Sharpe's Fortress Part 16

"Who said anything about a sc.r.a.p?" Sharpe asked.

"He's got horseshoes," Lockhart explained, 'but we don't have money. So there's only one way to get them off him."

"True," Sharpe said, and grinned.

Lockhart suddenly looked oddly shy.

"Was you in the Captain's quarters, sir?"

"Yes, why?"

The tough-looking Sergeant was actually blushing now.

"You didn't see a woman there, did you, sir?"

"Dark-haired girl. Pretty?"

"That's her."

"Who is she?"

"Torrance's servant. A widow. He brought her and her husband out from England, but the fellow died and left her on her own. Torrance won't let her go."

"And you'd like to take her off his hands, is that it?"

"I've only ever seen her at a distance," the Sergeant admitted.

"Torranee was in another regiment, one of the Madra.s.si's, but we camped together often enough."

"She's still there," Sharpe said drily, 'still alive."

"He keeps her close, he does," Lockhart said, then kicked a dog out of his path. The eight men had left the village and entered the sprawling encampment where the merchants with their herds, wagons and families were camped. Great white oxen with painted horns were hobbled by pegs, and children scurried among the beasts collecting their dung which they slapped into cakes that would be dried for fuel.

"So tell me about these jet tis Lockhart asked.

"Like circus strongmen," Sharpe said, 'only it's some kind of religious thing. Don't ask me. None of it makes bleeding sense to me. Got muscles like mountains, they have, but they're slow. I killed four of the b.u.g.g.e.rs at Seringapatam."

"And you know Hakeswill?"

"I know b.l.o.o.d.y Hakeswill. Recruited me, he did, and he's been persecuting me ever since. He shouldn't even be with this army, he's supposed to be with the Havercakes down south, but he came up here with a warrant to arrest me. That didn't work, so he's just stayed, hasn't he? And he's working the bleeding system! You can wager your last shilling that he's the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who supplies Naig, and splits the profit."

Sharpe stopped to look for green tents.

"How come you don't carry your own spare horseshoes?"

"We do. But when they've gone you have to get more from the supplies. That's how the system's supposed to work. And yesterday's pursuit left half the hooves wrecked. We need shoes."

Sharpe had seen a cl.u.s.ter of faded green tents.

"That's where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is," he said, then looked at Lockhart.

"This could get nasty."

Lockhart grinned. He was as tall as Sharpe and had a face that looked as though it had survived a lifetime of tavern brawls.

"Come this far, ain't I?"

"Is that thing loaded?" Sharpe nodded at the pistol at Lockhart's belt.

A sabre also hung there, just like the one at Sharpe's hip.

"It will be." Lockhart drew the pistol and Sharpe turned to Ahmed and mimed the actions of loading the musket. Ahmed grinned and pointed to the lock, indicating that his weapon was already charged.

"How many of the b.u.g.g.e.rs will be waiting for us?" Lockhart asked.

"A dozen?" Sharpe guessed.

Lockhart glanced back at his six men.

"We can deal with a dozen b.u.g.g.e.rs."

"Right," Sharpe said, 'so let's b.l.o.o.d.y well make some trouble." He grinned, because for the first time since he had become an officer he was enjoying himself.

Which meant someone was about to get a thumping.

CHAPTER 3.

Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley rode northwards among a cavalcade of officers whose horses kicked up a wide trail of dust that lingered in the air long after the hors.e.m.e.n had pa.s.sed. Two troops of East India Company cavalry provided the General's escort. Manu Bappoo's army might have been trounced and its survivors sent skeltering back into Gawilghur, but the Deccan Plain was still infested with Mahratta cavalry ready to pounce on supply convoys, wood-cutting parties or the gra.s.s-cutters who supplied the army's animals with fodder and so the two troops rode with sabres drawn. Wellesley set a fast pace, revelling in the freedom to ride in the long open country.

"Did you visit Colonel Stevenson this morning?" he called back to an aide.

"I did, sir, and he's no better than he was."

"But he can get about?"

"On his elephant, sir."

Wellesley grunted. Stevenson was the commander of his smaller army, but the old Colonel was ailing. So was Harness, the commander of one of Wellesley's two brigades, but there was no point in asking about Harness. It was not just physical disease that a.s.saulted Harness, for the Scotsman's wits were gone as well. The doctors claimed it was the heat that had desiccated his brains, but Wellesley doubted the diagnosis. Heat and rum, maybe, but not the heat alone, though he did not doubt that India's climate was bad for a European's health. Few men lived long without falling prey to some wasting fever, and Wellesley was thinking it was time he left himself. Time to go back home before his health was abraded and, more important, before his existence was forgotten in London. French armies were unsettling all Europe and it could not be long before London despatched an army to fight the old foe, and Wellesley wanted to be a part of it. He was in his middle thirties and he had a reputation to make, but first he had to finish off the Mahrattas, and that meant taking Gawilghur, and to that end he was now riding towards the great rampart of cliffs that sealed off the plain's northern edge.

An hour's ride brought him to the summit of a small rise which offered a view northwards. The plain looked dun, starved of water by the failed monsoon, though here and there patches of millet grew tall. In a good year, Wellesley guessed, the millet would cover the plain from horizon to horizon, a sea of grain bounded by the Gawilghur cliffs. He dismounted on the small knoll and took out a telescope that he settled on his horse's saddle. It was a brand new gla.s.s, a gift from the merchants of Madras to mark Wellesley's pacification of Mysore. Trade now moved freely on India's eastern flank, and the telescope, which had been specially ordered from Matthew Berge of London, was a generous token of the merchants' esteem, but Wellesley could not get used to it.

The shape of the eyepiece was less concave than the one he was used to, and after a moment he snapped the new telescope shut and pulled out his old gla.s.s which, though lower powered, was more comfortable.

He stared for a long time, gazing at the fort which crowned the rock promontory. The black stone of the fortress walls looked particularly sinister, even in the sunlight.

"Good G.o.d," the General muttered after a while. Fail up there, he thought, and there would be no point in going home. He could go to London with some victories under his belt, and men would respect him even if the victories had not been against the French, but go with a defeat and they would despise him. Gawilghur, he thought sourly, had the look of a career-breaker.

Colonel Wallace, Wellesley's healthy brigade commander, had also dismounted and was inspecting the fortress through his own gla.s.s.