Sharpe's Triumph (25 page)

“Are you sure you're not hurrying too much?” he asked.

“We must hurry, Stevenson, must.” Wellesley unrolled a map onto the Colonel's table
and pointed to Borkardan.

“We hear they're likely to stay there, but they won't stay for ever. If we don't close on
them now, they'll slip away.”

“If the bastards are that close,” Stevenson said, peering at the map, 'then maybe we
should join forces now?"

“And if we do,” the General said, 'it will take us twice as long to reach Borkardan." The
two roads on which the armies advanced were narrow and, a few miles south of the River
Kaitna, those roads followed passes through a small but steep range of hills. Every wheeled
vehicle in both armies would have to be fed through those defiles in the hills, and if the
two small armies combined the cumbersome business of negotiating the pass would take a
whole day, a day in which the Mahrattas might escape northwards.

Instead the two armies would advance separately and meet at Borkardan.

“Tomorrow night,” Wellesley ordered, 'y u camp here' he made a cross on the map at a
village called Hussainabad - 'and we'll be here." The pencil made another cross at a
village called Naulniah which lay four miles south of the River Kaitna. The villages were
ten miles apart, and both about the same distance south of Borkardan.

“On the twenty-fourth,” Wellesley said, 'we march and join here." He dashed a circle
about the village of Borkardan.

“There!” he added, jabbing the pencil down and breaking its point.

Stevenson hesitated. He was a good soldier with a long experience of India, but he
was cautious by nature and it seemed to him that Wellesley was being headstrong and
foolish. The Mahratta army was vast, the British armies small, yet Wellesley was rushing
into battle. There was a dangerous excitement in the usually cool-headed Wellesley,
and Stevenson now tried to rein it in.

“We could meet at Naulniah,” he suggested, thinking it better if the armies combined
the day before the battle rather than attempt to make their junction under fire.

“We have no time,” Wellesley declared, 'no time!" He swept aside the weights holding down
the map's corners so that the big sheet rolled up with a snap.

“Providence has put their army within striking distance, so let us strike!” He tossed
the map to his aide, Campbell, then ducked out of the tent into the day's late sunlight and
there found himself staring at Colonel McCandless who was mounted on a small, bony
horse.

“You!”

Wellesley said with surprise.

“I thought you were wounded, McCandless?”

“I am, sir, but it's healing.” The Scotsman patted his left thigh.

“So what are you doing here?”

“Seeking you, sir,” McCandless answered, though in truth he had come to Stevenson's
army by mistake. One of Sevajee's men, scouting the area, had seen the redcoats and
McCandless had thought it must be Wellesley's men.

“And what on earth are you riding?” Wellesley asked, pulling himself onto Diomed's
back.

“Looks like a gypsy nag, McCandless. I've seen ponies that are bigger.”

McCandless patted the captured Mahratta horse.

“She's the best I can do, sir. I lost my own gelding.”

'For four hundred guineas you can have my spare. Give me a note, McCandless, and he's all
yours. Aeolus, he's called, a six-year-old gelding out of County Meath. Good lungs, got a
capped hock, but it don't stop him. I'll see you in two days, Colonel," Wellesley now
addressed Stevenson.

"Two days! We'll test our Mahrattas, eh? See if their vaunted infantry can stand some
pounding. Good day, Stevenson!

Are you coming, McCandless?"

“I am, sir, I am.”

Sharpe fell in beside Daniel Fletcher, the General's orderly.

“I've never seen the General so happy,” Sharpe said to Fletcher.

“Got the bit between his teeth,” Fletcher said.

“He reckons we're going to surprise the enemy.”

“He ain't worried? There are thousands of the buggers.”

“He ain't showing nothing if he is frightened,” Fletcher said.

“Up and at them, that's his mood.”

“Then God help the rest of us,” Sharpe said.

The General talked with McCandless on his way back, but nothing the Scotsman said
diminished Wellesley's eagerness, even though McCandless warned him of the
effectiveness of the Mahratta artillery and the efficiency of the infantry.

“We knew all that when we declared war,” Wellesley said testily, 'and if it didn't deter
us then, why should it now?"

“Don't underestimate them, sir,” McCandless said grimly.

“I rather hope they'll underestimate me!” Wellesley said.

“You want that gelding of mine?”

“I don't have the money, sir.”

“Oh come, McCandless! You on a Company colonel's salary! You must have a fortune
stacked away!”

“I've some savings, sir, for my retirement, which is not far off.”

“I'll make it three hundred and eighty guineas, seeing as it's you, and in a couple of
years you can sell him for four hundred. You can't go into battle on that thing.” He
gestured at the Mahratta horse.

“I'll think on it, sir, I'll think on it,” McCandless said gloomily. He prayed that the
good Lord would restore his own horse to him, along with Lieutenant Dodd, but if that did not
happen soon then he knew he would have to buy a decent horse, though the prospect of
spending such a vast sum grieved him.

“You'll take supper with me tonight, McCandless?” Wellesley asked.

“We have a fine leg of mutton. A rare leg!”

“I eschew meat, sir,” the Scotsman answered.

“You eschew meat? And chew vegetables?” The General decided this was a splendid joke
and frightened his horse by uttering a fierce neigh of a laugh.

"That's droll! Very. You eschew meat to chew vegetables.

Never mind, McCandless, we shall find you some chewable shrubs."

McCandless chewed his vegetables that night, and afterwards, excusing himself, went
to the tent that Wellesley had lent to him. He was tired, his leg was throbbing, but there
had been no sign of the fever all day and for that he was grateful. He read his Bible, knelt
in prayer beside the cot, then blew out the lantern to sleep. An hour later he was woken by
the thump of hooves, the sound of suppressed voices, a giggle, and the brush of someone
half falling against the tent.

“Who is it?” McCandless demanded angrily.

“Colonel?” Sharpe's voice answered.

“Me, sir. Sorry, sir. Lost my footing, sir.”

“I was sleeping, man.”

“Didn't mean to wake you, sir, sorry, sir. Stand still, you bugger! Not you, sir, sorry,
sir.”

McCandless, dressed in shirt and breeches, snatched the tent flap open.

“Are you drunk?” he demanded, then fell silent as he gazed at the horse Sharpe was
holding. The horse was a gelding, a splendid bay gelding with pricked ears and a quick,
nervous energy.

“He's six years old, sir,” Sharpe said. Daniel Fletcher was trying to hammer in the
picket and doing a very bad job because of the drink inside him.

“He's got a capped hock, sir, whatever that is, but nothing that'll stop him. Comes from
Ireland, he does. All that green grass, sir, makes a good horse. Aeolus, he's called.”

“Aeolus,” McCandless said, 'the god of the wind."

“Is he one of those Indian idols, sir? All arms and snake heads?”

“No, Sharpe, Aeolus is Greek.” McCandless took the reins from Sharpe and stroked the
gelding's nose.

“Is Wellesley lending him to me?”

“Oh no, sir.” Sharpe had taken the mallet from the half-drunk

Fletcher and now banged the picket firmly into the soil.

“He's yours, sir, all yours.”

“But.. .” McCandless said, then stopped, not understanding the situation at all.

“He's paid for, sir,” Sharpe said.

“Paid for by whom?” McCandless demanded sternly.

“Just paid for, sir.”

“You're blithering, Sharpe!”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Explain yourself!” the Colonel demanded.

General Wellesley had said much the same thing when, just forty minutes before, an aide
had told him that Sergeant Sharpe was begging to see him and the General, who was just
bidding goodnight to the last of his supper guests, had reluctantly agreed.

“Make it quick, Sergeant,” he had said, his fine mood disguised by his usual
coldness.

“It's Colonel McCandless, sir,” Sharpe said woodenly.

“He's decided to buy your horse, sir, and he sent me with the money.” He stepped forward
and tipped a bag of gold onto the General's map table. The gold was Indian, from every
state and princedom, but it was real gold and it lay shining like butter in the candle
flames.

Wellesley gazed in astonishment at the treasure.

“He said he didn't have the money!”

“He's a Scotsman, sir, the Colonel,” Sharpe had said, as though that explained
everything, 'and he's sorry it ain't real money, sir. Guineas.

But it's the full price, sir. Four hundred."

“Three hundred and eighty,” Wellesley said.

“Tell the Colonel I'll return some to him. But a note would have done just as well! I'm
supposed to carry gold on me?”

“Sorry, sir,” Sharpe had said lamely, but he could never have provided a note for the
General, so instead he had sought out one of the bhinjanies who followed the army, and
that merchant had exchanged emeralds for gold. Sharpe suspected he had been cheated, but
he had wanted to give the Colonel the pleasure of owning a fine horse and so he had
accepted the bhinjarrie's price.

“Is it all right, sir?”

he had asked Wellesley anxiously.

“Extraordinary way to do business,” Wellesley had said, but he had nodded his
agreement.

“A fair sale, Sergeant,” he said, and he had almost held out his hand to shake Sharpe's as
a man always shook hands on the sale of a horse, then he remembered that Sharpe was a
sergeant and so he had hastily converted his gesture into a vague wave.

And after Sharpe had gone and while he was scooping the coins into their bag, the
General also remembered Sergeant Hakeswill. Not that it was any of his business, so
perhaps it had been sensible not to mention the Sergeant's presence to Sharpe.

McCandless now admired the gelding.

“Who paid for it?”

“Good-looking horse, ain't he, sir?” Sharpe said.

“Good as your other, I'd say.”

“Sharpe! You're blithering again. Who paid for it?”

Sharpe hesitated, but knew he was not going to be spared the interrogation.

“In a manner of speaking, sir,” he said, 'the Tippoo did."

“The Tippoo? Are you mad?”

Sharpe blushed.

“The fellow that killed the Tippoo, sir, he took some jewels off him.”

“A king's ransom, I should imagine,” McCandless snorted.

“So I persuaded the fellow to buy the horse, sir. As a gift for you, sir.”

McCandless stared at Sharpe.

“It was you.”

“It was me who did what, sir?”

“You killed the Tippoo.” It was almost an accusation.

“Me, sir?” Sharpe asked innocently.

“No, sir.”

McCandless stared at the gelding.

“I can't possibly accept, Sergeant.”

“He's no good to me, sir. A sergeant can't own a horse. Not a proper horse from Ireland,
sir. And if I hadn't been day-dreaming in Pohlmann's camp, sir, I might have stopped those
thieves, so it's only fair that you should let me get you another.”

“You can't do this, Sharpe!” McCandless protested, embarrassed by the generosity of
the gift.

“Besides, in a day or two I hope to get my own horse back along with Mister Dodd.”

Sharpe had not thought of that, and for a second he cursed himself for throwing away his
money. Then he shrugged.

“It's done anyway, sir. General's got the money and you've got the horse. Besides, sir,
you've always been fair to me, so I wanted to do something for you.”

“It's intolerable!” McCandless protested.

“Uncalled for. I shall have to repay you.”

“Four hundred guineas?” Sharpe asked.

“That's the price of an ensign's commission, sir.”

“So?” McCandless stared fiercely at Sharpe.

“So we're going into battle, sir. You on that horse, and me on a Mahratta pony. It's a
chance, sir, a chance, but if I do well, sir, real well, I'll need you to talk to the
General.” Sharpe blushed as he spoke, amazed at his own temerity.

“That's how you repay me, sir, but that's not why I bought him. I just wanted you to have
a proper horse, sir. Colonel like you shouldn't be sitting on a scabby native pony,
sir.”

McCandless, appalled at Sharpe's ambition, did not know what to say.

He stroked the gelding, felt tears in his eyes and could not tell whether they were for
Sharpe's impossible dreams or because he had been so touched by the Sergeant's gift.

“If you do well, Sharpe,” he promised, “I'll talk to Colonel Wallace. He's a good friend.
It's possible he'll have a vacant ensign's post, but don't raise your hopes too high!” He
paused, wondering if emotion had driven him to promise far too much.

“How did the Tippoo die?” he asked after a while.

“And don't lie to me, Sharpe, it must have been you who killed him.”

“Like a man, sir. Bravely. Facing front, he was. Never gave up.”

“He was a good soldier,” McCandless said, reflecting that the Tippoo had been beaten
by a better one.

“I trust you've still got some of his jewels?”

“Jewels, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“I don't know about jewels, sir.”

“Of course not,” McCandless said. If the Company ever heard that Sharpe was carrying
the Tippoo's gems their prize agents would descend on the Sergeant like locusts.

“Thank you, Sharpe,” McCandless said fulsomely, 'thank you very much. I shall repay
you, of course, but you've touched me.

“Pon my soul, you have touched me.” He insisted upon shaking Sharpe's hand, then watched
the Sergeant walk away with the General's orderly. So much sin there, McCandless thought,
and so much goodness. But why had Pohknann ever put the idea of a commission into
Sharpe's head? It was an impossible dream, doomed to disappointment.