Sharpe's Triumph: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803

by Bernard Cornwell

  The elephant knelt when Dodd came within twenty paces and the occupant of the howdah stepped carefully down onto a set of silver-plated steps placed there by one of his purple-coated bodyguards then strolled into the shade of the striped marquee. He was a European, a tall man and big, not fat, and though a casual glance might think him overweight, a second glance would see that most of that weight was solid muscle. He had a round sun-reddened face, big black mustaches and eyes that seemed to take delight in everything he saw. His uniform was of his own devising: white silk breeches tucked into English riding boots, a green coat festooned with gold lace and aiguillettes and, on the coat’s broad shoulders, thick white silk cushions hung with short golden chains. The coat had scarlet facings and loops of scarlet braid about its turned-back cuffs and gilded buttons. The big man’s hat was a bicorne crested with purple-dyed feathers held in place by a badge showing the white horse of Hanover; his sword’s hilt was made of gold fashioned into the shape of an elephant’s head, and gold rings glinted on his big fingers. Once in the shade of the open-sided marquee he settled himself on a divan where his aides gathered about him. This was Colonel Anthony Pohlmann and he commanded the compoo, together with five hundred cavalry and twenty-six field guns. Ten years before, when Scindia’s army had been nothing but a horde of ragged troopers on half-starved horses, Anthony Pohlmann had been a sergeant in a Hanoverian regiment of the East India Company; now he rode an elephant and needed two other beasts to carry the chests of gold coin that traveled everywhere with him.

  Pohlmann stood as Dodd climbed down from his horse. “Well done, Major!” the Colonel called in his German-accented English. “Exceedingly well done!” Pohlmann’s aides, half of them European and half Indian, joined their commander in applauding the returning hero, while the bodyguard made a double line through which Dodd could advance to meet the resplendent Colonel. “Eighty thousand cartridges,” Pohlmann exulted, “snatched from our enemies!”

  “Seventy-three thousand, sir,” Dodd said, beating dust off his breeches.

  Pohlmann grinned. “Seven thousand spoiled, eh? Nothing changes.”

  “Not spoiled by me, sir,” Dodd growled.

  “I never supposed so,” Pohlmann said. “Did you have any difficulties?”

  “None,” Dodd answered confidently. “We lost no one, sir, not even a scratch, while not a single enemy soldier survived.” He smiled, cracking the dust on his cheeks. “Not one.”

  “A victory!” Pohlmann said, then gestured Dodd into the tent. “We have wine, of sorts. There is rum, arrack, even water! Come, Major.”

  Dodd did not move. “My men are tired, sir,” he pointed out.

  “Then dismiss them, Major. They can take refreshment at my cook tent.”

  Dodd went to dismiss his men. He was a gangling Englishman with a long sallow face and a sullen expression. He was also that rarest of things, an officer who had deserted from the East India Company, and deserted moreover with one hundred and thirty of his own sepoy troops. He had come to Pohlmann just three weeks before and some of Pohlmann’s European officers had been convinced that Lieutenant Dodd was a spy sent by the British whose army was readying to attack the Mahratta Confederation, but Pohlmann had not been so sure. It was true that no other British officer had ever deserted like Dodd, but few had reasons like Dodd, and Pohlmann had also recognized Dodd’s hunger, his awkwardness, his anger and his ability. Lieutenant Dodd’s record showed he was no mean soldier, his sepoys liked him, and he had a raging ambition, and Pohlmann had believed the Lieutenant’s defection to be both wholehearted and real. He had made Dodd into a major, then given him a test. He had sent him to Chasalgaon. If Dodd proved capable of killing his old comrades then he was no spy, and Dodd had passed the test triumphantly and Scindia’s army was now better off by seventy-three thousand cartridges.

  Dodd came back to the marquee and was given the chair of honor on the right side of Pohlmann’s divan. The chair on the left was occupied by a woman, a European, and Dodd could scarcely keep his eyes from her, and no wonder, for she was a rare-looking woman to discover in India. She was young, scarce more than eighteen or nineteen, with a pale face and very fair hair. Her lips were maybe a trifle too thin and her forehead perhaps a half inch too wide, yet there was something oddly attractive about her. She had a face, Dodd decided, in which the imperfections added up to attractiveness, and her appeal was augmented by a timid air of vulnerability. At first Dodd assumed the woman was Pohlmann’s mistress, but then he saw that her white linen dress was frayed at the hem and some of the lace at its modest collar was crudely darned, and he decided that Pohlmann would never allow his mistress to appear so shabbily.

  “Let me introduce Madame Joubert to you,” Pohlmann said, who had noticed how hungrily Dodd had stared at the woman. “This is Major William Dodd.”

  “Madame Joubert?” Dodd stressed the “Madame,” half rising and bowing from his chair as he acknowledged her.

  “Major,” she said in a low voice, then smiled nervously before looking down at the table that was spread with dishes of almonds.

  Pohlmann snapped his fingers for a servant, then smiled at Major Dodd. “Simone is married to Captain Joubert, and that is Captain Joubert.” He pointed into the sunlight where a short captain stood to attention in front of the paraded battalion that stood so stiff and still in the biting sun.

  “Joubert commands the battalion, sir?” Dodd asked.

  “No one commands the battalion,” Pohlmann answered. “But until three weeks ago it was led by Colonel Mathers. Back then it had five European officers; now it has Captain Joubert and Lieutenant Sillière.” He pointed to a second European, a tall thin young man, and Dodd, who was observant, saw Simone Joubert blush at the mention of Sillière’s name. Dodd was amused. Joubert looked at least twenty years older than his wife, while Sillière was only a year or two her senior. “And we must have Europeans,” Pohlmann went on, stretching back on the divan that creaked under his weight. “The Indians are fine soldiers, but we need Europeans who understand European tactics.”

  “How many European officers have you lost, sir?” Dodd asked.

  “From this compoo? Eighteen,” Pohlmann said. “Too many.” The men who had gone were the British officers, and all had possessed contracts with Scindia that excused them from fighting against their own countrymen, and to make matters worse the East India Company had offered a bribe to any British officer who deserted the Mahrattas and, as a result, some of Pohlmann’s best men were gone. It was true that he still had some good officers left, most of them French, with a handful of Dutchmen, Swiss and Germans, but Pohlmann knew he could ill afford the loss of eighteen European officers. At least none of his artillerymen had deserted and Pohlmann put great faith in the battle-winning capacity of his guns. Those cannon were served by Portuguese, or by half-breed Indians from the Portuguese colonies in India, and those professionals had stayed loyal and were awesomely proficient.

  Pohlmann drained a glass of rum and poured himself another. He had an extraordinary capacity for alcohol, a capacity Dodd did not share, and the Englishman, knowing his propensity for getting drunk, restrained himself to sips of watered wine. “I promised you a reward, Major, if you succeeded in rescuing the cartridges,” Pohlmann said genially.

  “Knowing I’ve done my duty is reward enough,” Dodd said. He felt shabby and ill-uniformed among Pohlmann’s gaudy aides and had decided that it was best to play the bluff soldier, a role he thought would appeal to a former sergeant. It was said that Pohlmann kept his old East India Company uniform as a reminder of just how far he had risen.

  “Men do not join Scindia’s army merely for the pleasures of doing their duty,” Pohlmann said, “but for the rewards such service offers. We are here to become rich, are we not?” He unhooked the elephant-hilted sword from his belt. The scabbard was made of soft red leather and was studded with small emeralds. “Here.” Pohlmann offered the sword to Dodd.

  “I can’t take your sword!” Dodd protested.<
br />
  “I have many, Major, and many finer. I insist.”

  Dodd took the sword. He drew the blade from the scabbard and saw that it was finely made, much better than the drab sword he had worn as a lieutenant these last twenty years. Many Indian swords were made of soft steel and broke easily in combat, but Dodd guessed this blade had been forged in France or Britain, then given its beautiful elephant hilt in India. That hilt was of gold, the elephant’s head made the pommel, while the handguard was the beast’s curved trunk. The grip was of black leather bound with gold wire. “Thank you, sir,” he said feelingly.

  “It is the first of many rewards,” Pohlmann said airily, “and those rewards will shower on us when we beat the British. Which we shall, though not here.” He paused to drink rum. “The British will attack any day now,” he went on, “and they doubtless hope I’ll stay and fight them here, but I don’t have a mind to oblige them. Better to make the bastards march after us, eh? The rains may come while they pursue us and the rivers will hold them up. Disease will weaken them. And once they are weak and tired, we shall be strong. All Scindia’s compoos will join together and the Rajah of Berar has promised his army, and once we are all gathered we shall crush the British. But that means I have to give up Ahmednuggur.”

  “Not an important city,” Dodd commented. He noticed that Simone Joubert was sipping wine. She kept her eyes lowered, only occasionally glancing up at her husband or at Lieutenant Sillière. She took no notice of Dodd, but she would, he promised himself, she would. Her nose was too small, he decided, but even so she was a thing of pale and fragile wonder in this hot, dark-skinned land. Her blond hair, which was hung with ringlets in a fashion that had prevailed ten years before in Europe, was held in place by small mother-of-pearl clips.

  “Ahmednuggur is not important,” Pohlmann agreed, “but Scindia hates losing any of his cities and he stuffed Ahmednuggur full of supplies and insisted I post one regiment inside the city.” He nodded towards the white-coated troops. “That regiment, Major. It’s probably my best regiment, but I am forced to quarter it in Ahmednuggur.”

  Dodd understood Pohlmann’s predicament. “You can’t take them out of the city without upsetting Scindia,” he said, “but you don’t want to lose the regiment when the city falls.”

  “I can’t lose it!” Pohlmann said indignantly. “A good regiment like that? Mathers trained it well, very well. Now he’s gone to join our enemies, but I can’t lose his regiment as well, so whoever takes over from Mathers must know how to extricate his men from trouble.”

  Dodd felt a surge of excitement. He liked to think that it was not just for the money that he had deserted the Company, nor because of his legal troubles, but for the long overdue chance of leading his own regiment. He could do it well, he knew that, and he knew what Pohlmann was leading up to.

  Pohlmann smiled. “Suppose I give you Mathers’s regiment, Major? Can you pull it out of the fire for me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dodd said simply. Simone Joubert, for the first time since she had been introduced to Dodd, looked up at him, but without any friendliness.

  “All of it?” Pohlmann asked. “With its cannon?”

  “All of it,” Dodd said firmly, “and with every damned gun.”

  “Then from now it is Dodd’s regiment,” Pohlmann said, “and if you lead it well, Major, I shall make you a colonel and give you a second regiment to command.”

  Dodd celebrated by draining his cup of wine. He was so overcome with emotion that he hardly dared speak, though the look on his face said it all. His own regiment at last! He had waited so long for this moment and now, by God, he would show the Company how well their despised officers could fight.

  Pohlmann snapped his fingers so that a servant girl brought him more rum. “How many men will Wellesley bring?” he asked Dodd.

  “No more than fifteen thousand infantry,” the new commander of Dodd’s regiment answered confidently. “Probably fewer, and they’ll be split into two armies. Boy Wellesley will command one, Colonel Stevenson the other.”

  “Stevenson’s old, yes?”

  “Ancient and cautious,” Dodd said dismissively.

  “Cavalry?”

  “Five or six thousand? Mostly Indians.”

  “Guns?”

  “Twenty-six at most. Nothing bigger than a twelve-pounder.”

  “And Scindia can field eighty guns,” Pohlmann said, “some of them twenty-eight-pounders. And once the Rajah of Berar’s forces join us, we’ll have forty thousand infantry and at least fifty more guns.” The Hanoverian smiled. “But battles aren’t just numbers. They’re also won by generals. Tell me about this Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley.”

  “Boy Wellesley?” Dodd responded scathingly. The British General was younger than Dodd, but that was not the cause of the derisory nickname. Rather it was envy, for Wellesley had connections and wealth, while Dodd had neither. “He’s young,” Dodd said, “only thirty-four.”

  “Youth is no barrier to good soldiering,” Pohlmann said chidingly, though he well understood Dodd’s resentment. For years Dodd had watched younger men rise up through the ranks of the King’s army while he had been stuck in the Company’s hidebound ranks. A man could not buy promotion in the Company, nor were promotions given by merit, but only by seniority, and so forty-year-old men like Dodd were still lieutenants while, in the King’s army, mere boys were captains or majors. “Is Wellesley good?” Pohlmann asked.

  “He’s never fought a battle,” Dodd said bitterly, “not unless you count Malavelly.”

  “One volley?” Pohlmann asked, half recalling stories of the skirmish.

  “One volley and a bayonet charge,” Dodd said, “not a proper battle.”

  “He defeated Dhoondiah.”

  “A cavalry charge against a bandit,” Dodd said scornfully. “My point, sir, is that Boy Wellesley has never faced artillery and infantry on a real battlefield. He was jumped up to major general solely because his brother is Governor General. If his name had been Dodd instead of Wellesley he’d be lucky to command a company, let alone an army.”

  “He’s an aristocrat?” Pohlmann inquired.

  “Of course. What else?” Dodd asked. “His father was an earl.”

  “So . . .” Pohlmann put a handful of almonds in his mouth and paused to chew them. “So,” he went on, “he’s the younger son of a nobleman, sent into the army because he wasn’t good for anything else, and his family purchased him up the ranks?”

  “Exactly, sir, exactly.”

  “But I hear he is efficient?”

  “Efficient?” Dodd thought about it. “He’s efficient, sir, because his brother gives him the cash. He can afford a big bullock train. He carries his supplies with him, so his men are well fed. But he still ain’t ever seen a cannon’s muzzle, not facing him, not alongside a score of others and backed by steady infantry.”

  “He did well as Governor of Mysore,” Pohlmann observed mildly.

  “So he’s an efficient governor? Does that make him a general?”

  “A disciplinarian, I hear,” Pohlmann said.

  “He sets a lovely parade ground,” Dodd agreed sarcastically.

  “But he isn’t a fool?”

  “No,” Dodd admitted, “not a fool, but not a general either. He’s been promoted too fast and too young, sir. He’s beaten bandits, but he took a beating himself outside Seringapatam.”

  “Ah, yes. The night attack.” Pohlmann had heard of that skirmish, how Arthur Wellesley had attacked a wood outside Seringapatam and there been roundly thrashed by the Tippoo’s troops. “Even so,” he said, “it never serves to underestimate an enemy.”

  “Overestimate him as much as you like, sir,” Dodd said stoutly, “but the fact remains that Boy Wellesley has never fought a proper battle, not with more than a thousand men under his command, and he’s never faced a real army, not a trained field army with gunners and disciplined infantry, and my guess is that he won’t stand. He’ll run back to his brother and demand more men
. He’s a careful man.”

  Pohlmann smiled. “So let us lure this careful man deep into our territory where he can’t retreat, eh? Then beat him.” He smiled, then hauled a watch from his fob and snapped open the lid. “I have to be going soon,” he said, “but some business first.” He took an envelope from his gaudy coat’s pocket and handed the sealed paper to Dodd. “That is your authority to command Mathers’s regiment, Major,” he said, “but remember, I want you to bring it safely out of Ahmednuggur. You can help the defense for a time, but don’t be trapped there. Young Wellesley can’t invest the whole city, he doesn’t have enough men, so you should be able to escape easily enough. Bloody his nose, Dodd, but keep your regiment safe. Do you understand?”

  Dodd understood well enough. Pohlmann was setting Dodd a difficult and ignoble task, that of retreating from a fight with his command intact. There was little glory in such a maneuver, but it would still be a difficult piece of soldiering and Dodd knew he was being tested a second time. The first test had been Chasalgaon, the second would be Ahmednuggur. “I can manage it,” he said dourly.

  “Good!” Pohlmann said. “I shall make things easier for you by taking your regiment’s families northwards. You might march soldiers safely from the city’s fall, but I doubt you can manage a horde of women and children, too. And what about you, Madame?” He turned and laid a meaty hand on Simone Joubert’s knee. “Will you come with me?” He talked to her as though she were a child. “Or stay with Major Dodd?”