Sharpe's Fortress (35 page)

“Bastards,” he swore, then saw the dead Scottish Lieutenant's claymore lying on the
stones. He picked it up and swept it at the ankles of the Arabs above him, and the blade bit
home and threw one man down, and the Scots were charging up the breach again, climbing over
their own dead and screaming a raw shout of hate that was matched by the Arabs' cries of
victory.

Sharpe climbed again. He balanced on the steep stones and hacked with the claymore,
driving the enemy back. He scrambled up two more feet, wreathed in bitter smoke, and
reached the spot where he could grip the wall at the edge of the breach. All he could do now
was hold onto the stone with his left hand and thrust and swing with the sword. He drove men
back, but then the big Arab saw him and came across the breach, bellowing at his comrades to
leave the redcoat's death to his scimitar. He raised the sword high over his head, like an
executioner taking aim, and Sharpe was off balance.

“Push me, Tom!” he shouted, and Garrard put a hand on Sharpe's arse and shoved him hard
upwards just as the scimitar started downwards, but Sharpe had let go of the wall and
reached out to hook his left hand behind the tall man's ankle. He tugged hard and the man
shouted in alarm as his feet slid out from under him and as he bumped down the breach's
flank.

“Now kill him!” Sharpe bellowed and a half-dozen redcoats attacked the fallen man with
bayonets as Sharpe hacked at the Arabs coming to the big man's rescue.

His claymore clashed with scimitars, the blades ringing like blacksmith's hammers on
anvils. The big man was twisting and twitching as the bayonets stabbed again and again
through his robes. The Scots were back, thrusting and snarling up the centre, and Sharpe
forced himself up another step. Garrard was beside him now, and the two were only a step
from the summit of the breach.

“Bastards! Bastards!” Sharpe was panting as he hacked and lunged, but the Arabs' robes
seemed to soak up the blows, then suddenly, almost miraculously, they backed away from
him.

A musket fired from inside the fortress and one of the Arabs crumpled down onto the
breach's inner ramp, and Sharpe realized that the men who had fought their way through the
left-hand breach must have turned and come to attack this breach from the inside.

“Come on!” he roared, and he was on the summit at last and there were Scots and Light
Company men all about him as they spilt down into the Outer Fortress where a company of
the Scotch Brigade waited to welcome them. The defenders were fleeing to the southern
gate which would lead them to the refuge of the Inner Fort.

“Jesus,” Tom Garrard said, leaning over to catch his breath.

“Are you hurt?” Sharpe asked.

Garrard shook his head.

“Jesus,” he said again. Some enemy gunners, who had stayed with their weapons till the
last minute, jumped down from the fire step dodged past the tired redcoats scattered inside
the wall and fled southwards. Most of the Scots and sepoys were too 25'

breathless to pursue them and contented themselves with some musket shots. A dog
barked madly until a sepoy kicked the beast into silence.

Sharpe stopped. It seemed suddenly quiet, for the big guns were silent at last and the
only muskets firing were from the Mahrattas defending the gatehouse. A few small cannon
were firing to the south, but Sharpe could not see them, nor guess what their target was. The
highest part of the fort lay to his right, and there was nothing on the low summit but dry
grassland and a few thorny trees. No defenders gathered there. To his left he could see
Kenny's men assaulting the gatehouse. They were storming the steps to the parapet where a
handful of Arabs were making a stand, though they stood no chance, for over a hundred
redcoats now gathered under the wall and were firing up at the fire step The defenders'
robes turned red. They were trapped now between the musket balls and the bayonets of the men
climbing the steps, and though some tried to surrender, they were all killed. The other
Mahrattas had fled, gone over the high ground in the centre of the Outer Fort to the ravine
and to the larger fort beyond.

A vat stood in an embrasure of the wall and Sharpe heaved himself up and found, as he had
hoped, that the barrel contained water for the abandoned guns. They were very small
cannon, mostly mounted on iron tripods, but they had inflicted a hard punishment on the
men crammed along the fort's approach. The dead and wounded had been pushed aside to make way
for the stream of men approaching the breaches. Major Stokes was among them, Ahmed at his
side, and Sharpe waved to them, though they did not see him. He dipped his hands in the water,
slung it over his face and hair, then stooped and drank. It was filthy stuff, stagnant and
bitter with powder debris, but he was desperately thirsty.

A cheer sounded as Colonel Kenny's men hoisted the British flag above the captured
Delhi Gate. Manu Bappoo's flag was being folded by an aide, to be carried back to Britain.
A squad of Scotsmen unbarred the big inner gate, then the outer one, to let even more
redcoats into the fort that had fallen so quickly. Exhausted men slumped in the wall's
shade, but Kenny's officers were shouting at them to find their units, to load their
muskets and move on south.

“I think our orders are to guard the breach,” Morris suggested as Sharpe jumped down
from the fire step

“We go on,” Sharpe said savagely.

“We ' ”We go on, sir," Sharpe said, investing the 'sir' with a savage scorn.

“Move, move, move!” a major shouted at Morris.

“The job ain't done yet! Move on!” He waved southwards.

“Sergeant Green,” Morris said reluct andy 'gather the men."

Sharpe walked up the hill, going to the high spot in the fort, and once there he stared
southwards. Beneath him the ground fell away, gently at first, then steeply until it
disappeared in a rocky ravine that was deep in shadow. But the far slope was sunlit, and
that slope was a precipitous climb to an unbreached wall, and at the wall's eastern end was
a massive gatehouse, far bigger than the one that had just been captured, and that far
gatehouse was thick with soldiers. Some had white coats, and Sharpe knew those men. He had
fought them before.

“Bloody hell,” he said softly.

“What is it?”

Sharpe turned and saw Garrard had followed him.

“Looks bloody nasty to me, Tom.”

Garrard stared at the Inner Fort. From here he could see the palace, the gardens and the
de fences and suddenly those de fences were blotted out by smoke as the guns across the
ravine opened fire on the redcoats who now spread across the Outer Fort. The round shot
screamed past Sharpe and Garrard.

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said again. He had just fought his way through a breach to help
capture a fort, only to find that the day's real work had scarcely begun.

Manu Bappoo had hoped to defend the breaches by concentrating his best fighters, the
Lions of Allah, at their summits, but that hope had been defeated by the British guns that
had continued to fire at the breaches until the redcoats were almost at the top of the
ramps. No defender could stand in the breach and hope to live, not until the guns ceased
fire, and by then the leading attackers were almost at the summit and so the Lions of
Allah had been denied the advantage of higher ground.

The attackers and defenders had clashed amidst the dust and smoke at the top of the
breach and there the greater height and strength of the Scotsmen had prevailed. Manu Bappoo
had raged at his men, he had fought in their front rank and taken a wound in his shoulder,
but his Arabs had retreated. They had gone back to the upper breaches, and there the
redcoats, helped by their remorseless cannon, had prevailed again, and Bappoo knew the
Outer Fort was lost. In itself that was no great loss. Nothing precious was stored in the
Outer Fort, it was merely an elaborate defence to slow an attacker as he approached the
ravine, but Bappoo was galled by the swiftness of the British victory. For a while he swore
at the redcoats and tried to rally his men to defend the gatehouse, but the British were
now swarming over the breaches, the gunners on the walls were abandoning their weapons,
and Bappoo knew it was time to pull back into the stronghold of the Inner Fort.

“Go back!” he shouted.

“Go back!” His white tunic was soaked in his own blood, but the wound was to his left
shoulder and he could still wield the gold-hilted tulwar that had been a gift from his
brother.

“Go back!”

The defenders retreated swiftly and the attackers seemed too spent to pursue.
Bappoo waited until the last, and then he walked backwards, facing the enemy and daring
them to come and kill him, but they simply watched him go. In a moment, he knew, they would
reorganize themselves and advance to the ravine, but by then he and his troops would be
safely locked within the greater fortress.

The last sight Bappoo had of the Delhi Gate was of an enemy flag being hauled to the top
of the pole that had held his own flag, then he dropped down the steep slope and was hustled
through the south gate by his bodyguard. The path now ran obliquely down the steep side of
the ravine before turning a hairpin bend to climb to the Inner Fort. The first of his men
were already scrambling up that farther path. The gunners on the southern wall, who had
been trying to stop the redcoats approaching on the road from the plain, now abandoned
their small cannon and joined the retreat. Bappoo could only follow them with tears in his
eyes. It did not matter that the battle was not lost, that the Inner Fort still stood and
was likely to stand through all eternity, he had been humiliated by the swiftness of the
defeat.

“Hurry, sahib,” one of his aides said.

“The British aren't following,” Bappoo said tiredly, 'not yet."

“Those British,” the aide said, and pointed west to where the road from the plain climbed
to the ravine. And there, at the bend where the road disappeared about the flank of the steep
slope, was a company of redcoats. They wore kilts, and Bappoo remembered them from

Argaum. If those men hurried, they might cut off Bappoo's retreat and so he quickened
his pace.

It was not till he reached the bottom of the ravine that he realized something was
wrong. The leading groups of his men had reached the Inner Fort, but instead of streaming
into the gate they were milling about on the slope beneath.

“What's happening?” he asked.

“The gates are shut, sahib,” his aide said in wonderment.

“They'll open any minute,” Bappoo said, and turned as a musket bullet whistled down from
the slope behind him. The British who had captured the Outer Fort had at last advanced to
the edge of the ravine and beneath them they saw the mass of retreating enemy, so they
began to fire down.

“Hurry!” Bappoo shouted, and his men pushed on up the hill, but still the gates did not
open.

The British fire became heavier. Redcoats were lining the hilltop now and pouring
musket fire into the ravine. Bullets ricocheted from the stone sides and flicked down into
the press of men. Panic began to infect them, and Bappoo shouted at them to be calm and
return the fire, while he pushed through the throng to discover why the Inner Fort's gates
were closed.

“Dodd!” he shouted as he came close.

“Dodd!”

Colonel Dodd's face appeared above the rampart. He looked quite calm, though he said
nothing.

“Open the gate!” Bappoo shouted angrily.

Dodd's response was to raise the rifle to his shoulder.

Bappoo stared up into the muzzle. He knew he should run or twist away, but the horror of
fate kept him rooted to the path.

“Dodd?” he said in puzzlement, and then the rifle was blotted out by the smoke of its
discharge.

The bullet struck Bappoo on the breastbone, shattering it and driving scraps of bone
deep into his heart. The Prince took two shuddering breaths and then was dead.

His men gave a great wail as the news of their Prince's death spread, and then, unable to
endure the plunging fire from the Outer Fort, and denied entrance to the Inner, they fled
west towards the road which dropped to the plain.

But the road was blocked. The Highlanders of the 78th were nearing its summit and they
now saw a great panicked mass surging towards them.

The Scotsmen had endured the artillery fire of the Outer Fort during their long climb,
but now those guns had been abandoned. To their right the cliffs soared up to the Inner Fort,
while to their left was a precipice above a dizzying gorge.

There was only room for twelve men to stand abreast on the road, but Colonel Chalmers, who
led the 78th, knew that was space enough. He formed his leading half-company into three
ranks with the front row kneeling.

“You'll fire by ranks,” he said quietly.

The panicked defenders ran towards the kilted Highlanders, who waited until every
shot could kill.

“Front rank, fire!” Chalmers said.

The muskets started, and one by one the three ranks fired, and the steady fusillade tore
into the approaching fugitives. Some tried to turn and retreat, but the press behind was
too great, and still the relentless fire ripped into them, while behind them redcoats came
down from the Outer Fort to attack their rear.

The first men jumped off the cliff, and their terrible screams faded as they plunged down
to the rocks far beneath. The road was thick with bodies and running with blood.

“Advance twenty paces!” Chalmers ordered.

The Highlanders marched, halted, knelt and began firing again.

Bappoo's survivors, betrayed by Dodd, were trapped between two forces. They were
stranded in a hell above emptiness, a slaughter in the high hills. There were screams as men
tumbled to their deaths far beneath and still the fire kept coming. It kept coming until
there was nothing left but quivering men crouching in terror on a road that was rank with
the stench of blood, and then the redcoats moved forward with bayonets.