Sharpe's Fortress (25 page)

Halve the winnings and save half again. Simple really. And now that Sharpe was gone he
could begin some careful trading once more, though how the market would hold up once the
Mahrattas were defeated he could not tell. Still, with a slice of luck he might make
sufficient money to set himself up in a comfortable civilian life in Madras. A
carriage, a dozen horses and as many women servants. He would have an harem.

He smiled at the thought, imagining his father's disgust. An harem, a courtyard with a
fountain, a wine cellar deep beneath his house that should be built close to the sea so that
cooling breezes could waft through its windows. He would need to spend an hour or two at the
office each week, but certainly not more for there were always Indians to do the real
work. The buggers would cheat him, of course, but there seemed plenty of money to go around
so long as a man did not gamble it away. Rule of halves, he told himself again. The golden
rule of life.

The sound of singing came from the camp beyond the village.

Torrance did not recognize the tune, which was probably some Scottish song. The sound
drifted him back to his childhood when he had sung in the cathedral choir. He grimaced,
remembering the frosty mornings when he had run in the dark across the close and pushed
open the cathedral's great side door to be greeted by a clout over the ear because he was
late. The choristers' cloudy breath had mingled with the smoke of the guttering candles.
Lice under the robes, he remembered. He had caught his first lice off a counter-tenor who
had held him against a wall behind a bishop's tomb and hoisted his robe. I hope the
bastard's dead, he thought.

Sajit yelped.

“Quiet!” Torrance shouted, resenting being jarred from his reverie. There was
silence again, and Torrance sucked on the hookah. He could hear Clare pouring water in the
yard and he smiled as he anticipated the soothing touch of the sponge.

Someone, it had to be Sajit, tried to open the door from the front room.

“Go away,” Torrance called, but then something hit the door a massive blow. The bolt
held, though dust sifted from crevices in the plaster wall either side of the frame.
Torrance stared in shock, then twitched with alarm as another huge bang shook the door, and
this time a chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate fell from the wall.

Torrance swung his bare legs out of the hammock. Where the devil were his pistols?

A third blow reverberated round the room, and this time the bracket holding the bolt
was wrenched out of the wall and the door swung in onto the muslin screen. Torrance saw a
robed figure sweep the screen aside, then he threw himself over the room and pawed through
his discarded clothes to find his guns.

A hand gripped his wrist.

“You won't need that, sir,” a familiar voice said, and Torrance turned, wincing at the
strength of the man's grip.

He saw a figure dressed in blood-spattered Indian robes, with a tulwar scabbarded at
his waist and a face shrouded by a head cloth. But Torrance recognized his visitor and
blanched.

“Reporting for duty, sir,” Sharpe said, taking the pistol from Torrance's
unresisting gripTorrance gaped. He could have sworn that the blood on the robe was fresh
for it gleamed wetly. There was more blood on a short-bladed knife in Sharpe's hand. It
dripped onto the floor and Torrance gave a small pitiful mew.

“It's Sajit's blood,” Sharpe said.

“His penknife too.” He tossed the wet blade onto the table beside the gold coins.

“Lost your tongue, sir?”

“Sharpe?”

“He's dead, sir, Sharpe is,” Sharpe said.

“He was sold to Jama, remember, sir? Is that the blood money?” Sharpe glanced at the
rupees on the table.

“Sharpe,” Torrance said again, somehow incapable of saying anything else.

“I'm his ghost, sir,” Sharpe said, and Torrance did indeed look as though a spectre had
just broken through his door. Sharpe tutted and shook his head in self-reproof.

“I'm not supposed to call you ”sir“, am I, sir? On account of me being a fellow
officer and a gentleman. Where's Sergeant Hakeswill?”

“Sharpe!” Torrance said once more, collapsing onto a chair.

“We heard you'd been captured!”

“So I was, sir, but not by the enemy. Leastwise, not by any proper enemy.” Sharpe
examined the pistol.

“This ain't loaded. What were you hoping to do, sir? Beat me to death with the
barrel?”

“My robe, Sharpe, please,” Torrance said, gesturing to where the silk robe hung on a
wooden peg.

“So where is Hakeswill, sir?” Sharpe asked. He had pushed back his head cloth and now opened
the pistol's friz zen and blew dust off the pan before scraping at the layer of caked
powder with a fingernail.

“He's on the road,” Torrance said.

“Ah! Took over from me, did he? You should keep this pistol clean, sir. There's rust on the
spring, see? Shame to keep an expensive gun so shabbily. Are you sitting on your
cartridge box?”

Torrance meekly raised his bottom to take out his leather pouch which held the powder
and bullets for his pistols. He gave the bag to Sharpe, thought about fetching the robe
himself, then decided that any untoward move might upset his visitor.

“I'm delighted to see you're alive, Sharpe,” he said.

“Are you, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“Of course.”

“Then why did you sell me to Jama?”

“Sell you? Don't be ridiculous, Sharpe. No!” The cry came as the pistol barrel whipped
towards him, and it turned into a moan as the barrel slashed across his cheek. Torrance
touched his face and winced at the blood on his fingers.

"Sharpe' he began.

“Shut it, sir,” Sharpe said nastily. He perched on the table and poured some powder
into the pistol barrel.

"I talked to Jama last night. He tried to have me killed by a couple ofjettis. You know
what jet tis are, sir?

Religious strongmen, sir, but they must have been praying to the wrong God, for I cut
one's throat and left the other bugger blinded." He paused to select a bullet from the
pouch.

"And I had a chat with

Jama when I'd killed his thugs and he told me lots of interesting things. Like that you
traded with him and his brother. You're a traitor, Torrance."

“Sharpe-' ”I said shut it!" Sharpe snapped. He pushed the bullet into the pistol's
muzzle, then drew out the short ramrod and shoved it down the barrel.

“The thing is, Torrance,” he went on in a calmer tone, “I know the truth. All of it. About
you and Hakeswill and about you and Jama and about you and Naig.” He smiled at Torrance, then
slotted the short ramrod back into its hoops.

"I used to think officers were above that sort of crime. I knew the men were crooked,
because I was crooked, but you don't have much choice, do you, when you've got nothing?

But you, sir, you had everything you wanted. Rich parents, proper schooling." Sharpe
shook his head.

“You don't understand, Sharpe.”

"But I do, sir. Now look at me. My ma was a whore, and not a very good one by all accounts,
and she went and died and left me with nothing.

Bloody nothing! And the thing is, sir, that when I go to General Wellesley and I tells
him about you selling muskets to the enemy, who's he going to believe? You, with your
proper education, or me with a dead frow as a mother?" Sharpe looked at Torrance as though
he expected an answer, but none came.

“He's going to believe you, sir, isn't he? He'd never believe me, on account of me not
being a proper gentleman who knows his Latin. And you know what that means, sir?”

“Sharpe?”

“It means justice won't be done, sir. But, on the other hand, you're a gentleman, so you
knows your duty, don't you?” Sharpe edged off the table and gave the pistol, butt first, to
Torrance.

“Hold it just in front of your ear,” he advised Torrance, 'or else put it in your mouth.
Makes more mess that way, but it's surer."

“Sharpe!” Torrance said, and found he had nothing to say. The pistol felt heavy in his
hand.

“It won't hurt, sir,” Sharpe said comfortingly.

“You'll be dead in the blink of an eyelid.” He began scooping the coins off the table
into Torrance's pouch. He heard the heavy click as the pistol was cocked, then glanced round
to see that the muzzle was pointing at his face.

He frowned and shook his head in disappointment.

“And I thought you were a gentleman, sir.”

“I'm not a fool, Sharpe,” Torrance said vengefully. He stood and took a pace closer to
the Ensign.

“And I'm worth ten of you. Up from the ranks? You know what that makes you, Sharpe? It makes
you a brute, a lucky brute, but it don't make you a real officer. You're not going to be
welcome anywhere, Sharpe. You'll be endured, Sharpe, because officers have manners, but
they won't welcome you because you ain't a proper officer. You weren't born to it,
Sharpe.” Torrance laughed at the look of horrified outrage on Sharpe's face.

“Christ, I despise you!” he said savagely.

"You're like a dressed-up monkey, Sharpe, only you can't even wear clothes properly! I
could give you lace and braid, and you'd still look like a peasant, because that's what you
are, Sharpe. Officers should have style! They should have wit!

And all you can do is grunt. You know what you are, Sharpe? You're an embarrassment,
you're .. ." He paused, trying to find the right insult, and shook his head in frustration
as the words would not come.

“You're a lump, Sharpe! That's what you are, a lump! And the kindest thing is to finish
you off.” Torrance smiled.

“Goodbye, Mister Sharpe.” He pulled the trigger.

The flint smashed down on the steel and the spark flashed into the empty pan.

Sharpe reached out in the silence and took the pistol from Torrance's hand.

“I loaded it, sir, but I didn't prime it. On account of the fact that I might be a lump,
but I ain't any kind of fool.” He pushed Torrance back into the chair, and Torrance could
only watch as Sharpe dropped a pinch of powder into the pan. He flinched as Sharpe closed
the friz zen then shuddered as Sharpe walked towards him.

“No, Sharpe, no!”

Sharpe stood behind Torrance.

“You tried to have me killed, sir, and I don't like that.” He pressed the pistol into the
side of the Captain's head.

“Sharpe!” Torrance pleaded. He was shaking, but he seemed powerless to offer any
resistance, then the muslin curtain from the kitchen was swept aside and Clare Wall came
into the room. She stopped and stared with huge eyes at Sharpe.

“Clare!” Torrance pleaded.

“Fetch help! Quickly now!” Clare did not move.

“Fetch help, my dear!” Torrance said.

“She'll be a witness against you, Sharpe.” Torrance had turned to look at Sharpe and was
babbling now.

“So the best thing you can do is to put the gun down. I'll say nothing about this,
nothing! Just a touch of fever in you, I expect. It's all a misunderstanding and we shall
forget it ever happened. Maybe we could share a bottle of arrack? Clare, my dear, maybe
you could find a bottle?”

Clare stepped towards Sharpe and held out her hand.

“Fetch help, my dear,” Torrance said, 'he's not going to give you the gun."

“He is,” Sharpe said, and he gave Clare the pistol.

Torrance breathed a great sigh of relief, then Clare clumsily turned the gun and
pointed it at Torrance's head. The Captain just stared at her.

“Eyes front, Captain,” Sharpe said, and turned Torrance's head so that the bullet would
enter from the side, just as it might if Torrance had committed suicide.

“Are you sure?” he asked Clare.

“God help me,” she said, 'but I've dreamed of doing this." She straightened her arm so
that the pistol's muzzle touched Torrance's temple.

“No!” he called.

“No, please! No!”

But she could not pull the trigger. Sharpe could see she wanted to, but her finger would
not tighten and so Sharpe took the gun from her, edged her gently aside, then pushed the
barrel into Torrance's oiled hair.

“No, please!” the Captain appealed. He was weeping.

“I beg you, Sharpe. Please!”

Sharpe pulled the trigger, stepping back as a gush of blood spouted from the shattered
skull. The sound of the pistol had been hugely loud in the small room that was now hazed with
smoke.

Sharpe knelt and pushed the pistol into Torrance's dead hand, then picked up the pouch
with its gold and thrust it into Clare's hands.

“We're going,” he told her, 'right now."

She understood the haste and, without bothering to fetch any of her belongings,
followed him back into the outer room where Sajit's body lay slumped over the table. His
blood had soaked the chitties Clare whimpered when she saw the blood.

“I didn't really mean to kill him,” Sharpe explained, 'then realized he'd be a witness
if I didn't." He saw the fear on Clare's face.

“I trust you, love. You and me? We're the same, aren't we? So come on, let's get the hell
out of here.”

Sharpe had already taken the three jewels from Sajit and he added those to the pouch of
gold, then went to the porch where Ahmed stood guard. No one seemed to have been alarmed by the
shot, but it was not wise to linger.

“I've got you some gold, Ahmed,” Sharpe said.

“Gold!”

“You know that word, you little bugger, don't you?” Sharpe grinned, then took Clare's hand
and led her into the shadows. A dog barked briefly, a horse whinnied from the cavalry
lines, and afterwards there was silence.

Dodd needed to practise with the rifle and so, on the day that the British reached the
top of the high escarpment, he settled himself in some rocks at the top of the cliff and
gauged the range to the party of sepoys who were levelling the last few yards of the road.
Unlike a musket, the rifle had proper sights, and he set the range at two hundred yards,
then propped the barrel in a stone cleft and aimed at a blue-coated engineer who was
standing just beneath the sweating sepoys. A gust of wind swept up the cliffs, driving
some circling buzzards high up into the air.

Dodd waited until the wind settled, then squeezed the trigger.

The rifle slammed into his shoulder with surprising force. The smoke blotted his view
instantly, but another billow of wind carried it away and he was rewarded by the sight
of the engineer bent double. He thought he must have hit the man, but then saw the
engineer had been picking up his straw hat that must have fallen as he reacted to the
close passage of the spinning bullet. The engineer beat dust from the hat against his
thigh and stared up at the drifting patch of smoke.

Dodd wriggled back out of view and reloaded the rifle. It was hard work. The barrel of a
rifle, unlike a musket, had spiralling grooves cast into the barrel to spin the bullet.
The spin made the weapon extraordinarily accurate, but the grooves resisted the
rammer, and the resistance was made worse because the bullet, if it was to be spun by the
grooves, had to fit the barrel tightly. Dodd wrapped a bullet in one of the small greased
leather patches that gave the barrel purchase, then grunted as he shoved the ramrod hard
down. One of the Mahratta cavalrymen who escorted Dodd on his daily rides shouted a
warning, and Dodd peered over the rock to see that a company of sepoy infantry was
scrambling to the top of the slope. The first of them were already on the plateau and coming
towards him. He primed the rifle, settled it on the makeshift fire step again and reckoned
that he had not allowed for the effect of the wind on the last bullet. He aimed at the
sepoys' officer, a man whose small round spectacles reflected the sun, and, letting the
barrel edge slightly windwards, he fired again.

The rifle hammered back onto his shoulder. Smoke billowed as Dodd ran to his horse and
clambered into the saddle. He slung the rifle, turned the horse and saw that the
red-coated officer was on the ground with two of his men kneeling beside him. He grinned.
Two hundred paces!

A wild volley of musketry followed the Mahratta horsemen as they rode westwards
towards Gawilghur. The balls rattled on rocks or whistled overhead, but none of the
cavalrymen was touched. After half a mile Dodd stopped, dismounted and reloaded the
rifle. A troop of sepoy cavalry was climbing the last few yards of the road, the men
walking as they led their horses around the final steep bend. Dodd found another place to
rest the rifle, then waited for the cavalry to approach along the cliff's edge.

He kept the sights at two hundred yards. He knew that was very long range, even for a
rifle, but if he could hit at two hundred yards then he was confident of killing at a
hundred or at fifty.

“Sahib!” The commander of his escort was worried by the more numerous sepoy cavalry
who had now mounted and were trotting towards them.

“In a minute,” Dodd called back. He picked his target, another officer, and waited for
the man to ride into the rifle's sights. The wind was fitful.

It gusted, blowing dust into Dodd's right eye and making him blink.

Sweat trickled down his face. The approaching cavalry had sabres drawn and the blades
glittered in the sun. One man carried a dusty pennant on a short staff. They came raggedly,
twisting between the rocks and low bushes. Their horses kept their heads low, tired after
the effort of climbing the steep hill.

The officer curbed his horse to let his men catch up. The wind died to nothing and Dodd
squeezed the trigger and flinched as the heavy stock slammed into his bruised shoulder.

“Sahib!”

“We're going,” Dodd said, and he put his left foot into the stirrup and heaved himself
into the saddle. A glance behind showed a riderless horse and a score of men spurring
forward to take revenge. Dodd laughed, slung the rifle, and kicked his horse into a
canter. He heard a shout behind as the sepoy cavalry were urged into the pursuit, but
Dodd and his escort were mounted on fresh horses and easily outstripped the sepoys.

Dodd curbed his horse on the neck of rocky land that led to Gawilghur's Outer Fort. The
walls were thick with men who watched the enemy's approach, and the sight of those
spectators gave Dodd an idea. He threw the rifle to the commander of his escort.

“Hold it for me!”

he ordered, then turned his horse to face the pursuing horsemen. He waved his escort on
towards the fortress and drew his sword. It was a beautiful weapon, European made, then
sent to India where craftsmen had given it a hilt of gold shaped like an elephant's head.
The escort commander, charged with protecting Dodd's life, wanted to stay, but Dodd
insisted he ride on.

“I'll join you in five minutes,” he promised.

Dodd barred the road. He glanced behind him once, just to check that the Outer Fort's
ramparts were crowded with men, then he looked back to the approaching cavalry. They
slowed as they reached the rock isthmus. They could have kept galloping, and Dodd would then
have turned his horse and outrun them, but instead they curbed their sweating horses and
just stood watching him from a hundred paces away. They knew what he wanted, but Dodd
saluted them with his sword just to make certain they understood his challenge. A
havildar urged his horse forward, but then an English voice summoned him back and the man
reluctantly turned.

The English officer drew his sabre. He had lost his hat in the gallop along the edge of
the clifF and had long fair hair that was matted with sweat and dirt. He wore a black and
scarlet jacket and was mounted on a tall bay gelding that was white with sweat. He saluted
Dodd by holding his sabre up, hilt before his face, then he touched the gelding's flanks
with the tips of his spurs and the horse walked forward. Dodd spurred his own horse and the
two slowly closed. The Englishman went into a trot, then clapped his heels to drive his
horse into a canter and Dodd saw the puffs of dust spurting from the gelding's hooves. He
kept his horse at a walk, only touching it into a trot at the very last second as the
Englishman stood in his stirrups to deliver a scything cut with the sabre.

Dodd tweaked the rein and his horse swerved to the left, then he was turning it back right,
turning it all the way, and the sabre had missed his head by a scant two inches and he had
not even bothered to parry with his sword. Now he spurred the horse on, following the
officer who was trying to turn back, and the Englishman was still half turned, still
tugging on the reins, as Dodd attacked. The sabre made an awkward parry that just managed
to deflect the sword's thrust. Dodd hacked back as he passed, felt the blade thump home, then
he hauled on the reins and was turning again, and the Englishman was also turning so that
the two horses seemed to curl around each other, nose to tail, and the sabre and sword rang
together. Dodd was taller than his opponent, but the young Englishman, who was a
lieutenant and scarce looked a day over eighteen, was strong, and Dodd's blow had hardly
broken the weave of his coat. He gritted his teeth as he hacked at Dodd, and Dodd parried,
parried again and the two blades locked, hilt against hilt, and Dodd heaved to try and throw
the young man off balance.

“You're Dodd, aren't you?” the Lieutenant said.

“Seven hundred guineas to you, boy.”

“Traitor,” the young Englishman spat.

Dodd heaved, then kicked the Lieutenant's horse so that it moved forward and he tried to
slash back with his disengaged sword, but the Lieutenant turned the horse in again. The men
were too close to fight properly, close enough to smell each other's breath. The
Lieutenant's stank of tobacco. They could hit their opponent with their sword hilts, but
not use the blades' lengths. If either horse had been properly schooled they could have been
walked sideways away from the impasse, but the horses would only go forward and Dodd was
the first to take the risk by using his spurs. He used them savagely, startling his horse so
that it leaped ahead, and even so he flinched from the expected slash as the sabre whipped
towards his spine, but the Lieutenant was slow and the blow missed.

Dodd rode twenty paces up the track towards the watching sepoys, then turned again. The
Lieutenant was gaining confidence and he grinned as the tall man charged at him. He
lowered the sabre, using its point like a spearhead, and urged his weary gelding into a
trot. Dodd also had his sword at the lunge, elbow locked, and the two horses closed at
frightening speed and then, at the very last second,

Dodd hauled on his rein and his horse went right, to the Lieutenant's unguarded side, and
he brought the sword back across his body and then cut it forward in one fluid motion so
that the blade raked across the Lieutenant's throat. The sabre was still coming across to the
parry when the blood spurted. The Lieutenant faltered and his horse stopped. The young
man's sword arm fell, and Dodd was turning. He came alongside his opponent whose jacket
was now dark with blood, and he rammed the sword into the Lieutenant's neck a second time,
this time point first, and the young man seemed to shake like a rat in a terrier's jaws.

Dodd hauled his sword free, then scabbarded it. He leaned over and took the sabre from the
dying man's unresisting hand, then pushed the Lieutenant so that he toppled from the
horse. One of his feet was trapped in a stirrup, but as Dodd seized the gelding's rein and
hauled it round towards the fortress, the boot fell free and the young man was left sprawling
amidst his blood on the dusty road as Dodd led his trophy homewards.

The Indians on the ramparts cheered. The sepoys spurred forward and Dodd hurried ahead
of them, but the Madrassi cavalrymen only rode as far as their officer's body where they
dismounted. Dodd rode on, waving the captured sabre aloft.

A gun fired from the fort and the ball screamed over the rocky isthmus to crash home among
the cavalrymen gathered about their officer. A second gun fired, and suddenly the
British cavalry and their riderless horses were running away and the cheers on the wall
redoubled. Manu Bappoo was on the big buttress close to the gatehouse and he first
pointed an admonitory finger at Dodd, chiding him for taking such a risk, then he
touched his hands together, in thanks for Dodd's victory, and finally raised his arms
above his head to salute the hero. Dodd laughed and bowed his head in acknowledgement and
saw, to his surprise, that his white coat was red with the Lieutenant's blood.

“Who would have thought the young man had so much blood in him?” he asked the leader of his
escort at the fortress gate.

“Sahib?” the man answered, puzzled.

“Never mind.” Dodd took the rifle back, then spurred his horse into Gawilghur's Delhi
Gate. The men on the ramparts that edged the paved entranceway cheered him home.

He did not pause to speak to Manu Bappoo, but instead rode through the Outer Fortress and
out of its southern gate, then led his captured horse down the steep path which slanted
across the face of the ravine. At the bottom the path turned sharply to the left before
climbing to the Inner Fort's massive gateway. The four heavy gates that barred the
entranceway were all opened for him, and the hooves of his two horses echoed from the high
walls as he clattered up the winding passage. One by one the gates crashed shut behind and
the thick locking bars were dropped into their brackets.

His groom waited beyond the last gate. Dodd swung down from his horse and gave both reins
to the man, ordering him to water the captured horse before he rubbed it down. He handed
his sword to his servant and told him to clean the blood from the blade and only then did he
turn to face Beny Singh who had come waddling from the palace garden. The Killadar was
dressed in a green silk robe and was attended by two servants, one to hold a parasol above
Beny Singh's perfumed head and the other clasping the Killadar's small white lap dog.

“The cheering,” Beny Singh asked anxiously, 'what was it? The guns were firing?" He
stared in horror at the blood soaked into Dodd's coat.

“You're wounded, Colonel?”

“There was a fight,” Dodd said, and waited while one of the servants translated for the
Killadar. Dodd spoke a crude Marathi, but it was easier to use interpreters.

“The djinns are here!” Beny Singh wailed. The dog whimpered and the two servants looked
nervous.

“I killed a djinn,” Dodd snarled. He reached out and took hold of Beny Singh's plump hand
and forced it against his wet coat.

"It isn't my blood.

But it is fresh." He rubbed the Killadar's hand into the gory patch, then raised the plump
fingers to his mouth. Keeping his eyes on Beny Singh's eyes, he licked the blood from the
Killadar's hand.

“I am a djinn, Killadar,” Dodd said, letting go of the hand, 'and I lap the blood of my
enemies."

Beny Singh recoiled from the clammy touch of the blood. He shuddered, then wiped his
hand on his silk robe.

“When will they assault?”

“A week?” Dodd guessed.

“And then they will be defeated.”

“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."