Then slowly, the gunners began to load their cannon, aiming them at the backs of the unsuspecting redcoats.
Once and For All
“They’re breaking my lads!” Arthur roared exultantly, his silver-bladed sword held aloft in one hand. “The buggers are bally well breaking!”
And so they were. The Maratha troops, despite their reputation for being Scindia’s very best, seemed to have no stomach for a blade-to-blade fight now that their colleagues in the artillery had been defeated. As on so may battlefields, it was just one single incident which triggered the panic, one final straw that broke the camel’s back, and in this case it was the death by partial decapitation of a mortal captain from Saleur’s compoo, his head hacked halfway from his neck by a jemadar from the 1/10 Madras. The man had been a popular and greatly respected leader, and so his sudden and violent death sent shockwaves through the surrounding Maratha ranks.
First one man turned tail and ran, then another, and another…until finally, panic overtook all three battalions that anchored Polhmann’s right flank against the River Kailna.
They all broke and ran.
A cheer went up from the ranks of the 78th, and Arthur was of no mind to stop it at first, but when the Marathas bolted he saw that the kilted Highlanders were straining to pursue them like greyhounds at the start of race, and he immediately recognized the danger: if the left wing of his line were to run headlong after the broken enemy, it would leave those units in the center dangerously exposed.
No, far better to rein them in now and maintain both order and cohesion, Arthur decided. Spurring Diomed over towards Harness, who was mounted on a chestnut horse just behind the ranks of his Highlanders, he saw a look of grim satisfaction on the colonel’s face and thought that he could fathom precisely what the other vampire was thinking: we paid a terrible price to get here, and now we shall have our measure of enemy blood in exchange. Nor could he blame the man, for Arthur was experiencing that very same feeling welling inside himself, but revenge was a luxury which an army commander could ill afford.
“A magnificent job by your boys, Harness,” he began. The Scotsman touched the hilt of his claymore to the rim of his bearskin in a gesture that was part acknowledgment and part salute.
“Obliged to you, General. Now we’ll see these bastards off once and for all, eh?”
“No,” Arthur stated flatly, eliciting a look of surprise. “You must hold this end of the line, to the exclusion of all else.”
“But General, the enemy are broken and fleeing! It would be criminal to—”
“To waste this opportunity? Perhaps. But what would be even more criminal would be to allow our center to grow vulnerable simply so that we could pursue a fleeing enemy. It would be far too easy for your men to find themselves out in front of the rest of the army and dangerously exposed.”
“Aye, I suppose…” Harness didn’t sound entirely convinced, but he did seem to see at least some merit in Wellesley’s prediction. After all, there were still thousands of enemy cavalry located on this side of the river, and he didn’t much care for the possibility of them picking on his battalion as their first target of the night.
“Excellent. Now, have your lads reload and make ready for whatever comes next. We have won a small victory, but this fight is far from over.” Without waiting for an acknowledgment, he wheeled Diomed about and headed northward with his orderly and Captain Campbell in tow. The aide put on a burst of speed, closing with Wellesley until both men were riding side-by-side, and leaned in towards his general even though it was not necessary to do so, for vampiric hearing was incredibly sensitive. Old habits died hard, however, and Campbell could not help but yell his words across the gap between the two of them.
“I believe that we have a bit of a problem sir,” he began with characteristic understatement.
“What kind of a problem, Captain?”
“On the right, sir. Colonel Orrock…” Campbell searched for the proper words, a tactful way in which to couch it. Finally, he gave up, and said with a shrug, “Colonel Orrock appears to have gone stark raving mad.”
Orrock's Folly
Lieutenant-Colonel James Orrock was not by any means a bad soldier. The East India Company was not in the habit of promoting incompetents to any level of command, much less that of an entire battalion of its native troops. But somewhere along the way, the events of this night’s engagement had all gotten to be too much for James Orrock; the mounting stress of each new cannonball scything through the ranks of his men grated upon nerves already flayed raw by the dreadful anticipation of those cannon maws which waited for him and his men along the front of the Maratha line, like a great predator crouching in ambush for its prey.
Yet what was he to do, Orrock wondered frantically as he led his bastardized battalion of picquets towards the left of the enemy line. He could no more have turned down this position of command from the General than he could have swallowed a 12-pound cannonball, for a gentleman simply did not do such things, nor even contemplate such a disgraceful act. He was a commissioned colonel of the East India Company and had been given the signal honor of leading a battalion of the King’s troops in addition to the Company’s own native sepoys, and to shy away from that responsibility would be utterly unthinkable. Nor could he retreat from the cannon’s mouth while the rest of the British line was still marching forward into what he was convinced was certain defeat. The Maratha army was simply too strong — any fool with even half a brain could see that, so why couldn’t Wellesley? Beat their prime infantry, the vampire general had told them all blithely, and we’ll have beaten the rest by default. But just looking at the sheer number of enemy footsoldiers that awaited them in rank after rank, standing behind a wall of heavy artillery, showed that for the lie that it must surely be.
It was oh so easy for an entitled immortal such as Wellesley to casually order a charge against a ring of steel such as they now faced, for the vampire did not have to brave the storm of shot and shell himself, and even if he did, what harm could be done to one such as he? It was all so bloody unfair, Orrock raged, locked in his own personal world of frustration and terror, and so he did not see until it was too late that he was leading his battalion too far towards the north. Orrock rode in front of his men just as convention dictated that a colonel ought, and when he snapped out of his reverie he suddenly felt pitifully exposed and alone. Looking to his left, he saw that the King’s 74th were still sticking with him, Lord be praised, but to their left was a vast stretch of open ground where the Highlanders had separated themselves from the main body of men.
His mouth flapping open in shock, Orrock fought the urge to jam a clenched fist into it. He finally realized that he had committed that most cardinal of military sins, allowing the army to divide itself upon the field of battle.
This was how disasters happened.
At that moment, the world behind him exploded in a cauldron of blood and fury. Swinging around desperately in his saddle, Orrock craned his neck to see that an entire half-company’s worth of men — his men, the men entrusted into his care by the General — had just been taken apart, blasted into bloody chunks of screaming offal that screamed and wailed as they bled to death in the cold, harsh light of an Indian moon on a field that was, for many of them, so very far from home.
The guns of Assaye, so much closer on his right-hand side than he had realized they could possibly get, had finally spoken for the first time.
Orrock knew that it would not be the last.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lost For Words
Wellesley and his two companions rode north as though the very Devil himself were snapping at their heels.
Sparing a glance to his left, he saw that the center of the Maratha line was buckling but had not yet broken, its white-jacketed soldiers gamely giving the redcoats as good as they got. The fighting was pure hand-to-hand melee now, and for just a second Arthur fancied that he could see the figure of Jamelia, surrounded by a clutch of his own men, l
aying about her on all sides with a sword.
Time enough for that later, he remonstrated with himself, raking his spurs back and goading Diomed on to even greater speed. The mighty Arabian leapt over a tangle of British and Maratha corpses that lay in a jumbled heap, landing gracefully on the opposite side without breaking his rhythmic stride in the slightest.
What on earth did Orrock think he was doing? Arthur’s eyes grew wide at the sight that met them just instants later when he reached the part of the line held by the 33rd, for to their immediate right, where Wallace’s 74th should have been, was nothing but empty plain. He could see the 74th all right, but they were far, far out of position to the north, tucked in behind Orrock’s battalion of picquets…and they were advancing upon Assaye.
Arthur reined Diomed in to a halt, momentarily at a loss for words. Campbell came alongside him, and he too seemed to be stunned speechless by the spectacle that was unfolding before them. As both officers watched in incredulous silence, the artillery batteries that had been emplaced outside the town walls opened fire, speaking with one voice, a monstrous thunderclap that obscured their frontage with smoke. Tens of picquets fell with that first blast, cut down by the heavy lead shot which punched mercilessly through their ranks, annihilating everything in its path. Bodies and body parts were blown high into the air, whereas others quite literally disintegrated, reduced to a smear of red mist that rained down in droplets upon their still-living comrades.
And there, riding all alone out in front, was the solitary figure of Colonel James Orrock, looking to Arthur as though he were the loneliest man on the face of the Earth.
Orrock gave no orders or commands, issued no instructions to his men, but simply sat there, as if stunned into immobility by the horror of what was now unfolding before him. His horse continued to plod forward, leading him deeper and deeper into the killing zone before the walls of Assaye, and yet the Colonel seemed to live a charmed life, for not a single shot so much as grazed him or his mount; but the same could not be said of his men, more of whom died with every passing moment, swallowed up by cannonade after cannonade from the Maratha guns.
It was a massacre, Arthur saw, for no other word fit the description so perfectly. Already, more than half of the picquets were dead, and the 74th were still keeping pace with them, not willing to abandon their comrades in such a desperate position. With his enhanced vampire sight, he saw that one of the half-companies that constituted the battalion of picquets had been drawn from the 74th, and he knew with gut-wrenching certainty that Wallace had been unwilling to abandon that half-company of his precious Highlanders to Orrock’s stupidity, and had therefore elected to follow them into the very jaws of Hell itself. His own battalion was now suffering an equally heavy toll, and kilted bodies lay strewn haphazardly along the 74th’s line of march, most of them lying still and silent, but a few groaning and crying from the pain and shock of their injuries.
And still the cannons roared.
Now is the Time to Break Them
Sensing that the fortunes of battle may once again have swung in his favor, Anthony Pohlmann grinned from ear to ear.
The vampire colonel floated in mid-air behind the Maratha left wing, accompanied by the commander of those left-most compoos, Major John Dupont. The Dutchman was, if anything, even more gleeful than his superior at the events now transpiring within his sector of operation. Both vampires watched silently, almost believing it too good to be true, as two battalions of records which had peeled off towards Assaye now paid the ultimate price for their folly. Salvo after salvo from the heavy cannon smashed into the ranks of the beleaguered British, who could do little more than keep pressing onward, ever onward, into the maws of the guns themselves. That was how the main gun line had been overcome, Pohlmann cautioned himself, but in this case it was an unfair comparison, for that had been eight battalions advancing upon eighty guns, whereas in this case just two battalions were being turned into mincemeat by a little under forty.
It was turning out to be a bad night to wear a red coat, the Hanoverian thought, his grin widening to expose the full length of his elongated canine teeth.
Suddenly, the leading British battalion — at least, what was left of it — stopped dead in its tracks. Pohlmann had seen this phenomenon on the battlefield before. Sometimes a unit would reach its tolerance threshold, finally exceeding its willingness to soak up more punishment. Such units would not advance one step further, no matter who led them, and if the sight of the pathetic lone figure on horseback who sat out in front of them was any reliable indicator, in this case their leader was mentally unhinged.
The second battalion wavered uncertainly for a moment and then also stopped. Pohlmann and Dupont could practically read his mind, for it took little imagination to place themselves in the boots of that commanding officer. To stay or to go — endure the pummeling of the enemy guns until no man remained alive, or suffer the almost-worse shame and ignominy of retreat, abandoning their comrades in the process?
Now…now is the time to break them.
Pohlmann turned to face his subordinate, laying a hand firmly on Dupont’s shoulder. The Dutchman knew what the order was going to be before it was even spoken.
“Major…you will send in your infantry and cavalry, if you please. Finish off the stragglers, so that we can begin the business of flanking Wellesley’s line.”
Counterattack
To the south, Wellesley saw that the Maratha army was in full retreat, its right flank swinging away from the British battalions like a door closing itself; fierce fighting still dominated the center, where the men of what had to be Pohlmann’s compoo were still refusing to give an inch, going toe-to-toe with the redcoats in a brutal melee of swords, bayonets, and pikes; but to the north, things had just taken a turn for the disastrous.
He experienced a moment of indecision that was deeply out of character, watching helplessly as the picquets and the 74th were bled to death by the enemy gunners. Then, just when Arthur thought that it could not possibly get any worse, the situation deteriorated even further. Maratha horsemen suddenly emerged from behind the infantry lines, streaming eastward towards the vulnerable pair of battalions. Thousands of them came on, and behind them the massed ranks of enemy infantry started to march forward, plainly determined to bludgeon his right wing to death.
Fortunately, he still had one card left to play. No infantry reserve remained at his disposal, for the sheer size of the Maratha army had not allowed him that luxury…but there was still Maxwell and his cavalry, which he had left posted in the rear with the responsibility of keeping his right flank secure. That flank was surely threatened now, and along with the flank, his entire army.
Pray God that he was not too late, and yet when Arthur turned Diomed in preparation to make a run for Maxwell’s position, he was ecstatic to find that the canny cavalry officer had already anticipated his instruction, for the blue-coated dragoons of the 19th were already in motion; their jackets were nigh-impossible to see at night, even under the light of a baleful moon, but the dust plume that was kicked up by the hooves of their horses was quite unmistakable, and based upon the sheer amount of it, the squadrons of native cavalry were also accompanying them.
Leaving Diomed in the capable hands of his aide, Arthur dismounted and allowed himself to rise high into the night sky, taking in the full scope of the battlefield. The entire contingent of British cavalry was now bearing down on the stricken 74th and picquet battalions, but it was painfully obvious that Maxwell’s men couldn’t possibly reach them in time to stave off a massacre.
Death of the Picquets
It is so often the case that when their senior officers fail them, the junior officers and their NCOs will take charge in an attempt to avert disaster, however vain that attempt may be. With Orrock near-catatonic, a sergeant from the 78th’s assigned half-company sprinted from what remained of the ranks and near-dragged him from his horse, drawing him back to the main body of men. It was an incredibly brave attempt, Welle
sley saw, made even more so by the sheer volume of matchlock and cannon fire that peppered the ground around the two men. Orrock’s body was limp and slack, so the sergeant hauled him up and over one shoulder in an undignified but undeniably effective carry. He took a firm grip on the colonel’s forearm as he ran, huffing and puffing, for the illusory safety promised by what remained of the once-proud makeshift battalion.
The sergeant dumped the colonel unceremoniously to the ground at the feet of a captain named Sullivan, who rewarded him with a smack on the arm, the nod of one fighting man acknowledging the brave deed of another; there was little time for any more formal recognition, because a horde of whooping and hollering Maratha cavalry were bearing down upon them, tulwars drawn and gleaming in the moonlight.
Sullivan and his juniors worked to form a rough semblance of a square, the only possible defense for infantry to employ against enemy cavalry, merging those men still standing from the picquets and the 74th. Every British soldier was well-versed in such a maneuver, for it meant the difference between living and dying in the face of enemy horsemen, and despite their ranks being depleted to just a third of those who had at first marched confidently but then with increasing horror behind Orrock this night, they were still able to present a square with four mostly-equal sides, ringed with fixed bayonets that all but invited the Marathas to do their worst. The few remaining survivors of Orrock’s folly, bloodied and battered though they were, were now fighting mad and ready to dish out a little of what they had already received.
Unfortunately, a square is the most desirable target in the world for an artilleryman, and in the few minutes before the Maratha cavalry struck home, the gunners of Assaye got in a few more costly licks, their deadly payloads reducing still more British soldiers to bleeding and crying shadows of their former selves. As the cavalry grew closer, the fire slackened as the gun captains grew fearful of hitting their own men, and so they were content to sponge out their barrels, reload, and watch the contest that ensued.
Goddess of the Dead (Wellington Undead Book 2) Page 26
