Sharpe's Triumph (29 page)

He suddenly caught sight of a disconsolate Sergeant Hakeswill and his six men.

“Sergeant! You're still here? I thought you'd have your rogue safely pinioned by now?”

“Problems, sir,” Hakeswill said, standing rigidly to attention.

“Easy, Sergeant, stand easy. No rogue?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“So you're back in my command, are you? That's splendid, just splendid.” Mackay was an
eager young officer who did his best to see the good in everybody, and though he found the
Sergeant from the 33rd somewhat daunting, he did his best to communicate his own
enthusiasm.

“Puckalees, Sergeant,” he said brightly, pucka lees

Hakeswill's face wrenched in a series of spasms.

“Puckalees, sir?”

“Water carriers, Sergeant.”

“I knows what a pucka lee is, sir, on account of having lived in this heathen land more
years than I can count, but begging your pardon, sir, what has a pucka lee to do with
me?”

“We have to establish a collecting point for them,” Mackay said. The pucka lees were
all on the strengths of the individual regiments and in battle their job was to keep the
fighting men supplied with water.

“I need a man to watch over them,” Mackay said.

“They're good fellows, all of them, but oddly frightened of bullets! They need
chivvying along. I'll be busy enough with the ammunition wagons tomorrow, so can I rely
on you to make sure the puckakes do their job like the stout fellows they are?”

The 'stout fellows' were boys, grandfathers, cripples, the half-blind and the half
witted

“Excellent! Excellent!” the young Captain said.

“A problem solved! Make sure you get some rest, Sergeant. We'll all need to be sprightly
tomorrow. And if you feel the need for some spiritual refreshment you'll find the 74th
are holding divine service any moment now.” Mackay smiled at Hakeswill, then set off in
pursuit of an errant group of bullock carts.

“You! You! You with the tents! Not there! Come here!”

“Puckalees,” Hakeswill said, spitting, pucka lees None of his men responded for they
knew well enough to leave Sergeant Hakeswill alone when he was in a more than usually foul
mood.

“Could be worse, though,” he said.

“Worse?” Private Flaherty ventured.

Hakeswill's face twitched.

“We has a problem, boys,” he said dourly, 'and the problem is one Scottish Colonel who is
attempting to bugger up the good order of our regiment. I won't abide it, I won't.
Regimental honour is at stake, it is. He's been wool-pulling, ain't he? And he thinks he's
pulled it clean over our eyes, but he ain't, because I've seen through him, I have, I've seen
through his Scotch soul and it's as rotten as rotten eggs. Sharpie's paying him off, ain't
he? Stands to reason! Corruption, boys, nothing but corruption." Hakeswill blinked, his
mind racing.

“If we're flogging pucka lees halfway across bleeding India tomorrow, lads, then we
will have our moment and the regiment would want us to seize it.”

“Seize it?” Lowry asked.

“Kill the bugger, you block headed toad.”

“Kill Sharpie?”

"God help me for leading half wits Hakeswill said.

"Not Sharpie!

We wants him private like, where we can fillet him fair and square. You kills the
Scotchman! Once Mister bleeding McCandless is gone, Sharpie's ours."

“You can't kill a colonel!” Kendrick said aghast.

“You points your firelock, Private Kendrick,” Hakeswill said, ramming his own musket's
muzzle hard into Kendrick's midriff.

“You cocks your musket, Private Kendrick' Hakeswill pulled back the dog head and the heavy
lock clicked into place 'and then you shoots the bugger clear through.” Hakeswill pulled his
trigger. The powder in the pan exploded with a small crackle and fizz, and Kendrick leaped
back as the smoke drifted away from the lock, but the musket had not been charged.

Hakeswill laughed.

“Got you, didn't I? You thought I was putting a goalie in your belly! But that's what you
do to McCandless. A goo he in his belly or in his brain or in any other part what kills
him. And you do it tomorrow.” The six men looked dubious, and Hakeswill grinned.

"Extra shares for you all if it happens, boys, extra shares. You'll be paying the
officers' whores when you get home, and all it will take is one goo he He smiled
wolfishly.

“Tomorrow, boys, tomorrow.”

But across the river, where the blue-coated patrol of the igth Dragoons was exploring
the countryside south of the Kaitna, everything was changing.

Wellesley had dismounted, stripped off his jacket and was washing his face from a basin
of water held on a tripod. Lieutenant Colonel Orrock, the Company officer who
commanded the picquets that day, was complaining about the two galloper guns that were
supposedly attached to his small command.

“They wouldn't keep up, sir. Laggards, sir. I found myself four hundred yards ahead of
them! Four hundred yards!”

“I asked you to set a brisk pace, Orrock,” the General said, wishing the fool would go
away. He reached for a towel and vigorously scrubbed his face dry.

“But if we'd been challenged!” Orrock protested.

“Gallopers can move briskly when they must,” the General said, then sighed as he
realized the prickly Orrock needed placating.

“Who commanded the guns?”

“Barlow, sir.”

“I'll speak to him,” the General promised, then turned as the patrol of iqth Dragoons
that had crossed the River Purna to reconnoitre the ground on the far bank came threading
through the rising tents towards him. Wellesley had not expected the patrol back this
scon and their return puzzled him, then he saw they were escorting a group
ofbkinjarries, the black-cloaked merchants who traversed India buying and selling
food.

“You'll excuse me, Orrock,” the General said, plucking his coat from a stool.

“You will talk with Barlow, sir?” Orrock asked.

“I said so, didn't I?” Wellesley called as he walked towards the horsemen.

The patrol leader, a captain, slid off his horse and gestured at the bhinjarries'
leader.

“We found these fellows a half-mile north of the river, sir. They've got eighteen pack
oxen loaded with grain and they reckon the enemy ain't in Borkardan at all. They were
planning to sell the grain in Assaye.”

“Assaye?” The General frowned at the unfamiliar name.

“It's a village four or five miles north of here, sir. He says it's thick with the
enemy.”

“Four or five miles?” Wellesley asked in astonishment.

“Four or five?”

The cavalry captain shrugged.

“That's what they say, sir.” He gestured at the grain merchants who stood impassively
among the mounted troopers.

Dear God, Wellesley thought, four or five miles? He had been humbugged! The enemy had
stolen a march on him, and at any moment that enemy might appear to the north and launch an
attack on the British encampment and there was no chance for Stevenson to come to his help.
The 74th were singing hymns and the enemy was five miles away, maybe less? The General spun
round.

"Barclay! Campbell! Horses!

Quick now!"

The flurry of activity at the General's tent sent a rumour whipping through the camp,
and the rumour was fanned into alarm when the whole of the igth Dragoons and the 4th Native
Cavalry trotted through the river on the heels of the General and his two aides. Colonel
McCandless had been walking with Sharpe towards the 74th's lines, but seeing the sudden
excitement, he turned and hurried back towards his horse.

“Come on, Sharpe!”

“Where to, sir?”

“We'll find out. Sevajee?”

“We're ready.”

McCandless's party left the camp five minutes after the General.

They could see the dust left by the cavalry ahead and McCandless hurried to catch up.
They rode through a landscape of small fields cut by deep dry gulches and cactus-thorn
hedges. Wellesley had been following the earth road northwards, but after a while the
General swerved westwards onto a field of stubble and McCandless did not follow, but
kept straight on up the road.

“No point in tiring the horses unnecessarily,” he explained, though Sharpe
suspected the Colonel was merely impatient to go north and see whatever had caused the
excitement. The two British cavalry regiments were in sight to the east, but there was no
enemy visible.

Sevajee and his men had ridden ahead, but when they reached a crest some two hundred
yards in front of McCandless they suddenly wrenched on their reins and swerved back. Sharpe
expected to see a horde of Mahratta cavalry come boiling over the crest, but the skyline
stayed empty as Sevajee and his men halted a few yards short of the ridge and there
dismounted.

“You'll not want them to see you, Colonel,” Sevajee said drily when McCandless caught
up.

Them?"

Sevajee gestured at the crest.

“Take a look. You'll want to dismount.”

McCandless and Sharpe both slid from their saddles, then walked to the skyline where a
cactus hedge offered concealment and from where they could stare at the country to the
north and Sharpe, who had never seen such a sight before, simply gazed in amazement.

It was not an army. It was a horde, a whole people, a nation.

Thousands upon thousands of the enemy, all in line, mile after mile of them. Men and
women and children and guns and camels and bullocks and rocket batteries and horses and
tents and still more men until there seemed to be no end to them.

“Jesus!” Sharpe said, the imprecation torn from him.

“Sharpe!”

“Sorry, sir.” But no wonder he had sworn, for Sharpe had never imagined that an army
could look so vast. The nearest men were no more than half a mile away, beyond a discoloured
river that flowed between steep mud banks. A village lay on the nearer bank, but on the
northern side, just beyond the mud bluff, there was a line of guns.

Big guns, the same painted and sculpted cannon that Sharpe had seen in Pohlmann's camp.
Beyond the guns was the infantry and behind the infantry, and spreading far out of sight
to the east, was a mass of cavalry and beyond them the myriad of camp followers. More
infantry were posted about a distant village where Sharpe could just see a cluster of
bright flags.

“How many are there?” he asked.

“At least a hundred thousand men?” McCandless ventured.

“At least,” Sevajee agreed, 'but most are adventurers come for loot."

The Indian was peering through a long ivory-clad telescope.

“And the cavalry won't help in a battle.”

“It'll be down to these fellows,” McCandless said, indicating the infantry just
behind the gun line.

“Fifteen thousand?”

“Fourteen or fifteen,” Sevajee said.

“Too many.”

“Too many guns,” McCandless said gloomily.

“It'll be a retreat.”

“I thought we came here to fight!” Sharpe said belligerentiy.

“We came here expecting to rest, then march on Borkardan tomorrow,” McCandless said
testily.

“We didn't come here to take on the whole enemy army with just five thousand infantry.
They know we're coming, they're ready for us and they simply want us to walk into their
fire. Wellesley's not a fool, Sharpe. He'll march us back, link up with Stevenson, then find
them again.”

Sharpe felt a pang of relief that he would not discover the realities of bat de but the
relief was tempered by a tinge of disappointment. The disappointment surprised him,
and the relief made him fear he might be a coward.

“If we retreat,” Sevajee warned, 'those horsemen will harry us all the way."

“We'll just have to fight them off,” McCandless said confidently, then let out a long
satisfied breath.

“Got him! There, the left flank!” He pointed and Sharpe saw, far away at the very end of
the enemy gun line a scatter of white uniforms.

“Not that it helps us,” McCandless said wryly, 'but at least we're on his heels."

“Or he's on ours,” Sevajee said, then he offered his telescope to Sharpe.

“See for yourself, Sergeant.”

Sharpe rested the glass's long barrel on a thick cactus leaf. He moved the lens slowly
along the line of infantry. Men slept in the shade, some were in their small tents and others
sat in groups and he could have sworn a few were gambling. Officers, Indian and
European, strolled behind their men, while in front of them the massive line of guns
waited with their ammunition limbers. He moved the glass to the very far left of the
enemy line and saw the white jackets of Dodd's men, and saw something else. Two huge guns,
much bigger than anything he had seen before.

“They've got their siege guns in the line, sir,” he told McCandless, who trained his own
telescope.

“Eighteen-pounders,” McCandless guessed, 'maybe bigger?" The Colonel collapsed his
glass.

“Why aren't they patrolling this side of the river?”

“Because they don't want to frighten us away,” Sevajee said.

“They want us to stroll up to their guns and die in the river, but they'll still have some
horsemen hidden on this bank, waiting to tell them when we retreat.”

The sound of hooves made Sharpe whip round in expectation of those enemy cavalry, but
it was only General Wellesley and his two aides who cantered along the lower ground
beneath the crest.

“They're all there, McCandless,” the General shouted happily.

“So it seems, sir.”

The General reined in, waiting for McCandless to come down from the skyline and join
him.

“They seem to presume we'll make a frontal attack,” Wellesley said wryly, as though he
found the idea amusing.

“They're certainly formed for it, sir.”

“They must assume we're blockheads. What time is it?”

One of his aides consulted a watch.

“Ten minutes of noon, sir.”

“Plenty of time,” the General murmured.

“Onwards, gentlemen, stay below the skyline. We don't want to frighten them away!”

“Frighten them away?” Sevajee asked with a smile, but Wellesley ignored the comment as
he spurred on eastwards, parallel with the river. Some troops of Company cavalry were
scouring the fields and at first Sharpe thought they were looking for concealed enemy
picquets, then he saw they were hunting down local farmers and harrying them along in the
General's wake.