Sharpe's Fortress Part 71

"Yes, sir."

Wellesley had thought about riding to the plateau and entering the fortress behind Kenny, but he guessed his presence would merely distract men who had enough problems to face without worrying about their commander's approval. Instead he would ride the steep southern road and join Wallace and the 74th. All those men could hope for was that the other attackers got inside the Inner Fort and opened the Southern Gate, or else they would have to march ignominiously back down the hill to their encampment. It was all or nothing, Wellesley thought. Victory or disgrace.

He mounted, waited for his aides to a.s.semble, then touched his horse's flank with his spurs. G.o.d help us now, he prayed, G.o.d help us now.

Lieutenant Colonel Kenny examined the breaches through a telescope that he had propped on a rock close to one of the breaching batteries.

The guns were firing, but he ignored the vast noise as he gazed at the stone ramps which his men must climb.

"They're steep, man," he grumbled, 'd.a.m.ned steep."

"The walls are built on a slope," Major Stokes pointed out, 'so the breaches are steep of necessity."

"d.a.m.ned hard to climb though," Kenny said.

"They're practical," Stokes declared. He knew the breaches were steep, and that was why the guns were still firing. There was no hope of making the breaches less steep, the slope of the hill saw to that, but at least the continued bombardment gave the attacking infantry the impression that the gunners were attempting to alleviate the difficulties.

"You've made holes in the walls," Kenny said, "I'll grant you that.

You've made holes, but that don't make them practical holes, Stokes.

They're d.a.m.ned steep."

"Of necessity," Stokes repeated patiently.

"We ain't monkeys, you know," Kenny complained.

"I think you'll find them practical, sir," Stokes said emolliently. He knew, and Kenny knew, that the breaches could not be improved and must therefore be attempted. Kenny's grumbling, Stokes suspected, was a disguise for nerves, and Stokes could not blame the man. He would not have wanted to carry a sword or musket up those rugged stone slopes to whatever horrors the enemy had prepared on the other side.

Kenny grunted.

"I suppose they'll have to suffice," he said grudgingly, snapping his telescope shut. He flinched as one of the eighteen pounders roared and billowed smoke all about the battery, then he strode into the acrid cloud, shouting for Major Plummer, the gunner officer.

Plummer, powder-stained and sweating, loomed out of the smoke.

"Sir?"

"You'll keep your pieces firing till we're well on the breaches?"

"I will, sir."

"That should keep their d.a.m.ned heads down," Kenny said, then fished a watch from his fob.

"I make it ten minutes after nine."

"Eight minutes after," Plummer said.

"Exactly nine o'clock," Stokes said, tapping his watch to see if the hands were stuck.

"We'll use my timepiece," Kenny decreed, 'and we'll move forward on the strike of ten o'clock. And remember, Plummer, keep firing till we're there! Don't be chary, man, don't stop just because we're close to the summit. Batter the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Batter the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" He frowned at Ahmed who was staying close to Stokes. The boy was wearing his red coat which was far too big for him, and Kenny seemed on the point of demanding an explanation for the boy's odd garb, then abruptly shrugged and walked away.

He went to where his men crouched on the track that led to the fortress gate. They were sheltered from the defenders by the lie of the land, but the moment they advanced over a small rocky rise they would become targets. They then had three hundred yards of open ground to cross, and as they neared the broken walls they would be squeezed into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the tank and the precipice where they could expect the fire of the defenders to be at its fiercest. After that it was a climb to the breaches and to whatever horrors waited out of sight.

The men sat, trying to find what small shade was offered by bushes or rocks. Many were half drunk, for their officers had issued extra rations of arrack and rum. None carried a pack, they had only their muskets, their ammunition and bayonets. A few, not many, prayed. An officer of the Scotch Brigade knelt bare-headed amongst a group of his men, and Kenny, intrigued by the sight, swerved towards the kneeling soldiers to hear them softly repeating the twenty-third psalm. Most men just sat, heads low, consumed by their thoughts. The officers forced conversation.

Behind Kenny's thousand men was a second a.s.sault force, also composed of sepoys and Scotsmen, which would follow Kenny into the breach. If Kenny failed then the second storming party would try to go farther, but if Kenny succeeded they would secure the Outer Fort while Kenny's troops went on to a.s.sault the Inner. Small groups of gunners were included in both a.s.sault groups. Their orders were to find whatever serviceable cannon still existed in the Outer Fort and turn them against the defenders beyond the ravine.

An officer wearing the white facings of the 74th picked his way up the track between the waiting troops. The man had a cheap Indian sabre at his waist and, unusually for an officer, was carrying a musket and cartridge box. Kenny hailed him.

"Who the devil are you?"

"Sharpe, sir."

The name rang a bell in Kenny's mind.

"Wellesley's man?"

"Don't know about that, sir."

Kenny scowled at the evasion.

"You were at a.s.saye, yes?"

"Yes, sir," Sharpe admitted.

Kenny's expression softened. He knew of Sharpe and he admired a brave man.

"So what the devil are you doing here, Sharpe? Your regiment is miles away! They're climbing the road from Deogaum."

"I was stranded here, sir," Sharpe said, deciding there was no point in trying to deliver a longer explanation, 'and there wasn't time to join the 74th, sir, so I was hoping to go with my old company. That's Captain Morris's men, sir." He nodded up the track to where the 33rd's Light Company was gathered among some boulders.

"With your permission of course, sir."

"No doubt Morris will be glad of your help, Sharpe," Kenny said, 'as will I." He was impressed by Sharpe's appearance, for the Ensign was tall, evidently strong and had a roguish fierceness about his face. In the breach, the Colonel knew, victory or defeat as often as not came down to a man's skill and strength, and Sharpe looked as if he knew how to use his weapons.

"Good luck to you, Sharpe."

"And the best to you, sir," Sharpe said warmly.

He walked on, his borrowed musket heavy on his shoulder. Eli Lockhart and Syud Sevajee were waiting with their men among the third group, the soldiers who would occupy the fort after the a.s.sault troops had done their work, if, indeed, the leading two thousand men managed to get through the walls. A rumour was spreading that the breaches were too steep and that no one could carry a weapon and climb the ramps at the same time. The men believed they would need to use their hands to scramble up the stony piles, and so they would be easy targets for any defenders at the top of the breaches. The gunners, they grumbled, should have brought down more of the wall, if not all of it, and the proof of that a.s.sertion was the guns' continual firing. Why would the guns go on gnawing at the wall if the breaches were already practical? They could hear the strike of round shot on stone, hear the occasional tumble of rubble, but what they could not hear was any fire from the fortress. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were saving their fire for the a.s.sault.

Sharpe edged among sepoys who were carrying one of Major Stokes's bamboo ladders. The dark faces grinned at him, and one man offered Sharpe a canteen which proved to contain a strongly spiced arrack. Sharpe took a small sip, then amused the sepoys by pretending to be astonished by the liquor's fierceness.

"That's rare stuff, lads," Sharpe said, then walked on towards his old comrades. They watched his approach with a mixture of surprise, welcome and apprehension. When the 33rd's Light Company had last seen Sharpe he had been a sergeant, and not long before that he had been a private strapped to the punishment triangle; now he wore a sword and sash. Although officers promoted from the ranks were not supposed to serve with their old units, Sharpe had friends among these men and if he was to climb the steep rubble of Gawilghur's breaches then he would rather do it among friends.

Captain Morris was no friend, and he watched Sharpe's approach with foreboding. Sharpe headed straight for his old company commander.

"Good to see you, Charles," he said, knowing that his use of the Christian name would irritate Morris.