Sharpe's Fortress (30 page)

A half-hour later Sharpe returned, trotting with a group of native horsemen coming
back from a reconnaissance. He peeled away from them and dismounted by his tent where
Ahmed waited for him While Sharpe and Garrard had made the diversion the boy had been
thieving and he grinned broadly as Sharpe ducked into the hot tent.

“I have every things,” Ahmed said proudly.

He had taken Captain Morris's red coat, his sash and his sword-belt with its sabre.

“You're a good lad,” Sharpe said. He needed a red coat, for Colonel Stevenson had given
orders that every man who went into Gawilghur with the attackers must be in uniform so
that they were not mistaken for the enemy. Syud Sevajee's men, who planned to hunt down
Beny Singh, had been issued with some threadbare old sepoys' jackets, some of them still
stained with the blood of their previous owners, but none of the jackets had fitted
Sharpe. Even Morris's coat would be a tight fit, but at least he had a uniform now.

“No trouble?”

Sharpe asked Ahmed.

“No bugger saw me,” the boy said proudly. His English was improving every day, though
Sharpe worried that it was not quite the King's English. Ahmed grinned again as Sharpe gave
him a coin that he stuffed into his robes.

Sharpe folded the jacket over his arm and stooped out of the tent.

He was looking for Clare and saw her a hundred paces away, walking with a tall soldier
who was dressed in a shirt, black trousers and spurred boots. She was deep in conversation,
and Sharpe felt a curious pang of jealousy as he approached, but then the soldier turned
round, frowned at Sharpe's ragged appearance, then recognized the man under the head
cloth. He grinned.

“Mister Sharpe,” he said.

“Eli Lockhart,” Sharpe said.

“What the hell are the cavalry doing here?” He jerked his thumb towards the fort that
was edged with white smoke as the defenders tried to hammer the British batteries.

“This is a job for real soldiers.”

“Our Colonel persuaded the General that Mister Dodd might make a run for it. He
reckoned a dozen cavalrymen could head him off.”

“Dodd won't run,” Sharpe said.

“He won't have space to get a horse out.”

“So we'll go in with you,” Lockhart said.

“We've got a quarrel with Mister Dodd, remember?”

Clare was looking shy and alarmed, and Sharpe reckoned she did not want Sergeant Lockhart
to know that she had spent time with Ensign Sharpe.

“I was looking for Mrs. Wall,” he explained to Lockhart.

“If you can spare me a few minutes, Ma'am?”

Clare shot Sharpe a look of gratitude.

“Of course, Mister Sharpe.”

“It's this jacket, see?” He held out Morris's coat.

"It's got red facings and turn backs and I need white ones He took off his head cloth.

"I wondered if you could use this. I know it's a bit filthy, and I hate to trouble
you, Ma'am, but I don't reckon my sewing's up to making turn backs cuffs and collars."

“You could take that captain's badge off while you're about it, love,” Lockhart
suggested to Clare, 'and the skirmisher's wings. Don't reckon Mister Sharpe wants that
coat's real owner to recognize it."

“I'd rather he didn't,” Sharpe admitted.

Clare took the coat, gave Sharpe another grateful look, then hurried towards
Sevajee's tents. Lockhart watched her go.

“Been wanting a chance to talk to her for three years,” he said wonderingly.

“So you found it, eh?”

Lockhart still watched her.

“A rare-looking woman, that.”

“Is she? I hadn't really noticed,” Sharpe lied.

“She said you'd been kind to her,” Lockhart said.

“Well, I tried to help, you know how it is,” Sharpe said awkwardly.

“That bloody man Torrance killed himself and she had nowhere to go. And you found her, eh?
Most officers would try to take advantage of a woman like that,” Lockhart said.

“I'm not a proper officer, am I?” Sharpe replied. He had seen the way that Clare looked
at the tall cavalryman, and how Lockhart had stared at her, and Sharpe reckoned that it
was best to stand aside.

“I had a wife,” Lockhart said, 'only she died on the voyage out. Good little woman, she
was."

“I'm sorry,” Sharpe said.

“And Mrs. Wall,” Lockhart went on, 'lost her husband." Widow meets widower. Any minute
now, Sharpe thought, and the word fate would be used.

“It's destiny,” Lockhart said in a tone of wonderment.

“So what are you going to do about her?” Sharpe asked.

“She says she ain't got a proper home now,” Lockhart said, 'except the tent you lent her,
and my Colonel won't mind me taking a wife."

“Have you asked her?”

“More or less,” Lockhart said, blushing.

“And she said yes?”

“More or less,” Lockhart said again, blushing more deeply.

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said admiringly, 'that's quick!"

“Real soldiers don't wait,” Lockhart said, then frowned.

“I heard a rumour you'd been snaffled by the enemy?”

“Got away,” Sharpe said vaguely.

“Buggers were careless.” He turned and watched as an errant rocket from the fort soared
up into the cloudless sky to leave a thickening pile of smoke through which, eventually,
it tumbled harmlessly to earth.

“Are you really joining the attack?” he asked Lockhart.

“Not in the front rank,” Lockhart said.

“I ain't a fool. But Colonel Huddlestone says we can go in and look for Dodd. So we'll
wait for you boys to do the hard work, then follow.”

“I'll look out for you.”

“And we'll keep an eye on you,” Lockhart promised.

“But in the meantime I'll go and see if someone needs a needle threaded.”

“You do that,” Sharpe said. He watched the cavalryman walk away, and saw, at the same
time, that Ahmed had been evicted from Clare's tent with Sharpe's few belongings. The boy
looked indignant, but Sharpe guessed their exile from the tent would not last long, for
Clare would surely move to the cavalryman's quarters before nightfall. Ding dong, he
thought, wedding bells. He took the pouch with its jewels from Ahmed, then, while his
uniform was being tailored, he went to watch the guns gnaw and batter at the fort.

The young horseman who presented himself at the gate of Gawilghur's Inner Fort was
tall, arrogant and self-assured. He was dressed in a white silk robe that was tied at the
waist with a red leather belt from which a golden-hilted tulwar hung in a gem-encrusted
scabbard, and he did not request that the gates be opened, but rather demanded it. There
was, in truth, no good reason to deny his orders, for men were constantly traversing the
ravine between the two forts and Dodd's Cobras were accustomed to opening and closing the
gates a score of times each day, but there was something in the young man's demeanour that
annoyed Gopal. So he sent for Colonel Dodd.

Dodd arrived a few moments later with the twitching English Sergeant at his side. The
horseman rounded on Dodd, shouting at him to punish Gopal, but Dodd just spat, then turned
to Hakeswill.

“Why would a man be riding a horse out of this gate?”

“Wouldn't know, sir,” Hakeswill said. The Sergeant was now dressed in a white coat that was
crossed with a black sash as a sign of rank, though quite what rank the sash denoted was
uncertain.

“There's nowhere to exercise a horse,” Dodd said, 'not unless he plans to ride through
the Outer Fort into the English camp. Ask him his business, Gopal."

The young man refused to answer. Dodd shrugged, drew his pistol and aimed it at the
horseman's head. He cocked the gun and the sound of the hammer engaging echoed loudly from
the ramparts. The young man blanched and shouted at Gopal.

“He says, sahib, that he is on an errand for the Killadar,” Gopal explained to Dodd.

“What errand?” Dodd demanded. The young man plainly did not want to answer, but Dodd's
grim face and the levelled pistol persuaded him to take a sealed packet from the pouch
that hung from his belt.

He showed Dodd the Killadar's seal, but Dodd was not impressed by the red wax with its
impression of a snake curled about a knife blade.

“Who is it addressed to?” he demanded, gesturing that the young man turn the package
over.

The horseman obeyed and Dodd saw that the packet was addressed to the commanding
officer of the British camp. It must have been written by a clerk who was unfamiliar with
the English language, for it was atrociously spelt, but the words were unmistakable and
Dodd stepped forward and seized the horse's bridle.

“Haul him out of the saddle, Gopal,” Dodd ordered, 'hold him in the guardroom and send a
man to fetch Manu Bappoo."

The young man attempted a momentary resistance, even half drawing his tulwar from
its precious scabbard, but a dozen of Dodd's men easily overpowered him. Dodd himself
turned away and climbed the steps to the rampart, motioning Hakeswill to follow him.

“It's obvious what the Killadar is doing,” Dodd growled.

“He's trying to make peace.”

“I thought we couldn't be defeated here, sir,” Hakeswill said in some alarm.

“We can't,” Dodd said, 'but Beny Singh is a coward. He thinks life should be nothing but
women, music and games."

Which sounded just splendid to Obadiah Hakeswill, but he said nothing. He had
presented himself to Dodd as an aggrieved British soldier who believed the war against
the Mahrattas was unfair.

“We ain't got no business here, sir,” he had said, 'not in heathen land. It belongs to
the blackamoors, don't it? And there ain't nothing here for a redcoat."

Dodd had not believed a word of it. He suspected Hakeswill had fled the British army to
avoid trouble, but he could hardly blame the Sergeant for that. Dodd himself had done the
same, and Dodd did not care about Hakeswill's motives, only that the Sergeant was willing to
fight. And Dodd believed his men fought better when white men gave them orders.

“There's a steadiness about the English, Sergeant,” he had told Hakeswill, 'and it gives
the natives bottom."

“It gives them what, sir?” Hakeswill had asked.

Dodd had frowned at the Sergeant's obtuseness.

“You ain't Scotch, are you?”

"Christ no, sir! I ain't a bleeding Scotchman, nor a Welshman.

English, sir, I am, through and through, sir." His face twitched.

“English, sir, and proud of it.”

So Dodd had given Hakeswill a white jacket and a black sash, then put him in charge of a
company of his Cobras.

“Fight well for me here, Sergeant,” he told Hakeswill when the two men reached the top of
the rampart, 'and I'll make you an officer."

“I shall fight, sir, never you mind, sir. Fight like a demon, I will.”

And Dodd believed him, for if Hakeswill did not fight then he risked being captured by
the British, and God alone knew what trouble he would then face. Though in truth Dodd did not
see how the British could penetrate the Inner Fort. He expected them to take the Outer
Fort, for there they had a flat approach and their guns were already blasting down the
breaches, but they would have a far greater problem in capturing the Inner Fort. He showed
that problem now to Hakeswill.

“There's only one way in, Sergeant, and that's through this gate. They can't assault the
walls, because the slope of the ravine is too steep. See?”

Hakeswill looked to his left and saw that the wall of the Inner Fort was built on an
almost sheer slope. No man could climb that and hope to assail a wall, even a breached wall,
which meant that Dodd was right and the attackers would have to try -and batter down the
four gates that barred the entranceway, and those gates were defended by Dodd's
Cobras.

“And my men have never known defeat, Sergeant,” Dodd said.

“They've watched other men beaten, but they've not been outfought themselves. And here
the enemy will have to beat us. Have to! But they can't. They can't.” He fell silent, his
clenched fists resting on the fire step

The sound of the guns was constant, but the only sign of the bombardment was the
misting smoke that hung over the far side of the Outer Fort. Manu Bappoo, who commanded
there, was now hurrying back towards the Inner Fort and Dodd watched the Prince climb the
steep path to the gates. The hinges squealed as, one after the other, the gates were opened
to let Bappoo and his aides in. Dodd smiled as the last gate was unbarred.

“Let's go and make some mischief,” he said, turning back to the steps.

Manu Bappoo had already opened the letter that Gopal had given to him. He looked up as
Dodd approached.

“Read it,” he said simply, thrusting the folded paper towards the Colonel.

“He wants to surrender?” Dodd asked, taking the letter.

“Just read it,” Bappoo said grimly.

The letter was clumsily written, but intelligible. Beny Singh, as Killa-dar of
the Rajah of Berar's fortress of Gawilghur, was offering to yield the fort to the British
on the sole condition that the lives of all the garrison and their dependants were
spared. None was to be hurt, none was to be imprisoned. The British were welcome to
confiscate all the weaponry in the fort, but they were to allow Gawilghur's inhabitants
to leave with such personal property as could be carried away on foot or horseback.

“Of course the British will accept!” Manu Bappoo said.

“They don't want to die in the breaches!”

“Has Beny Singh the authority to send this?” Dodd asked.

Bappoo shrugged, “He's Killadar.”

“You're the general of the army. And the Rajah's brother.”

Bappoo stared up at the sky between the high walls of the entranceway.

“One can never tell with my brother,” he said.

“Maybe he wants to surrender? But he hasn't told me. Maybe, if we lose, he can blame me,
saying he always wanted to yield.”

“But you won't yield?”

“We can win here!” Bappoo said fiercely, then turned towards the palace as Gopal
announced that the Killadar himself was approaching.