Sharpe's Fortress Part 56

"But what if they get in?" Beny Singh asked anxiously.

"Then they will kill you," Dodd said, 'and afterwards rape your wife, your concubines and your daughters. They'll line up for the pleasure, Killadar. They'll rut like hogs," and Dodd grunted like a pig and jerked his groin forward, driving Beny Singh back.

"They won't!" the Killadar declared.

"Because they won't get in," Dodd said, 'because some of us are men, and we will fight."

"I have poison!" Beny Singh said, not comprehending Dodd's last words.

"If they look like winning, Colonel, you'll send me word?"

Dodd smiled.

"You have my promise, sahib," he said with a pretended humility.

"Better my women should die," Beny Singh insisted.

"Better that you should die," Dodd said, 'unless you want to be forced to watch the white djinns take their pleasure on your dying women."

"They wouldn't!"

"What else do they want in here?" Dodd asked.

"Have they not heard of the beauty of your women? Each night they talk of them around their fires, and every day they dream of their thighs and their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They can't wait, Killadar. The pleasures of your women pull the redcoats towards us."

Beny Singh fled from the horrid words and Dodd smiled. He had come to realize that only one man could command here. Beny Singh was the fortress commander and though he was a despicable coward he was also a friend of the Rajah's, and that friendship ensured the loyalty of much of Gawilghur's standing garrison. The rest of the fortress defenders were divided into two camps. There were Manu Bappoo's soldiers, led by the remnants of the Lions of Allah and loyal to the Prince, and Dodd's Cobras. But if only one of the three leaders was left, then that man would rule Gawilghur, and whoever ruled Gawilghur could rule all India.

Dodd touched the stock of the rifle. That would help, and Beny Singh's abject terror would render the Killadar harmless. Dodd smiled and climbed to the ramparts from where, with a telescope, he watched the British heave the first gun up to the edge of the plateau. A week, he thought, maybe a day more, and then the British would come to his slaughter. And make his wildly ambitious dreams come true.

"The fellow was using a rifle!" Major Stokes said in wonderment. "I do declare, a rifle! Can't have been anything else at that range. Two hundred paces if it was an inch, and he fanned my head! A much underestimated weapon, the rifle, don't you think?"

"A toy," Captain Morris said.

"Nothing will replace muskets."

"But the accuracy!" Stokes declared.

"Soldiers can't use rifles," Morris said.

"It would be like giving knives and forks to hogs." He twisted in the camp chair and gestured at his men, the 33rd's Light Company.

"Look at them! Half of them can't work out which end of a musket is which. Useless b.u.g.g.e.rs. Might as well arm the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with pikes."

"If you say so," Stokes said disapprovingly. His road had reached the plateau and now he had to begin the construction of the breaching batteries, and the 33rd's Light Company, which had escorted Stokes north from Mysore, had been charged with the job of protecting the sappers who would build the batteries. Captain Morris had been unhappy with the orders, for he would have much preferred to have been sent back south rather than be camped by the rock isthmus that promised to be such a lively place in these next few days. There was a chance that Gawilghur's garrison might sally out to destroy the batteries, and even if that danger did not materialize, it was a certainty that the Mahratta gunners on the Outer Fort's walls would try to break down the new works with cannon fire.

Sergeant Hakeswill approached Stokes's tent. He looked distracted, so much so that his salute was perfunctory.

"You heard the news, sir?" He spoke to Morris.

Morris squinted up at the Sergeant.

"News," he said heavily, 'news?

Can't say I have, Sergeant. The enemy has surrendered, perhaps?"

"Nothing so good, sir, nothing so good."

"You look pale, man!" Stokes said.

"Are you sickening?"

"Heart-sick, sir, that's what I am in my own self, sir, heart-sick."

Sergeant Hakeswill sniffed heavily, and even cuffed at a non-existent tear on his twitching cheek.

"Captain Torrance," he announced, 'is dead, sir." The Sergeant took off his shako and held it against his breast.

"Dead, sir."

"Dead?" Stokes said lightly. He had not met Torrance.

"Took his own life, sir, that's what they do say. He killed his clerk with a knife, then turned his pistol on himself The Sergeant demonstrated the action by pretending to point a pistol at his own head and pulling the trigger. He sniffed again.

"And he was as good an officer as ever I did meet, and I've known many in my time. Officers and gentlemen, like your own good self, sir," he said to Morris.

Morris, as unmoved by Torrance's death as Stokes, smirked.

"Killed his clerk, eh? That'll teach the b.u.g.g.e.r to keep a tidy ledger."

"They do say, sir," Hakeswill lowered his voice, 'that he must have been unnatural."

"Unnatural?" Stokes asked.

"With his clerk, sir, pardon me for breathing such a filthy thing.

Him and the clerk, sir.

"Cos he was naked, see, the Captain was, and the clerk was a handsome boy, even if he was a blackamoor. He washed a lot, and the Captain liked that."

"Are you suggesting it was a lovers' tiff?" Morris asked, then laughed.

"No, sir," Hakeswill said, turning to stare across the plateau's edge into the immense sky above the Deccan Plain, 'because it weren't. The Captain weren't ever unnatural, not like that. It weren't a lovers' tiff, sir, not even if he was naked as a needle. The Captain, sir, he liked to go naked. Kept him cool, he said, and kept his clothes clean, but there weren't nothing strange in it. Not in him. And he weren't a man to be filthy and unnatural. He liked the bibb is he did. He was a Christian. A Christian gentleman, that's what he was, and he didn't kill himself. I knows who killed him, I do."

Morris gave Stokes a shrug, as if Hakeswill's maunderings were beyond understanding.

"But the nub of the thing is, sir' - Hakeswill turned back to face Morris and stood to attention 'that I ain't with the bullocks no more, sir. I've got orders, sir, to be back with you where I belongs, sir, seeing as some other officer has got Captain Torrance's duties and he didn't want me no more on account of having his own sergeant." He replaced his shako, then saluted Morris.

"Under orders, sir! With Privates Kendrick and Lowry, sir. Others have taken over our bullocking duties, sir, and we is back with you like we always wanted to be. Sir!"