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

by Bernard Cornwell

  “This is Colonel McCandless, Ma’am,” Sharpe made the introduction. “And this is Simone, sir.” He could not recall her surname.

  “Madame Joubert,” Simone introduced herself.

  McCandless scowled at her. He had ever been awkward in the presence of women, and he had nothing to say to this young woman so he just glowered at Sharpe instead. “All I needed was one company, Sharpe. One company!”

  “He was rescuing me, Colonel,” Simone said.

  “So I surmised, Madame, so I surmised,” the Colonel said unhappily, implying that Sharpe had been wasting his time. More smuts swirled in the smoke down to the yard, while in the street beyond the gateway the picquets were hauling looters from the shops and houses. McCandless stared irritably at Simone who gazed placidly back. The Scotsman was a gentleman and knew the woman was now his responsibility, but he resented the duty. He cleared his throat, then found he still had nothing to say.

  “Madame Joubert’s husband, sir,” Sharpe said, “serves in Dodd’s regiment.”

  “He does, does he?” McCandless asked, showing sudden interest.

  “My husband hoped to take command of the regiment when Colonel Mathers left,” Simone explained, “but, alas, Major Dodd arrived.” She shrugged.

  The Colonel frowned. “Why didn’t you leave with your husband?” he demanded sternly.

  “That is what I was trying to do, Colonel.”

  “And you were caught, eh?” The Colonel patted his horse which had been distracted by one of the burning scraps of straw. “Tell me, Ma’am, do you have quarters in the city?”

  “I did, Colonel, I did. Though if anything is left now . . . ?” Simone shrugged again, implying that she expected to find the quarters ransacked.

  “You have servants?”

  “The landlord had servants and we used them. My husband has a groom, of course.”

  “But you have somewhere to stay, Ma’am,” McCandless demanded.

  “I suppose so, yes.” Simone paused. “But I am alone, Colonel.”

  “Sergeant Sharpe will look after you, Ma’am,” McCandless said, then a thought struck him forcibly. “You don’t mind doing that, do you, Sharpe?” he inquired anxiously.

  “I’ll manage, sir,” Sharpe said.

  “And I am just to stay here?” Simone demanded fiercely. “Nothing else? That is all you propose, Colonel?”

  “I propose, Ma’am, to reunite you with your husband,” McCandless said, “but it will take time. A day or two. You must be patient.”

  “I am sorry, Colonel,” Simone said, regretting the tone of the questions she had shot at McCandless.

  “I’m sorry to give you so unfortunate a duty, Sharpe,” McCandless said, “but keep the lady safe till we can arrange things. Send word to me where you are, and I’ll come and find you when everything’s arranged.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Colonel turned and spurred out of the courtyard. His spirits, which had collapsed when Dodd had marched out of the city’s northern gate, were reviving again for he saw in Simone Joubert a God-sent opportunity to ride into the heart of his enemy’s army. Restoring the woman to her husband might do nothing to visit the vengeance of the Company on Dodd, but it would surely be an unparalleled opportunity to scout Scindia’s forces and so McCandless rode to fetch Wellesley’s permission for such an excursion, while Simone led Sharpe through the exhausted streets to find her house. On their way they passed an ox cart that had been tipped backwards and weighted down with stones so that its single shaft pointed skywards. A sepoy hung from the shaft’s tip by his neck. The man was not quite dead yet and so made small spasmodic motions, and officers, both Scottish and Indian, were forcing sheepish and half-drunken men to stare at the dying sepoy as a reminder of the fate that awaited plunderers. Simone shuddered and Sharpe hurried her past, her horse’s reins in his left hand.

  “Here, Sergeant,” she said, leading him into an alley that was littered with discarded plunder. Above them smoke drifted across a city where women wept and redcoats patrolled the walls. Ahmednuggur had fallen.

  Major Dodd had misjudged Wellesley, and that misjudgment shook him. An escalade seemed too intrepid, too headstrong, for the man Dodd derided as Boy Wellesley. It was neither what Dodd had expected nor what he had wanted from Wellesley. Dodd had wanted caution, for a cautious enemy is more easily defeated, but instead Wellesley had shown a scathing contempt for Ahmednuggur’s defenders and launched an assault that should have been easily beaten back. If Dodd’s men had been on the ramparts directly in the path of the assault then the attack would have been defeated, of that Dodd had no doubt, for there had only been four ladders deployed and that small number made the ease and swiftness of the British victory even more humiliating. It suggested that General Sir Arthur Wellesley possessed a confidence that neither his age nor experience should have provided, and it also suggested that Dodd might have underestimated Wellesley, and that worried him. Dodd’s decision to desert to Pohlmann’s army had been forced on him by circumstance, but he had not regretted the decision, for European officers who served the Mahratta chiefs were notorious for the riches they made, and the Mahratta armies far outnumbered their British opponents and were thus likely to be the winners of this war, but if the British were suddenly to prove invincible there would be no riches and no victory. There would only be defeat and ignominious flight.

  And so, as he rode away from the fallen city, Dodd was inclined to ascribe Wellesley’s sudden success to beginner’s luck. Dodd persuaded himself that the escalade must have been a foolish gamble that had been unfairly rewarded with victory. It had been a rash strategy, Dodd told himself, and though it had succeeded, it could well tempt Wellesley into rashness again, and next time the rashness would surely be punished. Thus Dodd attempted to discover good news within the bad.

  Captain Joubert could find no good news. He rode just behind Dodd and continually turned in his saddle for a glimpse of Simone’s white dress among the fugitives that streamed from the northern gate, but there was no sign of her, nor of Lieutenant Sillière, and each disappointment made Pierre Joubert’s loss harder to bear. He felt a tear prickle at the corner of his eye, and then the thought that his young Simone might be raped made the tear run down his cheek.

  “What the hell are you blubbing about?” Dodd demanded.

  “Something in my eye,” Joubert answered. He wished he could be more defiant, but he felt belittled by the Englishman and unable to stand up to his bullying. In truth Pierre Joubert had felt belittled for most of his life. His small stature and timid nature made him a target, and he had been the obvious choice when his regiment in France had been ordered to find one officer who could be sent as an adviser to Scindia, the Maharajah of Gwalior. They had chosen Joubert, the one officer no one would miss, but the unpopular posting had brought Joubert the one stroke of good fortune that had ever come his way when the ship bringing him to India had stopped at the Île de France. He had met Simone, he had wooed her, he had won her, and he was proud of her, intensely proud, for he knew other men found her attractive and Joubert might have enjoyed that subtle flattery had he not known how desperately unhappy she was. He put her unhappiness down to the vagaries of a newly married woman’s temperament and to the heat of India. He consoled himself with the thought that in a year or two he would be summoned back to France and there Simone would learn contentment in the company of his huge family. She would become a mother, learn to keep house and so accept her comfortable fate. So long, that was, as she had survived Ahmednuggur’s fall. He spurred his horse alongside Dodd’s. “You were right, Colonel,” the Frenchman said grudgingly. “There was nothing to be gained by fighting.” He was making conversation in order to keep his mind away from his fears for Simone.

  Dodd acknowledged the compliment with a grunt. “I’m sorry about Madame Joubert,” he forced himself to say.

  “The British will send news, I’m sure,” Joubert said, clinging to a hope that Simone would have been rescued by some ga
llant officer.

  “But a soldier’s best off without a woman,” Dodd said, then twisted in his saddle to look at the rearguard. “Sikal’s company is lagging,” he told Joubert. “Tell the buggers to hurry up!” He watched Joubert ride away, then spurred to the head of the column where his vanguard marched with fixed bayonets and charged muskets.

  The regiment might have escaped from Ahmednuggur, but it was not yet clear of all danger. British and Mahratta cavalry had ridden around the city to harass any of the garrison who might succeed in escaping, and those horsemen now threatened both flanks of Dodd’s column, but their threat was small. Scores of other men were fleeing the city, and those fugitives, because they were not marching in disciplined formations, made much easier targets for the horsemen who gleefully swooped and circled about the refugees. Dodd watched as lances and sabers slashed into the scattered fugitives, but if any of the horsemen came too close to his own white-jacketed ranks he called a company to halt, turned it outwards and made them level their muskets. The threat of a volley was usually enough to drive the horsemen to search for easier pickings, and not one of the enemy came within pistol shot of Dodd’s ranks. Once, when the column was some two miles north of the city, a determined squadron of British dragoons tried to head off the regiment’s march, but Dodd ordered two of his small cannon to be unlimbered and their paltry round shots, bouncing across the flat, dry ground, were sufficient to make the blue-coated horsemen veer away to find another angle of attack. Dodd reinforced the threat by having his lead company fire one volley of musketry which, even though it was at long range, succeeded in unhorsing one dragoon. Dodd watched the defeated horsemen ride away and felt a surge of pride in his new regiment. This was the first time he had observed them in action, and though the excited cavalry was hardly a worthy foe, the men’s calmness and efficiency were entirely praiseworthy. None of them hurried, none shot a ramrod out in panic, none seemed unsettled by the sudden, savage fall of the city and none had shown any reluctance to fire on the civilians who had threatened to obstruct their escape through the north gate. Instead they had bitten the enemy like a cobra defending itself, and that gave Dodd an idea. The Cobras! That was what he would call his regiment, the Cobras! He reckoned the name would inspire his men and put fear into an enemy. Dodd’s Cobras. He liked the thought.

  Dodd soon left his pursuers far behind. At least four hundred other men, most of them Arabs, had attached themselves to his regiment and he welcomed them for the more men he brought from the disaster, the higher his reputation would stand with Colonel Pohlmann. By early afternoon his Cobras had reached the crest of the escarpment that looked across the vast Deccan plain to where, far in the hazy distance, he could see the brown River Godavery snaking through the dry land. Beyond that river was safety. Behind him the road was empty, but he knew it would not be long before the pursuing cavalry reappeared. The regiment had paused on the escarpment’s edge and Dodd let them rest for a while. Some of the fugitive Arabs were horsemen and Dodd sent those men ahead to find a village that would yield food for his regiment. He guessed he would need to camp short of the Godavery, but tomorrow he would find a way to cross, and a day or so later he would march with flying colors into Pohlmann’s camp. Ahmednuggur might have fallen like a rotted tree, but Dodd had brought his regiment out for the loss of only a dozen men. He regretted those twelve men, though not the loss of Sillière, but he particularly regretted that Simone Joubert had failed to escape from the city. Dodd had sensed her dislike of him, and he had taken a piquant delight in the thought of cuckolding her despised husband in spite of that dislike, but it seemed that pleasure must be forgotten or at least postponed. Not that it mattered. He had saved his regiment and saved his guns and the future promised plenty of profitable employment for both.

  So William Dodd marched north a happy man.

  Simone led Sharpe to three small rooms on an upper floor of a house that smelled as though it belonged to a tanner. One room had a table and four mismatched chairs, two of which had been casually broken by looters, the second had been given over to a huge hip bath, while the third held nothing but a straw mattress that had been slit open and its stuffing scattered over the floorboards. “I thought men joined Scindia to become rich,” Sharpe said in wonderment at the cramped, ill-furnished rooms.

  Simone sat on one of the undamaged chairs and looked close to tears. “Pierre is not a mercenary,” she said, “but an adviser. His salary is paid by France, not by Scindia, and what money he makes, he saves.”

  “He certainly doesn’t spend it, does he?” Sharpe asked, looking about the small grubby rooms. “Where are the servants?”

  “Downstairs. They work for the house owner.”

  Sharpe had spotted a broom in the stable where they had put Simone’s horse, so now he went and fetched it. He drew a pail of water from the well and climbed the steps that ran up the side of the house to discover that Simone had not moved, except to hide her face in her hands, and so he set about cleaning up the mess himself. Whichever men had searched the rooms for loot had decided to use the bath as a lavatory, so he began by dragging it to the window, throwing open the shutters and pouring the contents into the alley. Then he sloshed the bath with water and scrubbed it with a dirty towel.

  “The landlord is very proud of the bath”—Simone had come to the door and was watching him—“and makes us pay extra.”

  “I’ve never had a proper bath.” Sharpe gave the zinc tub a slap. He assumed it must have been brought to India by a European, for the outside was painted with square-rigged ships. “How do you fill it?”

  “The servants do it. It takes a long time, and even then it’s usually cold.”

  “I’ll have them fill it for you, if you want.”

  Simone shrugged. “We need food first.”

  “Who cooks? Don’t tell me, the servants downstairs?”

  “But we have to buy the food.” She touched the purse at her waist.

  “Don’t worry about money, love,” Sharpe said. “Can you sew?”

  “My needles were on the packhorse.”

  “I’ve got a sewing kit,” Sharpe said, and he took the broom through to the bedroom and swept up the straw and stuffed it into the slit mattress. Then he took the sewing kit from his pack, gave it to Simone, and told her to sew the mattress together. “I’ll find some food while you do that,” he said, and went out with his pack. The city was silent now, its survivors cowering from their conquerors, but he managed to barter a handful of cartridges for some bread, some lentil paste and some mangoes. He was stopped twice by patrolling redcoats and sepoys, but his sergeant’s stripes and Colonel McCandless’s name convinced the officers he was not up to mischief. He found the body of the Arab who had been shot just outside the courtyard where he had sheltered Simone and dragged the riding boots off the corpse. They were fine boots of red leather with hawk-claw steel spurs, and Sharpe hoped they would fit. Nearby, in an alley, he discovered a pile of silk saris evidently dropped by a looter and he gathered up the whole bundle before hurrying back to Simone’s rooms.

  He pushed open the door. “Even got you some sheets,” he called, then dropped the bundle of silks because Simone had screamed from the bedroom. Sharpe ran to the door to see her facing three Indians who now turned to confront him. One was an older man dressed in a dark tunic richly embroidered with flowers, while the younger two were in simple white robes. “You got trouble?” Sharpe asked Simone.

  The older man snarled at Sharpe, letting loose a stream of words in Marathi.

  “Shut your face,” Sharpe said, “I was talking to the lady.”

  “It is the house owner,” Simone said, gesturing to the man in the embroidered tunic.

  “He wants you out?” Sharpe guessed, and Simone nodded. “Reckons he can get a better rent from a British officer, is that it?” Sharpe asked. He put his food on the floor, then walked to the landlord. “You want more rent? Is that it?”

  The landlord stepped back from Sharpe and said somethi
ng to his two servants who closed in on either side of the redcoat. Sharpe slammed his right elbow into the belly of one and stamped his left foot onto the instep of the other, then grabbed both men’s heads and brought them together with a crack. He let go of them and they staggered away in a daze as Sharpe pulled the bayonet from its sheath and smiled at the landlord. “She wants a bath, you understand? Bath.” He pointed at the room where the bath stood. “And she wants it hot, you greedy bastard, hot and steaming. And she needs food.” He pointed at the miserable pile of food. “You cook it, we eat it, and if you want to make any other changes, you bastard, you talk to me first. Understand?”

  One of the servants had recovered enough to intervene and was unwise enough to try to tug Sharpe away from his master. The servant was a big and young man, but he had none of Sharpe’s ferocity. Sharpe hit him hard, hit him again, kneed him in the crotch, and by then the servant was halfway across the living-room floor and Sharpe pursued him, hauled him upright, hit him again and that last blow took the servant onto the small balcony at the top of the outside stairs. “Go and break a leg, you sod,” Sharpe said, and tipped the man over the balustrade. He heard the man cry out as he fell into the alley, but Sharpe had already turned back towards the bedroom. “Have we still got a problem?” he demanded of the landlord.

  The man did not understand a word of English, but he understood Sharpe by now. There was no problem. He backed out of the rooms, followed by his remaining servant, and Sharpe went with them to the stairs. “Food,” he said, pushing the bread, lentils and fruit into the hands of the cowed landlord. “And Madame’s horse needs cleaning and watering. And feeding. Horse, there, see?” He pointed into the courtyard. “Feed the bugger,” he ordered. The servant he had pushed over the balcony had propped himself against the alley’s far wall where he was gingerly touching his bleeding nose. Sharpe spat on him for good measure, then went back inside. “I never did like landlords,” he said mildly.