Crowley met Sharpe’s gaze, but could not hold it. “Yes, sir,” he said meekly.
“I’m sorry I was careless with the musket, Crowley,” Sharpe said.
There was another burst of laughter, making Morris scowl, but he was quite uncertain of how to deal with Sharpe and so he said nothing. Watson, a Welsh private who had joined the regiment rather than face an assize court, jerked a thumb toward the fort. “They say the breaches are too steep, Mr. Sharpe.”
“Nothing to what you Welsh boys climb every day in the mountains,” Sharpe said. He had borrowed Major Stokes’s telescope shortly after dawn and stared at the breaches, and he had not much liked what he had seen, but this was no time to tell the truth. “We’re going to give the buggers a right bloody thrashing, lads,” he said instead. “I’ve fought these Mahrattas twice now and they don’t stand. They look good, but press home on the bastards and they turn and run like jackrabbits. Just keep going, boys, keep fighting, and the buggers’ll give up.”
It was the speech Morris should have made to them, and Sharpe had not even known he was going to make any kind of speech when he opened his mouth, but somehow the words had come. And he was glad, for the men looked relieved at his confidence, then some of them looked nervous again as they watched a sepoy coming up the track with a British flag in his hands. Colonel Kenny and his aides walked behind the man, all with drawn swords. Captain Morris drank deep from his canteen, and the smell of rum wafted to Sharpe.
The guns fired on, crumbling the breaches’ shoulders and filling the air with smoke and dust as they tried to make the rough way smooth. Soldiers, sensing that the order to advance was about to be given, stood and hefted their weapons. Some touched rabbits’ feet hidden in pockets, or whatever other small token gave them a fingerhold on life. One man vomited, another trembled. Sweat poured down their faces.
“Four ranks,” Morris said.
“Into ranks! Quick now!” Sergeant Green snapped. A howitzer shell arced overhead then plummeted toward the fort trailing its wisp of fuse smoke. Sharpe heard the shell explode, then watched another shell follow. A man dashed out of the ranks into the rocks, lowered his trousers and emptied his bowels. Everyone pretended not to notice until the smell struck them, then they jeered as the embarrassed man went back to his place. “That’s enough!” Green said.
A sepoy drummer with an old-fashioned mitered shako on his head gave his drum a couple of taps, while a piper from the Scotch Brigade filled his bag then settled the instrument under his elbow. Colonel Kenny was looking at his watch. The guns fired on, their smoke drifting down to the waiting men. The sepoy with the flag was at the front of the forming column, and Sharpe guessed the enemy must be able to see the bright tip of the color above the rocky crest.
Sharpe took the bayonet from his belt and slotted it onto the musket. He was not wearing the sabre that Ahmed had stolen from Morris, for he knew the weapon would be identifiable, and so he had a tulwar that he had borrowed from Syud Sevajee. He did not trust the weapon. He had seen too many Indian blades break in combat. Besides he was used to a musket and bayonet.
“Fix bayonets!” Morris ordered, prompted by the sight of Sharpe’s blade.
“And save your fire till you’re hard in the breach,” Sharpe added. “You’ve got one shot, lads, so don’t waste it. You won’t have time to reload till you’re through both walls.”
Morris scowled at this unasked-for advice, but the men seemed grateful for it, just as they were grateful that they were not in the front ranks of Kenny’s force. That honor had gone to the Grenadier Company of the 94th who thus formed the Forlorn Hope. Usually the Hope, that group of men who went first into a breach to spring the enemy traps and fight down the immediate defenders, was composed of volunteers, but Kenny had decided to do without a proper Forlorn Hope. He wanted to fill the breaches quickly and so overwhelm the defenses by numbers, and thus hard behind the Scotch Brigade’s grenadiers were two more companies of Scots, then came the sepoys and Morris’s men. Hard and fast, Kenny had told them, hard and fast. Leave the wounded behind you, he had ordered, and just get up the damned breaches and start killing.
The Colonel looked at his watch a last time, then snapped its lid shut and put it into a pocket. He took a breath, hefted his sword, then shouted one word. “Now!”
And the flag went forward across the crest and behind it came a wave of men who hurried toward the walls.
For a few seconds the fortress was silent, then the first rocket was fired. It seared toward the advancing troops, trailing its plume of thick smoke, then abruptly twisted and climbed into the clear sky.
Then the guns began.
Colonel William Dodd saw the errant rocket twist into the sky, falter amid a growing tumult of its own smoke, then fall. Manu Bappoo’s guns began to fire and Dodd knew, though he could not see over the loom of the Outer Fort, that the British attack was coming. “Gopal!” he called to his second in command.
“Sahib?”
“Close the gates.”
“Sahib?” Gopal frowned at the Colonel. It had been agreed with Manu Bappoo that the four gates that barred the entranceway to the Inner Fort would be left open so that the defenders of the Outer Fort could retreat swiftly if it was necessary. Dodd had even posted a company to guard the outermost gate to make sure that no British pursuers could get in behind Manu Bappoo’s men, yet now he was suggesting that the gates should be shut? “You want me to close them, sahib?” Gopal asked, wondering if he had misheard.
“Close them, bar them and forget them,” Dodd said happily, “and pull the platoon back inside the fort. I have another job for them.”
“But, sahib, if—”
“You heard me, Jemadar! Move!”
Gopal ran to do Dodd’s bidding, while the Colonel himself walked along the fire step that edged the entranceway to make certain that his orders were being obeyed. He watched, satisfied, as the troops guarding the outer gate were brought back into the fortress and then as, one by one, the four vast gates were pushed shut. The great locking bars, each as thick as a man’s thigh, were dropped into their metal brackets. The Outer Fort was now isolated. If Manu Bappoo repelled the British then it would be a simple matter to open the gates again, but if he lost, and if he fled, then he would find himself trapped between Dodd’s Cobras and the advancing British.
Dodd walked to the center of the fire step and there climbed onto an embrasure so that he could talk to as many of his men as possible. “You will see that I have shut the gates,” he shouted, “and they will stay shut! They will not be opened except by my express permission. Not if all the maharajahs of India stand out there and demand entrance! The gates stay shut. Do you understand?”
The white-coated soldiers, or at least those few who spoke some English, nodded while the rest had Dodd’s orders translated. None showed much interest in the decision. They trusted their Colonel, and if he wanted the gates kept closed, then so be it.
Dodd watched the smoke thicken on the far side of the Outer Fort. A grim struggle was being waged there, but it was nothing to do with him. He would only begin to fight when the British attacked across the ravine, but their attacks would achieve nothing. The only way into the Inner Fort was through the gates, and that was impossible. The British might batter down the first gate with cannon fire, but once through the arch they would discover that the entranceway turned sharply to the left, so their gun could not fire through the passage to batter down the three other doors. They would have to fight their way up the narrow passage, try to destroy the successive gates with axes, and all the while his men would be pouring slaughter on them from the flanking walls.
“Sahib?” Gopal called, and Dodd turned to see that the Jemadar was pointing up the path that led to the palace. Beny Singh had appeared on the path, flanked by a servant carrying a parasol to protect the Killadar from the hot sun.
“Send him up here, Jemadar!” Dodd shouted back.
Dodd felt a quiet exaltation at the neatness of his tac
tics. Manu Bappoo was already cut off from safety, and only Beny Singh was now left as a rival to Dodd’s supremacy. Dodd was tempted to cut the Killadar down here and now, but the murder would have been witnessed by members of the garrison who were still loyal to Beny Singh, and so instead Dodd greeted the Killadar with a respectful bow. “What’s happening?” Beny Singh demanded. He was breathing hard from the effort of climbing to the fire step, then he cried out in dismay because the guns on the southern wall of the Outer Fort, those guns that overlooked the ravine, had suddenly opened fire to pump gouts of gray-white smoke.
“I fear, sahib,” Dodd said, “that the enemy are overwhelming the fort.”
“They’re doing what?” The Killadar, who was dressed for battle in a clean white robe girdled by a red cummerbund and hung with a jeweled scabbard, looked horrified. He watched the smoke spread across the ravine. He was puzzled because it was not at all clear what the nearer guns were firing at. “But the enemy can’t get in here!”
“There are other British soldiers approaching, sahib,” Dodd said, and he pointed to the smoke cloud above the ravine. The guns on the near side of the Outer Fort, most of them small three- and five-pounder cannon, were aiming their pieces westward, which meant that British troops must be approaching up the steep road which led from the plain. Those troops were still out of Dodd’s sight, but the gunnery from the Outer Fort was eloquent proof of their presence. “There must be redcoats coming towards the ravine,” Dodd explained, “and we never foresaw that the British might assault in more than one place.” Dodd told the lie smoothly. “I have no doubt they have men coming up the southern road too.”
“They do,” the Killadar confirmed.
Dodd shuddered, as though the news overwhelmed him with despair. “We shall do our best,” he promised, “but I cannot defend everything at once. I fear the British will gain the victory this day.” He bowed to the Killadar again. “I am so very sorry, sahib. But you can gain an immortal reputation by joining the fight. We might lose today’s battle, but in years to come men will sing songs about the defiance of Beny Singh. And how better for a soldier to die, sahib, than with a sword in his hand and his enemies dead about his feet?”
Beny Singh blanched at the thought. “My daughters!” he croaked.
“Alas,” Dodd said gravely, “they will become soldiers’ toys. But you should not worry, sahib. In my experience the prettiest girls usually find a soldier to defend them. He is usually a big man, crude and forceful, but he stops the other men from raping his woman, except his friends, of course, who will be allowed some liberties. I am sure your wives and daughters will find men eager to protect them.”
Beny Singh fled from Dodd’s reassurances. Dodd smiled as the Killadar ran, then turned and walked toward Hakeswill who was posted in the bastion above the innermost gate. The Sergeant had been issued with a sword to accompany his black sash. He slammed to attention as Dodd approached him. “Stand easy, Mr. Hakeswill,” Dodd said. Hakeswill relaxed slightly. He liked being called “Mr.,” it somehow seemed appropriate. If that little bastard Sharpe could be a mister and wear a sword, then so could he. “I shall have a job for you in a few minutes, Mr. Hakeswill,” Dodd said.
“I shall be honored, sir,” Hakeswill replied.
Dodd watched the Killadar hurry up the path toward the palace. “Our honored commander,” he said sarcastically, “is taking some bad news to the palace. We must give the news time to take root there.”
“Bad news, sir?”
“He thinks we’re going to lose,” Dodd explained.
“I pray not, sir.”
“As do I, Mr. Hakeswill, as do I. Fervently!” Dodd turned to watch the gunners in the Outer Fort and he saw how puny their small cannon were and he reckoned that such fire would not hold up the redcoats for long. The British would be in the ravine in half an hour, maybe less. “In ten minutes, Mr. Hakeswill, you will lead your company to the palace and you will order the Arab guards to come and defend the walls.”
Hakeswill’s face twitched. “Don’t speak their heathen language, sir, begging your pardon, sir.”
“You don’t need their language. You’ve got a musket, use it. And if anyone questions your authority, Mr. Hakeswill, you have my permission to shoot them.”
“Shoot them, sir? Yes, sir. With pleasure, sir.”
“Anyone at all, Mr. Hakeswill.”
Hakeswill’s face twitched again. “That fat little bugger, sir, him what was just here with the curly moustache…”
“The Killadar? If he questions you…”
“I shoot the bugger, sir.”
“Exactly.” Dodd smiled. He had seen into Hakeswill’s soul and discovered it was black as filth, and perfect for his purposes. “Do it for me, Mr. Hakeswill, and I shall gazette you as a captain in the Cobras. Your havildar speaks some English, doesn’t he?”
“A kind of English, sir,” Hakeswill said.
“Make sure he understands you. The palace guards are to be dispatched to the walls.”
“They will, sir, or else they’ll be dead ’uns.”
“Very good,” Dodd said. “But wait ten minutes.”
“I shall, sir. And good day to you, sir.” Hakeswill saluted, about-faced and marched down the ramparts.
Dodd turned back to the Outer Fort. Rockets seared out of the smoke cloud above which Manu Bappoo’s flag still hung. Faintly, very faintly, Dodd could hear men shouting, but the sound was being drowned by the roar of the guns which unsettled the silver-gray monkeys in the ravine. The beasts turned puzzled black faces up toward the men on the Inner Fort’s walls as though they could find an answer to the noise and stink that was consuming the day.
A day which, to Dodd’s way of thinking, was going perfectly.
The 33rd’s Light Company had been waiting a little to the side of the track and Captain Morris deliberately stayed there, allowing almost all of Kenny’s assault troops to go past before he led his men out of the rocks. He thus ensured that he was at the rear of the assault, a place which offered the greatest measure of safety.
Once Morris moved his men onto the fort’s approach road he deliberately fell in behind a sepoy ladder party so that his progress was impeded. He walked at the head of his men, but turned repeatedly. “Keep in files, Sergeant!” he snapped at Green more than once.
Sharpe walked alongside the company, curbing his long stride to the slow pace set by Morris. It took a moment to reach the small crest in the road, but then they were in sight of the fortress and Sharpe could only stare in awe at the weight of fire that seemed to pour from the battered walls.
The Mahrattas’ bigger guns had been unseated, but they possessed a myriad of smaller cannon, some little larger than blunderbusses, and those weapons now roared and coughed and spat their flames toward the advancing troops so that the black walls were half obscured behind the patchwork of smoke that vented from every embrasure. Rockets added to the confusion. Some hissed up into the sky, but others seared into the advancing men to slice fiery passages through the ranks.
The leading company had not yet reached the outer breach, but was hurrying into the narrow space between the precipice to the east and the tank to the west. They jostled as their files were compressed, and then the gunfire seemed to concentrate on those men and Sharpe had an impression of blood misting the air as the round shot slammed home at a range of a mere hundred paces. There were big round bastions on either flank of the breach, and their summits were edged with perpetual flame as the defenders took turns to blast muskets down into the mass of attackers. The British guns were still firing, their shots exploding bursts of dust and stone from the breach, or else hammering into the embrasures in an effort to dull the enemy’s fire.
An aide came running back down the path. “Hurry!” he called. “Hurry!”
Morris made no effort to hasten his pace. The leading Scots were past the tank now and climbing the gentle slope toward the walls, but that slope became ever steeper as it neared the breach. The man with
the flag was in front, then he was engulfed by Highlanders racing to reach the stones. Kenny led them, sword in hand. Muskets suddenly flamed from the breach summit, obscuring it with smoke, and then an eighteen-pounder shot churned up the smoke and threw up a barrowload of broken stone amid which an enemy musket wheeled. Sharpe quickened his pace. He could feel a kind of rage inside, and he wondered if that was fear, but there was an excitement too, and an anxiety that he would miss the fight.
He could see the fight clearly enough, for the breach was high above the approach road and the Scots, scrambling up using their hands, were clearly visible. The British gunners were still firing, hammering round shot just inches over the Scotsmen’s heads to keep the summit of the breach clear of the enemy, and then, abruptly, the guns stopped and the redcoats climbed into the dust that hung thick above the shattered stones. A mass of Arabs climbed the breach’s inner slope, coming to oppose the Scots, and scimitars rang against bayonets. The red coats of the attackers were turned pink by the stone dust. Colonel Kenny was in the front rank, straddling a chunk of masonry as he parried a scimitar. He lunged, piercing an enemy’s throat, then stepped forward, downward, knowing he was across the summit and oblivious of the muskets that flamed above him from the upper wall. The British gunners, their weapons relaid, started to fire at the upper wall, driving the defenders away from the fire step. The Scots rammed their bayonets forward, kicked the dead off the blades, stepped over the corpses and followed Kenny down to the space inside the walls. “This way!” Kenny shouted. “This way!” He led the rush of men to the left, to where the inner breach waited, its slope twitching as the round shot slammed home. Some Arabs, fleeing the Scotsmen’s snarling rage, died as they tried to climb the inner breach and were struck by the cannonballs. Blood spattered across the inner wall, smeared the ramp, then was whitened by the dust.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 1: Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph, Sharpe's Fortress Page 102