Sharpe's Fortress s-3

by Бернард Корнуэлл

  "Why don't they give up?" Gopal asked Dodd. A sentry on the wall had reported that the bloodied attackers were forming to charge again.

  "Because they're brave men, Jemadar, " Dodd said, 'but also stupid."

  The furious musket fire had started again from across the ravine, a sign that a new attack would soon come into the blood-slick gateway.

  Dodd drew his pistol, checked it was loaded, and walked back to watch the next failure. Let them come, he thought, for the more who died here, the fewer would remain to trouble him as he pursued the beaten remnant south across the Deccan Plain.

  "Get ready! " he called. Slow matches burned on the fire step and his men crouched beside them with rockets, waiting to light the fuses and toss the terrible weapons down into the killing place.

  A defiant cheer sounded, and the redcoats came again to the slaughter.

  The cliff face was far steeper than Sharpe had anticipated, though it was not sheer rock, but rather a series of cracks in which plants had taken root, and he found that he could pull himself up by using stony outcrops and the thick stalks of the bigger shrubs. He needed both hands. Tom Garrard came behind, and more than once Sharpe trod on his friend's hands.

  "Sorry, Tom."

  "Just keep going, " Garrard panted.

  It became easier after the first ten feet, for the face now sloped away, and there was even room for two or three men to stand together on a weed-covered ledge. Sharpe called for the ladder and it was pushed up to him by the cavalrymen. The bamboo was light and he hooked the top rung over his right shoulder and climbed on upwards, following a jagged line of rocks and bushes that gave easy footing. A line of redcoats trailed him, muskets slung. There were more bushes to Sharpe's left, shielding him from the ramparts, but after he had climbed twenty feet those bushes ended and he prayed that the defenders would all be staring at the beleaguered gatehouse rather than at the precipice below. He pulled himself up the last few feet, cursing the ladder that seemed to get caught on every protrusion. The sun beat off the stone and the sweat poured down him. He was panting when he reached the top, and now there was nothing but steep, open ground between him and the wall's base. Fifty feet of rough grass to cross and then he would be at the wall.

  He crouched at the edge of the cliff, waiting for the men to catch up.

  Still no one had seen him from the walls. Tom Garrard dropped beside him.

  "When we go, Tom, " Sharpe said, 'we run like bloody hell. Straight to the wall. Ladder up, climb like rats and jump over the bloody top.

  Tell the lads to get over fast. Bastards on the other side are going to try and kill us before we can get reinforced, so we're going to need plenty of muskets to fend the buggers off."

  Garrard peered up at the embrasures.

  "There's no one there."

  "There's a few there, " Sharpe said, 'but they ain't taking much notice.

  Dozy, they are, " he added, and thank God for that, he thought, for a handful of defenders with loaded muskets could stop him dead. And dead is what he had better be after striking Morris, unless he could cross the ramparts and open the gates. He peered up at the battlements as more men hauled themselves over the edge of the cliff. He guessed the wall was lightly manned by little more than a picquet line, for no one would have anticipated that the cliff could be climbed, but he also guessed that once the redcoats appeared the defenders would quickly reinforce the threatened spot.

  Garrard grinned at Sharpe.

  "Did you thump Morris?"

  "What else could I do?"

  "He'll have you court-martialed

  "Not if we win here, " Sharpe said.

  "If we get those gates open, Tom, we'll be bloody heroes."

  "And if we don't?"

  "We'll be dead, " Sharpe said curtly, then turned to see Eli Lockhart scrambling onto the grass.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" Sharpe demanded.

  "I got lost, " Lockhart said, and hefted a musket he had taken from a soldier below.

  "Some of your boys ain't too keen on being heroes, so me and my boys are making up the numbers."

  And it was not just Lockhart's cavalrymen who were climbing, but some kilted Highlanders and sepoys who had seen the Light Company scrambling up the cliff and decided to join in too. The more the merrier, Sharpe decided. He counted heads and saw he had thirty men, and more were coming. It was time to go, for the enemy would not stay asleep for long.

  "We have to get over the wall fast, " he told them all, 'and once we're over, we form two ranks."

  He stood and hefted the ladder high over his head, holding it with both hands, then ran up the steep grass. His boots, which were Syud Sevajee's cast-offs, had smooth soles and slipped on the grass, but he stumbled on, and went even faster when he heard an aggrieved shout from high above him. He knew what was coming next and he was still thirty feet from the walls, a sitting target, and then he heard the bang of the musket and saw the grass flatten ahead of him as the gases from the barrel lashed downwards. Smoke eddied around him, but the ball had thumped into one of the ladder's thick uprights, and then another musket fired and he saw a fleck of turf dance up.

  "Give them fire! " Major Stokes roared from the bottom of the ravine.

  "Give them fire!»

  A hundred redcoats and sepoys blasted up at the walls. Sharpe heard the musket shots clatter on the stone, and then he was hard under the rampart and he dropped the leading end of the ladder and rammed it into the turf and swung the other end up and over. A bloody escalade,

  he thought. A breach and an escalade, all in one day, and he pulled the claymore out from his belt and pushed Garrard away from the foot of the ladder.

  "Me first, " he growled, and began to climb. The rungs were springy and he had the terrible thought that maybe they would break after the first few men had used the ladder, and then a handful of soldiers would be trapped inside the fortress where they would be cut down by the Mahrattas, but there was no time to dwell on that fear, just to keep climbing. The musket balls raided the stones to left and right in a torrent of fire that had driven the defenders back from the parapet, but at any second Sharpe would be alone up there. He roared a shout of defiance, reached the top of the ladder and extended his free hand to grip the stone. He hauled himself through the embrasure. He paused, trying to get a sense of what lay beyond, but Garrard shoved him and he had no option but to spring through the embrasure.

  There was no fire step Jesus, he thought, and jumped. It was not a long jump down, maybe eight or ten feet, for the ground was higher on the inner side of the wall. He sprawled on the turf and a musket bullet whipped over his back. He rolled, got to his feet, and saw that the defenders had low wooden platforms that they had been using to peer over the top of the wall. Those defenders were running towards him now, but they were few, very few, and already Sharpe had five redcoats on his side of the wall, and more were coming. But so was the enemy, some from the west and more from the east.

  "Tom! Look after those men." Sharpe pointed westwards, then he turned the other way and dragged three men into a crude rank.

  «Present!» he called. The muskets went up into their shoulders.

  "Aim low, boys, " he said.

  "Fire!»

  The muskets coughed out smoke. A Mahratta slid on the grass. The others turned and ran, appalled at the stream of men now crossing the wall. It was a curious mix of English skirmishers, Highland infantry, sepoys, cavalrymen and even some of Syud Sevajee's followers in their borrowed red jackets.

  "Two ranks! " Sharpe shouted.

  "Quick now! Two ranks! Tom! What's happening behind me?"

  "Buggers have gone, sir."

  "Two ranks! " Sharpe shouted again. He could not see the gatehouse from here because the hill inside the wall bulged outwards and hid the great ramparts from him, but the enemy was forming two hundred paces eastwards. The wall's defenders, in brown jackets, were joining a company of white-coated Cobras who must have been in reserve and those men would have to
be defeated before Sharpe could hope to advance on the gatehouse. He glanced up the hill and saw nothing there except a building half hidden by trees in which monkeys gibbered. No defenders there, thank God, so he could ignore his right flank.

  A Scottish sergeant had shoved and tugged the men into two ranks.

  «Load!» Sharpe said, though most of the men were already loaded.

  "Sergeant?"

  "Sir?"

  "Advance along the wall. No one's to fire till I give the word. Sergeant Green?" Sharpe called, waited.

  "Sergeant Green! " Green had evidently not crossed the wall yet, or maybe he had not even climbed the cliff.

  "Sergeant Green! " Sharpe bellowed again.

  "Why do you need him?" a voice called.

  It was a Scottish captain. Christ, Sharpe thought, but he was outranked.

  "To bring the next group on!»

  "I'll do it, " the Scotsman said, 'you go!»

  «Advance!» Sharpe shouted.

  "By the centre! " the Sergeant shouted.

  "March!»

  It was a ragged advance. The men had no file-closers and they spread out, but Sharpe did not much care. The thing was to close on the enemy. That had always been McCandless's advice. Get close and start killing, because there's bugger all you can do at long range, though the Scottish Colonel would never have used that word. This is for you, McCandless, Sharpe thought, this one's for you, and it struck him that this was the first time he had ever taken troops into formal battle, line against line, muskets against muskets. He was nervous, and made even more nervous by the fact that he was leading a makeshift company in full view of the thousands of redcoats on the ravine's northern slope. It was like being trapped on stage in a full theatre; lose here, he thought, and all the army would know. He watched the enemy officer, a tall man with a dark face and a large moustache. He looked calm and his men marched in three tight ranks. Well trained, Sharpe thought, but then no one had ever said William Dodd could not whip troops into shape.

  The Cobras stopped when the two units were a hundred paces apart.

  They levelled their muskets and Sharpe saw his men falter.

  "Keep going! " he ordered.

  "Keep going!»

  "You heard the man! " the Scottish Sergeant bellowed.

  "Keep going!»

  Sharpe was at the right-hand flank of his line. He glanced behind to see more men running to catch up, their equipment flapping as they stumbled over the uneven ground. Christ, Sharpe thought, but I'm inside! We're in! And then the Cobras fired.

  And Sharpe, ensign and bullock driver, had a battle on his hands.

  The redcoats stormed the gatehouse a third time, this attempt led by two squads who hugged the walls either side of the passage and then turned their muskets up to blast the defenders on the opposite fire step

  The tactic seemed to work, for they ripped off their first volley and under its cover a third squad comprised of axe men charged over the dead and dying and scrambled up the steep stone path towards the second gate.

  Then the lit rockets began to drop from on high. They struck the bodies and then flamed into life and ricocheted madly about the confined space. They tore into the two musket squads, flamed among the axe men choked men with their smoke, burned them with flame and exploded to strew the carnage with more blood and guts. The axe men never even reached the gate. They died under the musket fire that followed the rockets, or else, wounded, they tried to crawl back through the thick smoke. Rocks hurtled down from the flanking fire steps pulping the dead and the living into horror. The survivors fled, defeated again.

  «Enough!» Colonel Dodd shouted at his men.

  «Enough!» He peered down into the stone chamber. It looked like something from hell, a place where broken things twitched in blood beneath a reeking pall of smoke. The rocket carcasses still burned. The wounded cried for help that was not coming, and Dodd felt an elation sear through him. It was even easier than he had dared to hope.

  «Sahib!» Gopal said urgently.

  "Sahib?"

  "What?"

  "Sahib, look! " Gopal was pointing westwards. There was smoke and the crackling sound of a musket fight. The noise and smoke were coming from just beyond the curve of the hill so Dodd could not see what was happening, but the sound was enough to convince him that a considerable fight had broken out a quarter-mile away, and that might not have mattered, except that the smoke and the noise came from inside the wall.

  «Jesus!» Dodd swore.

  "Find out what's happening, Gopal. Quick! " He could not lose. He must not lose.

  "Where's Mister Hakeswill?" he shouted, wanting the deserter to take over Gopal's responsibilities on the fire step but the twitching Sergeant had vanished. The musketry went on, but beneath Dodd there were only moans and the smell of burning flesh. He stared westwards. If the damned redcoats had crossed the wall then he would need more infantry to drive them out and seal whatever place they had found to penetrate the Inner Fort.

  "Havildar!»

  He summoned the man who had accompanied Hakeswill to the palace.

  "Go to the Southern Gate and tell them to send a battalion here. Quick!»

  «Sahib,» the man said, and ran.

  Dodd found that he was shaking slightly. It was just a small tremor in his right hand which he stilled by gripping the gold elephant-shaped hilt of his sword. There was no need to panic, he told himself, everything was under control, but he could not rid himself of the thought that there would be no escape from this place. In every other fight since he had defected from British service he had made certain of a route along which he could retreat, but from this high fortress on its soaring bluff there was no way out. He must win, or else he must die. He watched the smoke to the west. The firing was constant now, suggesting that the enemy was inside the fort in force. His hand twitched, but this time he did not notice as, for the first time in weeks, the Lord of Gawilghur began to fear defeat.

  The volley from the company of white-coated Cobras hammered towards Sharpe's men, but because they were spread more widely than usual many of the balls wasted themselves in the gaps between the files. Some men went down, and the rest instinctively checked, but Sharpe shouted at them to keep marching. The enemy was hidden in smoke, but Sharpe knew they would be reloading.

  "Close the files, Sergeant, " he shouted.

  "Close up! Close up! " the Scots Sergeant called. He glanced at Sharpe, suspecting that he was taking the small company too close to the enemy. The range was already down to sixty yards.

  Sharpe could just see one of the Indians through the smoke. The man was the left flanker of the front rank, a small man, and he had bitten off his cartridge and was pouring the powder down the muzzle of his musket. Sharpe watched the bullet go in and the ramrod come up ready to plunge down into the barrel.

  «Halt!» he called.

  «Halt!» the Sergeant echoed.

  "Present!»

  The muskets came up into the men's shoulders. Sharpe reckoned he had about sixty men in the two ranks, fewer than the enemy's three ranks, but enough. More men were running up from the ladder all the time.

  "Aim low, " he said.

  "Fire!»

  The volley slammed into the Cobras who were still loading. Sharpe's men began to reload themselves, working fast, nervous of the enemy's next volley.

  Sharpe watched the enemy bring their muskets up. His men were half hidden by their own musket smoke.

  «Drop!» he shouted. He had not known he was going to give the order until he heard himself shout it, but it suddenly seemed the sensible thing to do.

  "Flat on the ground! " he shouted.

  «Quick!» He dropped himself, though only to one knee, and a heartbeat later the enemy fired and their volley whistled over the prostrate company. Sharpe had slowed his men's loading process, but he had kept them alive and now it was time to go for the kill.

  «Load!» he shouted, and his men climbed to their feet. This time Sharpe did not watch the ene
my, for he did not want to be affected by their timing. He hefted the claymore, comforted by the blade's heaviness.

  "Prepare to charge! " he shouted. His men were pushing their ramrods back into their musket hoops, and now they pulled out their bayonets and twisted them onto blackened muzzles. Eli Lockhart's cavalrymen, some of whom only had pistols, drew their sabres.

  «Present!» Sharpe called, and the muskets went up into the shoulders again. Now he did look at the enemy and saw that most of them were still ramming.

  «Fire!» The muskets flamed and the scraps of wadding spat out after the bullets to flicker their small flames in the grass.

  «Charge!» Sharpe shouted, and he led the way from the right flank, the claymore in his hand.

  «Charge!» he shouted again and his small company, sensing that they had only seconds before the enemy's muskets were loaded, ran with him.

  Then a blast of musketry sounded to Sharpe's right and he saw that the Scottish Captain had formed a score of men on the flank and had poured in a volley that struck the Cobras just before Sharpe's charge closed the gap.

  "Kill them! " Sharpe raged. Fear was whipping inside him, the fear that he had mistimed this charge and that the enemy would have a volley ready just yards before the redcoats struck home, but he was committed now, and he ran as hard as he could to break into the white-coated ranks before the volley came.

  The Havildar commanding the Cobra company had been appalled to see the redcoats charging. He should have fired, but instead he ordered his men to fix their own bayonets and so the enemy was still twisting the blades onto their muskets when the leading redcoats burst through the smoke. Sharpe hacked his heavy sword at the front rank, felt it bite and slide against bone, twisted it free, lunged, kicked at a man, and suddenly Eli Lockhart was beside him, his sabre slashing down, and two Highlanders were stabbing with bayonets. Sharpe hacked with the sword two-handed, fighting in a red rage that had come from the nervousness that had assailed him during the charge. A sepoy trapped the Cobras' Havildar, feinted with the bayonet, parried the tulwar's counter-lunge, then stabbed the enemy in the belly. The white coats were running now, fleeing back towards the smoke that boiled up from the gatehouse which lay beyond the bulge of the hill. Tom Garrard, his bayonet bloodied to the hilt, kicked at a wounded man who was trying to aim his musket. Other men stooped to search the dead and dying.