Sharpe's Fortress (27 page)

“Not their game, sir, is it, sir?” Hakeswill's voice disturbed Stokes.

The Major turned.

“Eh?”

“Cricket, sir. Too complicated for blackamoors and Scotchmen, sir, on account of it
being a game that needs brains, sir.”

“Do you play, Sergeant?”

“Me, sir? No, sir. No time for frittering, sir, being as I'm a soldier back to front,
sir.”

“It does a man good to have a pastime,” Stokes said.

“Your Colonel, now, he plays the violin.”

“Sir Arthur does, sir?” Hakeswill said, plainly not believing Stokes.

“He's never done it near me, sir.”

“I assure you he does,” Stokes said. He was irritated by Hakeswill's presence. He
disliked the man intensely, even though Hakeswill had spent only a short time as Sharpe's
substitute.

“So what is it, Sergeant?”

Hakeswill's face twitched.

“Come to be of use to you, sir.”

The reply puzzled Stokes.

“I thought you'd been returned to company duties?”

“That I am, sir, and not before time. But I was thinking of poor Sharpie, sir, as you tell
me he languishes in the heathens' jail, sir, which I did not know, sir, until you told
me.”

Stokes shrugged.

“He's probably being fairly treated. The Mahrattas aren't renowned for being unduly
cruel to prisoners.”

“I was wondering if he left his pack with you, sir?”

“Why would he do that?” Stokes asked.

“I was just wondering, sir. Officers don't like carrying their baggage everywhere,
sir, not if they want to keep their dignity, and if he did leave his pack with you, sir, then
I thought as how we might relieve you of the responsibility, sir, seeing as how Mister
Sharpe was a comrade of ours for so long. That's what I was thinking, sir.”

Stokes bridled, but was not certain why.

“It isn't a heavy responsibility, Sergeant.”

“Never thought it was, sir, but it might be a nuisance to you, sir, seeing as how you're
charged with other duties, and I would relieve you of the responsibility, sir.”

Stokes shook his head.

“As it happens, Sergeant, Mister Sharpe did leave his pack with me, and I promised him I
would keep it safe, and I'm not a man to break promises, Sergeant. I shall keep it.”

“As you chooses, sir!” Hakeswill said sourly.

“Just thought it was a Christian act, sir.” He turned and marched away. Stokes watched him,
then shook his head and turned back to gaze at the growing encampment.

Tonight, he thought, tonight we shall make the batteries, and tomorrow the big guns will
be hauled forward. Another day to fill the magazines with powder and shot and then the
stone-breaking could begin. Two days of battering, of dust and rubble and smoke, and then
the cricketers could lead the charge across the isthmus. Poor men, Stokes thought, poor
men.

“I hate night actions,” Captain Morris complained to Hakeswill.

“Because of Serry-apatam, sir? A right dog's mess, that was.” The battalion had
attacked a wood outside Seringapatam by night and the companies had become separated,
some became lost, and the enemy had punished them.

Morris attached his scabbard to its slings and pulled his hat on. It was dark outside,
and soon the oxen would drag the gab ions forward to the position Stokes had chosen for
the breaching batteries. It would be a prime moment for the enemy to sally out of the
fortress, so Morris and his company must form a picquet line ahead of the proposed
batteries.

They must watch the fortress and, if an attack was made, they must resist it, then slowly
fall back, protecting the sappers until the reserve troops, a battalion of sepoys,
could be brought forward from the plateau. With any luck, Morris fervently hoped, the
enemy would stay in bed.

“Evening, Morris!” Major Stokes was indecently cheerful.

“Your lads are ready?”

“They are, sir.”

Stokes led Morris a few yards from his tent and stared towards the fortress that was
nothing but a dark shape in the night beyond the closer blackness of the rocks.

“The thing is,” Stokes said, 'that they're bound to see our lanterns and must hear the
carts, so they're liable to unleash a pretty furious artillery barrage. Maybe rockets
as well. But take no heed of it. Your only job is to watch for infantry coming from the
gate."

“I know, sir.”

"So don't use your muskets! I hear musket fire, Captain, and I think infantry. Then I
send for the Madrassi lads, and the next moment the whole place is swarming with redcoats
who can't tell who's who in the dark. So no firing, you understand? Unless you see enemy
infantry.

Then send a message to me, fight the good fight and wait for support."

Morris grunted. He had been told this twice already, and did not need the instructions
a third time, but he still turned to the company which was paraded and ready.

“No one's to fire without my express permission, you understand?”

“They understands, sir,” Hakeswill answered for the company.

“One musket shot without permission and the culprit's earned himself a skinned back,
sir.”

Morris took the company forward, following the old road that led directly to the
gateway of the Outer Fort. The night was horribly dark, and within a few paces of leaving
the engineers' encampment, Morris could hardly see the road at all. His men's boots
scuffed loud on the hard-packed stones. They went slowly, feeling their way and using what
small light came from the merest sliver of moon that hung like a silver blade above
Gawilghur.

“Permission to speak, sir?” Hakeswill's hoarse voice sounded close to Morris.

“Not too loud, Sergeant.”

“Like a mouse, sir, quiet I will be, but, sir, if we're here, does that mean we'll be
joining the assault on the fort, sir?”

“God, no,” Morris said fervently.

Hakeswill chuckled.

“I thought I should ask, sir, on account of making a will.”

“A will?” Morris asked.

“You need a will?”

“I have some wealth,” Hakeswill said defensively. And soon, he reckoned, he would have
even more, for he had cleverly confirmed his surmise that Sharpe's missing pack was in
Major Stokes's keeping.

“You have some wealth, do you?” Morris asked sarcastically.

“And who the hell will you leave it to?”

“Your own self, sir, if you'll forgive me, sir. No family, apart from the army, sir, which
is mother's milk to me.”

“By all means make your will,” Morris said.

“Connors can draw one up for you.” Connors was the company clerk.

“I trust, of course, that the document proves redundant.”

“Whatever that means, sir, I hopes the same.”

The two men fell silent. The dark loom of the fortress was much closer now, and Morris was
nervous. What was the point of this futile exercise anyway? He would be damned if he would
be able to see any enemy infantrymen, not in this pitch black, unless the fools decided
to carry a lantern. Some lights showed in Gawilghur. There was a glow above the Outer Fort
that must have been cast by the fires and lights in the Inner Fort, while closer Morris
could see a couple of flickering patches where fires or torches burned inside the nearer
de fences But those scattered lights would not help him see an enemy force debouching from
the gate.

“Far enough,” he called. He was not really sure if he had gone close enough to the fort,
but he had no fancy to go further, and so he stopped and hissed at Hakeswill to spread the
men westwards across the isthmus.

“Five paces between each pair of men, Sergeant.”

“Five paces it is, sir.”

“If anyone sees or hears anything, they're to pass the message back here to me.”

“They'll do so, sir.”

“And no fool's to light a pipe, you hear me? Don't want the enemy spraying us with
canister because some blockhead needs tobacco.”

“Your orders is noted, sir. And where would you want me, sir?”

“Far end of the line, Sergeant.” Morris was the sole officer with the company, for both
his lieutenant and ensign had the fever and so had stayed in Mysore. But Hakeswill, he
reckoned, was as good as any lieutenant.

“You can order men to fire if you're certain you see the enemy, but God help you if
you're wrong.”

“Very good, sir,” Hakeswill said, then hissed at the men to spread out. They vanished into
the blackness. For a moment there was the sound of boots, the thump of musket stocks
hitting rocks and the grunts as the redcoats settled, but then there was silence. Or near
silence. The wind sighed at the cliff's edge while, from the fort, there drifted a plangent
and discordant music that rose and fell with the wind's vagaries. Worse than bagpipes,
Morris thought sourly.

The first axle squeals sounded as the oxen dragged the gab ions forward. The noise would
be continuous now and, sooner or later, the enemy must react by opening fire. And what
chance would he have of seeing anything then, Morris wondered. The gun flashes would blind
him.

The first he would see of an enemy would be the glint of starlight on a blade. He spat.
Waste of time.

“Morris!” a voice hissed from the dark.

“Captain Morris!”

“Here!” He turned towards the voice, which had come from behind him on the road back to
the plateau.

“Here!”

“Colonel Kenny,” the voice said, still in a sibilant whisper.

“Don't mind me prowling around.”

“Of course not, sir.” Morris did not like the idea of a senior officer coming to the
picquet line, but he could hardly send the man away.

“Honoured to have you, sir,” he said, then hissed a warning to his men.

“Senior officer present, don't be startled. Pass the word on.”

Morris heard Kenny's footsteps fade to his right. There was the low murmur of a brief
conversation, then silence again, except for the demonic squeal of the ox-cart axles. A
moment later a lantern light showed from behind the rocks where Stokes was making one of
his main batteries. Morris braced himself for the enemy reaction, but the fortress
stayed silent.

The noise grew louder as the sappers heaved the gab ions from the carts and manhandled
them up onto the rocks to form the thick bastion. A man swore, others grunted and the great
baskets thumped on stone.

Another lantern was unmasked, and this time the man carrying it stepped up onto the
rocks to see where the gab ions were being laid. A voice ordered him to get down.

The fort at last woke up. Morris could hear footsteps hurrying along the nearer fire
step and he saw a brief glow as a linstock was plucked from a barrel and blown into red
life.

“Jesus,” he said under his breath, and a moment later the first gun fired. The flame
stabbed bright as a lance from the walls, its glare momentarily lighting all the rocky
isthmus and the green-scummed surface of the tank, before it was blotted out by the
rolling smoke. The round shot screamed overhead, struck a rock and ricocheted wildly up
into the sky. A second gun fired, its flame lighting the first smoke cloud from within so
that it seemed as if the wall of the fort was edged with a brief vaporous luminance. The
ball struck a gabion, breaking it apart in a spray of earth. A man groaned. Dogs were barking
in the British camp and inside the fortress.

Morris stared towards the dark gateway. He could see nothing, because the guns' flames
had robbed him of his night vision. Or rather he could see wraithlike shapes which he knew
were more likely to be his imagination than the approach of some savage enemy. The guns
were firing steadily now, aiming at the small patch of lantern light, but then more lights,
brighter ones, appeared to the west of the isthmus, '99

and some of the gunners switched their aim, not knowing that Stokes had unveiled the
second lights as a feint.

Then the first rockets were fired, and they were even more dazzling than the guns. The
fiery trails seemed to limp up from the fort's bastions, seething smoke and sparks, then they
leaped up into the air, wobbling in their flight, to sear over Morris's head and slash north
towards the camp. None went near their targets, but their sound and the flaming exhausts
were nerve-racking. The first shells were fired, and they added to the night's din as they
cracked apart among the rocks to whistle shards of shattered casing over the struggling
sappers. The firing was deliberate as the gun captains took care to lay their pieces
before firing, but still there were six or seven shots every minute, while the rockets
were more constant. Morris tried to use the brightness of the rocket trails to see the
ground between his hiding place and the fort, but there was too much smoke, the shadows
flickered wildly, and his imagination made movement where there was none. He held his
fire, reckoning he would hear the gate open or the sound of enemy footsteps. He could hear
the defenders shouting on the wall, either calling insults to the enemy hidden in the
dark or else encouraging each other.

Hakeswill, at the very right-hand end of the line, cowered among the rocks. He had been
sheltering with Kendrick and Lowry, but the enemy cannonade had driven him still further
right to where there was a deep cleft. He knew he was safe there, but even so every screaming
rocket made him flinch, while the sound of the shells exploding and the round shots
cracking against stone made him draw his knees up into his chest. He knew there was a senior
officer visiting the picquet line because the message telling of the Colonel's presence
had been passed down the line. Kenny's visit struck Hakeswill as a daft thing for any man
with gold braid on his coat to do, but when the Colonel hissed his name aloud he kept silent.
At least he assumed it was the visiting officer, for the summons was insistent and
authoritative, but Hakeswill ignored it. He did not want to draw attention to himself in
case the heathen blackamoor gunners aimed their cannon at him. Let the officer hiss away,
he decided, and a moment later the man went away.