Sharpe's Triumph

by Bernard Cornwell

"You could hide a regiment in a field of Scottish barley."

  "Can't think why you'd want to do such a thing, but doubtless you have your reasons. But as I understand it, Campbell, you heathen Scots have no order of service to give thanks to God for a harvest?"

  "You've not heard of the kirn, Major? The mell feast?"

  "Kirn?"

  "Harvest-home, you call it, when you scavenge those few weeds in England, then beg us generous Scots to send you food. Which we do, being Christian folk who take pity on those less fortunate than ourselves.

  And talking of the less fortunate, Major, here's the sick list."

  Campbell handed Blackiston a piece of paper on which was tallied the number of men from each regiment who were too sick to march. Those men were now being carried on the ox carts of the baggage train and, routinely, those who were unlikely to recover quickly were sent southwards on returning convoys, but Blackiston knew the General would not want to detach any cavalry to protect a convoy just before a battle.

  "Tell Sears the sick can all wait in Naulniah," Blackiston ordered, 'and warn Captain Mackay to have at least a score of empty wagons ready."

  He did not specify why Mackay should prepare empty wagons, but nor did he need to do so. The wagons would carry the men wounded in battle, and Blackiston fervently prayed that no more than a score of ox carts would be needed.

  Captain Mackay had anticipated the need for empty wagons and had already put chalk marks on those whose burdens were light and could be transferred to other carts. Once at Naulniah he would have the cargoes rearranged, and he sought out Sergeant Hakeswill to supervise the business, but Obadiah Hakeswill had other plans.

  "My criminal's back with the army, sir."

  "And you haven't arrested him already?" Mackay asked in surprise.

  "Can't march a man in irons, sir, not at this pace. But if you're establishing a camp, sir, at Naulniah, sir, I can hold my prisoner under guard like my duties say I should."

  "So I shall be losing your services, Sergeant?"

  "It ain't what I want, sir," Hakeswill lied, 'but I has my responsibilities, sir, and if we're leaving baggage at Naulniah, sir, then I shall have to stay there with my prisoner. Colonel Gore's orders, sir. Is that Naulniah up ahead, sir?"

  "It seems to be," Mackay said, for the distant village was busy with men laying out the lines for the regiments' tents.

  "Then, if you'll forgive, sir, I have to be about my duties."

  Hakeswill had deliberately waited for this moment, reckoning that it would be far too great a bother to keep marching northwards with Sharpe under escort. It would be better to wait until the army had established the baggage camp where Hakeswill could keep Sharpe while the battle was fought, and if one more redcoat died that day, who would miss him? So now, freed from Mackay's baggage guard, the Sergeant hurried his six men up the column to find Colonel McCandless.

  McCandless's leg was still throbbing, and the fever had left him weak, but his spirits had recovered, because riding Aeolus had convinced him that no finer horse had ever stepped on earth. The gelding was tireless, McCandless declared, and better schooled than any horse he had ever ridden. Sevajee was amused by the Colonel's enthusiasm.

  "You sound like a man with a new woman, McCandless."

  "If you say so, Sevajee, if you say so," McCandless said, not rising to the Indian's bait.

  "But isn't he a beauty?"

  "Magnificent."

  "County Meath," the Colonel said.

  "They breed good hunters in County Meath. They have big hedges! Like jumping a haystack."

  "County Meath is in Ireland?" Sevajee asked.

  "It is, it is."

  "Another country beneath Britain's heel?"

  "For a man beneath my heel, Sevajee," the Colonel said, 'you look in remarkably fine fettle. Can we talk about tomorrow? Sharpe! I want you to listen."

  Sharpe urged his small Mahratta horse alongside the Colonel's big gelding. Like Wellesley, Colonel McCandless was planning what he would do at Borkardan and, though the Colonel's task was much smaller than the General's, it was no less important to him.

  "Let us assume, gentlemen, that we shall win this battle at Borkardan tomorrow," he said, and waited for the invariable riposte from Sevajee, but the tall Indian said nothing.

  "Our task, then," the Colonel went on, 'is to hunt Dodd among the fugitives. Hunt him and capture him."

  If he still lives," Sevajee remarked.

  "Which I pray God he does. He must face British justice before he goes to God's condemnation. So when the battle is joined, gentlemen, our task is not to get involved with the fighting, but to search for Dodd's men. It won't be difficult. So far as I know they're the only regiment in white jackets, and once we have them, we stay close. Stay close till they break, then we pursue."

  "And if they don't break?" Sevajee asked.

  "Then we march again and fight again," the Colonel answered grimly.

  "But by God's grace, Sevajee, we shall find this man even if we have to hunt him into the deserts of Persia. Britain has more than a heavy heel, Sevajee, it has a long arm."

  "Long arms are easily cut off," Sevajee said.

  Sharpe had stopped listening. He had heard a commotion behind as a group of army wives were thrust off the road and had turned to see who had barged the women aside and, at first, all he had seen was a group of redcoats. Then he had recognized the red facings on the jackets and he had wondered what on earth men of the 33rd were doing here, and then he had recognized Sergeant Hakeswill.

  Obadiah Hakeswill! Of all people, Hakeswill! Sharpe stared in horror at his long-time enemy and Obadiah Hakeswill caught his eye and grinned maliciously and Sharpe knew that his appearance boded no good.

  Hakeswill broke into a lumbering run so that his haversack, pouches, bayonet and musket thumped against his body.

  "Sir!" he called up to Colonel McCandless.

  "Colonel McCandless, sir!"

  McCandless turned and frowned at the interruption, then, like Sharpe, he stared at the Sergeant as though he did not believe his eyes.

  McCandless knew Hakeswill, for Hakeswill had been imprisoned in the Tippoo Sultan's dungeons at the same time as Sharpe and the Colonel, and what McCandless knew he did not like. The Scotsman scowled.

  "Sergeant Hakeswill? You're far from home."

  "As are we all, sir, doing our duties to King and country in an eat hen land, sir." Hakeswill slowed to a march, keeping pace with the Scotsman's horse.

  "I'm ordered to see you, sir, by the General himself, sir. By Sir Arthur Wellesley, sir, God bless him, sir."

  "I know who the General is, Sergeant," McCandless said coldly.

  "Glad to hear it, sir. Got a paper for you, sir. Urgent paper, sir, what needs your urgent attention, sir." Hakeswill gave a venomous glance at Sharpe, then held the warrant up to McCandless.

  "This paper, sir, what I've been carrying in my pouch, sir, on Colonel Gore's orders, sir."

  McCandless unfolded the warrant. Sevajee had hurried ahead, going to find somewhere to billet his men in the village and, while McCandless read the orders for Sharpe's arrest, Hakeswill fell back so that he was walking beside Sharpe.

  "We'll have you off that horse in a quick minute, Sharpie," he said.

  "Go and boil your head, Obadiah."

  "You always did have ideas above your station, Sharpie. Won't do!

  Not in this army. We ain't the Frogs. We don't wear pretty long red boots like yours, we don't, 'cos we don't have airs and graces, not in this army. Says so in the scriptures."

  Sharpe tugged on his rein so that his small horse swerved into Hakeswill's path. The Sergeant skipped aside.

  "Under arrest, you are, Sharpie!" Hakeswill crowed.

  "Under arrest! Court-martial offence. Be a shooting job, I dare say."

  Hakeswill grinned, showing his yellow teeth.

  "Bang bang, you're dead. Taken me a long time, Sharpie, but I'm going to be evens with you. All over for you, it is. Says so in th
e scriptures."

  "It says nothing of the sort, Sergeant!" McCandless snapped, turning in his saddle and glaring at the Sergeant.

  "I've had occasion to speak to you before about the scriptures, and if I hear you cite their authority one more time I shall break you, Sergeant Hakeswill, I shall break you!"

  "Sir!" Hakeswill acknowledged. He doubted that McCandless, a Company officer, could break anyone in the King's army, at least not without a deal of effort, but he did not let his scepticism show for Obadiah Hakeswill believed in showing complete subservience to all officers.

  "Never meant to upset you, sir," he said, 'apologize, sir. No offence meant, sir."

  McCandless read the warrant a third time. Something about the wording worried him, but he could not quite place his concern.

  "It says here, Sharpe," McCandless said, 'that you struck an officer on August the fifth this year."

  "I did what, sir?" Sharpe asked, horrified.

  "Assaulted Captain Morris. Here." And McCandless thrust the warrant towards Sharpe.

  "Take it, man. Read it."

  Sharpe took the paper and while he read Sergeant Hakeswill embellished the charge to Colonel McCandless.

  "An assault, sir, with a jakes pot, sir. A full one, sir. Liquids and solids, sir, both. Right on the Captain's head, sir."

  "And you were the only witness?" McCandless asked.

  "Me and Captain Morris, sir."

  "I don't believe a word of it," McCandless growled.

  "Up to a court to decide, sir, begging your pardon. Your job, sir, is to deliver the prisoner to my keeping."

  "You do not instruct me in my duties, Sergeant!" McCandless said angrily.

  "I just knows you will do your duty, sir, like we all does. Except for some as I could mention." Hakeswill smiled at Sharpe.

  "Finding the long words difficult, are we, Sharpie?"

  McCandless reached over and took the warrant back from Sharpe, who had, indeed, been finding some of the longer words difficult. The Colonel had expressed his disbelief in the charge, but that was more out of loyalty to Sharpe than from any conviction, though there was still something out of kilter in the warrant.

  "Is it true, Sharpe?" McCandless now asked.

  "No, sir!" Sharpe said indignantly.

  "He was always a good liar, sir," Hakeswill said helpfully.

  "Lies like a rug, sir, he does. Famous for it." The Sergeant was becoming breathless as he hurried to keep pace with the Scotsman's horse.

  "So what do you intend to do with Sergeant Sharpe?" McCandless asked.

  "Do, sir? Do my duty, of course, sir. Escort the prisoner back to battalion, sir, as is ordered." Hakeswill gestured at his six men who marched a few paces behind.

  "We'll guard him nice and proper, sir, all the way home and then have him stand trial for his filthy crime."

  McCandless bit his right thumb and shook his head. He rode in silence for a few paces, and when Sharpe protested he ignored the indignant words. He put the warrant in his right hand again and seemed to read it yet another time. Far off to the east, at least a mile away, there was a sudden flurry of dust and the sparkle of sword blades catching the sun. Some enemy horsemen had been waiting in a grove of trees from where they had been watching the British march, but now they were flushed out by a troop of Mysore horsemen who pursued them northwards.

  McCandless glanced at the distant action.

  "So they'll know we're here now, more's the pity. How do you spell your name, Sharpe?

  With or without an "e"?"

  "With, sir."

  "You will correct me if I'm wrong," McCandless said, 'but it seems to me that this is not your name." He handed the warrant back to Sharpe who saw that the 'e' at the end of his name had been smeared out.

  There was a smudge of black ink there, and beneath it the impression of the 'e' made by the steel nib in the paper, but the ink had been diluted and nearly erased.

  Sharpe hid his astonishment that McCandless, a stickler for honesty and straight-dealing, had resorted to such a subterfuge.

  "Not my name, sir," Sharpe said woodenly.

  Hakeswill looked from Sharpe to McCandless, then back to Sharpe and finally at McCandless again.

  "Sir!" The word exploded from him.

  "You're out of breath, Sergeant," McCandless said, taking the warrant back from Sharpe.

  "But you will see here that you are expressly ordered to arrest a sergeant whose name is Richard Sharp. No "e", Sergeant. This Sergeant Sharpe uses an "e" on his name so he cannot be the man you want, and I certainly cannot release him to your custody on the authority of this piece of paper. Here." McCandless held the warrant out, letting it drop a heartbeat before Hakeswill could take it.

  The paper fluttered down to the dusty road.

  Hakeswill snatched the warrant up and peered at the writing.

  "Ink's run, sir!" he protested.

  "Sir?" He ran after McCandless's horse, stumbling on the uneven road.

  "Look, sir! Ink's run, sir."

  McCandless ignored the offered warrant.

  "It is clear, Sergeant Hakeswill, that the spelling of the name has been corrected. In all conscience I cannot act upon that warrant. What you must do, Sergeant, is send a message to Lieutenant Colonel Gore asking him to clear up the confusion. A new warrant, I think, would be best, and until such time as I see such a warrant, legibly written, I cannot release Sergeant Sharpe from his present duties. Good day, Hakeswill."

  "You can't do this, sir!" Hakeswill protested.

  McCandless smiled.

  "You fundamentally misunderstand the hierarchy of the army, Sergeant.

  It is I, a colonel, who define your duties, not you, a sergeant, who define mine.

  "I say to a man, go, and he goeth." It says so in the scriptures. I bid you good day." And with that the Scotsman touched his spurs to the gelding's flanks.

  Hakeswill's face twitched as he turned on Sharpe.

  "I'll have you, Sharpie, I will have you. I ain't forgotten nothing."

  "You ain't learned nothing either," Sharpe said, then spurred after the Colonel. He lifted two fingers as he passed Hakeswill, then left him behind in the dust.

  He was, for the moment, free.

  Simone Joubert placed the eight diamonds on the window ledge of the tiny house where the wives of Scindia's European officers had been quartered. She was alone for the moment, for the other women had gone to visit the three compoos that were stationed on the Kaitna's northern bank, but Simone had not wanted their company and so she had pleaded a turbulent stomach, though she supposed she ought to visit Pierre before the battle, if indeed there was to be a fight. Not that Simone cared much. Let them have their battle, she thought, and at the end of it, when the river was dark with British blood, her life would be no better. She gazed at the diamonds again, thinking about the man who had given them to her. Pierre would be angry if he learned she was concealing such wealth, but once his anger had passed he would sell the stones and send the money back to his rapacious family in France.

  "Madame Joubert!" A voice hailed her from outside the window and Simone guiltily swept the diamonds into her small purse, though, because she was on an upper floor, no one could see the gems. She peered down from the window and saw a cheerful Colonel Pohlmann in shirtsleeves and braces standing among the straw in the courtyard of the neighbouring house.

  "Colonel," she responded dutifully.

  "I am hiding my elephants," the Colonel said, gesturing at the three beasts which were being led into the courtyard. The tallest carried Pohlmann's howdah, while the other two were burdened with the wooden chests in which the Colonel was reputed to keep his gold.

  "Might I leave you to guard my menagerie?" the Colonel asked.

  "From what?" Simone asked.

  "From thieves," the Colonel said happily.

  "Not the British?"

  "They will never reach this far, Madame," Pohlmann said, 'except as prisoners." And Simone had a sudden vision of Sergeant
Richard Sharpe again. She had been raised to believe that the British were a piratical race, a nation without a conscience who mindlessly impeded the spread of French enlightenment, but perhaps, she thought, she liked pirates.

  "I will guard your elephants, Colonel," she called down.

  "And have some dinner with me?" Pohlmann asked.

  "I have some cold chicken and warm wine."

  "I have promised to join Pierre," Simone said, dreading the two-mile ride across the drab fields to where Dodd's Cobras waited beside the Kaitna.

  "Then I shall escort you to his side, Madame," Pohlmann said courteously. Once the battle was over he reckoned he might mount an assault on Madame Joubert's virtue. It would be an amusing diversion, but not, he thought, an especially difficult campaign. Unhappy women yielded to patience and sympathy, and there would be plenty of time for both once Wellesley and Stevenson had been destroyed. And there would be a pleasure, too, in beating Major Dodd to the prize of Simone's virtue.

  Pohlmann detailed twenty of his bodyguard to guard the three elephants.

  He never rode one of the beasts in battle, for an elephant became the target of every enemy gunner, but he looked forward to mounting the howdah for a great victory parade after the campaign. And victory would leave Pohlmann rich, rich enough to start building his great marble palace in which he planned to hang the captured banners of his enemy. From sergeant to princeling in ten years, and the key to that princedom was the gold that he was storing in Assaye. He ordered his bodyguard that no one, not even the Rajah of Berar whose troops were garrisoning the village, should be allowed into the courtyard, then he instructed his servants to detach the golden panels from the howdah and add them to the boxes of treasure.

  "If the worst should happen," he told the sub adar who was in charge of the men guarding the treasure, "I'll join you here. Not that it will," he added cheerfully.

  A clatter of hooves in the alley outside the courtyard announced the arrival of a patrol of horsemen returning from a foray south of the Kaitna. For three days Pohlmann had kept his cavalry on a tight rein, not wanting to alarm Wellesley as the British General marched north towards the trap, but that morning he had released a few patrols southwards and one of those now returned with the welcome news that the enemy was only four miles south of the Kaitna. Pohlmann already knew that the second British army, that of Colonel Stevenson, was still ten miles off to the west, and that meant that the British had blundered.