Читать книгу Sharpe’s Triumph: The Battle of Assaye, September 1803 - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 8

Sharpe sat in the open shed where the armoury stored its gun carriages. It had started to rain, though it was not the sheeting downpour of the monsoon, just a miserable steady grey drizzle that turned the mud in the yard into a slippery coating of red slime. Major Stokes, beginning the afternoon in a clean red coat, white silk stock and polished boots, paced obsessively about a newly made carriage. ‘It really wasn’t your fault, Sharpe,’ he said.

‘Feels like it, sir.’

‘It would, it would!’ Stokes said. ‘Reflects well on you, Sharpe, ’pon my soul, it does. But it weren’t your fault, not in any manner.’

‘Lost all six men, sir. And young Davi.’

‘Poor Hedgehog,’ Stokes said, squatting to peer along the trail of the carriage. ‘You reckon that timber’s straight, Sharpe? Bit hog-backed, maybe?’

‘Looks straight to me, sir.’

‘Ain’t tight-grained, this oak, ain’t tight-grained,’ the Major said, and he began to unbuckle his sword belt. Every morning and afternoon his servant sent him to the armoury in carefully laundered and pressed clothes, and within an hour Major Stokes would be stripped down to breeches and shirtsleeves and have his hands full of spokeshaves or saws or awls or adzes. ‘Like to see a straight trail,’ he said. ‘There’s a number four spokeshave on the wall, Sharpe, be a good fellow.’

‘You want me to sharpen it, sir?’

‘I did it last night, Sharpe. I put a lovely edge on her.’ Stokes unpeeled his red jacket and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Timber don’t season here properly, that’s the trouble.’ He stooped to the new carriage and began running the spokeshave along the trail, leaving curls of new white wood to fall away. ‘I’m mending a clock,’ he told Sharpe while he worked, ‘a lovely-made piece, all but for some crude local gearing. Have a look at it. It’s in my office.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘And I’ve found some new timber for axletrees, Sharpe. It’s really quite exciting!’

‘They’ll still break, sir,’ Sharpe said gloomily, then scooped up one of the many cats that lived in the armoury. He put the tabby on his lap and stroked her into a contented purr.

‘Don’t be so doom-laden, Sharpe! We’ll solve the axletree problem yet. It’s only a question of timber, nothing but timber. There, that looks better.’ The Major stepped back from his work and gave it a critical look. There were plenty of Indian craftsmen employed in the armoury, but Major Stokes liked to do things himself, and besides, most of the Indians were busy preparing for the feast of Dusshera which involved manufacturing three giant-sized figures that would be paraded to the Hindu temple and there burned. Those Indians were busy in another open-sided shed where they had glue bubbling on a fire, and some of the men were pasting lengths of pale cloth onto a wicker basket that would form one of the giants’ heads. Stokes was fascinated by their activity and Sharpe knew it would not be long before the Major joined them. ‘Did I tell you a sergeant was here looking for you this morning?’ Stokes asked.

‘No, sir.’

‘Came just before dinner,’ Stokes said, ‘a strange sort of fellow.’ The Major stooped to the trail and attacked another section of wood. ‘He twitched, he did.’

‘Obadiah Hakeswill,’ Sharpe said.

‘I think that was his name. Didn’t seem very important,’ Stokes said. ‘Said he was just visiting town and looking up old companions. D’you know what I was thinking?’

‘Tell me, sir,’ Sharpe said, wondering why in holy hell Obadiah Hakeswill had been looking for him. For nothing good, that was certain.

‘Those teak beams in the Tippoo’s old throne room,’ Stokes said, ‘they’ll be seasoned well enough. We could break out a half-dozen of the things and make a batch of axletrees from them!’

‘The gilded beams, sir?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Soon have the gilding off them, Sharpe. Plane them down in two shakes!’

‘The Rajah may not like it, sir,’ Sharpe said.

Stokes’s face fell. ‘There is that, there is that. A fellow don’t usually like his ceilings being pulled down to make gun carriages. Still, the Rajah’s usually most obliging if you can get past his damned courtiers. The clock is his. Strikes eight when it should ring nine, or perhaps it’s the other way round. You reckon that quoin’s true?’

Sharpe glanced at the wedge which lowered and raised the cannon barrel. ‘Looks good, sir.’

‘I might just plane her down a shade. I wonder if our templates are out of true? We might check that. Isn’t this rain splendid? The flowers were wilting, wilting! But I’ll have a fine show this year with a spot of rain. You must come and see them.’

‘You still want me to stay here, sir?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Stay here?’ Stokes, who was placing the quoin in a vice, turned to look at Sharpe. ‘Of course I want you to stay here, Sergeant. Best man I’ve got!’

‘I lost six men, sir.’

‘And it wasn’t your fault, not your fault at all. I’ll get you another six.’

Sharpe wished it was that easy, but he could not chase the guilt of Chasalgaon out of his mind. When the massacre was finished he had wandered about the fort in a half-daze. Most of the women and children still lived, but they had been frightened and had shrunk away from him. Captain Roberts, the second in command of the fort, had returned from patrol that afternoon and he had vomited when he saw the horror inside the cactus-thorn wall.

Sharpe had made his report to Roberts who had sent it by messenger to Hurryhur, the army’s headquarters, then dismissed Sharpe. ‘There’ll be an enquiry, I suppose,’ Roberts had told Sharpe, ‘so doubtless your evidence will be needed, but you might as well wait in Seringapatam.’ And so Sharpe, with no other orders, had walked home. He had returned the bag of rupees to Major Stokes, and now, obscurely, he wanted some punishment from the Major, but Stokes was far more concerned about the angle of the quoin. ‘I’ve seen screws shatter because the angle was too steep, and it ain’t no good having broken screws in battle. I’ve seen Frog guns with metalled quoins, but they only rust. Can’t trust a Frog to keep them greased, you see. You’re brooding, Sharpe.’

‘Can’t help it, sir.’

‘Doesn’t do to brood. Leave brooding to poets and priests, eh? Those sorts of fellows are paid to brood. You have to get on with life. What could you have done?’

‘Killed one of the bastards, sir.’

‘And they’d have killed you, and you wouldn’t have liked that and nor would I. Look at that angle! Look at that! I do like a fine angle, I declare I do. We must check it against the templates. How’s your head?’

‘Mending, sir.’ Sharpe touched the bandage that wrapped his forehead. ‘No pain now, sir.’

‘Providence, Sharpe, that’s what it is, providence. The good Lord in His ineffable mercy wanted you to live.’ Stokes released the vice and restored the quoin to the carriage. ‘A touch of paint on that trail and it’ll be ready. You think the Rajah might give me one roof beam?’

‘No harm in asking him, sir.’

‘I will, I will. Ah, a visitor.’ Stokes straightened as a horseman, swathed against the rain in an oilcloth cape and with an oilcloth cover on his cocked hat, rode into the armoury courtyard leading a second horse by the reins. The visitor kicked his feet from the stirrups, swung down from the saddle, then tied both horses’ reins to one of the shed’s pillars. Major Stokes, his clothes just in their beginning stage of becoming dirty and dishevelled, smiled at the tall newcomer whose cocked hat and sword betrayed he was an officer. ‘Come to inspect us, have you?’ the Major demanded cheerfully. ‘You’ll discover chaos! Nothing in the right place, records all muddled, woodworm in the timber stacks, damp in the magazines and the paint completely addled.’

‘Better that paint is addled than wits,’ the newcomer said, then took off his cocked hat to reveal a head of white hair.

Sharpe, who had been sitting on one of the finished gun carriages, shot to his feet, tipping the surprised cat into the Major’s wood shavings. ‘Colonel McCandless, sir!’

‘Sergeant Sharpe!’ McCandless responded. The Colonel shook water from his cocked hat and turned to Stokes. ‘And you, sir?’

‘Major Stokes, sir, at your service, sir. John Stokes, commander of the armoury and, as you see, carpenter to His Majesty.’

‘You will forgive me, Major Stokes, if I talk to Sergeant Sharpe?’ McCandless shed his oilskin cape to reveal his East India Company uniform. ‘Sergeant Sharpe and I are old friends.’

‘My pleasure, Colonel,’ Stokes said. ‘I have business in the foundry. They’re pouring too fast. I tell them all the time! Fast pouring just bubbles the metal, and bubbled metal leads to disaster, but they won’t listen. Ain’t like making temple bells, I tell them, but I might as well save my breath.’ He glanced wistfully towards the happy men making the giant’s head for the Dusshera festival. ‘And I have other things to do,’ he added.

‘I’d rather you didn’t leave, Major,’ McCandless said very formally. ‘I suspect what I have to say concerns you. It is good to see you, Sharpe.’

‘You too, sir,’ Sharpe said, and it was true. He had been locked in the Tippoo’s dungeons with Colonel Hector McCandless and if it was possible for a sergeant and a colonel to be friends, then a friendship existed between the two men. McCandless, tall, vigorous and in his sixties, was the East India Company’s head of intelligence for all southern and western India, and in the last four years he and Sharpe had talked a few times whenever the Colonel passed through Seringapatam, but those had been social conversations and the Colonel’s grim face suggested that this meeting was anything but social.

‘You were at Chasalgaon?’ McCandless demanded.

‘I was, sir, yes.’

‘So you saw Lieutenant Dodd?’

Sharpe nodded. ‘Won’t ever forget the bastard. Sorry, sir.’ He apologized because McCandless was a fervent Christian who abhorred all foul language. The Scotsman was a stern man, honest as a saint, and Sharpe sometimes wondered why he liked him so much. Maybe it was because McCandless was always fair, always truthful and could talk to any man, rajah or sergeant, with the same honest directness.

‘I never met Lieutenant Dodd,’ McCandless said, ‘so describe him to me.’

‘Tall, sir, and thin like you or me.’

‘Not like me,’ Major Stokes put in.

‘Sort of yellow-faced,’ Sharpe went on, ‘as if he’d had the fever once. Long face, like he ate something bitter.’ He thought for a second. He had only caught a few glimpses of Dodd, and those had been sideways. ‘He’s got lank hair, sir, when he took off his hat. Brown hair. Long nose on him, like Sir Arthur’s, and a bony chin. He’s calling himself Major Dodd now, sir, not Lieutenant. I heard one of his men call him Major.’

‘And he killed every man in the garrison?’ McCandless asked.

‘He did, sir. Except me. I was lucky.’

‘Nonsense, Sharpe!’ McCandless said. ‘The hand of the Lord was upon you.’

‘Amen,’ Major Stokes intervened.

McCandless stared broodingly at Sharpe. The Colonel had a hard-planed face with oddly blue eyes. He was forever claiming that he wanted to retire to his native Scotland, but he always found some reason to stay on in India. He had spent much of his life riding the states that bordered the land administered by the Company, for his job was to explore those lands and report their threats and weaknesses to his masters. Little happened in India that escaped McCandless, but Dodd had escaped him, and Dodd was now McCandless’s concern. ‘We have placed a price on his head,’ the Colonel said, ‘of five hundred guineas.’

‘Bless me!’ Major Stokes said in astonishment.

‘He’s a murderer,’ McCandless went on. ‘He killed a goldsmith in Seedesegur, and he should be facing trial, but he ran instead and I want you, Sharpe, to help me catch him. And I’m not pursuing the rogue because I want the reward money; in fact I’ll refuse it. But I do want him, and I want your help.’

Major Stokes began to protest, saying that Sharpe was his best man and that the armoury would go to the dogs if the Sergeant was taken away, but McCandless shot the amiable Major a harsh look that was sufficient to silence him.

‘I want Lieutenant Dodd captured,’ McCandless said implacably, ‘and I want him tried, and I want him executed, and I need someone who will know him by sight.’

Major Stokes summoned the courage to continue his objections. ‘But I need Sergeant Sharpe,’ he protested. ‘He organizes everything! The duty rosters, the stores, the pay chest, everything!’

‘I need him more,’ McCandless snarled, turning on the hapless Major. ‘Do you know how many Britons are in India, Major? Maybe twelve thousand, and less than half of those are soldiers. Our power does not rest on the shoulders of white men, Major, but on the muskets of our sepoys. Nine men out of every ten who invade the Mahratta states will be sepoys, and Lieutenant Dodd persuaded over a hundred of those men to desert! To desert! Can you imagine our fate if the other sepoys follow them? Scindia will shower Dodd’s men with gold, Major, with lucre and with spoil, in the hope that others will follow them. I have to stop that, and I need Sharpe.’

Major Stokes recognized the inevitable. ‘You will bring him back, sir?’

‘If it is the Lord’s will, yes. Well, Sergeant? Will you come with me?’

Sharpe glanced at Major Stokes who shrugged, smiled, then nodded his permission. ‘I’ll come, sir,’ Sharpe said to the Scotsman.

‘How soon can you be ready?’

‘Ready now, sir.’ Sharpe indicated the newly issued pack and musket that lay at his feet.

‘You can ride a horse?’

Sharpe frowned. ‘I can sit on one, sir.’

‘Good enough,’ the Scotsman said. He pulled on his oilcloth cape, then untied the two reins and gave one set to Sharpe. ‘She’s a docile thing, Sharpe, so don’t saw on her bit.’

‘We’re going right now, sir?’ Sharpe asked, surprised by the suddenness of it all.

‘Right now,’ McCandless said. ‘Time waits for no man, Sharpe, and we have a traitor and a murderer to catch.’ He pulled himself into his saddle and watched as Sharpe clumsily mounted the second horse.

‘So where are you going?’ Stokes asked McCandless.

‘Ahmednuggur first, and after that God will decide.’ The Colonel touched his horse’s flanks with his spurs and Sharpe, his pack hanging from one shoulder and his musket slung on the other, followed.

He would redeem himself for the failure at Chasalgaon. Not with punishment, but with something better: with vengeance.

Major William Dodd ran a white-gloved finger down the spoke of a gunwheel. He inspected his fingertip and nearly nine hundred men, or at least as many of the nine hundred on parade who could see the Major, inspected him in return.

No mud or dust on the glove. Dodd straightened his back and glowered at the gun crews, daring any man to show pleasure in having achieved a near perfect turn-out. It had been hard work, too, for it had rained earlier in the day and the regiment’s five guns had been dragged through the muddy streets to the parade ground just inside Ahmednuggur’s southern gate, but the gunners had still managed to clean their weapons meticulously. They had removed every scrap of mud, washed the mahogany trails, then polished the barrels until their alloy of copper and tin gleamed like brass.

Impressive, Dodd thought, as he peeled off the glove. Pohlmann had left Ahmednuggur, retreating north to join his compoo to Scindia’s gathering army, and Dodd had ordered this surprise inspection of his new command. He had given the regiment just one hour’s notice, but so far he had found nothing amiss. They were impressive indeed; standing in four long white-coated ranks with their four cannon and single howitzer paraded at the right flank. The guns themselves, despite their gleam, were pitiful things. The four field guns were mere four-pounders, while the fifth was a five-inch howitzer, and not one of the pieces fired a ball of real weight. Not a killing ball. ‘Peashooters!’ Dodd said disparagingly.

‘Monsieur?’ Captain Joubert, the Frenchman who had desperately hoped to be given command of the regiment himself, asked.

‘You heard me, Monsewer. Peashooters!’ Dodd said as he lifted a limber’s lid and hoisted out one of the four-pounder shots. It was half the size of a cricket ball. ‘You might as well spit at them, Monsewer!’

Joubert, a small man, shrugged. ‘At close range, Monsieur…’ he began to defend the guns.

‘At close range, Monsewer, close range!’ Dodd tossed the shot to Joubert who fumbled the catch. ‘That’s no use at close range! No more use than a musket ball, and the gun’s ten times more cumbersome than a musket.’ He rummaged through the limber. ‘No canister? No grape?’

‘Canister isn’t issued for four-pounder guns,’ Joubert said. ‘It isn’t even made for them.’

‘Then we make our own,’ Dodd said. ‘Bags of scrap metal, Monsewer, strapped to a sabot and a charge. One and a half pounds of powder per round. Find a dozen women in the town and have them sew up the bags. Maybe your wife can help, Monsewer?’ He leered at Joubert who showed no reaction. Dodd could smell a man’s weakness, and the oddly attractive Simone Joubert was undoubtedly her husband’s weakness, for she clearly despised him and he, just as clearly, feared losing her. ‘I want thirty bags of grape for each gun by this time tomorrow,’ Dodd ordered.

‘But the barrels, Major!’ Joubert protested.

‘You mean they’ll be scratched?’ Dodd jeered. ‘What do you want, Monsewer? A scratched bore and a live regiment? Or a clean gun and a row of dead men? By tomorrow, thirty rounds of canister per gun, and if there ain’t room in the limbers then throw out that bloody round shot. Might as well spit cherrystones as fire those pebbles.’ Dodd slammed down the limber’s lid. Even if the guns fired makeshift grapeshot he was not certain that they were worth keeping. Every battalion in India had such close-support artillery, but in Dodd’s opinion the guns only served to slow down a regiment’s manoeuvres. The weapons themselves were cumbersome, and the livestock needed to haul them was a nuisance, and if he were ever given his own compoo he would strip the regiments of field guns, for if a battalion of infantry could not defend itself with firelocks, what use was it? But he was stuck with the five guns, so he would use them as giant shotguns and open fire at three hundred yards. The gunners would moan about the damage to their barrels, but damn the gunners.

Dodd inspected the howitzer, found it as clean as the other guns, and nodded to the gunner-subadar. He offered no compliment, for Dodd did not believe in praising men for merely doing their duty. Praise was due to those who exceeded their duty, punishment for those who fell short, and silence must serve the rest.

Once the five guns had been inspected Dodd walked slowly down the white-jacketed infantry ranks where he looked every man in the eye and did not change his grim expression once, even though the soldiers had taken particular care to be well turned out for their new commanding officer. Captain Joubert followed a pace behind Dodd and there was something ludicrous about the conjunction of the tall, long-legged Dodd and the diminutive Joubert who needed to scurry to keep up with the Englishman. Once in a while the Frenchman would make a comment. ‘He’s a good man, sir,’ he might say as they passed a soldier, but Dodd ignored all the praise and, after a while, Joubert fell silent and just scowled at Dodd’s back. Dodd sensed the Frenchman’s dislike, but did not care.

Dodd showed no reaction to the regiment’s appearance, though all the same he was impressed. These men were smart and their weapons were as clean as those of his own sepoys who, reissued with white jackets, now paraded as an extra company at the regiment’s left flank where, in British regiments, the skirmishers paraded. East India Company battalions had no skirmishers, for it was believed that sepoys were no good at the task, but Dodd had decided to make his loyal sepoys into the finest skirmishers in India. Let them prove the Company wrong, and in the proving they could help destroy the Company.

Most of the men looked up into Dodd’s eyes as he walked by, although few of them looked at him for long, but instead glanced quickly away. Joubert saw the reaction, and sympathized with it, for there was something distinctly unpleasant about the Englishman’s long sour face that edged on the frightening. Probably, Joubert decided, this Englishman was a flogger. The English were notorious for using the whip on their own men, reducing redcoats’ backs to welters of broken flesh and gleaming blood, but Joubert was quite wrong about Dodd. Major Dodd had never flogged a man in his life, and that was not just because the Company forbade it in their army, but because William Dodd disliked the lash and hated to see a soldier flogged. Major Dodd liked soldiers. He hated most officers, especially those senior to him, but he liked soldiers. Good soldiers won battles, and victories made officers famous, so to be successful an officer needed soldiers who liked him and who would follow him. Dodd’s sepoys were proof of that. He had looked after them, made sure they were fed and paid, and he had given them victory. Now he would make them wealthy in the service of the Mahratta princes who were famous for their generosity.

He broke away from the regiment and marched back to its colours, a pair of bright-green flags marked with crossed tulwars. The flags had been the choice of Colonel Mathers, the Englishman who had commanded the regiment for five years until he resigned rather than fight against his own countrymen, and now the regiment would be known as Dodd’s regiment. Or perhaps he should call it something else. The Tigers? The Eagles? The Warriors of Scindia? Not that the name mattered now. What mattered now was to save these nine hundred well-trained men and their five gleaming guns and take them safely back to the Mahratta army that was gathering in the north. Dodd turned beneath the colours. ‘My name is Dodd!’ he shouted, then paused to let one of his Indian officers translate his words into Marathi, a language Dodd did not speak. Few of the soldiers spoke Marathi either, for most were mercenaries from the north, but men in the ranks murmured their own translation and so Dodd’s message was relayed up and down the files. ‘I am a soldier! Nothing but a soldier! Always a soldier!’ He paused again. The parade was being held in the open space inside the gate and a crowd of townsfolk had gathered to gape at the troops, and among the crowd was a scatter of the robed Arab mercenaries who were reputed to be the fiercest of all the Mahratta troops. They were wild-looking men, armed with every conceivable weapon, but Dodd doubted they had the discipline of his regiment. ‘Together,’ he shouted at his men, ‘you and I shall fight and we shall win.’ He kept his words simple, for soldiers always liked simple things. Loot was simple, winning and losing were simple ideas, and even death, despite the way the damned preachers tried to tie it up in superstitious knots, was a simple concept. ‘It is my intent,’ he shouted, then waited for the translation to ripple up and down the ranks, ‘for this regiment to be the finest in Scindia’s service! Do your job well and I shall reward you. Do it badly, and I shall let your fellow soldiers decide on your punishment.’ They liked that, as Dodd had known they would.

‘Yesterday,’ Dodd declaimed, ‘the British crossed our frontier! Tomorrow their army will be here at Ahmednuggur, and soon we shall fight them in a great battle!’ He had decided not to say that the battle would be fought well north of the city, for that might discourage the listening civilians. ‘We shall drive them back to Mysore. We shall teach them that the army of Scindia is greater than any of their armies. We shall win!’ The soldiers smiled at his confidence. ‘We shall take their treasures, their weapons, their land and their women, and those things will be your reward if you fight well. But if you fight badly, you will die.’ That phrase sent a shudder through the four white-coated ranks. ‘And if any of you prove to be cowards,’ Dodd finished, ‘I shall kill you myself.’

He let that threat sink in, then abruptly ordered the regiment back to its duties before summoning Joubert to follow him up the red stone steps of the city wall to where Arab guards stood behind the merlons ranged along the firestep. Far to the south, beyond the horizon, a dusky cloud was just visible. It could have been mistaken for a distant rain cloud, but Dodd guessed it was the smear of smoke from the British campfires. ‘How long do you think the city will last?’ Dodd asked Joubert.

The Frenchman considered the question. ‘A month?’ he guessed.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Dodd snarled. He might want the loyalty of his men, but he did not give a fig for the good opinion of its two European officers. Both were Frenchmen and Dodd had the usual Englishman’s opinion of the Frogs. Good dancing masters, and experts in tying a stock or arranging lace to fall prettily on a uniform, but about as much use in a fight as spavined lapdogs. Lieutenant Sillière, who had followed Joubert to the firestep, was tall and looked strong, but Dodd mistrusted a man who took such care with his uniform and he could have sworn he detected a whiff of lavender water coming from the young Lieutenant’s carefully brushed hair. ‘How long are the city walls?’ he asked Joubert.

The Captain thought for a moment. ‘Two miles?’

‘At least, and how many men in the garrison?’

‘Two thousand.’

‘So work it out, Monsewer,’ Dodd said. ‘One man every two yards? We’ll be lucky if the city holds for three days.’ Dodd climbed to one of the bastions from where he could stare between the crenellations at the great fort which stood close to the city. That two-hundred-year-old fortress was an altogether more formidable stronghold than the city, though its very size made it vulnerable, for the fort’s garrison, like the city’s, was much too small. But the fort’s high wall was faced by a big ditch, its embrasures were crammed with cannon and its bastions were high and strong, although the fort was worth nothing without the city. The city was the prize, not the fort, and Dodd doubted that General Wellesley would waste men against the fort’s garrison. Boy Wellesley would attack the city, breach the walls, storm the gap and send his men to slaughter the defenders in the rat’s tangle of alleys and courtyards, and once the city had fallen the redcoats would hunt for supplies that would help feed the British army. Only then, with the city in his possession, would Wellesley turn his guns against the fort, and it was possible that the fort would hold the British advance for two or three weeks and thus give Scindia more time to assemble his army, and the longer the fort held the better, for the overdue rains might come and hamper the British advance. But of one thing Dodd was quite certain: as Pohlmann had said, the war would not be won here, and to William Dodd the most important thing was to extricate his men so that they could share that victory. ‘You will take the regiment’s guns and three hundred men and garrison the north gate,’ Dodd ordered Joubert.

The Frenchman frowned. ‘You think the British will attack in the north?’

‘I think, Monsewer, that the British will attack here, in the south. Our orders are to kill as many as we can, then escape to join Colonel Pohlmann. We shall make that escape through the north gate, but even an idiot can see that half the city’s inhabitants will also try to escape through the north gate and your job, Joubert, is to keep the bastards from blocking our way. I intend to save the regiment, not lose it with the city. That means you open fire on any civilian who tries to leave the city, do you understand?’ Joubert wanted to argue, but one look at Dodd’s face persuaded him into hasty agreement. ‘I shall be at the north gate in one hour,’ Dodd said, ‘and God help you, Monsewer, if your three hundred men are not in position.’

Joubert ran off. Dodd watched him go, then turned to Sillière. ‘When were the men last paid?’

‘Four months ago, sir.’

‘Where did you learn English, Lieutenant?’

‘Colonel Mathers insisted we speak it, sir.’

‘And where did Madame Joubert learn it?’

Sillière gave Dodd a suspicious glance. ‘I would not know, sir.’

Dodd sniffed. ‘Are you wearing perfume, Monsewer?’

‘No!’ Sillière blushed.

‘Make sure you never do, Lieutenant. And in the meantime take your company, find the Killadar, and tell him to break open the city treasury. If you have any trouble, break the damn thing open yourself with one of our guns. Give every man three months’ pay and load the rest of the money on pack animals. We’ll take it with us.’

Sillière looked astonished at the order. ‘But the Killadar, Monsieur…’ he began.

‘The Killadar, Monsewer, is a wretched little man with the balls of a mouse! You are a soldier. If we don’t take the money, the British will get it. Now go!’ Dodd shook his head in exasperation as the Lieutenant went. Four months without pay! There was nothing unusual in such a lapse, but Dodd disapproved of it. A soldier risked his life for his country, and the least his country could do in return was pay him promptly.

He walked eastwards along the firestep, trying to anticipate where the British would site their batteries and where they would make a breach. There was always a chance that Wellesley would pass by Ahmednuggur and simply march north towards Scindia’s army, but Dodd doubted the enemy would choose that course, for then the city and fort would lie athwart the British supply lines and the garrison could play havoc with the convoys carrying ammunition, shot and food to the redcoats.

A small crowd was gathered on the southernmost ramparts to gaze towards the distant cloud that betrayed the presence of the enemy army. Simone Joubert was among them, sheltering her face from the westering sun with a frayed parasol. Dodd took off his cocked hat. He always felt oddly awkward with women, at least white women, but his new rank gave him an unaccustomed confidence. ‘I see you have come to observe the enemy, Ma’am,’ he said.

‘I like to walk about the walls, Major,’ Simone answered, ‘but today, as you see, the way is blocked with people.’

‘I can clear a path for you, Ma’am,’ Dodd offered, touching the gold hilt of his new sword.

‘It is not necessary, Major,’ Simone said.

‘You speak good English, Ma’am.’

‘I was taught it as a child. We had a Welsh governess.’

‘In France, Ma’am?’

‘In the Île de France, Monsieur,’ Simone said. She was not looking at Dodd as she spoke, but staring into the heat-hazed south.

‘Mauritius,’ Dodd said, giving the island the name used by the British.

‘The Île de France, Monsieur, as I said.’

‘A remote place, Ma’am.’

Simone shrugged. In truth she agreed with Dodd. Mauritius was remote, an island four hundred miles east of Africa and the only decent French naval base in the Indian Ocean. There she had been raised as the daughter of the port’s captain, and it was there, at sixteen, that she had been wooed by Captain Joubert who was on passage to India where he had been posted as an adviser to Scindia. Joubert had dazzled Simone with tales of the riches that a man could make for himself in India, and Simone, bored with the small petty society of her island, had allowed herself to be swept away, only to discover that Captain Joubert was a timid man at heart, and that his impoverished family in Lyons had first claim on his earnings, and whatever was left was assiduously saved so that the Captain could retire to France in comfort. Simone had expected a life of parties and jewels, of dancing and silks, and instead she scrimped, she sewed and she suffered. Colonel Pohlmann had offered her a way out of poverty, and now she sensed that the lanky Englishman was clumsily attempting to make the same offer, but Simone was not minded to become a man’s mistress just because she was bored. She might for love, and in the absence of any love in her life she was fighting an attraction for Lieutenant Sillière, although she knew that the Lieutenant was almost as worthless as her husband and the dilemma was making her think that she was going mad. She wept about it, and the tears only added to her self-diagnosis of insanity. ‘When will the British come, Major?’ she asked Dodd.

‘Tomorrow, Ma’am. They’ll establish batteries the next day, knock at the wall for two or three days, make their hole and then come in.’

She looked at Dodd beneath the hem of her parasol. Although he was a tall man, Simone could still look him in the eye. ‘They’ll take the city that quickly?’ she asked, showing a hint of worry.

‘Nothing to hold them, Ma’am. Not enough men, too much wall, not enough guns.’

‘So how will we escape?’

‘By trusting me, Ma’am,’ Dodd said, offering Simone a leering smile. ‘What you must do, my dear, is pack your luggage, as much as can be carried on whatever packhorses your husband might possess, and be ready to leave. I shall send you warning before the attack, and at that time you go to the north gate where you’ll find your husband. It would help, of course, Ma’am, if I knew where you were lodged?’

‘My husband knows, Monsieur,’ Simone said coldly. ‘So once the rosbifs arrive I need do nothing for three days except pack?’

Dodd noted her use of the French term of contempt for the English, but chose to make nothing of it. ‘Exactly, Ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Major,’ Simone said, and made a gesture so that two servants, whom Dodd had not noticed in the press of people, came to escort her back to her house.

‘Cold bitch,’ Dodd said to himself when she was gone, ‘but she’ll thaw, she’ll thaw.’

The dark fell swiftly. Torches flared on the city ramparts, lighting the ghostly robes of the Arab mercenaries who patrolled the bastions. Small offerings of food and flowers were piled in front of the garish gods and goddesses in their candlelit temples. The inhabitants of the city were praying to be spared, while to the south a faint glow in the sky betrayed where a red-coated army had come to bring Ahmednuggur death.

Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Gore had taken command of the King’s 33rd in succession to Sir Arthur Wellesley and it had not been a happy battalion when Gore arrived. That unhappiness was not Sir Arthur’s fault for he had long left the battalion for higher responsibilities, but in his absence the 33rd had been commanded by Major John Shee who was an incompetent drunk. Shee had died, Gore had received command, and now he was slowly mending the damage. That mending could have been a great deal swifter if Gore had been able to rid himself of some of the battalion’s officers, and of all those officers it was the lazy and dishonest Captain Morris of the Light Company whom he would have most liked to dismiss, but Gore was helpless in the matter. Morris had purchased his commission, he was guilty of no offences against the King’s regulations and thus he had to stay. And with him stayed the malevolent, unsettling, yellow-faced and perpetually twitching Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.

‘Sharpe was always a bad man, sir. A disgrace to the army, sir,’ Hakeswill told the Colonel. ‘He should never have been made into a sergeant, sir, ’cos he ain’t the material of what sergeants are made, sir. He’s nothing but a scrap of filth, sir, what shouldn’t be a corporal, let alone a sergeant. It says so in the scriptures, sir.’ The Sergeant stood rigidly at attention, his right foot behind his left, his hands at his sides and his elbows straining towards the small of his back. His voice boomed in the small room, drowning out the sound of the pelting rain. Gore wondered whether the rain was the late beginning of the monsoon. He hoped so, for if the monsoon failed utterly then there would be a lot of hungry people in India the following year.

Gore watched a spider crawl across the table. The house belonged to a leather dealer who had rented it to the 33rd while they were based in Arrakerry and the place seethed with insects that crawled, flew, slunk and stung, and Gore, who was a fastidious and elegant man, rather wished he had used his tents. ‘Tell me what happened,’ Gore said to Morris, ‘again. If you would be so kind.’

Morris, slouching in a chair in front of Gore’s table with a thick bandage on his head, seemed surprised to be asked, but he straightened himself and offered the Colonel a feeble shrug. ‘I don’t really recall, sir. It was two nights ago, in Seringapatam, and I was hit, sir.’

Gore brushed the spider aside and made a note. ‘Hit,’ he said as he wrote the word in his fine copperplate hand. ‘Where exactly?’

‘On the head, sir,’ Morris answered.

Gore sighed. ‘I see that, Captain. I meant where in Seringapatam?’

‘By the armoury, sir.’

‘And this was at night?’

Morris nodded.

‘Black night, sir,’ Hakeswill put in helpfully, ‘black as a blackamoor’s backside, sir.’

The Colonel frowned at the Sergeant’s indelicacy. Gore was resisting the urge to push a hand inside his coat and scratch his belly. He feared he had caught the Malabar Itch, a foul complaint that would condemn him to weeks of living with a salve of lard on his skin, and if the lard failed he would be reduced to taking baths in a solution of nitric acid. ‘If it was dark,’ he said patiently, ‘then surely you had no chance to see your assailant?’

‘I didn’t, sir,’ Morris replied truthfully.

‘But I did, sir,’ Hakeswill said, ‘and it was Sharpie. Saw him clear as daylight, sir.’

‘At night?’ Gore asked sceptically.

‘He was working late, sir,’ Hakeswill said, ‘on account of him not having done his proper work in the daylight like a Christian should, sir, and he opened the door, sir, and the lantern was lit, sir, and he came out and hit the Captain, sir.’

‘And you saw that?’

‘Clear as I can see you now, sir,’ Hakeswill said, his face racked with a series of violent twitches.

Gore’s hand strayed to his coat buttons, but he resisted the urge. ‘If you saw it, Sergeant, why didn’t you have Sharpe arrested? There were sentries present, surely?’

‘More important to save the Captain’s life, sir. That’s what I deemed, sir. Get him back here, sir, into Mister Micklewhite’s care. Don’t trust other surgeons, sir. And I had to clean up Mister Morris, sir, I did.’

‘The blood, you mean?’

Hakeswill shook his head. ‘The substances, sir.’ He stared woodenly over Colonel Gore’s head as he spoke.

‘Substances?’

Hakeswill’s face twitched. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, as you being a gentleman as won’t want to hear it, sir, but Sergeant Sharpe hit Captain Morris with a jakes pot, sir. A full jakes pot, sir, liquid and solids.’

‘Oh, God,’ Gore said, laying down his pen and trying to ignore the fiery itch across his belly. ‘I still don’t understand why you did nothing in Seringapatam,’ the Colonel said. ‘The Town Major should have been told, surely?’

‘That’s just it, sir,’ Hakeswill said enthusiastically, ‘on account of there not being a Town Major, not proper, seeing as Major Stokes does the duties, sir, and the rest is up to the Rajah’s Killadar and I don’t like seeing a redcoat being arrested by a darkie, sir, not even Sharpe. It ain’t right, that. And Major Stokes, he won’t help, sir. He likes Sharpe, see? He lets him live comfortable, sir. Off the fat of the land, sir, like it says in the scriptures. Got himself a set of rooms and a bibbi, he has, and a servant, too. Ain’t right, sir. Too comfortable, sir, whiles the rest of us sweats like the soldiers we swore to be.’

The explanation made some sort of sense, or at least Gore appreciated that it might convince Sergeant Hakeswill, yet there was still something odd about the whole tale. ‘What were you doing at the armoury after dark, Captain?’

‘Making certain the full complement of wagons was there, sir,’ Morris answered. ‘Sergeant Hakeswill informed me that one was missing.’

‘And was it?’

‘No, sir,’ Morris said.

‘Miscounted, sir,’ Hakeswill said, ‘on account of it being dark, sir.’ Hakeswill had indeed summoned Morris to the armoury after dark, and there he had hit the Captain with a baulk of timber and, for good measure, had added the contents of a chamber pot that Major Stokes had left outside his office. The sentries had been sheltering from the rain in the guardhouse and none had questioned the sight of Hakeswill dragging the recumbent Morris back to his quarters, for the sight of drunken officers being taken home by sergeants or privates was too common to be remarkable. The important thing was that Morris had not seen who assaulted him and was quite prepared to believe Hakeswill’s version, for Morris relied utterly on Hakeswill in everything. ‘I blames myself, sir,’ Hakeswill went on, ‘on account of not chasing Sharpie, but I thought my duty was to look after my Captain, sir, on account of him being drenched by a slop pot.’

‘Enough, Sergeant!’ Gore said.

‘It ain’t a Christian act, sir,’ Hakeswill muttered resentfully. ‘Not with a jakes pot, sir. Says so in the scriptures.’

Gore rubbed his face. The rain had taken the edge off the damp heat, but not by much, and he found the atmosphere horribly oppressive. Maybe the itch was just a reaction to the heat. He rubbed his hand across his belly, but it did not help. ‘Why would Sergeant Sharpe assault you without warning, Captain?’ he asked.

Morris shrugged. ‘He’s a disagreeable sort, sir,’ he offered weakly.

‘He never liked the Captain, sir, Sharpie didn’t,’ Hakeswill said, ‘and it’s my belief, sir, that he thought the Captain had come to summon him back to the battalion, where he ought to be soldiering instead of living off the fat of the land, but he don’t want to come back, sir, on account of being comfortable, sir, like he’s got no right to be. He never did know his place, sir, not Sharpe, sir. Got above himself, sir, he has, and he’s got cash in his breeches. On the fiddle, I dare say.’

Gore ignored the last accusation. ‘How badly are you hurt?’ he asked Morris.

‘Only cuts and bruises, sir.’ Morris straightened in the chair. ‘But it’s still a court-martial offence, sir.’

‘A capital offence, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Up against the wall, sir, and God have mercy on his black soul, which I very much doubts God will, God having better things to worry about than a sorry piece of scum like Sharpie.’

Gore sighed. He suspected there was a great deal more to the story than he was hearing, but whatever the real facts Captain Morris was still right. All that mattered was that Sergeant Sharpe was alleged to have struck an officer, and no excuse in the world could explain away such an offence. Which meant Sergeant Sharpe would have to be tried and very probably shot, and Gore would regret that for he had heard some very good things of the young Sergeant Sharpe. ‘I had great hopes of Sergeant Sharpe,’ the Colonel said sadly.

‘Got above himself, sir,’ Hakeswill snapped. ‘Just ’cos he blew the mine at Seringapatam, sir, he thinks he’s got wings and can fly. Needs to have his feathers clipped, sir, says so in the scriptures.’

Gore looked scornfully at the twitching Sergeant. ‘And what did you do at the assault of the city, Sergeant?’ he asked.

‘My duty, sir, my duty,’ Hakeswill answered. ‘What is all I ever expects any other man to do, sir.’

Gore shook his head regretfully. There really was no way out of this dilemma. If Sharpe had struck an officer, then Sharpe must be punished. ‘I suppose he’ll have to be fetched back here,’ Gore admitted.

‘Of course,’ Morris agreed.

Gore frowned in irritation. This was all such a damned nuisance! Gore had desperately hoped that the 33rd would be attached to Wellesley’s army, which was about to plunge into Mahratta territory, but instead the battalion had been ordered to stay behind and guard Mysore against the bandits who still plagued the roads and hills. Now, it seemed, over-stretched as the battalion was, Gore would have to detach a party to arrest Sergeant Sharpe. ‘Captain Lawford could go for him,’ he suggested.

‘Hardly a job for an officer, sir,’ Morris said. ‘A sergeant could do the thing just as well.’

Gore considered the matter. Sending a sergeant would certainly be less disruptive to the battalion than losing an officer, and a sergeant could surely do the job as well as anyone. ‘How many men would he need?’ Gore asked.

‘Six men, sir,’ Hakeswill snapped. ‘I could do the job with six men.’

‘And Sergeant Hakeswill’s the best man for the job,’ Morris urged. He had no particular wish to lose Hakeswill’s services for the few days that it would take to fetch Sharpe, but Hakeswill had hinted that there was money in this business. Morris was not sure how much money, but he was in debt and Hakeswill had been persuasive. ‘By far the best man,’ he added.

‘On account of me knowing the little bugger’s cunning ways, sir,’ Hakeswill explained, ‘if you’ll excuse my Hindi.’

Gore nodded. He would like nothing more than to rid himself of Hakeswill for a while, for the man was a baleful influence on the battalion. Hakeswill was hated, that much Gore had learned, but he was also feared, for the Sergeant declared that he could not be killed. He had survived a hanging once, indeed the scar of the rope was still concealed beneath the stiff leather stock, and the men believed that Hakeswill was somehow under the protection of an evil angel. The Colonel knew that was a nonsense, but even so the very presence of the Sergeant made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I’ll have my clerk write the orders for you, Sergeant,’ the Colonel said.

‘Thank you, sir!’ Hakeswill said. ‘You won’t regret it, sir. Obadiah Hakeswill has never shirked his duty, sir, not like some as I could name.’

Gore dismissed Hakeswill who waited for Captain Morris under the building’s porch and watched the rain pelt onto the street. The Sergeant’s face twitched and his eyes held a peculiar malevolence that made the single sentry edge away. But in truth Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was a happy man. God had put Richard Sharpe into his grasp and he would pay Sharpe back for all the insults of the last few years and especially for the ghastly moment when Sharpe had hurled Hakeswill among the Tippoo Sultan’s tigers. Hakeswill had thought the beasts would savage him, but his luck had held and the tigers had ignored him. It seemed they had been fed not an hour before and thus the guardian angel who preserved Hakeswill had once again come to his rescue.

So now Obadiah Hakeswill would have his revenge. He would choose six men, six bitter men who could be trusted, and they would take Sergeant Sharpe, and afterwards, somewhere on the road home from Seringapatam where there were no witnesses, they would find Sharpe’s money and then finish him. Shot while attempting to escape, that would be the explanation, and good riddance too. Hakeswill was happy and Sharpe was condemned.

Colonel McCandless led Sharpe north towards the wild country where the frontiers of Hyderabad, Mysore and the Mahratta states met. ‘Till I hear otherwise,’ McCandless told Sharpe, ‘I’m assuming our traitor is in Ahmednuggur.’

‘What’s that, sir? A city?’

‘A city and a fort next to each other,’ the Colonel said. McCandless’s big gelding seemed to eat up the miles, but Sharpe’s smaller mare offered a lumpy ride. Within an hour of leaving Seringapatam Sharpe’s muscles were sore, within two he felt as though the backs of his thighs were burning, and by late afternoon the stirrup leathers had abraded through his cotton trousers to grind his calves into bloody patches. ‘It’s one of Scindia’s frontier strongholds,’ the Colonel went on, ‘but I doubt it can hold out long. Wellesley plans to capture it, then strike on north.’

‘So we’re going to war, sir?’

‘Of course.’ McCandless frowned. ‘Does that worry you?’

‘No, sir,’ Sharpe said, nor did it. He had a good life in Seringapatam, maybe as good a life as any soldier had ever had anywhere, but in the four years between the fall of Seringapatam and the massacre at Chasalgaon Sharpe had not heard a shot fired in anger, and a part of him was envious of his old colleagues in the 33rd who fought brisk skirmishes against the bandits and rogues who plagued western Mysore.

‘We’re going to fight the Mahrattas,’ McCandless said. ‘You know who they are?’

‘I hear they’re bastards, sir.’

McCandless frowned at Sharpe’s foul language. ‘They are a confederation of independent states, Sharpe,’ he said primly, ‘that dominate much of western India. They are also warlike, piratical and untrustworthy, except, of course, for those which are our allies, who are romantic, gallant and heroic.’

‘Some are on our side, sir?’

‘A few. The Peshwa, for one, and he’s their titular leader, but small notice they take of him. Others are staying aloof from this war, but two of the biggest princes have decided to make a fight of it. One’s called Scindia, and he’s the Maharajah of Gwalior, and the other’s called Bhonsla, and he’s the Rajah of Berar.’

Sharpe tried standing in the stirrups to ease the pain in his seat, but it only made the chafing of his calves worse. ‘And what’s our quarrel with those two, sir?’

‘They’ve been much given to raiding into Hyderabad and Mysore lately, so now it’s time to settle them once and for all.’

‘And Lieutenant Dodd’s joined their army, sir?’

‘From what we hear, he’s joined Scindia’s army. But I haven’t heard much.’ The Colonel had already explained to Sharpe how he had been keeping his ears open for news of Dodd ever since the Lieutenant had persuaded his sepoys to defect, but then had come the terrible news of Chasalgaon, and McCandless, who had been travelling north to join Wellesley’s army, had seen Sharpe’s name in the report and so had turned around and hurried south to Seringapatam. At the same time he had sent some of his own Mahratta agents north to discover Dodd’s whereabouts. ‘We should meet those fellows today,’ the Colonel said, ‘or tomorrow at the latest.’

The rain had not stopped, but nor was it heavy. Mud spattered up the horses’ flanks and onto Sharpe’s boots and white trousers. He tried sitting half sideways, he tried leaning forward or tipping himself back, but the pain did not stop. He had never much liked horses, but now decided he hated them. ‘I’d like to meet Lieutenant Dodd again, sir,’ he told McCandless as the two men rode under dripping trees.

‘Be careful of him, Sharpe,’ McCandless warned. ‘He has a reputation.’

‘For what, sir?’

‘A fighter, of course. He’s no mean soldier. I’ve not met him, of course, but I’ve heard tales. He’s been up north, in Calcutta mostly, and made a name for himself there. He was first over the pettah wall at Panhapur. Not much of a wall, Sharpe, just a thicket of cactus thorn really, but it took his sepoys five minutes to follow him, and by the time they reached him he’d killed a dozen of the enemy. He’s a tall man who can use a sword and is a fine pistol shot too. He is, in brief, a killer.’

‘If he’s so good, sir, why is he still a lieutenant?’

The Colonel sighed. ‘I fear that is the way of the Company’s army, Sharpe. A man can’t buy his way up the ladder as he can in the King’s army, and there’s no promotion for good service. It all goes by seniority. Dead men’s shoes, Sharpe. A fellow must wait his turn in the Company, and there’s no way round it.’

‘So Dodd has been waiting, sir?’

‘A long time. He’s forty now, and I doubt he’d have got his captaincy much before he was fifty.’

‘Is that why he ran, sir?’

‘He ran because of the murder. He claimed a goldsmith cheated him of money and had his men beat the poor fellow so badly that he died. He was court-martialled, of course, but the only sentence he got was six months without pay. Six months without pay! That’s sanctioning murder, Sharpe! But Wellesley insisted the Company discharge him, and he planned to have Dodd tried before a civilian court and condemned to death, so Dodd ran.’ The Colonel paused. ‘I wish I could say we’re pursuing him because of the murder, Sharpe,’ he went on, ‘but that isn’t so. We’re pursuing him because he persuaded his men to defect. Once that rot starts, it might never stop, and we have to show the other sepoys that desertion will always be punished.’

Just before nightfall, when the rain had stopped and Sharpe thought his sore muscles and bleeding calves would make him moan aloud in agony, a group of horsemen came cantering towards them. To Sharpe they looked like silladars, the mercenary horsemen who hired themselves, their weapons and their horses to the British army, and he pulled his mare over to the left side of the road to give the heavily armed men room to pass, but their leader slowed as he approached, then raised a hand in greeting. ‘Colonel!’ he shouted.

‘Sevajee!’ McCandless cried and spurred his horse towards the oncoming Indian. He held out his hand and Sevajee clasped it.

‘You have news?’ McCandless asked.

Sevajee nodded. ‘Your fellow is inside Ahmednuggur, Colonel. He’s been given Mathers’s regiment.’ He was pleased with his news, grinning broadly to reveal red-stained teeth. He was a young man dressed in the remnants of a green uniform Sharpe did not recognize. The jacket had European epaulettes hung with silver chains, and over it was strapped a sword sling and a sash, both of white silk and both stained brown with dried blood.

‘Sergeant Sharpe,’ McCandless made the introductions, ‘this is Syud Sevajee.’

Sharpe nodded a wary greeting. ‘Sahib,’ he said, for there was something about Syud Sevajee that suggested he was a man of rank.

‘The Sergeant has seen Lieutenant Dodd,’ McCandless explained. ‘He’ll make sure we capture the right man.’

‘Kill all the Europeans,’ Sevajee suggested, ‘and you’ll be sure.’ The suggestion, it seemed to Sharpe, was not entirely flippant.

‘I want him captured alive,’ McCandless said irritably. ‘Justice must be seen to be done. Or would you rather that your people believe a British officer can beat a man to death without any punishment?’

‘They believe that anyway,’ Sevajee said carelessly, ‘but if you wish to be scrupulous, McCandless, then we shall capture Mister Dodd.’ Sevajee’s men, a dozen wild-looking warriors armed with everything from bows and arrows to lances, had fallen in behind McCandless.

‘Syud Sevajee is a Mahratta, Sharpe,’ McCandless explained.

‘One of the romantic ones, sir?’

‘Romantic?’ Sevajee repeated the word in surprise.

‘He’s on our side, if that’s what you mean,’ McCandless said.

‘No,’ Sevajee hurried to correct the Colonel. ‘I am opposed to Beny Singh, and so long as he lives I help the enemies of my enemy.’

‘Why’s this fellow your enemy, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?’ Sharpe asked.

Sevajee touched the hilt of his tulwar as if it was a fetish. ‘Because he killed my father, Sergeant.’

‘Then I hope you get the bastard, sir.’

‘Sharpe!’ McCandless said in reprimand.

Sevajee laughed. ‘My father,’ he explained to Sharpe, ‘led one of the Rajah of Berar’s compoos. He was a great warrior, Sergeant, and Beny Singh was his rival. He invited my father to a feast and served him poison. That was three years ago. My mother killed herself, but my younger brother serves Beny Singh and my sister is one of his concubines. They too will die.’

‘And you escaped, sir?’ Sharpe asked.

‘I was serving in the East India Company cavalry, Sergeant,’ Sevajee answered. ‘My father believed a man should know his enemy, so sent me to Madras.’

‘Where we met,’ McCandless said brusquely, ‘and now Sevajee serves me.’

‘Because in return,’ Sevajee explained, ‘your British bayonets will hand Beny Singh to my revenge. And with him, of course, the reward for Dodd. Four thousand, two hundred rupees, is it not?’

‘So long as he’s taken alive,’ McCandless said dourly, ‘and it might be increased once the Court of Directors hears what he did at Chasalgaon.’

‘And to think I almost caught him,’ Sevajee said, and described how he and his few men had visited Ahmednuggur posing as brindarries who were loyal to Scindia.

‘Brindarrie?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Like silladars,’ McCandless told him. ‘Freelance horsemen. And you saw Dodd?’ he asked Sevajee.

‘I heard him, Colonel, though I never got close. He was lecturing his regiment, telling them how they would chase you British out of India.’

McCandless scoffed. ‘He’ll be lucky to escape from Ahmednuggur! Why has he stayed there?’

‘To give Pohlmann a chance to attack?’ Sevajee suggested. ‘His compoo was still close to Ahmednuggur a few days ago.’

‘Just one compoo, sir?’ Sharpe suggested. ‘One compoo won’t beat Wellesley.’

Sevajee gave him a long, speculative look. ‘Pohlmann, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘is the best infantry leader in Indian service. He has never lost a battle, and his compoo is probably the finest infantry army in India. It already outnumbers Wellesley’s army, but if Scindia releases his other compoos, then together they will outnumber your Wellesley three to one. And if Scindia waits until Berar’s troops are with him, he’ll outnumber you ten to one.’

‘So why are we attacking, sir?’

‘Because we’re going to win,’ McCandless said firmly. ‘God’s will.’

‘Because, Sergeant,’ Sevajee said, ‘you British think that you are invincible. You believe you cannot be defeated, but you have not fought the Mahrattas. Your little army marches north full of confidence, but you are like mice waking an elephant.’

‘Some mice,’ McCandless snorted.

‘Some elephant,’ Sevajee said gently. ‘We are the Mahrattas, and if we did not fight amongst ourselves we would rule all India.’

‘You’ve not faced Scottish infantry yet,’ McCandless said confidently, ‘and Wellesley has two Scottish regiments with him. Besides, you forget that Stevenson has an army too, and he’s not so very far away.’ Two armies, both small, were invading the Mahratta Confederation, though Wellesley, as the senior officer, had control of both. ‘I reckon the mice will startle you yet,’ McCandless said.

They spent that night in a village. To the north, just beyond the horizon, the sky glowed red from the reflection of flames on the smoke of thousands of campfires, the sign that the British army was just a short march away. McCandless bargained with the headman for food and shelter, then frowned when Sevajee purchased a jar of fierce local arrack. Sevajee ignored the Scotsman’s disapproval, then went to join his men who were gaming in the village’s tavern. McCandless shook his head. ‘He fights for mercenary reasons, Sharpe, nothing else.’

‘That and vengeance, sir.’

‘Aye, he wants vengeance, I’ll grant him that, but once he’s got it he’ll turn on us like a snake.’ The Colonel rubbed his eyes. ‘He’s a useful man, all the same, but I wish I felt more confident about this whole business.’

‘The war, sir?’

McCandless shook his head. ‘We’ll win that. It doesn’t matter by how many they outnumber us, they won’t outfight us. No, Sharpe, I’m worried about Dodd.’

‘We’ll get him, sir,’ Sharpe said.

The Colonel said nothing for a while. An oil lamp flickered on the table, attracting huge winged moths, and in its dull light the Colonel’s thin face looked more cadaverous than ever. McCandless finally grimaced. ‘I’ve never been one for believing in the supernatural, Sharpe, other than the providences of Almighty God. Some of my countrymen claim they see and hear signs. They tell of foxes howling about the house when a death is imminent, or seals coming ashore when a man’s to be lost at sea, but I never credited such things. It’s mere superstition, Sharpe, pagan superstition, but I can’t chase away my dread about Dodd.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Maybe it’s age.’

‘You’re not old, sir.’

McCandless smiled. ‘I’m sixty-three, Sharpe, and I should have retired ten years ago, except that the good Lord has seen fit to make me useful, but the Company isn’t so sure of my worth now. They’d like to give me a pension, and I can’t blame them. A full colonel’s salary is a heavy item on the Company’s accounts.’ McCandless offered Sharpe a rueful look. ‘You fight for King and country, Sharpe, but I fight and die for the shareholders.’

‘They’d never replace you, sir!’ Sharpe said loyally.

‘They already have,’ McCandless admitted softly, ‘or Wellesley has. He has his own head of intelligence now, and the Company knows it, so they tell me I am a “supernumerary upon the establishment”.’ He shrugged. ‘They want to put me out to pasture, Sharpe, but they did give me this one last errand, and that’s the apprehension of Lieutenant William Dodd, though I rather think he’s going to be the death of me.’

‘He won’t, sir, not while I’m here.’

‘That’s why you are here, Sharpe,’ McCandless said seriously. ‘He’s younger than I am, he’s fitter than I am and he’s a better swordsman than I am, and that’s why I thought of you. I saw you fight at Seringapatam and I doubt Dodd can stand up to you.’

‘He won’t, sir, he won’t,’ Sharpe said grimly. ‘And I’ll keep you alive, sir.’

‘If God wills it.’

Sharpe smiled. ‘Don’t they say God helps those who help themselves, sir? We’ll do the job, sir.’

‘I pray you’re right, Sharpe,’ McCandless said, ‘I pray you’re right.’ And they would start at Ahmednuggur, where Dodd waited and where Sharpe’s new war would begin.