Sharpe's Fortress s-3

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  "Protect the sappers! " Kenny shouted and then, his sword in his hand, he clambered over the broken timbers and led his attackers into the entrance passage.

  Facing Kenny was a stone wall. He had expected it, but even so he was astonished by the narrowness of the passage that turned sharply to his left and then climbed steeply to the second unbroken gate.

  "There it is!»

  he shouted, and led a surge of men up the cobbled road towards the iron-studded timbers.

  And hell was loosed.

  The fire steps above the gateway passage were protected by the outer wall's high rampart, and Dodd's men, though they could hear the musket balls beating against the stones, were safe from the wild fire that lashed across the deep ravine. But the redcoats beneath them, the men following Colonel Kenny into the passage, had no protection. Musket fire, stones and rockets slashed into a narrow space just twenty-five paces long and eight wide. The leading axe men were among the first to die, beaten down by bullets. Their blood splashed high on the walls. Colonel Kenny somehow survived the opening salvo, then he was struck on the shoulder by a lump of stone and driven to the ground. A rocket slashed past his face, scorching his cheek, but he picked himself up and, sword in numbed hand, shouted at his men to keep going. No one could hear him. The narrow space was filled with noise, choking with smoke in which men died and rockets flared. A musket ball struck Kenny in the hip and he twisted, half fell, but forced himself to stand and, with blood pouring down his white breeches, limped on. Then another musket ball scored down his back and threw him forward. He crawled on bloodslicked stones, sword still in his hand, and shuddered as a third ball hit him in the back. He still managed to reach the second gate and reared up to strike it with his sword, and then a last musket ball split his skull and left him dead at the head of his men. More bullets plucked at his corpse.

  Kenny's surviving men tried to brave the fire. They tried to climb the slope to the second gate, but the murderous fire did not cease, and the dead made a barrier to the living. Some men attempted to fire up at their tormentors on the fire step but the sun was high now and they aimed into a blinding glare, and soon the redcoats began to back down the passage. The weltering fire from above did not let up. It flayed the Scotsmen, ricocheted between the walls, struck dead and dying and living, while the rockets, lit and tossed down, seared like great comets between the stone walls and filled the space with a sickening smoke.

  The dead were burned by rocket flames which exploded their cartridge boxes to pulse gouts of blood against the black walls, but the smoke hid the survivors who, under its cover, stumbled back to the hill outside the fortress. They left a stone-walled passage filled with the dying and the dead, trickling with blood, foul with smoke and echoing with the moans of the wounded.

  "Cease fire! " Colonel Dodd shouted.

  "Cease fire!»

  The smoke cleared slowly and Dodd stared down at a pit of carnage in which a few bodies twitched.

  "They'll come again soon, " Dodd warned his Cobras.

  "Fetch more stones, make sure your muskets are loaded. More rockets! " He patted his men on the shoulders, congratulating them. They grinned at him, pleased with their work. It was like killing rats in a barrel. Not one Cobra had been hit, the first enemy assault had failed and the others, Dodd was certain, would end in just the same way. The Lord of Gawilghur was winning his first victory.

  Major Stokes had found Sharpe shortly before Kenny made his assault, and the two men had been joined first by Syud Sevajee and his followers, then by the dozen cavalrymen who accompanied Eli Lockhart.

  All of them, Stokes, Sevajee and Lockhart, had entered the Outer Fort after the fight for the breaches was finished, and now they stood watching the failure of Kenny's assault. The survivors of the attack were crouching just yards from the broken entrance that boiled with smoke, and Sharpe knew they were summoning the courage to charge again.

  "Poor bastards, " he said.

  "No choice in the matter, " Stokes said bleakly.

  "No other way in."

  "That ain't a way in, sir, " Sharpe said dourly, 'that's a fast road to a shallow grave."

  "Overwhelm them, " Stokes said, 'that's the way to do it. Overwhelm them."

  "Send more men to be killed?" Sharpe asked angrily.

  "Get a gun over that side, " Stokes suggested, 'and blast the gates down one after the other. Only way to prise the place open, Sharpe."

  The covering fire that had blazed across the ravine died when it was obvious the first attack had failed, and the lull encouraged the defenders to come to the outer embrasures and fire down at the stalled attackers.

  "Give them fire! " an officer shouted from the bed of the ravine, and again the muskets flared across the gorge and the balls spattered against the walls.

  Major Stokes had levelled his telescope at the gate where the thick smoke had at last dissipated.

  "It ain't good, " he admitted.

  "It opens onto a blank wall."

  "It does what, sir?" Eli Lockhart asked. The cavalry Sergeant was looking aghast at the horror across the ravine, grateful perhaps that the cavalry was never asked to break into such deathtraps.

  "The passage turns, " Stokes said.

  "We can't fire straight up the entranceway. They'll have to drag a gun right into the archway."

  "They'll never make it, " Sharpe said. Any gun positioned in the outer arch would get the full fury of the defensive fire, and those defenders were protected by the big outer wall. The only way Sharpe could see of getting into the fortress was by battering the whole gatehouse flat, and that would take days of heavy cannon fire.

  "The gates of hell, " Stokes said softly, staring through his glass at the bodies left inside the arch.

  "Can I borrow the telescope, sir?" Sharpe asked.

  "Of course." Stokes cleaned the eyepiece on the hem of his jacket.

  "It ain't a pretty sight though."

  Sharpe took the glass and aimed it across the ravine. He gave the gatehouse a cursory glance, then edged the lens along the wall which led westwards from the besieged gate. The wall was not very high, perhaps only twelve or fifteen feet, much lower than the great ramparts about the gatehouse, and its embrasures did not appear to be heavily manned. But that was hardly a surprise, for the wall stood atop a precipice. The de fences straight ahead were not the wall and its handful of defenders, but the stony cliff which fell down into the ravine.

  Stokes saw where Sharpe was aiming the glass.

  "No way in there, Richard."

  Sharpe said nothing. He was staring at a place where weeds and small shrubs twisted up the cliff. He tracked the telescope from the bed of the ravine to the base of the wall, searching every inch, and he reckoned it could be climbed. It would be hard, for it was perilously steep, but if there was space for bushes to find lodgement, then a man could follow, and at the top of the cliff there was a brief area of grass between the precipice and the wall. He took the telescope from his eye.

  "Has anyone seen a ladder?"

  "Back up there." It was Ahmed who answered.

  "Where, lad?"

  "Up there." The Arab boy pointed to the Outer Fort.

  "On the ground, " he said.

  Sharpe twisted and looked at Lockhart.

  "Can you boys fetch me a ladder?"

  "What are you thinking of?" Lockhart asked.

  "A way in, " Sharpe said, 'a bloody way in." He gave the telescope to Stokes.

  "Get me a ladder, Sergeant, " he said, 'and I'll fix those buggers properly. Ahrned? Show Sergeant Lockhart where you saw the ladder."

  "I stay with you, " the boy said stubbornly.

  "You bloody don't." Sharpe patted the boy on the head, wondering what Ahmed made of the slaughter that had been inflicted on his countrymen in the ravine, but the boy seemed blessedly unaffected.

  "Go and help the Sergeant, " he told Ahmed.

  Ahmed led the cavalrymen uphill.

  "What are you doing, Richard?"

>   Stokes asked.

  "We can climb up to the wall, " Sharpe said, pointing to where the trail of weeds and bushes snaked up the other side of the ravine.

  "Not you, sir, but a light company can do it. Go up the ravine, send a ladder up and cross the wall."

  Stokes trained the telescope and stared at the opposing cliff for a long while.

  "You might get up, " he said dubiously, 'but then what?"

  Sharpe grinned.

  "We attack the gatehouse from the back, sir."

  "One company?"

  "Where one company can go, sir, another can follow. Once they see we're up there, other men will come." He still held the great claymore which was too big to fit into the scabbard of his borrowed sword, but now he discarded that scabbard and shoved the claymore into his belt.

  He liked the sword. It was heavy, straight-bladed and brutal, not a weapon for delicate work, but a killer. Something to give a man confidence.

  "You stay here, sir, " he told Stokes, 'and look after Ahmed for me. The little bugger would love to get in a fight, but he ain't got the sense of a louse when it comes to a scrap and he's bound to get killed. Tom! " he called to Garrard, then beckoned that he and the rest of the 33rd's Light Company should follow him down to where Morris sheltered among the rocks.

  "When Eli gets here with the ladder, sir, " he added to Stokes, 'send him down."

  Sharpe ran down the ravine's steep side into the smoke-reeking shadows where Morris was seated under a tree making a meal out of bread, salt beef and whatever liquor was left in his canteen.

  "Don't have enough food for you, Sharpe, " he said.

  "Not hungry, " Sharpe lied.

  "You're sweating, man, " Morris complained.

  "Why don't you find yourself some shade? There's nothing we can do until the gunners knock that bloody gatehouse flat."

  "There is, " Sharpe said.

  Morris cocked a sceptical eye up at Sharpe.

  "I've had no orders, Ensign, " he said.

  "I want you and the Light Company, sir, " Sharpe said respectfully.

  "There's a way up the side of the ravine, sir, and if we can get a ladder to the top then we can cross the wall and go at the bastards from the back."

  Morris tipped the canteen to his mouth, drank, then wiped his lips.

  "If you, twenty like you and the Archangel Gabriel and all the bloody saints asked me to climb the ravine, Sharpe, I would still say no. Now for Christ's sake, man, stop trying to be a bloody hero. Leave it to the poor bastards who are under orders, and go away." He waved a hand.

  «Sir,» Sharpe pleaded, 'we can do it! I've sent for a ladder."

  «No!» Morris interrupted loudly, attracting the attention of the rest of the company.

  "I am not giving you my company, Sharpe. For God's sake, you're not even a proper officer! You're just a bumped-up sergeant! A bloody ensign too big for your boots and, allow me to remind you, Mister Sharpe, forbidden by army regulations to serve in this regiment. Now go away and leave me in peace."

  "I thought you'd say that, Charles, " Sharpe said ruefully.

  "And stop calling me Charles! " Morris exploded.

  "We are not friends, you and I. And kindly obey my order to leave me in peace, or had you not noticed that I outrank you?"

  "I had noticed. Sorry, sir, " Sharpe said humbly and he started to turn away, but suddenly whipped back and seized Morris's coat. He dragged the Captain back into the rocks, going so fast that Morris was momentarily incapable of resistance. Once among the rocks, Sharpe let go of the patched coat and thumped Morris in the belly.

  "That's for the flogging you gave me, you bastard, " he said.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing, Sharpe?" Morris asked, scrambling away on his bottom.

  Sharpe kicked him in the chest, leaned down, hauled him up and thumped him on the jaw. Morris squealed with pain, then gasped as Sharpe backhanded him across the cheek, then struck him again. A group of men had followed and were watching wide-eyed. Morris turned to appeal to them, but Sharpe hit him yet again and the Cap-268

  tain's eyes turned glassy as he swayed and collapsed. Sharpe bent over him.

  "You might outrank me, " he said, 'but you're a piece of shit, Charlie, and you always were. Now can I take the company?"

  «No,» Morris said through the blood on his lips.

  "Thank you, sir, " Sharpe said, and stamped his boot hard down on Morris's head, driving it onto a rock. Morris gasped, choked, then lay immobile as the breath scraped in his throat.

  Sharpe kicked Morris's head again, just for the hell of it, then turned, smiling.

  "Where's Sergeant Green?"

  "Here, sir." Green, looking anxious, pushed through the watching men.

  "I'm here, sir, " he said, staring with astonishment at the immobile Morris.

  "Captain Morris has eaten something that disagreed with him, " Sharpe said, 'but before he was taken ill he expressed the wish that I should temporarily take command of the company."

  Sergeant Green looked at the battered, bleeding Captain, then back to Sharpe.

  "Something he ate, sir?"

  "Are you a doctor, Sergeant? Wear a black plume on your hat, do you?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then stop questioning my statements. Have the company paraded, muskets loaded, no bayonets fixed." Green hesitated.

  "Do it, Sergeant!»

  Sharpe roared, startling the watching men.

  "Yes, sir! " Green said hurriedly, backing away.

  Sharpe waited until the company was in its four ranks. Many of them looked at him suspiciously, but they were powerless to challenge his authority, not while Sergeant Green had accepted it.

  "You're a light company, " Sharpe said, 'and that means you can go where other soldiers can't. It makes you an elite. You know what that means? It means you're the best in the bloody army, and right now the army needs its best men.

  It needs you. So in a minute we'll be climbing up there' he pointed to the ravine 'crossing the wall and carrying the fight to the enemy. It'll be hard work for a bit, but not beyond a decent light company." He looked to his left and saw Eli Lockhart leading his men down the side of the ravine with one of the discarded bamboo ladders.

  "I'll go first, " he told the company, 'and Sergeant Green will go last. If any man refuses to climb, Sergeant, you're to shoot the bugger."

  "I am, sir?" Green asked nervously.

  "In the head, " Sharpe said.

  Major Stokes had followed Lockhart and now came up to Sharpe.

  "I'll arrange for some covering fire, Sharpe, " he said.

  "That'll be a help, sir. Not that these men need much help. They're the 33rd's Light Company. Best in the army."

  "I'm sure they are, " Stokes said, smiling at the seventy men who, seeing a major with Sharpe, supposed that the Ensign really did have the authority to do what he was proposing.

  Lockhart, in his blue and yellow coat, waited with the ladder.

  "Where do you want it, Mister Sharpe?"

  "Over here, " Sharpe said.

  "Just pass it up when we've reached the top.

  Sergeant Green! Send the men in ranks! Front rank first! " He walked to the side of the ravine and stared up his chosen route. It looked steeper from here, and much higher than it had seemed when he was staring through the telescope, but he still reckoned it was climbable. He could not see the Inner Fort's wall, but that was good, for neither could the defenders see him. All the same, it was bloody steep. Steep enough to give a mountain goat pause, yet if he failed now then he would be on a charge for striking a superior officer, so he really had no choice but to play the hero.

  So he spat on his bruised hands, looked up one last time, then started to climb.

  The second assault on the Inner Fort's gatehouse fared no better than the first. A howling mass of men charged through the wreckage of the shattered gate, stumbled on the dead and dying as they turned up the passage, but then the killing began again as a shower of missile
s, rockets and musket fire turned the narrow, steep passage into a charnel house. An axe man succeeded in reaching the second gate and he stood above Colonel Kenny's scorched body to sink his blade deep into the timber, but he was immediately struck by three musket balls and dropped back, leaving the axe embedded in the dark, iron-studded wood. No one else went close to the gate, and a major, appalled at the slaughter, called the men back.

  "Next time, " he shouted at them, 'we designate firing parties to give cover. Sergeant! I want two dozen men."

  "We need a cannon, sir, " the Sergeant answered with brutal honesty.

  "They say one's coming." The aide whom Kenny had sent to fetch a cannon had returned to the assault party.

  "They say it'll take time, though, " he added, without explaining that the gunner officer had declared it would take at least two hours to manhandle a gun and ammunition across the ravine.

  The Major shook his head.

  "We'll try without the gun, " he said.

  "God help us, " the Sergeant said under his breath.

  Colonel Dodd had watched the attackers limp away. He could not help smiling. This was so very simple, just as he had foreseen. Manu Bappoo was dead and the Havildar had returned from the palace with the welcome news of Beny Singh's murder, which meant that Gawilghur had a new commander. He looked down at the dead and dying redcoats who lay among the small flickering blue flames of the spent rockets.

  "They've learned their lesson, Gopal, " he told his Jemadar, 'so next time they'll try to keep us quiet by firing bigger volleys up at the fire steps

  Toss down rockets, that'll spoil their aim."

  "Rockets, sahib."

  "Lots of rockets, " Dodd said. He patted his men on their backs. Their faces were singed by the explosions of the powder in their muskets' pans, they were thirsty and hot, but they were winning, and they knew it.

  They were his Cobras, as well trained as any troops in India, and they would be at the heart of the army that Dodd would unleash from this fortress to dominate the lands the British must relinquish when their southern army was broken.