Sharpe's Fortress

by Bernard Cornwell

  “It’s lice, sir.”

  “Then for Christ’s sake stop wriggling. You’re distracting me.”

  “Scratch on,” Torrance had said, laying down a winning hand. He had yawned, scooped up the coins, and bid his partners a good night.

  “It’s devilish early,” the Major had grumbled, wanting a chance to win his money back.

  “Duty,” Torrance had said vaguely, then he had strolled to the merchant encampment and inspected the women who fanned themselves in the torrid night heat. An hour later, well pleased with himself, he had returned to his quarters. His servant squatted on the porch, but he waved the man away.

  Sajit was still at his candlelit desk, unclogging his pen of the soggy paper scraps that collected on the nib. He stood, touched his inky hands together and bowed as Torrance entered. “Sahib.”

  “All well?”

  “All is well, sahib. Tomorrow’s chitties.” He pushed a pile of papers across the desk.

  “I’m sure they’re in order,” Torrance said, quite confident that he spoke true. Sajit was proving to be an excellent clerk. He went to the door of his quarters, then turned with a frown. “Your uncle hasn’t come back?”

  “Tomorrow, sahib, I’m sure.”

  “Tell him I’d like a word. But not if he comes tonight. I don’t want to be disturbed tonight.”

  “Of course not, sahib.” Sajit offered another bow as Torrance negotiated the door and the muslin screen.

  The Captain shot the iron bolt, then chased down the few moths that had managed to get past the muslin. He lit a second lamp, piled the night’s winnings on the table, then called for Clare. She came sleepy-eyed from the kitchen.

  “Arrack, Brick,” Torrance ordered, then peeled off his coat while Clare unstoppered a fresh jar of the fierce spirit. She kept her eyes averted as Torrance stripped himself naked and lay back in his hammock. “You could light me a hookah, Brick,” he suggested, “then sponge me down. Is there a clean shirt for the morning?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Not the darned one?”

  “No, sir.”

  He turned his head to stare at the coins which glittered so prettily in the smoky lamplight. In funds again! Winning! Perhaps his luck had turned. It seemed so. He had lost so much money at cards in the last month that he had thought nothing but ruin awaited him, but now the goddess of fortune had turned her other cheek. Rule of halves, he told himself as he sucked on the hookah. Save half, gamble the other half. Halve the winnings and save half again. Simple really. And now that Sharpe was gone he could begin some careful trading once more, though how the market would hold up once the Mahrattas were defeated he could not tell. Still, with a slice of luck he might make sufficient money to set himself up in a comfortable civilian life in Madras. A carriage, a dozen horses and as many women servants. He would have an harem. He smiled at the thought, imagining his father’s disgust. An harem, a courtyard with a fountain, a wine cellar deep beneath his house that should be built close to the sea so that cooling breezes could waft through its windows. He would need to spend an hour or two at the office each week, but certainly not more for there were always Indians to do the real work. The buggers would cheat him, of course, but there seemed plenty of money to go around so long as a man did not gamble it away. Rule of halves, he told himself again. The golden rule of life.

  The sound of singing came from the camp beyond the village. Torrance did not recognize the tune, which was probably some Scottish song. The sound drifted him back to his childhood when he had sung in the cathedral choir. He grimaced, remembering the frosty mornings when he had run in the dark across the close and pushed open the cathedral’s great side door to be greeted by a clout over the ear because he was late. The choristers’ cloudy breath had mingled with the smoke of the guttering candles. Lice under the robes, he remembered. He had caught his first lice off a countertenor who had held him against a wall behind a bishop’s tomb and hoisted his robe. I hope the bastard’s dead, he thought.

  Sajit yelped. “Quiet!” Torrance shouted, resenting beingjarred from his reverie. There was silence again, and Torrance sucked on the hookah. He could hear Clare pouring water in the yard and he smiled as he anticipated the soothing touch of the sponge.

  Someone, it had to be Sajit, tried to open the door from the front room. “Go away,” Torrance called, but then something hit the door a massive blow. The bolt held, though dust sifted from crevices in the plaster wall either side of the frame. Torrance stared in shock, then twitched with alarm as another huge bang shook the door, and this time a chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate fell from the wall. Torrance swung his bare legs out of the hammock. Where the devil were his pistols?

  A third blow reverberated around the room, and this time the bracket holding the bolt was wrenched out of the wall and the door swung in onto the muslin screen. Torrance saw a robed figure sweep the screen aside, then he threw himself over the room and pawed through his discarded clothes to find his guns.

  A hand gripped his wrist. “You won’t need that, sir,” a familiar voice said, and Torrance turned, wincing at the strength of the man’s grip. He saw a figure dressed in blood-spattered Indian robes, with a tulwar scabbarded at his waist and a face shrouded by a head cloth. But Torrance recognized his visitor and blanched. “Reporting for duty, sir,” Sharpe said, taking the pistol from Torrance’s unresisting grip.

  Torrance gaped. He could have sworn that the blood on the robe was fresh for it gleamed wetly. There was more blood on a short-bladed knife in Sharpe’s hand. It dripped onto the floor and Torrance gave a small pitiful mew.

  “It’s Sajit’s blood,” Sharpe said. “His penknife too.” He tossed the wet blade onto the table beside the gold coins. “Lost your tongue, sir?”

  “Sharpe?”

  “He’s dead, sir, Sharpe is,” Sharpe said. “He was sold to Jama, remember, sir? Is that the blood money?” Sharpe glanced at the rupees on the table.

  “Sharpe,” Torrance said again, somehow incapable of saying anything else.

  “I’m his ghost, sir,” Sharpe said, and Torrance did indeed look as though a specter had just broken through his door. Sharpe tutted and shook his head in self-reproof. “I’m not supposed to call you ‘sir,’ am I, sir? On account of me being a fellow officer and a gentleman. Where’s Sergeant Hakeswill?”

  “Sharpe!” Torrance said once more, collapsing onto a chair. “We heard you’d been captured!”

  “So I was, sir, but not by the enemy. Leastwise, not by any proper enemy.” Sharpe examined the pistol. “This ain’t loaded. What were you hoping to do, sir? Beat me to death with the barrel?”

  “My robe, Sharpe, please,” Torrance said, gesturing to where the silk robe hung on a wooden peg.

  “So where is Hakeswill, sir?” Sharpe asked. He had pushed back his head cloth and now opened the pistol’s frizzen and blew dust off the pan before scraping at the layer of caked powder with a fingernail.

  “He’s on the road,” Torrance said.

  “Ah! Took over from me, did he? You should keep this pistol clean, sir. There’s rust on the spring, see? Shame to keep an expensive gun so shabbily. Are you sitting on your cartridge box?”

  Torrance meekly raised his bottom to take out his leather pouch which held the powder and bullets for his pistols. He gave the bag to Sharpe, thought about fetching the robe himself, then decided that any untoward move might upset his visitor. “I’m delighted to see you’re alive, Sharpe,” he said.

  “Are you, sir?” Sharpe asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Then why did you sell me to Jama?”

  “Sell you? Don’t be ridiculous, Sharpe. No!” The cry came as the pistol barrel whipped toward him, and it turned into a moan as the barrel slashed across his cheek. Torrance touched his face and winced at the blood on his fingers. “Sharpe—” he began.

  “Shut it, sir,” Sharpe said nastily. He perched on the table and poured some powder into the pistol barrel. “I talked to J
ama last night. He tried to have me killed by a couple of jettis. You know what jettis are, sir? Religious strongmen, sir, but they must have been praying to the wrong God, for I cut one’s throat and left the other bugger blinded.” He paused to select a bullet from the pouch. “And I had a chat with Jama when I’d killed his thugs and he told me lots of interesting things. Like that you traded with him and his brother. You’re a traitor, Torrance.”

  “Sharpe—”

  “I said shut it!” Sharpe snapped. He pushed the bullet into the pistol’s muzzle, then drew out the short ramrod and shoved it down the barrel. “The thing is, Torrance,” he went on in a calmer tone, “I know the truth. All of it. About you and Hakeswill and about you and Jama and about you and Naig.” He smiled at Torrance, then slotted the short ramrod back into its hoops. “I used to think officers were above that sort of crime. I knew the men were crooked, because I was crooked, but you don’t have much choice, do you, when you’ve got nothing? But you, sir, you had everything you wanted. Rich parents, proper schooling.” Sharpe shook his head.

  “You don’t understand, Sharpe.”

  “But I do, sir. Now look at me. My ma was a whore, and not a very good one by all accounts, and she went and died and left me with nothing. Bloody nothing! And the thing is, sir, that when I go to General Wellesley and I tells him about you selling muskets to the enemy, who’s he going to believe? You, with your proper education, or me with a dead frow as a mother?” Sharpe looked at Torrance as though he expected an answer, but none came. “He’s going to believe you, sir, isn’t he? He’d never believe me, on account of me not being a proper gentleman who knows his Latin. And you know what that means, sir?”

  “Sharpe?”

  “It means justice won’t be done, sir. But, on the other hand, you’re a gentleman, so you knows your duty, don’t you?” Sharpe edged off the table and gave the pistol, butt first, to Torrance. “Hold it just in front of your ear,” he advised Torrance, “or else put it in your mouth. Makes more mess that way, but it’s surer.”

  “Sharpe!” Torrance said, and found he had nothing to say. The pistol felt heavy in his hand.

  “It won’t hurt, sir,” Sharpe said comfortingly. “You’ll be dead in the blink of an eyelid.” He began scooping the coins off the table into Torrance’s pouch. He heard the heavy click as the pistol was cocked, then glanced around to see that the muzzle was pointing at his face. He frowned and shook his head in disappointment. “And I thought you were a gentleman, sir.”

  “I’m not a fool, Sharpe,” Torrance said vengefully. He stood and took a pace closer to the Ensign. “And I’m worth ten of you. Up from the ranks? You know what that makes you, Sharpe? It makes you a brute, a lucky brute, but it don’t make you a real officer. You’re not going to be welcome anywhere, Sharpe. You’ll be endured, Sharpe, because officers have manners, but they won’t welcome you because you ain’t a proper officer. You weren’t born to it, Sharpe.” Torrance laughed at the look of horrified outrage on Sharpe’s face. “Christ, I despise you!” he said savagely. “You’re like a dressed-up monkey, Sharpe, only you can’t even wear clothes properly! I could give you lace and braid, and you’d still look like a peasant, because that’s what you are, Sharpe. Officers should have style! They should have wit! And all you can do is grunt. You know what you are, Sharpe? You’re an embarrassment, you’re ... “ He paused, trying to find the right insult, and shook his head in frustration as the words would not come. “You’re a lump, Sharpe! That’s what you are, a lump! And the kindest thing is to finish you off.” Torrance smiled. “Goodbye, Mr. Sharpe.” He pulled the trigger.

  The flint smashed down on the steel and the spark flashed into the empty pan.

  Sharpe reached out in the silence and took the pistol from Torrance’s hand. “I loaded it, sir, but I didn’t prime it. On account of the fact that I might be a lump, but I ain’t any kind of fool.” He pushed Torrance back into the chair, and Torrance could only watch as Sharpe dropped a pinch of powder into the pan. He flinched as Sharpe closed the frizzen, then shuddered as Sharpe walked toward him.

  “No, Sharpe, no!”

  Sharpe stood behind Torrance. “You tried to have me killed, sir, and I don’t like that.” He pressed the pistol into the side of the Captain’s head.

  “Sharpe!” Torrance pleaded. He was .shaking, but he seemed powerless to offer any resistance, then the muslin curtain from the kitchen was swept aside and Clare Wall came into the room. She stopped and stared with huge eyes at Sharpe.

  “Clare!” Torrance pleaded. “Fetch help! Quickly now!” Clare did not move. “Fetch help, my dear!” Torrance said. “She’ll be a witness against you, Sharpe.” Torrance had turned to look at Sharpe and was babbling now. “So the best thing you can do is to put the gun down. I’ll say nothing about this, nothing! Just a touch of fever in you, I expect. It’s all a misunderstanding and we shall forget it ever happened. Maybe we could share a bottle of arrack? Clare, my dear, maybe you could find a bottle?”

  Clare stepped toward Sharpe and held out her hand.

  “Fetch help, my dear,” Torrance said, “he’s not going to give you the gun.”

  “He is,” Sharpe said, and he gave Clare the pistol.

  Torrance breathed a great sigh of relief, then Clare clumsily turned the gun and pointed it at Torrance’s head. The Captain just stared at her.

  “Eyes front, Captain,” Sharpe said, and turned Torrance’s head so that the bullet would enter from the side, just as it might if Torrance had committed suicide. “Are you sure?” he asked Clare.

  “God help me,” she said, “but I’ve dreamed of doing this.” She straightened her arm so that the pistol’s muzzle touched Torrance’s temple.

  “No!” he called. “No, please! No!”

  But she could not pull the trigger. Sharpe could see she wanted to, but her finger would not tighten and so Sharpe took the gun from her, edged her gently aside, then pushed the barrel into Torrance’s oiled hair. “No, please!” the Captain appealed. He was weeping. “I beg you, Sharpe. Please!”

  Sharpe pulled the trigger, stepping back as a gush of blood spouted from the shattered skull. The sound of the pistol had been hugely loud in the small room that was now hazed with smoke.

  Sharpe knelt and pushed the pistol into Torrance’s dead hand, then picked up the pouch with its gold and thrust it into Clare’s hands. “We’re going,” he told her, “right now.”

  She understood the haste and, without bothering to fetch any of her belongings, followed him back into the outer room where Sajit’s body lay slumped over the table. His blood had soaked the chitties. Clare whimpered when she saw the blood. “I didn’t really mean to kill him,” Sharpe explained, “then realized he’d be a witness if I didn’t.” He saw the fear on Clare’s face. “I trust you, love. You and me? We’re the same, aren’t we? So come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Sharpe had already taken the three jewels from Sajit and he added those to the pouch of gold, then went to the porch where Ahmed stood guard. No one seemed to have been alarmed by the shot, but it was not wise to linger. “I’ve got you some gold, Ahmed,” Sharpe said.

  “Gold!”

  “You know that word, you little bugger, don’t you?” Sharpe grinned, then took Clare’s hand and led her into the shadows. A dog barked briefly, a horse whinnied from the cavalry lines, and afterward there was silence.

  Chapter 7

  Dodd needed to practice with the rifle and so, on the day that the British reached the top of the high escarpment, he settled himself in some rocks at the top of the cliff and gauged the range to the party of sepoys who were leveling the last few yards of the road. Unlike a musket, the rifle had proper sights, and he set the range at two hundred yards, then propped the barrel in a stone cleft and aimed at a blue-coated engineer who was standing just beneath the sweating sepoys. A gust of wind swept up the cliffs, driving some circling buzzards high up into the air. Dodd waited until the wind settled, then squeezed the trigger. />
  The rifle slammed into his shoulder with surprising force. The smoke blotted his view instantly, but another billow of wind carried it away and he was rewarded by the sight of the engineer bent double. He thought he must have hit the man, but then saw the engineer had been picking up his straw hat that must have fallen as he reacted to the close passage of the spinning bullet. The engineer beat dust from the hat against his thigh and stared up at the drifting patch of smoke.

  Dodd wriggled back out of view and reloaded the rifle. It was hard work. The barrel of a rifle, unlike a musket, had spiraling grooves cast into the barrel to spin the bullet. The spin made the weapon extraordinarily accurate, but the grooves resisted the rammer, and the resistance was made worse because the bullet, if it was to be spun by the grooves, had to fit the barrel tightly. Dodd wrapped a bullet in one of the small greased leather patches that gave the barrel purchase, then grunted as he shoved the ramrod hard down. One of the Mahratta cavalrymen who escorted Dodd on his daily rides shouted a warning, and Dodd peered over the rock to see that a company of sepoy infantry was scrambling to the top of the slope. The first of them were already on the plateau and coming toward him. He primed the rifle, settled it on the makeshift fire step again and reckoned that he had not allowed for the effect of the wind on the last bullet. He aimed at the sepoys’ officer, a man whose small round spectacles reflected the sun, and, letting the barrel edge slightly windward, he fired again.