Sharpe's Fortress (6 page)

“Where are the galloper guns?” Wallace roared, and an aide spurred back down the slope to
fetch the gunners.

“Give them a volley, Swinton!” Wellesley called.

The range was very long for a musket, but Swinton hammered the battalion's fire down
the slope, and maybe it was that volley, or perhaps it was the sight of the defeated Arabs
that panicked the great mass of infantry. For a few seconds they stood under their big
bright flags and then, like sand struck by a flood, they dissolved into a rabble.

Cavalry trumpets blared. British and sepoy horsemen charged forward with sabres, while
the irregular horse, those mercenaries who had attached themselves to the British for
the chance of loot, lowered their lances and raked back their spurs.

It was a cavalryman's paradise, a broken enemy with nowhere to hide.

Some Mahrattas sought shelter in the village, but most ran past it, throwing down their
weapons as the terrible horsemen streamed into the fleeing horde with sabres and lances
slicing and thrusting.

"Puckaleesl' Urquhart shouted, standing in his stirrups to look for the men and boys who
brought water to the troops. There was none in sight and the 74th was parched, the men's
thirst made acute by the saltpetre in the gunpowder which had fouled their mouths.

“Where the .. . ?”

Urquhart swore, then frowned at Sharpe.

"Mister Sharpe? I'll trouble you to find our pucka lees

“Yes, sir,” Sharpe said, not bothering to hide his disappointment at the order. He had
hoped to find some loot when the 74th searched the village, but instead he was to be a
fetcher of water. He threw down the musket and walked back through the groaning,
slow-moving litter of dead and dying men. Dogs were scavenging among the bodies.

“Forward now!” Wellesley called behind Sharpe, and the whole long line of British
infantrymen advanced under their flags towards the village. The cavalry was already
far beyond the houses, killing with abandon and driving the fugitives ever farther
northwards.

Sharpe walked on southwards. He suspected the pucka lees were still back with the
baggage, which would mean a three-mile walk and, by the time he had found them, the
battalion would have slaked its thirst from the wells in the village. Bugger it, he
thought. Even when they gave him a job it was a useless errand.

A shout made him look to his right where a score of native cavalrymen were slicing
apart the robes of the dead Arabs in search of coins and trinkets. The scavengers were
Mahrattas who had sold their services to the British and Sharpe guessed that the horsemen
had not joined the pursuit for fear of being mistaken for the defeated enemy. One of the
Arabs had only been feigning death and now, despite being hugely outnumbered, defied
his enemies with a pistol that he dragged from beneath his robe. The taunting cavalrymen
had made a ring and the Arab kept twisting around to find that his tormentor had skipped
away before he could aim the small gun.

The Arab was a short man, then he turned again and Sharpe saw the bruised, bloody face and
recognized the child who had charged the 74th so bravely. The boy was doomed, for the ring
of cavalrymen was slowly closing for the kill. One of the Mahrattas would probably die,
or at least be horribly injured by the pistol ball, but that was part of the game. The boy
had one shot, they had twenty. A man prodded the boy in the back with a lance point, making
him whip round, but the man with the lance had stepped fast back and another man slapped the
boy's headdress with a tulwar. The other cavalrymen laughed.

Sharpe reckoned the boy deserved better. He was a kid, nothing more, but brave as a
tiger, and so he crossed to the cavalrymen.

“Let him be!” he called.

The boy turned towards Sharpe. If he recognized that the British officer was trying to
save his life he showed no sign of gratitude; instead he lifted the pistol so that its
barrel pointed at Sharpe's face. The cavalrymen, reckoning this was even better sport,
urged him to shoot and one of them approached the boy with a raised tulwar, but did not
strike. He would let the boy shoot Sharpe, then kill him.

“Let him be,” Sharpe said.

“Stand back!” The Mahrattas grinned, but did not move.

Sharpe could take the single bullet, then they would tear the boy into sabre-shredded
scraps of meat.

The boy took a step towards Sharpe.

“Don't be a bloody fool, lad,” Sharpe said. The boy obviously did not speak English, but
Sharpe's tone was soothing. It made no difference. The lad's hand was shaking and he looked
frightened, but defiance had been bred into his bone. He knew he would die, but he would
take an enemy soul with him and so he nerved himself to die well. Tut the gun down," Sharpe
said softly.

He was wishing he had not intervened now. The kid was just distraught enough and mad
enough to fire, and Sharpe knew he could do nothing about it except run away and thus expose
himself to the jeers of the Mahrattas. He was close enough now to see the scratches on the
pistol's blackened muzzle where the rammer had scraped the metal.

“Don't be a bloody fool, boy,” he said again. Still the boy pointed the pistol. Sharpe
knew he should turn and run, but instead he took another pace forward. Just one more and he
reckoned he would be close enough to swat the gun aside.

Then the boy shouted something in Arabic, something about Allah, and pulled the
trigger.

The hammer did not move. The boy looked startled, then pulled the trigger again.

Sharpe began laughing. The expression of woe on the child's face was so sudden, and so
unfeigned, that Sharpe could only laugh. The boy looked as if he was about to cry.

The Mahratta behind the boy swung his tulwar. He reckoned he could slice clean through
the boy's grubby headdress and decapitate him, but Sharpe had taken the extra step and
now seized the boy's hand and tugged him into his belly. The sword hissed an inch behind the
boy's neck.

“I said to leave him alone!” Sharpe said.

“Or do you want to fight me instead?”

“None of us,” a calm voice said behind Sharpe, 'wants to fight Ensign Sharpe."

Sharpe turned. One of the horsemen was still mounted, and it was this man who had spoken.
He was dressed in a tattered European uniform jacket of green cloth hung with small
silver chains, and he ! l had a lean scarred face with a nose as hooked as Sir Arthur
Wellesley's.

He now grinned down at Sharpe.

“Syud Sevajee,” Sharpe said.

“I never did congratulate you on your promotion,” Sevajee said, and leaned down to
offer Sharpe his hand.

Sharpe shook it.

“It was McCandless's doing,” he said.

“No,” Sevajee disagreed, 'it was yours." Sevajee, who led this band of horsemen, waved
his men away from Sharpe, then looked down at the boy who struggled in Sharpe's grip.

“You really want to save that little wretch's life?”

“Why not?”

“A tiger cub plays like a kitten,” Sevajee said, 'but it still grows into a tiger and
one day it eats you."

“This one's no kitten,” Sharpe said, thumping the boy on the ear to stop his
struggles.

Sevajee spoke in quick Arabic and the boy went quiet.

“I told him you saved his life,” Sevajee explained to Sharpe, 'and that he is now
beholden to you." Sevajee spoke to the boy again who, after a shy look at Sharpe,
answered.

“His name's Ahmed,” Sevajee said, 'and I told him you were a great English lord who
commands the lives and deaths of a thousand men."

“You told him what?”

“I told him you'd beat him bloody if he disobeys you,” Sevajee said, looking at his men
who, denied their entertainment, had gone back to looting the dead.

“You like being an officer?” he asked Sharpe.

“I hate it.”

Sevajee smiled, revealing red-stained teeth.

“McCandless thought you would, but didn't know how to curb your ambition.” Sevajee
slid down from his saddle.

“I am sorry McCandless died,” the Indian said.

“Me too.”

“You know who killed him?”

“I reckon it was Dodd.”

Sevajee nodded.

“Me too.” Syud Sevajee was a high-born Mahratta, the eldest son of one of the Rajah of
Berar's warlords, but a rival in the Rajah's service had murdered his father, and
Sevajee had been seeking revenge ever since. If that revenge meant marching with the
enemy British, then that was a small price to pay for family pride. Seva^e had ridden with
Colonel McCandless when the Scotsman had pursued Dodd, and thus he had met Sharpe.

“Beny Singh was not with the enemy today,” he told Sharpe.

Sharpe had to think for a few seconds before remembering that Beny Singh was the man
who had poisoned Sevajee's father.

“How do you know?”

“His banner wasn't among the Mahratta flags. Today we faced Manu Bappoo, the Rajah's
brother. He's a better man than the Rajah, but he refuses to take the throne for himself.
He's also a better soldier than the rest, but not good enough, it seems. Dodd was
there.”

“He was?”

“He got away.” Sevajee turned and gazed northwards.

“And I know where they're going.”

“Where?”

“To Gawilghur,” Sevajee said softly, 'to the sky fort."

“Gawilghur?”

“I grew up there.” Sevajee spoke softly, still gazing at the hazed northern
horizon.

“My father was kill adar of Gawilghur. It was a post of honour, Sharpe, for it is our
greatest stronghold. It is the fortress in the sky, the impregnable refuge, the place that
has never fallen to our enemies, and Beny Singh is now its kill adar Somehow we shall have
to get inside, you and I. And I shall kill Singh and you will kill Dodd.”

“That's why I'm here,” Sharpe said.

“No.” Sevajee gave Sharpe a sour glance.

“You're here, Ensign, because you British are greedy.” He looked at the Arab boy and asked
a question. There was a brief conversation, then Sevajee looked at Sharpe again.

“I have told him he is to be your servant, and that you will beat him to death if he steals
from you.”

“I wouldn't do that!” Sharpe protested.

“I would,” Sevajee said, 'and he believes you would, but it still won't stop him
thieving from you. Better to kill him now." He grinned, then hauled himself into his
saddle.

“I shall look for you at Gawilghur, Mister Sharpe.”

“I shall look for you,” Sharpe said.

Sevajee spurred away and Sharpe crouched to look at his new servant. Ahmed was as thin as
a half-drowned cat. He wore dirty robes and a tattered headdress secured by a loop of
frayed rope that was stained with blood, evidently where Sharpe's blow with the musket had
caught him during the battle. But he had bright eyes and a defiant face, and though his
voice had not yet broken he was braver than many fullgrown men. Sharpe unslung his canteen
and pushed it into the boy's hand, first taking away the broken pistol that he tossed
away.

“Drink up, you little bugger,” Sharpe said, 'then come for a walk."

The boy glanced up the hill, but his army was long gone. It had vanished into the evening
beyond the crest and was now being pursued by vengeful cavalry. He said something in
Arabic, drank what remained of Sharpe's water, then offered a grudging nod of thanks.

So Sharpe had a servant, a battle had been won, and now he walked south in search of
pucka lees

Colonel William Dodd watched the Lions of Allah break, and spat with disgust. It had been
foolish to fight here in the first place and now the foolery was turning to disaster.

“Jemadar!” he called.

“Sahib?”

“We'll form square. Put our guns in the centre. And the baggage.”

“Families, sahib?”

“Families too.” Dodd watched Manu Bappoo and his aides galloping back from the British
advance. The gunners had already fled, which meant that the Mahrattas' heavy cannon would
all be captured, every last piece of it. Dodd was tempted to abandon his regiment's small
battery of five-pounders which were about as much use as pea-shooters, but a soldier's
pride persuaded him to drag the guns from the field.

Bappoo might lose all his guns, but it would be a cold day in hell before William Dodd
gave up artillery to an enemy.

His Cobras were on the Mahratta right flank and there, for the moment, they were out of
the way of the British advance. If the rest of the Mahratta infantry remained firm and
fought, then Dodd would stay with them, but he saw that the defeat of the Arabs had
demoralized Bappoo's army. The ranks began to dissolve, the first fugitives began to
run north and Dodd knew this army was lost. First Assaye, now this. A goddamn disaster! He
turned his horse and smiled at his white-jacketed men.

“You haven't lost a battle!” he shouted to them.

"You haven't even fought today, so you've lost no pride! But you'll have to fight now! If
you don't, if you break ranks, you'll die. If you fight, you'll live!

Jemadar! March!"

The Cobras would now attempt one of the most difficult of all feats of soldiering, a
fighting withdrawal. They marched in a loose square, the centre of which gradually filled
with their women and children. Some other infantry tried to join the families, but Dodd
snarled at his men to beat them away.

“Fire if they won't go!” he shouted. The last thing he wanted was for his men to be
infected by panic.

Dodd trailed the square. He heard cavalry trumpets and he twisted in his saddle to see
a mass of irregular light horsemen come over the crest.

“Halt!” he shouted.

“Close ranks! Charge bayonets!”

The white-jacketed Cobras sealed the loose square tight. Dodd pushed through the face of
the square and turned his horse to watch the cavalrymen approach. He doubted they would
come close, not when there were easier pickings to the east and, sure enough, as soon as the
leading horsemen saw that the square was waiting with levelled muskets, they sheered
away.

Dodd holstered his pistol.