Sharpe's Triumph s-2

by Bernard Cornwell

  "But when?" Dupont asked.

  "Soon," Pohlmann said, "soon. Has to be soon. Buggers are eating dung for breakfast these days."

  There was a sudden silence in the tent and Pohlmann realized a question had been addressed to him. Surjee Rao, a sinister man whose reputation for cruelty was as widespread as it was deserved, raised an eyebrow to the Hanoverian.

  "The rain, Your Serene Excellency," Pohlmann explained, "the rain deafened me so I could not hear your question."

  "What my Lord wishes to know," the minister said, "is whether we can destroy the British?"

  "Oh, utterly," Pohlmann said as though it was risible to even ask the question.

  "They fight hard," Beny Singh pointed out.

  "And they die like other men when fought hard in return," Pohlmann said dismissively.

  Scindia leaned forward and whispered in Surjee Rao's ear.

  "What the Lord of our land and the conqueror of our enemy's lands wishes to know," the minister said, "is how you will beat the British?"

  "In the way that His Royal Highness suggested, Excellency, when he gave me his wise advice yesterday," Pohlmann said, and it was true that he had enjoyed a private talk with Scindia the day before, though the advice had all been given by Pohlmann, but if he was to sway this durbar then he knew he must let them think that he was simply repeating Scindia's suggestions.

  "Tell us, please," Surjee Rao, who knew full well that his master had no ideas except how to increase the tax yields, asked suavely.

  "As we all know," Pohlmann said, "the British have divided their forces into two parts. By now both those small armies will know that we are here at Borkardan and, because they are fools eager for death, they will both be marching towards us. Both armies lie to our south, but they are separated by some miles. They nevertheless hope to join together, then attack us, but yesterday, in his unparalleled wisdom, His Royal Highness suggested that if we move eastwards we shall draw the enemy's eastern most column towards us and so make them march away from their allies. We can then fight the two armies in turn, defeat them in turn, and then let our dogs chew the flesh from their carcasses. And when the last enemy is dead, Excellency, I shall bring their General to our ruler's tents in chains and send their women to be his slaves."

  More to the point, Pohlmann thought, he would capture Wellesley's food supplies, but he dared not say that in case Scindia took the words as a criticism. But Pohlmann's bravado was rewarded by a scatter of applause that was unfortunately spoiled as a whole section of the tent roof collapsed to let in a deluge of rain.

  "If the British are doomed," Surjee Rao asked when the commotion had subsided, "why do they advance on us?"

  It was a good question, and one that had worried Pohlmann slightly, though he believed he had found an answer.

  "Because, Excellency," he said, "they have the confidence of fools. Because they believe that their combined armies will prove sufficient. Because they do not truly understand that our army has been trained to the same level as their own, and because their General is young and inexperienced and too eager for a reputation."

  "And you believe, Colonel, that we can keep their two armies apart?"

  "If we march tomorrow, yes."

  "How big is the British General's army?"

  Pohlmann smiled.

  "Wellesley has five thousand infantrymen, Excellency, and six thousand cavalry. We could lose as many men as that and not even notice they were gone! He has eleven thousand men, but the only ones he relies on are his five thousand infantry. Five thousand men! Five thousand!" He paused, making sure that everyone in the tent had heard the figure. "And we have eighty thousand men. Five against eighty!"

  "He has guns," the minister observed sourly.

  "We have five guns for every one of his. Five against one. And our guns are bigger and they are served just as well as his."

  Scindia whispered to Surjee Rao who then demanded that the other European officers give their advice, but all had been forewarned by Pohlmann to sing his tune. March east, they said, draw one British army into battle, then turn on the other. The minister thanked the foreign officers for their advice, then pointedly turned back to the brahmins for their comments. Some advised that emissaries should be sent to Holkar, begging his help, but Pohlmann's confidence had worked its magic and another man indignantly demanded to know why Holkar should be offered a share in the glory of victory. The tide of the durbar was turning in Pohlmann's favour, and he said nothing more, but nor did he need to.

  The durbar talked all day and no course of action was formally agreed, but at dusk Scindia and the Rajah of Berar conferred briefly, then Scindia took his leave between rows of brahmins who bowed as their ruler passed. He paused in the huge tent's doorway while his servants brought the palanquin that would preserve him from the rain.

  Only when the palanquin was ready did he turn and speak loudly enough for all the durbar to hear.

  "We march east tomorrow," he said, "then we shall ponder another decision. Colonel Pohlmann will make the arrangements." He stood for a second, looking up at the rain, then ducked under the palanquin's canopy.

  "Praise God," Pohlmann said, for he reckoned that the decision to march eastwards was sufficient to bring on battle.

  The enemy was closing all the time, and so long as the Mahrattas did not run northwards, the two sides must eventually meet. And if Scindia's men went eastwards then they would meet on Pohlmann's terms. He rammed on his cocked hat and stalked from the tent, followed by all the European officers.

  "We'll march east along the Kaitna!" he said excitedly. "That's where we'll march tomorrow, and the river bank will be our killing ground." He whooped like an excited child. "One short march, gentlemen, and we shall be close to Wellesley's men, and in two or three days we'll fight whether our lords and masters want it or not."

  The army marched early next morning. It covered the earth like a dark swarm that flowed beneath the clearing clouds alongside the muddy River Kaitna which slowly deepened and widened as the army followed it eastwards. Pohlmann gave them a very short march, a mere six miles, so that the leading horsemen had reached Pohlmann's chosen campsite long before dawn and by nightfall the slowest of the Mahratta infantry had reached a small, mud-walled village that lay just two miles north of the Kaitna. Scindia and the Rajah of Berar pitched their lavish tents just outside the village, while the Rajah's infantry was ordered to barricade the streets and make loopholes in the thick mud walls of the outermost houses.

  The village lay on the southern bank of the River Juah, a tributary of the Kaitna, and south of the village stretched two miles of open farmland that ended at the steep bank of the River Kaitna. Pohlmann placed his best infantry, his three compoos of superbly trained killers, south of the village on the high bluff of the Kaitna's northern bank, and in front of them he ranged his eighty best guns.

  Wellesley, if he wished to reach Borkardan, must come to the Kaitna and he would find his path blocked by a river, by a fearsome line of heavy guns, by an array of infantry and, behind them, like a fortress, a village crammed with the Rajah of Berar's troops. The trap was laid.

  In the fields of a village called Assaye.

  * * *

  The two British armies were close to each other now, close enough for General Wellesley to ride across country to see Colonel Stevenson, the commander of the second army. The General rode with his aides and an escort of Indian cavalry, but they saw no enemy on their way westwards across a long flat plain greened by the previous day's rain. Colonel Stevenson, old enough to be Wellesley's father, was alarmed by his General's high spirits. He had seen such elation in young officers before, and seen it crushed by humiliating defeats brought on by overconfidence.

  "Are you sure you're not hurrying too much?" he asked.

  "We must hurry, Stevenson, must." Wellesley unrolled a map onto the Colonel's table and pointed to Borkardan. "We hear they're likely to stay there, but they won't stay for ever. If we don't close on them now, they'l
l slip away."

  "If the bastards are that close," Stevenson said, peering at the map, "then maybe we should join forces now?"

  "And if we do," the General said, "it will take us twice as long to reach Borkardan."

  The two roads on which the armies advanced were narrow and, a few miles south of the River Kaitna, those roads followed passes through a small but steep range of hills. Every wheeled vehicle in both armies would have to be fed through those defiles in the hills, and if the two small armies combined the cumbersome business of negotiating the pass would take a whole day, a day in which the Mahrattas might escape northwards.

  Instead the two armies would advance separately and meet at Borkardan.

  "Tomorrow night," Wellesley ordered, "'you camp here..." he made a cross on the map at a village called Hussainabad, "...and we'll be here."

  The pencil made another cross at a village called Naulniah which lay four miles south of the River Kaitna. The villages were ten miles apart, and both about the same distance south of Borkardan.

  "On the twenty-fourth," Wellesley said, "we march and join here." He dashed a circle about the village of Borkardan. "There!" he added, jabbing the pencil down and breaking its point.

  Stevenson hesitated. He was a good soldier with a long experience of India, but he was cautious by nature and it seemed to him that Wellesley was being headstrong and foolish. The Mahratta army was vast, the British armies small, yet Wellesley was rushing into battle.

  There was a dangerous excitement in the usually cool-headed Wellesley, and Stevenson now tried to rein it in.

  "We could meet at Naulniah," he suggested, thinking it better if the armies combined the day before the battle rather than attempt to make their junction under fire.

  "We have no time," Wellesley declared, "no time!" He swept aside the weights holding down the map's corners so that the big sheet rolled up with a snap. "Providence has put their army within striking distance, so let us strike!"

  He tossed the map to his aide, Campbell, then ducked out of the tent into the day's late sunlight and there found himself staring at Colonel McCandless who was mounted on a small, bony horse.

  "You!" Wellesley said with surprise. "I thought you were wounded, McCandless?"

  "I am, sir, but it's healing." The Scotsman patted his left thigh.

  "So what are you doing here?"

  "Seeking you, sir," McCandless answered, though in truth he had come to Stevenson's army by mistake. One of Sevajee's men, scouting the area, had seen the redcoats and McCandless had thought it must be Wellesley's men.

  "And what on earth are you riding?" Wellesley asked, pulling himself onto Diomed's back. "Looks like a gypsy nag, McCandless. I've seen ponies that are bigger."

  McCandless patted the captured Mahratta horse.

  "She's the best I can do, sir. I lost my own gelding."

  "For four hundred guineas you can have my spare. Give me a note, McCandless, and he's all yours. Aeolus, he's called, a six-year-old gelding out of County Meath. Good lungs, got a capped hock, but it don't stop him. I'll see you in two days, Colonel," Wellesley now addressed Stevenson. "Two days! We'll test our Mahrattas, eh? See if their vaunted infantry can stand some pounding. Good day, Stevenson! Are you coming, McCandless?"

  "I am, sir, I am."

  * * *

  Sharpe fell in beside Daniel Fletcher, the General's orderly.

  "I've never seen the General so happy," Sharpe said to Fletcher.

  "Got the bit between his teeth," Fletcher said. "He reckons we're going to surprise the enemy."

  "He ain't worried? There are thousands of the buggers."

  "He ain't showing nothing if he is frightened," Fletcher said. "Up and at them, that's his mood."

  "Then God help the rest of us," Sharpe said.

  * * *

  The General talked with McCandless on his way back, but nothing the Scotsman said diminished Wellesley's eagerness, even though McCandless warned him of the effectiveness of the Mahratta artillery and the efficiency of the infantry.

  "We knew all that when we declared war," Wellesley said testily, "and if it didn't deter us then, why should it now?"

  "Don't underestimate them, sir," McCandless said grimly.

  "I rather hope they'll underestimate me!" Wellesley said. "You want that gelding of mine?"

  "I don't have the money, sir."

  "Oh come, McCandless! You on a Company colonel's salary! You must have a fortune stacked away!"

  "I've some savings, sir, for my retirement, which is not far off."

  "I'll make it three hundred and eighty guineas, seeing as it's you, and in a couple of years you can sell him for four hundred. You can't go into battle on that thing." He gestured at the Mahratta horse.

  "I'll think on it, sir, I'll think on it," McCandless said gloomily. He prayed that the good Lord would restore his own horse to him, along with Lieutenant Dodd, but if that did not happen soon then he knew he would have to buy a decent horse, though the prospect of spending such a vast sum grieved him.

  "You'll take supper with me tonight, McCandless?" Wellesley asked. "We have a fine leg of mutton. A rare leg!"

  "I eschew meat, sir," the Scotsman answered.

  "You eschew meat? And chew vegetables?" The General decided this was a splendid joke and frightened his horse by uttering a fierce neigh of a laugh. "That's droll! Very. You eschew meat to chew vegetables. Never mind, McCandless, we shall find you some chewable shrubs."

  * * *

  McCandless chewed his vegetables that night, and afterwards, excusing himself, went to the tent that Wellesley had lent to him. He was tired, his leg was throbbing, but there had been no sign of the fever all day and for that he was grateful. He read his Bible, knelt in prayer beside the cot, then blew out the lantern to sleep. An hour later he was woken by the thump of hooves, the sound of suppressed voices, a giggle, and the brush of someone half falling against the tent.

  "Who is it?" McCandless demanded angrily.

  "Colonel?" Sharpe's voice answered. "Me, sir. Sorry, sir. Lost my footing, sir."

  "I was sleeping, man."

  "Didn't mean to wake you, sir, sorry, sir. Stand still, you bugger! Not you, sir, sorry, sir."

  McCandless, dressed in shirt and breeches, snatched the tent flap open.

  "Are you drunk?" he demanded, then fell silent as he gazed at the horse Sharpe was holding. The horse was a gelding, a splendid bay gelding with pricked ears and a quick, nervous energy.

  "He's six years old, sir," Sharpe said.

  Daniel Fletcher was trying to hammer in the picket and doing a very bad job because of the drink inside him.

  "He's got a capped hock, sir, whatever that is, but nothing that'll stop him. Comes from Ireland, he does. All that green grass, sir, makes a good horse. Aeolus, he's called."

  "Aeolus," McCandless said, "the god of the wind."

  "Is he one of those Indian idols, sir? All arms and snake heads?"

  "No, Sharpe, Aeolus is Greek." McCandless took the reins from Sharpe and stroked the gelding's nose.

  "Is Wellesley lending him to me?"

  "Oh no, sir." Sharpe had taken the mallet from the half-drunk Fletcher and now banged the picket firmly into the soil. "He's yours, sir, all yours."

  "But..." McCandless said, then stopped, not understanding the situation at all.

  "He's paid for, sir," Sharpe said.

  "Paid for by whom?" McCandless demanded sternly.

  "Just paid for, sir."

  "You're blithering, Sharpe!"

  "Sorry, sir."

  "Explain yourself!" the Colonel demanded.

  General Wellesley had said much the same thing when, just forty minutes before, an aide had told him that Sergeant Sharpe was begging to see him and the General, who was just bidding goodnight to the last of his supper guests, had reluctantly agreed.

  "Make it quick, Sergeant," he had said, his fine mood disguised by his usual coldness.

  "It's Colonel McCandless, sir," Sharpe sai
d woodenly. "He's decided to buy your horse, sir, and he sent me with the money."

  He stepped forward and tipped a bag of gold onto the General's map table. The gold was Indian, from every state and princedom, but it was real gold and it lay shining like butter in the candle flames.

  Wellesley gazed in astonishment at the treasure.

  "He said he didn't have the money!"

  "He's a Scotsman, sir, the Colonel," Sharpe had said, as though that explained everything, "and he's sorry it ain't real money, sir. Guineas. But it's the full price, sir. Four hundred."

  "Three hundred and eighty," Wellesley said. "Tell the Colonel I'll return some to him. But a note would have done just as well! I'm supposed to carry gold on me?"

  "Sorry, sir," Sharpe had said lamely, but he could never have provided a note for the General, so instead he had sought out one of the bhinjanies who followed the army, and that merchant had exchanged emeralds for gold. Sharpe suspected he had been cheated, but he had wanted to give the Colonel the pleasure of owning a fine horse and so he had accepted the bhinjarrie's price.

  "Is it all right, sir?" he had asked Wellesley anxiously.

  "Extraordinary way to do business," Wellesley had said, but he had nodded his agreement. "A fair sale, Sergeant," he said, and he had almost held out his hand to shake Sharpe's as a man always shook hands on the sale of a horse, then he remembered that Sharpe was a sergeant and so he had hastily converted his gesture into a vague wave.

  And after Sharpe had gone and while he was scooping the coins into their bag, the General also remembered Sergeant Hakeswill. Not that it was any of his business, so perhaps it had been sensible not to mention the Sergeant's presence to Sharpe.

  McCandless now admired the gelding.

  "Who paid for it?"

  "Good-looking horse, ain't he, sir?" Sharpe said. "Good as your other, I'd say."

  "Sharpe! You're blithering again. Who paid for it?"

  Sharpe hesitated, but knew he was not going to be spared the interrogation.

  "In a manner of speaking, sir," he said, "the Tippoo did."

  "The Tippoo? Are you mad?"

  Sharpe blushed.

  "The fellow that killed the Tippoo, sir, he took some jewels off him."