Sharpe's Fortress Part 74

"Stand easy, Mister Hakeswill," Dodd said. Hakeswill relaxed slightly. He liked being called "Mister', it somehow seemed appropriate. If that little b.a.s.t.a.r.d Sharpe could be a mister and wear a sword, then so could he.

"I shall have a job for you in a few minutes, Mister Hakeswill," Dodd said.

"I shall be honoured, sir," Hakeswill replied.

Dodd watched the Killadar hurry up the path towards the palace.

"Our honoured commander," he said sarcastically, 'is taking some bad news to the palace. We must give the news time to take root there."

"Bad news, sir?"

"He thinks we're going to lose," Dodd explained.

"I pray not, sir."

"As do I, Mister Hakeswill, as do I. Fervently!" Dodd turned to watch the gunners in the Outer Fort and he saw how puny their small cannon were and he reckoned that such fire would not hold up the redcoats for long. The British would be in the ravine in half an hour, maybe less.

"In ten minutes, Mister Hakeswill, you will lead your company to the palace and you will order the Arab guards to come and defend the walls."

Hakeswill's face twitched.

"Don't speak their heathen language, sir, begging your pardon, sir."

"You don't need their language. You've got a musket, use it. And if anyone questions your authority, Mister Hakeswill, you have my permission to shoot them."

"Shoot them, sir? Yes, sir. With pleasure, sir."

"Anyone at all, Mister Hakeswill."

Hakeswill's face twitched again.

"That fat little b.u.g.g.e.r, sir, him what was just here with the curly moustache..."

"The Killadar? If he questions you..."

"I shoot the b.u.g.g.e.r, sir."

"Exactly." Dodd smiled. He had seen into Hakeswill's soul and discovered it was black as filth, and perfect for his purposes.

"Do it for me, Mister Hakeswill, and I shall gazette you as a captain in the Cobras. Your havildar speaks some English, doesn't he?"

"A kind of English, sir," Hakeswill said.

"Make sure he understands you. The palace guards are to be despatched to the walls."

"They will, sir, or else they'll be dead 'uns."

"Very good," Dodd said.

"But wait ten minutes."

"I shall, sir. And good day to you, sir." Hakeswill saluted, about turned and marched down the ramparts.

Dodd turned back to the Outer Fort. Rockets seared out of the smoke cloud above which Manu Bappoo's flag still hung. Faintly, very faintly, Dodd could hear men shouting, but the sound was being drowned by the roar of the guns which unsettled the silver-grey monkeys in the ravine. The beasts turned puzzled black faces up towards the men on the Inner Fort's walls as though they could find an answer to the noise and stink that was consuming the day.

A day which, to Dodd's way of thinking, was going perfectly.

The 33rd's Light Company had been waiting a little to the side of the track and Captain Morris deliberately stayed there, allowing almost all of Kenny's a.s.sault troops to go past before he led his men out of the rocks. He thus ensured that he was at the rear of the a.s.sault, a place which offered the greatest measure of safety.

Once Morris moved his men onto the fort's approach road he deliberately fell in behind a sepoy ladder party so that his progress was impeded. He walked at the head of his men, but turned repeatedly.

"Keep in files, Sergeant!" he snapped at Green more than once.

Sharpe walked alongside the company, curbing his long stride to the slow pace set by Morris. It took a moment to reach the small crest in the road, but then they were in sight of the fortress and Sharpe could only stare in awe at the weight of fire that seemed to pour from the battered walls.

The Mahrattas' bigger guns had been unseated, but they possessed a myriad of smaller cannon, some little larger than blunderbusses, and those weapons now roared and coughed and spat their flames towards the advancing troops so that the black walls were half obscured behind the patchwork of smoke that vented from every embrasure. Rockets added to the confusion. Some hissed up into the sky, but others seared into the advancing men to slice fiery pa.s.sages through the ranks.

The leading company had not yet reached the outer breach, but was hurrying into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the precipice to the east and the tank to the west. They jostled as their files were compressed, and then the gunfire seemed to concentrate on those men and Sharpe had an impression of blood misting the air as the round shot slammed home at a range of a mere hundred paces. There were big round bastions on either flank of the breach, and their summits were edged with perpetual flame as the defenders took turns to blast muskets down into the ma.s.s of attackers. The British guns were still firing, their shots exploding bursts of dust and stone from the breach, or else hammering into the embrasures in an effort to dull the enemy's fire.

An aide came running back down the path.

"Hurry!" he called.

"Hurry!"

Morris made no effort to hasten his pace. The leading Scots were past the tank now and climbing the gentle slope towards the walls, but that slope became ever steeper as it neared the breach. The man with the flag was in front, then he was engulfed by Highlanders racing to reach the stones. Kenny led them, sword in hand. Muskets suddenly flamed from the breach summit, obscuring it with smoke, and then an eighteen-pounder shot churned up the smoke and threw up a barrow load of broken stone amidst which an enemy musket wheeled.

Sharpe quickened his pace. He could feel a kind of rage inside, and he wondered if that was fear, but there was an excitement too, and an anxiety that he would miss the fight.

He could see the fight clearly enough, for the breach was high above the approach road and the Scots, scrambling up using their hands, were clearly visible. The British gunners were still firing, hammering round shot just inches over the Scotsmen's heads to keep the summit of the breach clear of the enemy, and then, abruptly, the guns stopped and the redcoats climbed into the dust that hung thick above the shattered stones. A ma.s.s of Arabs climbed the breach's inner slope, coming to oppose the Scots, and scimitars rang against bayonets. The red coats of the attackers were turned pink by the stone dust. Colonel Kenny was in the front rank, straddling a chunk of masonry as he parried a scimitar.

He lunged, piercing an enemy's throat, then stepped forward, downwards, knowing he was across the summit and oblivious of the muskets that flamed above him from the upper wall. The British gunners, their weapons re laid started to fire at the upper wall, driving the defenders away from the fire step The Scots rammed their bayonets forward, kicked the dead off the blades, stepped over the corpses and followed Kenny down to the s.p.a.ce inside the walls.

"This way!" Kenny shouted.

"This way!" He led the rush of men to the left, to where the inner breach waited, its slope twitching as the round shot slammed home. Some Arabs, fleeing the Scotsmen's snarling rage, died as they tried to climb the inner breach and were struck by the cannonb.a.l.l.s.

Blood spattered across the inner wall, smeared the ramp, then was whitened by the dust.

Kenny glanced behind to make sure that the column was close behind him.

"Keep them coming," he shouted to an aide who stood on the summit of the first breach.

"Keep them coming!" Kenny spat a mouthful of dust, then shouted at the Scots to start the ascent of the second breach.

"Hurry! Hurry!" Kenny's aides who were still outside the walls urged on the column. The rearmost ranks of the Colonel's a.s.sault party were stringing out, and the second storming group was not far behind.

"Close up!" the aides urged the laggards.