Sharpe's Fortress s-3 Read online

  A moment later and the cavalry was hidden behind millet fields. The Captain turned a last time and gazed again at the fortress on the soaring cliffs. It seemed to touch the sky, so high it stood above all India.

  "Bastard of a place, " the Captain said wonderingly, then turned and left.

  He had done his job, and now the infantry must climb to the clouds to do theirs.

  Colonel William Dodd watched the blue-coated cavalrymen walk their tired horses southwards until they vanished beyond a field of standing millet. The sub adar in charge of the regiment's small cannon had wanted to unlimber and open fire on the horsemen, but Dodd had refused his permission. There would have been no point in attacking, for by the time the guns were loaded the cavalrymen would have walked out of range.

  He watched a last salvo of round shot plummet to earth from the fort's high guns. Those cannon were of little use, Dodd thought, except to overawe people on the plain.

  It took Dodd's regiment over seven hours to climb to the fort of Gawilghur, and by the time he reached the summit Dodd's lungs were burning, his muscles aching and his uniform soaked with sweat. He had walked every step of the way, refusing to ride his horse, for the beast was tired and, besides, if he expected his men to walk up the long road, then he would walk it as well. He was a tall, sallow-faced man with a harsh voice and an awkward manner, but William Dodd knew how to earn his men's admiration. They saw that he walked when he could have ridden, and so they did not complain as the steep climb sapped their breath and stole their strength. The regiment's families, its baggage and its battery of cannon were still far below on the twisting, treacherous track that, in its last few miles, was little more than a ledge hacked from the cliff.

  Dodd formed his Cobras into four ranks as they approached Gawilghur's southern entrance where the great metal-studded gates were being swung open in welcome.

  "March smartly now! " Dodd called to his men.

  "You've nothing to be ashamed of! You lost no battle! " He pulled himself up into his saddle and drew his gold-hiked sword to salute the flag of Berar that flapped above the high gate-tower. Then he touched his heels to the mare's flanks and led his undefeated men into the tower's long entrance tunnel.

  He emerged into the afternoon sun to find himself staring at a small town that was built within the stronghold's ramparts and on the summit of Gawilghur's promontory. The alleys of the town were crammed with soldiers, most of them Mahratta cavalrymen who had fled in front of the British pursuit, but, twisting in his saddle, Dodd saw some infantry of Gawilghur's garrison standing on the fire step He also saw Manu Bappoo who had out ridden the British pursuit and now gestured to Dodd from the gate-tower's turret.

  Dodd told one of his men to hold his horse, then climbed the black walls to the top fire step of the tower where he stopped in awed astonishment at the view. It was like standing at the edge of the world.

  The plain was so far beneath and the southern horizon so far away that there was nothing in front of his eyes but endless sky. This, Dodd thought, was a god's view of earth. The eagle's view. He leaned over the parapet and saw his guns struggling up the narrow road. They would not reach the fort till long after nightfall.

  "You were right, Colonel, " Manu Bappoo said ruefully.

  Dodd straightened to look at the Mahratta prince.

  "It's dangerous to fight the British in open fields, " he said, 'but here.. ?" Dodd gestured at the approach road.

  "Here they will die, sahib."

  "The fort's main entrance, " Bappoo said in his sibilant voice, 'is on the other side. To the north."

  Dodd turned and gazed across the roof of the central palace. He could see little of the great fortress's northern de fences though a long way away he could see another tower like the one on which he now stood.

  "Is the main entrance as difficult to approach as this one?" he asked. I "No, but it isn't easy. The enemy has to approach along a narrow strip of rock, then fight through the Outer Fort. After that comes a ravine, and then the Inner Fort. I want you to guard the inner gate."

  Dodd looked suspiciously at Bappoo.

  "Not the Outer Fort?" Dodd reckoned his Cobras should guard the place where the British would attack. That way the British would be defeated.

  "The Outer Fort is a trap, " Bappoo explained. He looked tired, but the defeat at Argaum had not destroyed his spirit, merely sharpened his appetite for revenge.

  "If the British capture the Outer Fort they will think they have won. They won't know that an even worse barrier waits beyond the ravine. That barrier has to be held. I don't care if the Outer Fort falls, but we must hold the Inner. That means our best troops must be there."

  "It will be held, " Dodd said.

  Bappoo turned and stared southwards. Somewhere in the heat-hazed distance the British forces were readying to march on Gawilghur.

  "I

  thought we could stop them at Argaum, " he admitted softly.

  Dodd, who had advised against fighting at Argaum, said nothing.

  "But here, " Bappoo went on, 'they will be stopped."

  Here, Dodd thought, they would have to be stopped. He had deserted from the East India Company's army because he faced trial and execution, but also because he believed he could make a fortune as a mercenary serving the Mahrattas. So far he had endured three defeats, and each time he had led his men safe out of the disaster, but from Gawilghur there would be no escape. The British would block every approach, so the British must be stopped. They must fail in this high place, and so they would, Dodd consoled himself. For nothing imaginable could take this fort. He was on the world's edge, lifted into the sky, and for the redcoats it would be like scaling the very heights of heaven.

  So here, at last, deep inside India, the redcoats would be beaten.

  Six. cavalrymen in the blue and yellow coats of the igth Light Dragoons waited outside the house where Captain Torrance was said to be billeted. They were under the command of a long-legged sergeant who was lounging on a bench beside the door. The Sergeant glanced up as Sharpe approached.

  "I hope you don't want anything useful out of the bastards, " he said acidly, then saw that the shabby-uniformed Sharpe, despite wearing a pack like any common soldier, also had a sash and a sabre. He scrambled to his feet.

  "Sorry, sir."

  Sharpe waved him back down onto the bench.

  "Useful?" he asked.

  "Horseshoes, sir, that's all we bleeding want. Horseshoes! Supposed to be four thousand in store, but can they find them?" The Sergeant spat.

  "Tells me they're lost! I'm to go to the bhinjarries and buy them!

  I'm supposed to tell my captain that? So now we have to sit here till Captain Torrance gets back. Maybe he knows where they are. That monkey in there' he jerked his thumb at the house's front door' doesn know a bloody thing."

  Sharpe pushed open the door to find himself in a large room where a half-dozen men argued with a harried clerk. The clerk, an Indian, sat behind a table covered with curling ledgers.

  "Captain Torrance is ill!»

  the clerk snapped at Sharpe without waiting to discover the newcomer's business.

  "And take that dirty Arab boy outside, " the clerk added, jerking his chin at Ahmed who, armed with a musket he had taken from a corpse on the battlefield, had followed Sharpe into the house.

  «Muskets!» A man tried to attract the clerk's attention.

  «Horseshoes!» an East India Company lieutenant shouted.

  «Buckets,» a gunner said.

  "Come back tomorrow, " the clerk said.

  "Tomorrow!»

  "You said that yesterday, " the gunner said, 'and I'm back."

  "Where's Captain Torrance?" Sharpe asked.

  "He's ill, " the clerk said disapprovingly, as though Sharpe had risked the Captain's fragile health even by asking the question.

  "He cannot be disturbed. And why is that boy here? He is an Arab!»

  "Because I told him to be here, " Sharpe said. He walked round the tab
le and stared down at the ledgers.

  "What a bleeding mess!»

  «Sahib!» The clerk had now realized Sharpe was an officer.

  "Other side of the table, sahib, please, sahib! There is a system here, sahib. I stay this side of the table and you remain on the other. Please, sahib."

  "What's your name?" Sharpe asked.

  The clerk seemed affronted at the question.

  "I am Captain Torranee's assistant, " he said grandly.

  "And Torrance is ill?"

  "The Captain is very sick."

  "So who's in charge?"

  "I am, " the clerk said.

  "Not any longer, " Sharpe said. He looked up at the East India Company lieutenant.

  "What did you want?"

  "Horseshoes."

  "So where are the bleeding horseshoes?" Sharpe asked the clerk.

  "I have explained, sahib, I have explained, " the clerk said. He was a middle-aged man with a lugubrious face and pudgy ink-stained fingers that now hastily tried to close all the ledgers so that Sharpe could not read them.

  "Now please, sahib, join the queue."

  "Where are the horseshoes?" Sharpe insisted, leaning closer to the sweating clerk.

  "This office is closed! " the clerk shouted.

  "Closed till tomorrow! All business will be conducted tomorrow. Captain Torrance's orders!»

  «Ahmed!» Sharpe said.

  "Shoot the bugger."

  Ahmed spoke no English, but the clerk did not know that. He held his hands out.

  "I am closing the office! Work cannot be done like this! I shall complain to Captain Torrance! There will be trouble! Big trouble!»

  The clerk glanced at a door that led to the inner part of the house.

  "Is that where Torrance is?" Sharpe asked, gesturing at the door.

  "No, sahib, and you cannot go in there. The Captain is sick."

  Sharpe went to the door and pushed it open. The clerk yelped a protest, but Sharpe ignored him. A muslin screen hung on the other side of the door and entangled Sharpe as he pushed into the room where a sailor's hammock hung from the beams. The room seemed empty, but then a whimper made him look into a shadowed corner. A young woman crouched there. She was dressed in a said, but she looked European to Sharpe. She had been sewing gold braid onto the outer seams of a pair of breeches, but now stared in wide-eyed fright at the intruder.

  "Who are you, Ma'am?" Sharpe asked.

  The woman shook her head. She had very black hair and very white skin. Her terror was palpable.

  "Is Captain Torrance here?" Sharpe asked.

  «No,» she whispered.

  "He's sick, is that right?"

  "If he says so, sir, " she said softly. Her London accent confirmed that she was English.

  "I ain't going to hurt you, love, " Sharpe said, for fear was making her tremble.

  "Are you Mrs. Torrance?"

  "No!»

  "So you work for him?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you don't know where he is?"

  "No, sir, " she said softly, looking up at Sharpe with huge eyes. She was lying, he reckoned, but he guessed she had good reason to lie, perhaps fearing Torrance's punishment if she told the truth. He considered soothing the truth out of her, but reckoned it might take too long. He wondered who she was. She was pretty, despite her terror, and he guessed she was Torrance's bibbi. Lucky Torrance, he thought ruefully.

  "I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Ma'am, " he said, then he negotiated the muslin curtain back into the front room.

  The clerk shook his head fiercely.

  "You should not have gone in there, sahib! That is private quarters! Private! I shall be forced to tell Captain Torrance."

  Sharpe took hold of the clerk's chair and tipped it, forcing the man off. The men waiting in the room gave a cheer. Sharpe ignored them, sat on the chair himself and pulled the tangle of ledgers towards him.

  "I

  don't care what you tell Captain Torrance, " he said, 'so long as you tell me about the horseshoes first."

  "They are lost! " the clerk protested.

  "How were they lost?" Sharpe asked.

  The clerk shrugged.

  "Things get lost, " he said. Sweat was pouring down his plump face as he tentatively tried to tug some of the ledgers away from Sharpe, but he recoiled from the look on the Ensign's face.

  "Things get lost, " the clerk said again weakly.

  "It is the nature of things to get lost."

  "Muskets?" Sharpe asked.

  «Lost,» the clerk admitted.

  "Buckets?"

  «Lost,» the clerk said.

  «Paperwork,» Sharpe said.

  The clerk frowned.

  "Paperwork, sahib?"

  "If something's lost, " Sharpe said patiently, 'there's a record. This is the bloody army. You can't have a piss without someone making a note of it. to show me the records of what's been lost."

  The clerk sighed and pulled one of the big ledgers open.

  "Here, sahib, " he said, pointing an inky finger.

  "One barrel of horseshoes, see?

  Being carried on an ox from Jamkandhi, lost in the Godavery on November 12th."

  "How many horseshoes in a barrel?" Sharpe asked.

  "A hundred and twenty." The long-legged cavalry Sergeant had come into the office and now leaned against the doorpost.

  "And there are supposed to be four thousand horseshoes in store?"

  Sharpe asked.

  «Here!» The clerk turned a page.

  "Another barrel, see?"

  Sharpe peered at the ill-written entry.

  "Lost in the Godavery, " he read aloud.

  "And here." The clerk stabbed his finger again.

  «Stolen,» Sharpe read. A drop of sweat landed on the page as the clerk turned it back.

  "So who stole it?"

  "The enemy, sahib, " the clerk said.

  "Their horsemen are everywhere."

  "Their bloody horsemen run if you so much as look at them, " the tall cavalry Sergeant said sourly.

  "They couldn't steal an egg from a chicken."

  "The convoys are ambushed, sahib, " the clerk insisted, 'and things are stolen."

  Sharpe pushed the clerk's hand away and turned the pages back, looking for the date when the battle had been fought at Assaye. He found it, and discovered a different handwriting had been used for the previous entries. He guessed Captain Mackay must have kept the ledger himself, and in Mackay's neat entries there were far fewer annotations reading 'stolen' or 'lost'. Mackay had marked eight cannonballs as being lost in a river crossing and two barrels of powder had been marked down as stolen, but in the weeks since Assaye no fewer than sixty-eight oxen had lost their burdens to either accidents or thieves. More tellingly, each of those oxen had been carrying a scarce commodity. The army would not miss a load of round shot, but it would suffer grievously when its last reserve of horseshoes was gone.

  "Whose handwriting is this?" Sharpe had turned to the most recent page.

  "Mine, sahib." The clerk was looking frightened.

  "How do you know when something is stolen?"

  The clerk shrugged.

  "The Captain tells me. Or the Sergeant tells me."

  "The Sergeant?"

  "He isn't here, " the clerk said.

  "He's bringing a convoy of oxen north."

  "What's the Sergeant's name?" Sharpe asked, for he could find no record in the ledger.

  «Hakeswill,» the cavalry Sergeant said laconically.

  "He's the bugger we usually deal with, on account of Captain Torrance always being ill."

  "Bloody hell, " Sharpe said, and pushed the chair back. Hakeswill!

  Obadiah bloody Hakeswill!

  "Why wasn't he sent back to his regiment?"

  Sharpe asked.

  "He isn't supposed to be here at all!»

  "He knows the system, " the clerk explained.

  "Captain Torrance wanted him to stay, sahib."

&nbs
p; And no bloody wonder, Sharpe thought. Hakeswill had worked himself into the army's most profitable billet! He was milking the cow, but making sure it was the clerk's handwriting in the ledger. No flies on Obadiah.

  "How does the system work?" he asked the clerk.

  «Chitties,» the clerk said.

  "Chitties?"

  "An ox driver is given a chitty, sahib, and when he has delivered his load the chitty is signed and brought here. Then he is paid. No chitty, no money. It is the rule, sahib. No chitty, no money."

  "And no bloody horseshoes either, " put in the lean Sergeant of the "And Sergeant Hakeswill pays the money?" Sharpe asked.

  "If he is here, sahib, " the clerk said.

  "That doesn't get me my damned horseshoes, " the Company Lieutenant protested.

  "Or my buckets, " the gunner put in.

  "The bhinjarries have all the essentials, " the clerk insisted. He made shooing gestures.

  "Go and see the bhinjarriesl They have necessaries!

  This office is closed till tomorrow."

  "But where did the bhinjarries get their necessaries, eh? Answer me that?" Sharpe demanded, but the clerk merely shrugged. The bhinjarries were merchants who travelled with the army, contributing their own vast herds of pack oxen and carts. They sold food, liquor, women and luxuries, ar'.d now, it seemed, they were offering military supplies as well, which meant that the army would be paying for things that were normally issued free, and doubtless, if bloody Hakeswill had a finger in the pot, things which had been stolen from the army in the first place.

  "Where do I go for horseshoes?" Sharpe asked the clerk.

  The clerk was reluctant to answer, but he finally spread his hands and suggested Sharpe ask in the merchants' encampment.

  "Someone will tell you, sahib."

  "You tell me, " Sharpe said.

  "I don't know!»

  "So how do you know they have horseshoes?"

  "I hear these things! " the clerk protested.

  Sharpe stood and bullied the clerk back against the wall.

  "You do more than hear things, " he said, leaning his forearm against the clerk's neck, 'you know things. So you bloody well tell me, or I'll have my Arab boy chop off your goo lies for his breakfast. He's a hungry little bugger."

  The clerk fought for breath against the pressure of Sharpe's arm.