Sharpe's Fortress Part 30

"Captain Urquhart says you might be selling your commission," Venables said.

"Does he?"

"Are you?"

"Are you making an offer?"

"I've got a brother, you see," Venables explained.

"Three actually.

And some sisters. My father might buy." He took a piece of paper from a pocket and handed it up to Sharpe.

"So if you go home, why not see my pater? That's his address. He reckons one of my brothers should join the army. Ain't any good for anything else, see?"

"I'll think on it," Sharpe said, taking the paper. The cavalry had stretched ahead and so he clapped his heels back, and the horse jerked forward, throwing Sharpe back in the saddle. For a second he sprawled, almost falling over the beast's rump, then he flailed wildly to catch his balance and just managed to grasp the saddle pommel. He thought he heard laughter as he trotted away from the battalion.

Gawilghur soared above the plain like a threat and Sharpe felt like a poacher with nowhere to hide. From up there, Sharpe reckoned, the approaching British army would look like so many ants in the dust. He wished he had a telescope to stare at the high, distant fortress, but he had been reluctant to spend money. He was not sure why. It was not that he was poor, indeed there were few soldiers richer, yet he feared that the real reason was that he felt fraudulent wearing an officer's sash, and that if he were to buy the usual appurtenances of an officer a horse and a telescope and an expensive sword then he would be mocked by those in the army who claimed he should never have been commissioned in the first place. Nor should he, he thought. He had been happier as a sergeant. Much happier. All the same, he wished he had a telescope as he gazed up at the stronghold and saw a great billow of smoke jet from one of the bastions. Seconds later he heard the fading boom of the gun, but he saw no sign of the shot falling. It was as though the cannonball had been swallowed into the warm air.

A mile short of the foothills the road split into three. The sepoy hors.e.m.e.n went westwards, while the igth Light Dragoons took the right hand path that angled away from the domineering fortress. The country became more broken as it was cut by small gullies and heaped with low wooded ridges thfe first hints of the tumultuous surge of land that ended in the vast cliffs. Trees grew thick in those foothills, and Deogaum was evidently among the low wooded hills. It lay east of Gawilghur, safely out of range of the fortress's guns. A crackle of musketry sounded from a timbered cleft and the igth Dragoons, riding ahead of Sharpe, spread into a line. Ahmed grinned and made sure his musket was loaded. Sharpe wondered which side the boy was on.

Another spatter of muskets sounded, this time to the west. The Mahrattas must have had men in the foothills. Perhaps they were stripping the villages of the stored grain? The sepoys of the East India Company cavalry had vanished, while the hors.e.m.e.n of the igth were filing into the wooded cleft. A gun boomed in the fort, and this time Sharpe heard a thump as a cannonball fell to earth like a stone far behind him. A patch of dust drifted from a field where the shot had plummeted, then he and Ahmed followed the dragoons into the gully and the leaves hid them from the invisible watchers high above.

The road twisted left and right, then emerged into a patchwork of small fields and woods. A large village lay beyond the fields Sharpe guessed it must be Deogaum then there were shots to his left and he saw a crowd of hors.e.m.e.n burst out of the trees a half-mile away. They were Mahrattas, and at first Sharpe thought they were intent on charging the igth Light Dragoons, then he realized they were fleeing from the Company cavalry. There were fifty or sixty of the enemy hors.e.m.e.n who, on seeing the blue-and-yellow-coated dragoons, swerved southwards to avoid a fight. The dragoons were turning, drawing sabres and spurring into pursuit. A trumpet sounded and the small fields were suddenly a whirl of horses, dust and gleaming weapons.

Sharpe reined in among a patch of trees, not wanting to be at the centre of a Mahratta cavalry charge. The enemy horse pounded past in a blur of hooves, shining helmets and lance points. The Company cavalry was still a quarter-mile behind when Ahmed suddenly kicked back his heels and shot out of the hiding place to follow the Mahratta cavalry.

Sharpe swore. The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d was running back to join the Mahrattas. Not that Sharpe could blame him, but he still felt disappointed. He knew he had no chance of catching Ahmed who had unslung his musket and now rode up behind the rearmost enemy horseman. That man looked round, saw Ahmed was not in British uniform, and so ignored him. Ahmed galloped alongside, then swung his musket by its barrel so that the heavy stock cracked into the Mahratta's forehead.

The man went off the back of his horse as though jerked by a rope.

His horse ran on, stirrups flapping. Ahmed reined in, turned and jumped down beside his victim. Sharpe saw the flash of a knife. The sepoy cavalry was closer now, and they might think Ahmed was the enemy, so Sharpe shouted at the boy to come back. Ahmed scrambled back into his saddle and kicked his horse to the trees where Sharpe waited. He had plundered a sabre, a pistol and a leather bag, and had a grin as wide as his face. The bag held two stale loaves of flat bread, some gla.s.s beads and a small book in a strange script. Ahmed gave one loaf to Sharpe, threw away the book, draped the cheap beads about his neck and hung the sabre at his waist, then watched as the dragoons cut into the rearward ranks of the fugitives. There was the blacksmith's sound of steel on steel, two horses stumbled in flurries of dust, a man staggered bleeding into a ditch, pistols banged, a lance shivered point downwards in the dry turf, and then the enemy horse was gone and the British and sepoy cavalry reined in.

"Why can't you be a proper servant?" Sharpe asked Ahmed.

"Clean my boots, wash my clothes, make my supper, eh?"

Ahmed, who did not understand a word, just grinned.

"Instead I get some murderous urchin. So come on, you b.u.g.g.e.r."

Sharpe kicked his horse towards the village. He pa.s.sed a half-empty tank where some clothes lay to dry on bushes, then he was in the dusty main street which appeared to be deserted, though he was aware of faces watching nervously from dark windows and curtain-hung doorways. Dogs growled from the shade and two chickens scratched in the dust. The only person in sight was a naked holy man who sat cross legged under a tree, with his long hair cascading to the ground about him. He ignored Sharpe, and Sharpe ignored him.

"We have to find a house," Sharpe told the uncomprehending Ahmed.

"House, see? House."

The village headman, the naique, ventured into the street. At least Sharpe a.s.sumed he was the naique, just as the naique a.s.sumed that the mounted soldier was the leader of the newly arrived cavalrymen. He clasped his hands before his face and bowed to Sharpe, then clicked his fingers to summon a servant carrying a small bra.s.s tray on which stood a little cup of arrack. The fierce liquor made Sharpe's head feel suddenly light. The naique was talking ten to the dozen, but Sharpe quietened him with a wave.

"No good talking to me," he said, "I'm n.o.body. Talk to him." He pointed to Colonel Huddlestone who was leading his Indian cavalrymen into the village. The troopers dismounted as Huddlestone talked to the headman. There was a squawk as the two chickens were s.n.a.t.c.hed up. Huddlestone turned at the sound, but his men all looked innocent.

High above Sharpe a gun banged in the fortress. The shot seared out to fall somewhere in the plain where the British infantry marched.

The dragoons came into the village, some with bloodied sabres, and Sharpe surrendered the two horses to Lockhart. Then he searched the street to find a house for Torrance. He saw nothing which had a walled garden, but he did find a small mud-walled home that had a courtyard and he dropped his pack in the main room as a sign of ownership. There was a woman with two small children who shrank away from him.

"It's all right," Sharpe said, 'you get paid. No one will hurt you." The woman wailed and crouched as though expecting to be hit.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," Sharpe said, 'does no one in this bleeding country speak English?"

He had nothing to do now until Torrance arrived. He could have hunted through the village to discover paper, a pen and ink so he could write to Simone and tell her about going to England, but he decided that ch.o.r.e could wait. He stripped off his belt, sabre and jacket, found a rope bed, and lay down.

Far overhead the fortress guns fired. It sounded like distant thunder.

Sharpe slept.

Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill tugged off his boots, releasing a stench into the room that caused Captain Torrance to close his eyes.

"Good G.o.d," Torrance said weakly. The Captain felt ill enough already. He had drunk the best part of a bottle of arrack, had woken in the night with gripes in the belly, and then slept unevenly until dawn when someone had scratched at his door and Torrance had shouted at, the pest to go away, after which he had at last fallen into a deeper sleep. Now he had been woken by Hakeswill who, oblivious of the stench, began to unwrap the cloths that bound his feet. It smelt, Torrance thought, like rotted cheese that had been stored in a corpse's belly. He shifted his chair slightly towards the window and pulled his dressing gown tighter about his chest.

"I'm truly sorry about Naig," Torrance said. Hakeswill had listened in disbelief to the tale of Naig's death and seemed genuinely saddened by it, just as he had been shocked by the news that Sharpe was now Torrance's a.s.sistant.

"The bleeding Scotch didn't want him, sir, did they?" Hakeswill said.

"Never thought the Scotch had much sense, but they had wits enough to get rid of Sharpie." Hakeswill had uncovered his right foot and Torrance, barely able to endure the stink, suspected there was black fungus growing between the Sergeant's toes.

"Now you've got him, sir," Hakeswill went on, 'and I pities you, I does. Decent officer like you, sir? Last thing you deserved. Bleeding Sharpie! He ain't got no right to be an officer, sir, not Sharpie. He ain't a gentleman like your good self, sir. He's just a common toad, like the rest of us."

"So why was he commissioned?" Torrance asked, watching as Hakeswill tugged at the crusted cloth on his left foot.

"On account of saving the General's life, sir. Leastwise, that's what is said." Hakeswill paused as a spasm made his face twitch.

"Saved Sir Arthur's life at a.s.saye. Not that I believe it, sir, but Sir Arthur does, and the result of that, sir, is that Sir Arthur thinks b.l.o.o.d.y Sharpie is a blue eyed boy. Sharpie farts and Sir Arthur thinks the wind's turned southerly."

"Does he now?" Torrance asked. That was worth knowing.

"Four years ago, sir," Hakeswill said, "I had Sharpie flogged. Would have been a dead 'un too, he would, like he deserved, only Sir Arthur stopped the flogging after two hundred lashes. Stopped it!" The injustice of the act still galled the Sergeant.

"Now he's a bleedin' officer. I tells you, sir, the army ain't what it was. Gone to the dogs, it has." He pulled the cloth from his left foot, then frowned at his toes.

"I washed them in August," he said in wonderment, 'but it don't look like it, does it?"

"It is now December, Sergeant," Torrance said reprovingly.

"A good sluice should last six months, sir."

"Some of us engage in a more regular toilet," Torrance hinted.

"You would, sir, being a gentleman. Thing is, sir, I wouldn't normally take the toe rags off, only there's a blister." Hakeswill frowned.