a horde of heathens to kill. Look

lively, now! Wake yourselves up! On your feet!"

The picquets of the day, composed of a half company from each of the

army's seven battalions, marched first. They splashed through the

small river north of Naulniah and were met on its far bank by one of

the General's aides who guided them onto the farm track that led to

Peepulgaon. The picquets were followed by the King's 74th accompanied

by their battalion artillery, while behind them came the second

battalion of the 12th Madras Regiment, the first battalion of the 4th

Madras, the first of the 78th Madras and the first of the 10th Madras,

and lastly the kilted Highlanders of the King's 778th. Six battalions

crossed the river and followed the beaten-earth track between fields of

millet beneath the furnace of an Indian sun. No enemy was visible as

they marched, though rumour said the whole of the Mahratta army was not

far away.

Two guns fired around one o'clock. The sound was flat and hard,

echoing across the heat-shimmering land, but the infantry could see

nothing. The sound came from their left, and the battalion officers

said there was cavalry somewhere out there, and that doubtless meant

that the cavalry's light galloper guns had engaged the enemy, or else

the enemy had brought cannon to face the British cavalry, but the

fighting did not seem to be ominous for there was silence after the two

shots. McCandless, his nerves strung by the disaster he feared was

imminent, galloped Aeolus a few yards westwards as if wanting to find

an explanation for the two gunshots, but then he thought better of it

and turned his horse back to the road.

More cannon fire sounded a few moments later, but there was nothing

urgent in the distant shots which were monotonous, flat and sporadic.

If battle had been brewing to the boil the gunshots would have sounded

hard and fast, but these shots were almost lackadaisical, as though the

gunners were merely practising on Aldershot Heath on a lazy summer's

day.

"Their guns or ours, sir?" Sharpe asked McCandless.

"Ours, I suspect," the Scotsman said.

"Cavalry galloper guns keeping the enemy horse on their toes." He

tugged on Aeolus's rein, moving the gelding out of the path of sixty

sepoy pioneers who were doubling down the road's left verge with

pick-axes and shovels on their shoulders.

The pioneers' task was to reach the Kaitna and make certain that its

banks were not too steep for the ox-drawn artillery. Wellesley

cantered after the pioneers, riding to the head of the column and

trailing a succession of aides. McCandless joined the General's party

and Sharpe kicked his horse alongside Daniel Fletcher who was mounted

on a big roan mare and leading an unsaddled Diomed by a long rein.

"He'll want him when the bay's tired," Fletcher told Sharpe, nodding

ahead at Wellesley who was now riding a tall bay stallion.

"And the mare's in case both horses get shot," he added, slapping the

rump of the horse he rode.

"So what do you do?" Sharpe asked the dragoon.

"Just stay close until he wants to change horses and keep him from

getting thirsty," Fletcher said. He carried no less than five water

canteens on his belt, bulked over a heavy sabre in a metal scabbard,

the first time Sharpe had ever seen the orderly carrying a weapon.

"Vicious thing, that," Fletcher said when he saw Sharpe glance at the

weapon, 'a good wide blade, perfect for slicing."

"Ever used it?" Sharpe asked.

"Against Dhoondiah," Fletcher answered. Dhoondiah had been a bandit

chieftain whose depredations in Mysore had finally persuaded Wellesley

to pursue him with cavalry. The resultant battle had been a short

clash of horsemen that had been won in moments by the British.

"And I killed a goat with it for the General's supper a week ago,"

Fletcher continued, drawing the heavy curved blade, 'and I think the

poor bugger died of fright when it saw the blade coming. Took its head

clean off, it did. Look at this, Sergeant." He handed the blade to

Sharpe.

"See what it says there? Just above the hilt?"

Sharpe tipped the sabre to the sun. '"Warranted Never to Fail"," he

read aloud. He grinned, for the boast seemed oddly out of place on a

thing designed to kill or maim.

"Made in Sheffield," Fletcher said, taking the blade back, 'and

guaranteed never to fail! Good slicer this is, real good. You can cut

a man in half with one of these if you get the stroke right."

Sharpe grinned.

"I'll stick with a musket."

"Not on horseback, you won't, Sergeant," Fletcher said.

"A firelock's no good on horseback. You want a blade."

"Never learned to use one," Sharpe said.

"It ain't difficult," Fletcher said with the scorn of a man who had

mastered a difficult trade.

"Keep your arm straight and use the point when you're fighting cavalry,

because if you bend the elbow the bastards will chop through your wrist

as sure as eggs, and slash away like a haymaker at infantry because

there ain't bugger all they can do back to you, not once they're on the

run. Not that you could use any kind of sword off the back of that

horse." He nodded at Sharpe's small native beast.

"It's more like an overgrown dog, that is. Does it fetch?"

The road reached the high point between the two rivers and Fletcher,

mounted high on the General's mare, caught his first glimpse of the

enemy army on the distant northern bank of the Kaitna. He whistled

softly.

"Millions of the buggers!"

"We're going to turn their flank," Sharpe said, repeating what he had

heard the General say. So far as Sharpe understood, the idea was to

cross the river at the ford which no one except Wellesley believed

existed, then make an attack on the left flank of the waiting

infantry.

The idea made sense to Sharpe, for the enemy line was facing south and,

by coming at them from the east, the British could well plunge the

compoos into confusion.

"Millions of the buggers!" Fletcher said again in wonderment, but then

the road dropped and took the enemy out of their view. The dragoon

orderly sheathed his sabre.

"But he's confident," he said, nodding ahead at Wellesley who was

dressed in his old uniform coat of the 33rd. The General wore a slim

straight sword, but had no other weapon, not even a pistol.

"He was always confident," Sharpe said.

"Cool as you like."

"He's a good fellow," Fletcher said loyally.

"Proper officer. He ain't friendly, of course, but he's always fair."

He touched his spurs to the mare's flanks because Wellesley and his

aides had hurried ahead into the village of Peepulgaon where the

villagers gaped at the foreigners in their red coats and black cocked

hats. Wellesley scattered chickens from his path as he cantered down

the dusty village street to where the road dropped down a precipitous

bluff into the half-dry bed of the Kaitna.

The pioneers arrived a moment later and began attacking the bluff to

smooth its steep slope. On the river's far bank Sharpe could see the

road twist up into the trees that half obscured the village of Waroor.

The General was right, he reckoned, and there had to be a ford, for why

else would the road show on both banks? But whether the ford was

shallow enough for the army to cross no one yet knew.

Wellesley stood his horse at the top of the bluff and drummed the

fingers of his right hand on his thigh. It was the only sign of

nerves. He was staring across the river, thinking. No enemy was in

sight, but nor should they have been for the Mahratta line was now two

miles to the west, which meant that Scindia's army was now between him

and Stevenson. Wellesley grimaced, realizing that he had already

abandoned his first principle for fighting this battle, which had been

to secure his left flank so Stevenson could join. Doubtless, the

moment the guns began their proper, concentrated work, the sound of

their cannonade would bring Stevenson hurrying across country, but now

the older man would simply have to join the fight as best he could. But

Wellesley had no regrets at posing such difficulties for Stevenson, for

the chance to turn the enemy's flank was heaven-sent. So long, that

is, as the ford was practicable.

The pioneer Captain led a dozen of his sepoys down towards the river.

"I'll just see to that far bank, sir," the Captain called up to the

General, startling Wellesley out of his reverie.

"Come back!" Wellesley shouted angrily.

"Back!"

The Captain had almost reached the water, but now turned and stared at

Wellesley in puzzlement.

"Have to grade that bluff, sir," he shouted, pointing to where the road

climbed steeply to the screen of trees on the Kaitna's northern bank.

"Too steep for guns, sir."

"Come back!" Wellesley called again, then waited as the dozen men

trudged back to the southern bank.

"The enemy can see the river, Captain," the General explained, 'and I

have no wish that they should see us yet. I do not want them knowing

our intentions, so you will wait until the first infantry make the

crossing, then do your work."

But the enemy had already seen the pioneers. The dozen men had only

been visible in the river's open bed for a few seconds, but someone in

the Mahratta gun line was wide awake and there was a sudden and violent

plume of water in the river and, almost simultaneously, the sky

battering sound of a heavy gun.

"Good shooting," McCandless said quietly when the fifteen-foot-high

fountain had subsided to leave nothing but a whirling eddy in the

river's brown water. The range must have been almost two miles, yet

the Mahrattas had turned a gun, trained and fired it in seconds, and

their aim had been almost perfect. A second gun fired and its heavy

ball ploughed a furrow in the dry, crazed mud beside the river and

bounced up to scatter bucket-loads of dry earth from the bluff's

face.

"Eighteenpounders," McCandless guessed aloud, thinking of the two heavy

siege guns that he had seen in front of Dodd's men.

"Damn," Wellesley said quietly.

"But no real harm done, I suppose."

The first of the infantry were now marching down Peepulgaon's steep

street. Lieutenant Colonel Orrock led the picquets of the day, while

behind them Sharpe could see the grenadier company of the 74th. The

Scottish drums were beating a march rhythm and the sound of the

flurries made Sharpe's blood race. The sound presaged battle. It

seemed like a dream, but there would be a battle this Sunday afternoon

and a bloody one too.

"Afternoon, Orrock," Wellesley spurred his horse to meet the infantry

vanguard.

"Straight across, I think."

"Has the ford been sounded?" Colonel Orrock, a lugubrious and

worried-looking man, asked nervously.

"Our task, I think," Wellesley said cheerfully.

"Gentlemen?" This last invitation was to his aides and orderly.

"Shall we open proceedings?"

"Come on, Sharpe," McCandless said.

"You can cross after us, Captain!" Wellesley called to the eager

pioneer Captain, then he put his big bay stallion down the slope of the

bluff and trotted towards the river. Daniel Fletcher followed close

behind with Diomed's leading rein in his hand, while the aides and

McCandless and Sevajee and Sharpe all followed. Forty horsemen would

be the first men across the Kaitna and the General would be the first

of all, and Sharpe watched as Wellesley's stallion trotted into the

river. He wanted to see how deep the water was, and he was determined

to watch the General all the way through, but suddenly the bang of an

eighteen-pounder gun bullied the sky and Sharpe glanced upstream to see

a puff of gunsmoke smear the horizon, then he heard a horse screaming

and he looked back to see that Daniel Fletcher's mount was rearing at

the water's edge. Fletcher was still in the saddle, but the orderly

had no head left, only a pulsing spurt of blood from his ragged neck.

Diomed's rein was still in the dead man's hand, but somehow the body

would not fall from the mare's saddle and she was screaming in fear as

her rider's blood splashed across her face.

A second gun fired, but high, and the shot crashed low overhead to tear

into the trees on the southern bank. A third ball smashed into the

water, drenching McCandless. Fletcher's mare bolted upstream, but was

checked by a fallen tree and so she stood, quivering, and still the

trooper's decapitated body was in the saddle and Diomed's rein in his

dead hand. The grey horse's left flank was reddened with Fletcher's

blood. The trooper had slumped now, his headless trunk leaning eerily

to drip blood into the river.

To Sharpe it seemed as if time had stopped. He was aware of someone

shouting, aware of the blood dripping from the dragoon's collar, aware

of his small horse shivering, but the sudden violence had immobilized

him. Another gun fired, this one of smaller calibre, and the ball

struck the water a hundred yards upstream, ricocheted once, then

vanished in a plume of white spray.

"Sharpe!" a voice snapped. Horsemen were wheeling in the river's

shallows and reaching for the dead man's bridle.

"Sharpe!" It was Wellesley who shouted. The General was in the middle

of the river where the water did not even reach his stirrups, so there

was a ford after all and the river could be crossed, but the enemy was

hardly going to be taken by surprise now.

"Take over as orderly, Sharpe!" Wellesley shouted.

"Hurry, man!" There was no one else to replace Fletcher, not unless

one of Wellesley's aides took over his duties, and Sharpe was the

nearest man.

"Go on, Sharpe!" McCandless said.

"Hurry, man!"

Captain Campbell had secured Fletcher's mare.

"Ride her, Sharpe!" the Captain called.

"That little horse won't keep up with us. Just let her go.

Let her go."

Sharpe dismounted and ran to the mare. Campbell was trying to dislodge

Fletcher's blood-soaked body, but the trooper's feet were caught in the

stirrups. Sharpe heaved Fletcher's left boot free, then gave the

booted leg a tug and the corpse slid towards him. He jumped back as

the bloody remnants of the neck, all sinew and flesh and tattered

scraps, slapped at his face. The corpse fell into the edge of the

river and Sharpe stepped over it to mount the General's mare.

"Get the General's canteens," Campbell ordered him, and an instant

later another eighteen-pounder shot hammered low overhead like a clap

of thunder.

"The canteens, man, hurry!" Campbell urged Sharpe, but Sharpe was

having trouble untying the water bottles from Fletcher's belt, so

instead he heaved the body over so that a gush of blood spurted from

the neck to be instantly diluted in the shallow water. He tugged at

the trooper's belt buckle, unfastened it, then hauled the belt free

with its pouches, canteens and the heavy sabre. He wrapped the belt

over his own, hastily buckled it, then clambered up into the mare's

saddle and fiddled his right foot into the stirrup. Campbell was

holding out Diomed's rein.

Sharpe took the rein.

"Sorry, sir." He apologized for making the aide wait.

"Stay close to the General," Campbell ordered him, then leaned over and

patted Sharpe's arm.

"Stay close, be alert, enjoy the day, Sergeant," he said with a grin.

"It looks as if it's going to be a lively afternoon!"

"Thank you, sir," Sharpe said. The first infantry were in the ford now

and Sharpe turned the mare, kicked back his heels and tugged Diomed

through the water. Campbell was spurring ahead to catch up with

Wellesley and Sharpe clumsily kicked the mare into a canter and was

almost thrown as she stumbled on the riverbed, but he somehow clung to

her mane as she recovered. A round shot thrashed the water white to

his left, drenching him with spray. The musket had fallen off his

shoulder and was dangling awkwardly from his elbow and he could not

manage both it and Diomed's rein, so he let the firelock drop into the

river, then wrenched the sword and the heavy canteens into a more

comfortable position. Bugger this, he thought. Lost a hat, a horse

and a gun in less than an hour!

The pioneers were hacking at the bluff on the northern bank to make the

slope less steep, but the first galloper guns, those that accompanied

the picquets of the day, were already in the Kaitna. Galloper guns

were drawn by horses and the gunners shouted at the pioneers to clear

out of their way. The pioneers scattered as the horses came up from

the river with water streaming from the leading gun's spinning wheels;

a whip cracked over the leader's head and the team galloped up the

bluff with the gun and limber bouncing erratically behind. A

gunner was thrown off the limber, but he picked himself up and ran

after the cannon. Sharpe kicked his horse up the bluff once the second

gun was safely past and suddenly he was in low ground, protected from

the enemy's cannonade by the rising land to his left.

But where the hell was Wellesley? He could see no one on the high

ground that led towards the enemy, and the only men on the road

straight ahead were the leading companies of the picquets of the day

who continued to march northwards. A slapping sound came from the

river and he twisted in his saddle to see that a round shot had whipped

through a file of infantry. A body floated downstream in eddies of

blood, then the sergeants shouted at the ranks to close up and the

infantry kept on coming. But where the hell was Sharpe to go? To his

right was the village of Waroor, half hidden behind its trees and for a

second Sharpe thought the General must have gone there, but then he saw

Lieutenant Colonel Orrock riding up onto the higher ground to the left

and Sharpe guessed the Colonel was following Wellesley and so he tugged

the mare that way.

The land climbed to a gentle crest across stubble fields dotted by a

few trees. Colonel Orrock was the only man in sight and he was forcing

his horse up the slope towards the skyline and so Sharpe followed

him.

He could hear the enemy guns firing, presumably still bombarding the

ford that had not been supposed to exist, but as he kicked the mare up

through the growing crop the guns suddenly ceased and all he could hear

was the thump of hooves, the banging of the sabre's metal scabbard

against his boot and the dull sound of the Scottish drums behind.

Orrock had turned north along the skyline and Sharpe, following him,

saw that the General and his aides were clustered under a group of

trees from where they were gazing westwards through their telescopes.

He joined them in the shade, and felt awkward to be in such exalted

company without McCandless, but Campbell turned in his saddle and

grinned.

"Well done, Sergeant. Still with us, eh?"

"Managing, sir," Sharpe said, rearranging the canteens that had tangled

themselves into a lump.

"Oh, dear God," Colonel Orrock said a moment later. He was gazing

through his own telescope, and whatever he saw made him shake his head

before peering through the glass again.

"Dear me," he said, and Sharpe stood in his stirrups to see what had so

upset the East India Company Colonel.

The enemy was redeploying. Wellesley had crossed the ford to bring his

small army onto the enemy's left flank, but the Mahratta commander had

seen his purpose and was now denying him the advantage. The enemy line

was marching towards the Peepulgaon ford, then wheeling left to make a

new defence line that stretched clean across the land between the two

rivers; a line that would now face head on towards Wellesley's army.

Instead of attacking a vulnerable flank, Wellesley would be forced to

make a head-on assault. Nor were the Mahrattas making their manoeuvre

in a panicked hurry, but were marching calmly in disciplined ranks. The

guns were moving with them, drawn by bullocks or elephants. The enemy

was less than a mile away now and their steady unhurried re deployment

was obvious to the watching officers.

"They anticipate us, sir!" Orrock informed Wellesley, as though the

General might not have understood the purpose of the enemy's

manoeuvre.

"They do," Wellesley agreed calmly, 'they do indeed." He collapsed his

telescope and patted his horse's neck.

"And they manoeuvre very well!" he added admiringly, as though he was

engaged in nothing more ominous than watching a brigade go through its

paces in Hyde Park.

"Your men are through the ford?" he asked Orrock.

"They are, sir, they are," Orrock said. The Colonel had a nervous

habit of jutting his head forward every few seconds as if his collar

was too tight.

"And they can reverse themselves," he added meaningfully.

Wellesley ignored the defeatist sentiment.

"Take them one half-mile up the road," he ordered Orrock, 'then deploy

on the high ground this side of the road. I shall see you before we

advance."

Orrock gazed goggle-eyed at the General.

"Deploy?"

"On this side of the road, if you please, Colonel. You will form the

right of our line, Colonel, and have Wallace's brigade on your left.

Let us do it now, Colonel, if you would so oblige me?"

"Oblige you .. ." Orrock said, his head darting forward like a

turtle.

"Of course," he added nervously, then turned his horse and spurred it

back towards the road.

"Barclay?" the General addressed one of his aides.

"My compliments to Colonel Maxwell and he will bring all Company and

King's cavalry to take post to Orrock's right. Native horse will stay

south of the river."

There was still enemy cavalry south of the Kaitna and the horsemen from

Britain's Indian allies would stay on that bank to keep those enemies

at bay.

"Then stay at the ford," Wellesley went on addressing Barclay, 'and

tell the rest of the infantry to form on Orrock's picquets.

Two lines, Barclay, two lines, and the 778th will form the left flank

here."

The General, who had been gazing at the enemy's calm re deployment now

turned to Barclay who was scribbling in pencil on a scrap of paper.

"First line, from the left. The 778th, Dallas's 10th, Corben's 78th,

Orrock's picquets. Second line, from the left. Hill's 4th, Macleod's

i2th, then the 74th. They are to form their lines and wait for my

orders. You understand? They are to wait." Barclay nodded, then

tugged on his reins and spurred his horse back towards the ford as the

General turned again to watch the enemy's re deployment

"Very fine work," he said approvingly.

"I doubt we could have manoeuvred any more smartly than that. You

think they were readying to cross the river and attack us?"

Major Blackiston, his engineer aide, nodded.

"It would explain why they were ready to move, sir."

"We shall just have to discover whether they fight as well as they

manoeuvre," Wellesley said, collapsing his telescope, then he sent

Blackiston north to explore the ground up to the River Juah.

"Come on, Campbell," Wellesley said when Blackiston was gone and, to

Sharpe's surprise, instead of riding back to where the army was

crossing the ford, the General spurred his horse still further west

towards the enemy.

Campbell followed and Sharpe decided he had better go as well.

The three men rode into a steep-sided valley that was thick with trees

and brush, then up its far side to another stretch of open farmland.

They cantered through a field of unharvested millet, then across

pastureland, always inclining north towards another low hill crest.

"I'll oblige you for a canteen, Sergeant," Wellesley called as they

neared the crest and Sharpe thumped his heels on the mare's flanks to

catch up with the General, then fumbled a canteen free and held it out,

but that meant taking his left hand off the reins while his right was

still holding Diomed's tether and the mare, freed of the rein, swerved

away from the General. Wellesley caught up with Sharpe and took the

canteen.

"You might tie Diomed's rein to your belt, Sergeant," he said.

"It will provide you with another hand."

A man needed three hands to do Sharpe's job, but once they reached the

low crest the General halted again and so gave Sharpe time to fasten

the Arab's rein to Fletcher's belt. The General was staring at the

enemy who was now only a quarter-mile away, well inside cannon shot,

but either the enemy guns were not ready to fire or else they were

under orders not to waste powder on a mere three horsemen. Sharpe took

the opportunity to explore what was in Fletcher's pouch. There was a

piece of mouldy bread that had been soaked when the trooper's body fell

into the river, a piece of salted meat that Sharpe suspected was dried

goat, and a sharpening stone. That made him half draw the sabre to

feel its edge. It was keen.

"A nasty little settlement!" Wellesley said cheerfully.

"Aye, it is, sir!" Campbell agreed enthusiastically.

"That must be Assaye," Wellesley remarked.

"You think we're about to make it famous?"

"I trust so, sir," Campbell said.

"Not infamous, I hope," Wellesley said, and gave his short, high

pitched laugh.

Sharpe saw they were both staring towards a village that lay to the

north of the enemy's new line. Like every village in this part of

India it was provided with a rampart made of the outermost houses' mud

walls.

Such walls could be five or six feet in thickness, and though they

might crumble to the touch of an artillery bombardment, they still made

a formidable obstacle to infantry. Enemy soldiers stood on every

rooftop, while outside the wall, in an array as thick as a hedgehog's

quills, was an assortment of cannon.

"A very nasty little place," the General said.

"We must avoid it. I see your fellows are there, Sharpe!"

"My fellows, sir?" Sharpe asked in puzzlement.

"White coats, Sergeant."

So Dodd's regiment had taken their place just to the south of Assaye.

They were still on the left of Pohlmann's line, but now that line

stretched southwards from the bristling de fences about the village to

the bank of the River Kaitna. The infantry were already in place and

the last of the guns were now being hauled into their positions in

front of the enemy line, and Sharpe remembered Syud Sevajee's grim

words about the rivers meeting, and he knew that the only way out of

this narrowing neck of land was either back through the fords or else

straight ahead through the enemy's army.

"I see we shall have to earn our pay today," the General said to no one

in particular.

"How far ahead of the infantry is their gun line, Campbell?"

"A hundred yards, sir?" the young Scotsman guessed after gazing

through his spyglass for a while.

"A hundred and fifty, I think," Wellesley said.

Sharpe was watching the village. A lane led from its eastern wall and

a file of cavalry was riding out from the houses towards some trees.

"They think to allow us to take the guns," Wellesley guessed,

'reckoning we'll be so pounded by round shot and peppered by canister

that their infantry can then administer the coup de grace. They wish

to treat us to a double dose! Guns and fire locks

The trees where the cavalry had disappeared dropped into a steep gully

that twisted towards the higher ground from where Wellesley was

observing the enemy. Sharpe, watching the tree-filled gully, saw birds

fly out of the branches as the cavalry advanced beneath the thick

leaves.

"Horsemen, sir," Sharpe warned.

"Where, man, where?" Wellesley asked.

Sharpe pointed towards the gully.

"It's full of the bastards, sir. They came out of the village a couple

of moments ago. You can't see them, sir, but I think there might be a

hundred men hidden there."

Wellesley did not dispute Sharpe.

"They want to put us in the bag," he said in seeming amusement.

"Keep an eye out for them, Sharpe. I have no wish to watch the battle

from the comfort of Scindia's tent." He looked back to the enemy's

line where the last of the heavy guns were being lugged into place.

Those last two guns were the big eighteen pounder siege guns that had

done the damage as the British army crossed the ford, and now the huge

pieces were being em placed in front of Dodd's regiment. Elephants

pulled the guns into position, then were led away towards the baggage

park beyond the village.

"How many guns do you reckon, Campbell?" the General asked.

"Eighty-two, sir, not counting the ones by Assaye."

"Around twenty there, I think. We shall be earning our pay! And their

line's longer than I thought. We shall have to extend." He was not so

much speaking to Campbell as to himself, but now he glanced at the

young Scots officer.

"Did you count their infantry?"

"Fifteen thousand in the line, sir?" Campbell hazarded.

"And at least as many again in the village," Wellesley said, snapping

his telescope shut, 'not to mention a horde of horsemen behind them,

but they'll only count if we meet disaster. It's the fifteen thousand

in front who concern us. Beat them and we beat all." He made a

pencilled note in a small black book, then stared again at the enemy

line beneath its bright flags.

"They did manoeuvre well! A creditable performance. But do they

fight, eh? That's the nub of it. Do they fight?"

"Sir!" Sharpe called urgently, for, not two hundred paces away, the

first enemy horsemen had emerged from the gully with their tulwars and

lances bright in the afternoon sun, and now were spurring towards

Wellesley.

"Back the way we came," the General said, 'and fairly briskly, I

think."

This was the second time in one day that Sharpe had been pursued by

Mahratta cavalry, but the first time he had been mounted on a small

native horse and now he was on one of the General's own chargers and

the difference was night and day. The Mahrattas were at a full gallop,

but Wellesley and his two companions never went above a canter and

still their big horses easily outstripped the frantic pursuit. Sharpe,

clinging for dear life to the mare's pommel, glanced behind after two

minutes and saw the enemy horsemen pulling up. So that, he thought,

was why officers were willing to pay a small fortune for British and

Irish horses.

The three men dropped into the valley, climbed its farther side and

Sharpe saw that the British infantry had now advanced from the road to

form its line of attack along the low ridge that lay parallel to the

road, and the redcoat array looked pitifully small compared to the

great enemy host less than a mile to the west. Instead of a line of

heavy guns, there was only a scatter of light six-pounder cannon and a

single battery of fourteen bigger guns, and to face Pohlmann's three

compoos of fifteen thousand men there were scarcely five thousand

red-coated infantry, but Wellesley seemed unworried by the odds. Sharpe

did not see how the battle was to be won, indeed he wondered why it was

being fought at all, but whenever the doubt made his fears surge he

only had to look at Wellesley and take comfort from the General's

serene confidence.

Wellesley rode first to the left of his line where the kilted

Highlanders of the 778th waited in line.

"You'll advance in a moment or two, Harness," he told their Colonel.

"Straight ahead! I fancy you'll find bayonets will be useful. Tell

your skirmishers that there are cavalry about, though I doubt you'll

meet them at this end of the line."

Harness appeared not to hear the General. He sat on a big horse as

black as his towering bearskin hat and carried a huge claymore that

looked as if it had been killing the enemies of Scotland for a century

or more.

"It's the Sabbath, Wellesley," he finally spoke, though without looking

at the General. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh is the

Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work." The

Colonel glowered at Wellesley.

"Are you sure, man, that you want to fight today?"

"Quite sure, Colonel," Wellesley answered very equably.

Harness grimaced.

"Won't be the first commandment I've broken, so to hell and away with

it." He gave his huge claymore a flourish.

"You'll not need to worry about my rogues, Wellesley, they can kill as

well as any man, even if it is a Sunday."

"I never doubted it."

"Straight ahead, eh? And I'll lay the lash on any dog who falters. You

hear that, you bastards! I'll flog you red!"

"I wish you joy of the afternoon, Colonel," Wellesley said to Harness,

then he rode north to speak with his other five battalion commanders.

He gave them much the same instructions as he had given Colonel

Harness, though because the Madrassi sepoys deployed no skirmishers, he

simply warned them that they had one chance of victory and that was to

march straight into the enemy fire and, by enduring it, carry their

bayonets into the Mahratta ranks. He told the commanding officers of

the two sepoy battalions in the second line that they would now need to

join the front line.

"You'll incline right," he told them, 'forming between Corben's 78th and

Colonel Orrock's picquets." He had hoped to attack in two lines, so

that the men behind could reinforce those in front, but the enemy array

was too wide and so he would need to throw every infantryman forward in

one line. There would be no reserves. The General rode to meet

Colonel Wallace who today would command a brigade of his own 74th

Highlanders and two sepoy battalions which, with Orrock's picquets,

would form the right side of the attacking force. He warned Wallace of

the line's extension.

"I'll have Orrock incline right to give your sepoys room," he promised

Wallace, 'and I'm putting your own regiment on Orrock's right flank."

Wallace, because he was commanding the brigade, would not lead his own

Highlanders who would be under the command of his deputy, Major

Swinton. Colonel McCandless had joined his friend Wallace, and

Wellesley greeted him.

"I see your man holds their left, McCandless."

"So I've seen, sir."

"But I don't wish to tangle with him early on. He's hard by the

village and they've made it a stronghold, so we'll take the right of

their line, then swing north and pin the rest against the Juah. You'll

get your chance, McCandless, get your chance."

I'm depending on it, sir," McCandless answered. The Colonel nodded a

mute greeting to Sharpe, who then had to follow Wellesley to the ranks

of the 74th.

"You'll oblige me, Swinton," Wellesley said, 'by doubling your fellows

to the right and taking station beyond Colonel Orrock's picquets.

You're to form the new right flank. I've told Colonel Orrock to move

somewhat to his right, so you'll have a good way to go to make your new

position. You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir," Swinton said.

"Orrock will incline right and we double round behind him to form the

new flank and sepoys replace us here."

"Good man!" Wellesley said, then rode on to Colonel Orrock. Sharpe

guessed that the General had ordered the 74th to move outside Orrock

because he did not trust the nervous Colonel to hold the right flank.

Orrock's contingent of half companies was a small but potent force, but

it lacked the cohesion of the men's parent battalions.

"You're to lead them right wards Wellesley told the red-faced Colonel,

'but not too far. You comprehend? Not too far right! Because you'll

find a defended village on your front right flank and it's a brute. I

don't want any of our men near it until we've sent the enemy infantry

packing."

"I go right?" Orrock asked.

"You incline right," Wellesley said, 'then straighten up. Two hundred

paces should do it. Incline right, Orrock, give the line two hundred

paces more width, then straighten and march straight for the enemy.

Swinton will be bringing his men onto your right flank. Don't wait for

him, let him catch you, and don't hesitate when we attack. Just go

straight in with the bayonet."

Orrock jutted his head, scratched his chin and blinked.

"I go right wards

"Then straight ahead," Wellesley said patiently.

"Yes, sir," Orrock said, then jerked nervously as one of his small

six-pounder cannon, which had been deployed fifty yards in front of his

line, fired.

"What the devil?" Wellesley asked, turning to look at the small gun

that had leaped back five or six yards. He could not see what the gun

had fired at, for the smoke of the discharge made a thick cloud in

front of the muzzle, but a second later an enemy round shot screamed

through the smoke, twitching it, to bounce between two of Orrock's half

companies. Wellesley cantered to his left to see that the enemy guns

had opened fire. For the moment they were merely sending ranging

shots, but soon the guns would be pouring their metal at the red

ranks.

The General cantered back southwards. It was close to mid afternoon

now and the sun was burning the world white. The air was humid, hard

to breathe, and every man in the British line was sweating. The enemy

round shot bounced on the ground in front of them, and one shot

ricocheted up to churn a file of sepoys into blood and bone. The sound

of the enemy cannon was harsh, banging over the warm ground in

successive punches that came closer and closer together as more guns

joined the cannonade. The British guns replied, and the smoke of their

discharges betrayed their positions, and the enemy gunners levered

their pieces to aim at the British cannon which, hugely outnumbered,

were having by far the worst of the exchange. Sharpe saw the earth

around one six-pounder struck again and again by enemy round shot, each

strike kicking up a barrow-load of soil, and then the small gun seemed

to disintegrate as a heavy ball struck it plumb on the front of its

carriage.

Splinters flew to eviscerate the crew that had been ramming the gun.

The barrel reared up, its trunnions tearing out of the carriage, then

the heavy metal tube slowly toppled onto a wounded man. Another gunner

reeled away, gasping for breath, while a third lay on the ground

looking as though he slept.

A piper began to play as the General neared the kilted 778th.

"I thought I ordered all musicians to leave their instruments behind,

drummers excepted," Wellesley said angrily.

"Very hard to go into battle without the pipes, sir," Campbell said

reprovingly.

"Hard to save the wounded without orderlies," Wellesley complained. In

battle the pipers' job was to save the wounded, but Harness had

blithely disobeyed the order and brought his bagpipers. However, it

was too late to worry about that disobedience now. Another round shot

found its mark in a sepoy battalion, flinging men aside like broken

dolls, while a high ball struck a tall tree, shaking its topmost leaves

and provoking a small green parrot to squawk as it fled the branches.

Wellesley reined in close to the 778th. He glanced to his right, then

looked back to the eight or nine hundred yards of country that

separated his small force from the enemy. The sound of the guns was

constant now, its thunder deafening, and the smoke of their cannonade

was hiding the Mahratta infantry that waited for his assault. If the

General was nervous he showed no sign of it, unless the fingers

drumming softly against his thigh betrayed some worry. This was his

first proper battle in the field, gun against gun and infantry against

infantry, yet he seemed entirely cool.

Sharpe licked dry lips. His mare fidgeted and Diomed kept pricking his

ears at the gunfire. Another British gun was hit, this time losing a

wheel to an enemy round shot. The gunners rolled a new wheel forward,

while the officer commanding the small battery ran forward with a

handspike. The infantry waited beneath their bright silk colours,

their long line of two ranks tipped with shining bayonets.

"Time to go," Wellesley said very quietly.

"Forward, gentlemen," he said, but still not loudly. He took a

breath.

"Forward!" he shouted and, at the same time, took off his cocked hat

and waved it towards the enemy.

The British drums began their beat. Sergeants shouted. Officers drew

swords. The men began to march.

And the battle had begun.

CHAPTER 10

The redcoats advanced in a line of two ranks. The troops spread out as

they walked and sergeants shouted at the files to keep closed. The

infantry first had to pass the British gun line that was suffering

badly in an unequal artillery duel with the Goanese gunners. The enemy

was firing shell as well as solid shot, and Sharpe flinched as a shell

exploded among a team of oxen that was picketed a hundred yards behind

their gun. The wounded beasts bellowed, and one broke from its picket

to limp with a bleeding and trailing leg towards the 10th Madras

infantry.

A British officer ran and put the beast out of its misery with his

pistol and the sepoys stepped delicately about the shuddering corpse.

Colonel Harness, seeing that his two small battalion guns would

inevitably be destroyed if they stayed in action, ordered his gunners

to limber up and follow the regiment forward.

"Do it fast, you rogues! I want you close behind me."

The enemy gunners, seeing that they had won the fight between the

batteries, turned their pieces on the infantry. They were firing at

seven hundred yards now, much too far for canister, but a round shot

could whip a file into bloody scraps in the blinking of an eye. The

sound of the guns was unending, one shot melding into the next and the

whole making a thunderous noise of deafening violence. The enemy line

was shrouded in grey-white smoke which was constantly lit by flashes of

gunfire deep in the smoke's heart. Sometimes a Mahratta battery would

pause to let the smoke thin and Sharpe, riding twenty paces behind the

General who was advancing just to the right of the 778th, could watch

the enemy gunners heave at their pieces, see them back away as the gun

captain swung the linstock over the barrel, then the gun would

disappear again in a cloud of powder smoke and, an instant later, a

ball would plunge down in front of the infantry. Sometimes it would

bounce clean over the men's heads, but too often the heavy shots

slammed into the files and men would be broken apart in a spray of

blood. Sharpe saw the front half of a shattered musket wheel up out of

the Highlanders' ranks. It turned in the air, pursued by its owner's

blood, then fell to impale its bayonet into the turf. A gentle north

wind blew a patch of gunsmoke away from the centre of the enemy line

where the guns were almost axle boss to axle boss. Sharpe watched men

ram the barrels, watched them run clear, watched the smoke blossom

again and heard the shriek of a round shot just overhead. Sometimes

Sharpe could see the tongue of dark-red fire streaking towards him in

the cloud's heart, and then the lead-grey stroke of a ball arcing

towards him in the sky, and once he saw the madly spiralling wisp of

smoke left by the burning fuse of a shell, but every time the shots

went wide or else fell short to churn up a dusty patch of earth.

"Close the files!" the sergeants shouted.

"Close up!"

The drummer boys beat the advance. There was low ground ahead, and the

sooner the attacking line was in that gentle valley, the sooner they

would be out of sight of the gunners. Wellesley looked to his right

and saw that Orrock had paused in his advance and that the 74th, who

should have been forming to the right of Orrock's men, had stopped as

well.

"Tell Orrock to go! Tell him to go!" the General called to Campbell

who spurred across the advancing line. His horse galloped through a

cloud of shell smoke, leaped a broken limber, then Sharpe lost sight of

the aide. Wellesley urged his horse closer to the ySth who were now

drawing ahead of the sepoys. The Highlanders were taller than the

Madrassi battalions and their stride was longer as they hurried to gain

the dead ground where the bombardment could not reach them. A bouncing

shell came to rest near the grenadier company that was on the right of

the 778this line and the kilted soldiers skipped aside, all but for one

man who dashed out of the front rank as the missile spun crazily on the

ground with its fuse spitting out a tangle of smoke. He rammed his

right boot on the shell to make it still, then struck hard down with

the brass butt of his musket to knock the fuse free.

"Am I spared the punishment now, Sergeant?" he called.

"You get in file, John, get in file," the sergeant answered.

Wellesley grinned, then shuddered as a ball went perilously close to

his hat. He looked round, seeking his aides, and saw Barclay.

"The calm before the storm," the General remarked.

"Some calm, sir."

"Some storm," an Indian answered. He was one of the Mahratta chiefs

who were allied to the British and whose horsemen were keeping the

cavalry busy south of the river. Three such men rode with Wellesley

and one had a badly trained horse that kept skittering sideways

whenever a shell exploded.

Major Blackiston, the engineer on Wellesley's staff who had been sent

to reconnoitre the land north of the army, now galloped back behind the

advancing line.

"Broken ground up by the village, sir, cut by gullies," he reported,

'no place to advance."

Wellesley grunted. He had no intention of sending infantry near the

village yet, so Blackiston's report was not immediately useful.

"Did you see Orrock?"

"He was worried about his two guns, sir. Can't take them forward

because the teams have all been killed, but Campbell's chivvying him

on."

Wellesley stood in his stirrups to look north and saw Orrock's picquets

at last moving smartly away. They were marching obliquely, without

their two small guns, making space for the two sepoy battalions to come

into the line. The 74th was beyond them, vanishing into a fold of

ground.

"Not too far, Orrock, not too far," Wellesley muttered, then he lost

sight of Orrock's men as his horse followed the 778th into the lower

ground.

"Once we have them pinned against the river," he asked Blackiston,

gesturing to show he meant the River Juah to the north, 'can they get

away?"

"Eminently fordable, sir, I'm afraid," Blackiston answered.

"I doubt they can move more than a handful of the guns down the bank,

but a man can escape easily enough."

Wellesley grunted an acknowledgement and spurred ahead, leaving the

engineer behind.

"He didn't even ask if I was chased!" Blackiston said to Barclay with

mock indignation.

"Were you, John?"

"Damned sure I was. Two dozen of the bastards on those wiry little

ponies. They look like children riding to hounds."

"But no bullet holes?" Barclay asked.

"Not a one," Blackiston said regretfully, then saw Sharpe's surprised

look.

"It's a wager, Sergeant," the engineer explained.

"Whichever of the General's family ends up with the most bullet holes

wins the pot."

"Do I count, sir?"

"You replace Fletcher, and he didn't have to pay to get in because he

claimed he was penniless. We admitted him from the goodness of our

hearts. But no cheating now. We can't have fellows poking their coats

with swords to win points."

"How many points does Fletcher get, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"For having his head blown off?"

"He's disqualified, of course, on grounds of extreme carelessness."

Sharpe laughed. Blackiston's words were not funny, of course, but the

laughter burst out of him, causing Wellesley to turn in his saddle and

give him a scowl. In truth Sharpe was fighting a growing fear. For

the moment he was safe enough, for the left flank of the attack was now

in dead ground and the enemy bombardment was concentrating on the sepoy

battalions who had still not reached the valley, but Sharpe could hear

the whip-fast rumble of the round shots tearing up the air, he could

hear the cannon fire, and every few seconds a howitzer shell would fall

into the valley and explode in a puff of flaming smoke. So far the

howitzers had failed to do any damage, but Sharpe could see the small

bushes bend away from their blasts and hear the scraps of shell casing

rip through leaves. In places the dry brush had caught fire.

He tried to concentrate on the small things. One of the canteens had a

broken strap, so he knotted it. He watched his mare's ears flicker at

every shell burst and he wondered if horses felt fear. Did they

understand this kind of danger? He watched the Scots, stolidly

advancing through the shrubs and trees, magnificent in their feathered

bearskin hats and their pleated kilts. They were a long way from

bloody home, he thought, and was surprised that he did not really feel

that for himself, but he did not know where home was. Not London, for

sure, though he had grown up there. England? He supposed so, but what

was England to him? Not what it was to Major Blackiston, he guessed.

He wondered again about Pohlmann's offer, and thought what it would be

like to be standing in sash and sword behind that line of Mahratta

guns. Safe as houses, he reckoned, just standing there and watching

through the smoke as a thin line of redcoat enemies marched into

horror. So why had he not accepted? And he knew the real reason was

not some half-felt love of country, nor an aversion to Dodd, but

because the only sash and sword he wanted were the ones that would let

him go back to England and spit on the men who had made his life

miserable. Except there would be no sash and sword. Sergeants did not

get made into officers, not often, and he was suddenly ashamed of ever

having quizzed McCandless about the matter. But at least the Colonel

had not laughed at him.

Wellesley had turned to speak to Colonel Harness.

"We'll give the guns a volley of musketry, Harness, at your discretion.

That should give us time to reload, but save the second volley for

their infantry."

"I'd already worked out the same for myself," Harness answered with a

scowl.

"And I'll not use skirmishers, not on a Sunday." Usually the light

company went ahead of the rest of the battalion and scattered into a

loose line that would fire at the enemy before the main attack arrived,

but Harness must have decided that he would rather reserve the light

company's fire for the one volley he planned to unload on the

gunners.

"Soon be over," Wellesley said, not contesting Harness's decision to

keep his light company in line, and Sharpe decided the General must be

nervous for those last three words were unusually loquacious. Wellesley

himself must have decided he had betrayed his feelings, for he looked

blacker than ever. His high spirits had vanished ever since the enemy

artillery had started firing.

The Scots were climbing now. They were tramping through stubble and at

any minute they would cross the brow of the gentle hill and find

themselves back in the gunners' sights. The first the gunners would

see would be the two regimental standards, then the officers on

horseback, then the line of bearskins, and after that the whole red,

white and black array of a battalion in line with the glint of their

fixed bayonets showing in the sun. And God help us then, Sharpe

thought, because every buggering gun straight ahead must be reloaded by

now and just waiting for its target, and suddenly the first round shot

banged on the crest just a few paces ahead and ricocheted harmlessly

overhead.

"That man fired early," Barclay said.

"Take his name."

Sharpe looked to his right. The next four battalions, all sepoys, were

safe in the dead ground now, while Orrock's picquets and the 74th had

vanished among the trees north of the valley. Harness's Scots would

climb into view first and, for a moment or two, would have the gunners'

undivided attention. Some of the Highlanders were hurrying, as if to

get the ordeal over.

"Hold your dressing!" Harness bellowed at them.

"This ain't a race to the tavern! Damn you!"

Elsie. Sharpe suddenly remembered the name of a girl who had worked in

the tavern near Wetherby where he had fled after running away from

Brewhouse Lane. Why had he thought of her, he wondered,

and he had a sudden vision of the taproom, all steaming on a winter

night from men's wet coats, and Elsie and the other girls carrying the

ale on trays and the fire sputtering in the hearth and the blind

shepherd getting drunk and the dogs sleeping under the tables, and he

imagined walking back into that smoke-blackened room with his officer's

sash and sword, and then he forgot all about Yorkshire as the 778th,

with Wellesley's family on its right, emerged onto the flat land in

front of the enemy guns.

Sharpe's first surprised reaction was how close they were. The low

ground had brought them within a hundred and fifty paces of the enemy

guns, and his second reaction was how splendid the enemy looked, for

their guns were lined up as though for inspection, while behind them

the Mahratta battalions stood in four closely dressed ranks beneath

their flags, and then he thought that this was what death must look

like, and just as he thought that, so the whole gorgeous array of the

enemy army vanished behind a vast bank of smoke, a roiling bank in

which the smoke twisted as though it was tortured, and every few yards

there was a spear of flame in the whiteness, while in front of the

cloud the crops flattened away from the blast of the exploding powder

as the heavy round shots tore through the Highlanders' files.

There seemed to be blood everywhere, and broken men falling or sliding

in the carnage. Somewhere a man gasped, but no one was screaming. A

piper dropped his instrument and ran to a fallen man whose leg had been

torn away. Every few yards there was a tangle of dead and dying men,

showing where the round shot had snatched files from the regiment. A

young officer tried to calm his horse which was edging sideways in

fright, its eyes white and head tossing. Colonel Harness guided his

own horse round a disembowelled man without giving the dead man a

glance. Sergeants shouted angrily for the files to close up, as though

it was the Highlanders' fault that there were gaps in the line. Then

everything seemed oddly silent. Wellesley turned and spoke to Barclay,

but Sharpe did not hear a thing, then he realized that his ears were

ringing from the terrible sound of that discharge of gunnery. Diomed

pulled away from him and he tugged the grey horse back. Fletcher's

blood had dried to a crust on Diomed's flank. Flies crawled all over

the blood. A Highlander was swearing terribly as his comrades marched

away from him. He was on his hands and knees, with no obvious wound,

but then he looked up at Sharpe, spoke one last obscenity and collapsed

forward.

More flies congregated on the shining blue spill of the disembowelled

man's guts. Another man crawled through stubble, dragging his musket

by its whitened sling.

"Steady now!" Harness shouted.

"Damn your haste! Ain't running a race! Think of your mothers!"

"Mothers?" Blackiston asked.

"Close up!" a sergeant shouted.

"Close up!"

The Mahratta gunners would be frantically reloading, but this time with

canister. The gunsmoke was dissipating, twisting as the small breeze

carried it away, and Sharpe could see the misty shapes of men ramming

barrels and carrying charges to muzzles. Other men hand spiked gun

trails to line the recoiled weapons on the Scots.

Wellesley was curbing his stallion lest it get too far ahead of the

Highlanders. Nothing showed on the right. The sepoys were still in

dead ground and the right flank was lost among the scatter of trees and

broken ground to the north, so that for the moment it seemed as if

Harness's Highlanders were fighting the battle all on their own, six

hundred men against a hundred thousand, but the Scotsmen did not

falter. They just left their wounded and dead behind and crossed the

open land towards the guns that were loaded with their deaths. The

piper began playing again, and the wild music seemed to put a new

spring in the Highlanders' steps. They were walking to death, but they

went in perfect order and in seeming calm. No wonder men made songs

about the Scots, Sharpe thought, then turned as hooves sounded behind

and he saw it was Captain Campbell returning from his errand.

The Captain grinned at Sharpe.

"I thought I'd be too late."

"You're in time, sir. Just in time, sir," Sharpe said, but for what?

he wondered.

Campbell rode on to Wellesley to make his report. The General

listened, nodded, then the guns straight ahead started firing again,

only raggedly this time as each enemy gun fired as soon as it was

loaded.

The sound of each gun was a terrible bang, as deafening as a thump on

the ear, and the canister flecked the field in front of the Scots with

a myriad puffs of dust before bouncing up to snatch men backwards.

Each round was a metal canister, crammed with musket balls or shards of

metal and scraps of stone, and as it left the barrel the canister was

ripped apart to spread its missiles like a giant blast of duck shot

Another cannon fired, then another, each gunshot pummelling the land

and each taking its share of Scotsmen to eternity, or else making

another cripple for the parish or a sufferer for the surgeon. The

drummer boys were still playing, though one was limping and another was

dripping blood onto his drums king The piper began playing a jauntier

tune, as though this walk into an enemy horde was something to

celebrate, and some of the Highlanders quickened their pace.

"Not so eager!" Harness shouted.

"Not so eager!" His basket-hilted claymore was in his hand and he was

close behind his men's two ranks as though he wanted to spur through

and carry the dreadful blade against the gunners who were flaying his

regiment. A bearskin was blown apart by canister, leaving the man

beneath untouched.

"Steady now!" a major called.

"Close up! Close up!" the sergeants shouted.

"Close the files!"

Corporals, designated as file-closers, hurried behind the ranks and

dragged men left and right to seal the gaps blown by the guns. The

gaps were bigger now, for a well-aimed barrel of canister could take

four or five files down, while a round shot could only blast away a

single file at a time.

Four guns fired, a fifth, then a whole succession of guns exploded

together and the air around Sharpe seemed to be filled with a rushing,

shrieking wind, and the Highlanders' line seemed to twist in that

violent gale, but though it left men behind, men who were bleeding and

vomiting and crying and calling for their comrades or their mothers,

the others closed their ranks and marched stolidly on. More guns

fired, blanketing the enemy with smoke, and Sharpe could hear the

canister hitting the regiment. Each blast brought a rattling sound as

bullets struck muskets, while the Highlanders, like infantry

everywhere, made sure their guns' wide stocks covered their groins. The

line was shorter now, much shorter, and it had almost reached the

lingering edge of the great bank of smoke pumped out by the enemy's

guns.

'ySth," Harness shouted in a huge voice, 'halt!"

Wellesley curbed his horse. Sharpe looked to his right and saw the

sepoys coming out of the valley in one long red line, a broken line,

for there were gaps between the battalions and the passage through the

shrub-choked valley had skewed the sepoys' dressing, and then the guns

in the northern part of the Mahratta line opened fire and the line of

sepoys became even more ragged. Yet still, like the Scots to their

left, they pressed on into the gunfire.

"Present!" Harness shouted, a note of anticipation in his voice.

The Scotsmen brought their fire locks to their shoulders. They were

only sixty yards from the guns and even a smoothbore musket was

accurate enough at that range.

"Don't fire high, you dogs!" Harness warned them.

"I'll flog every man who fires high. Fire!"

The volley sounded feeble compared to the thunder of the big guns, but

it was a comfort all the same and Sharpe almost cheered as the

Highlanders fired and their crackling volley whipped away across the

stubble. The gunners were vanishing. Some must have been killed, but

others were merely sheltering behind the big trails of their cannon.

"Reload!" Harness shouted.

"No dallying! Reload!"

This was where the Highlanders' training paid its dividends, for a

musket was an awkward brute to reload, and made more cumbersome still

by the seventeen-inch bayonet fixed to its muzzle. The triangular

blade made it difficult to ram the gun properly, and some of the

Highlanders twisted the blades off to make their job easier, but all

reloaded swiftly, just as they had been trained to do in hard long

weeks at home. They loaded, rammed, primed, then slotted the ramrods

back into the barrel hoops. Those who had removed their bayonets

refastened them to the lugs, then brought the guns back to the ready.

"You save that volley for the infantry!" Harness warned them.

"Now, boys, forward, and give the heathen bastards a proper Sabbath

killing!"

This was revenge. This was anger let loose. The enemy guns were still

not loaded and their crews had been hard hit by the volley, and most of

the guns would not have time to charge their barrels before the Scots

were on them. Some of the gunners fled. Sharpe saw a mounted Mahratta

officer rounding them up and driving them back to their pieces with the

flat of his sword, but he also saw one gun, a painted monster directly

to his front, being rammed hard by two men who heaved on the rammer,

plucked it free then ran aside.

"For what we are about to receive," Blackiston murmured. The engineer

had also seen the gunners charge their barrel.

The gun fired, and its jet of smoke almost engulfed the General's

family. For an instant Sharpe saw Wellesley's tall figure outlined

against the pale smoke, then he could see nothing but blood and the

General falling. The heat and discharge of the gun's gasses rushed

past Sharpe just a heartbeat after the scraps of canister had filled

the air about him, but he had been directly behind the General and was

in his shadow, and it was Wellesley who had taken the gun's blast.

Or rather it was his horse. The stallion had been struck a dozen times

while Wellesley, charmed, had not taken a scratch. The big horse ii [

toppled, dead before he struck the ground, and Sharpe saw the General

kick his feet out from the stirrups and use his hands to push himself

up from the saddle as the horse collapsed. Wellesley's right foot

touched the ground first and, before the stallion's weight could roll

onto his leg, he jumped away, staggering slightly in his hurry.

Campbell turned towards him, but the General waved him away. Sharpe

kicked the mare on and untied Diomed's reins from his belt. Was he

supposed to get the saddle off the dead horse? He supposed so, and

thus slid out of his own saddle. But what the hell was he to do with

the mare and Diomed while he untangled the saddle from the dead

stallion? |" Then he thought to tie both to the dead horse's bridle.

"Four hundred guineas gone to a penny bullet," Wellesley said

sarcastically, watching as Sharpe unbuckled the girth from the dead

stallion. Or near dead, for the beast still twitched and kicked as the

flies came to feast on its new blood.

"I'll take Diomed," Wellesley told Sharpe, then stooped to help,

tugging the saddle with its attached bags and holsters free of the

dying horse, but then a feral scream made the General turn back to

watch as Harness's men charged into the gun line. The scream was the

noise they made as they struck home, a scream that was the release of

all their fears and a terrible noise presaging their enemies' death.

And how they gave it. The Scotsmen found the gunners who had stayed at

their posts crouching under the trails and they dragged them out and

bayoneted them again and again.

"Bastard," one man screamed, plunging his blade repeatedly into a dead

gunner's belly.

"Heathen black bastard!" He kicked the man's head, then stabbed down

with his bayonet again. Colonel Harness back swung his sword to kill a

man, then casually wiped the blood off the blade onto his horse's black

mane.

"Form line!" he shouted.

"Form line! Hurry, you rogues!"

A scatter of gunners had fled back from the Scots to the safety of the

Mahratta infantry who were now little more than a hundred paces away.

They should have charged, Sharpe thought. While the Scots were blindly

hacking away at the gunners, the infantry should have advanced, but

instead they waited for the next stage of the Scots attack. To his

right there were still guns firing at the sepoys, but that was a

separate battle, unrelated to the scramble as sergeants dragged

Highlanders away from the dead and dying gunners and pushed them into

their ranks.

"There are still gunners alive, sir!" a lieutenant shouted at

Harness.

"Form up!" Harness shouted, ignoring the lieutenant. Sergeants and

corporals shoved men into line.

"Forward!" Harness shouted.

"Hurry, man," Wellesley said to Sharpe, but not angrily. Sharpe had

heaved the saddle over Diomed's back and now stooped under the grey

horse's belly to gather the girth.

"He doesn't like it too tight," the General said.

Sharpe buckled the strap and Wellesley took Diomed's reins from him and

heaved himself up into the saddle without another word. The General's

coat was smeared with blood, but it was horse blood, not his own.

"Well done, Harness!" he called ahead to the Scotsman, then rode away

and Sharpe unhitched the mare from the dead horse's bridle, clambered

onto her back and followed.

Three pipers played for the y78th now. They were far from home, under a

furnace sun in a blinding sky, and they brought the mad music of

Scotland's wars to India. And it was madness. The ySth had suffered

hard from the gunfire and the line of their advance was littered with

dead, dying and broken men, yet the survivors now re-formed to attack

the main Mahratta battle line. They were back in two ranks, they held

their bloody bayonets in front, and they advanced against Pohlmann's

own compoo on the right of the enemy line. The Highlanders looked

huge, made into giants by their tall bearskin hats with their feather

plumes, and they looked terrible, for they were. These were northern

warriors from a hard country and not a man spoke as they advanced. To

the waiting Mahrattas they must have seemed like creatures from

nightmare, as terrible as the gods who writhed on their temple walls.

Yet the Mahratta infantry in their blue and yellow coats were just as

proud. They were warriors recruited from the martial tribes of

northern India, and now they levelled their muskets as the two Scottish

ranks approached.

The Scots were terribly outnumbered and it seemed to Sharpe that they

must all die in the coming volley. Sharpe himself was in a half daze

stunned by the noise yet aware that his mood was swinging between

elation at the Scottish bravery and the pure terror of battle. He

heard a cheer and looked right to see the sepoys charging into the

guns.

He watched gunners flee, then saw the Madrassi sepoys tear into the

laggards with their bayonets.

"Now we'll see how their infantry fights," Wellesley said savagely to

Campbell, and Sharpe understood that this was the real testing point,

for infantry was everything. The infantry was despised for it did not

have the cavalry's glamour, nor the killing capacity of the gunners,

but it was still the infantry that won battles. Defeat the enemy's

infantry and the cavalry and gunners had nowhere to hide.

The Mahrattas waited with levelled muskets. The Highlanders, silent

again, marched on. Ninety paces to go, eighty, and then an officer's

sword swung down in the Mahratta ranks and the volley came. It seemed

ragged to Sharpe, maybe because most men did not fire on the word of

command, but instead fired after they heard their neighbour's

discharge, and he was not even aware of a bullet going close past his

head because he was watching the Scots, terrified for them, but it

seemed to him that not a man fell. Some men must have been hit, for he

saw ripples where the files opened to step past the fallen, but the

778th, or what was left of the y78th, was intact still and still Harness

did not fire, but just kept marching them onward.

"They fired high!" Campbell exulted.

"They drill well, fire badly," Barclay observed happily.

"Seventy paces to go, then sixty. A Highlander staggered from the line

and collapsed. Two other men who had been wounded by the canister, but

were now recovered, hurried from the rear and pushed their way into the

ranks.

"Halt!" Harness suddenly called.

"Present!"

The guns, tipped by their bloodstained steel blades, came up into the

Highlanders' shoulders so that the whole line seemed to take a quarter

turn to the right. The Mahratta gunsmoke was clearing and the enemy

soldiers could see the Scots' heavy muskets, with hate behind them, and

the Highlanders waited a heartbeat so the enemy could also see their

death in the levelled muskets.

"You'll fire low, you bastards, or I'll want to know why," Harness

growled, then took a deep breath.

"Fire!" he shouted, and his Highlanders did not fire high. They fired

low and their heavy balls ripped into bellies and thighs and groins.

"Now go for them!" Harness shouted.

"Just go for the bastards!" And the Highlanders, unleashed, ran

forward with their bayonets and began to utter their shrill war cries,

as discordant as the music of the pipes that flayed them onwards. They

were killers loosed to the joys of slaughter and the enemy did not wait

for its coming, but just turned and fled.

The enemy in the rearward ranks of the compoo had room to run, but

those in front were impeded by those behind and could not escape. A

terrible despairing wail sounded as the ~j78th struck home and as their

bayonets rose and fell in an orgy of killing. An officer led an attack

on a knot of standard-bearers who tried desperately to save their

flags, but the Scots would not be denied and Sharpe watched as the

kilted men stepped over the dead to lunge their blades at the living.

The flags fell, then were raised again in Scottish hands. A cheer went

up, and just then Sharpe heard another cheer and saw the sepoys

charging home at the next section of the enemy line and, just as the

first Mahratta troops had run from the Scots, so now the neighbouring

battalions fled from the sepoys. The enemy's vaunted infantry had

crumpled at the first contact. They had watched the thin line come

towards them, and they must have assumed that the red coats would be

turned even redder by the heavy fire of the artillery, but the line had

taken the guns' punishment and just kept coming, battered and bleeding,

and it must have seemed to the Mahrattas that such men were invincible.

The huge Scots in their strange kilts had started the rout, but the

sepoy battalions from Madras now set about the destruction of all the

enemy's centre and right. Only his left still stood its ground.

The sepoys killed, then pursued the fugitives who streamed westwards.

"Hold them!" Wellesley shouted at the nearest battalion commanders.

"Hold them!" But the sepoys would not be held. They wanted to pursue

a beaten enemy and they streamed raggedly in his wake, killing as they

went. Wellesley wheeled Diomed.

"Colonel Harness!"

"You'll want me to form post here?" the Scotsman asked. Blood dripped

from his sword.

"Here," Wellesley agreed. The enemy infantry might have fled, but

there was a maelstrom of cavalry a half-mile away and those horsemen

were cantering forward to attack the disordered British pursuers.

"Deploy your guns, Harness."

"I've given the order already," Harness said, gesturing towards his two

small gun teams that were hurrying six-pounders into position.

"Column of full companies!" Harness shouted.

"Quarter distance!"

The Scots, one minute so savage, now ran back into their ranks and

files. The battalion faced no immediate enemy, for there was neither

infantry nor artillery within range, but the distant cavalry was a

threat and so Harness arranged them in their ten companies, close

together, so that they resembled a square. The close formation could

defend itself against any cavalry attack, and just as easily shake

itself into a line or into a column of assault. Harness's twin

six-pounders were unlimbered and now began firing towards the horsemen

who, appalled by the wreckage of their infantry, paused rather than

attack the redcoats.

British and Indian officers were galloping among the pursuing sepoys,

ordering them back to their ranks, while Harness's 778th stood like a

fortress to which the sepoys could retreat.

"So sanity is not a requisite of soldiering," Wellesley said quietly.

"Sir?" Sharpe was the only man close enough to hear the General and

assumed that the words were addressed to him.

"None of your business, Sharpe, none of your business," Wellesley said,

startled that he had been overheard.

"A canteen, if you please."

It had been a good start, the General decided, for the right of

Pohlmann's army had been destroyed and that destruction had taken only

minutes. He watched as the sepoys hurried back to their ranks and as

the first pucka lees appeared from the nearby Kaitna with their huge

loads of canteens and waterskins. He would let the men have their

drink of water, then the line would be turned to face north and he

could finish the job by assaulting Assaye. The General kicked Diomed

around to examine the ground over which his infantry must advance and,

just as he turned, so all hell erupted at the village.

Wellesley frowned at the dense cloud of gunsmoke that had suddenly

appeared close to the mud walls. He heard volley fire, and he could

see that it was the surviving Mahratta left wing that did the firing,

not his redcoats, and, more ominously, a surge of Mahratta cavalry had

broken through on the northern flank and was now riding free in the

country behind Wellesley's small army.

Someone had blundered.

The left flank of William Dodd's regiment lay just a hundred paces from

the mud walls of Assaye where the twenty guns which defended the

village gave that flank an added measure of safety. In front of the

Cobras were another six guns, two of them the long-barrelled eighteen

pounders that had bombarded the ford, while Dodd's own small battery of

four-pounder guns was bunched in the small gap between his men's right

flank and the neighbouring regiment. Pohlmann had chosen to array his

guns in front of the infantry, but Dodd expected the British to attack

in line and a gun firing straight towards an oncoming line could do

much less damage than a gun firing obliquely down the line's length,

and so he had placed his cannon wide on the flank where they could work

the most havoc.

It was not a bad position, Dodd reckoned. In front of his line were

two hundred yards of open killing ground after which the land fell into

a steepish gully that angled away eastwards. An enemy could approach

in the gully, but to reach Dodd's men they would have to climb onto the

flat farmland and there be slaughtered. A cactus-thorn hedge ran

across the killing ground, and that would give the enemy some cover,

but there were wide gaps in the thorns. If Dodd had been given time he

would have sent men to cut down the whole hedge, but the necessary axes

were back with the baggage a mile away. Dodd, naturally, blamed Joubm

for the missing tools.

"Why are they not here, Monsewer?" he had demanded.

"I did not think. I'm sorry."

"Sorry! Sorry don't win battles, Monsewer."

"I shall send for the axes,"Joubert said.

"Not now," Dodd said. He did not want to send any men back to the

baggage camp, for their loss would momentarily weaken his regiment and

he expected to be attacked at any moment. He looked forward to that

moment, for the enemy would need to expose himself to a withering fire,

and Dodd kept standing in his stirrups to search for any sign of an

approaching enemy. There were some British and Company cavalry far off

to the east, but those horsemen were staying well out of range of the

Mahratta guns. Other enemies must have been within the range of

Pohlmann's guns, for Dodd could hear them firing and see the billowing

clouds of grey-white smoke pumped out by each shot, but that cannonade

was well to his south and it did not spread down the line towards him

and it slowly dawned on Dodd that Wellesley was deliberately avoiding

Assaye.

"God damn him!" he shouted aloud.

"Monsieur?" Captain Joubert asked resignedly, expecting another

reprimand.

"We're going to be left out," Dodd complained.

Captain Joubert thought that was probably a blessing. The Captain had

been saving his meagre salary in the hope of retiring to Lyons, and if

General Wellesley chose to ignore Cap tain Joubert then Captain Joubert

was entirely happy. And the longer he stayed in India, the more

attractive he found Lyons. And Simone would be better off in France,

he thought, for the heat of India was not good for her. It had made

her restless, and inactivity gave her time to brood and no good ever

came from a thinking woman. If Simone was in France she would

be kept busy. There would be meals to cook, clothes to mend, a garden

to tend, even children to raise. Those things were women's work, in

Joubert's opinion, and the sooner he could take his Simone away from

India's languorous temptations the better.

Dodd stood in his stirrups again to stare southwards through his cheap

glass.

"The 778th," he grunted.

"Monsieur?" Joubert was startled from his happy reverie about a house

near Lyons where his mother could help Simone raise a busy little herd

of children.

"The 778th," Dodd said again, and Joubert stood in his stirrups to gaze

at the distant sight of the Scottish regiment emerging from low ground

to advance against the Mahratta line.

"And no support for them?" Dodd asked, puzzled, and he had begun to

think that Boy Wellesley had blundered very badly, but just then he saw

the sepoys coming from the valley. The attacking line looked very thin

and frail, and he could see men being snatched backwards by the

artillery fire.

"Why won't they come here?" he asked petulantly.

"They are, Monsieur," Joubert answered, and pointed eastwards.

Dodd turned and stared.

"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow," he said softly.

"The fools!" For the enemy was not just coming towards Dodd's

position, but approaching in a column of half companies. The enemy

infantry had suddenly appeared at the upper edge of the gully, but on

Dodd's side of that obstacle, and it was clear that the redcoats must

have wandered far out of their position for they were a long way from

the rest of the attacking British infantry. Better still, they had not

deployed into line. Their commander must have decided that they would

make better progress if they advanced in column and doubtless he

planned to deploy into line when he launched his attack, but the men

showed no sign of deploying yet.

Dodd aimed his telescope and was momentarily puzzled. The leading half

company were King's troops in red jackets, black shakoes and white

trousers, while the forty or fifty men of the half company behind were

in kilts, but the other five half companies were all sepoys of the East

India Company.

"It's the picquets of the day," he said, suddenly understanding the

strange formation. He heard a shout as a gun captain ordered his

cannon to be levered around to take aim at the approaching men, and he

hurriedly shouted to his gunners to hold their fire.

"No one's to fire yet, Joubert," Dodd ordered, then he spurred his

horse northwards to the village.

The infantry and gunners defending the village of Assaye were not under

Dodd's command, but he issued them orders anyway.

"You're to hold your fire," he snapped at them, 'hold your fire. Wait!

Wait!" Some of the Goanese gunners spoke a little English, and they

understood him and passed the order on. The Rajah's infantry, on the

mud walls above the guns, were not so quick and some of those men

opened fire on the distant redcoats, but their muskets were far

outranged and Dodd ignored them.

"You fire when we fire, understand?" he shouted at the gunners, and

some of them understood what he was doing, and they grinned approval of

his cunning.

He spurred back to the Cobras. A second British formation had appeared

a hundred paces behind the picquets. This second unit was a complete

battalion of redcoats advancing in line and, because marching an

extended line across country was inevitably slower than advancing in a

column of half companies, they had fallen behind the picquets who, in

sublime disregard of Assaye's waiting defenders, continued their

progress towards the cactus hedge. It seemed to be an isolated attack,

far from the clamour in the south that Dodd now ignored. God had given

Dodd a chance of victory and he felt the excitement rise in him. It

was bliss, pure bliss. He could not lose. He drew the elephant-hilled

sword and, as if to give thanks, kissed the steel blade.

The leading half company of picquets had reached the thorn hedge and

there they had checked, at last unwilling to continue their suicidal

progress towards the waiting Mahrattas. Some artillery from further up

the line, wrhich did not lie under Dodd's control, had opened fire on

the column, but the white-coated Mahratta forces immediately to the

front of the column were silent and the picquets' commanding officer

seemed encouraged by that and now urged his men onwards.

"Why doesn't he deploy?" Dodd asked no one, and prayed that they would

not deploy, but as soon as the half company of kilted Highlanders had

filed through a gap in the cactus thorn they began to spread out and

Dodd knew his moment was close. But wait, he told himself, wait for

more victims, and sure enough the sepoys pushed through the breaks in

the hedge until all the picquets were in front of the cactus and their

officers and sergeants began chivvying them forward onto the open

pasture where there would be more space for the half companies to

deploy into line.

Captain Joubert was worried that Dodd was leaving the command to open

fire too late. The second British formation was close to the hedge

now, and once they were through the gaps they would add a vast weight

of musketry to the attack. But Dodd knew it would take that regiment a

long time to manoeuvre through the hedge, and he was concerned solely

with the three or four hundred men of the pic-quets who were now just

eighty yards from his gun line and still not properly deployed. His

own men were a hundred paces behind the guns, but now he took them

forward.

"Regiment will advance," he ordered, 'at the double!" His interpreter

shouted the order and Dodd watched proudly as his men ran smartly

forward. They kept their ranks, and checked promptly on his command

when they reached the em placed artillery.

"Thank you, Lord," he prayed. The picquets, suddenly aware of the

horror that awaited them, began to hurry as they spread into line, but

still Dodd did not fire. Instead he rode his new horse behind his

men's ranks.

"You fire low!" he told his Cobras.

"Make sure you fire low! Aim at their thighs." Most troops fired high

and thus a man who aimed at his enemy's knees would as like as not hit

his chest. Dodd paused to watch the picquets who were now advancing in

a long double line. Dodd took a deep breath.

"Fire!"

Forty guns and over eight hundred muskets were aimed at the picquets

and scarce a gun or a musket missed. One moment the ground in front of

the hedge was alive with soldiers, the next it was a charnel house,

swept by metal and flayed by fire, and though Dodd could see nothing

through the powder smoke, he knew he had virtually annihilated the

redcoat line. The volley had been massive. Two of the guns, indeed,

had been the eighteen-pounder siege guns and Dodd's only regret was

that they had been loaded with round shot instead of canister, but at

least they could now reload with canister and so savage the British

battalion that had almost reached the cactus hedge.

"Reload!" Dodd called to his men. The smoke was writhing away,

thinning as it went, and he could see enemy bodies on the ground. He

could see men twitching, men crawling, men dying. Most did not move at

all, though miraculously their commanding officer, or at least the only

man who had been on horseback, still lived. He was whipping his horse

back through the hedge.

"Fire!" Dodd shouted, and a second volley whipped across the killing

ground to thrash through the hedge and strike the battalion behind.

That battalion was taking even worse punishment from the artillery

which was now firing canister, and the blasts of metal were tearing the

hedge apart, destroying the redcoats' small cover. The little

four-pounder guns, which fired such puny round shot, now served as

giant shotguns to spray the redcoats with Dodd's home-made bags of

canister. His sepoys loaded and rammed their muskets. The dry grass

in front of them flickered with hundreds of small pale flames where the

burning wadding had started fires.

"Fire!" Dodd shouted again, and saw, just before the cloud of powder

smoke blotted out his view, that the enemy was stepping backwards.

The volley crashed out, filling the air with the stench of rotten

eggs.

"Reload!" Dodd shouted and admired his men's efficiency. Not one had

panicked, not one had fired his ramrod by mistake. Clockwork soldiers,

he thought, as soldiers ought to be, while the enemy's return fire was

pathetic. One or two of Dodd's men had been killed, and a handful were

wounded, but in return they had destroyed the leading British unit and

were driving the next one back.

"The regiment will advance!" he shouted and listened to his

interpreter repeat the order.

They marched in line through their own powder smoke and then across the

scores of dead and dying enemy picquets. Soldiers stooped to the

bodies to filch keepsakes and loot and Dodd shouted at them to keep

going. The loot could wait. They reached the remnants of the cactus

hedge where Dodd halted them. The British battalion was still going

backwards, evidently seeking the safety of the gull)'. "Fire!" he

shouted, and his men's volley seemed to push the redcoats even further

back.

"Reload!"

Ramrods rattled in barrels, dog heads were dragged back to the full.

The British line was retreating fast now, but from the north, from the

land hard by the river, a mass of Mahratta cavalry was riding south to

join the slaughter. Dodd wished the cavalry would stay out of it, for

he had an idea that he could have pursued this British battalion clear

down the tongue of land to where the rivers met and the last of their

men would die in the Kaitna's muddy shallows, but he dared not fire

another volley in case he hit the cavalry.

"The regiment will advance!" he told his interpreter. He would let

the cavalry have their moment, then go on with the slaughtering

himself.

The British battalion commander saw the cavalry and knew his retreat

must stop. His men were still in line, a line of only two ranks, and

cavalrymen dreamed of encountering infantry in line.

"Form square!" their commanding officer shouted, and the two wings of

the line dutifully withdrew towards the centre. The double rank became

four, the four ranks wheeled and dressed, and suddenly the cavalry

faced a fortress of redcoats, muskets and bayonets. The front rank of

the square knelt and braced their muskets on the ground while the other

three readied their muskets for the coming horsemen.

The cavalry should have sheered away at the sight of the square, but

they had seen the earlier slaughter and thought to add to it, and so

they dipped their penn anted lances, raised their tulwars and screamed

their war cries as they galloped straight towards the redcoats. And

the redcoats let them come, let them come perilously close before the

order was shouted and the face of the square nearest the cavalry

exploded in flame and smoke and the horses screamed as they were hit

and died. The surviving horsemen swerved aside and received another

killing volley as they swept past the sides of the square. More horses

tumbled, dust spewing from their sliding bodies. A tulwar spun along

the ground, its owner shrieking as his trapped leg was ground into

bloody ruin by the weight of his dying horse.

"Reload!" a Scots voice shouted from inside the square and the

redcoats recharged their muskets.

The cavalry charged on into open country and there wheeled about.

Some of the horses were riderless now, others were bloody, but all came

back towards the square.

"Let them come close!" a mounted British officer shouted inside the

square.

"Let them come close. Wait for it! Fire!"

More horses tumbled, their legs cracking as the bones shattered, and

this time the cavalry did not sheer away to ride down the square's

lethal flanks, but instead wheeled clean about and spurred out of

range. Two lessons were sufficient to teach them caution, but they did

not go far away, just far enough to be out of range of the redcoats'

muskets. The cavalry's leaders had seen Dodd's regiment come through

the cactus hedge and they knew that their own infantry, attacking in

line, must overwhelm the square with musketry and, when the square

shattered, as it must under the infantry's assault, the horsemen could

sweep back to pick off the survivors and pluck the great gaudy banners

as trophies to lay before Scindia.

Dodd could scarcely believe his luck. At first he had resented the

cavalry's intrusion, believing that they were about to steal his

victory, but their two impotent charges had forced the enemy battalion

to form square and mathematics alone dictated that a battalion in

square could only use one quarter of its muskets against an attack from

any one side.

And the British battalion, which Dodd now recognized from its white

facings as the 74th, was much smaller than Dodd's Cobras, probably

having only half the numbers Dodd possessed. And, in addition to

Dodd's men, a ragged regiment of the Rajah of Berar's infantry had

poured out of Assaye to join the slaughter while a battalion from

Dupont's compoo, which had been posted immediately on Dodd's right, had

also come to join the killing. Dodd resented the presence of those men

whom he feared might dilute the glory of his victory, but he could

scarcely order them away. The important thing was to slaughter the

Highlanders.

"We're going to kill the bastards with volley fire," he told his men,

then waited for his translator to interpret.

"And then we'll finish them off with bayonets. And I want those two

colours! I want those flags hanging in Scindia's tent tonight."

The Scots were not waiting idly for the attack. Dodd could see small

groups of men dashing out of the square and at first he thought they

were plundering the dead cavalrymen, and then he saw they were dragging

the bodies of men and horses back to make a low rampart. The few

survivors of the picquets were among the Scots, who were now caught in

a terrible dilemma. By staying in square they would keep themselves

safe from any attack by the cavalry which still hovered to the south,

though the square made them into an easy target for the enemy's

muskets, but if they deployed into line, so that they could use all

their muskets against the enemy's infantry line, they made themselves

into cavalry bait. Their commanding officer decided to stay in square.

Dodd reckoned he would do the same if he was ever so foolish as to be

trapped like these fools were trapped. They still had to be finished

off, and that promised to be grim work for the 74th was a notoriously

tough regiment, but Dodd had the advantage of numbers and the advantage

of position and he knew he must win.

Except that the Scotsmen did not agree with him. They crouched behind

their barricade of dead men and horses and poured a blistering fire of

musketry at the white-coated Cobras. A lone piper, who had disobeyed

the order to leave his instrument at Naulniah, played in the square's

centre. Dodd could hear the sound, but he could not see the piper,

nor, indeed, the square itself, which was hidden by a churning fog of

dark powder smoke. The smoke was illuminated by the flashes of musket

fire, and Dodd could hear the heavy balls thumping into his men. The

Cobras were no longer advancing, for the closer they got to the deadly

smoke the greater their casualties and so they had paused fifty yards

from the square to let their own muskets do the work. They were

reloading as fast as their enemies, but too many of their bullets were

being wasted on the barricade of corpses. All four faces of the square

were firing now, for the 74th was surrounded. To the west they fired

at Dodd's attacking line, to the north they fired at the Rajah's

infantry, while to the east and south they kept the cavalry at bay.

The Mahratta horsemen, scenting the Scottish regiment's death, were

prowling ever closer in the hope that they could dash in and take the

colours before the infantry.

Dodd's Cobras, together with the battalion from Dupont's compoo, began

to curl about the southern flank of the trapped regiment. It should

take only three or four volleys, Dodd thought, to end the business,

after which his men could go in with the bayonet. Not that his men

were firing volleys any longer; instead they were firing as soon as

their muskets were charged and Dodd felt their excitement and sought to

curb it.

"Don't waste your fire!" he shouted.

"Aim low!" William Dodd had no desire to lead a charge through the

stinking smoke to find an unbroken formation of vengeful Highlanders

waiting with bayonets. Dodd might dislike the Scots, but he had a

healthy fear of fighting them with cold steel. Thin the bastards

first, he thought, batter them, bleed them, then massacre them, but his

men were too excited at the prospect of imminent victory and far too

much of their fire was either going high or else being wasted on the

barricade of the dead.

"Aim low!" he shouted again.

"Aim low!"

"They won't last,"Joubert said. Indeed the Frenchman was amazed that

the Scots still survived.

"Awkward things to kill, Scotsmen," Dodd said. He took a drink from

his canteen.

"I do hate the bastards. All preachers or thieves. Stealing

Englishmen's jobs. Aim low!" A man was thrown back near Dodd, blood

bright on his white coat.

"Joubert?" Dodd called back to the Frenchman.

"Monsieur?"

"Bring up two of the regiment's guns. Load with canister." That would

end the bastards. Two gouts of canister from the four-pounders would

blow great gaps in the Scottish square and Dodd could then lead his men

into those gaps and fillet the dying regiment from its inside out.

He would be damned if the cavalry would take the flags. They were his!

It was Dodd who had fought these Highlanders to a standstill and Dodd

who planned to carry the silk banners to Scindia's tent and there fetch

his proper reward.

"Hurry, Joubert!" he called.

Dodd drew his pistol and fired over his men's ranks into the smoke that

hid the dying square.

"Aim low!" he shouted.

"Don't waste your fire!"

But it would not be long now. Two blasts of canister, he reckoned, and

then the bayonets would bring him victory.

Major Samuel Swinton stood just behind the western face of the square

which looked towards the white-coated infantry. He could hear an

English voice shouting orders and encouragement in the enemy lines and,

though Swinton himself was an Englishman, the accent angered him. No

English bastard was going to destroy the 74th, not while Major Swinton

commanded, and he told his men that a Sassenach was their enemy and

that seemed to add zest to their efforts.

"Keep low!" he told them.

"Keep firing!" By staying low the Scots kept behind the protection of

their makeshift barricade, but it also made their muskets much more

difficult to reload and some men took the risk of standing after each

shot. Their only protection then was the mask of smoke that hid the

regiment from its enemies. And thank God, Swinton thought, that the

enemy had brought no artillery forward.

The square was swept by musket fire. Much of it, especially from the

north, flew high, but the white-coated regiment was better trained and

their musketry was having an effect, so much so that Swinton took the

inside rank of the eastern face and added it to the west. The

sergeants and corporals closed the ranks as the enemy bullets hurled

men back into the bloody interior of the shrinking square where the

Major stepped among the Scottish dead and wounded. Swinton's horse had

died, struck by three musket balls and put out of its misery by the

Major's own pistol. Colonel Orrock, who had first led the picquets to

disaster, had also lost his horse.

"It wasn't my fault," he kept telling Swinton, and Swinton wanted to

hit the bastard every time he spoke.

"I obeyed Wellesley's orders!" Orrock insisted.

Swinton ignored the fool. Right from the beginning of the advance

Swinton had sensed that the picquets were going too far to the right.

Orrock's orders had been clear enough. He was to incline right, thus

making space for the two sepoy battalions to come into the line, then

attack straight ahead, but the fool had led his men ever more

northwards and Swinton, who had been trying to loop about the picquets

to come up on their right, never had a chance to get into position. He

had sent the 74th's adjutant to speak with Orrock, pleading with the

East India Company Colonel to turn ahead, but Orrock had arrogantly

brushed the man off and kept marching towards Assaye.

Swinton had a choice then. He could have ignored Orrock and

straightened his own attack to form the right of the line that

Wellesley had taken forward, but the leading half company of Orrock's

picquets were fifty men from Swinton's own regiment and the Major was

not willing to see those fifty men sacrificed by a fool and so he had

followed the picquets on their errant course in the hope that his men's

fire could rescue Orrock. It had failed. Only four of the fifty men

of the half company had rejoined the regiment, the rest were dead and

dying, and now the whole 74th seemed to be doomed. They were

encompassed by noise and smoke, surrounded by enemies, dying in their

square, but the piper was still playing and the men were still fighting

and the regiment still lived, and the two flags were still lifted high

though by now the fringed squares of silk were ripped and tattered by

the blast of bullets.

An ensign in the colour party took a musket ball in his left eye and

fell backwards without a sound. A sergeant gripped the staff in one

hand and in his other was a halberd with a wicked blade. In a moment,

the sergeant knew, he might have to fight with the halberd. The square

would end with a huddle of bloodied men around the colours and the

enemy would fall on them and for a few moments it would be steel

against steel, and the sergeant reckoned he would give the flag to a

wounded man and do what harm he could with the heavy, long-shafted axe.

It was a pity to die, but he was a soldier, and no one had yet devised

a way a man could live for ever, not even those clever bastards in

Edinburgh. He thought of his wife in Dundee, and of his woman in the

camp at Naulniah, and he regretted his many sins for it was not good

for a man to go to his God with a bad conscience, but it was too late

now and so he gripped the halberd and hid his fear and determined he

would die like a man and take a few other men with him.

The muskets banged into Highlanders' shoulders. They bit the tips from

new cartridges and every bite added salty gunpowder to their mouths so

that they had no spittle, only bone-dry throats that breathed filthy

smoke, and the regiment's pucka lees were far away, lost somewhere in

the country behind. The Scots went on firing, and the powder sparks

from the pan burned their cheeks, and they loaded and rammed and knelt

and fired again, and somewhere beyond the smoke the enemy's fire came

flashing in to shudder the corpses of the barricade or else

to snatch a man back in a spray of blood. Wounded men fought alongside

the living, their faces blackened by powder, their mouths parched,

their shoulders bruised, and the white facings and cuffs of their red

coats were spattered with the blood of men now dead or dying.

"Close up!" the sergeants shouted and the square shrank another few

feet as dying men were hauled back to the square's centre and the

living closed the files. Men who had started the day five or six files

apart were neighbours now.

"It wasn't my fault!" Orrock insisted.

Swinton had nothing to say. There was nothing to say, and nothing more

to do except die, and so he picked up the musket of a dead man, took

the cartridge box from the corpse's pouch, and pushed into the square's

western face. The man to his right was drunk, but Swinton did not

care, for the man was fighting.

"Come to do some proper work, Major?" the drunken man greeted Swinton,

with a toothless grin.

"Come to do some proper work, Tarn," Swinton agreed. He bit the end

from a cartridge, charged the musket, primed the lock and fired into

the smoke. He reloaded, fired again, and prayed he would die

bravely.

Fifty yards away William Dodd watched the cloud of smoke made by the

Scottish muskets. The cloud was getting smaller, he thought. Men were

dying there and the square was shrinking, but it was still spitting

flame and lead. Then he heard the jingle of chains and turned to see

the two four-pounder guns being hauled towards him. He would let the

guns fire one blast of canister each, then he would have his men fix

bayonets and he would lead them across the rampart of corpses into the

heart of the smoke.

And then the trumpet called.

CHAPTER 11

Colonel McCandless had stayed close to his friend Colonel Wallace, the

commander of the brigade which formed the right of Wellesley's line.

Wallace had seen the picquciets and his own regiment, the 74th, vanish

somewhere to the north, but he had been too busy bringing his two sepoy

battalions into the s-attacking line to worry about Orrock or Swinton.

He did charge an aid to keep watching for Orrock's men, expecting to

see them veering baock towards him at any moment, then he forgot the

errant picquets as his men climbed from the low ground into the fire

of the Mahratta gun line. Canister shredded Wallace's ranks, it beat

like hail on his men'ss muskets and it swept the leaves from the

scattered trees through which the Madrassi battalions marched, but,

just like the 778th, the sepoys did not turn. They walked doggedly on

like men pushing into a storm, amid at sixty paces Wallace halted them

to pour a vengeful volley into the gunners and McCandless could hear

the musket balls clanging off the ppainted gun barrels. Sevajee was

with McCandless and he stared in as the sepoys reloaded and went

forward again, this time carrying their bayonets to the gunners. For a

moment there was chaotic slaughter as Madrassi sepoys chased Goanese

gunners around limbers and guns, but Wallace was already looking

ahead and could see this. At the vaunted enemy infantry was wavering,

evidently shaken by theae easy victory of the 778th, and so the Colonel

shouted at his sepoys to ignore the gunners and re-form and push on to

attack the infantry. It ~ took a moment to reform the line, then it

advanced from the guns. VAVallace gave the enemy infantry one volley,

then charged, and all alon: j-g the line the vaunted Mahratta foot fled

from the sepoy attack.

McCandless was busy for the mext few moments. He knew that the assault

had gone nowhere near Dodd's regiment, but nor had he expected it to,

and he was anticipating riding northwards with Wallace ? 255

to find the 74th, the regiment McCandless knew was nearest to his prey,

but when the sepoys lost their self-control and broke ranks to pursue

the beaten enemy infantry, McCandless helped the other officers round

them up and herd them back. Sevajee and his horsemen stayed behind,

for there was a possibility that they would be mistaken for enemy

cavalry.

For a moment or two there was a real danger that the scattered sepoys

would be charged and slaughtered by the mass of enemy cavalry to the

west, but its own fleeing infantry was in the cavalry's way, the j78th

stood like a fortress on the left flank, and the Scottish guns were

skipping balls along the cavalry's face, and the Mahratta horsemen,

after a tentative move forward, thought better of the charge. The

sepoys took their ranks again, grinning because of their victory.

McCandless, his small chore done, rejoined Sevajee.

"So that's how Mahrattas fight." The Colonel could not resist the

provocation.

"Mercenaries, Colonel, mercenaries," Sevajee said, 'not Mahrattas."

Five victorious redcoat regiments now stood in ranks on the southern

half of the battlefield. To the west the enemy infantry was still

disordered, though officers were trying to re-form them, while to the

east there was a horror of bodies and blood left on the ground across

which the redcoats had advanced. The five regiments had swept through

the gun line and chased away the infantry and now formed their ranks

some two hundred paces west of where the Mahratta infantry had made

their line so that they could look back on the trail of carnage they

had caused.

Riderless horses galloped through the thinning skeins of powder smoke

where dogs were already gnawing at the dead and birds with monstrous

black wings were flapping down to feast on corpses. Beyond the

corpses, on the distant ground where the Scots and sepoys had started

their advance, there were now Mahratta cavalrymen, and McCandless,

gazing through his telescope, saw some of those cavalrymen harnessing

British artillery that had been abandoned when its ox teams had been

killed by the bombardment that had opened the battle.

"Where's Wellesley?" Colonel Wallace asked McCandless.

"He went northwards." McCandless was now staring towards the village

where a dreadful battle was being fought, but he could see no details

for there were just enough trees to obscure the fight, though the mass

of powder smoke rising above the leaves was as eloquent as the unending

crackle of musketry. McCandless knew his business was to be where that

battle was being fought, for Dodd was surely close to the fight if not

involved, but in McCandless's path was the stub of the Mahratta defence

line, that part of the line which had not been attacked by the Scots or

the sepoys, and those men were turning to face southwards. To reach

that southern battle McCandless would have to loop wide to the east,

but that stretch of country was full of marauding bands of enemy

cavalry.

"I should have advanced with Swinton," he said ruefully.

"We'll catch up with him soon enough," Wallace said, though without

conviction. It was clear to both men that Wallace's regiment, the

74th, had marched too far to the north and had become entangled in the

thicket of Mahratta de fences about Assaye and their commanding

officer, removed from them to lead the brigade, was plainly worried.

"Time to turn north, I think," Wallace said, and he shouted at his two

sepoy battalions to wheel right. He had no authority over the

remaining two sepoy battalions, nor over the 778th, for those were in

Harness's brigade, but he was ready to march his two remaining

battalions towards the distant village in the hope of rescuing his own

regiment.

McCandless watched as Wallace organized the two battalions. This part

of the battlefield, which minutes before had been so loud with

screaming canister and the hammer of volleys, was now strangely

quiet.

Wellesley's attack had been astonishingly successful, and the enemy was

regrouping while the attackers, left victorious on the Kaitna's

northern bank, drew their breath and looked for the next target.

McCandless thought of using Sevajee's handful of horsemen as an escort

to take him safely towards the village, but another rush of Mahratta

cavalry galloped up from the low ground. Wellesley and his aides had

ridden northwards and they seemed to have survived the milling enemy

horsemen, but the General's passing had attracted more horsemen to the

area and McCandless had no mind to run the gauntlet of their venom and

so he abandoned the idea of a galloping dash northwards. It was just

then that he noticed Sergeant Hakeswill, crouching by a dead enemy with

the reins of a riderless horse in one hand. A group of redcoats was

with him, all from his own regiment, the 33rd. And just as McCandless

saw the Sergeant, so Hakeswill looked up and offered the Scotsman a

glance of such malevolence that McCandless almost turned away in

horror. Instead he spurred his horse across the few yards that

separated them.

"What are you doing here, Sergeant?" he asked harshly.

"My duty, sir, as is incumbent on me," Hakeswill said. As ever, when

addressed by an officer, he had straightened to attention, his right

foot tucked behind his left, his elbows back and his chest thrust

out.

"And what are your duties?" McCandless asked.

"Puckalees, sir. In charge of pucka lees sir, making sure the

scavenging little brutes does their duty, sir, and nothing else, sir.

Which they does, sir, on account of me looking after them like a

father." He unbent sufficiently to give a swift nod in the direction

of the 778th where, sure enough, a group of pucka lees was distributing

heavy skins of water they had brought from the river.

"Have you written to Colonel Gore yet?" McCandless asked.

"Have I written to Colonel Gore yet, sir?" Hakeswill repeated the

question, his face twitching horribly under the shako's peak. He had

forgotten that he was supposed to have the warrant reissued, for he was

relying instead on McCandless's death to clear the way to Sharpe's

arrest.

Not that this was the place to murder McCandless, for there were a

thousand witnesses within view.

"I've done everything what ought to be done, sir, like a soldier

should," Hakeswill answered evasively.

"I shall write to Colonel Gore myself," McCandless now told Hakeswill,

'because I've been thinking about that warrant. You have it?"

"I do, sir."

"Then let me see it again," the Colonel demanded.

Hakeswill unwillingly pulled the grubby paper from his pouch and

offered it to the Colonel. McCandless unfolded the warrant, quickly

scanned the lines, and suddenly the falsity in the words leaped out at

him.

"It says here that Captain Morris was assaulted on the night of August

the fifth."

"So he was, sir. Foully assaulted, sir."

"Then it could not have been Sharpe who committed the assault,

Sergeant, for on the night of the fifth he was with me. That was the

day I collected Sergeant Sharpe from Seringapatam's armoury."

McCandless's face twisted with distaste as he looked down at the

Sergeant.

"You say you were a witness to the assault?" he asked Hakeswill.

Hakeswill knew when he was beaten.

"Dark night, sir," the Sergeant said woodenly.

"You're lying, Sergeant," McCandless said icily, 'and I know you are

lying, and my letter to Colonel Gore will attest to your lying. You

have no business here, and I shall so inform Major General Wellesley.

If it was up to me then your punishment would take place here, but that

is for the General to decide. You will give me that horse."

"This horse, sir? I found it, sir. Wandering, sir."

"Give it here!" McCandless snapped. Sergeants had no business having

horses without permission. He snatched the reins from Hakeswill.

"And if you do have duties with the pucka lees Sergeant, I suggest you

attend to them rather than plunder the dead. As for this warrant.. ."

The Colonel, before Hakeswill's appalled gaze, tore the paper in two.

"Good day, Sergeant," McCandless said and, his small victory complete,

turned his horse and spurred away.

Hakeswill watched the Colonel ride away, then stooped and picked up the

two halves of the warrant which he carefully stowed in his pouch.

"Scotchman," he spat.

Private Lowry shifted uncomfortably.

"If he's right, Sergeant, and Sharpie wasn't there, then we shouldn't

be here."

Hakeswill turned savagely on the private.

"And since when, Private Lowry, did you dispose of soldiery? The Duke

of York has made you an officer, has he? His Grace put braid on your

coat without telling me, did he? What Sharpie did is no business of

yours, Lowry." The Sergeant was in trouble, and he knew it, but he was

not broken yet.

He turned and stared at McCandless who had given the horse to a

dismounted officer and was now in deep conversation with Colonel

Wallace. The two men glanced towards Hakeswill and the Sergeant

guessed they were discussing him.

"We follows that Scotchman," Hakeswill said, 'and this is for the man

who puts him under the sod." He fished a gold coin from his pocket and

showed it to his six privates.

The privates stared solemnly at the coin, then, all at once, they

ducked as a cannonball screamed low over their heads. Hakeswill swore

and dropped flat. Another gun sounded, and this time a barrelful of

canister flecked the grass just south of Hakeswill.

Colonel Wallace had been listening to McCandless, but now turned

eastwards. Not all the gunners in the Mahratta line had been killed

and those who survived, together with the cavalry which had been

looking for employment, were now manning their guns again. They had

turned the guns to face west instead of east and were now firing at the

five regiments who were waiting for the battle to begin again.

Except the gunners had surprised them, and the captured British guns,

fetched from the east, now joined the battery to pour their shot, shell

and canister into the red-coated infantry. They fired at three hundred

paces, point-blank range, and their missiles tore bloodily through the

ranks.

For the Mahrattas, it seemed, were not beaten yet.

William Dodd could smell victory. He could almost feel the sheen of

the captured silk colours in his hands, and all it would take was two

blasts of canister, a mucky slaughter with bayonets, and then the 74th

would be destroyed. Horse Guards in London could cross the first

battalion of the regiment off the army list, all of it, and mark down

that it had been sacrificed to William Dodd's talent. He snarled at

his gunners to load their home-made canister, watched as the loaders

rammed the missiles home, and then the trumpet sounded.

The British and Company cavalry had been posted in the northern half of

the battlefield to guard against enemy horsemen sweeping about the

infantry's rear, but now they came to the 74th's rescue. The igth

Dragoons emerged from the gully behind the Highlanders and their charge

curved northwards out of the low ground towards the 74th and the

village beyond. The troopers were mostly recruits from the English

shires, young men brought up to know horses and made strong by farm

work, and they all carried the new light cavalry sabre that was

warranted never to fail. Nor did it.

They struck the Mahratta horse first. The English riders were

outnumbered, but they rode bigger horses and their blades were better

made, and they cut through the cavalry with a maniacal savagery. It

was hacking work, brutal work, screaming and fast work, and the

Mahrattas turned their lighter horses away from the bloody sabres and

fled northwards, and once the enemy horsemen were killed or fleeing,

the British cavalry raked back their spurs and charged at the Mahratta

infantry.

They struck the battalion from Dupont's compoo first, and because those

men were not prepared for cavalry, but were still in line, it was more

an execution than a fight. The cavalry were mounted on tall horses,

and every man had spent hours of sabre drill learning how to cut,

thrust and parry, but all they had to do now was slash with their

heavy, wide-bladed weapons that were designed for just such butchery.

Slash and hack, scream and spur, then push on through panicking men

whose only thought was flight. The sabres made dreadful injuries, the

weight of the blade gave the weapons a deep bite and the curve of the

steel dragged the newly sharpened edges back through flesh and muscle

and bone to lengthen the wound.

Some Mahratta cavalry bravely tried to stem the charge, but their light

tulwars were no match for Sheffield steel. The 74th were standing and

cheering as they watched the English horsemen carve into the enemy who

had come so terribly close, and behind the Englishmen rode Company

cavalry, Indians on smaller horses, some carrying lances, who spread

the attack wider to drive the broken Mahratta horsemen northwards.

Dodd did not panic. He knew he had lost this skirmish, but the

helpless mass of Dupont's battalion was protecting his right flank and

those doomed men gave Dodd the few seconds he needed.

"Back," he shouted, 'back!" and he needed no interpreter now. The

Cobras hurried back towards the cactus-thorn hedge. They did not run,

they did not break ranks, but stepped swiftly backwards to leave the

enemy's horse room to sweep across their front, and, as the horsemen

passed, those of Dodd's men who still had loaded muskets fired. Horses

stumbled and fell, riders sprawled, and still the Cobras went

backwards.

But the regiment was still in line and Dupont's panicked infantry were

now pushing their way into Dodd's right-hand companies, and the second

rank of dragoons rode in among that chaos to slash their sabres down

onto the white-coated men. Dodd shouted at his men to form square, and

they obeyed, but the two right-hand companies had been reduced to

ragged ruin and their survivors never joined the square which was so

hastily made that it was more of a huddle than an ordered formation.

Some of the fugitives from the two doomed companies tried to join their

comrades in the square, but the horsemen were among them and Dodd

shouted at the square to fire. The volley cut down his own men with

the enemy, but it served to drive the horsemen away and so gave Dodd

time to send his men back through the hedge and still further back to

where they had first waited for the British attack. The Rajah of

Berar's infantry, who had been on Dodd's left, had escaped more

lightly, but none had stayed to fight. Instead they ran back to

Assaye's mud walls. The gunners by the village saw the cavalry coming

and fired canister, killing more of their own fugitives than enemy

cavalry, but the brief cannonade at least signalled to the dragoons

that the village was defended and dangerous.

The storm of cavalry passed northwards, leaving misery in its wake.

The two four-pounder cannon that Joubert had taken forward were

abandoned now, their teams killed by the horsemen, and where the 74th

had been there was now nothing but an empty enclosure of dead men and

horses that had formed the barricade. The survivors of the beleaguered

square had withdrawn eastwards, carrying their wounded with them, and

it seemed to Dodd that a sudden silence had wrapped about the Cobras.

It was not a true silence, for the guns had started firing again on the

southern half of the battlefield, the distant sound of hooves was

nevereriding and the moaning of the nearby wounded was loud, but it did

seem quiet.

Dodd spurred his horse southwards in an attempt to make some sense of

the battle. Dupont's compoo next to him had lost one regiment to the

sabres, but the next three regiments were intact and the Dutchman was

now turning those units to face southwards. Dodd could see Pohlmann

riding along the back of those wheeling regiments and he suspected that

the Hanoverian would now turn his whole line to face south. The

British had broken the far end of the line, but they had still not

broken the army.

Yet the possibility of annihilation existed. Dodd fidgeted with the

elephant hilt of his sword and contemplated what less than an hour

before had seemed an impossibility: defeat. God damn Wellesley, he

thought, but this was no time for anger, just for calculation. Dodd

could not afford to be captured and he had no mind to die for Scindia

and so he must secure his line of retreat. He would fight to the end,

he decided, then run like the wind.

"Captain Joubert?"

The long-suffering Joubert trotted his horse to Dodd's side.

"Monsieur?"

Dodd did not speak at once, for he was watching Pohlmann come nearer.

It was clear now that the Hanoverian was making a new battle line, and

one, moreover, that would lie to the west of Assaye with its back

against the river. The regiments to Dodd's right, which had yet to be

attacked, were now pulling back and the guns were going with them.

The whole line was being redeployed, and Dodd guessed the Cobras would

move from the east side of the mud walls to the west, but that was no

matter. The best ford across the Juah ran out of the village itself,

and it was that ford Dodd wanted.

"Take two companies, Joubert," he ordered, 'and march them into the

village to guard this side of the ford."

Joubert frowned.

"The Rajah's troops, surely .. he began to protest.

"The Rajah of Berar's troops are useless!" Dodd snapped.

"If we need to use the ford, then I want it secured by our men. You

secure it." He jabbed at the Frenchman with a finger.

"Is your wife in the village?"

"Out, Monsieur."

"Then now's your chance to impress her, Monsewer Go and protect her.

And make sure the damn ford isn't captured or clogged up with

fugitives."

Joubert was not unhappy to be sent away from the fighting, but he was

dismayed by Dodd's evident defeatism. Nevertheless he took two

companies, marched into the village, and posted his men to guard the

ford so that if all was lost, there would still be a way out.

Wellesley had ridden north to investigate the furious fighting that had

erupted close to the village of Assaye. He rode with a half-dozen

aides and with Sharpe trailing behind on the last of the General's

horses, the roan mare. It was a furious ride, for the area east of the

infantry was infested with Mahratta horsemen, but the General had faith

in the size and speed of his big English and Irish horses and the enemy

was easily out galloped Wellesley came within sight of the beleaguered

74th just as the dragoons crashed in on their besiegers from the

south.

"Well done, Maxwell!" Wellesley shouted aloud, though he was far out

of earshot of the cavalry's leader, and then he curbed his horse to

watch the dragoons at work.

The mass of the Mahratta horsemen who had been waiting for the 74th's

square to collapse, now fled northwards and the British cavalry, having

hacked the best part of an enemy infantry regiment into ruin, pursued

them. The cavalry's good order was gone now, for the blue coated

troopers were spurring their horses to chase their broken enemy across

country. Men whooped like fox hunters, closed on their quarry, slashed

with sabre, then spurred on to the next victim. The Mahratta horsemen

were not even checked by the River Juah, but just plunged in and

spurred their horses through the water and up the northern bank. The

British and Indian cavalry followed so that the pursuit vanished in the

north. The 74th, who had fought so hard to stay alive, now marched out

of range of the cannon by the village and Wellesley, who had smelt

disaster just a few minutes before, breathed a great sigh of relief.

"I told them to stay clear of the village, did I not?" he demanded of

his aides, but before anyone could answer, new cannon fire sounded from

the south.

"What the devil?" Wellesley said, turning to see what the gunfire

meant.

The remaining infantry of the Mahratta line were pulling back, taking

their guns with them, but the artillery which had stood in front of the

enemy's defeated right wing, the same guns that had been overrun by the

red-coated infantry, were now coming alive again. The weapons had been

turned and were crashing back on their trails and jetting smoke from

their muzzles, and behind the guns was a mass of enemy cavalry ready to

protect the gunners who were flaying the five battalions that had

defeated the enemy infantry.

"Barclay?" Wellesley called.

"Sir?" The aide spurred forward.

"Can you reach Colonel Harness?"

The aide looked at the southern part of the battlefield. A moment

before it had been thick with Mahratta horsemen, but those men had now

withdrawn behind the revived guns and there was a space in front of

those guns, a horribly narrow space, but the only area of the

battlefield that was now free of enemy cavalry. If Barclay was to

reach Harness then he would have to risk that narrow passage and, if he

was very lucky, he might even survive the canister. And dead or alive,

Barclay thought, he would win the lottery of bullet holes in his coat.

The aide took a deep breath.

"Yes, sir."

"My compliments to Colonel Harness, and ask him to retake the guns with

his Highlanders. The rest of his brigade will stay where they are to

keep the cavalry at bay." The General was referring to the mass of

cavalry that still threatened from the west, none of which had yet

entered the battle.

"And my compliments to Colonel Wallace," the General went on, 'and his

sepoy battalions are to move northwards, but are not to engage the

enemy until I reach them. Go!" He waved Barclay away, then twisted in

his saddle.

"Campbell?"

"Sir?"

"Who's that?" The General pointed eastwards to where one single

cavalry unit had been left out of the charge that had rescued the 74th,

presumably in case the dragoons had galloped into disaster and needed a

rescue.

Campbell peered at the distant unit, 'yth Native Cavalry, sir."

"Fetch them. Quick now!" The General drew his sword as Campbell

galloped away.

"Well, gentlemen," he said to his remaining aides, 'time to earn our

keep, I think. Harness can drive the wretches away from the

southernmost guns, but we shall have to take care of the nearer

ones."

For a moment Sharpe thought the General planned to charge the guns with

just the handful of men who remained with him, then he realized

Wellesley was waiting for the yth Native Cavalry to arrive. For a few

seconds Wellesley had considered summoning the survivors of the 74th,

but those men, who had retreated back across the gully, were still

recovering from their ordeal. They were collecting their wounded,

taking the roll call and reorganizing ten broken companies into six.

The Native Cavalry would have to beat down the guns and Campbell

brought them across the battlefield, then led their commanding officer,

a red-faced major with a bristling moustache, to Wellesley's side. 'I

need to reach our infantry, Major," the General explained, 'and you're

going to escort me to them, and the quickest way is through their gun

line."

The Major gaped at the guns with their crowd of attendant cavalry.

"Yes, sir," he said nervously.

"Two lines, if you please," the General ordered brusquely.

"You will command the first line and drive off the cavalry. I shall

ride in the second and kill the gunners."

"You'll kill the gunners, sir?" the Major asked, as though he found

that idea novel, then he realized his question was dangerously close to

insubordination.

"Yes, sir," he said hurriedly, 'of course, sir." The Major stared at

the gun line again. He would be charging the line's flank, so at least

no gun would be pointing at his men. The greater danger was the mass

of Mahratta cavalry that had gathered behind the guns and which far

outnumbered his troopers, but then, sensing Wellesley's impatience, he

spurred his horse back to his men and shouted at his troopers.

"Two lines by the right!" The Major commanded a hundred and eighty men

and Sharpe saw them grin as they drew their sabres and spurred their

horses into formation.

"Ever been in a cavalry charge, Sergeant?" Campbell asked Sharpe.

"No, sir. Never wanted to be, sir."

"Nor me. Should be interesting." Campbell had his claymore drawn and

he gave the huge sword a cut in the air which almost took his horse's

ears off.

"You might find it more enjoyable, Sergeant," he said helpfully, 'if

you drew your sabre."

"Of course, sir," Sharpe said, feeling foolish. He had somehow

imagined that his first battle would be spent in an infantry battalion,

firing and reloading as he had been trained to do, but instead it

seemed that he was to fight as a cavalry trooper. He drew the heavy

weapon which felt unnatural in his hand, but then this whole battle

seemed unnatural.

It swung from moments of bowel-loosening terror to sudden calm, then

back to terror again. It also ebbed and flowed, flaring in one part of

the field, then dying down as the tide of killing passed to another

patch of dun-coloured farmland.

"And our job is to kill the gunners," Campbell explained, 'to make sure

they don't fire at us again. We'll let the experts look after their

cavalry and we just slaughter whatever they leave us. Simple."

Simple? All Sharpe could see was a mass of enemy horsemen behind the

huge guns that were bucking and rearing as they crashed out smoke,

flame and death, and Campbell thought it was easy? Then he realized

that the young Scots officer was just trying to reassure him, and he

felt grateful. Campbell was watching Captain Barclay ride through the

artillery barrage. It seemed the Captain must be killed, for he went

so close to the Mahratta guns that at one point his horse vanished in a

cloud of powder smoke, but a moment later he reappeared, low in his

saddle, his horse galloping, and Campbell cheered when he saw Barclay

swerve away towards Harness's brigade.

"A canteen, Sergeant, if you please?" Wellesley demanded, and Sharpe,

who had been watching Barclay, fumbled to loosen one of the canteen

straps. He gave the water to the General, then opened his own canteen

and drank from it. Sweat was pouring down his face and soaking his

shirt. Wellesley drank half the water, stoppered it and gave the

canteen back, then trotted his horse into a gap in the right-hand side

of the second line of the cavalry. The General drew his slim sword.

The other aides also found places in the line, but there seemed no

space for Sharpe and so he positioned himself a few yards behind the

General.

"Go!" Wellesley shouted to the Major.

"Forward line, by the centre," the Major shouted.

"Walk! March!"

It seemed an odd order, for Sharpe had expected the two lines to start

at the gallop, but instead the leading line of horsemen set off at a

walk and the second line just waited. Leaving the wide gap made sense

to Sharpe, for if the second line was too close to the first then it

could get entangled with whatever carnage the leading line made,

whereas if there was a good distance between the two lines then there

was space for the second to swerve around obstacles, but even so,

walking a horse into battle seemed idiocy to Sharpe. He licked his

lips, already dry again, then wiped his sweaty hand on his trousers

before re gripping the sabre's hilt.

"Now, gentlemen!" Wellesley said and the second line started forward

at the same sedate pace as the first. Curb chains jingled and empty

scabbards flapped. After a few seconds the Major in the first line

called out an order and the two lines went into the trot. Dust swirled

away from the hooves. The troopers' black hats had tall scarlet plumes

that tossed prettily, while their curved sabres flashed with reflected

sunlight.

Wellesley spoke to Blackiston beside him and Sharpe saw the Major

laugh, then the trumpeter beside the Major blew a call and the twin

lines went into the canter. Sharpe tried to keep up, but he was a bad

rider and the mare kept swerving aside and tossing her head.

"Keep going!" Sharpe snarled at her. The Mahrattas had seen the

attack coming now and the gunners were desperately trying to lever the

northernmost gun about to face the threat while a mass of enemy

cavalrymen was spurring forward to confront the charge.

"Go!" the Major shouted and his trumpeter sounded the full charge and

Sharpe saw the sabres of the leading line drop so that their points

were jutting forward like spears. This was more like it, he thought,

for the horses were galloping now, their hooves making a furious

thunder as they swept on to the enemy.

The leading line crashed into the oncoming enemy cavalry. Sharpe

expected to see the line stop, but it hardly seemed to check. Instead

there was the flash of blades, an impression of a man and horse falling

and then the Major's line was through the cavalry and riding over the

first gun. Sabres rose and fell. The second line was swerving to

avoid the fallen horses, then they too were among the enemy and closing

on the first line which was at last being slowed by the enemy's

resistance.

"Keep going!" Wellesley shouted at the foremost riders.

"Keep going!

Get me to the infantry!"

The cavalry had charged so that their right flank would overrun the

guns, while the rest of the attack would face the cavalry to the east

of the gun line. Those eastern most men were making good progress, but

the right-flank troopers were being held up by the big ammunition

limbers that were parked behind the guns. The Indian troopers slashed

at the Goanese gunners who dived beneath their cannon for shelter. One

gunner swung a rammer and swept a trooper off a horse. Muskets banged,

a horse screamed and fell in a tangle of flailing hooves. An arrow

flicked towards Sharpe, missing him by a hair's breadth. Sabres

slashed and bit.

Sharpe saw one tall trooper standing in his stirrups to give his swing

more room. The man screamed as he hacked down, then wrenched his blade

free from his victim and spurred on to find another. Sharpe clung

desperately to the saddle as the mare swerved to avoid a wounded horse,

then he was among the guns himself. Two lines of cavalry had ridden

over these weapons, but still some of the gunners lived and Sharpe

swung at one man with the sabre, but at the last moment the mare's

motion unbalanced him and the blade went far above the enemy's head. It

was all bloody chaos now. The cavalry was fighting its way up the

line, but some of the enemy horsemen were galloping around the first

line's flank to attack the second line, and groups of gunners were

fighting back like infantry. The gunners were armed with muskets and

pikes, and Sharpe, kicking his horse behind Wellesley, saw a group of

them appear from the shelter of a painted eighteen-pounder gun and run

towards the General. He tried to shout a warning, but the sound that

emerged was more like a scream for help.

Wellesley was isolated. Major Blackiston had wheeled left to chop down

at a tall Arab wielding a massive blade, while Campbell was loose on

the right where he was racing in pursuit of a fugitive horseman. The

Indian troopers were all in front of the General, sabring gunners as

they spurred ahead, while Sharpe was ten paces behind. Six men

attacked the General, and one of them wielded a long, narrow-bladed

pike that he thrust up at Wellesley's horse. The General sawed on

Diomed's reins to wheel him out of the man's path, but the big horse

was going too fast and ran straight onto the levelled pike.

Sharpe saw the man holding the pike twist aside as the horse's weight

wrenched the staff out of his hands. He saw the white stallion falling

and sliding, and he saw Wellesley thrown forward onto the horse's

neck.

He saw the half-dozen enemy closing in for the kill and suddenly the

chaos and terror of the day all vanished. Sharpe knew what he had to

do, and knew it as clearly as though his whole life had been spent

waiting for just this moment.

He kicked the roan mare straight at the enemy. He could not reach the

General, for Wellesley was still in the saddle of the wounded Diomed

who was sliding on the ground and trailing the pikestaff from his

bleeding chest, and the threat of the horse's weight had driven the

enemy aside, three to the left and three to the right. One fired his

musket at Wellesley, but the ball flew wide, and then, as Diomed

slowed, the Mahrattas closed in and it was then that Sharpe struck

them. He used the mare as a battering ram, taking her perilously close

to where the General had fallen from the saddle, and he drove her into

the three gunners on the right, scattering them, and at the same time

he kicked his feet from the stirrups and swung himself off the horse so

that he fell just beside the dazed Wellesley. Sharpe stumbled as he

fell, but he came up from the ground snarling with the sabre sweeping

wide at the three men he had charged, but they had been driven back by

the mare's impact, and so Sharpe whipped back to see a gunner standing

right over the General with a bayonet raised, ready to strike, and he

lunged at the man, screaming at him, and felt the sabre's tip tear

through the muscles of the gunner's belly. Sharpe pushed the sabre,

toppling the gunner back onto Diomed's blood-flecked flank.

The sabre stuck in the wound. The gunner was thrashing, his musket

fallen, and one of his comrades was climbing over Diomed with a tulwar

in his hand. Sharpe heaved on the sabre, jerking the dying man, but

the blade would not free itself of the flesh's suction and so he

stepped over Wellesley, who was still dizzied and on his back, put his

left boot on the gunner's groin and heaved again. The man with the

tulwar struck down, and Sharpe felt a blow on his left shoulder, but

then his own sabre came free and he swung it clumsily at his new

attacker. The man stepped back to avoid the blade and tripped on one

of Diomed's rear legs. He fell.

Sharpe turned, his sabre sweeping blindly wide with drops of blood

flicking from its tip as he sought to drive back any enemies coming

from his right. There were none. The General said something, but he

was still scarcely conscious of what was happening, and Sharpe knew

that he and the General were both going to die here if he did not find

some shelter fast.

The big painted eighteen-pounder gun offered some small safety, and so

Sharpe stooped, took hold of Wellesley's collar, and unceremoniously

dragged the General towards the cannon. The General was not

unconscious, for he clung to his slim straight sword, but he was half

stunned and helpless. Two men ran to cut Sharpe off from the gun's

sanctuary and he let go of the General's stiff collar and attacked the

pair.

"Bastards," he screamed as he fought them. Bugger the advice about

straight arm and parrying, this was a time to kill in sheer rage and he

went for the two gunners in a berserk fury. The sabre was a clumsy

weapon, but it was sharp and heavy and he almost severed the first

man's neck and the subsequent backswing opened the second man's arm to

the bone, and Sharpe turned back to Wellesley, who was still not

recovered from the impact of his fall, and he saw an Arab lancer

spurring his horse straight at the fallen General. Sharpe bellowed an

obscenity at the man, then leaped forward and slashed the sabre's heavy

blade across the face of the lancer's horse and saw the beast swerve

aside. The lance blade jerked up into the air as the Arab tried to

control his pain-maddened horse, and Sharpe stooped, took Wellesley's

collar again, and hauled the General into the space between the gun's

gaudy barrel and one of its gigantic wheels.

"Stay there!" Sharpe snapped to Wellesley, then turned around to see

that the Arab had been thrown from his horse, but was now leading a

charge of gunners. Sharpe went to meet them. He swept the lance aside

with the sabre's blade, then rammed the weapon's bar hilt into the

Arab's face. He felt the man's nose break, kicked him in the balls,

shoved him back, hacked down with the sabre, then turned to his left

and sliced the blade within an inch of a gunner's eyes.

The attackers backed away, leaving Sharpe panting. Wellesley at last

stood, steadying himself with one hand on the gun wheel

"Sergeant Sharpe?" Wellesley asked in puzzlement.

"Stay there, sir," Sharpe said, without turning round. He had four men

in front of him now, four men with bared teeth and bright weapons.

Their eyes nicked from Sharpe to Wellesley and back to Sharpe. The

Mahrattas did not know they had the British General trapped, but they

knew the man beside the gun must be a senior officer for his red coat

was bright with braid and lace, and they came to capture him, but to

reach him they first needed to pass Sharpe. Two men came from the

gun's far side, and Wellesley parried a pike blade with his sword, then

stepped away from the gun to stand beside Sharpe and immediately a rush

of enemy came to seize him.

"Get back!" Sharpe shouted at Wellesley, then stepped into the enemy's

charge.

He grabbed a pike that was reaching for the General's belly, tugged it

towards him, and met the oncoming gunner with the sabre's tip. Straight

into the man's throat, and he twisted the blade free and swung it right

and felt the steel jar on a man's skull, but there was no time to

assess the damage, just to step left and stab at a third man. His

shoulder was bleeding, but there was no pain. He was keening a mad

noise as he fought and it seemed to Sharpe at that instant as though he

could do nothing wrong. It was as if the enemy had been magically

slowed to half speed and he had been quickened. He was much taller

than any of them, he was much stronger, and he was suddenly much

faster. He was even enjoying the fight, had he known anything of what

he felt, but he sensed only the madness of battle, the sublime madness

that blots out fear, dulls pain and drives a man close to ecstasy. He

was screaming obscenities at the enemy, begging them to come and be

killed.

He moved to his right and slashed the blade in a huge downward cut that

opened a man's face. The enemy had retreated, and Wellesley again came

to Sharpe's side and so invited the attackers to close in again, and

Sharpe again pushed the General back into the space between the tall

gun wheel and the huge painted barrel of the eighteen-pounder.

"Stay there," he snapped, 'and watch under the barrel!" He turned away

to face the attackers.

"Come on, you bastards! Come on! I want you!"

Two men came, and Sharpe stepped towards them and used both his hands

to bring the heavy sabre down in a savage cut that bit through the hat

and skull of the nearest enemy. Sharpe screamed a curse at the dying

man, for his sabre was trapped in his skull, but he wrenched it free

and sliced it right, a grey jelly sliding off its edge, to chase the

second man back. That man held up his hands as he retreated, as if to

suggest that he did not want to fight after all, and Sharpe cursed him

as he slashed the blade's tip through his gullet. He spat on the

staggering man and spat dry-mouthed again at the enemies who were

watching him.

"Come on! Come on!" he taunted them.

"Yellow bastards! Come on!"

There were at last horsemen riding back to help now, but more Mahrattas

were closing in on the fight. Two men tried to reach Wellesley across

the cannon barrel and the General stabbed one in the face, then slashed

at the arm of the other as he reached beneath the gun barrel. Behind

him Sharpe was screaming insults at the enemy and one man took up the

challenge and ran at Sharpe with a bayonet. Sharpe shouted in what

sounded like delight as he parried the lunge and then punched the

sabre's hilt into the man's face. Another man was coming from the

right and so Sharpe kicked his first assailant's legs out from under

him, then slashed at the newcomer. Christ knows how many of the

bastards there were, but Sharpe did not care. He had come here to

fight and God had given him one screaming hell of a battle. The man

parried Sharpe's cut, lunged, and Sharpe stepped past the lunge and

hammered the sabre's bar hilt into the man's eye. The man screamed and

clutched at Sharpe, who tried to throw him off by punching the hilt

into his face again. The other attackers were vanishing now, fleeing

from the horsemen who spurred back towards Wellesley.

But one Mahratta officer had been stalking Sharpe and he now saw his

opportunity as Sharpe was held by the half-blinded man. The officer

came from behind Sharpe and he swung his tulwar at the back of the

redcoat's neck.

The stroke was beautifully aimed. It hit Sharpe plumb on the nape of

his neck, and it should have cut through his spine and dropped him dead

to the bloody ground in an instant, but there was a dead king's ruby

hidden in the leather bag around which Sharpe's hair was clubbed and

the big ruby stopped the blade dead. The jolt of the blow jerked

Sharpe forward, but he kept his feet and the man who had been clutching

him at last released his grip and Sharpe could turn. The officer swung

again and Sharpe parried so hard that the Sheffield steel slashed clean

through the tulwar's light blade and the next stroke cut through the

blade's owner.

"Bastard!" Sharpe shouted as he tugged the blade free and he whirled

around to kill the next man who came near, but instead it was Captain

Campbell who was there, and behind him were a dozen troopers who

spurred their horses into the enemy and hacked down with their

sabres.

For a second or two Sharpe could scarcely believe that he was alive.

Nor could he believe that the fight was over. He wanted to kill

again.

His blood was up, the rage was seething in him, and there was no more

enemy and so he contented himself by slashing the sabre down onto the

Mahratta officer's head.

"Bastard!" he shouted, then booted the man's face to jolt the blade

free. Then, suddenly, he was shaking. He turned and saw that

Wellesley was staring at him aghast and Sharpe was certain he must have

done something wrong. Then he remembered what it was.

"Sorry, sir," he said.

"You're sorry?" Wellesley said, though he seemed scarcely able to

speak. The General's face was pale.

"For pushing you, sir," Sharpe said.

"Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to, sir."

"I hope you damn well did mean to," Wellesley said forcibly, and Sharpe

saw that the General, usually so calm, was shaking too.

Sharpe felt he ought to say something more, but he could not think what

it was.

"Lost your last horse, sir," he said instead.

"Sorry, sir."

Wellesley gazed at him. In all his life he had never seen a man fight

like Sergeant Sharpe, though in truth the General could not remember

everything that had happened in the last two minutes. He remembered

Diomed falling and he remembered trying to loosen his feet from the

stirrups, and he remembered a blow on the head that was probably one of

Diomed's flailing hooves, and he thought he remembered seeing a bayonet

bright in the sky above him and he had known that he must be killed at

that moment, and then everything was a dizzy confusion. He recalled

Sharpe's voice, using language that shocked even the General, who was

not easily offended, and he remembered being thrust back against the

gun so that the Sergeant could face the enemy alone, and Wellesley had

approved of that decision, not because it spared him the need to fight,

but because he had recognized that Sharpe would be hampered by his

presence.

Then he had watched Sharpe kill, and he had been astonished by the

ferocity, enthusiasm and skill of that killing, and Wellesley knew that

his life had been saved, and he knew he must thank Sharpe, but for some

reason he could not find the words and so he just stared at the

embarrassed Sergeant whose face was spattered with blood and whose long

hair had come loose so that he looked like a fiend from the pit.

Wellesley tried to frame the words that would express his gratitude,

yet the syllables choked in his throat, but just then a trooper came

trotting to the gun with the reins of the roan mare in his hand. The

mare had survived unhurt, and now the trooper offered the reins towards

Wellesley who, as if in a dream, walked out of the sheltered space

inside the gun's tall wheel to step across the bodies Sharpe had put

onto the ground. The General suddenly stooped and picked up a stone.

"This is yours, Sergeant," he said to Sharpe, holding out the ruby.

"I saw it fall."

"Thank you, sir. Thank you." Sharpe took the ruby.

The General frowned at the ruby. It seemed wrong for a sergeant to

have a stone that size, but once Sharpe had closed his fingers about

the stone, the General decided it must have been a blood-soaked piece

of rock. It surely was not a ruby?

"Are you all right, sir?" Major Blackis-ton asked anxiously.

"Yes, yes, thank you, Blackiston." The General seemed to shake off his

torpor and went to stand beside Campbell who had dismounted to kneel

beside Diomed. The horse was shaking and neighing softly.

"Can he be saved?" Wellesley asked.

"Don't know, sir," Campbell said.

"The pike blade's deep in his lung, poor thing."

"Pull it out, Campbell. Gently. Maybe he'll live." Wellesley looked

around him to see that the yth Native Cavalry had scoured the gunners

away and driven the remaining Mahratta horsemen off, while Harness's

778th had again marched into canister and round shot to capture the

southern part of the Mahratta artillery. Harness's adjutant now

cantered through the bodies scattered around the guns.

"We've nails and mauls if you want us to spike the guns, sir," he said

to Wellesley.

"No, no. I think the gunners have learned their lesson, and we might

take some of the cannon into our own service," Wellesley said, then saw

that he was still holding his sword. He sheathed it.

"Pity to spike good guns," he added. It could take hours of hard work

to drill a driven nail out of a touch-hole, and so long as the enemy

gunners were defeated then the guns would no longer be a danger. The

General turned to an Indian trooper who had joined Campbell beside

Diomed.

"Can you save him?" he asked anxiously.

The Indian very gently pulled at the pike, but it would not move.

"Harder, man, harder," Campbell urged him, and laid his own hands on

the pike's bloodied shaft.

The two men tugged at the pike and the fallen horse screamed with

pain.

"Careful!" Wellesley snapped.

"You want the pike in or out, sir?" Campbell asked.

"Try and save him," the General said, and Campbell shrugged, took hold

of the shaft again, put his boot on the horse's red wet chest, and gave

a swift, hard heave. The horse screamed again as the blade left his

hide and as a new rush of blood welled down to soak his white hair.

"Nothing more we can do now, sir," Campbell said.

"Look after him," Wellesley ordered the Indian trooper, then he frowned

when he saw that his last horse, the roan mare, still had her trooper's

saddle and that no one had thought to take his own saddle off Diomed.

That was the orderly's job and Wellesley looked for Sharpe, then

remembered he had to express his thanks to the Sergeant, but again the

words would not come and so Wellesley asked Campbell to change the

saddles, and once that was done he climbed onto the mare's back.

Captain Barclay, who had survived his dash across the field, reined in

beside the General.

"Wallace's brigade is ready to attack, sir."

"We need to get Harness's fellows into line," Wellesley said.

"Any news of Maxwell?"

"Not yet, sir," Barclay said. Colonel Maxwell had led the cavalry in

their pursuit across the River Juah.

"Major!" Wellesley shouted at the commander of the Native

Cavalry.

"Have your men hunt down the gunners here. Make sure none of them

live, then guard the guns so they can't be retaken. Gentlemen?"

He spoke to his aides.

"Let's move on."

Sharpe watched the General ride away into the thinning skein of cannon

smoke, then he looked down at the ruby in his hand and saw that it was

as red and shiny as the blood that dripped from his sabre tip. He

wondered if the ruby had been dipped in the fountain of Zum-Zum along

with the Tippoo's helmet. Was that why it had saved his life? It had

done bugger all for the Tippoo, but Sharpe was alive when he should

have been dead, and so, for that matter, was Major General Sir Arthur

Wellesley.

The General had left Sharpe alone by the gun, all but for the dead and

dying men and the trooper who was trying to staunch Diomed's wound with

a rag. Sharpe laughed suddenly, startling the trooper.

"He didn't even say thank you," Sharpe said aloud.

"What, sahib?" the trooper asked.

"You don't call me sahib," Sharpe said.

"I'm just another bloody soldier like you. Good for bloody nothing

except fighting other people's battles.

And ten to one the buggers won't thank you." He was thirsty so he

opened one of the General's canteens and drank from it greedily.

"Is that horse going to live?"

The Indian did not seem to understand everything Sharpe said, but the

question must have made some sense for he pointed at Diomed's mouth.

The stallion's lips were drawn back to reveal yellow teeth through

which a pale pink froth seeped. The Indian shook his head sadly.

"I bled that horse," Sharpe said, 'and the General said he was greatly

obliged to me. Those were his very words, "greatly obliged". Gave me

a bloody coin, he did. But you save his life and he doesn't even say

thank you! I should have bled him, not his bloody horse. I should

have bled him to bloody death." He drank more of the water and wished

it were arrack or rum.

"You know what the funny thing is?" he asked the Indian.

"I didn't even do it because he was the General. I did it because I

like him. Not personally, but I do like him. In a strange sort of

way. I wouldn't have done it for you. I'd have done it for Tom

Garrard, but he's a friend, see? And I'd have done it for Colonel

McCandless, because he's a proper gentleman, but I wouldn't have done

it for too many others." Sharpe sounded drunk, even to himself,

but in truth he was stone cold sober in a battlefield that had suddenly

gone silent beneath the westering sun. It was almost evening, but

there was still enough daylight left to finish the battle, though

whether Sharpe would have anything to do with the finishing seemed

debatable, for he had lost his job as the General's orderly, had lost

his horse, had lost his musket and was stranded with nothing but a

dented sabre.

"That ain't really true," he confessed to the uncomprehending Indian,

'what I said about liking him. I want him to like me, and that's

different, ain't it? I thought the miserable bugger might make me an

officer! Sod that for a hope, eh? No sash for me, lad. It's back to

being a bloody infantryman."

He used the bloody sabre to cut a strip of cloth from the robes of a

dead Arab, and he folded the strip into a pad that he pushed under his

jacket to staunch the blood from the tulwar wound on his left shoulder.

It was not a serious injury, he decided, for he could feel no broken

bones and his left arm was unhindered. He tossed the dented sabre

away, found a discarded Mahratta musket, tugged the cartridge box and

bayonet off the dead owner's belt, then went to find someone to kill.

It took half an hour to form the new line from the five battalions that

had marched through the Mahratta gunfire and put Pohlmann's right to

flight, but now the five battalions faced north towards Pohlmann's new

position which rested its left flank on Assaye's mud walls then

stretched along the southern bank of the River Juah. The Mahrattas had

forty guns remaining, Pohlmann still commanded eight thousand infantry

and innumerable cavalry, and the Rajah of Berar's twenty thousand

infantrymen still waited behind the village's makeshift ramparts.

Wellesley's infantry numbered fewer than four thousand men, he had only

two light guns that were serviceable and scarcely six hundred

cavalrymen mounted on horses that were bone weary and parched dry.

"We can hold them!" Pohlmann roared at his men.

"We can hold them and beat them! Hold them and beat them." He was

still on horseback, and still in his gaudy silk coat. He had dreamed

of riding his elephant across a field strewn with the enemy's dead and

piled with the enemy's captured weapons, but instead he was encouraging

his men to a last stand beside the river.

"Hold them," he shouted, 'hold them and beat them." The Juah flowed

behind his men, while in front of them the shadows stretched long

across Assaye's battle-littered farmlands.

Then the pipes sounded again, and Pohlmann turned his horse to look at

the right-hand end of his line and he saw the tall black bearskins and

the swinging kilts of the damned Scottish regiment coming forward

again. The sun caught their white crossbelts and glinted from their

bayonets. Beyond them, half hidden by the trees, the British cavalry

was threatening, though they seemed to be checked by a battery of

cannon on the right of Pohlmann's line. The Hanoverian knew the

cavalry was no danger. It was the infantry, the unstoppable

red-jacketed infantry, that was going to beat him, and he saw the sepoy

battalions starting forward on the Highlanders' flank and he half

turned his horse, thinking to ride to where the Scottish regiment would

strike his line. It would hit Saleur's compoo, and suddenly Pohlmann

could not care less any more. Let Saleur fight his battle, because

Pohlmann knew it was lost. He stared at the y78th and he reckoned that

no force on earth could stop such men.

"The best damned infantry on earth," he said to one of his aides.

"Sahib?"

"Watch them! You'll not see better fighting men while you live,"

Pohlmann said bitterly, then sheathed his sword as he gazed at the

Scots who were once again being battered by cannon fire, but still

their two lines kept marching forward. Pohlmann knew he should go west

to encourage Saleur's men, but instead he was thinking of the gold he

had left behind in Assaye. These last ten years had been a fine

adventure, but the Mahratta Confederation was dying before his eyes and

Anthony Pohlmann did not wish to die with it. The rest of the Mahratta

princedoms might fight on, but Pohlmann had decided it was time to take

his gold and run.

Saleur's compoo was already edging backwards. Some of the men from the

rearward ranks were not even waiting for the Scots to arrive, but were

running back to the River Juah and wading through its muddy water that

came up to their chests. The rest of the regiments began to waver.

Pohlmann watched. He had thought these three compoos were as fine as

any infantry in the world, but they had proved to be brittle. The

British fired a volley and Pohlmann heard the heavy balls thump into

his infantry and he heard the cheer from the redcoats as they charged

forward with the bayonet, and suddenly there was no army opposing them,

just a mass of men fleeing to the river.

Pohlmann took off his gaudily plumed hat that would mark him as a prize

capture and threw it away, then stripped off his sash and coat and

tossed them after the hat as he spurred towards Assaye. He had a few

minutes, he reckoned, and those minutes should be enough to secure his

money and get away. The battle was lost and, for Pohlmann, the war

with it. It was time to retire.

CHAPTER 12

Assaye alone remained in enemy hands for the rest of Pohlmann's army

had simply disintegrated. The great majority of the Mahratta horsemen

had spent the afternoon as spectators, but now they turned and spurred

west towards Borkardan while to the north, beyond the Juah, the

remnants of Pohlmann's three compoos fled in panic, pursued by a

handful of British and Company cavalry on tired horses. Great banks of

gunsmoke lay like fog across the field where men of both armies groaned

and died. Diomed gave a great shudder, lifted his head a final time,

then rolled his eyes and went still. The sepoy trooper, charged with

guarding the horse, stayed at his post and waved the flies away from

the dead Diomed's face.

The sun reddened the layers of gunsmoke. There was an hour of daylight

left, a few moments of dusk, and then it would be night, and Wellesley

used the last of the light to turn his victorious infantry towards the

mud walls of Assaye. He summoned gunners and had them haul captured

enemy cannon towards the village.

"They won't stand," he told his aides.

"A handful of round shot and the sight of some bayonets will send them

packing."

The village still held a small army. The Rajah of Berar's twenty

thousand men were behind its thick walls, and Major Dodd had succeeded

in marching his own regiment into the village. He had seen the

remainder of the Mahratta line crumple, he had watched Anthony Pohlmann

discard his hat and coat as he fled to the village and, rather than let

the panic infect his own men, Dodd had turned them eastwards, ordered

the regiment's cumbersome guns to be abandoned, then followed his

commanding officer into the tangle of Assaye's narrow alleys. Beny

Singh, the Rajah of Berar's warlord and the kill adar of the village's

garrison, was glad to see the European.

"What do we do?" he asked Dodd.

"Do? We get out, of course. The battle's lost."

Beny Singh blinked at him.

"We just go?"

Dodd dismounted from his horse and steered Beny Singh away from his

aides.

"Who are your best troops?" he asked.

"The Arabs."

"Tell them you're going to fetch reinforcements, tell them to defend

the village, and promise that if they can hold the place till nightfall

then help will come in the morning."

"But it won't," Beny Singh protested.

"But if they hold," Dodd said, 'they cover your escape, sahib." He

smiled ingratiatingly, knowing that men like Beny Singh could yet play

a part in his future.

"The British will pounce on any fugitives leaving the village," Dodd

explained, 'but they won't dare attack men who are well drilled and

well commanded. I proved that at Ahmednuggur. So you're most welcome

to march north with my men, sahib. I promise they won't be broken like

the rest." He climbed back into his saddle and rode back to his Cobras

and ordered them to join Captain Joubert at the ford.

"You're to wait for me there," he told them, then shouted for his own

sepoy company to follow him deeper into the village.

The battle might be lost, but Dodd's men had not failed him and he was

determined they should have a reward and so he led them to the house

where Colonel Pohlmann had stored his treasure. Dodd knew that if he

did not give his men gold then they would melt away to find another

warlord who would reward them, but if he paid them they would stay

under his command while he sought another prince as employer.

He heard the sonorous bang of a great gun being fired beyond the

village and he reckoned that the British had begun to pound Assaye's

mud wall. Dodd knew that wall could not last long, for every shot

would crumble the dried mud bricks and collapse the roof beams of the

outermost houses so that in a few minutes there would be a wide breach

leading into Assaye's heart. A moment later the redcoats would be

ordered into the dusty breach and the village's alleys would be clogged

by panic and filled with screams and bayonets.

Dodd reached the alley leading to the courtyard where Pohlmann had

placed his elephants and he saw, as he had expected, that the big gate

was still shut. Pohlmann was undoubtedly inside the courtyard,

readying to escape, but Dodd could not wait for the Hanoverian to throw

open the gates, so instead he ordered his men to fight their way

through the house. He left a dozen men to block the alley, gave one of

those men his horse to hold, then led the rest of the sepoys towards

the house. Pohlmann's bodyguard saw them coming and fired, but fired

too early and Dodd survived the panicked volley and roared his men

on.

"Kill them!" he shouted as, sword in hand, he charged through the

musket smoke. He kicked the house door open and plunged into a kitchen

crowded with purple-coated men. He lunged with his sword, driving the

defenders back, and then his sepoys arrived to carry their bayonets to

Pohlmann's men.

"Gopal!" Dodd shouted.

"Sahib?" the Jemadar said, tugging his tulwar from the body of a dead

man.

"Find the gold! Make sure it's loaded on the elephants, then open the

courtyard gate!" Dodd snapped the orders, then went on killing.

He was consumed with a huge anger. How could any fool have lost this

battle? How could a man, given a hundred thousand troops, be beaten by

a handful of redcoats? It was Pohlmann's fault, all Pohlmann, and Dodd

knew Pohlmann had to be somewhere in the house or courtyard and so he

hunted him and vented his rage on Pohlmann's guards, pursuing them from

room to room, slaughtering them mercilessly, and all the while the

great guns hammered the sky with their noise and the round shot thumped

into the village walls.

Most of the Rajah of Berar's infantry fled. Those on the makeshift

ramparts could see the redcoats massing beyond the smoke of the big

cannon and they did not wait for that infantry to attack, but instead

ran northwards. Only the Arab mercenaries stayed, and some of those

men decided caution was better than bravery and so joined the other

infantry that splashed through the ford where Captain Joubert waited

with Dodd's regiment.

Joubert was nervous. The village's defenders were fleeing, Dodd was

missing, and Simone was still somewhere in the village. It was like

Ahmednuggur all over again, he thought, only this time he was

determined that his wife would not be left behind and so he kicked back

his heels and urged his horse towards the house where she had taken

refuge.

That house was hard by the courtyard where Dodd was searching for

Pohlmann, but the Hanoverian had vanished. His gold was all in its

panniers, and Pohlmann's bodyguard had succeeded in strapping the

panniers onto the two pack elephants before Dodd's men attacked,

but there was no sign of Pohlmann himself. Dodd decided he would let

the bastard live, and so, abandoning the hunt, he sheathed his sword

then lifted the locking bar from the courtyard gates.

"Where's my horse?" he shouted to the men he had left guarding the

alley.

"Dead, sahib," a man answered.

Dodd ran down the alley to see that his precious new gelding had been

struck by a bullet from the one volley fired by Pohlmann's bodyguard.

The beast was not yet dead, but it was leaning against the alley wall

with its head down, dulled eyes and blood dripping from its mouth. Dodd

swore. The big guns were still firing beyond the village, showing that

the redcoats were not advancing yet, but suddenly they went silent and

Dodd knew he had only minutes left to make his escape, and just then he

saw another horse turn into the alley. Captain Joubert was in the

saddle, and Dodd ran to him.

"Joubert!"

Joubert ignored Dodd. Instead he cupped his hands and shouted up at

the house where the wives had been sheltered during the fighting.

"Simone!"

"Give me your horse, Captain!" Dodd demanded.

Joubert still ignored the Major.

"Simone!" he called again, then spurred his horse on up the alley. Had

she already gone? Was she north of thejuah?

"Simone?" he shouted.

"Captain!" Dodd screamed behind him.

Joubert turned, summoned the courage to tell the Englishman to go to

hell, but as he turned he saw that Dodd was holding a big pistol.

"No!"Joubert protested.

"Yes, Monsewer," Dodd said, and fired. The ball snatched Joubert back

against the alley wall and he slid down to leave a trail of blood. A

woman screamed from a window above the alley as Dodd pulled himself

into the Frenchman's saddle. Gopal was already leading the first

elephant out of the gate.

"To the ford, Gopal!" Dodd shouted, then he spurred into the courtyard

to make certain that the second elephant was ready to leave.

While outside, in the alleys, there was a sudden silence. Most of the

village's garrison had fled, the dust drifted from its broken walls,

and then the order was given for the redcoats to advance. Assaye was

doomed.

Colonel McCandless had watched Dodd's men retreat into the village and

he doubted that the traitor was leading his men to reinforce the doomed

garrison.

"Sevajee!" McCandless called.

"Take your men to the far side!"

"Across the river?" Sevajee asked.

"Watch to see if he crosses the ford," McCandless said.

"Where will you be, Colonel?"

"In the village." McCandless slid from Aeolus's back and limped

towards the captured guns that had started to fire at the mud walls.

The shadows were long now, the daylight short and the battle ending,

but there was still time for Dodd to be trapped. Let him be a hero,

McCandless prayed, let him stay in the village just long enough to be

caught.

The big guns were only three hundred paces from the village's thick

wall and each shot pulverized the mud bricks and started great clouds

of red dust that billowed thick as gunsmoke. Wellesley summoned the

survivors of the 74th and a Madrassi battalion and lined them both up

behind the guns.

"They won't stand, Wallace," Wellesley said to the 74th's commander.

"We'll give them five minutes of artillery, then your fellows can take

the place."

"Allow me to congratulate you, sir," Wallace said, taking a hand from

his reins and holding it towards the General.

"Congratulate me?" Wellesley asked with a frown.

"On a victory, sir."

"I suppose it is a victory.

"Pon my soul, so it is. Thank you, Wallace."

The General leaned across and shook the Scotsman's hand.

"A great victory," Wallace said heartily, then climbed out of his

saddle so that he could lead the 74th into the village.

McCandless joined him.

"You don't mind if I come, Wallace?"

"Glad of your company, McCandless. A great day, is it not?"

"The Lord has been merciful to us," McCandless agreed.

"Praise His name."

The guns ceased, their smoke drifted northwards and the dying sun shone

on the broken walls. There were no defenders visible, nothing but dust

and fallen bricks and broken timbers.

"Go, Wallace!" Wellesley called, and the 74th's lone piper hoisted his

instrument and played the redcoats and the sepoys forward. The other

battalions watched. Those other battalions had fought all afternoon,

they had destroyed an army, and now they sprawled beside the Juah and

drank its muddy water to slake their powder-induced thirst. None

crossed the river, only a handful of cavalry splashed through the water

to chase the laggard fugitives on the farther bank.

Major Blackiston brought Wellesley a captured standard, one of a score

that had been abandoned by the fleeing Mahrattas.

"They left all their guns too, sir, every last one of them!"

Wellesley acknowledged the standard with a smile.

"I'd rather you brought me some water, Blackiston. Where are my

canteens?"

"Sergeant Sharpe still has them, sir," Campbell answered, holding his

own canteen to the General.

"Ah yes, Sharpe." The General frowned, knowing there was unfinished

business there.

"If you see him, bring him to me."

"I will, sir."

Sharpe was not far away. He had walked north through the litter of the

Mahratta battle line, going to where the guns fired on the village and,

just as they stopped, so he saw McCandless walking behind the 74th as

it advanced on the village. He hurried to catch up with the Colonel

and was rewarded with a warm smile from McCandless.

"Thought I'd lost you, Sharpe."

"Almost did, sir."

"The General released you, did he?"

"He did, sir, in a manner of speaking. We ran out of horses, sir. He

had two killed."

"Two! An expensive day for him! It sounds as if you had an eventful

time!"

"Not really, sir," Sharpe said.

"Bit confusing, really."

The Colonel frowned at the blood staining the light infantry insignia

on Sharpe's left shoulder.

"You're wounded, Sharpe."

"A scratch, sir. Bastard with sorry, sir man with a tulwar tried to

tickle me."

"But you're all right?" McCandless asked anxiously.

"Fine, sir." He raised his left arm to show that the wound was not

serious.

"The day's not over yet," McCandless said, then gestured at the

village.

"Dodd's there, Sharpe, or he was. I'm glad you're here. He'll

doubtless try to escape, but Sevajee's on the far side of the river and

between us we might yet trap the rogue."

Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was a hundred paces behind McCandless.

He too had seen the Colonel following the 74th and now Hakeswill

followed McCandless, for if McCandless wrote his letter, then Hakeswill

knew his sergeantcy was imperilled.

"It ain't that I like doing it," he said to his men as he stalked after

the Colonel, 'but he ain't giving me a choice. No choice at all. His

own fault. His own fault." Three of his men were following him, the

others had refused to come.

A musket fired from Assaye's rooftops, showing that not all the

defenders had fled. The ball fluttered over Wallace's head and the

Colonel, not wanting to expose his men to any other fire that might

come from the village, shouted at his men to double.

"Just get in among the houses, boys," he called.

"Get in and hunt them down! Quick now!"

More muskets fired from the houses, but the 74th were running now, and

cheering as they ran. The first men scrambled over the makeshift

breach blown by the big guns, while others hauled aside a cart that

blocked an alleyway and, with that entrance opened, a twin stream of

Scotsmen and sepoys hurried into the village. The Arab defenders fired

their last shots, then retreated ahead of the redcoat rush. A few were

trapped in houses and died under Scottish or Indian bayonets.

"You go ahead, Sharpe," McCandless said, for his wounded leg was making

him limp and he was now far behind the Highlanders.

"See if you can spot the man," McCandless suggested, though he doubted

Sharpe would. Dodd would be long gone by now, but there was always a

chance he had waited until the end and, if men of the 74th had trapped

Dodd, then Sharpe could at least try and make sure that the wretch was

taken alive.

"Go, Sharpe," the Colonel ordered, 'hurry!"

Sharpe dutifully ran on ahead. He clambered up the dust of the breach

and jumped down into the pitiful wreckage of a room. He pushed through

the house, stepped over a dead Arab sprawled in the outer door, edged

about a dung heap in the courtyard, then plunged into an alleyway.

Shots sounded from the river and so he headed that way past houses that

were being looted of what little remained after the Mahratta

occupation. A sepoy emerged from one house with a broken pot while a

Highlander had found a broken brass weighing-scale, but the plunder was

nothing like the riches that had been taken in Ahmednuggur. Another

volley sounded ahead and Sharpe broke into a run, turned a corner and

then stopped above the village's ford.

Dodd's regiment was on the far side of the river where two white coated

companies had formed a rear guard It was just like Ahmednuggur, where

Dodd had guarded his escape route with volley fire, and now the Major

had done it again. He was safely over the river with

Pohlmann's two elephants, and his men had been firing at any redcoats

who dared show on the ford's southern bank, but then, just as Sharpe

arrived at the ford, the rear guard about turned and marched north.

"He got away," a man said, 'the bastard got clean away," and Sharpe

looked at the speaker and saw an East India Company sergeant in a

doorway a few yards away. The man was smoking a cheroot and appeared

to be standing guard over a group of prisoners in the house behind

him.

Sharpe turned to watch Dodd's regiment march into the shadow of some

trees.

"The bastard," Sharpe spat. He could see Dodd on his horse just ahead

of the two rear guard companies, and he was tempted to raise his musket

and try one last shot, but the range was much too great and then Dodd

vanished among the shadows. His rear guard followed him.

Sharpe could see Sevajee off to the west, but the Indian was

helpless.

Dodd had five hundred men in ranks and files, and Sevajee had but ten

horsemen.

"He bloody got away again," Sharpe said, and spat towards the river.

"With my gold," the East India Company sergeant said miserably, and

Sharpe looked again at the man.

"Bloody hell," Sharpe said in astonishment, for he was looking at

Anthony Pohlmann who had donned his old sergeant's uniform.

Pohlmann's 'prisoners' were a small group of his bodyguard.

"A pity," Pohlmann said, spitting a scrap of tobacco from between his

teeth.

"Ten minutes ago I was one of the richest men in India. Now I suppose

I'm your prisoner?"

"I couldn't care less about you, sir," Sharpe said, slinging the musket

on his shoulder.

"You don't want to march me to Wellesley?" the Hanoverian asked.

"It would be a great feather in your cap."

"That bastard doesn't give feathers," Sharpe said.

"He's a stuck-up, cold-hearted bastard, he is, and I'd rather fillet

him than you."

Pohlmann grinned.

"So I can go, Sergeant Sharpe?"

"Do what you bloody like," Sharpe said.

"How many men have you got in there?"

"Five. That's all he left me. He slaughtered the rest."

"Dodd did?"

"He tried to kill me, but I hid under some straw. A shameful end to my

career as a warlord, wouldn't you say?" Pohlmann smiled.

"I think you did well, Sergeant Sharpe, to turn down my commission."

Sharpe laughed bitterly.

"I know my place, sir. Down in the gutter.

Officers don't want men like me joining them. I might scratch my arse

on parade or piss in their soup." He walked to the small house and

peered through the open door.

"Better tell your fellows to take their coats off, sir. They'll be

shot otherwise." Then he went very still for, crouching at the back of

the small room, was a woman in a shabby linen dress and a straw hat. It

was Simone. Sharpe pulled off his shako.

"Madame?"

She stared at him, seeing only his silhouette against the dazzle of the

day's last sun.

"Simone?" Sharpe said.

"Richard?"

"It's me, love." He grinned.

"Don't tell me you got left behind again!"

"He killed Pierre!" Simone cried. "I watched him. He shot him!"

"Dodd?"

"Who else?" Pohlmann asked behind Sharpe.

Sharpe stepped into the room and held his hand towards Simone.

"You want to stay here," he asked her, 'or come with me?"

She hesitated a second, then stood and took his hand. Pohlmann

sighed.

"I was hoping to console the widow, Sharpe."

"You lost, sir," Sharpe said, 'you lost." And he walked away with

Simone, going to find McCandless to give him the bad news. Dodd had

escaped.

Colonel McCandless limped up the breach and into Assaye. He sensed

that Dodd was gone, for there was no more fighting in the village,

though some shots still sounded from the river bank, but even those

shots ended as the Scotsman edged past the dead man in the house

doorway and through the courtyard into the street.

And perhaps, he thought, it did not really matter any longer, for this

day's victory would echo throughout all India. The redcoats had broken

two armies, they had ruined the power of two mighty princes, and from

this day on Dodd would be hunted from refuge to refuge as the British

power spread northwards. And it would spread, McCandless knew. Each

new advance was declared to be the last, but each brought new frontiers

and new enemies and so the redcoats marched again, and maybe they would

never stop marching until they reached the great mountains in the very

north. And maybe it was there,

McCandless thought, that Dodd would at last be trapped and shot down

like a dog.

And suddenly McCandless did not care very much. He felt old. The pain

in his leg was terrible. He was still weak from his fever. It was

time, he thought, to go home. Back to Scotland. He should sell

Aeolus, repay Sharpe, take his pension, and board a ship. Go home, he

thought, to Lochaber and to the green slopes of Glen Scaddle. There

was work to be done in Britain, useful work, for he was corresponding

with men in London and Edinburgh who wished to establish a society to

spread Bibles throughout the heathen world and McCandless decided he

could find a small house in Lochaber, hire a servant, and spend his

days translating God's word into the Indian languages. That, he

thought, would be a job worth doing, and he wondered why he had waited

so long. A small house, a large fire, a library, a table, a supply of

ink and paper and, with God's help, he could do more for India from

that one small house than he could ever achieve by hunting down one

traitor.

The thought of the great task cheered him, then he turned a corner and

saw Pohlmann's great elephant wandering free in an alleyway.

"You're lost, boy," he said to the elephant and took hold of one of its

ears.

"Someone left the gate open, didn't they?"

He turned the elephant which followed him happily enough. They walked

past a dead horse, and then McCandless saw a dead European in a white

jacket, and for an instant he thought it must be Dodd, then he

recognized Captain Joubert lying on his back with a bullet hole in his

breast.

"Poor man," he said, and he guided the elephant through the gate into

the courtyard.

"I'll make sure you're brought some food," he told the beast, then he

turned and barred the gate.

He left the courtyard through the house, picking his way across the

welter of bodies in the kitchen. He pushed open the outer door and

found himself staring into Sergeant Hakeswill's blue eyes.

"I've been looking for you, sir," Hakeswill said.

"You and I have no business, Sergeant," McCandless said.

"Oh, but we does, sir," Hakeswill said, and his three men blocked the

alley behind him.

"I wanted to talk to you, sir," Hakeswill said, 'about that letter you

ain't going to write to my Colonel Gore."

McCandless shook his head.

"I have nothing to say to you, Sergeant."

"I hates the bleeding Scotch," Hakeswill said, his face twitching.

"All prayers and morals, ain't you, Colonel? But I ain't cumbered with

morals. It's an advantage I have." He grinned, then drew his bayonet

and slotted it onto the muzzle of his musket.

"They hanged me once, Colonel, but I lived 'cos God loves me, He does,

and I ain't going to be punished again, not ever. Not by you, Colonel,

not by any man. Says so in the scriptures." He advanced on McCandless

with the bayonet. His three men hung back and McCandless reckoned they

were nervous, but Hakeswill showed no fear of this confrontation.

"Put up your weapon, Sergeant," McCandless snapped.

"Oh, I will, sir, I'll put it up inside you unless you promises me on

the holy word of God that you won't write no letter."

"I shall write the letter tonight," McCandless said, then drew his

claymore.

"Now put up your weapon, Sergeant."

Hakes wilTs face twitched. He stopped three paces from McCandless.

"You'd like to strike me down, wouldn't you, sir?

"Cos you don't like me, sir, do you? But God loves me, sir, he does.

He looks after me."

"You're under arrest, Sergeant," McCandless said, 'for threatening an

officer."

"Let's see who God loves most, sir. Me or you."

"Put up your weapon!" McCandless roared.

"Bloody Scotch bastard," Hakeswill said, and pulled his trigger. The

bullet caught McCandless in the gullet and blew out through the back of

his spine, and the Colonel was dead before his body touched the floor.

The elephant in the nearby courtyard, startled by the shot, trumpeted,

but Hakeswill ignored the beast.

"Scotch bastard," he said, then stepped through the doorway and knelt

to the body which he searched for gold.

"And if any one of you three says a bleeding word," he threatened his

men, 'you'll join him in heaven. If he's gone there, which I doubt, on

account of God not wanting to clutter paradise with Scotchmen. Says so

in the scriptures." He found gold in McCandless's sporran and turned

to show the coins to his men.

"You want it?" he asked.

"Then you keeps silent about it."

They nodded. They wanted gold. Hakeswill tossed them the coins, then

led them deeper into the house to see if there was anything worth

plundering in its rooms.

"And once we're done," he said, 'we'll find the General, we will, and

have him give us Sharpie. We're almost there, lads. It's been a long

road, it has, and hard in places, but we're almost there."

Sharpe searched the village for Colonel McCandless, but could not find

him in any of the alleys. He took Simone with him as he searched some

of the larger houses and, from one high window, he found himself

staring down into the courtyard where Pohlmann's great elephant was

penned, but there was no sign of McCandless and Sharpe decided he was

wasting his time.

"I reckon we'll give up, love," he told Simone.

"He'll look for me, like enough, probably down by the river." They

walked back to the ford. Pohlmann had vanished and Dodd's men had long

disappeared. The sun was at the horizon now and the farmlands north of

the Juah were stained black by long shadows. The men who had captured

the village were filling their canteens from the river, and the first

few campfires glittered in the dusk as men boiled water to make

themselves tea. Simone clung to him and kept talking of her husband.

She felt guilty because she had not loved him, yet he had died because

he had gone back into the village to find her, and Sharpe did not know

how to console her.

"He was a soldier, love," he told her, 'and he died in battle."

"But I killed him!"

"No, you didn't," Sharpe said, and he heard hooves behind him and he

turned, hoping to see Colonel McCandless, but instead it was General

Wellesley and Colonel Wallace and a score of aides riding up to the

ford. He straightened to attention.

"Sergeant Sharpe," Wellesley said, sounding embarrassed.

"Sir," Sharpe said woodenly.

The General slid from his saddle. His face was red, and Sharpe

supposed that was the effect of the sun.

"I have been remiss, Sergeant," the General said awkwardly, 'for I

believe I owe you my life."

Sharpe felt himself blushing and was glad that the sun was low and the

roadway where he stood was in deep shadow.

"Just did my best, sir," he muttered.

"This is Madame Joubert, sir. Her husband was killed, sir, fighting

for Colonel Pohlmann."

The General took off his hat and bowed to Simone.

"My commiserations, Madam"," he said, then looked back to Sharpe whose

long black hair still spilled over his collar.

"Do you know where Colonel McCandless is?" he asked.

"No, sir. I've been looking for him, sir."

Wellesley fidgeted with his hat, paused to take a deep breath, then

nodded.

"Colonel McCandless managed to have a long talk with Colonel Wallace

this afternoon," the General said.

"How they found time to have a conversation in battle, I don't know!"

This was evidently a jest, for the General smiled, though Sharpe stayed

straight-faced,

and his lack of reaction disconcerted Wellesley.

"I have to reward you, Sharpe," Wellesley said curtly.

"For what, sir?"

"For my life," the General said in a tone of irritation.

"I'm just glad I was there, sir," Sharpe said, feeling as awkward as

Wellesley himself evidently felt.

"I'm rather glad you were there too," the General said, then took a

step forward and held out his hand.

"Thank you, Mister Sharpe."

Sharpe hesitated, astonished at the gesture, then made himself shake

the General's hand. It was only then that he noticed what Wellesley

had said.

"Mister, sir?" he asked.

"It is customary in this army, Mister Sharpe, to reward uncommon

bravery with uncommon promotion. Wallace tells me you desire a

commission, and he has vacancies in the 74th. God knows he has too

many vacancies, so if you're agreeable, Sharpe, you can join the

Colonel's regiment as an ensign."

For a second Sharpe did not really comprehend what was being said, then

he suddenly did and he smiled. There were tears in his eyes, but he

reckoned that must be because of the powder smoke that lingered in the

village.

"Thank you, sir," he said warmly, 'thank you."

"There, that's done," Wellesley said with relief.

"My congratulations, Sharpe, and my sincere thanks." His aides were

all smiling at Sharpe, not Sergeant Sharpe any longer, but Ensign

Sharpe of the King's 74th.

Captain Campbell even climbed down from his saddle and offered his hand

to Sharpe who was still smiling as he shook it.

"It'll turn out badly, of course," Wellesley said to Campbell as he

turned away.

"It always does. We promote them beyond their station and they

inevitably take to drink."

"He's a good man, sir," Campbell said loyally.

"I doubt that too. But he's a good soldier, I'll say that. He's all

yours now, Wallace, all yours!" The General pulled himself into his

saddle, then turned to Simone.

"Madame? I can offer you very little but if you care to join me for

supper I would be honoured. Captain Campbell will escort you."

Campbell held his hand out to Simone. She looked at Sharpe, who nodded

at her, and she shyly accepted Campbell's arm and followed the General

back up the street. Colonel Wallace paused to lean down from his horse

and shake Sharpe's hand.

"I'll give you a few minutes to clean yourself up, Sharpe, and to get

those stripes off your arm.

You might like to chop off some of that hair, while you're about it.

And I hate to suggest it, but if you walk a few paces east of the

village you'll find plenty of red sashes on corpses. Pick one, help

yourself to a sword, then come and meet your fellow officers. They're

few enough now, I fear, so you'll surely be welcome. Even the men

might be glad of you, despite your being English." Wallace smiled.

I'm very grateful to you, sir," Sharpe said. He was still scarcely

able to believe what had happened. He was Mister Sharpe! Mister!

"And what do you want?" Wallace suddenly asked in an icy tone, and

Sharpe saw that his new Colonel was staring at Obadiah Hakeswill.

"Him, sir," Hakeswill said, pointing at Sharpe.

"Sergeant Sharpe, sir, what is under arrest."

Wallace smiled.

"You may arrest Sergeant Sharpe, Sergeant, but you will certainly not

arrest Ensign Sharpe."

"Ensign?" Hakeswill said, going pale.

"Mister Sharpe is a commissioned officer, Sergeant," Wallace said

crisply, 'and you will treat him as such. Good day." Wallace touched

his hat to Sharpe, then turned his horse and rode away.

Hakeswill gaped at Sharpe.

"You, Sharpie," he said, 'an officer?"

Sharpe walked closer to the Sergeant.

"That's not how you address a King's officer, Obadiah, and you know

it."

"You?" HakeswilPs face twitched.

"You?" he asked again in horror and amazement.

Sharpe thumped him in the belly, doubling him over.

"You call me "sir", Obadiah," he said.

"I won't call you "sir"," Hakeswill said between gasps for breath.

"Not till hell freezes, Sharpie, and not even then."

Sharpe hit him again. Hakeswill's three men watched, but did

nothing.

"You call me "sir"," Sharpe said.

"You ain't an officer, Sharpie," Hakeswill said, then yelped because

Sharpe had seized his hair and was dragging him up the street. The

three men started to follow, but Sharpe snarled at them to stay where

they were, and all three obeyed.

"You'll call me "sir", Sergeant," Sharpe said, 'just you watch." And

he pulled Hakeswill up the street, going back to the house from where

he had seen the elephant. He dragged Hakeswill through the door and up

the stairs. The Sergeant screamed at him, beat at him, but Hakeswill

had never been a match for Sharpe who now snatched the musket from

Hakeswill's hand, threw it away, then took him to the window that

opened just one floor above the courtyard.

"See that elephant, Obadiah?" he asked, holding the Sergeant's face in

the open window.

"I

watched it trample a man to death not long ago."

"You won't dare, Sharpie," Hakeswill squealed, then yelped as Sharpe

took hold of the seat of his pants.

"Call me "sir"," Sharpe said.

"Never! You ain't an officer!"

"But I am, Obadiah, I am. I'm Mister Sharpe. I'll wear a sword and a

sash and you'll have to salute me."

"Never!"

Sharpe heaved Hakeswill onto the window ledge.

"If you ask me to put you down," he said, 'and if you call me "sir",

I'll let you go."

"You ain't an officer," Hakeswill protested.

"You can't be!"

"But I am, Obadiah," Sharpe said, and he heaved the Sergeant over the

ledge. The Sergeant screamed as he fell into the straw below, and the

elephant, made curious by this strange irruption into this already

strange day, plodded over to inspect him. Hakeswill beat feebly at the

animal which had him cornered.

"Goodbye, Obadiah," Sharpe called, then he used the words he remembered

Pohlmann shouting when Dodd's sepoy had been trampled to death.

"Haddahl' Sharpe snapped.

Had daW "Get the bastard off me!" Hakeswill screamed as the elephant

moved still closer and raised a forefoot.

"That won't do, Obadiah," Sharpe said.

"Sir!" Hakeswill called.

"Please, sir! Get it off me!"

"What did you say?" Sharpe asked, cupping a hand to his ear.

"Sir! Sir! Please, sir! Mister Sharpe, sir!"

"Rot in hell, Obadiah," Sharpe called down, and walked away. The sun

was gone, the village was stinking with powder smoke, and two armies

lay in ragged ruin on the bloody fields outside Assaye, but that great

victory was not Sharpe's. It was the voice calling from the courtyard,

calling frantically as Sharpe ran down the wooden stairs and walked

down the alleyway.

"Sir! Sir!" Hakeswill shouted, and Sharpe listened and smiled, for

that, he reckoned, was his real victory. It was Mister Sharpe's

triumph.

Historical Note The background events to Sharpens Triumph, the siege of

Ahmednuggur and the battle of Assaye, both happened much as described

in the novel, just as many of the characters in the story existed. Not

just the obvious characters, like Wellesley, but men like Colin

Campbell, who was the first man over the wall at Ahmednuggur, and

Anthony Pohlmann who truly was once a sergeant in the East India

Company, but who commanded the Mahratta forces at Assaye. What

happened to Pohlmann after the battle is something of a mystery, but

there is some evidence that he rejoined the East India Company army

again, only this time as an officer. Colonel Gore, Colonel Wallace and

Colonel Harness all existed, and poor Harness was losing his wits and

would need to retire soon after the battle. The massacre at Chasalgaon

is a complete invention, though there was a Lieutenant William Dodd who

did defect to the Mahrattas just before the campaign rather than face a

civilian trial for the death of the goldsmith he had ordered beaten.

Dodd had been sentenced to six months' loss of pay and Wellesley,

enraged by the leniency of the court martial, persuaded the East India

Company to impose a new sentence, that of dismissal from their army,

and planned to have Dodd tried for murder in a civilian court. Dodd,

hearing of the decision, fled, though I doubt that he took any sepoys

with him. Nevertheless desertion was a problem for the Company at that

time, for many sepoys knew that the Indian states would pay well for

British-trained troops. They would pay even more for competent

European (or American) officers, and many such made their fortunes in

those years.

The city of Ahmednuggur has grown so much that most traces of its wall

have now been swallowed by new building, but the adjacent fortress

remains and is still a formidable stronghold. Today the fort is a

depot of the Indian Army, and something of a shrine to Indians for it

was within the vast circuit of its red stone ramparts that the leaders

of Indian independence were imprisoned by the British during the Second

World War. Visitors are welcome to explore the ramparts with their

impressive bastions and concealed galleries. The height of the fort's

wall was slightly greater than the city's de fences and the fort,

unlike the city, had a protective ditch, but the ramparts still offer

an idea of the obstacle Wellesley's men faced when they launched their

surprise escalade on the morning of 8 August 1803. It was a brave

decision, and a calculated one, for Wellesley knew he would be heavily

outnumbered in the Mahratta War and must have decided that a display of

arrogant confidence would abrade his enemy's morale. The success of

the attack certainly impressed some Indians. Goklah, a Mahratta leader

who allied himself with the British, said of the capture of

Ahmednuggur, "These English are a strange people, and their General a

wonderful man. They came here in the morning, looked at the pettah

wall, walked over it, killed all the garrison, and returned to

breakfast! What can withstand them?" Goklah's tribute was apt, except

that it was Scotsmen who 'walked over the wall' and not Englishmen, and

the celerity of their victory helped establish Wellesley's reputation

for invincibility. Lieutenant Colin Campbell of the y78th was rewarded

for his bravery with a promotion and a place on Wellesley's staff. He

eventually became Sir Golin Campbell, governor of Ceylon.

The story of Wellesley deducing the presence of the ford at Peepulgaon

by observation and common sense is well attested. To use the ford was

an enormously brave decision, for no one knew if it truly existed until

Wellesley himself spurred into the river. His orderly, from the igth

Dragoons, was killed as he approached the River Kaitna and nowhere is

it recorded who took his place, but some soldier must have picked up

the dragoon's duties for Wellesley did have two horses killed beneath

him that day and someone was close at hand on both occasions with a

remount. Both horses died as described in the novel, the first during

the 778this magnificent assault on Pohlmann's right, and Diomed,

Welesley's favourite charger, during the scrappy fighting to retake the

Mahratta gun line. It was during that fight that Wellesley was

unhorsed and surrounded momentarily by enemies. He never told the tale

in detail, though it is believed he was forced to use his sword to

defend himself, and it was probably the closest he ever came to death

in his long military career. Was his life saved by some unnamed

soldier? Probably not, for Wellesley would surely have given credit

for such an act that could well have resulted in a battlefield

commission.

Wellesley was notorious for disliking such promotions from the ranks

('they always take to drink'), though he did promote two men for

conspicuous bravery on the evening of Assaye.

Assaye is not the most famous of Arthur Wellesley's battles, but it was

the one of which he was most proud. Years later, long after he had

swept the French out of Portugal and Spain, and after he had defeated

Napoleon at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington (as Arthur Wellesley

became) was asked what had been his finest battle. He did not

hesitate.

"Assaye," he answered, and so it surely was, for he out manoeuvred and

outfought a much larger enemy, and did it swiftly, brutally and

brilliantly.

He did it, too, without Colonel Stevenson's help. Stevenson tried to

reinforce Wellesley, but his local guide misled him as he hurried

towards the sound of the guns, and Stevenson was so upset by the

guide's error that he hanged the man.

Assaye was one of the costliest of Wellesley's battles: 'the bloodiest

for the numbers that I ever saw," the Duke recalled in later life.

Pohlmann's forces had 1200 killed and about 5000 wounded, while

Wellesley suffered 456 dead (200 of them Scottish) and around 1200

wounded. All the enemy guns, 102 of them, were captured and many were

discovered to be of such high quality that they were taken into British

service, though others, mostly because their calibres did not match the

British standard artillery weights, were double-shot ted and blown up

on the battlefield where some of their remnants still lie.

The battlefield remains virtually unchanged. No roads have been metal

led the fords look as they did, and Assaye itself is scarcely larger

now than it was in 1803. The outer walls of the houses are still

ramparts of mud bricks, while bones and bullets are constantly ploughed

out of the soil ('they were very big men', one farmer told me,

indicating the ground where the 74th suffered so much). There is no

memorial at Assaye, except for a painted map of the armies'

dispositions on one village wall and the grave of a British officer

which has had its bronze plate stolen, but the inhabitants know that

history was made in their fields, are proud of it and proved remarkably

welcoming when we visited. There ought to be some marker on the field,

for the Scottish and Indian troops who fought at Assaye gained an

astonishing victory. They were all extraordinarily brave men, and

their campaign was not yet over, for some of the enemy have escaped and

the war will go on as Wellesley and his small army pursue the remaining

Mahrattas towards their great hill fastness at Gawilghur. Which means

that Mister Sharpe must march again.

BERNARD CORNWELL worked for BBC TV for seven years, mostly as producer

on the Nationwide programme, before taking charge of the Current

Affairs department in Northern Ireland. In 1978 he became editor of

Thames Television's Thames at Six. Married to an American, he now

lives in the United States.

Twelve of Bernard Cornwell's best selling Sharpe novels have been made

into highly acclaimed films.

Videos of the Sharpe television series are now available.

Bernard Cornwell is also the author of the best selling Starbuck

Chronicles, a series of novels that portray the American Civil War.

BERNARD CORNWELL

COPPERHEAD! BATTLE FLAG i "A rollicking treat for Cornwell's many

fans' Publishers Weekly