Goddess of the Dead (Wellington Undead Book 2)

by Richard Estep

  He prayed that it would be enough.

  The true vanguard of his army were that ad hoc force known as the picquets of the day. Each battalion donated a single half-company on a daily basis, and when taken together these 350 picquets were used as skirmishers, posted well in advance of the main body of the army and acting as sentries to provide advanced warning of contact with the enemy. They would assume a different role tonight, serving as line troops under the command of an East India Company Colonel named James Orrock.

  Orrock was Wellesley’s sole concession towards the political, and if truth be told he was beginning to question the wisdom of his decision to appoint the man commander of the picquets. All of his senior commanders came from King’s regiments, and yet the majority of his actual fighting force was supplied by the East India Company. Arthur’s brother Richard had warned him recently of rumblings on the matter coming from the Company’s board of directors, and so after giving the matter much thought, he had put a Company man in command of the picquets as a sop to their concerns.

  After all, he had thought at the time of taking the decision, that’s almost certainly where he could do the least harm.

  It wasn’t that Orrock was a bad officer necessarily — if so, Arthur would never have tolerated his presence in this army at all, let alone appointed him to a position of command — but simply that he was an unproven one. Through no fault of his own, the man had no track record under fire of any kind, good or bad. Neither did I before Seringapatam, Arthur had reminded himself, and that had essentially decided him. Yet still there was a nagging concern that would not go away. Orrock was a mortal, as were so many company officers below the rank of full Colonel, and therefore one of the daylight officers that were often sneeringly regarded as an underclass, and Wellesley wondered if that fact was somehow unfairly prejudicing his judgment of the man.

  No, Orrock’s appointment would stand. It was too late to change it now, particularly without grounds to do so.

  “Colonel Orrock.”

  “General Wellesley!” Orrock had been lost in his own thoughts, jolted out of his reverie by the General’s greeting. “I was just thinking about the coming engagement…”

  Looking down, Wellesley noticed that the man’s hand was shaking when he rode through a patch of moonlight.

  He is a mortal with but one life to lose. One can hardly blame him for that.

  In truth, any man who claimed to be anything other than afraid before a major engagement was either insane, a liar, or drunk, and none of them mattered so long as he fought well. The British soldier was a notorious drunkard, and yet still maintained a battlefield reputation that was the envy of the world. With his heightened vampiric senses, Arthur had a keen nose for the bottle, and found too little scent of it to be concerned about in the ranks this night.

  “You shall be first onto the field, after myself of course,” he said pointedly.

  “You may depend upon me, sir,” Orrock replied. Was that the sheen of sweat upon the man’s brow or simply a trick of the moonlight?

  Wellesley’s plan was relatively simple. After Major Williams had failed to return, Scindia must almost certainly know that the British were about. Indeed, part of Arthur’s urgency came from his own supposition that they must attack the Marathas before the Marathas could cross the river and hit them first. Either way, the enemy would be expecting to see British soldiers in the vicinity, and so in order to disguise his true intentions, he had decided to give them exactly that. To this end, he had dispatched Colonel Maxwell and his entire force to form a cavalry screen along the south bank of the Kailna. Maxwell’s dragoons and native cavalry had left Naulniah at the same time as the main body of troops, but had disappeared into the distant darkness in just a few short moments, riding in a northwesterly direction.

  Maxwell’s orders were equally simple: string his squadrons out between the two villages of Taunklee and Kodully, directly in front of Scindia’s left wing. If everything went according to plan — which would include a healthy dollop of luck, Arthur realized — then the Marathas would quite reasonably assume that the British were forming for an attack across one of those two heavily-defended fords, and while they were focusing upon Arthur’s left hand, they would hopefully miss the right hook which was even now marching on a northwesterly course, following a well-worn track across country towards the village of Peepalgaon.

  It was a still and peaceful night, and although he kept waiting for the calmness to be banished by the sound of harassing fire aimed Maxwell’s way, Arthur was to be pleasantly surprised. The picquets marched into sight of Peepalgaon without any indication that the Marathas were aware of their presence whatsoever.

  May our luck hold…

  Yet his nervousness continued to grow. Arthur kept it in a vice-like grip, working deliberately to keep a casual expression upon his face. The men must never see even the slightest sign of their general being concerned, for such things spread like wildfire amongst the ranks; and so, Arthur affected the same air he would when strolling around the camp, seemingly without a care in all the world.

  “The crossing, General,” Orrock said in a hushed semi-whisper as he and Wellesley crested a low rise, bringing both near and far-side villages into view. “Are we completely sure that the river is fordable here?”

  “Reasonably sure,” Arthur answered truthfully.

  “Reasonably…has it been tested, sir?” the Lieutenant Colonel asked, plainly worried.

  “It is about to be.”

  Without pausing for further comment, Arthur splashed Achilles through the center of the village and out into the Kailna. The horse’s hooves were quickly immersed, followed shortly by his forelegs and knees. Achilles left a white wake in the darkness as the great charger felt his way carefully out into the middle of the river. Arthur felt the tips of his riding boots grow colder as they started to drag in the water. He spurred the mount on regardless. After just a few more steps he looked down once more, and was immensely gratified to see that his boots were now dripping but clear of the river by a good six inches…the river-bed was suddenly sloping upward, and he was across to the other side.

  I’ll be damned if I wasn’t right! Outwardly taciturn, Arthur was internally jubilant. He had gambled all on this particular piece of reasoning, and he had been proved right. The sudden sense of vindication was almost intoxicating. Guiding Achilles up the shallow embankment on the far side, Arthur reined the horse around and was gratified to see that Orrock, true to his word, was already leading the picquets across. Campbell splashed across the ford to join him.

  “You were right, General!” the young captain grinned, his teeth white in the darkness.

  “Send my compliments to Colonel Maxwell,” Arthur cut him off brusquely, not wanting his ego to be fed any more than it already had been. “Have the irregular cavalry replace his in forming the screen, and the good Colonel is to bring his entire force to join us as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course, sir.” Seemingly unperturbed by the General’s reaction, he wheeled about and crossed the ford heading back the way he had come. The picquets were already half-way across now, slowing in the middle as the water reached a height of perhaps three feet, and Arthur turned his attention to the west. Waroor lay a few hundred yards to the east of him, and doubtless in just a few moments the curiosity of the villagers would be aroused, but they represented no kind of threat to he and his men. No, their fox for this night’s hunt would be found to the west.

  Where was that blasted orderly? he wondered, looking about him with ill-concealed irritation. He saw the lad — a private soldier detached from the 78th — sitting somewhat nervously on the far bank, sitting astride one horse and holding the reins of a seemingly-docile Diomed with the other. Arthur opened his mouth to call for him to cross the river and joined him, but never had a chance to get the words out, for the hollow boom of a cannon firing echoed from far away in the night.

  The enemy had seen them, and had opened fire.

 
The battle of Assaye had begun.

  Flanked!

  Bindusar was one of the very first to notice it, as he stood at the rear of the battalion’s position while keeping a weather eye on the south bank of the Kailna. He caught a glint of moonlight against something metallic from the corner of his field of vision, somewhere far off to his left; whether it was the lens of a telescope, the blade of a weapon, or even the polished helmet of a cavalryman. The what was less important than the fact that something was there in the first place, out to the east on the extreme limits of the army’s left flank.

  They had caught signs of movement across the river for the past ten minutes or so, and from the few glimpses that he had caught with his naked eye, Bindusar had come to believe that it was men on horseback moving behind the trees and vegetation to the south of the Kailna. That meant it had to be a British cavalry screen, doubtless ordered to keep an eye on the ford which he and the rest of Jamelia’s battalion had been detailed to protect. The English could even now be forming ranks behind it, ready to rush across the ford into the welcoming embrace of his men’s smoothbore flintlocks and the cannon which sat directly in front of them, ready to sweep the river crossing with lethal bursts of cannister.

  Bindusar had sent a messenger to find Jamelia and inform her of the elusive horsemen to their front. Then he had settled down to wait for whatever was destined to happen next.

  Now, it was beginning to look as though he had an answer.

  Like most officers in Scindia’s service, he possessed a decent enough field glass, but he had left it inside his tent. Borrowing one from a nearby jemadar, he snapped it open to full extension and put it to his right eye while closing the left.

  What he saw on the eastern horizon stunned him.

  Soldiers. Hundreds of them.

  They had to be British, Bindusar reasoned, for Pohlmann’s compoo had been positioned squarely in the middle of the Maratha infantry line, and the only troops who were stationed to their left were those of Dupont. The men of Saleur’s compoo were their neighbors to the right, extending out further to the west just beyond the Kodully ford.

  He grabbed the nearest enlisted man by the collar of his shirt. “Go, and find the mistress,” he said urgently. “Try Colonel Pohlmann’s tent first, for the commanders are all said to be meeting there. Alert her — and alert Pohlmann! — that there are British soldiers advancing upon our left flank. Hurry! Hurry!”

  Nodding vigorously, the man took off into the night. Bindusar turned back towards the east, where the formed ranks of Dupont’s compoo were already getting to their feet and hoisting their flintlocks.

  Perhaps they have seen the enemy too, Bindusar thought to himself. His suspicion was confirmed a moment later when the distinctive sound of a 12-pounder cannon barked from somewhere to his left. Smoke wafted up from somewhere in front of Dupont’s line, catching the moonlight as it rose into the starry night sky.

  “Up!” he called, moving among the ranks of Jamelia’s men — his men too — and prodding them hastily to their feet. Most rose smoothly, for they had been half-expecting a battle this night, but in truth most of them had expected to either take the fight to the British on the south bank, or to defend the ford against a determined assault by the British redcoats, tearing them apart in the three-foot deep water directly to their front.

  How had the British gotten onto their left flank? There were supposed to be no river crossings further to the east! Bindusar’s mind was in turmoil as he tried to understand how the army was being flanked. Had the British built some kind of secret bridge across the Kailna? No, he dismissed that out of hand as an impossibility. There would have been some sign, or at the very least some noise, for one could not bridge a river in absolute silence. No, there was something that had been missed by Pohlmann’s officers, and now if they were not quick enough to react, it was the enlisted men who would be forced to pay the price.

  "Wellesley is no fool..."

  “Naulniah.” Anthony Pohlmann enjoyed the taste of the word upon his tongue, relishing it and all that it implied. “Wellesley has to be at Naulniah.”

  “Closer than we thought,” said Jamelia, looking around the tent at the faces of the assembled Maratha commanders.

  “Yes,” Pohlmann agreed, “and well within our grasp.”

  Mere moments had gone by between his killing of the British vampire officer and Captain Le Foche striding back into the presence of his commanding officer, who had looked up from his perusal of a sketch map with an expression of great anticipation on his face. A scant two minutes after hearing his report, Pohlmann had summoned his senior officers back to his tent, and just a few minutes after that august assembly had begun to meet, they were interrupted by a messenger from Bindusar reporting sightings of horsemen along the far south bank of the Kailna.

  “The question now is: what will the British general do next?” Pohlmann thought out loud. “The horsemen gathered along the opposite bank are almost certainly a cavalry screen, designed to give Wellesley advanced warning of our crossing the Kailna and marching to meet him.”

  “They could just as easily presage an attack by the British themselves,” Saleur cautioned.

  “If he is wise, then he shall wait at Naulniah until the missing piece of his army can join him before attacking us.” Jamelia was convinced that this would indeed be Wellesley’s course of action, if only because to do anything else would be nothing short of insane. “That will put Wellesley’s combined army up against odds that are merely desperate, rather than suicidal.”

  A low rumble of laughter rippled around the tent. The men’s spirits were good, and Pohlmann was glad to see it. Morale was half the battle, and often sheer force of numbers was the other half, in which case he had everything he needed and more to break the back of the English here on the banks of the Kailna and send them scurrying back to Seringapatam, perhaps even back to London, forever.

  “Our scouts have located the second force, away to the southwest,” he said dismissively. “Too far away to reach us before tomorrow night, at the very earliest.” Pohlmann stood, straightening his jacket and adjusting the sash that looped over one shoulder and was knotted about his waist. “Which means that if we move now — if we react quickly, then we can crush Wellesley’s half-army at Naulniah and then turn on the other half and destroy it in detail. We shall gobble them up in two smaller bites, rather than in one large one.”

  That earned him another laugh, but Jamelia once again found herself playing devil’s advocate. “Unless he chooses to attack us first.”

  “If only we were so fortunate. Wellesley is no fool,” Pohlmann opined. “If he were to attack, it would almost certainly be with his combined force, and even then, he must know that we will make mincemeat of him if he should try to cross at any of the fords. But I suspect that this is a moot point. Remember, it is likely that he still expects to find us at Borkardan, and probably has no idea that we are even here. We have found and eliminated his spy—”

  “Could there not be others?”

  If he was annoyed at Jamelia’s interruption, then Pohlmann did not show it. “Potentially. This is war, Jamelia, so there are no guarantees and all things are possible. However,” he tapped the map for emphasis, “what we can say for sure is that we have been handed a unique opportunity. If we can move quickly enough, we will retain the element of surprise. Our army can fall upon Wellesley in his camp, still waiting for the rest of his army to join him. It will be a massacre. One hundred thousand against not even one tenth of that number.”

  Besides, Pohlmann thought to himself but did not say aloud, the British already have their own…distractions. The Goddess has seen to that.

  There was a commotion at the entrance to the tent, and Pohlmann looked up to see a soldier from his own compoo being admitted by the guards. The man was from Jamelia’s battalion, based upon his livery. The fact that he was out of breath and already drenched in sweat spoke volumes of the urgency of his message. Pohlmann fully expected him to
speak of British redcoats being spotted advancing upon one, or more likely several, of the river crossings. What he actually heard caused him to stand bolt upright in shock.

  “British soldiers, sahib — to the east!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Form the Line

  The Maratha lines were a long way off, and when the sound of the cannon discharging shattered the still night air, he found himself hoping against hope that it was the cavalry screen on the south bank that had been spotted and engaged.

  No such luck. The roundshot was fired at long range, and the heavy ball — a 12-pounder, if Arthur was any judge — landed short, splashing into the Kailna some hundred yards to the west and throwing up a torrent of water.

  The next would be closer, and the one after that closer still.

  “Come on over here, my lad,” Arthur beckoned to the mounted orderly who led Diomed to approach him. The young man came forward to within touching distance of his general. He found it hard to tear his eyes away from Wellesley’s own, which glowed a rich, preternatural red in the darkness. “Stick close to me this night,” Wellesley instructed him, turning to face the west once more. The picquets were streaming past him, and Wallace’s 74th were close behind, marching at the quick-step.

  Colonels Orrock and Wallace reined in their mounts alongside his, presenting Arthur with a pair of salutes that were about as far apart from one another in terms of precision as he could possibly imagine; Orrock’s was smartly delivered and terse, whereas Wallace’s salute was given with all of the laconic insouciance of an old campaigner. He returned them both with a snappy parade-ground salute of his own, and then cleared his throat.