Sharpe's Triumph

by Bernard Cornwell

  "Millions of the buggers!"

  "We're going to turn their flank," Sharpe said, repeating what he had heard the General say. So far as Sharpe understood, the idea was to cross the river at the ford which no one except Wellesley believed existed, then make an attack on the left flank of the waiting infantry.

  The idea made sense to Sharpe, for the enemy line was facing south and, by coming at them from the east, the British could well plunge the compoos into confusion.

  "Millions of the buggers!" Fletcher said again in wonderment, but then the road dropped and took the enemy out of their view. The dragoon orderly sheathed his sabre.

  "But he's confident," he said, nodding ahead at Wellesley who was dressed in his old uniform coat of the 33rd. The General wore a slim straight sword, but had no other weapon, not even a pistol.

  "He was always confident," Sharpe said.

  "Cool as you like."

  "He's a good fellow," Fletcher said loyally.

  "Proper officer. He ain't friendly, of course, but he's always fair."

  He touched his spurs to the mare's flanks because Wellesley and his aides had hurried ahead into the village of Peepulgaon where the villagers gaped at the foreigners in their red coats and black cocked hats. Wellesley scattered chickens from his path as he cantered down the dusty village street to where the road dropped down a precipitous bluff into the half-dry bed of the Kaitna.

  The pioneers arrived a moment later and began attacking the bluff to smooth its steep slope. On the river's far bank Sharpe could see the road twist up into the trees that half obscured the village of Waroor.

  The General was right, he reckoned, and there had to be a ford, for why else would the road show on both banks? But whether the ford was shallow enough for the army to cross no one yet knew.

  Wellesley stood his horse at the top of the bluff and drummed the fingers of his right hand on his thigh. It was the only sign of nerves. He was staring across the river, thinking. No enemy was in sight, but nor should they have been for the Mahratta line was now two miles to the west, which meant that Scindia's army was now between him and Stevenson. Wellesley grimaced, realizing that he had already abandoned his first principle for fighting this battle, which had been to secure his left flank so Stevenson could join. Doubtless, the moment the guns began their proper, concentrated work, the sound of their cannonade would bring Stevenson hurrying across country, but now the older man would simply have to join the fight as best he could. But Wellesley had no regrets at posing such difficulties for Stevenson, for the chance to turn the enemy's flank was heaven-sent. So long, that is, as the ford was practicable.

  The pioneer Captain led a dozen of his sepoys down towards the river.

  "I'll just see to that far bank, sir," the Captain called up to the General, startling Wellesley out of his reverie.

  "Come back!" Wellesley shouted angrily.

  "Back!"

  The Captain had almost reached the water, but now turned and stared at Wellesley in puzzlement.

  "Have to grade that bluff, sir," he shouted, pointing to where the road climbed steeply to the screen of trees on the Kaitna's northern bank.

  "Too steep for guns, sir."

  "Come back!" Wellesley called again, then waited as the dozen men trudged back to the southern bank.

  "The enemy can see the river, Captain," the General explained, 'and I have no wish that they should see us yet. I do not want them knowing our intentions, so you will wait until the first infantry make the crossing, then do your work."

  But the enemy had already seen the pioneers. The dozen men had only been visible in the river's open bed for a few seconds, but someone in the Mahratta gun line was wide awake and there was a sudden and violent plume of water in the river and, almost simultaneously, the sky battering sound of a heavy gun.

  "Good shooting," McCandless said quietly when the fifteen-foot-high fountain had subsided to leave nothing but a whirling eddy in the river's brown water. The range must have been almost two miles, yet the Mahrattas had turned a gun, trained and fired it in seconds, and their aim had been almost perfect. A second gun fired and its heavy ball ploughed a furrow in the dry, crazed mud beside the river and bounced up to scatter bucket-loads of dry earth from the bluff's face.

  "Eighteenpounders," McCandless guessed aloud, thinking of the two heavy siege guns that he had seen in front of Dodd's men.

  "Damn," Wellesley said quietly.

  "But no real harm done, I suppose."

  The first of the infantry were now marching down Peepulgaon's steep street. Lieutenant Colonel Orrock led the picquets of the day, while behind them Sharpe could see the grenadier company of the 74th. The Scottish drums were beating a march rhythm and the sound of the flurries made Sharpe's blood race. The sound presaged battle. It seemed like a dream, but there would be a battle this Sunday afternoon and a bloody one too.

  "Afternoon, Orrock," Wellesley spurred his horse to meet the infantry vanguard.

  "Straight across, I think."

  "Has the ford been sounded?" Colonel Orrock, a lugubrious and worried-looking man, asked nervously.

  "Our task, I think," Wellesley said cheerfully.

  "Gentlemen?" This last invitation was to his aides and orderly.

  "Shall we open proceedings?"

  "Come on, Sharpe," McCandless said.

  "You can cross after us, Captain!" Wellesley called to the eager pioneer Captain, then he put his big bay stallion down the slope of the bluff and trotted towards the river. Daniel Fletcher followed close behind with Diomed's leading rein in his hand, while the aides and McCandless and Sevajee and Sharpe all followed. Forty horsemen would be the first men across the Kaitna and the General would be the first of all, and Sharpe watched as Wellesley's stallion trotted into the river. He wanted to see how deep the water was, and he was determined to watch the General all the way through, but suddenly the bang of an eighteen-pounder gun bullied the sky and Sharpe glanced upstream to see a puff of gunsmoke smear the horizon, then he heard a horse screaming and he looked back to see that Daniel Fletcher's mount was rearing at the water's edge. Fletcher was still in the saddle, but the orderly had no head left, only a pulsing spurt of blood from his ragged neck.

  Diomed's rein was still in the dead man's hand, but somehow the body would not fall from the mare's saddle and she was screaming in fear as her rider's blood splashed across her face.

  A second gun fired, but high, and the shot crashed low overhead to tear into the trees on the southern bank. A third ball smashed into the water, drenching McCandless. Fletcher's mare bolted upstream, but was checked by a fallen tree and so she stood, quivering, and still the trooper's decapitated body was in the saddle and Diomed's rein in his dead hand. The grey horse's left flank was reddened with Fletcher's blood. The trooper had slumped now, his headless trunk leaning eerily to drip blood into the river.

  To Sharpe it seemed as if time had stopped. He was aware of someone shouting, aware of the blood dripping from the dragoon's collar, aware of his small horse shivering, but the sudden violence had immobilized him. Another gun fired, this one of smaller calibre, and the ball struck the water a hundred yards upstream, ricocheted once, then vanished in a plume of white spray.

  "Sharpe!" a voice snapped. Horsemen were wheeling in the river's shallows and reaching for the dead man's bridle.

  "Sharpe!" It was Wellesley who shouted. The General was in the middle of the river where the water did not even reach his stirrups, so there was a ford after all and the river could be crossed, but the enemy was hardly going to be taken by surprise now.

  "Take over as orderly, Sharpe!" Wellesley shouted.

  "Hurry, man!" There was no one else to replace Fletcher, not unless one of Wellesley's aides took over his duties, and Sharpe was the nearest man.

  "Go on, Sharpe!" McCandless said.

  "Hurry, man!"

  Captain Campbell had secured Fletcher's mare.

  "Ride her, Sharpe!" the Captain called.

  "That
little horse won't keep up with us. Just let her go.

  Let her go."

  Sharpe dismounted and ran to the mare. Campbell was trying to dislodge Fletcher's blood-soaked body, but the trooper's feet were caught in the stirrups. Sharpe heaved Fletcher's left boot free, then gave the booted leg a tug and the corpse slid towards him. He jumped back as the bloody remnants of the neck, all sinew and flesh and tattered scraps, slapped at his face. The corpse fell into the edge of the river and Sharpe stepped over it to mount the General's mare.

  "Get the General's canteens," Campbell ordered him, and an instant later another eighteen-pounder shot hammered low overhead like a clap of thunder.

  "The canteens, man, hurry!" Campbell urged Sharpe, but Sharpe was having trouble untying the water bottles from Fletcher's belt, so instead he heaved the body over so that a gush of blood spurted from the neck to be instantly diluted in the shallow water. He tugged at the trooper's belt buckle, unfastened it, then hauled the belt free with its pouches, canteens and the heavy sabre. He wrapped the belt over his own, hastily buckled it, then clambered up into the mare's saddle and fiddled his right foot into the stirrup. Campbell was holding out Diomed's rein.

  Sharpe took the rein.

  "Sorry, sir." He apologized for making the aide wait.

  "Stay close to the General," Campbell ordered him, then leaned over and patted Sharpe's arm.

  "Stay close, be alert, enjoy the day, Sergeant," he said with a grin.

  "It looks as if it's going to be a lively afternoon!"

  "Thank you, sir," Sharpe said. The first infantry were in the ford now and Sharpe turned the mare, kicked back his heels and tugged Diomed through the water. Campbell was spurring ahead to catch up with Wellesley and Sharpe clumsily kicked the mare into a canter and was almost thrown as she stumbled on the riverbed, but he somehow clung to her mane as she recovered. A round shot thrashed the water white to his left, drenching him with spray. The musket had fallen off his shoulder and was dangling awkwardly from his elbow and he could not manage both it and Diomed's rein, so he let the firelock drop into the river, then wrenched the sword and the heavy canteens into a more comfortable position. Bugger this, he thought. Lost a hat, a horse and a gun in less than an hour!

  The pioneers were hacking at the bluff on the northern bank to make the slope less steep, but the first galloper guns, those that accompanied the picquets of the day, were already in the Kaitna. Galloper guns were drawn by horses and the gunners shouted at the pioneers to clear out of their way. The pioneers scattered as the horses came up from the river with water streaming from the leading gun's spinning wheels; a whip cracked over the leader's head and the team galloped up the bluff with the gun and limber bouncing erratically behind. A gunner was thrown off the limber, but he picked himself up and ran after the cannon. Sharpe kicked his horse up the bluff once the second gun was safely past and suddenly he was in low ground, protected from the enemy's cannonade by the rising land to his left.

  But where the hell was Wellesley? He could see no one on the high ground that led towards the enemy, and the only men on the road straight ahead were the leading companies of the picquets of the day who continued to march northwards. A slapping sound came from the river and he twisted in his saddle to see that a round shot had whipped through a file of infantry. A body floated downstream in eddies of blood, then the sergeants shouted at the ranks to close up and the infantry kept on coming. But where the hell was Sharpe to go? To his right was the village of Waroor, half hidden behind its trees and for a second Sharpe thought the General must have gone there, but then he saw Lieutenant Colonel Orrock riding up onto the higher ground to the left and Sharpe guessed the Colonel was following Wellesley and so he tugged the mare that way.

  The land climbed to a gentle crest across stubble fields dotted by a few trees. Colonel Orrock was the only man in sight and he was forcing his horse up the slope towards the skyline and so Sharpe followed him.

  He could hear the enemy guns firing, presumably still bombarding the ford that had not been supposed to exist, but as he kicked the mare up through the growing crop the guns suddenly ceased and all he could hear was the thump of hooves, the banging of the sabre's metal scabbard against his boot and the dull sound of the Scottish drums behind.

  Orrock had turned north along the skyline and Sharpe, following him, saw that the General and his aides were clustered under a group of trees from where they were gazing westwards through their telescopes.

  He joined them in the shade, and felt awkward to be in such exalted company without McCandless, but Campbell turned in his saddle and grinned.

  "Well done, Sergeant. Still with us, eh?"

  "Managing, sir," Sharpe said, rearranging the canteens that had tangled themselves into a lump.

  "Oh, dear God," Colonel Orrock said a moment later. He was gazing through his own telescope, and whatever he saw made him shake his head before peering through the glass again.

  "Dear me," he said, and Sharpe stood in his stirrups to see what had so upset the East India Company Colonel.

  The enemy was redeploying. Wellesley had crossed the ford to bring his small army onto the enemy's left flank, but the Mahratta commander had seen his purpose and was now denying him the advantage. The enemy line was marching towards the Peepulgaon ford, then wheeling left to make a new defence line that stretched clean across the land between the two rivers; a line that would now face head on towards Wellesley's army.

  Instead of attacking a vulnerable flank, Wellesley would be forced to make a head-on assault. Nor were the Mahrattas making their manoeuvre in a panicked hurry, but were marching calmly in disciplined ranks. The guns were moving with them, drawn by bullocks or elephants. The enemy was less than a mile away now and their steady unhurried re deployment was obvious to the watching officers.

  "They anticipate us, sir!" Orrock informed Wellesley, as though the General might not have understood the purpose of the enemy's manoeuvre.

  "They do," Wellesley agreed calmly, 'they do indeed." He collapsed his telescope and patted his horse's neck.

  "And they manoeuvre very well!" he added admiringly, as though he was engaged in nothing more ominous than watching a brigade go through its paces in Hyde Park.

  "Your men are through the ford?" he asked Orrock.

  "They are, sir, they are," Orrock said. The Colonel had a nervous habit of jutting his head forward every few seconds as if his collar was too tight.

  "And they can reverse themselves," he added meaningfully.

  Wellesley ignored the defeatist sentiment.

  "Take them one half-mile up the road," he ordered Orrock, 'then deploy on the high ground this side of the road. I shall see you before we advance."

  Orrock gazed goggle-eyed at the General.

  "Deploy?"

  "On this side of the road, if you please, Colonel. You will form the right of our line, Colonel, and have Wallace's brigade on your left.

  Let us do it now, Colonel, if you would so oblige me?"

  "Oblige you .. ." Orrock said, his head darting forward like a turtle.

  "Of course," he added nervously, then turned his horse and spurred it back towards the road.

  "Barclay?" the General addressed one of his aides.

  "My compliments to Colonel Maxwell and he will bring all Company and King's cavalry to take post to Orrock's right. Native horse will stay south of the river."

  There was still enemy cavalry south of the Kaitna and the horsemen from Britain's Indian allies would stay on that bank to keep those enemies at bay.

  "Then stay at the ford," Wellesley went on addressing Barclay, 'and tell the rest of the infantry to form on Orrock's picquets.

  Two lines, Barclay, two lines, and the 778th will form the left flank here."

  The General, who had been gazing at the enemy's calm re deployment now turned to Barclay who was scribbling in pencil on a scrap of paper.

  "First line, from the left. The 778th, Dallas's 10th, Corben's 78th, Orrock's picquets.
Second line, from the left. Hill's 4th, Macleod's i2th, then the 74th. They are to form their lines and wait for my orders. You understand? They are to wait." Barclay nodded, then tugged on his reins and spurred his horse back towards the ford as the General turned again to watch the enemy's re deployment

  "Very fine work," he said approvingly.

  "I doubt we could have manoeuvred any more smartly than that. You think they were readying to cross the river and attack us?"

  Major Blackiston, his engineer aide, nodded.

  "It would explain why they were ready to move, sir."

  "We shall just have to discover whether they fight as well as they manoeuvre," Wellesley said, collapsing his telescope, then he sent Blackiston north to explore the ground up to the River Juah.

  "Come on, Campbell," Wellesley said when Blackiston was gone and, to Sharpe's surprise, instead of riding back to where the army was crossing the ford, the General spurred his horse still further west towards the enemy.

  Campbell followed and Sharpe decided he had better go as well.

  The three men rode into a steep-sided valley that was thick with trees and brush, then up its far side to another stretch of open farmland.

  They cantered through a field of unharvested millet, then across pastureland, always inclining north towards another low hill crest.

  "I'll oblige you for a canteen, Sergeant," Wellesley called as they neared the crest and Sharpe thumped his heels on the mare's flanks to catch up with the General, then fumbled a canteen free and held it out, but that meant taking his left hand off the reins while his right was still holding Diomed's tether and the mare, freed of the rein, swerved away from the General. Wellesley caught up with Sharpe and took the canteen.

  "You might tie Diomed's rein to your belt, Sergeant," he said.

  "It will provide you with another hand."

  A man needed three hands to do Sharpe's job, but once they reached the low crest the General halted again and so gave Sharpe time to fasten the Arab's rein to Fletcher's belt. The General was staring at the enemy who was now only a quarter-mile away, well inside cannon shot, but either the enemy guns were not ready to fire or else they were under orders not to waste powder on a mere three horsemen. Sharpe took the opportunity to explore what was in Fletcher's pouch. There was a piece of mouldy bread that had been soaked when the trooper's body fell into the river, a piece of salted meat that Sharpe suspected was dried goat, and a sharpening stone. That made him half draw the sabre to feel its edge. It was keen.