“Damn,” Wellesley said quietly. “But no real harm done, I suppose.” The first of the infantry were now marching down Peepulgaon’s steep street. Lieutenant Colonel Orrock led the pickets of the day, while behind them Sharpe could see the grenadier company of the 74th. The Scottish drums were beating a march rhythm and the sound of the flurries made Sharpe’s blood race. The sound presaged battle. It seemed like a dream, but there would be a battle this Sunday afternoon and a bloody one, too.
“Afternoon, Orrock,” Wellesley spurred his horse to meet the infantry vanguard. “Straight across, I think.”
“Has the ford been sounded?” Colonel Orrock, a lugubrious and worried-looking man, asked nervously.
“Our task, I think,” Wellesley said cheerfully. “Gentlemen?” This last invitation was to his aides and orderly. “Shall we open proceedings?”
“Come on, Sharpe,” McCandless said.
“You can cross after us, Captain!” Wellesley called to the eager pioneer Captain, then he put his big bay stallion down the slope of the bluff and trotted towards the river. Daniel Fletcher followed close behind with Diomed’s leading rein in his hand, while the aides and McCandless and Sevajee and Sharpe all followed. Forty horsemen would be the first men across the Kaitna and the General would be the first of all, and Sharpe watched as Wellesley’s stallion trotted into the river. He wanted to see how deep the water was, and he was determined to watch the General all the way through, but suddenly the bang of an eighteen-pounder gun bullied the sky and Sharpe glanced upstream to see a puff of gunsmoke smear the horizon, then he heard a horse screaming and he looked back to see that Daniel Fletcher’s mount was rearing at the water’s edge. Fletcher was still in the saddle, but the orderly had no head left, only a pulsing spurt of blood from his ragged neck. Diomed’s rein was still in the dead man’s hand, but somehow the body would not fall from the mare’s saddle and she was screaming in fear as her rider’s blood splashed across her face.
A second gun fired, but high, and the shot crashed low overhead to tear into the trees on the southern bank. A third ball smashed into the water, drenching McCandless. Fletcher’s mare bolted upstream, but was checked by a fallen tree and so she stood, quivering, and still the trooper’s decapitated body was in the saddle and Diomed’s rein in his dead hand. The gray horse’s left flank was reddened with Fletcher’s blood. The trooper had slumped now, his headless trunk leaning eerily to drip blood into the river.
To Sharpe it seemed as if time had stopped. He was aware of someone shouting, aware of the blood dripping from the dragoon’s collar, aware of his small horse shivering, but the sudden violence had immobilized him. Another gun fired, this one of smaller caliber, and the ball struck the water a hundred yards upstream, ricocheted once, then vanished in a plume of white spray.
“Sharpe!” a voice snapped. Horsemen were wheeling in the river’s shallows and reaching for the dead man’s bridle. “Sharpe!” It was Wellesley who shouted. The General was in the middle of the river where the water did not even reach his stirrups, so there was a ford after all and the river could be crossed, but the enemy was hardly going to be taken by surprise now. “Take over as orderly, Sharpe!” Wellesley shouted. “Hurry, man!” There was no one else to replace Fletcher, not unless one of Wellesley’s aides took over his duties, and Sharpe was the nearest man.
“Go on, Sharpe!” McCandless said. “Hurry, man!”
Captain Campbell had secured Fletcher’s mare. “Ride her, Sharpe!” the Captain called. “That little horse won’t keep up with us. Just let her go. Let her go.”
Sharpe dismounted and ran to the mare. Campbell was trying to dislodge Fletcher’s blood-soaked body, but the trooper’s feet were caught in the stirrups. Sharpe heaved Fletcher’s left boot free, then gave the booted leg a tug and the corpse slid towards him. He jumped back as the bloody remnants of the neck, all sinew and flesh and tattered scraps, slapped at his face. The corpse fell into the edge of the river and Sharpe stepped over it to mount the General’s mare. “Get the General’s canteens,” Campbell ordered him, and an instant later another eighteen-pounder shot hammered low overhead like a clap of thunder. “The canteens, man, hurry!” Campbell urged Sharpe, but Sharpe was having trouble untying the water bottles from Fletcher’s belt, so instead he heaved the body over so that a gush of blood spurted from the neck to be instantly diluted in the shallow water. He tugged at the trooper’s belt buckle, unfastened it, then hauled the belt free with its pouches, canteens and the heavy saber. He wrapped the belt over his own, hastily buckled it, then clambered up into the mare’s saddle and fiddled his right foot into the stirrup. Campbell was holding out Diomed’s rein.
Sharpe took the rein. “Sorry, sir.” He apologized for making the aide wait.
“Stay close to the General,” Campbell ordered him, then leaned over and patted Sharpe’s arm. “Stay close, be alert, enjoy the day, Sergeant,” he said with a grin. “It looks as if it’s going to be a lively afternoon!”
“Thank you, sir,” Sharpe said. The first infantry were in the ford now and Sharpe turned the mare, kicked back his heels and tugged Diomed through the water. Campbell was spurring ahead to catch up with Wellesley and Sharpe clumsily kicked the mare into a canter and was almost thrown as she stumbled on the riverbed, but he somehow clung to her mane as she recovered. A round shot thrashed the water white to his left, drenching him with spray. The musket had fallen off his shoulder and was dangling awkwardly from his elbow and he could not manage both it and Diomed’s rein, so he let the firelock drop into the river, then wrenched the sword and the heavy canteens into a more comfortable position. Bugger this, he thought. Lost a hat, a horse and a gun in less than an hour!
The pioneers were hacking at the bluff on the northern bank to make the slope less steep, but the first galloper guns, those that accompanied the pickets of the day, were already in the Kaitna. Galloper guns were drawn by horses and the gunners shouted at the pioneers to clear out of their way. The pioneers scattered as the horses came up from the river with water streaming from the leading gun’s spinning wheels; a whip cracked over the leader’s head and the team galloped up the bluff with the gun and limber bouncing erratically behind. A gunner was thrown off the limber, but he picked himself up and ran after the cannon. Sharpe kicked his horse up the bluff once the second gun was safely past and suddenly he was in low ground, protected from the enemy’s cannonade by the rising land to his left.
But where the hell was Wellesley? He could see no one on the high ground that led towards the enemy, and the only men on the road straight ahead were the leading companies of the pickets of the day who continued to march northwards. A slapping sound came from the river and he twisted in his saddle to see that a round shot had whipped through a file of infantry. A body floated downstream in eddies of blood, then the sergeants shouted at the ranks to close up and the infantry kept on coming. But where the hell was Sharpe to go? To his right was the village of Waroor, half hidden behind its trees and for a second Sharpe thought the General must have gone there, but then he saw Lieutenant Colonel Orrock riding up onto the higher ground to the left and Sharpe guessed the Colonel was following Wellesley and so he tugged the mare that way.
The land climbed to a gentle crest across stubble fields dotted by a few trees. Colonel Orrock was the only man in sight and he was forcing his horse up the slope towards the skyline and so Sharpe followed him. He could hear the enemy guns firing, presumably still bombarding the ford that had not been supposed to exist, but as he kicked the mare up through the growing crop the guns suddenly ceased and all he could hear was the thump of hooves, the banging of the saber’s metal scabbard against his boot and the dull sound of the Scottish drums behind.
Orrock had turned north along the skyline and Sharpe, following him, saw that the General and his aides were clustered under a group of trees from where they were gazing westwards through their telescopes. He joined them in the shade, and felt awkward to be in such exalted company without McCandless, b
ut Campbell turned in his saddle and grinned. “Well done, Sergeant. Still with us, eh?”
“Managing, sir,” Sharpe said, rearranging the canteens that had tangled themselves into a lump.
“Oh, dear God,” Colonel Orrock said a moment later. He was gazing through his own telescope, and whatever he saw made him shake his head before peering through the glass again. “Dear me,” he said, and Sharpe stood in his stirrups to see what had so upset the East India Company Colonel.
The enemy was redeploying. Wellesley had crossed the ford to bring his small army onto the enemy’s left flank, but the Mahratta commander had seen his purpose and was now denying him the advantage. The enemy line was marching towards the Peepulgaon ford, then wheeling left to make a new defense line that stretched clean across the land between the two rivers; a line that would now face head on towards Wellesley’s army. Instead of attacking a vulnerable flank, Wellesley would be forced to make a head-on assault. Nor were the Mahrattas making their maneuver in a panicked hurry, but were marching calmly in disciplined ranks. The guns were moving with them, drawn by bullocks or elephants. The enemy was less than a mile away now and their steady unhurried redeployment was obvious to the watching officers.
“They anticipate us, sir!” Orrock informed Wellesley, as though the General might not have understood the purpose of the enemy’s maneuver.
“They do,” Wellesley agreed calmly, “they do indeed.” He collapsed his telescope and patted his horse’s neck. “And they maneuver very well!” he added admiringly, as though he was engaged in nothing more ominous than watching a brigade go through its paces in Hyde Park. “Your men are through the ford?” he asked Orrock.
“They are, sir, they are,” Orrock said. The Colonel had a nervous habit of jutting his head forward every few seconds as if his collar was too tight. “And they can reverse themselves,” he added meaningfully.
Wellesley ignored the defeatist sentiment. “Take them one half-mile up the road,” he ordered Orrock, “then deploy on the high ground this side of the road. I shall see you before we advance.”
Orrock gazed goggle-eyed at the General. “Deploy?”
“On this side of the road, if you please, Colonel. You will form the right of our line, Colonel, and have Wallace’s brigade on your left. Let us do it now, Colonel, if you would so oblige me?”
“Oblige you . . .” Orrock said, his head darting forward like a turtle. “Of course,” he added nervously, then turned his horse and spurred it back towards the road.
“Barclay?” the General addressed one of his aides. “My compliments to Colonel Maxwell and he will bring all Company and King’s cavalry to take post to Orrock’s right. Native horse will stay south of the river.” There was still enemy cavalry south of the Kaitna and the horsemen from Britain’s Indian allies would stay on that bank to keep those enemies at bay. “Then stay at the ford,” Wellesley went on addressing Barclay, “and tell the rest of the infantry to form on Orrock’s pickets. Two lines, Barclay, two lines, and the 78th will form the left flank here.” The General, who had been gazing at the enemy’s calm redeployment, now turned to Barclay who was scribbling in pencil on a scrap of paper. “First line, from the left. The 78th, Dallas’s 10th, Corben’s 8th, Orrock’s pickets. Second line, from the left. Hill’s 4th, Macleod’s 12th, then the 74th. They are to form their lines and wait for my orders. You understand? They are to wait.” Barclay nodded, then tugged on his reins and spurred his horse back towards the ford as the General turned again to watch the enemy’s redeployment. “Very fine work,” he said approvingly. “I doubt we could have maneuvered any more smartly than that. You think they were readying to cross the river and attack us?”
Major Blackiston, his engineer aide, nodded. “It would explain why they were ready to move, sir.”
“We shall just have to discover whether they fight as well as they maneuver,” Wellesley said, collapsing his telescope, then he sent Blackiston north to explore the ground up to the River Juah. “Come on, Campbell,” Wellesley said when Blackiston was gone and, to Sharpe’s surprise, instead of riding back to where the army was crossing the ford, the General spurred his horse still further west towards the enemy. Campbell followed and Sharpe decided he had better go as well.
The three men rode into a steep-sided valley that was thick with trees and brush, then up its far side to another stretch of open farmland. They cantered through a field of unharvested millet, then across pasture land, always inclining north towards another low hill crest. “I’ll oblige you for a canteen, Sergeant,” Wellesley called as they neared the crest and Sharpe thumped his heels on the mare’s flanks to catch up with the General, then fumbled a canteen free and held it out, but that meant taking his left hand off the reins while his right was still holding Diomed’s tether and the mare, freed of the rein, swerved away from the General. Wellesley caught up with Sharpe and took the canteen. “You might tie Diomed’s rein to your belt, Sergeant,” he said. “It will provide you with another hand.”
A man needed three hands to do Sharpe’s job, but once they reached the low crest the General halted again and so gave Sharpe time to fasten the Arab’s rein to Fletcher’s belt. The General was staring at the enemy who was now only a quarter-mile away, well inside cannon shot, but either the enemy guns were not ready to fire or else they were under orders not to waste powder on a mere three horsemen. Sharpe took the opportunity to explore what was in Fletcher’s pouch. There was a piece of moldy bread that had been soaked when the trooper’s body fell into the river, a piece of salted meat that Sharpe suspected was dried goat, and a sharpening stone. That made him half draw the saber to feel its edge. It was keen.
“A nasty little settlement!” Wellesley said cheerfully.
“Aye, it is, sir!” Campbell agreed enthusiastically.
“That must be Assaye,” Wellesley remarked. “You think we’re about to make it famous?”
“I trust so, sir,” Campbell said.
“Not infamous, I hope,” Wellesley said, and gave his short, high-pitched laugh.
Sharpe saw they were both staring towards a village that lay to the north of the enemy’s new line. Like every village in this part of India it was provided with a rampart made of the outermost houses’ mud walls. Such walls could be five or six feet in thickness, and though they might crumble to the touch of an artillery bombardment, they still made a formidable obstacle to infantry. Enemy soldiers stood on every roof top, while outside the wall, in an array as thick as a hedgehog’s quills, was an assortment of cannon. “A very nasty little place,” the General said. “We must avoid it. I see your fellows are there, Sharpe!”
“My fellows, sir?” Sharpe asked in puzzlement.
“White coats, Sergeant.”
So Dodd’s regiment had taken their place just to the south of Assaye. They were still on the left of Pohlmann’s line, but now that line stretched southwards from the bristling defenses about the village to the bank of the River Kaitna. The infantry were already in place and the last of the guns were now being hauled into their positions in front of the enemy line, and Sharpe remembered Syud Sevajee’s grim words about the rivers meeting, and he knew that the only way out of this narrowing neck of land was either back through the fords or else straight ahead through the enemy’s army. “I see we shall have to earn our pay today,” the General said to no one in particular. “How far ahead of the infantry is their gun line, Campbell?”
“A hundred yards, sir?” the young Scotsman guessed after gazing through his spyglass for a while.
“A hundred and fifty, I think,” Wellesley said.
Sharpe was watching the village. A lane led from its eastern wall and a file of cavalry was riding out from the houses towards some trees.
“They think to allow us to take the guns,” Wellesley guessed, “reckoning we’ll be so pounded by round shot and peppered by canister that their infantry can then administer the coup de grâce. They wish to treat us to a double dose! Guns and firelocks.”
; The trees where the cavalry had disappeared dropped into a steep gully that twisted towards the higher ground from where Wellesley was observing the enemy. Sharpe, watching the tree-filled gully, saw birds fly out of the branches as the cavalry advanced beneath the thick leaves. “Horsemen, sir,” Sharpe warned.
“Where, man, where?” Wellesley asked.
Sharpe pointed towards the gully. “It’s full of the bastards, sir. They came out of the village a couple of moments ago. You can’t see them, sir, but I think there might be a hundred men hidden there.”
Wellesley did not dispute Sharpe. “They want to put us in the bag,” he said in seeming amusement. “Keep an eye out for them, Sharpe. I have no wish to watch the battle from the comfort of Scindia’s tent.” He looked back to the enemy’s line where the last of the heavy guns were being lugged into place. Those last two guns were the big eighteen-pounder siege guns that had done the damage as the British army crossed the ford, and now the huge pieces were being emplaced in front of Dodd’s regiment. Elephants pulled the guns into position, then were led away towards the baggage park beyond the village. “How many guns do you reckon, Campbell?” the General asked.
“Eighty-two, sir, not counting the ones by Assaye.”
“Around twenty there, I think. We shall be earning our pay! And their line’s longer than I thought. We shall have to extend.” He was not so much speaking to Campbell as to himself, but now he glanced at the young Scots officer. “Did you count their infantry?”
“Fifteen thousand in the line, sir?” Campbell hazarded.
“And at least as many again in the village,” Wellesley said, snapping his telescope shut, “not to mention a horde of horsemen behind them, but they’ll only count if we meet disaster. It’s the fifteen thousand in front who concern us. Beat them and we beat all.” He made a penciled note in a small black book, then stared again at the enemy line beneath its bright flags. “They did maneuver well! A creditable performance. But do they fight, eh? That’s the nub of it. Do they fight?”
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 1: Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph, Sharpe's Fortress Page 64