Sharpe's Triumph: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803

by Bernard Cornwell

  “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 center 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 colored 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 reveled 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 honor 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 rathole 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 smelled 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 sari.

  “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 pla
tters 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 dishonor.”

  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 dishonorable 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 inspect 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 a 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 colors and some had names written in a curly script on their breeches. “Megawati,” 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?”