Sharpe's Triumph s-2

by Bernard Cornwell

  The Major gaped at the guns with their crowd of attendant cavalry.

  "Yes, sir," he said nervously.

  "Two lines, if you please," the General ordered brusquely. "You will command the first line and drive off the cavalry. I shall ride in the second and kill the gunners."

  "You'll kill the gunners, sir?" the Major asked, as though he found that idea novel, then he realized his question was dangerously close to insubordination. "Yes, sir," he said hurriedly, "of course, sir."

  The Major stared at the gun line again. He would be charging the line's flank, so at least no gun would be pointing at his men. The greater danger was the mass of Mahratta cavalry that had gathered behind the guns and which far outnumbered his troopers, but then, sensing Wellesley's impatience, he spurred his horse back to his men and shouted at his troopers.

  "Two lines by the right!" The Major commanded a hundred and eighty men and Sharpe saw them grin as they drew their sabres and spurred their horses into formation.

  "Ever been in a cavalry charge, Sergeant?" Campbell asked Sharpe.

  "No, sir. Never wanted to be, sir."

  "Nor me. Should be interesting." Campbell had his claymore drawn and he gave the huge sword a cut in the air which almost took his horse's ears off. "You might find it more enjoyable, Sergeant," he said helpfully, "if you drew your sabre."

  "Of course, sir," Sharpe said, feeling foolish. He had somehow imagined that his first battle would be spent in an infantry battalion, firing and reloading as he had been trained to do, but instead it seemed that he was to fight as a cavalry trooper. He drew the heavy weapon which felt unnatural in his hand, but then this whole battle seemed unnatural.

  It swung from moments of bowel-loosening terror to sudden calm, then back to terror again. It also ebbed and flowed, flaring in one part of the field, then dying down as the tide of killing passed to another patch of dun-coloured farmland.

  "And our job is to kill the gunners," Campbell explained, "to make sure they don't fire at us again. We'll let the experts look after their cavalry and we just slaughter whatever they leave us. Simple."

  Simple? All Sharpe could see was a mass of enemy horsemen behind the huge guns that were bucking and rearing as they crashed out smoke, flame and death, and Campbell thought it was easy? Then he realized that the young Scots officer was just trying to reassure him, and he felt grateful. Campbell was watching Captain Barclay ride through the artillery barrage. It seemed the Captain must be killed, for he went so close to the Mahratta guns that at one point his horse vanished in a cloud of powder smoke, but a moment later he reappeared, low in his saddle, his horse galloping, and Campbell cheered when he saw Barclay swerve away towards Harness's brigade.

  "A canteen, Sergeant, if you please?" Wellesley demanded, and Sharpe, who had been watching Barclay, fumbled to loosen one of the canteen straps. He gave the water to the General, then opened his own canteen and drank from it. Sweat was pouring down his face and soaking his shirt. Wellesley drank half the water, stoppered it and gave the canteen back, then trotted his horse into a gap in the right-hand side of the second line of the cavalry. The General drew his slim sword.

  The other aides also found places in the line, but there seemed no space for Sharpe and so he positioned himself a few yards behind the General.

  "Go!" Wellesley shouted to the Major.

  "Forward line, by the centre," the Major shouted. "Walk! March!"

  It seemed an odd order, for Sharpe had expected the two lines to start at the gallop, but instead the leading line of horsemen set off at a walk and the second line just waited. Leaving the wide gap made sense to Sharpe, for if the second line was too close to the first then it could get entangled with whatever carnage the leading line made, whereas if there was a good distance between the two lines then there was space for the second to swerve around obstacles, but even so, walking a horse into battle seemed idiocy to Sharpe. He licked his lips, already dry again, then wiped his sweaty hand on his trousers before re gripping the sabre's hilt.

  "Now, gentlemen!" Wellesley said and the second line started forward at the same sedate pace as the first. Curb chains jingled and empty scabbards flapped. After a few seconds the Major in the first line called out an order and the two lines went into the trot. Dust swirled away from the hooves. The troopers' black hats had tall scarlet plumes that tossed prettily, while their curved sabres flashed with reflected sunlight.

  Wellesley spoke to Blackiston beside him and Sharpe saw the Major laugh, then the trumpeter beside the Major blew a call and the twin lines went into the canter. Sharpe tried to keep up, but he was a bad rider and the mare kept swerving aside and tossing her head.

  "Keep going!" Sharpe snarled at her.

  The Mahrattas had seen the attack coming now and the gunners were desperately trying to lever the northernmost gun about to face the threat while a mass of enemy cavalrymen was spurring forward to confront the charge.

  "Go!" the Major shouted and his trumpeter sounded the full charge and Sharpe saw the sabres of the leading line drop so that their points were jutting forward like spears. This was more like it, he thought, for the horses were galloping now, their hooves making a furious thunder as they swept on to the enemy.

  The leading line crashed into the oncoming enemy cavalry. Sharpe expected to see the line stop, but it hardly seemed to check. Instead there was the flash of blades, an impression of a man and horse falling and then the Major's line was through the cavalry and riding over the first gun. Sabres rose and fell. The second line was swerving to avoid the fallen horses, then they too were among the enemy and closing on the first line which was at last being slowed by the enemy's resistance.

  "Keep going!" Wellesley shouted at the foremost riders. "Keep going! Get me to the infantry!"

  The cavalry had charged so that their right flank would overrun the guns, while the rest of the attack would face the cavalry to the east of the gun line. Those eastern most men were making good progress, but the right-flank troopers were being held up by the big ammunition limbers that were parked behind the guns. The Indian troopers slashed at the Goanese gunners who dived beneath their cannon for shelter. One gunner swung a rammer and swept a trooper off a horse. Muskets banged, a horse screamed and fell in a tangle of flailing hooves. An arrow flicked towards Sharpe, missing him by a hair's breadth. Sabres slashed and bit.

  Sharpe saw one tall trooper standing in his stirrups to give his swing more room. The man screamed as he hacked down, then wrenched his blade free from his victim and spurred on to find another. Sharpe clung desperately to the saddle as the mare swerved to avoid a wounded horse, then he was among the guns himself. Two lines of cavalry had ridden over these weapons, but still some of the gunners lived and Sharpe swung at one man with the sabre, but at the last moment the mare's motion unbalanced him and the blade went far above the enemy's head. It was all bloody chaos now. The cavalry was fighting its way up the line, but some of the enemy horsemen were galloping around the first line's flank to attack the second line, and groups of gunners were fighting back like infantry. The gunners were armed with muskets and pikes, and Sharpe, kicking his horse behind Wellesley, saw a group of them appear from the shelter of a painted eighteen-pounder gun and run towards the General. He tried to shout a warning, but the sound that emerged was more like a scream for help.

  Wellesley was isolated. Major Blackiston had wheeled left to chop down at a tall Arab wielding a massive blade, while Campbell was loose on the right where he was racing in pursuit of a fugitive horseman. The Indian troopers were all in front of the General, sabring gunners as they spurred ahead, while Sharpe was ten paces behind. Six men attacked the General, and one of them wielded a long, narrow-bladed pike that he thrust up at Wellesley's horse. The General sawed on Diomed's reins to wheel him out of the man's path, but the big horse was going too fast and ran straight onto the levelled pike.

  Sharpe saw the man holding the pike twist aside as the horse's weight wrenched the staff out of his hands. He saw
the white stallion falling and sliding, and he saw Wellesley thrown forward onto the horse's neck.

  He saw the half-dozen enemy closing in for the kill and suddenly the chaos and terror of the day all vanished. Sharpe knew what he had to do, and knew it as clearly as though his whole life had been spent waiting for just this moment.

  He kicked the roan mare straight at the enemy. He could not reach the General, for Wellesley was still in the saddle of the wounded Diomed who was sliding on the ground and trailing the pikestaff from his bleeding chest, and the threat of the horse's weight had driven the enemy aside, three to the left and three to the right. One fired his musket at Wellesley, but the ball flew wide, and then, as Diomed slowed, the Mahrattas closed in and it was then that Sharpe struck them. He used the mare as a battering ram, taking her perilously close to where the General had fallen from the saddle, and he drove her into the three gunners on the right, scattering them, and at the same time he kicked his feet from the stirrups and swung himself off the horse so that he fell just beside the dazed Wellesley. Sharpe stumbled as he fell, but he came up from the ground snarling with the sabre sweeping wide at the three men he had charged, but they had been driven back by the mare's impact, and so Sharpe whipped back to see a gunner standing right over the General with a bayonet raised, ready to strike, and he lunged at the man, screaming at him, and felt the sabre's tip tear through the muscles of the gunner's belly. Sharpe pushed the sabre, toppling the gunner back onto Diomed's blood-flecked flank.

  The sabre stuck in the wound. The gunner was thrashing, his musket fallen, and one of his comrades was climbing over Diomed with a tulwar in his hand. Sharpe heaved on the sabre, jerking the dying man, but the blade would not free itself of the flesh's suction and so he stepped over Wellesley, who was still dizzied and on his back, put his left boot on the gunner's groin and heaved again. The man with the tulwar struck down, and Sharpe felt a blow on his left shoulder, but then his own sabre came free and he swung it clumsily at his new attacker. The man stepped back to avoid the blade and tripped on one of Diomed's rear legs. He fell.

  Sharpe turned, his sabre sweeping blindly wide with drops of blood flicking from its tip as he sought to drive back any enemies coming from his right. There were none. The General said something, but he was still scarcely conscious of what was happening, and Sharpe knew that he and the General were both going to die here if he did not find some shelter fast.

  The big painted eighteen-pounder gun offered some small safety, and so Sharpe stooped, took hold of Wellesley's collar, and unceremoniously dragged the General towards the cannon. The General was not unconscious, for he clung to his slim straight sword, but he was half stunned and helpless. Two men ran to cut Sharpe off from the gun's sanctuary and he let go of the General's stiff collar and attacked the pair.

  "Bastards," he screamed as he fought them.

  Bugger the advice about straight arm and parrying, this was a time to kill in sheer rage and he went for the two gunners in a berserk fury. The sabre was a clumsy weapon, but it was sharp and heavy and he almost severed the first man's neck and the subsequent backswing opened the second man's arm to the bone, and Sharpe turned back to Wellesley, who was still not recovered from the impact of his fall, and he saw an Arab lancer spurring his horse straight at the fallen General. Sharpe bellowed an obscenity at the man, then leaped forward and slashed the sabre's heavy blade across the face of the lancer's horse and saw the beast swerve aside. The lance blade jerked up into the air as the Arab tried to control his pain-maddened horse, and Sharpe stooped, took Wellesley's collar again, and hauled the General into the space between the gun's gaudy barrel and one of its gigantic wheels.

  "Stay there!" Sharpe snapped to Wellesley, then turned around to see that the Arab had been thrown from his horse, but was now leading a charge of gunners. Sharpe went to meet them. He swept the lance aside with the sabre's blade, then rammed the weapon's bar hilt into the Arab's face. He felt the man's nose break, kicked him in the balls, shoved him back, hacked down with the sabre, then turned to his left and sliced the blade within an inch of a gunner's eyes.

  The attackers backed away, leaving Sharpe panting. Wellesley at last stood, steadying himself with one hand on the gun wheel

  "Sergeant Sharpe?" Wellesley asked in puzzlement.

  "Stay there, sir," Sharpe said, without turning round. He had four men in front of him now, four men with bared teeth and bright weapons.

  Their eyes nicked from Sharpe to Wellesley and back to Sharpe. The Mahrattas did not know they had the British General trapped, but they knew the man beside the gun must be a senior officer for his red coat was bright with braid and lace, and they came to capture him, but to reach him they first needed to pass Sharpe. Two men came from the gun's far side, and Wellesley parried a pike blade with his sword, then stepped away from the gun to stand beside Sharpe and immediately a rush of enemy came to seize him.

  "Get back!" Sharpe shouted at Wellesley, then stepped into the enemy's charge.

  He grabbed a pike that was reaching for the General's belly, tugged it towards him, and met the oncoming gunner with the sabre's tip. Straight into the man's throat, and he twisted the blade free and swung it right and felt the steel jar on a man's skull, but there was no time to assess the damage, just to step left and stab at a third man. His shoulder was bleeding, but there was no pain. He was keening a mad noise as he fought and it seemed to Sharpe at that instant as though he could do nothing wrong. It was as if the enemy had been magically slowed to half speed and he had been quickened. He was much taller than any of them, he was much stronger, and he was suddenly much faster. He was even enjoying the fight, had he known anything of what he felt, but he sensed only the madness of battle, the sublime madness that blots out fear, dulls pain and drives a man close to ecstasy. He was screaming obscenities at the enemy, begging them to come and be killed.

  He moved to his right and slashed the blade in a huge downward cut that opened a man's face. The enemy had retreated, and Wellesley again came to Sharpe's side and so invited the attackers to close in again, and Sharpe again pushed the General back into the space between the tall gun wheel and the huge painted barrel of the eighteen-pounder.

  "Stay there," he snapped, "and watch under the barrel!" He turned away to face the attackers. "Come on, you bastards! Come on! I want you!"

  Two men came, and Sharpe stepped towards them and used both his hands to bring the heavy sabre down in a savage cut that bit through the hat and skull of the nearest enemy. Sharpe screamed a curse at the dying man, for his sabre was trapped in his skull, but he wrenched it free and sliced it right, a grey jelly sliding off its edge, to chase the second man back. That man held up his hands as he retreated, as if to suggest that he did not want to fight after all, and Sharpe cursed him as he slashed the blade's tip through his gullet. He spat on the staggering man and spat dry-mouthed again at the enemies who were watching him.

  "Come on! Come on!" he taunted them. "Yellow bastards! Come on!"

  There were at last horsemen riding back to help now, but more Mahrattas were closing in on the fight. Two men tried to reach Wellesley across the cannon barrel and the General stabbed one in the face, then slashed at the arm of the other as he reached beneath the gun barrel. Behind him Sharpe was screaming insults at the enemy and one man took up the challenge and ran at Sharpe with a bayonet. Sharpe shouted in what sounded like delight as he parried the lunge and then punched the sabre's hilt into the man's face. Another man was coming from the right and so Sharpe kicked his first assailant's legs out from under him, then slashed at the newcomer. Christ knows how many of the bastards there were, but Sharpe did not care. He had come here to fight and God had given him one screaming hell of a battle. The man parried Sharpe's cut, lunged, and Sharpe stepped past the lunge and hammered the sabre's bar hilt into the man's eye. The man screamed and clutched at Sharpe, who tried to throw him off by punching the hilt into his face again. The other attackers were vanishing now, fleeing from the horsemen who s
purred back towards Wellesley.

  But one Mahratta officer had been stalking Sharpe and he now saw his opportunity as Sharpe was held by the half-blinded man. The officer came from behind Sharpe and he swung his tulwar at the back of the redcoat's neck.

  The stroke was beautifully aimed. It hit Sharpe plumb on the nape of his neck, and it should have cut through his spine and dropped him dead to the bloody ground in an instant, but there was a dead king's ruby hidden in the leather bag around which Sharpe's hair was clubbed and the big ruby stopped the blade dead. The jolt of the blow jerked Sharpe forward, but he kept his feet and the man who had been clutching him at last released his grip and Sharpe could turn. The officer swung again and Sharpe parried so hard that the Sheffield steel slashed clean through the tulwar's light blade and the next stroke cut through the blade's owner.

  "Bastard!" Sharpe shouted as he tugged the blade free and he whirled around to kill the next man who came near, but instead it was Captain Campbell who was there, and behind him were a dozen troopers who spurred their horses into the enemy and hacked down with their sabres.

  For a second or two Sharpe could scarcely believe that he was alive.

  Nor could he believe that the fight was over. He wanted to kill again.

  His blood was up, the rage was seething in him, and there was no more enemy and so he contented himself by slashing the sabre down onto the Mahratta officer's head.

  "Bastard!" he shouted, then booted the man's face to jolt the blade free. Then, suddenly, he was shaking. He turned and saw that Wellesley was staring at him aghast and Sharpe was certain he must have done something wrong. Then he remembered what it was. "Sorry, sir," he said.

  "You're sorry?" Wellesley said, though he seemed scarcely able to speak. The General's face was pale.

  "For pushing you, sir," Sharpe said. "Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to, sir."

  "I hope you damn well did mean to," Wellesley said forcibly, and Sharpe saw that the General, usually so calm, was shaking too.