Sharpe's Triumph

by Bernard Cornwell

  Sharpe stood to one side. No one spoke to him, no one even looked at him, and no wonder, he thought, for this was a farce. All the officers must have known that Dodd was the guilty man, yet the sepoy must die.

  The paraded troops seemed to agree with Sharpe, for there was a sullenness in the ranks. Pohlmann's compoo might be well armed and superbly trained, but it was not happy.

  The four bodyguards finished tying the prisoner down, then walked away to leave him alone in the centre of the execution ground. An Indian officer, resplendent in silk robes and with a lavishly curved tulwar hanging from his belt, made a speech. Sharpe did not understand a word, but he guessed that the watching soldiers were being harangued about the fate which awaited any thief. The officer finished, glanced once at the prisoner, then walked back to the tent and, just as he entered its shade, so Pohlmann's great elephant with its silver-encased tusks and cascading metal coat was led out from behind the marquee. The mahout guided the beast by tugging on one of its ears, but as soon as the elephant saw the prisoner it needed no guidance, but just plodded across to the spreadeagled man. The victim shouted for mercy, but Pohlmann was deaf to the pleas.

  The Colonel twisted round.

  "You're watching, Sharpe?"

  "You've got the wrong man, sir. You should have Dodd there."

  "Justice must be done," the Colonel said, and turned back to the elephant that was standing quietly beside the victim who twisted in his bonds, thrashed, and even managed to free one hand, but instead of using that free hand to tug at the other three ropes that held him, he flailed uselessly at the elephant's trunk. A murmur ran through the watching sixteen companies, but the jemadars and havildars shouted and the sullen murmur ceased. Pohlmann watched the prisoner struggle for a few more seconds, then took a deep breath.

  "Haddahl' he shouted.

  Had daM The prisoner screamed in anticipation as, very slowly, the elephant lifted one ponderous forefoot and moved its body slightly forward. The great foot came down on the prisoner's chest and seemed to rest there.

  The man tried to push the foot away, but he might as well have attempted to shove a mountain aside. Pohlmann leaned forward, his mouth open, as, slowly, very slowly, the elephant transferred its weight onto the man's chest. There was another scream, then the man could not draw breath to scream again, but still he jerked and twitched and still the weight pressed on him, and Sharpe saw his legs try to contract against the bonds at his ankles, and saw his head jerk up, and then he heard the splinter of ribs and saw the blood spill and bubble at the victim's mouth.

  He winced, trying to imagine the pain as the elephant pressed on down, crushing bone and lung and spine. The prisoner gave one last jerk, his hair flapping, then his head fell back and a great wash of blood brimmed from his open mouth and puddled beside his corpse.

  There was a last crunching sound, then the elephant stepped back and a sigh sounded gently through the watching ranks. Pohlmann applauded, and the officers joined in. Sharpe turned away. Bastards, he thought, bastards.

  And that night Pohlmann marched north.

  Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was not an educated man, and he was not even particularly clever unless slyness passed for wits, but he did understand one thing very well, and that was the impression he made on other men. They feared him. It did not matter whether the other man was a raw private, fresh from the recruiting sergeant, or a general whose coat was bright with gold lace and heavy with braid. They all feared him, all but two, and those two frightened Obadiah Hakeswill.

  One was Sergeant Richard Sharpe, in whom Hakeswill sensed a violence that was equal to his own, while the other was Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley who, when he had been colonel of the 33rd, had always been serenely impervious to Hakeswill's threats.

  So Sergeant Hakeswill would have much preferred not to confront General Wellesley, but when his convoy reached Ahmednuggur his enquiries established that Colonel McCandless had ridden north and had taken Sharpe with him, and the Sergeant had known he could do nothing further without Wellesley's permission and so he had gone to the General's tent where he announced himself to an orderly who had informed an aide who had commanded the Sergeant to wait in the shade of a banyan tree.

  He waited the best part of a morning while the army readied itself to leave Ahmednuggur. Guns were being attached to limbers, oxen harnessed to carts and tents being struck by lascars. The fortress of Ahmednuggur, fearing the same fate as the city, had meekly surrendered after a few cannon shots and, with both the city and its fort safe in his hands, Wellesley was now planning to march north, cross the Godavery and seek out the enemy army. Sergeant Hakeswill had no great wish to take part in that adventure, but he could see no other way of catching up with Sharpe and so he was resigned to his fate.

  "Sergeant Hakeswill?" An aide came from the General's big tent.

  "Sir!" Hakeswill scrambled to his feet and stiffened to attention.

  "Sir Arthur will see you now, Sergeant."

  Hakeswill marched into the tent, snatched off his shako, turned smartly to the left, quick-marched three short paces, then slammed to a halt in front of the camp table where the General was doing paperwork.

  Hakeswill stood quivering at attention. His face shuddered.

  "At ease, Sergeant," Wellesley, bare-headed, had barely glanced up from his papers as the Sergeant entered.

  "Sir!" Hakeswill allowed his muscles to relax slightly.

  "Papers for you, sir!" He pulled the warrant for Sharpe's arrest from his pouch and offered it to the General.

  Wellesley made no move to accept the warrant. Instead he leaned back in his chair and examined Hakeswill as though he had never seen the Sergeant before. Hakeswill stood rigid, his eyes staring at the tent's brown wall above the General's head. Wellesley sighed and leaned forward again, still ignoring the warrant.

  "Just tell me, Sergeant," he said, his attention already returned to the documents on his desk. An aide was taking whatever sheets the General signed, sprinkling sand on the signatures, then placing more papers on the table.

  "I'm ordered here by Lieutenant Colonel Gore, sir. To apprehend Sergeant Sharpe, sir."

  Wellesley looked up again and Hakeswill almost quailed before the cold eyes. He sensed that Wellesley could see right through him, and the sensation made his face quiver in a series of uncontrollable twitches.

  Wellesley waited for the spasms to end.

  "On your own, are you, Sergeant?" the General asked casually.

  "Detail of six men, sir."

  "Seven of you! To arrest one man?"

  "Dangerous man, sir. I'm ordered to take him back to Hurryhur, sir, so he can "Spare me the details," Wellesley said, looking back to the next paper needing his signature. He tallied up a list of figures.

  "Since when did four twelves and eighteen yield a sum of sixty-eight?" he asked no one in particular, then corrected the calculation before signing the paper.

  "And since when did Captain Lampert dispose of the artillery train?"

  The aide wielding the sand-sprinkler blushed.

  "Colonel Eldredge, sir, is indisposed." Drunk, if the truth was known, which it was, but it was impolitic to say that a colonel was drunk in front of a sergeant.

  "Then invite Captain Lampert to supper. We must feed him some arithmetic along with a measure of common sense," Sir Arthur said. He signed another paper, then rested his pen on a small silver stand before leaning back and looking at Hakeswill. He resented the Sergeant's presence, not because he disliked Sergeant Hakeswill, though he did, but rather because Wellesley had long ago left behind the cares of being the commander of the 33rd and he did not want to be reminded of those duties now. Nor did he want to be in a position to approve or disapprove of his successor's orders for that would be an impertinence.

  "Sergeant Sharpe is not here," he said coldly.

  "So I hear, sir. But he was, sir?"

  "Nor am I the person you should be troubling with this matter, Sergeant," Wellesley went on, ignoring Hak
eswill's question. He took up the pen again, dipped it in ink, and crossed a name from a list before adding his signature.

  "In a few days," he continued, "Colonel McCandless will return to the army and you will report to him with your warrant and I've no doubt he will give the matter its due attention.

  Till then I shall employ you usefully. I won't have seven men idling while the rest of the army works." Wellesley turned to the aide.

  "Where do we lack men, Barclay?"

  The aide considered for a moment.

  "Captain Mackay could certainly use some assistance, sir."

  "Very well." Wellesley pointed the pen's steel nib at Hakeswill.

  "You'll attach yourself to Captain Mackay. Captain Mackay commands our bullock train and you will do whatever he desires until Colonel McCandless relieves you of that duty. Dismissed."

  "Sir!" Hakeswill said dutifully, but inwardly he was furious that the General had not shared his indignation about Sharpe. He about-turned, stamped from the tent, and went to find his men.

  "Going to the dogs," he said bitterly.

  "Sergeant?" Flaherty asked.

  "The dogs. Time was in this army when even a general officer respected sergeants. Now we're to be bullock guards. Pick up your bleeding fire locks

  "Sharpe ain't here, Sergeant?"

  "Of course he ain't here! If he was here we wouldn't be ordered to wipe bullocks' arses, would we? But he's coming back. General's word on it. Just a few days, lads, just a few days and he'll be back with all his glittering stones hidden away." Hakeswill's fury was abating.

  At least he had not been ordered to attach himself to a fighting battalion, and he was beginning to realize that any duty attached to the baggage animals would give him a fine chance to fillet the army stores. Pickings were to be made there, and more than just the pickings of stores, for the baggage always travelled with the army's tail of women and that meant more opportunity. It could be worse, Hakeswill thought, so long as this Captain Mackay was no martinet.

  "You know what the trouble is with this army?" Hakeswill demanded.

  "What?" Lowry asked.

  "Full of bleeding Scotchmen." Hakeswill glowered.

  "I hates Scotchmen. Not English, are they? Peasant bleeding Scotchmen.

  Sawney creatures, they are, sawney! Should have killed them all when we had the chance, but we takes pity on them instead. Scorpions in our bosoms, that's what they are. Says so in the scriptures. Now get a bleeding move on!"

  But it would only be a few days, the Sergeant consoled himself, only a few days, and Sharpe would be finished.

  Colonel Pohlmann's bodyguard carried McCandless to a small house that lay at the edge of the encampment. A widow and three children lived there, and the woman shrank away from the Mahratta soldiers who had raped her, stolen all her food and fouled her well with their sewage.

  The Swiss doctor left Sharpe with strict instructions that the dressing on the Colonel's leg was to be kept damp.

  "I'd give you some medicine for his fever, but I have none," the doctor said, 'so if the fever gets worse just keep him warm and make him sweat." The doctor shrugged.

  "It might help."

  Pohlmann left food and a leather bag of silver coins.

  "Tell McCandless that's for his horses," he told Sharpe.

  "Yes, sir."

  "The widow will look after you," Pohlmann said, 'and when the Colonel's well enough you can move him to Aurungabad. And if you change your mind, Sharpe, you know I'll welcome you." The Colonel shook Sharpe's hand, then mounted the silver steps to his howdah. A horseman unfurled his banner of the white horse of Hanover.

  "I'll spread word that you're not to be molested," Pohlmann called back, then his mahout tapped the elephant's skull and the great beast set off northwards.

  Simone Joubert was the last to say farewell.

  "I wish you were staying with us," she said unhappily.

  "I can't."

  "I know, and maybe it's for the best." She looked left and right to make certain no one was watching, then leaned swiftly forward and kissed Sharpe on the cheek.

  "Au revoir, Richard."

  He watched her ride away, then went back into the hovel which was nothing but a palm thatch roof set above walls made of decayed reed mats. The interior of the hut was blackened by years of smoke, and its only furniture was the rope cot on which McCandless lay.

  "She's an outcast," the Colonel told Sharpe, indicating the woman.

  "She refused to jump onto her husband's funeral fire, so her family sent her away." The Colonel flinched as a stab of pain scythed through his thigh.

  "Give her the food, Sergeant, and some cash out of that bag. How much did Pohlmann leave us?"

  The coins in Pohlmann's bag were of silver and copper, and Sharpe sorted and counted each different denomination, and McCandless then translated their rough worth into pounds.

  "Sixty!" He announced the total bitterly.

  "That might just buy one cavalry hack, but it won't buy a horse that can stay over country for days on end."

  "How much did your gelding cost, sir?" Sharpe asked.

  "Five hundred and twenty guineas," McCandless said ruefully.

  "I bought him four years ago, when you and I were released from Seringapatam, and I prayed he'd be the last horse I'd ever buy. Except for the mare, of course, but she was just a remount. Even so she cost me a hundred and forty guineas. A bargain, too! I bought her in Madras, fresh off the boat and she was just skin and bones then, but two months of pasture put some muscle on her."

  The figures were almost incomprehensible to Sharpe. Five hundred and twenty guineas for a horse? A man could live his whole life on five hundred and forty-six pounds, and live well. Ale every day.

  "Won't the Company replace the horses, sir?" he asked.

  McCandless smiled sadly.

  "They might, Sharpe, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much."

  "Why not, sir?"

  "I'm an old man," the Scotsman said, 'and my salary is a heavy impost on the Company's debit column. I told you they'd like me to retire, Sharpe, and if I indent for the value of two horses they might well insist on my retirement." He sighed.

  "I knew this pursuit of Dodd was doomed.

  I felt it in my bones."

  "We'll get you another horse, sir," Sharpe said.

  McCandless grimaced.

  "How, pray?"

  "We can't have you walking, sir. Not a full colonel. Besides, it was my fault, really."

  "Your fault? Don't be absurd, Sharpe."

  "I should have been with you, sir. But I wasn't. I was off thinking."

  The Colonel looked at him steadily for what seemed a long while.

  "I should imagine, Sergeant," he said at last, 'that you had a lot to think about. How was your elephant ride with Colonel Pohlmann?"

  "He showed me Aurungabad, sir."

  "I think he took you to the mountain top and showed you the kingdoms of this world," the Colonel said.

  "What did he offer you? A lieutenancy?"

  "Yes, sir." Sharpe blushed to admit as much, but it was dark inside the widow's hovel and the Colonel did not see.

  "He told you of Benoit de Boigne," McCandless asked, 'and of that rogue George Thomas? And he said you could be a rich man in two or three years, aren't I right?"

  "Something like that, sir."

  McCandless shrugged.

  "I won't deceive you, Sharpe, he's right.

  Everything he told you is true. Out there' he waved towards the setting sun which glinted through the chinks in the reed-mat walls' is a lawless society that for years has rewarded the soldier with gold. The soldier, mark me, not the honest farmer or the hard-working merchant. The princedoms grow fat, Sharpe, and the people grow lean, but there is nothing to stop you serving those princes. Nothing but the oath you took to serve your King."

  "I'm still here, sir, aren't I?" Sharpe said indign andy

  "Yes, Sharpe, you are," McCandless said, then he closed his e
yes and groaned.

  "I fear the fever is going to come. Maybe not."

  "So what do we do, sir?"

  "Do? Nothing. Nothing helps the fever except a week of shivering in the heat."

  "I meant about getting you back to the army, sir. I could go to Aurungabad and see if I can find someone to take a message."

  "Not unless you speak their language, you won't," McCandless said, then he lay for a while in silence.

  "Sevajee will find us," he went on eventually.

  "News carries far in this countryside, and Sevajee will smell us out in the end." Again he fell silent, and Sharpe thought he had fallen asleep, but then he saw the Colonel shake his head.

  "Doomed," the Colonel said.

  "Lieutenant Dodd is going to be the end of me."

  "We'll capture Dodd, sir, I promise."

  "I pray so, I pray so." The Colonel pointed to his saddlebags in the corner of the hut.

  "Would you find my Bible, Sharpe? And perhaps you'd read to me while there's still a little light? Something from the Book of Job, I think."

  McCandless fell into days of fever and Sharpe into days of isolation.

  For all he knew the war might have been won or lost, for he saw no one and no news came to the thatched hovel under its thin-leaved trees. To keep himself busy he cleared out an old irrigation ditch that ran northwards across the woman's land, and he hacked at the brush, killed snakes and shovelled earth until he was rewarded by a trickle of water.

  That done, he tackled the hovel's roof, laying new palm thatch on the old and binding it in place with twists of frond. He went hungry, for the woman had little food other than the grain Pohlmann had left and some dried beans. Sharpe stripped to the waist when he worked and his skin went as brown as the stock of his musket. In the evenings he played with the woman's three children, making forts out of the red soil that they bombarded with stones and, in one memorable twilight, when a toy rampart proved impregnable to thrown pebbles, Sharpe laid a fuse of powder and blew a breach with three of his musket cartridges.