Sharpe's Fortress s-3

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  "I doubted it would, sir."^ "You know Stevenson?"

  "I've dined with the Colonel."

  "I'm sending him up here. His troops will make the assault. My men will stay below and climb the two roads." Wellesley spoke curtly, almost offhandedly. He was proposing to divide his army into two again, just as it had been split for most of the war against the Mahrattas. Stevenson's part of the army would climb to the plateau and make the main assault on the fortress. That attack would swarm across the narrow neck of land to climb the breaches, but to stop the enemy from throwing all their strength into the defence of the broken wall Wellesley proposed sending two columns of his own men up the steep tracks that led directly to the fortress. Those men would have to approach unbroken walls up slopes too steep to permit artillery to be deployed, and Wellesley knew those columns could never hope to break into Gawilghur. Their job was to spread the defenders thin, and to block off the garrison's escape routes while Colonel Stevenson's men did the bloody work.

  "You'll have to establish Stevenson's batteries, " Wellesley told Stokes.

  "Major Blackiston's seen the ground' he indicated his aide 'and he reckons two eighteens and three iron twelves should suffice. Major Blackiston, of course, will give you whatever advice he can."

  "No glacis?" Stokes directed the question to Blackiston.

  "Not when I was there, " Blackiston said, 'though of course they could have made one since. I just saw curtain walls with a few bastions.

  Ancient work, by the look of it."

  "Fifteenth-century work, " Wellesley put in and, when he saw that the two engineers were impressed by his knowledge, he shrugged.

  "Syud Sevajee claims as much, anyway."

  "Old walls break fastest, " Stokes said cheerfully. The two big guns, with the three smaller cannon, would batter the wall head on to crumble the ancient stone that was probably unprotected by a glacis of embanked earth to soak up the force of the bombardment, and the Major had yet to find a fortress wall in India that could resist the strike of an eighteen-pounder shot travelling half a mile every two seconds.

  "But you'll want some enfilading fire, " he warned Wellesley.

  "I'll send you some more twelves, " Wellesley promised.

  "A battery of twelves and an howitzer, " Stokes suggested.

  "I'd like to drop some nasties over the wall. There's nothing like an howitzer for spreading gloom."

  "I'll send an howitzer, " Wellesley promised. The enfilading batteries would fire at an angle through the growing breaches to keep the enemy from making repairs, and the howitzer, which fired high in the air so that its shells dropped steeply down, could bombard the repair parties behind the fortress ramparts.

  "And I want the batteries established quickly, " Wellesley said.

  "No dallying, Major."

  "I'm not a man to dally, Sir Arthur, " Stokes said cheerfully. The Major was leading the General and his staff up a particularly steep patch of road where an elephant, supplemented by over sixty sweating sepoys, forced an eighteen-pounder gun up the twisting road. The officers dodged the sepoys, then climbed a knoll from where they could stare across at Gawilghur.

  By now they were nearly as high as the stronghold itself and the profile of the twin forts stood clear against the bright sky beyond. It formed a double hump. The narrow neck of land led from the plateau to the first, lower hump on which the Outer Fortress stood. It was that fortress which would receive Stokes's breaching fire, and that fortress which would be assailed by Stevenson's men, but beyond it the ground dropped into a deep ravine, then climbed steeply to the much larger second hump on which the Inner Fortress with its palace and its lakes and its houses stood. Sir Arthur spent a long time staring through his glass, but said nothing.

  "I'll warrant I can get you into the smaller fortress, " Stokes said, 'but how do you cross the central ravine into the main stronghold?"

  It was that question that Wellesley had yet to answer in his own mind, and he suspected there was no simple solution. He hoped that the attackers would simply surge across the ravine and flood up the second slope like an irresistible wave that had broken through one barrier and would now overcome everything in its path, but he dared not admit to such impractical optimism. He dared not confess that he was condemning his men to an attack on an Inner Fortress that would have unbreached walls and well-prepared defenders.

  "If we can't take it by escalade, " he said curtly, collapsing his glass, 'we'll have to dig breaching batteries in the Outer Fortress and do it the hard way."

  In other words, Stokes thought, Sir Arthur had no idea how it was to be done. Only that it must be done. By escalade or by breach, and by God's mercy, if they were lucky, for once they were into the central ravine the attackers would be in the devil's hands.

  It was a hot December day, but Stokes shivered, for he feared for the men who must go up against Gawilghur Captain Torrance had enjoyed a remarkably lucky evening. Jama had still not returned to the camp, and his big green tents with their varied delights stood empty, but there were plenty of other diversions in the British camp. A group of Scottish officers, augmented by a sergeant who played the flute, gave a concert, and though Torrance had no great taste for chamber music he found the melodies were in tune with his jaunty mood. Sharpe was gone, Torrance's debts were paid, he had survived, and he had strolled on from the concert to the cavalry lines where he knew he would find a game of whist. Torrance had succeeded in taking fifty-three guineas from an irascible major and another twelve from a whey-cheeked ensign who kept scratching his groin.

  "If you've got the pox, " the Major had finally said, 'then get the hell to a surgeon."

  "It's lice, sir."

  "Then for Christ's sake stop wriggling. You're distracting me."

  "Scratch on, " Torrance had said, laying down a winning hand. He had yawned, scooped up the coins, and bid his partners a good night.

  "It's devilish early, " the Major had grumbled, wanting a chance to win his money back.

  «Duty,» Torrance had said vaguely, then he had strolled to the merchant encampment and inspected the women who fanned themselves in the torrid night heat. An hour later, well pleased with himself, he had returned to his quarters. His servant squatted on the porch, but he waved the man away.

  Sajit was still at his candle-lit desk, unclogging his pen of the soggy paper scraps that collected on the nib. He stood, touched his inky hands together and bowed as Torrance entered.

  "Sahib."

  "All well?"

  "All is well, sahib. Tomorrow's chitties He pushed a pile of papers across the desk.

  "I'm sure they're in order, " Torrance said, quite confident that he spoke true. Sajit was proving to be an excellent clerk. He went to the door of his quarters, then turned with a frown.

  "Your uncle hasn't come back?"

  "Tomorrow, sahib, I'm sure."

  "Tell him I'd like a word. But not if he comes tonight. I don't want to be disturbed tonight."

  "Of course not, sahib." Sajit offered another bow as Torrance negotiated the door and the muslin screen.

  The Captain shot the iron bolt, then chased down the few moths that had managed to get past the muslin. He lit a second lamp, piled the night's winnings on the table, then called for Clare. She came sleepy eyed from the kitchen.

  '75

  "Arrack, Brick, " Torrance ordered, then peeled off his coat while Clare un stoppered a fresh jar of the fierce spirit. She kept her eyes averted as Torrance stripped himself naked and lay back in his hammock.

  "You could light me a hookah, Brick, " he suggested, 'then sponge me down. Is there a clean shirt for the morning?"

  "Of course, sir."

  "Not the darned one?"

  "No, sir."

  He turned his head to stare at the coins which glittered so prettily in the smoky lamplight. In funds again! Winning! Perhaps his luck had turned. It seemed so. He had lost so much money at cards in the last month that he had thought nothing but ruin awaited him, but now the goddes
s of fortune had turned her other cheek. Rule of halves, he told himself as he sucked on the hookah. Save half, gamble the other half.

  Halve the winnings and save half again. Simple really. And now that Sharpe was gone he could begin some careful trading once more, though how the market would hold up once the Mahrattas were defeated he could not tell. Still, with a slice of luck he might make sufficient money to set himself up in a comfortable civilian life in Madras. A carriage, a dozen horses and as many women servants. He would have an harem.

  He smiled at the thought, imagining his father's disgust. An harem, a courtyard with a fountain, a wine cellar deep beneath his house that should be built close to the sea so that cooling breezes could waft through its windows. He would need to spend an hour or two at the office each week, but certainly not more for there were always Indians to do the real work. The buggers would cheat him, of course, but there seemed plenty of money to go around so long as a man did not gamble it away. Rule of halves, he told himself again. The golden rule of life.

  The sound of singing came from the camp beyond the village.

  Torrance did not recognize the tune, which was probably some Scottish song. The sound drifted him back to his childhood when he had sung in the cathedral choir. He grimaced, remembering the frosty mornings when he had run in the dark across the close and pushed open the cathedral's great side door to be greeted by a clout over the ear because he was late. The choristers' cloudy breath had mingled with the smoke of the guttering candles. Lice under the robes, he remembered. He had caught his first lice off a counter-tenor who had held him against a wall behind a bishop's tomb and hoisted his robe. I hope the bastard's dead, he thought.

  Sajit yelped.

  «Quiet!» Torrance shouted, resenting being jarred from his reverie. There was silence again, and Torrance sucked on the hookah. He could hear Clare pouring water in the yard and he smiled as he anticipated the soothing touch of the sponge.

  Someone, it had to be Sajit, tried to open the door from the front room.

  "Go away, " Torrance called, but then something hit the door a massive blow. The bolt held, though dust sifted from crevices in the plaster wall either side of the frame. Torrance stared in shock, then twitched with alarm as another huge bang shook the door, and this time a chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate fell from the wall.

  Torrance swung his bare legs out of the hammock. Where the devil were his pistols?

  A third blow reverberated round the room, and this time the bracket holding the bolt was wrenched out of the wall and the door swung in onto the muslin screen. Torrance saw a robed figure sweep the screen aside, then he threw himself over the room and pawed through his discarded clothes to find his guns.

  A hand gripped his wrist.

  "You won't need that, sir, " a familiar voice said, and Torrance turned, wincing at the strength of the man's grip.

  He saw a figure dressed in blood-spattered Indian robes, with a tulwar scabbarded at his waist and a face shrouded by a head cloth. But Torrance recognized his visitor and blanched.

  "Reporting for duty, sir, " Sharpe said, taking the pistol from Torrance's unresisting gripTorrance gaped. He could have sworn that the blood on the robe was fresh for it gleamed wetly. There was more blood on a short-bladed knife in Sharpe's hand. It dripped onto the floor and Torrance gave a small pitiful mew.

  "It's Sajit's blood, " Sharpe said.

  "His penknife too." He tossed the wet blade onto the table beside the gold coins.

  "Lost your tongue, sir?"

  "Sharpe?"

  "He's dead, sir, Sharpe is, " Sharpe said.

  "He was sold to Jama, remember, sir? Is that the blood money?" Sharpe glanced at the rupees on the table.

  «Sharpe,» Torrance said again, somehow incapable of saying anything else.

  "I'm his ghost, sir, " Sharpe said, and Torrance did indeed look as though a spectre had just broken through his door. Sharpe tutted and shook his head in self-reproof.

  "I'm not supposed to call you «sir», am I, sir? On account of me being a fellow officer and a gentleman. Where's Sergeant Hakeswill?"

  «Sharpe!» Torrance said once more, collapsing onto a chair.

  "We heard you'd been captured!»

  "So I was, sir, but not by the enemy. Leastwise, not by any proper enemy." Sharpe examined the pistol.

  "This ain't loaded. What were you hoping to do, sir? Beat me to death with the barrel?"

  "My robe, Sharpe, please, " Torrance said, gesturing to where the silk robe hung on a wooden peg.

  "So where is Hakeswill, sir?" Sharpe asked. He had pushed back his head cloth and now opened the pistol's friz zen and blew dust off the pan before scraping at the layer of caked powder with a fingernail.

  "He's on the road, " Torrance said.

  "Ah! Took over from me, did he? You should keep this pistol clean, sir. There's rust on the spring, see? Shame to keep an expensive gun so shabbily. Are you sitting on your cartridge box?"

  Torrance meekly raised his bottom to take out his leather pouch which held the powder and bullets for his pistols. He gave the bag to Sharpe, thought about fetching the robe himself, then decided that any untoward move might upset his visitor.

  "I'm delighted to see you're alive, Sharpe, " he said.

  "Are you, sir?" Sharpe asked.

  "Of course."

  "Then why did you sell me to Jama?"

  "Sell you? Don't be ridiculous, Sharpe. No! " The cry came as the pistol barrel whipped towards him, and it turned into a moan as the barrel slashed across his cheek. Torrance touched his face and winced at the blood on his fingers.

  "Sharpe' he began.

  "Shut it, sir, " Sharpe said nastily. He perched on the table and poured some powder into the pistol barrel.

  "I talked to Jama last night. He tried to have me killed by a couple ofjettis. You know what jet tis are, sir?

  Religious strongmen, sir, but they must have been praying to the wrong God, for I cut one's throat and left the other bugger blinded." He paused to select a bullet from the pouch.

  "And I had a chat with

  Jama when I'd killed his thugs and he told me lots of interesting things. Like that you traded with him and his brother. You're a traitor, Torrance."

  "Sharpe- "I said shut it! " Sharpe snapped. He pushed the bullet into the pistol's muzzle, then drew out the short ramrod and shoved it down the barrel.

  "The thing is, Torrance, " he went on in a calmer tone, "I know the truth. All of it. About you and Hakeswill and about you and Jama and about you and Naig." He smiled at Torrance, then slotted the short ramrod back into its hoops.

  "I used to think officers were above that sort of crime. I knew the men were crooked, because I was crooked, but you don't have much choice, do you, when you've got nothing?

  But you, sir, you had everything you wanted. Rich parents, proper schooling." Sharpe shook his head.

  "You don't understand, Sharpe."

  "But I do, sir. Now look at me. My ma was a whore, and not a very good one by all accounts, and she went and died and left me with nothing.

  Bloody nothing! And the thing is, sir, that when I go to General Wellesley and I tells him about you selling muskets to the enemy, who's he going to believe? You, with your proper education, or me with a dead frow as a mother?" Sharpe looked at Torrance as though he expected an answer, but none came.

  "He's going to believe you, sir, isn't he? He'd never believe me, on account of me not being a proper gentleman who knows his Latin. And you know what that means, sir?"

  "Sharpe?"

  "It means justice won't be done, sir. But, on the other hand, you're a gentleman, so you knows your duty, don't you?" Sharpe edged off the table and gave the pistol, butt first, to Torrance.

  "Hold it just in front of your ear, " he advised Torrance, 'or else put it in your mouth. Makes more mess that way, but it's surer."

  «Sharpe!» Torrance said, and found he had nothing to say. The pistol felt heavy in his hand.

 
; "It won't hurt, sir, " Sharpe said comfortingly.

  "You'll be dead in the blink of an eyelid." He began scooping the coins off the table into Torrance's pouch. He heard the heavy click as the pistol was cocked, then glanced round to see that the muzzle was pointing at his face.

  He frowned and shook his head in disappointment.

  "And I thought you were a gentleman, sir."

  "I'm not a fool, Sharpe, " Torrance said vengefully. He stood and took a pace closer to the Ensign.

  "And I'm worth ten of you. Up from the ranks? You know what that makes you, Sharpe? It makes you a brute, a lucky brute, but it don't make you a real officer. You're not going to be welcome anywhere, Sharpe. You'll be endured, Sharpe, because officers have manners, but they won't welcome you because you ain't a proper officer. You weren't born to it, Sharpe." Torrance laughed at the look of horrified outrage on Sharpe's face.

  "Christ, I despise you! " he said savagely.

  "You're like a dressed-up monkey, Sharpe, only you can't even wear clothes properly! I could give you lace and braid, and you'd still look like a peasant, because that's what you are, Sharpe. Officers should have style! They should have wit!

  And all you can do is grunt. You know what you are, Sharpe? You're an embarrassment, you're.. " He paused, trying to find the right insult, and shook his head in frustration as the words would not come.

  "You're a lump, Sharpe! That's what you are, a lump! And the kindest thing is to finish you off." Torrance smiled.

  "Goodbye, Mister Sharpe." He pulled the trigger.

  The flint smashed down on the steel and the spark flashed into the empty pan.

  Sharpe reached out in the silence and took the pistol from Torrance's hand.

  "I loaded it, sir, but I didn't prime it. On account of the fact that I might be a lump, but I ain't any kind of fool." He pushed Torrance back into the chair, and Torrance could only watch as Sharpe dropped a pinch of powder into the pan. He flinched as Sharpe closed the friz zen then shuddered as Sharpe walked towards him.