Sharpe's Fortress Part 19

"Ah." Wellesley grimaced.

"Never does work out, does it? You lift a man from the ranks and you do him no favours."

"He might be happier in an English regiment," Wallace said, 'so I'm recommending he exchanges into the Rifles."

"You mean they're not particular?" Wellesley asked, then scowled.

"How the devil are we to fight a war without horseshoes?" He kicked back at the mare, angry at the predicament.

"My G.o.d, b.u.t.ters, but your Captain Torrance must do his job!" Wellesley, better than anyone, knew that he would never take Gawilghur if the supply train failed.

And Gawilghur had never been taken.

Dear G.o.d, Wellesley thought, but how was it ever to be done?

"Big b.u.g.g.e.rs," Sergeant Eli Lockhart murmured as they neared the two green tents. The cavalryman was speaking of the guards who lolled in chairs outside Naig's tents. There were four in view, and two of them had bare, oiled chests that bulged with unnatural muscle. Their hair was never cut, but was instead coiled around their heads. They were keeping guard outside the larger of the tents, the one Sharpe guessed was Naig's brothel. The other tent might have been the merchant's living quarters, but its entrance was tightly laced, so Sharpe could not glimpse inside.

"The two greasy fellows are thejettis," Sharpe said.

"Big as b.l.o.o.d.y beeves, they are," Lockhart said.

"Do they really wring your neck?"

"Back to front," Sharpe said.

"Or else they drive a nail into your skull with their bare hand." He swerved aside to go past the tents. It was not that he feared to pick a fight with Naig's guards, indeed he expected a sc.r.a.p, but there was no point in going bald-headed into battle. A bit of cleverness would not go amiss.

"I'm being canny," he explained to Lockhart, then turned to make sure that Ahmed was keeping up. The boy was holding Sharpe's pack as well as his musket.

The four guards, all of them armed with fire locks and tulwars, watched the British soldiers walk out of sight.

"They didn't like the look of us," Lockhart said.

"Mangy b.u.g.g.e.rs, they are," Sharpe said. He was glancing about the encampment and saw what he wanted just a few paces away. It was some straw, and near it was a smouldering campfire, and he screwed a handful of the straw stalks into a spill that he lit and carried to the rear of the smaller tent. He pushed the flaming spill into a fold of the canvas.

A child watched, wide-eyed.

"If you say anything," Sharpe told the halfnaked child, "I'll screw your head off back to front." The child, who did not understand a word, grinned broadly.

"You're not really supposed to be doing this, are you?" Lockhart asked.

"No," Sharpe said. Lockhart grinned, but said nothing. Instead he just watched as the flames licked at the faded green canvas which, for a moment or two, resisted the fire. The material blackened, but did not burn, then suddenly it burst into fire that licked greedily up the tent's high side.

"That'll wake 'em up," Sharpe said.

"What now?" Lockhart asked, watching the flame sear up the tent's side.

"We rescue what's inside, of course." Sharpe drew his sabre.

"Come on, lads!" He ran back to? the front of the tent.

"Fire!" he shouted.

"Fire!

Fetch water! Fire!"

The four guards stared uncomprehendingly at the Englishman, then leaped to their feet as Sharpe slashed at the laces of the small tent's doorway. One of them called a protest to Sharpe.

"Fire!" Lockhart bellowed at the guards who, still unsure of what was happening, did not try to stop Sharpe. Then one of them saw the smoke billowing over the ridge of the tent. He yelled a warning into the larger tent as his companions suddenly moved to pull the Englishman away from the tent's entrance.

"Hold them off!" Sharpe called, and Lockhart's six troopers closed on the three men. Sharpe slashed at the lacing, hacking down through the tough rope as the troopers thumped into the guards. Someone swore, there was a grunt as a fist landed, then a yelp as a trooper's boot slammed into ajettfs groin. Sharpe sawed through the last knot, then pushed through the loosened tent flaps.

"Jesus!" He stopped, staring at the boxes and barrels and crates that were stacked in the tent's smoky gloom.

Lockhart had followed him inside.

"Doesn't even bother to hide the stuff properly, does he?" the Sergeant said in amazement, then crossed to a barrel and pointed to a 19 that had been cut into one of the staves.

"That's our mark! The b.u.g.g.e.r's got half our supplies!" He looked up at the flames that were now eating away the tent roof.

"We'll lose the b.l.o.o.d.y lot if we don't watch it."

"Cut the tent ropes," Sharpe suggested, 'and push it all down."

The two men ran outside and slashed at the guy ropes with their sabres, but more of Naig's men were coming from the larger tent now.

"Watch your back, Eli!" Sharpe called, then turned and sliced the curved blade towards ajetti's face. The man stepped back, and Sharpe followed up hard, slashing again, driving the huge man farther back.

"Now b.u.g.g.e.r off!" he shouted at the vast brute.

"There's a b.l.o.o.d.y fire! Fire!"

Lockhart had put his attacker on the ground and was now stamping on his face with a spurred boot. The troopers were coming to help and Sharpe let them deal with Naig's men while he cut through the last of the guy ropes, then ran back into the tent and heaved on the nearest pole. The air inside the tent was choking with swirling smoke, but at last the whole heavy array of canvas sagged towards the fire, lifting the canvas wall behind Sharpe into the air.

"Sahib!" Ahmed's shrill voice shouted and Sharpe turned to see a man aiming a musket at him. The lifting tent flap was exposing Sharpe, but he was too far away to rush the man, then Ahmed fired his own musket and the man shuddered, turned to look at the boy, then winced as the pain in his shoulder struck home. He dropped the gun and clapped a hand onto the wound. The sound of the shot startled the other guards and some reached for their own muskets, but Sharpe ran at them and used his sabre to beat the guns down.

"There's a b.l.o.o.d.y fire!" he shouted into their faces.

"A fire! You want everything to burn?" They did not understand him, but some realized that the fire threatened their master's supplies and so ran to haul the half-collapsed burning canvas away from the wooden crates.

"But who started the fire?" a voice said behind Sharpe, and he turned to see a tall, fat Indian dressed in a green robe that was embroidered with looping fish and long-legged water-birds. The fat man was holding a halfnaked child by the hand, the same small boy who had watched Sharpe push the burning straw into a crease of the canvas.

"British officers," the fat man said, 'have a deal of freedom in this country, but does that mean they can destroy an honest man's property?"

"Are you Naig?" Sharpe asked.

The fat man waved to his guards so that they gathered behind him.