Caroline said coldly, ‘Indeed you waste your breath. Do you truly think I will run like a hare while you are getting killed?’ She rose and left the lamplit circle, vanished in the darkness to her tent. Amaury stared after her.
‘Watch her, Richard,’ he said at last. ‘Watch her like a falcon, and flog her out, should the need arise, with your sabre across her shoulders!’
‘I will do my best,’ said Anstruther unhappily.
In the dimness before dawn a warning screen of hircarrahs rode beyond the ridge, halted at the sand-tract’s edge and peered nervously into a shadowy distance studded by lights and pinpoint fires. Jat battalions followed, marching abreast in open columns of companies, Todd and Amaury leading. Welladvice and bullock-guns behind.
‘Halt! Close to quarter distance! Battalions will form line on the front divisions. To the left... face! March!’
Companies tramped in parallel lines to the left. Officers, measuring distances, halted each in turn.
‘Front! March! Halt!’
The companies dressed in a line three hundred paces long. Bullock teams hauled four guns to the interval between battalions, and two to either wing. Detachments unlimbered, dragged the guns trail first, hand-spiked them round till muzzles pointed forward; then loosed the ammunition wagons’ traces.
‘Battalions, load your firelocks!’
Subhadars turned and faced their men; the orders crackled. ‘Half-cock... firelocks! Open ... pans! Handle... cartridge!’ Amaury examined the faraway camp. The sprinkled lights were fading, swamped by a flooding dawn. His spyglass showed sporadic movement. ‘The Bhonsla’s slugabed army,’ he said, ‘begins to form line of battle.’
‘Prime! Shut... pans! Charge... cartridge!’
Welladvice’s bullocks and wagons sheltered behind the ridge, safe from all but plunging fire, each tumbril fifty yards in rear of the gun it fed. He directed shot and cartridge stacked beside the trails, positioned ammunition chains to replenish from the wagons, returned to the crest and touched his hat.
‘Guns in position, sir. Permission ter load roundshot?’
Todd looked at Amaury, who smiled. ‘You are in command here, Henry?’
‘Certainly, Mr Welladvice,’ said Todd.
Amaury walked Hannibal along the rows of sky-blue uniforms, black leather crossbelts, tall black turbans. Subhadars snapped the final loading orders.
‘Draw... rammer! Ram... cartridge! Return... rammer!’
The men stood shoulder to shoulder three ranks deep, a gap-toothed fourth in rear - havildars, naigues and drummers - to keep the front ranks fast and check any backward break. Gunners finished loading, and waited at attention round their pieces. Behind each gun-division the ventsmen planted linstocks: halberds whose cross-pieces dangled a pair of smouldering matches.
‘Order... firelocks!’
Amaury extended his spyglass, snapped it shut. The enemy’s advance was clear to the naked eye. Battalions massed in the centre marched in columns, a chequerboard of uniforms, yellow and red and green. Between the columns bullock teams dragged guns. Eddying on their right the cavalry spilled forward; on the left irregular infantry - Mewaris, Marathas, najibs and Pathans - poured across the grassland in large disorderly groups. The wings outpaced the centre; so the army formed an enormous crescent, the horns protruding far beyond the Jat battalions’ flanks.
Amaury frowningly studied the regular battalions’ tortoise-like advance. ‘The sand will slow their guns; they should not play on you for half an hour yet. But the cavalry move fast; in a little while those rascals will be prancing round the redoubt. Time for me to go.’ Gathering his rein, he looked the ensign in the eyes. ‘Hold fast, Henry! My pivot must not slip.’
‘We will fight to the end, Hugo,’ Todd said gravely.
Amaury streaked to the rear, raising in his wake a fan of dust. Todd examined the enemy in front, solid blocks of infantry starred by the glint of bayonets eight hundred yards away, gun teams lurching forward in the intervals between the columns. The battalions halted. The cannon - he counted thirty - advanced half a musket shot beyond and hurriedly unlimbered. Crews clustered about their pieces, lifted the heavy trails and yanked them round. The yellow poles of sponge staffs flashed in the risen sun.
‘Prepare for action, Mr Welladvice!’
Firers lighted portfires from matches on the linstocks. Welladvice, running from wing to wing, directed the targets for each division. Handspikes shifted trails, layers twirled the elevating screws. He crouched on the trails, checked aim, and returned to the centre company.
‘Ready for action, sir!’
Ash-grey flowers of smoke, pistilled by orange flashes, blossomed from the mouths of the enemy guns. Sandy fountains spurted on the slope. Somewhere down the line the ranks caved like a falling cliff. A sepoy screamed and went on screaming. Havildars jumped forward, dragged bodies to the rear, thrust covering files in the gaps.
‘Engage the enemy, Mr Welladvice!’
Portfires kissed vents, barrels belched long tongues of flame, an eight-gun salvo crashed in one loud blast. Smoke rolled in a billowing wall. The carriages recoiled, trails scraping yard-long furrows as though invisible titans kicked the muzzles. The gunners sponged, reloaded, ran the guns up, layed and fired. As detachments fell to working in individual rhythms the salvoes first grew ragged and then gradually coalesced into one continuous slamming. An acrid curtain of smoke lazed in the windless air.
Most of the Marathas’ opening salvoes landed short. The Jats could see their roundshot curving against the sky, black pinheads looming larger as they neared, thumping in the sand and rolling to a stop,-losing the momentum which could send them bounding onwards with shattering effect on densely crowded ranks. Enemy layers, spotting the error, elevated barrels. A nine-pound ball swept a file away in a mangling of blood and brains.
Todd shifted his position and peered through the smoke. Maratha infantry columns advanced behind the guns. Still they were far away, beyond thrice musket range. He galloped the line from end to end.
‘Lie down!’ he called. ‘Lie down!’
The sepoys, cuddling firelocks, instantly fell prone: three long windrows, so it seemed, of blue-clad rigid corpses. The gun crews laboured furiously, guns bucking on their trails like shying horses. A roundshot clanged a barrel, hurled the gun aslant, smashed axle-tree to slivers and pulped the sponge- and ventsman into lacerated shreds. Welladvice inspected the wreckage, and ruefully sucked his teeth. ‘Nothin’ ter be done, sir,’ he told Todd, shouting above the banging of the guns. ‘Knocked clean out. But’ - he gestured viciously to the smoke-wreathed enemy cannon - ‘we’re firin’ three broadsides to their one, an’ givin’ them beggars hell. Reckon we’ve put seven out o’ action!’
The wind of a ball whipped Todd’s hat from his head and nearly plucked him from the saddle. ‘Hard pounding, Mr Welladvice - see to it we pound harder!’ Worriedly he scanned the forces enveloping his flanks, cavalry left and irregulars right, both more than a half-mile distant, beyond six-pounders’ effective range. They came no closer to Todd’s battalions, swooping, so it appeared, respectively on the redoubt and Kohlabad.
The enemy’s cannonade destroyed a second gun, left the barrel steepling skywards, a dying crew’s memorial. Then it abruptly ceased. Artillerymen swarmed on the guns, swung trails and dragged them forward. The infantry advanced, broad columns taking step from the cadenced throbbing of drums, close enough - five hundred yards - for Todd to judge the details: eight battalions moving on a front of sixteen files. He wiped a smoke- streaked face, and murmured, ‘End of the opening gun duel!’ Raising his voice he called, ‘Mr Welladvice, pray engage the foot!’
The gun captains needed no telling. They shifted trails and sent the salvoes howling.
General Wrangham stared across the abattis’ wide embankment. Etched against smoke on the distant ridge Todd’s thin black line united the tiny gun-clumps. Amaury’s little force stood lonely on the plain, companies in columns of platoons, cavalry
in line, gallopers still harnessed. Enemy irregular foot swarmed far away on the right; on the left, drawing rapidly nearer, a tidal wave of Maratha horse cascaded towards the redoubt. The spectacle was frightening; he gulped in an arid throat. Warfare’s tactical rules, Wrangham reassured himself, forbade cavalry storming forts - but these ruffians were so damned numerous they could climb on their comrade’s corpses and ride across the four-foot-high abattis.
The general had fought gallantly in Flanders, and based his suppositions on the valour of the French. He could not know - as Amaury did - Maratha horse were worthless in close combat and invariably flinched from grappling a really determined foe.
Barrels crammed with case shot poked from gun emplacements; portfires glowed above vents; sepoys levelled muskets on the logs, butts in shoulders, hammers cocked. The enemy galloped nearer in long disorderly streamers, chieftains in mail and pointed helmets, troopers in flowing coats and turbans, iron-bossed targes, pennoned lances and short curved swords, pistols bristling sashes even matchlocks slung aback.
Wrangham waited till the foremost were a pebble-cast away.
‘Fire!’
The abattis’ whole perimeter gouted flame and smoke. A gale of case and musket balls cartwheeled men and horses and ploughed them to the ground. Carried by their impetus, sawing at the bits, the following wave rode headlong to the abattis’ outer face. The second fusillade exploded in their teeth. Stumbling from the carnage, the survivors wheeled and fled, collided with the riders galloping in rear and milled in stark confusion.
They retired beyond reach of musket ball or case. Gunners rammed in roundshot, spun elevating screws, lifted point blank range by one degree. Roundshot whirred and bounded, cut men and mounts in half. A hundred desperate horsemen broke from the scramble and charged.
Sepoys nestled cheeks on stocks, fingers stroking triggers.
This is the moment,’ Amaury said.
He shaded his eyes and watched, nine hundred yards away, Jat muskets tear the forlorn charge in tatters. He turned in the saddle and shouted.
‘Companies will form line to the left. Platoons, to the left... wheel! Halt! Dress! March!’
The infantry, in three close ranks, tramped towards the enemy cavalry.
‘Guns... advance!’
Divisions jingled forward and cleared the line of sepoys.
‘Heads right... wheel!’
The gun teams, parallel columns, drew level with the foot.
‘Squadron, walk... march! Troops, left... wheel! Halt! Dress! March!’
Infantry in the centre, guns left and cavalry right, Amaury’s force closed slowly on the Marathas. He saw them start to break towards him, and signalled with his sabre.
‘Action front!’
Teams reversed direction and swung muzzles towards the enemy. Gunners dropped from saddles, unlimbered, loaded, layed.
‘Guns ready, sahib!’
‘Excellent, da Souza - forty seconds,’ smiled Amaury, watch in hand. ‘You will cover my attack. Drumfire, if you please.’
He trotted after the infantry. ‘Halt when you come within range, subhadar sahib, and send your volleys fast!’
The artillery’s opening salvo crashed. Amaury walked Hannibal to the Rahtor squadron’s front.
‘Now, brothers, let’s thrash this riff-raff! Canter... march!’
The Marathas, caught in crossfire, pounded by the redoubt in front and raked from a flank by Amaury’s gallopers, started filtering away. The approach of Amaury’s squadron hardened resolution: here were ninety horsemen riding into the maw, a voluntary sacrifice for several thousand swords. Leaders yelled and brandished lances, rallied their flinching followers. Wild formations shot from the mass and thundered towards the Rahtors.
Amaury’s headlong charge plunged deep in the enemy’s mass. Horses reared and screamed, riders hewed and stabbed and hacked. The squadron’s two-deep line fragmented. Marathas closed around them, lances swooping. In seconds they were hidden, a battling vortex girdled by raging waters.
The Portuguese gun captain scowled. Though his long-range roundshot salvoes battered the outer fringes they hardly touched the fighting in the middle. De Souza made his decision.
‘Limber up I Gallop!’
The gunners slotted trails on limbers, swung the guns in a hairpin turn and pounded forwards. They passed the marching companies, still beyond musket shot. The subhadar, a slow-witted man, suddenly grasped the crisis.
‘Double... march!’
The sepoys broke into a run.
Fearful of hitting Amaury’s men, Wrangham’s guns fell silent For minutes the Marathas were spared a single shot - while Amaury and his Rahtors fought for their existence.
Caroline leaned on the abattis and bit her knuckles to the bone. Small as toys in the distance the gallopers bounded to battle; thin blue lines of infantry crept forward on their right. She saw no sign of the squadron, submerged in a mounted maelstrom canopied by hammocks of dust. Frantically she gripped Anstruther’s arm. ‘Hugo is done for! Obey his orders, Richard - we must go!’
‘Wait! We cannot tell--’
‘Come on!’
She ran to the entrance, snatched from a sice the Arab’s reins, drove in spurs and jumped the hurdle. Anstruther, cursing, followed. She bore on the bit, swung left, and galloped like an arrow in flight for the fighting on the plain.
‘Caroline!’ Anstruther wailed. ‘Where the devil are you going? Turn, for the love of God!’
The wind of his speed whipped the words from his lips. Blaspheming like a bargee, Anstruther groped for his sword.
The gallopers dropped trails, hastily replenished spongemen’s buckets from the waterskins carried on limbers and relit portfires. The sepoys, blown by a quarter-mile run, halted on the right.
‘Caseshot... load! Ready! Fire!’
‘Companies will fire by files. Make ready! Present! Fire!’
A hurricane of lead flayed the Maratha horse, tore the valance asunder and mowed them down in swathes. Volley after salvo smashed riders to the ground and sent the horses tumbling in a tangle of legs and hooves. Recoiling from the terrible hail they dissolved in little parties and into single horsemen. Scattered groups streamed back across the plain.
‘Cease firing!’ said the subhadar. ‘Order your firelocks! Rest your firelocks! Charge!’
Shattered Marathas saw in horror a hedge of bristling bayonets, and waited not an instant more. The whole formation cracked like a pane of glass, split asunder and pelted for the safety of their camp. The companies fired a farewell volley, and leaned panting on their muskets.
Bodies stippled the battleground, singly and in clumps, in irregular rows where the case had struck and corridors for the roundshots’ havoc. Wounded men dragged slimy trails, crawled painfully on hands and knees, threshed moaning on the grass. Horses, terribly mangled, tottered aimlessly in circles.
Exhausted Rahtor troopers sat stoop-shouldered in the saddle and drew deep trembling breaths. Forty-two were left of the ninety-odd that charged.
A horseman rode from man to man and collected them in ranks. A sabre had slashed through his turban and sliced a flap from his scalp; a scarf of blood braided hair and beard; a gash on his thigh dripped scarlet threads. Amaury led his remnant from the field.
‘A close thing, da Souza - you arrived just in time! Subhadarjee, collect my wounded, leave them under guard. Quickly, sahib - your battle isn’t done!’
A rider threaded the gun line, swerved towards the infantry and reined the grey on its hocks. Amaury looked at her dumbly, as though he beheld a visitor from worlds beyond the stars. He gestured to Kohlabad.
‘Go back.’
‘I thought you were killed ... I could not...’ Caroline saw his wounds and gasped. ‘Ah, God! ... Hugo, you are terribly hurt! Let me attend...’
‘Go back.’
Anstruther arrived, and pulled up blowing and swearing. Amaury said in a leaden voice, ‘Twice you have failed in your duty, Richard. Retrieve your charge, and ta
ke her whence you came!’
‘You must by no means blame Mr Anstruther. The fault is entirely mine. Hugo ... Captain Amaury, I entreat. . . you will bleed to death!’
Amaury irritably shook his head, sending the blood-flecks spraying, and touched spurs to Hannibal’s flanks. A sun-speckled crimson haze shimered in front of his eyes. Despite his iron physique the pain of his wounds and loss of blood had momentarily numbed his body and mind - the fight had been the hardest in his life. Anstruther rode after him and pointed across the plain.
‘How can we return, sir? The enemy assault the town, and the redoubt is under fire!’
The van of Vithujee’s irregulars scurried round Kohlabad’s walls, the main body a dust-hooded crescent that curved across the skyline nearly a mile away. Diminutive needles of flame spurted from battlements and housetops where najibs engaged the attackers. Wrangham had brought two guns to bear which, enfilading the enemy, discouraged them from approaching the redoubt. Hence the whole assault converged on Kohlabad’s north-east face.
Amaury looked at the sand ridge, mantled in dust and smoke, clanging with the roar of distant battle. Amid the swirling grey-white clouds the battalions’ lines stood firm. He glanced at his watch. The fighting had started at sunrise; now it was ten o’clock.
He had snapped the right-hand tine of Vithujee’s two-pronged fork; Todd still blocked the shaft; swiftly he must break the second prong.
‘Subhadar sahib, about face! Form open column of companies and follow the artillery. Quickstep - fast as you can! da Souza, limber up! Action line, heads about and trot! Squadron’ - sadly he regarded the attenuated ranks - ‘in line behind the guns.’
Amaury contemplated the errant pair who sat their horses silently alongside. ‘What is to be done with you? Damn my eyes, a woman in a battle! Ride behind the sepoys - and stay beyond musket shot!’
From flank to flank was a mile-long trek. The ‘mass of manoeuvre’ marched.
Todd watched the columns rolling nearer, apparently undismayed by his roundshot salvoes. Their artillery was silent; bullocks and crews dragged the guns through heavy sand and gradually dropped back. Silently he blessed Amaury’s perception: the sand was the Jats’ salvation. At ultimate musket range the columns halted, deployed ponderously from column into line and masked their own artillery. Todd wondered who the idiot commander was. Could he be among that gaggle in rear, carefully out of gunshot, riding an elephant bedizened in gorgeous trappings? The sepoys still lay prone - did Vithujee imagine he opposed nothing but six-pounders?
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