Sharpe's Fortress s-3

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  Filthy drunk, he reckoned, for he had been scared today. He knew he had very nearly got caught when Sharpe had stripped the tent away from the purloined supplies, but by killing Naig quickly Torrance had protected himself, and now the price of his continued survival was Sharpe's death. Arrange that, he thought, and all his troubles would be past. He forced Brick to drink some arrack, knowing how she hated it.

  Then he drank some himself. Damn Sharpe to hell, he thought, damn the interfering bastard to hell, which was where Sharpe was going anyway so Torrance drank to that happy prospect. Farewell, Mister Sharpe.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sharpe was not sure how far away Deogaum was, but guessed it was close to twenty miles and that was at least a seven-hour journey on foot, and so it was long before dawn when he stirred Ahmed from his sleep beside the smouldering remains of a bullock-dung fire, then set off under the stars. He tried to teach Ahmed some English.

  «Stars,» Sharpe said, pointing.

  «Stars,» Ahmed repeated dutifully.

  «Moon,» Sharpe said.

  «Moon,» Ahmed echoed.

  "Sky."

  "Moon?" Ahmed asked, curious that Sharpe was still pointing to the sky.

  "Sky, you bugger."

  "Skyoobugger?"

  "Never mind, " Sharpe said. He was hungry, and he had forgotten to ask Captain Torrance where he was supposed to draw rations, but their northward route took them through the village of Argaum where the fighting battalions of the army were bivouacked. Unburied bodies still littered the battlefield, and scavenging wild dogs growled from the dark stench as Sharpe and Ahmed walked past. A picquet challenged them at the village, and Sharpe asked the man where he would find the cavalry lines. He could not imagine taking Ahmed to the 74th's mess for breakfast, but Sergeant Eli Lockhart might be more welcoming.

  The reveille had sounded by the time Sharpe came to the gully where the horses were picketed and the troopers' campfires were being restored to life. Lockhart scowled at the unexpected visitor through the smoky dawn gloom, then grinned when he recognized Sharpe.

  "Must be some fighting to do, lads, " he announced, 'the bleeding infantry's here. Good morning, sir. Need our help again?"

  "I need some breakfast, " Sharpe admitted.

  "Tea, that'll start you off. Smithers! Pork chops! Davies! Some of that bread you're hiding from me. Look lively now! " Lockhart turned back to Sharpe.

  "Don't ask me where the chops come from, sir. I might have to lie." He spat in a tin mug, scoured its interior with the end of his blanket, then filled it with tea.

  "There you are, sir. Does your boy want some?

  Here you are, lad." Lockhart, a mug of tea in his own hand, then insisted on taking Sharpe to the picketed horses.

  "See, sir?" He lifted a horse's leg to show off the new horseshoe.

  "My guvnor's beholden to you. I might introduce you after breakfast."

  Sharpe assumed that Lockhart was talking of his troop commander, but once the pork chops and bread had been eaten, the Sergeant led Sharpe across to the lines of the native cavalry, and then to the tent of the 7th Native Cavalry's commanding officer who, it seemed, was in charge of all the army's cavalry.

  "He's called Huddlestone, " Lockhart said, 'and he's a decent fellow. He'll probably offer us another breakfast."

  Colonel Huddlestone did indeed insist that both Lockhart and Sharpe join him for a breakfast of rice and eggs. Sharpe was beginning to see that Lockhart was a useful man, someone who was trusted by his officers and liked by his troopers, for Huddlestone greeted the Sergeant warmly and immediately plunged into a conversation about some local horses that had been purchased for remounts and which Huddlestone reckoned would never stand the strain of battle, though Lockhart seemed to feel that a few of them would be adequate.

  "So you're the fellow who smoked out Naig?" Huddlestone said to Sharpe after a while.

  "Didn't take much doing, sir."

  "No one else did it, man! Don't shy away from credit. I'm damned grateful to you."

  "Couldn't have done it without Sergeant Lockhart, sir."

  "Damned army would come to a stop without Eli, ain't that so?" the Colonel said, and Lockhart, his mouth full of egg, just grinned.

  Huddlestone turned back to Sharpe.

  "So they gave you to Torrance?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "He's a lazy bugger, " Huddlestone said vengefully. Sharpe, astonished at the open criticism, said nothing.

  "He's one of my own officers, " Huddlestone went on, 'and I confess I wasn't sorry when he asked to be given duty with the bullock train."

  "He asked, sir?" Sharpe found it curious that a man would prefer to be with the baggage when he could be in a fighting unit.

  "His uncle is grooming him for a career in the Company, " Huddlestone said.

  "An uncle in Leadenhall Street. Know what Leaden-hall Street is, Sharpe?"

  "Company offices, sir?"

  "The very same. The uncle pays him an allowance, and he wants Torrance to get some experience in dealing with bhinjarries. Got it all planned out! A few years in the Company's army, another few trading in spices, then home to inherit his uncle's estate and his seat in the Court of Directors. One day we'll all be tugging our forelocks to the lazy bugger. Still, if he wants to run the baggage train it's no skin off our bums, Sharpe. No one likes the job, so Torrance is welcome to it, but my guess is that you'll be doing most of his work." The Colonel frowned.

  "He arrived in India with three English servants! Can you believe it? It ain't as if servants are hard to find here, but Torrance wanted the cachet of white scullions. Two of 'em died of the fever, then Torrance had the nerve to say that one of them hadn't earned the cost of the voyage out and so he's forcing the widow to stay on and pay the debt! " Huddlestone shook his head, then gestured for his servant to pour more tea.

  "So what brings you here, Ensign?"

  "On my way to Deogaum, sir."

  "He really came to beg his breakfast, Colonel, " Lockhart put in.

  "And I've no doubt the Sergeant fed you before you came to steal my victuals?" Huddlestone asked, then grinned.

  "You're in luck, Ensign.

  We're moving up to Deogaum today. You can ride with us."

  Sharpe blushed.

  "I've no horse, sir."

  "Eli?" Huddlestone looked at Lockhart.

  "I've got a horse he can ride, sir."

  "Good." Huddlestone blew on his tea.

  "Welcome to the cavalry, Sharpe."

  Lockhart found two horses, one for Sharpe and the other for Ahmed.

  Sharpe, ever uncomfortable on horseback, struggled into the saddle under the cavalry's sardonic gaze, while Ahmed jumped up and kicked back his heels, revelling in being back on a horse.

  They went gently northwards, taking care not to tire the horses.

  Sharpe, as he rode, found himself thinking about Clare Wall, and that made him feel guilty about Simone Joubert, the young French widow who waited for him in Seringapatam. He had sent her there with a southbound convoy and a letter for his friend Major Stokes, and doubtless Simone was waiting for Sharpe to return when the campaign against the Mahrattas was over, but now he needed to warn her that he was being posted back to England. Would she come with him? Did he want her to come? He was not sure about either question, though he felt obscurely responsible for Simone. He could give her a choice, of course, but whenever Simone was faced by a choice she tended to look limp and wait for someone else to make the decision. He had to warn her, though. Would she even want to go to England? But what else could she do? She had no relatives in India, and the nearest French settlements were miles away.

  His thoughts were interrupted at mid-morning when Eli Lockhart spurred alongside his horse.

  "See it?"

  "See what?"

  "Up there! " Lockhart pointed ahead and Sharpe, peering through the dust haze thrown up by the leading squadrons, saw a range of high hills.

  The lower slopes were green with
trees, but above the timber line there was nothing but brown and grey cliffs that stretched from horizon to horizon. And at the very top of the topmost bluff he could just see a streak of dark wall broken by a gate-tower.

  «Gawilghur!» Lockhart said.

  "How the hell do we attack up there?" Sharpe asked.

  The Sergeant laughed.

  "We don't! It's a job for the infantry. Reckon you're better off attached to that fellow Torrance."

  Sharpe shook his head.

  "I have to get in there, Eli."

  "Why?"

  Sharpe gazed at the distant wall.

  "There's a fellow called Dodd in there, and the bastard killed a friend of mine."

  Lockhart thought for a second.

  "Seven hundred guineas Dodd?"

  "That's the fellow, " Sharpe said.

  "But I'm not after the reward. I just want to see the bugger dead."

  "Me too, " Lockhart said grimly.

  "You?"

  «Assaye,» Lockhart said brusquely.

  "What happened?"

  "We charged his troops. They were knocking seven kinds of hell out of the 74th and we caught the buggers in line. Knocked 'em hard back, but we must have had a dozen troopers unhorsed. We didn't stop, though, we just kept after their cavalry and it wasn't till the battle was over that we found our lads. They'd had their throats cut. All of them."

  "That sounds like Dodd, " Sharpe said. The renegade Englishman liked to spread terror. Make a man afraid, Dodd had once told Sharpe, and he won't fight you so hard.

  "So maybe I'll go into Gawilghur with you, " Lockhart said.

  "Cavalry?" Sharpe asked.

  "They won't let cavalry into a real fight."

  Lockhart grinned.

  "I couldn't let an ensign go into a fight without help. Poor little bugger might get hurt."

  Sharpe laughed. The cavalry had swerved off the road to pass a long column of marching infantry who had set off before dawn on their march to Deogaum. The leading regiment was Sharpe's own, the 74th, and Sharpe moved even farther away from the road so that he would not have to acknowledge the men who had wanted to be rid of him, but Ensign Venables spotted him, leaped the roadside ditch, and ran to his side.

  "Going up in the world, Richard?" Venables asked.

  "Borrowed glory, " Sharpe said.

  "The horse belongs to the igth."

  Venables looked slightly relieved that Sharpe had not suddenly been able to afford a horse.

  "Are you with the pioneers now?" he asked.

  "Nothing so grand, " Sharpe said, reluctant to admit that he had been reduced to being a bullock guard.

  Venables did not really care.

  "Because that's what we're doing, " he explained, 'escorting the pioneers. It seems they have to make a road."

  "Up there?" Sharpe guessed, nodding towards the fortress that dominated the plain.

  "Captain Urquhart says you might be selling your commission, " Venables said.

  "Does he?"

  "Are you?"

  "Are you making an offer?"

  "I've got a brother, you see, " Venables explained.

  "Three actually.

  And some sisters. My father might buy." He took a piece of paper from a pocket and handed it up to Sharpe.

  "So if you go home, why not see my pater? That's his address. He reckons one of my brothers should join the army. Ain't any good for anything else, see?"

  "I'll think on it, " Sharpe said, taking the paper. The cavalry had stretched ahead and so he clapped his heels back, and the horse jerked forward, throwing Sharpe back in the saddle. For a second he sprawled, almost falling over the beast's rump, then he flailed wildly to catch his balance and just managed to grasp the saddle pommel. He thought he heard laughter as he trotted away from the battalion.

  Gawilghur soared above the plain like a threat and Sharpe felt like a poacher with nowhere to hide. From up there, Sharpe reckoned, the approaching British army would look like so many ants in the dust. He wished he had a telescope to stare at the high, distant fortress, but he had been reluctant to spend money. He was not sure why. It was not that he was poor, indeed there were few soldiers richer, yet he feared that the real reason was that he felt fraudulent wearing an officer's sash, and that if he were to buy the usual appurtenances of an officer a horse and a telescope and an expensive sword then he would be mocked by those in the army who claimed he should never have been commissioned in the first place. Nor should he, he thought. He had been happier as a sergeant. Much happier. All the same, he wished he had a telescope as he gazed up at the stronghold and saw a great billow of smoke jet from one of the bastions. Seconds later he heard the fading boom of the gun, but he saw no sign of the shot falling. It was as though the cannonball had been swallowed into the warm air.

  A mile short of the foothills the road split into three. The sepoy horsemen went westwards, while the igth Light Dragoons took the right hand path that angled away from the domineering fortress. The country became more broken as it was cut by small gullies and heaped with low wooded ridges thfe first hints of the tumultuous surge of land that ended in the vast cliffs. Trees grew thick in those foothills, and Deogaum was evidently among the low wooded hills. It lay east of Gawilghur, safely out of range of the fortress's guns. A crackle of musketry sounded from a timbered cleft and the igth Dragoons, riding ahead of Sharpe, spread into a line. Ahmed grinned and made sure his musket was loaded. Sharpe wondered which side the boy was on.

  Another spatter of muskets sounded, this time to the west. The Mahrattas must have had men in the foothills. Perhaps they were stripping the villages of the stored grain? The sepoys of the East India Company cavalry had vanished, while the horsemen of the igth were filing into the wooded cleft. A gun boomed in the fort, and this time Sharpe heard a thump as a cannonball fell to earth like a stone far behind him. A patch of dust drifted from a field where the shot had plummeted, then he and Ahmed followed the dragoons into the gully and the leaves hid them from the invisible watchers high above.

  The road twisted left and right, then emerged into a patchwork of small fields and woods. A large village lay beyond the fields Sharpe guessed it must be Deogaum then there were shots to his left and he saw a crowd of horsemen burst out of the trees a half-mile away. They were Mahrattas, and at first Sharpe thought they were intent on charging the igth Light Dragoons, then he realized they were fleeing from the Company cavalry. There were fifty or sixty of the enemy horsemen who, on seeing the blue-and-yellow-coated dragoons, swerved southwards to avoid a fight. The dragoons were turning, drawing sabres and spurring into pursuit. A trumpet sounded and the small fields were suddenly a whirl of horses, dust and gleaming weapons.

  Sharpe reined in among a patch of trees, not wanting to be at the centre of a Mahratta cavalry charge. The enemy horse pounded past in a blur of hooves, shining helmets and lance points. The Company cavalry was still a quarter-mile behind when Ahmed suddenly kicked back his heels and shot out of the hiding place to follow the Mahratta cavalry.

  Sharpe swore. The little bastard was running back to join the Mahrattas. Not that Sharpe could blame him, but he still felt disappointed. He knew he had no chance of catching Ahmed who had unslung his musket and now rode up behind the rearmost enemy horseman. That man looked round, saw Ahmed was not in British uniform, and so ignored him. Ahmed galloped alongside, then swung his musket by its barrel so that the heavy stock cracked into the Mahratta's forehead.

  The man went off the back of his horse as though jerked by a rope.

  His horse ran on, stirrups flapping. Ahmed reined in, turned and jumped down beside his victim. Sharpe saw the flash of a knife. The sepoy cavalry was closer now, and they might think Ahmed was the enemy, so Sharpe shouted at the boy to come back. Ahmed scrambled back into his saddle and kicked his horse to the trees where Sharpe waited. He had plundered a sabre, a pistol and a leather bag, and had a grin as wide as his face. The bag held two stale loaves of flat bread, some glass beads and a small boo
k in a strange script. Ahmed gave one loaf to Sharpe, threw away the book, draped the cheap beads about his neck and hung the sabre at his waist, then watched as the dragoons cut into the rearward ranks of the fugitives. There was the blacksmith's sound of steel on steel, two horses stumbled in flurries of dust, a man staggered bleeding into a ditch, pistols banged, a lance shivered point downwards in the dry turf, and then the enemy horse was gone and the British and sepoy cavalry reined in.

  "Why can't you be a proper servant?" Sharpe asked Ahmed.

  "Clean my boots, wash my clothes, make my supper, eh?"

  Ahmed, who did not understand a word, just grinned.

  "Instead I get some murderous urchin. So come on, you bugger."

  Sharpe kicked his horse towards the village. He passed a half-empty tank where some clothes lay to dry on bushes, then he was in the dusty main street which appeared to be deserted, though he was aware of faces watching nervously from dark windows and curtain-hung doorways. Dogs growled from the shade and two chickens scratched in the dust. The only person in sight was a naked holy man who sat cross legged under a tree, with his long hair cascading to the ground about him. He ignored Sharpe, and Sharpe ignored him.

  "We have to find a house, " Sharpe told the uncomprehending Ahmed.

  "House, see? House."

  The village headman, the naique, ventured into the street. At least Sharpe assumed he was the naique, just as the naique assumed that the mounted soldier was the leader of the newly arrived cavalrymen. He clasped his hands before his face and bowed to Sharpe, then clicked his fingers to summon a servant carrying a small brass tray on which stood a little cup of arrack. The fierce liquor made Sharpe's head feel suddenly light. The naique was talking ten to the dozen, but Sharpe quietened him with a wave.

  "No good talking to me, " he said, "I'm nobody. Talk to him." He pointed to Colonel Huddlestone who was leading his Indian cavalrymen into the village. The troopers dismounted as Huddlestone talked to the headman. There was a squawk as the two chickens were snatched up. Huddlestone turned at the sound, but his men all looked innocent.

  High above Sharpe a gun banged in the fortress. The shot seared out to fall somewhere in the plain where the British infantry marched.