Sharpe's Triumph (41 page)

Assaye alone remained in enemy hands for the rest of Pohlmann's army had simply
disintegrated. The great majority of the Mahratta horsemen had spent the afternoon as
spectators, but now they turned and spurred west towards Borkardan while to the north,
beyond the Juah, the remnants of Pohlmann's three compoos fled in panic, pursued by a
handful of British and Company cavalry on tired horses. Great banks of gunsmoke lay like
fog across the field where men of both armies groaned and died. Diomed gave a great shudder,
lifted his head a final time, then rolled his eyes and went still. The sepoy trooper,
charged with guarding the horse, stayed at his post and waved the flies away from the dead
Diomed's face.

The sun reddened the layers of gunsmoke. There was an hour of daylight left, a few
moments of dusk, and then it would be night, and Wellesley used the last of the light to turn
his victorious infantry towards the mud walls of Assaye. He summoned gunners and had
them haul captured enemy cannon towards the village.

“They won't stand,” he told his aides.

“A handful of round shot and the sight of some bayonets will send them packing.”

The village still held a small army. The Rajah of Berar's twenty thousand men were
behind its thick walls, and Major Dodd had succeeded in marching his own regiment into
the village. He had seen the remainder of the Mahratta line crumple, he had watched
Anthony Pohlmann discard his hat and coat as he fled to the village and, rather than let
the panic infect his own men, Dodd had turned them eastwards, ordered the regiment's
cumbersome guns to be abandoned, then followed his commanding officer into the tangle
of Assaye's narrow alleys. Beny Singh, the Rajah of Berar's warlord and the kill adar of
the village's garrison, was glad to see the European.

“What do we do?” he asked Dodd.

“Do? We get out, of course. The battle's lost.”

Beny Singh blinked at him.

“We just go?”

Dodd dismounted from his horse and steered Beny Singh away from his aides.

“Who are your best troops?” he asked.

“The Arabs.”

“Tell them you're going to fetch reinforcements, tell them to defend the village, and
promise that if they can hold the place till nightfall then help will come in the
morning.”

“But it won't,” Beny Singh protested.

“But if they hold,” Dodd said, 'they cover your escape, sahib." He smiled
ingratiatingly, knowing that men like Beny Singh could yet play a part in his
future.

“The British will pounce on any fugitives leaving the village,” Dodd explained, 'but
they won't dare attack men who are well drilled and well commanded. I proved that at
Ahmednuggur. So you're most welcome to march north with my men, sahib. I promise they won't
be broken like the rest." He climbed back into his saddle and rode back to his Cobras and
ordered them to join Captain Joubert at the ford.

“You're to wait for me there,” he told them, then shouted for his own sepoy company to
follow him deeper into the village.

The battle might be lost, but Dodd's men had not failed him and he was determined they
should have a reward and so he led them to the house where Colonel Pohlmann had stored his
treasure. Dodd knew that if he did not give his men gold then they would melt away to find
another warlord who would reward them, but if he paid them they would stay under his
command while he sought another prince as employer.

He heard the sonorous bang of a great gun being fired beyond the village and he reckoned
that the British had begun to pound Assaye's mud wall. Dodd knew that wall could not last
long, for every shot would crumble the dried mud bricks and collapse the roof beams of the
outermost houses so that in a few minutes there would be a wide breach leading into
Assaye's heart. A moment later the redcoats would be ordered into the dusty breach and
the village's alleys would be clogged by panic and filled with screams and bayonets.

Dodd reached the alley leading to the courtyard where Pohlmann had placed his elephants
and he saw, as he had expected, that the big gate was still shut. Pohlmann was undoubtedly
inside the courtyard, readying to escape, but Dodd could not wait for the Hanoverian to
throw open the gates, so instead he ordered his men to fight their way through the house. He
left a dozen men to block the alley, gave one of those men his horse to hold, then led the
rest of the sepoys towards the house. Pohlmann's bodyguard saw them coming and fired, but
fired too early and Dodd survived the panicked volley and roared his men on.

“Kill them!” he shouted as, sword in hand, he charged through the musket smoke. He kicked
the house door open and plunged into a kitchen crowded with purple-coated men. He lunged
with his sword, driving the defenders back, and then his sepoys arrived to carry their
bayonets to Pohlmann's men.

“Gopal!” Dodd shouted.

“Sahib?” the Jemadar said, tugging his tulwar from the body of a dead man.

“Find the gold! Make sure it's loaded on the elephants, then open the courtyard gate!”
Dodd snapped the orders, then went on killing.

He was consumed with a huge anger. How could any fool have lost this battle? How could a
man, given a hundred thousand troops, be beaten by a handful of redcoats? It was
Pohlmann's fault, all Pohlmann, and Dodd knew Pohlmann had to be somewhere in the house or
courtyard and so he hunted him and vented his rage on Pohlmann's guards, pursuing them
from room to room, slaughtering them mercilessly, and all the while the great guns
hammered the sky with their noise and the round shot thumped into the village walls.

Most of the Rajah of Berar's infantry fled. Those on the makeshift ramparts could see
the redcoats massing beyond the smoke of the big cannon and they did not wait for that
infantry to attack, but instead ran northwards. Only the Arab mercenaries stayed, and
some of those men decided caution was better than bravery and so joined the other
infantry that splashed through the ford where Captain Joubert waited with Dodd's
regiment.

Joubert was nervous. The village's defenders were fleeing, Dodd was missing, and
Simone was still somewhere in the village. It was like Ahmednuggur all over again, he
thought, only this time he was determined that his wife would not be left behind and so he
kicked back his heels and urged his horse towards the house where she had taken refuge.

That house was hard by the courtyard where Dodd was searching for Pohlmann, but the
Hanoverian had vanished. His gold was all in its panniers, and Pohlmann's bodyguard had
succeeded in strapping the panniers onto the two pack elephants before Dodd's men
attacked,

but there was no sign of Pohlmann himself. Dodd decided he would let the bastard live,
and so, abandoning the hunt, he sheathed his sword then lifted the locking bar from the
courtyard gates.

“Where's my horse?” he shouted to the men he had left guarding the alley.

“Dead, sahib,” a man answered.

Dodd ran down the alley to see that his precious new gelding had been struck by a bullet
from the one volley fired by Pohlmann's bodyguard. The beast was not yet dead, but it was
leaning against the alley wall with its head down, dulled eyes and blood dripping from its
mouth. Dodd swore. The big guns were still firing beyond the village, showing that the
redcoats were not advancing yet, but suddenly they went silent and Dodd knew he had only
minutes left to make his escape, and just then he saw another horse turn into the alley.
Captain Joubert was in the saddle, and Dodd ran to him.

“Joubert!”

Joubert ignored Dodd. Instead he cupped his hands and shouted up at the house where the
wives had been sheltered during the fighting.

“Simone!”

“Give me your horse, Captain!” Dodd demanded.

Joubert still ignored the Major.

“Simone!” he called again, then spurred his horse on up the alley. Had she already gone?
Was she north of thejuah?

“Simone?” he shouted.

“Captain!” Dodd screamed behind him.

Joubert turned, summoned the courage to tell the Englishman to go to hell, but as he
turned he saw that Dodd was holding a big pistol.

“No!”Joubert protested.

“Yes, Monsewer,” Dodd said, and fired. The ball snatched Joubert back against the alley
wall and he slid down to leave a trail of blood. A woman screamed from a window above the
alley as Dodd pulled himself into the Frenchman's saddle. Gopal was already leading the
first elephant out of the gate.

“To the ford, Gopal!” Dodd shouted, then he spurred into the courtyard to make certain
that the second elephant was ready to leave.

While outside, in the alleys, there was a sudden silence. Most of the village's
garrison had fled, the dust drifted from its broken walls, and then the order was given
for the redcoats to advance. Assaye was doomed.

Colonel McCandless had watched Dodd's men retreat into the village and he doubted that
the traitor was leading his men to reinforce the doomed garrison.

“Sevajee!” McCandless called.

“Take your men to the far side!”

“Across the river?” Sevajee asked.

“Watch to see if he crosses the ford,” McCandless said.

“Where will you be, Colonel?”

“In the village.” McCandless slid from Aeolus's back and limped towards the captured
guns that had started to fire at the mud walls. The shadows were long now, the daylight
short and the battle ending, but there was still time for Dodd to be trapped. Let him be a
hero, McCandless prayed, let him stay in the village just long enough to be caught.

The big guns were only three hundred paces from the village's thick wall and each shot
pulverized the mud bricks and started great clouds of red dust that billowed thick as
gunsmoke. Wellesley summoned the survivors of the 74th and a Madrassi battalion and
lined them both up behind the guns.

“They won't stand, Wallace,” Wellesley said to the 74th's commander.

“We'll give them five minutes of artillery, then your fellows can take the place.”

“Allow me to congratulate you, sir,” Wallace said, taking a hand from his reins and
holding it towards the General.

“Congratulate me?” Wellesley asked with a frown.

“On a victory, sir.”

"I suppose it is a victory.

“Pon my soul, so it is. Thank you, Wallace.”

The General leaned across and shook the Scotsman's hand.

“A great victory,” Wallace said heartily, then climbed out of his saddle so that he
could lead the 74th into the village.

McCandless joined him.

“You don't mind if I come, Wallace?”

“Glad of your company, McCandless. A great day, is it not?”

“The Lord has been merciful to us,” McCandless agreed.

“Praise His name.”

The guns ceased, their smoke drifted northwards and the dying sun shone on the broken
walls. There were no defenders visible, nothing but dust and fallen bricks and broken
timbers.

“Go, Wallace!” Wellesley called, and the 74th's lone piper hoisted his instrument and
played the redcoats and the sepoys forward. The other battalions watched. Those other
battalions had fought all afternoon, they had destroyed an army, and now they sprawled
beside the Juah and drank its muddy water to slake their powder-induced thirst. None
crossed the river, only a handful of cavalry splashed through the water to chase the
laggard fugitives on the farther bank.

Major Blackiston brought Wellesley a captured standard, one of a score that had been
abandoned by the fleeing Mahrattas.

“They left all their guns too, sir, every last one of them!”

Wellesley acknowledged the standard with a smile.

“I'd rather you brought me some water, Blackiston. Where are my canteens?”

“Sergeant Sharpe still has them, sir,” Campbell answered, holding his own canteen to the
General.

“Ah yes, Sharpe.” The General frowned, knowing there was unfinished business
there.

“If you see him, bring him to me.”

“I will, sir.”

Sharpe was not far away. He had walked north through the litter of the Mahratta battle
line, going to where the guns fired on the village and, just as they stopped, so he saw
McCandless walking behind the 74th as it advanced on the village. He hurried to catch up
with the Colonel and was rewarded with a warm smile from McCandless.

“Thought I'd lost you, Sharpe.”

“Almost did, sir.”

“The General released you, did he?”

“He did, sir, in a manner of speaking. We ran out of horses, sir. He had two killed.”

“Two! An expensive day for him! It sounds as if you had an eventful time!”

“Not really, sir,” Sharpe said.

“Bit confusing, really.”

The Colonel frowned at the blood staining the light infantry insignia on Sharpe's left
shoulder.

“You're wounded, Sharpe.”

“A scratch, sir. Bastard with sorry, sir man with a tulwar tried to tickle me.”

“But you're all right?” McCandless asked anxiously.

“Fine, sir.” He raised his left arm to show that the wound was not serious.

“The day's not over yet,” McCandless said, then gestured at the village.

“Dodd's there, Sharpe, or he was. I'm glad you're here. He'll doubtless try to escape, but
Sevajee's on the far side of the river and between us we might yet trap the rogue.”

Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was a hundred paces behind McCandless.

He too had seen the Colonel following the 74th and now Hakeswill followed McCandless,
for if McCandless wrote his letter, then Hakeswill knew his sergeantcy was
imperilled.

“It ain't that I like doing it,” he said to his men as he stalked after the Colonel, 'but
he ain't giving me a choice. No choice at all. His own fault. His own fault." Three of his men
were following him, the others had refused to come.

A musket fired from Assaye's rooftops, showing that not all the defenders had fled. The
ball fluttered over Wallace's head and the Colonel, not wanting to expose his men to any
other fire that might come from the village, shouted at his men to double.