Sharpe's Triumph

by Bernard Cornwell

  "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 office
rs 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.