Sharpe's Fortress (40 page)

“Right you are, sir! Twenty men, covering fire.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Sharpe said. So Morris was conscious again, and probably already
making trouble, but Sharpe could not worry about that. He looked at his men. They numbered
seventy or eighty now, and still more Scotsmen and sepoys were coming up the cliff and
crossing the wall. He waited until they all had loaded muskets and their ramrods were
back in their hoops.

“Just follow me, lads, and when we get there kill the bastards. Now!” He turned and faced
east.

“Come on!”

“At the double!” Campbell called to his company.

“Forward!”

The fox was in the henhouse. Feathers would fly.

The 74th, climbing the road that led from the plain to Gawilghur's Southern Gate, could
hear the distant musketry sounding like a burning thorn grove. It crackled, flared up to a
crescendo, then faded again. At times it seemed as though it would die altogether and
then, just as sweating men decided the battle must be over, it rattled loud and furious
once more. There was nothing the 74th could do to help. They were still three hundred feet
beneath the fortress and from now on they would be within killing range of the guns mounted
on Gawilghur's south-facing ramparts. Those guns had been firing at the 74th for over an
hour now, but the range had been long and the downward angle steep, so that not a ball had
struck home. If the 74th had had their own artillery, they could have fired back, but the
slope was too steep for any gun to fire effectively. The gunners would have had to site
their cannon on a steep upwards ramp, and every shot would have threatened to turn the guns
over. The 74th could go no farther, not without taking needless casualties, and so
Wellesley halted them. If the defenders on the southern wall looked few he might
contemplate an escalade, but the sepoys carrying the ladders had fallen far behind the
leading troops so no such attack could be contemplated yet. Nor did the General truly
expect to try such an assault, for the 74th's task had always been to keep some of the
fort's defenders pinned to their southern walls while the real attack came from the north.
That purpose, at least, was being accomplished, for the walls facing the steep southern
slope looked thick with defenders.

Sir Arthur Wellesley dismounted from his horse and climbed to a vantage point from which
he could stare at the fortress. Colonel Wallace and a handful of aides followed, and the
officers settled by some rocks from where they tried to work out what the noise of the
battle meant.

“No guns,” Wellesley said after cocking his head to the distant sound.

“No guns, sir?” an aide asked.

“There's no sound of cannon fire,” Colonel Wallace explained, 'which surely means the
Outer Fort is taken."

“But not the Inner?” the aide asked.

Sir Arthur did not even bother to reply. Of course the Inner Fort was not taken,
otherwise the sound of fighting would have died away altogether and fugitives would be
streaming from the Southern Gate towards the muskets of the 74th. And somehow, despite
his misgivings, Wellesley had dared to hope that Kenny's assault would wash over both sets
of ramparts, and that by the time the 74th reached the road's summit the great Southern Gate
would already have been opened by triumphant redcoats. Instead a green and gold flag hung
from the gate tower which bristled with the muskets of its defenders.

Wellesley now wished that he had ridden to the plateau and followed Kenny's men through
the breaches. What the hell was happening? He had no way of reaching the plateau except to
ride all the way down to the plain and then back up the newly cut road, a distance of over
twenty miles. He could only wait and hope.

“You'll advance your skirmishers, Colonel?” he suggested to Wallace. The 74th's
skirmishers could not hope to achieve much, but at least their presence would confirm the
threat to the southern walls and so pin those defenders down.

“But spread them out,” Wellesley advised, 'spread them well out." By scattering the
Light Company across the hot hillside he would protect them from cannon fire.

Beyond the southern ramparts, far beyond, a pillar of smoke smeared the sky grey. The
sound of firing rose and fell, muted by the hot air that shimmered over the fort's black
walls. Wellesley fidgeted and hoped to God his gamble would pay off and that his redcoats,
God alone knew how, had found a way into the fort that had never before fallen.

“Give them fire!” Major Stokes roared at the men on the ravine's northern side.

“Give them fire!” Other officers took up the call, and the men who had been watching the
fight across the ravine loaded their fire locks and began peppering the gatehouse with
musket balls. Stokes had climbed back up the northern side of the ravine so that he could see
across the farther wall, and he now watched as the two small groups of redcoats advanced
raggedly over the hillside. A column was farthest away, while the nearer men were in a
line, and both advanced on the strongly garrisoned gatehouse which had just repelled yet
another British attack through the broken gate. Those defenders would now turn their
muskets on the new attackers and so Stokes roared at men to fire across the ravine. The
range was terribly long, but any distraction would help. The gunners who had smashed down
the gate fired at the parapets, their shots chipping at stone.

“Go, man, go!” Stokes urged Sharpe.

“Go!”

Captain Morris, his mouth swollen and bleeding, and with a bruise blackening one eye
and another disfiguring his forehead, staggered up the hillside.

“Major Stokes!” he called petulantly.

“Major Stokes.”

Stokes turned to him. His first reaction was that Morris must have been wounded trying
to cross the wall, and he decided he must have misjudged the man who was not, after all,
such a coward.

“You need a surgeon, Captain?”

“That bloody man, Sharpe! He hit me! Hit me! Stole my company. I want charges
levelled.”

“Hit you?” Stokes asked, bemused.

“Stole my company!” Morris said in outrage.

"I ordered him to go away, and he hit me! I'm telling you, sir, because you're a senior
officer.

You can talk to some of my men, sir, and hear their story. Some of them witnessed the
assault, and I shall look for your support, sir, in the proceedings."

Stokes wanted to laugh. So that was how Sharpe had found the men!

"I

think you'd better forget bringing charges against Mister Sharpe," the engineer
said.

“Forget bringing charges?” Morris exclaimed.

“I will not! I'll break the bastard!”

“I doubt it,” Stokes said.

“He hit me!” Morris protested.

“He assaulted me!”

“Nonsense,” Stokes said brusquely.

"You fell over. I saw you do it.

Tripped and tumbled. And that's precisely what I'll allege at any court martial. Not
that there'll be a court martial. You simply fell over, man, and now you're suffering from
delusions! Maybe it's a touch of the sun, Captain? You should be careful, otherwise you'll
end up like poor

Harness. We shall ship you home and you'll end your days in bedlam with chains round your
ankles."

“Sir! I protest!” Morris said.

“You protest too much, Captain,” Stokes said.

"You tripped, and that's what I shall testify if you're foolish enough to bring
charges.

Even my boy saw you trip. Ain't that so, Ahmed?" Stokes turned to get Ahmed's agreement,
but he had vanished.

“Oh, God,” Stokes said, and started down the hill to find the boy.

But sensed he was already too late.

The first hundred paces of Sharpe's advance were easy enough, for the sun-baked ground
was open and his men were still out of sight of the gatehouse. The few defenders who had
manned the wall above the ravine had fled, but as soon as the redcoats breasted the slope of
the hill to see the gatehouse ahead, the enemy musketry began.

“Keep running!” Sharpe shouted, though it was hardly a run. They staggered and
stumbled, their scabbards and haversacks banging and flapping, and the sun burned down
relentlessly and the dry ground spurted puffs of dust as enemy musket balls flicked home.
Sharpe was dimly aware of a cacophony of musketry from his left, the fire of the thousands
of redcoats on the other side of the ravine, but the gatehouse defenders were sheltered
by the outer parapet. A group of those defenders was manhandling a cannon round to face
the new attack.

“Just keep going!”

Sharpe called, the breath rasping in his throat. Christ, but he was thirsty.

Thirsty, hungry and excited. The gatehouse was fogged by smoke as its defenders fired
their muskets at the unexpected attack that was coming out of the west.

Off to his right Sharpe could see more defenders, but they were not firing, indeed they
were not even formed in ranks. Instead they bunched beside a low wall that seemed to edge
some gardens and supinely watched the confrontation. A building reared up beyond that,
half obscured by trees. The place was huge! Hilltop after hilltop lay within the vast ring
of Gawilghur's Inner Fort, and there had to be a thousand places for the enemy to
assemble a force to attack Sharpe's open right flank, but he dared not worry about that
possibility. All that mattered now was to reach the gatehouse and kill its defenders and
so let a torrent of redcoats through the entrance.

The cannon fired from the gatehouse. The ball struck the dry ground fifty yards ahead of
Sharpe and bounced clean over his head. The smoke of the gun spread in front of the parapet,
spoiling the aim of the defenders, and Sharpe blessed the gunners and prayed that the smoke
would linger. He had a stitch in his side, and his ribs still hurt like hell from the kicking
that Hakeswill had given him, but he knew they had surprised this enemy, and an enemy
surprised was already half beaten.

The smoke thinned and the muskets flamed from the wall again, making more smoke. Sharpe
turned to shout at his men.

"Come on!

Hurry!" He was crossing a stretch of ground where some of the garrison had made
pathetic little lodges of thin branches propped against half dead trees and covered with
sacking. Ash showed where fires had burned. It was a dumping ground. There was a rusting
iron cannon carriage, a stone trough that had split in two and the remains of an ancient
windlass made of wood that had been sun-whitened to the colour of bone. A small brown snake
twisted away from him. A woman, thin as the snake and clutching a baby, fled from one of
the shelters. A cat hissed at him from another. Sharpe dodged between the small trees,
kicking up dust, breathing dust. A musket ball flicked up a puff of fire ash, another
clanged off the rusting gun carriage.

He blinked through the sweat that stung his eyes to see that the gate passage's inner wall
was lined with white-coated soldiers. The wall was a good hundred paces long, and its fire
step was reached by climbing the flight of stone steps that led up beside the innermost
gate.

Campbell and his men were running towards that gate and Sharpe was now alongside them.
He would have to fight his way up the stairs, and he knew that it would be impossible, that
there were too many defenders, and he flinched as the cannon fired again, only this time it
belched a barrelful of canister that threw up a storm of dust devils all about Sharpe's
leading men.

“Stop!” he shouted.

“Stop! Form line!” He was close to the wall, damned close, not more than forty paces.

“Present!” he shouted, and his men raised their muskets to aim at the top of the wall.
Smoke still hid half the rampart, though the other half was clear and the defenders were
firing fast. A Scotsman staggered backwards and a sepoy folded over silently and
clutched his bleeding belly. A small dog yapped at the soldiers. The smoke was clearing
from the mouth of the cannon.

“You've got one volley,” Sharpe called, 'then we charge. Sergeant

Green? I don't want your men to fire now. Wait till we reach the top of the steps, then give
us covering fire." Sharpe wanted to lash out with his boot at the damned dog, but he forced
himself to show calm as he paced down the front of the line.

“Aim well, boys, aim well! I want that wall cleared.” He stepped into a space between two
files.

“Fire!”

The single volley flamed towards the top of the wall and Sharpe immediately ran at
the steps without waiting to see the effect of the fire. Campbell was already at the
innermost gate, lifting its heavy bar.

He had a dozen men ready to enter the passageway, while the rest of his company faced
back into the fort's interior to fight off any of the garrison who might come down from
the buildings on the hill.

Sharpe took the steps two at a time. This is bloody madness, he thought. Suicide in a hot
place. Should have stayed in the ravine. The sun beat off the stones so that it was like being
in an oven. There were men with him, though he could not see who they were, for he was only
aware of the top of the stairs, and of the men in white who were turning to face him with
bayonets, and then Green's first volley slammed into them, and one of the men spun
sideways, spurting a spray of blood from his scalp, and the others instinctively twitched
away from the volley and Sharpe was there, the claymore slashing in a haymaker's sweep
that bounced off the wounded man's skull to drive a second man over the wall's unprotected
edge and into the passageway.

Where the innermost gate was opening, scraping on the stone and squealing on its huge
hinges as Campbell's men heaved on the vast doors.

A bayonet lunged at Sharpe, catching his coat, and he hammered the hilt of the claymore
down onto the man's head, then brought up his knee. Lockhart was beside him, fighting with
a cold-blooded ferocity, his sabre spattering drops of blood with every cut or
lunge.

“Over there!” Lockhart shouted to his men, and a half-dozen of the cavalrymen ran
across the top of the archway to challenge the defenders on the outer walkway. Tom
Garrard came up on Sharpe's right and plunged his bayonet forward in short, disciplined
strokes. More men ran up the stairs and pushed at those in front so that Sharpe, Lockhart and
Garrard were shoved forward against the enemy who had no space to use their bayonets. The
press of men also protected Sharpe from the enemy's muskets. He beat down with the heavy
sword, using his height to dominate the Indians who were keening a high-pitched war
cry.

A bayonet hit Sharpe plumb on his hip bone and he felt the steel grind on bone and he
slammed the claymore's hilt down onto the man's head to crumple his shako, then down again
to beat the man to the ground. The bayonet fell away and Sharpe climbed over the stunned man
to slash at another defender. A musket banged close by him and he felt the scorch of the
barrel flame on his burnt cheek. The press of men was thick, too thick to make progress, even
though he beat at them with the sword which he cut downwards with both hands.