Sharpe's Fortress s-3

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  "Two inches to the right, Sergeant, " he called chidingly.

  "Must have been a puff of wind, sir, " the Sergeant said, 'puff of bloody wind, 'cos there weren't a thing wrong with gun's laying, begging your pardon, sir."

  "You did well, " Stokes said with a smile, 'very well." He cupped his hands and shouted at the second breaching battery.

  "You have your mark! Fire on! " A billow of smoke erupted from the fortress wall, followed by the bang of a gun and a howl as a round shot whipped overhead. Stokes jumped down into the battery, clutching his hat.

  "It seems we've woken them up, " he remarked as a dozen more Mahratta guns fired. The enemy's shots smacked into the gab ions or ricocheted wildly along the rocky ground. The second British battery fired, the noise of its guns echoing off the cliff face to tell the camp far beneath that the siege of Gawilghur had properly begun.

  Private Tom Garrard of the 33rd's Light Company had wandered to the edge of the cliff to watch the bombardment of the fortress. Not that there was much to see other than the constantly replenished cloud of smoke that shrouded the rocky neck of land between the batteries and the fortress, but every now and then a large piece of stone would fall from Gawilghur's wall. The fire from the de fences was furious, but it seemed to Garrard that it was ill aimed. Many of the shots bounced over the batteries, or else buried themselves in the great piles of protective gab ions The British fire, on the other hand, was slow and sure. The eighteen-pound round shots gnawed at the wall and not one was wasted. The sky was cloudless, the sun rising ever higher and the guns were heating so that after every second shot the gunners poured buckets of water on the long barrels. The metal hissed and steamed, and sweating puckakes hurried up the battery road with yet more skins of water to replenish the great vats.

  Garrard was sitting by himself, but he had noticed a ragged Indian was watching him. He ignored the man, hoping he would go away, but the Indian edged closer. Garrard picked up a fist-sized stone and tossed it up and down in his right hand as a hint that the man should go away, but the threat of the stone only made the Indian edge closer.

  «Sahib!» the Indian hissed.

  "Bugger off, " Garrard growled.

  "Sahib! Please!»

  "I've got nothing worth stealing, I don't want to buy anything, and I don't want to roger your sister."

  "I'll roger your sister instead, sahib, " the Indian said, and Garrard twisted round, the stone drawn back ready to throw, then he saw that the dirty robed man had pushed back his grubby white head cloth and was grinning at him.

  "You ain't supposed to chuck rocks at officers, Tom, " Sharpe said.

  "Mind you, I always wanted to, so I can't blame you."

  "Bloody hell! " Garrard dropped the stone and held out his right hand.

  "Dick Sharpe! " He suddenly checked his outstretched hand.

  "Do I have to call you "sir"?"

  "Of course you don't, " Sharpe said, taking Garrard's hand.

  "You and me? Friends from way back, eh? Red sash won't change that, Tom.

  How are you?"

  "Been worse. Yourself?"

  "Been better."

  Garrard frowned.

  "Didn't I hear that you'd been captured?"

  "Got away, I did. Ain't a bugger born who can hold me, Tom. Nor you." Sharpe sat next to his friend, a man with whom he had marched in the ranks for six years.

  "Here." He gave Garrard a strip of dried meat.

  "What is it?"

  "Goat. Tastes all right, though."

  The two sat and watched the gunners at work. The closest guns were in the two enfilading batteries, and the gunners were using their twelve pounders to systematically bring down the parapets of the ramparts above Gawilghur's gate. They had already unseated a pair of enemy guns and were now working on the next two embrasures. An ox-drawn limber had just delivered more ammunition, but, on leaving the battery, the limber's wheel had loosened and five men were now standing about the canted wheel arguing how best to mend it. Garrard pulled a piece of stringy meat from between his teeth.

  "Pull the broken wheel off and put on a new one, " he said scornfully.

  "It don't take a major and two lieutenants to work that out."

  "They're officers, Tom, " Sharpe said chidingly, 'only half brained."

  "You should know." Garrard grinned.

  "Buggers make an inviting target, though." He pointed across the plunging chasm which separated the plateau from the Inner Fort.

  "There's a bloody great gun over there.

  Size of a bloody hay wain, it is. Buggers have been fussing about it for a half-hour now."

  Sharpe stared past the beleaguered Outer Fort to the distant cliffs.

  He thought he could see a wall where a gun might be mounted, but he was not sure.

  "I need a bloody telescope."

  "You need a bloody uniform."

  "I'm doing something about that, " Sharpe said mysteriously.

  Garrard slapped at a fly.

  "What's it like then?"

  "What's what like?"

  "Being a Jack-pudding?"

  Sharpe shrugged, thought for a while, then shrugged again.

  "Don't seem real. Well, it does. I dunno." He sighed.

  "I mean I wanted it, Tom, I wanted it real bad, but I should have known the bastards wouldn't want me. Some are all right. Major Stokes, he's a fine fellow, and there are others. But most of them? God knows. They don't like me, anyway."

  "You got 'em worried, that's why, " Garrard said.

  "If you can become an officer, so can others." He saw the unhappiness on Sharpe's face.

  "Wishing you'd stayed a sergeant, are you?"

  «No,» Sharpe said, and surprised himself by saying it so firmly.

  "I

  can do the job, Tom."

  "What job's that, for Christ's sake? Sitting around while we do all the bloody work? Having a servant to clean your boots and scrub your arse?"

  «No,» Sharpe said, and he pointed across the shadowed chasm to the Inner Fort.

  "When we go in there, Tom, we're going to need fellows who know what the hell they're doing. That's the job. It's beating hell out of the other side and keeping your own men alive, and I can do that."

  Garrard looked sceptical.

  "If they let you."

  "Aye, if they let me, " Sharpe agreed. He sat in silence for a while, watching the far gun emplacement. He could see men there, but was not sure what they were doing.

  "Where's Hakeswill?" he asked.

  "I looked for him yesterday, and the bugger wasn't on parade with the rest of you."

  «Captured,» Garrard said.

  "Captured?"

  "That's what Morris says. Me, I think the bugger ran. Either ways, he's in the fort now."

  "You think he ran?"

  "We had two fellows murdered the other night. Morris says it were the enemy, but I didn't see any of the buggers, but there was some fellow creeping round saying he was a Company colonel, only he weren't." Garrard stared at Sharpe and a slow grin came to his face.

  "It were you, Dick."

  "Me?" Sharpe asked straight-faced.

  "I was captured, Tom. Only escaped yesterday."

  "And I'm the king of bloody Persia. Lowry and Kendrick were meant to arrest you, weren't they?"

  "It was them who died?" Sharpe asked innocently.

  Garrard laughed.

  "Serve them bloody right. Bastards, both of them."

  An enormous blossom of smoke showed at the distant wall on the top of the cliffs. Two seconds later the sound of the great gun bellowed all around Sharpe and Garrard, while the massive round shot struck the stalled limber just behind the enfilading battery. The wooden vehicle shattered into splinters and all five men were hurled to the ground where they jerked bloodily for a few seconds and then were still.

  Fragments of stone and wood hissed past Sharpe.

  "Bloody hell, " Garrard said admiringly, 'five men with one shot!»

  "That'
ll teach 'em to keep their heads down, " Sharpe said. The sound of the enormous gun had drawn men from their tents towards the plateau's edge. Sharpe looked round and saw that Captain Morris was among them. The Captain was in his shirtsleeves, staring at the great cloud of smoke through a telescope.

  "I'm going to stand up in a minute, " Sharpe said, 'and you're going to hit me."

  "I'm going to do what?" Garrard asked.

  "You're going to thump me. Then I'm going to run, and you're going to chase me. But you're not to catch me."

  Garrard offered his friend a puzzled look.

  "What are you up to, Dick?"

  Sharpe grinned.

  "Don't ask, Tom, just do it."

  "You are a bloody officer, aren't you?" Garrard said, grinning back.

  "Don't ask, just do it."

  "Are you ready?" Sharpe asked "I've always wanted to clobber an officer."

  "On your feet then." They stood.

  "So hit me, " Sharpe said.

  "I've tried to pinch some cartridges off you, right? So give me a thump in the belly."

  "Bloody hell, " Garrard said.

  "Go on, do it!»

  Garrard gave Sharpe a half-hearted punch, and Sharpe shoved him back, making him fall, then he turned and ran along the cliff's edge.

  Garrard shouted, scrambled to his feet and began to pursue. Some of the men who had gone to fetch the five bodies moved to intercept Sharpe, but he dodged to his left and disappeared among some bushes.

  The rest of the 33rd's Light Company was whooping and shouting in pursuit, but Sharpe had a long lead on them and he twisted in and out of the shrubs to where he had picketed one of Syud Sevajee's horses. He pulled the peg loose, hauled himself into the saddle and kicked back his heels. Someone yelled an insult at him, but he was clear of the camp now and there were no mounted picquets to pursue him.

  A half-hour later Sharpe returned, trotting with a group of native horsemen coming back from a reconnaissance. He peeled away from them and dismounted by his tent where Ahmed waited for him While Sharpe and Garrard had made the diversion the boy had been thieving and he grinned broadly as Sharpe ducked into the hot tent.

  "I have every things, " Ahmed said proudly.

  He had taken Captain Morris's red coat, his sash and his sword-belt with its sabre.

  "You're a good lad, " Sharpe said. He needed a red coat, for Colonel Stevenson had given orders that every man who went into Gawilghur with the attackers must be in uniform so that they were not mistaken for the enemy. Syud Sevajee's men, who planned to hunt down Beny Singh, had been issued with some threadbare old sepoys' jackets, some of them still stained with the blood of their previous owners, but none of the jackets had fitted Sharpe. Even Morris's coat would be a tight fit, but at least he had a uniform now.

  "No trouble?"

  Sharpe asked Ahmed.

  "No bugger saw me, " the boy said proudly. His English was improving every day, though Sharpe worried that it was not quite the King's English. Ahmed grinned again as Sharpe gave him a coin that he stuffed into his robes.

  Sharpe folded the jacket over his arm and stooped out of the tent.

  He was looking for Clare and saw her a hundred paces away, walking with a tall soldier who was dressed in a shirt, black trousers and spurred boots. She was deep in conversation, and Sharpe felt a curious pang of jealousy as he approached, but then the soldier turned round, frowned at Sharpe's ragged appearance, then recognized the man under the head cloth. He grinned.

  "Mister Sharpe, " he said.

  "Eli Lockhart, " Sharpe said.

  "What the hell are the cavalry doing here?" He jerked his thumb towards the fort that was edged with white smoke as the defenders tried to hammer the British batteries.

  "This is a job for real soldiers."

  "Our Colonel persuaded the General that Mister Dodd might make a run for it. He reckoned a dozen cavalrymen could head him off."

  "Dodd won't run, " Sharpe said.

  "He won't have space to get a horse out."

  "So we'll go in with you, " Lockhart said.

  "We've got a quarrel with Mister Dodd, remember?"

  Clare was looking shy and alarmed, and Sharpe reckoned she did not want Sergeant Lockhart to know that she had spent time with Ensign Sharpe.

  "I was looking for Mrs. Wall, " he explained to Lockhart.

  "If you can spare me a few minutes, Ma'am?"

  Clare shot Sharpe a look of gratitude.

  "Of course, Mister Sharpe."

  "It's this jacket, see?" He held out Morris's coat.

  "It's got red facings and turn backs and I need white ones He took off his head cloth.

  "I

  wondered if you could use this. I know it's a bit filthy, and I hate to trouble you, Ma'am, but I don't reckon my sewing's up to making turn backs cuffs and collars."

  "You could take that captain's badge off while you're about it, love, " Lockhart suggested to Clare, 'and the skirmisher's wings. Don't reckon Mister Sharpe wants that coat's real owner to recognize it."

  "I'd rather he didn't, " Sharpe admitted.

  Clare took the coat, gave Sharpe another grateful look, then hurried towards Sevajee's tents. Lockhart watched her go.

  "Been wanting a chance to talk to her for three years, " he said wonderingly.

  "So you found it, eh?"

  Lockhart still watched her.

  "A rare-looking woman, that."

  "Is she? I hadn't really noticed, " Sharpe lied.

  "She said you'd been kind to her, " Lockhart said.

  "Well, I tried to help, you know how it is, " Sharpe said awkwardly.

  "That bloody man Torrance killed himself and she had nowhere to go. And you found her, eh? Most officers would try to take advantage of a woman like that, " Lockhart said.

  "I'm not a proper officer, am I?" Sharpe replied. He had seen the way that Clare looked at the tall cavalryman, and how Lockhart had stared at her, and Sharpe reckoned that it was best to stand aside.

  "I had a wife, " Lockhart said, 'only she died on the voyage out. Good little woman, she was."

  "I'm sorry, " Sharpe said.

  "And Mrs. Wall, " Lockhart went on, 'lost her husband." Widow meets widower. Any minute now, Sharpe thought, and the word fate would be used.

  "It's destiny, " Lockhart said in a tone of wonderment.

  "So what are you going to do about her?" Sharpe asked.

  "She says she ain't got a proper home now, " Lockhart said, 'except the tent you lent her, and my Colonel won't mind me taking a wife."

  "Have you asked her?"

  "More or less, " Lockhart said, blushing.

  "And she said yes?"

  "More or less, " Lockhart said again, blushing more deeply.

  "Bloody hell, " Sharpe said admiringly, 'that's quick!»

  "Real soldiers don't wait, " Lockhart said, then frowned.

  "I heard a rumour you'd been snaffled by the enemy?"

  "Got away, " Sharpe said vaguely.

  "Buggers were careless." He turned and watched as an errant rocket from the fort soared up into the cloudless sky to leave a thickening pile of smoke through which, eventually, it tumbled harmlessly to earth.

  "Are you really joining the attack?" he asked Lockhart.

  "Not in the front rank, " Lockhart said.

  "I ain't a fool. But Colonel Huddlestone says we can go in and look for Dodd. So we'll wait for you boys to do the hard work, then follow."

  "I'll look out for you."

  "And we'll keep an eye on you, " Lockhart promised.

  "But in the meantime I'll go and see if someone needs a needle threaded."

  "You do that, " Sharpe said. He watched the cavalryman walk away, and saw, at the same time, that Ahmed had been evicted from Clare's tent with Sharpe's few belongings. The boy looked indignant, but Sharpe guessed their exile from the tent would not last long, for Clare would surely move to the cavalryman's quarters before nightfall. Ding dong, he thought, wedding bells. He took the
pouch with its jewels from Ahmed, then, while his uniform was being tailored, he went to watch the guns gnaw and batter at the fort.

  The young horseman who presented himself at the gate of Gawilghur's Inner Fort was tall, arrogant and self-assured. He was dressed in a white silk robe that was tied at the waist with a red leather belt from which a golden-hilted tulwar hung in a gem-encrusted scabbard, and he did not request that the gates be opened, but rather demanded it. There was, in truth, no good reason to deny his orders, for men were constantly traversing the ravine between the two forts and Dodd's Cobras were accustomed to opening and closing the gates a score of times each day, but there was something in the young man's demeanour that annoyed Gopal. So he sent for Colonel Dodd.

  Dodd arrived a few moments later with the twitching English Sergeant at his side. The horseman rounded on Dodd, shouting at him to punish Gopal, but Dodd just spat, then turned to Hakeswill.

  "Why would a man be riding a horse out of this gate?"

  "Wouldn't know, sir, " Hakeswill said. The Sergeant was now dressed in a white coat that was crossed with a black sash as a sign of rank, though quite what rank the sash denoted was uncertain.

  "There's nowhere to exercise a horse, " Dodd said, 'not unless he plans to ride through the Outer Fort into the English camp. Ask him his business, Gopal."

  The young man refused to answer. Dodd shrugged, drew his pistol and aimed it at the horseman's head. He cocked the gun and the sound of the hammer engaging echoed loudly from the ramparts. The young man blanched and shouted at Gopal.

  "He says, sahib, that he is on an errand for the Killadar, " Gopal explained to Dodd.

  "What errand?" Dodd demanded. The young man plainly did not want to answer, but Dodd's grim face and the levelled pistol persuaded him to take a sealed packet from the pouch that hung from his belt.

  He showed Dodd the Killadar's seal, but Dodd was not impressed by the red wax with its impression of a snake curled about a knife blade.

  "Who is it addressed to?" he demanded, gesturing that the young man turn the package over.

  The horseman obeyed and Dodd saw that the packet was addressed to the commanding officer of the British camp. It must have been written by a clerk who was unfamiliar with the English language, for it was atrociously spelt, but the words were unmistakable and Dodd stepped forward and seized the horse's bridle.