Sharpe's Fortress

by Bernard Cornwell

  “True. But as yet we don’t have the men to carry these muskets. But we will, Colonel. Once we have defeated the British the other kingdoms will join us.” That, Dodd reflected, was true enough. Scindia, Dodd’s erstwhile employer, was suing for peace, while Holkar, the most formidable of the Mahratta monarchs, was staying aloof from the contest, but if Bappoo did win his victory, those chieftains would be eager to share future spoils. “And not just the other kingdoms,” Bappoo went on, “but warriors from all India will come to our banner. I intend to raise a compoo armed with the best weapons and trained to the very highest standard. Many, I suspect, will be sepoys from Wellesley’s defeated army and they will need a new master when he is dead. I thought perhaps you would lead them?”

  Dodd returned the musket to its rack. “You’ll not pay me with copper, Bappoo.”

  Bappoo smiled. “You will pay me with victory, Colonel, and I shall reward you with gold.”

  Dodd saw some unfamiliar weapons farther down the rack. He lifted one and saw it was a hunting rifle. The lock was British, but the filigree decoration on the stock and barrel was Indian. “You’re buying rifles?” he asked.

  “No better weapon for skirmishing,” Bappoo said.

  “Maybe,” Dodd allowed grudgingly. The rifle was accurate, but slow to load.

  “A small group of men with rifles,” Bappoo said, “backed up by muskets, could be formidable.”

  “Maybe,” Dodd said again, then, instead of putting the rifle back onto the rack, he slung it on his shoulder. “I’d like to try it,” he explained. “You have ammunition?”

  Bappoo gestured across the cellar, and Dodd went and scooped up some cartridges. “If you’ve got the cash,” he called back, “why not raise your new army now. Bring it to Gawilghur.”

  “There’s no time,” Bappoo said, “and besides, no one will join us now. They think the British are beating us. So if we are to make our new army, Colonel, then we must first win a victory that will ring through India, and that is what we shall do here at Gawilghur.” He spoke very confidently, for Bappoo, like Dodd, believed Gawilghur to be unassailable. He led the Englishman back to the entrance, blew out the lantern and carefully locked the armory door.

  The two men climbed the slope beside the palace, passing a line of servants who carried drinks and sweetmeats to where Beny Singh whiled away the afternoon. As ever, when Dodd thought of the killadar, he felt a surge of anger. Beny Singh should have been organizing the fortress’s defenses, but instead he frittered away his days with women and liquor. Bappoo must have divined Dodd’s thoughts, for he grimaced. “My brother likes Beny Singh. They amuse each other.”

  “Do they amuse you?” Dodd asked.

  Bappoo paused at the northern side of the palace and there he gazed across the ravine to the Outer Fort which was garrisoned by his Lions of Allah. “I swore an oath to my brother,” he answered, “and I am a man who keeps my oaths.”

  “There must be those,” Dodd said carefully, “who would rather see you as Rajah?”

  “Of course,” Bappoo answered equably, “but such men are my brother’s enemies, and my oath was to defend my brother against all his enemies.” He shrugged. “We must be content, Colonel, with what fate grants us. It has granted me the task of fighting my brother’s wars, and I shall do that to the best of my ability.” He pointed to the deep ravine that lay between the Outer and the Inner Forts. “And there, Colonel, I shall win a victory that will make my brother the greatest ruler of all India. The British cannot stop us. Even if they make their road, even if they haul their guns up to the hills, even if they make a breach in our walls and even if they capture the Outer Fort, they must still cross that ravine, and they cannot do it. No one can do it.” Bappoo stared at the steep gorge as if he could already see its rocks soaked in enemy blood. “Who rules that ravine, Colonel, rules India, and when we have our victory then we shall unlock the cellar and raise an army that will drive the redcoats not just from Berar, but from Hyderabad, from Mysore and from Madras. I shall make my brother Emperor of all southern India, and you and I, Colonel, shall be his warlords.” Bappoo turned to gaze into the dust-smeared immensity of the southern sky. “It will all belong to my brother,” he said softly, “but it will begin here. At Gawilghur.”

  And here, Dodd suddenly thought, it would end for Bappoo. No man who was willing to endure a feeble wretch like Beny Singh, or protect a cowardly libertine like the Rajah, deserved to be a warlord of all India. No, Dodd thought, he would win his own victory here, and then he would strike against Bappoo and against Beny Singh, and he would raise his own army and use it to strike terror into the rich southern kingdoms. Other Europeans had done it. Benoit de Boigne had made himself richer than the kings of all Christendom, while George Thomas, an illiterate Irish sailor, had risen to rule a princedom for his widowed mistress. Dodd saw himself as a new Prester John. He would make a kingdom from the rotting scraps of India, and he would rule from a new palace in Gawilghur that would be like no other in me world. He would have roofs of gold, walls of white marble and garden paths made from pearls, and men from all India would come to pay him homage. He would be Lord of Gawilghur, Dodd thought, and smiled. Not bad for a miller’s son from Suffolk, but Gawilghur was a place to stir dreams for it lifted men’s thoughts into the heavens, and Dodd knew that India, above all the lands on God’s earth, was a place where dreams could come true. Here a man was either made rich beyond all desire, or else became nothing.

  And Dodd would not be nothing. He would be Lord of Gawilghur and the terror of India.

  Once the redcoats were defeated.

  “Is this the best you could manage, Sharpe?” Torrance inquired, looking about the main room of the commandeered house.

  “No, sir,” Sharpe said. “There was a lovely house just up the road. Big shady courtyard, couple of pools, a fountain and a gaggle of dancing girls, but I thought you might prefer the view from these windows.”

  “Sarcasm ill becomes an ensign,” Torrance said, dropping his saddlebags on the earthen floor. “Indeed, very little becomes ensigns, Sharpe, except a humble devotion to serving their betters. I suppose the house will have to suffice. Who is that?” He shuddered as he stared at the woman whose house he was occupying.

  “She lives here, sir.”

  “Not now, she doesn’t. Get rid of the black bitch, and her foul children. Brick!”

  Clare Wall came in from the sunlight, carrying a sack. “Sir?”

  “I’m hungry, Brick. Find the kitchen. We made a late start, Sharpe,” Torrance explained, “and missed dinner.”

  “I imagine that’s why the General wants to see you, sir,” Sharpe said. “Not because you missed dinner, but because the supplies weren’t here on time.”

  Torrance stared at Sharpe in horror. “Wellesley wants to see me?”

  “Six o’clock, sir, at his tent.”

  “Oh, Christ!” Torrance threw his cocked hat across the room. “Just because the supplies were a little late?”

  “Twelve hours late, sir.”

  Torrance glared at Sharpe, then fished a watch from his fob. “It’s half past five already! God help us! Can’t you brush that coat, Sharpe?”

  “He don’t want to see me, sir. Just you.”

  “Well, he’s bloody well going to see both of us. Clean uniform, Sharpe, hair brushed, paws washed, face scrubbed, Sunday best.” Torrance frowned suddenly. “Why didn’t you tell me you saved Wellesley’s life?”

  “Is that what I did, sir?”

  “I mean, good God, man, he must be grateful to you?” Torrance asked. Sharpe just shrugged. “You saved his life,” Torrance insisted, “and that means he’s in your debt, and you must use the advantage. Tell him we don’t have enough men to run the supply train properly. Put in a good word for me, Sharpe, and I’ll repay the favor. Brick! Forget the food! I need a clean stock, boots polished, hat brushed. And give my dress coat a pressing!”

  Sergeant Hakeswill edged through the door. “Your ‘ammock, sir,�
� he said to Torrance, then saw Sharpe and a slow grin spread across his face. “Look who it isn’t. Sharpie!”

  Torrance wheeled on the Sergeant. “Mr. Sharpe is an officer, Hakeswill! In this unit we do observe the proprieties!”

  “Quite forgot myself, sir,” Hakeswill said, his face twitching, “on account of being reunited with an old comrade. Mr. Sharpe, ever so pleased to see you, sir.”

  “Lying bastard,” Sharpe said.

  “Ain’t officers supposed to observe the properties, sir?” Hakeswill demanded of Torrance, but the Captain had gone in search of his native servant who had charge of the luggage. Hakeswill looked back to Sharpe. “Fated to be with you, Sharpie.”

  “You stay out of my light, Obadiah,” Sharpe said, “or I’ll slit your throat.”

  “I can’t be killed, Sharpie, can’t be killed!” Hakeswill’s face wrenched itself in a series of twitches. “It says so in the scriptures.” He looked Sharpe up and down, then shook his head ruefully. “I’ve seen better things dangling off the tails of sheep, I have. You ain’t an officer, Sharpie, you’re a bleeding disgrace.”

  Torrance backed into the house, shouting at his servant to drape the windows with muslin, then turned and hurried to the kitchen to harry Clare. He tripped over Sharpe’s pack and swore. “Whose is this?”

  “Mine,” Sharpe said.

  “You’re not thinking of billeting yourself here, are you, Sharpe?”

  “Good as anywhere, sir.”

  “I like my privacy, Sharpe. Find somewhere else.” Torrance suddenly remembered he was speaking to a man who might have influence with Wellesley. “If you’d be so kind, Sharpe. I just can’t abide being crowded. An affliction, I know, but there it is. I need solitude, it’s my nature. Brick! Did I tell you to brush my hat? And the plume needs a combing.”

  Sharpe picked up his pack and walked out to the small garden where Ahmed was sharpening his new tulwar. Glare Wall followed him into the sunlight, muttered something under her breath, then sat and started to polish one of Torrance’s boots. “Why the hell do you stay with him?” Sharpe asked.

  She paused to look at Sharpe. She had oddly hooded eyes that gave her face an air of delicate mystery. “What choice do I have?” she asked, resuming her polishing.

  Sharpe sat beside her, picked up the other boot and rubbed it with blackball. “So what’s he going to do if you bugger off?”

  She shrugged. “I owe him money.”

  “Like hell. How can you owe him money?”

  “He brought my husband and me here,” she said, “paid our passage from England. We agreed to stay three years. Then Charlie died.” She paused again, her eyes suddenly gleaming, then sniffed and began to polish the boot obsessively.

  Sharpe looked at her. She had dark eyes, curling black hair and a long upper lip. If she was not so tired and miserable, he thought, she would be a very pretty woman. “How old are you, love?”

  She gave him a skeptical glance. “Who’s your woman in Seringapatam, then?”

  “She’s a Frenchie,” Sharpe said. “A widow, like you.”

  “Officer’s widow?” Clare asked. Sharpe nodded. “And you’re to marry her?” Clare asked.

  “Nothing like that,” Sharpe said.

  “Like what, then?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, really,” Sharpe said. He spat on the boot’s flank and rubbed the spittle into the bootblack.

  “But you like her?” Clare asked, picking the dirt from the boot’s spur. She seemed embarrassed to have posed the question, for she hurried on. “I’m nineteen,” she said, “but nearly twenty.”

  “Then you’re old enough to see a lawyer,” Sharpe said. “You ain’t indentured to the Captain. You have to sign papers, don’t you? Or make your mark on a paper. That’s how it was done in the foundling home where they dumped me. Wanted to make me into a chimney sweep, they did! Bloody hell! But if you didn’t sign indenture papers, you should talk to a lawyer.”

  Clare paused, staring at a sad tree in the courtyard’s center that was dying from the drought. “I wanted to get married a year back,” she said softly, “and that’s what Tom told me. He were called Tom, see? A cavalryman, he was. Only a youngster.”

  “What happened?”

  “Fever,” she said bleakly. “But it wouldn’t have worked anyway, because Torrance wouldn’t ever let me marry.” She began polishing the boot again. “He said he’d see me dead first.” She shook her head. “But what’s the point in seeing a lawyer? You think a lawyer would talk to me? They like money, lawyers do, and do you know a lawyer in India that ain’t in the Company’s pocket? Mind you”—she glanced toward the house to make sure she was not being overheard—”he hasn’t got any money either. He gets an allowance from his uncle and his Company pay and he gambles it all away, but he always seems to find more.” She paused. “And what would I do if I walked away?” She left the question hanging in the warm air, then shook her head. “I’m miles from bleeding home. I don’t know. He was good to me at first. I liked him! I didn’t know him then, you see.” She half smiled. “Funny, isn’t it? You think because someone’s a gentleman and the son of a clergyman that they have to be kind? But he ain’t.” She vigorously brushed the boot’s tassel. “And he’s been worse since he met that Hakeswill. I do hate him.” She sighed. “Just fourteen months to go,” she said wearily, “and then I’ll have paid the debt.”

  “Hell, no,” Sharpe said. “Walk away from the bugger.”

  She picked up Torrance’s hat and began brushing it. “I don’t have family,” she said, “so where would I go?”

  “You’re an orphan?”

  She nodded. “I got work as a house girl in Torrance’s uncle’s house. That’s where I met Charlie. He were a footman. Then Mr. Henry, that’s his uncle, see, said we should join the Captain’s household. Charlie became Captain Torrance’s valet. That was a step up. And the money was better, only we weren’t paid, not once we were in Madras. He said we had to pay our passage.”

  “What the devil are you doing, Sharpe?” Torrance had come into the garden. “You’re not supposed to clean boots! You’re an officer!”

  Sharpe tossed the boot at Torrance. “I keep forgetting, sir.”

  “If you must clean boots, Sharpe, start with your own. Good God, man! You look like a tinker!”

  “The General’s seen me looking worse,” Sharpe said. “Besides, he never did care what men looked like, sir, so long as they do their job properly.”

  “I do mine properly!” Torrance bridled at the implication. “I just need more staff. You tell him that, Sharpe, you tell him! Give me that hat, Brick! We’re late.”

  In fact Torrance arrived early at the General’s tent and had to kick his heels in the evening sunshine. “What exactly did the General say when he summoned me?” he asked Sharpe.

  “He sent an aide, sir. Captain Campbell. Wanted to know where the supplies were.”

  “You told him they were coming?”

  “Told him the truth, sir.”

  “Which was?”

  “That I didn’t bloody well know where they were.”

  “Oh, Christ! Thank you, Sharpe, thank you very much.” Torrance twitched at his sash, making the silk fall more elegantly. “Do you know what loyalty is?”

  Before Sharpe could answer the tent flaps were pushed aside and Captain Campbell ducked out into the sunlight. “Wasn’t expecting you, Sharpe!” he said genially, holding out his hand.

  Sharpe shook hands. “How are you, sir?”

  “Busy,” Campbell said. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want.”

  “He does,” Torrance said.

  Sharpe shrugged. “Might as well,” he said, then ducked into the tent’s yellow light as Campbell pulled back the flap.

  The General was in his shirtsleeves, sitting behind a table that was covered with Major Blackiston’s sketches of the land bridge to Gawilghur. Blackiston was beside him, travel-stained and tired, while an irascible-looking major of the Ro
yal Engineers stood two paces behind the table. If the General was surprised to see Sharpe he showed no sign of it, but instead looked back to the drawings. “How wide is the approach?” he asked.

  “At its narrowest, sir, about fifty feet.” Blackiston tapped one of the sketches. “It’s wide enough for most of the approach, two or three hundred yards, but just here there’s a tank and it squeezes the path cruelly. A ravine to the left, a tank to the right.”

  “Fall to your death on one side,” the General said, “and drown on the other. And doubtless the fifty feet between is covered by their guns?”

  “Smothered, sir. Must be twenty heavy cannon looking down the throat of the approach, and God knows how much smaller metal. Plenty.”

  Wellesley removed the inkwells that had been serving as weights so that the drawings rolled up with a snap. “Not much choice, though, is there?” he asked.

  “None, sir.”

  Wellesley looked up suddenly, his eyes seeming very blue in the tent’s half light. “The supply train is twelve hours late, Captain. Why?” He spoke quietly, but even Sharpe felt a shiver go through him.

  Torrance, his cocked hat held beneath his left arm, was sweating. “I ... I ... “ he said, too nervous to speak properly, but then he took a deep breath. “I was ill, sir, and unable to supervise properly, and my clerk failed to issue the chitties. It was a most regrettable occurrence, sir, and I can assure you it will not happen again.”

  The General stared at Torrance in silence for a few seconds. “Colonel Wallace gave you Ensign Sharpe as an assistant? Did Sharpe also fail to obey your orders?”

  “I had sent Mr. Sharpe ahead, sir,” Torrance said. The sweat was now pouring down his face and dripping from his chin.

  “So why did the clerk fail in his duties?”

  “Treachery, sir,” Torrance said.

  The answer surprised Wellesley, as it was meant to. He tapped his pencil on the table’s edge. “Treachery?” he asked in a low voice.

  “It seemed the clerk was in league with a merchant, sir, and had been selling him supplies. And this morning, sir, when he should have been issuing the chitties, he was employed on his own business.”