Sharpe's Fortress (14 page)

“I can't marry, sir!” Sharpe protested.

Torrance, amused at himself, raised an eyebrow.

“You are averse to women? You dislike dear Brick? Or you've taken an oath of celibacy,
perhaps?”

Sharpe blushed.

“I'm spoken for, sir.”

“You mean you're engaged? How very touching. Is she an heiress, perhaps?”

Sharpe shrugged.

“She's in Seringapatam,” he said lamely.

“And we're not engaged.”

“But you have an understanding,” Torrance said, 'with this ravishing creature in
Seringapatam. Is she black, Sharpe? A black bibbi? I'm sure Clare wouldn't mind, would you? A
white man in India needs a bibbi or two as well as a wife. Don't you agree, Brick?" He turned
to the woman, who ignored him.

“The late Mister Wall died of the fever,” Torrance said to Sharpe, 'and in the Christian
kindness of my heart I continue to employ his widow. Does that not speak well of my
character?"

“If you say so, sir,” Sharpe said.

“I see my attempt to play Cupid is not meeting with success,” Torrance said.

“So, Sharpe, to business. Tomorrow morning I suggest you go to Deogaum, wherever the
hell that is.”

“With the bullocks, sir?”

Torrance raised his eyebrows in exasperation.

“You are an officer, Sharpe, not a bullock driver. You don't prod rumps, you leave that
to the natives. Go early. Ride there at dawn, and your first duty will be to find me
quarters.”

“I don't have a horse,” Sharpe said.

“You don't have a horse? Don't have a horse? Good God alive, man, what bloody use are you?
You'll just have to bloody well walk then. I shall find you in Deogaum tomorrow afternoon
and God help you if you haven't found me decent quarters. A front room, Sharpe, where Dilip
can conduct business. A large room for me, and a hole for Brick. I would also like to have a
walled garden with adequate shade trees and a small pool.”

“Where is Deogaum?” Sharpe asked.

“Northwards, sahib,” Dilip answered.

“Close to the hills.”

“Beneath Gawilghur?” Sharpe guessed.

“Yes, sahib.”

Sharpe looked back to Torrance.

“Can I ask a favour of you, sir?”

Torrance sighed.

“If you insist.”

“At Gawilghur, sir, I'd like permission to join the assault party.”

Torrance stared at Sharpe for a long time.

“You want what?” he finally asked.

“I want to be with the attack, sir. There's a fellow inside, see, who killed a friend of
mine. I want to see him dead.”

Torrance blinked at Sharpe.

“Don't tell me you're enthusiastic! Good God!” A sudden look of terror came to the
Captain's face.

“You're not a Methodist, are you?”

“No, sir.”

Torrance pointed the hookah's mouthpiece towards a corner of the room.

“There is a linen press, Sharpe, d'you see it? Inside it are my clothes. Amidst my clothes
you will find a pistol. Take the pistol, remove yourself from my presence, apply the
muzzle to your head and pull the trigger. It is a much quicker and less painful way of
dying.”

“But you won't mind if I join the attack?”

"Mind? You're not, surely, labouring under the misapprehension that I care about your
existence? You think I might mourn you, even after such a short acquaintance? My dear
Sharpe, I fear I shall not miss you at all. I doubt I'll even remember your name once you're
dead. Of course you can join the assaulting party. Do what you like! Now I suggest you get
some sleep. Not here, though, I like my privacy.

Find a tree, perhaps, and slumber beneath its sheltering branches.

Good night to you, Sharpe."

“Good night, sir.”

“And don't let any moths in!”

Sharpe negotiated the muslin and slipped out of the door. Torrance listened to the
footsteps go away, then sighed.

“A tedious man, Dilip.”

“Yes, sahib.”

“I wonder why he was made an officer?” Torrance frowned as he sucked on his hookah, then
shook his head.

“Poor Naig! Sacrificed to a mere ensign's ambition. How did that wretched Sharpe even
know to look in Naig's tent? Did he talk to you?”

“Yes, sahib,” Dilip admitted.

Torrance stared at him.

“Did you let him look at the ledgers?”

“He insisted, sahib.”

“You're a bloody fool, Dilip! A bloody, bloody fool. I should thrash you if I wasn't so
tired. Maybe tomorrow.”

“No, sahib, please.”

“Oh, just bugger away off, Dilip,” Torrance snarled.

“And you can go too, Brick.”

The girl fled to the kitchen door. Dilip collected his ink bottle and
sand-sprinkler.

“Shall I take the chitties now, sahib, for the morning?”

“Go!” Torrance roared.

“You bore me! Go!” Dilip fled to the front room, and Torrance lay back in the hammock. He
was indeed bored.

He had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Most nights he would go to Naig's tents and there
drink, gamble and whore, but he could hardly visit the green pavilion this night, not
after stringing Naig up by the neck.

Damn it, he thought. He glanced at the table where a book, a gift from his father, lay
unopened. The first volume of Some Reflections on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians by the
Reverend Courtney Mallison, and it would be a frigid day in the devil's house before
Torrance read that turgid tome. The Reverend Mallison had been Torrance's childhood
tutor, and a vicious beast he had been. A whipper, that was Mallison.

Loved to whip his pupils. Torrance stared at the ceiling. Money. It was all down to
money. Everything in the damned world was down to money. Make money, he thought, and he
could go home and make Courtney Mallison's life a misery. Have the bastard on his knees.
And Mallison's daughter. Have that prim bitch on her back.

There was a knock on the door.

“I said I didn't want to be disturbed!”

Torrance shouted, but despite his protest the door opened and the muslin billowed
inward, letting in a flutter of moths.

“For Christ's sake,” Torrance cursed, then fell abruptly silent.

He fell silent, for the first man through the door was ajetti, his bare torso gleaming
with oil, and behind him came the tall man with a limp, the same man who had pleaded for
Naig's life. His name was Jama, and he was Naig's brother, and his presence made Torrance
acutely aware of his nudity. He swung off the hammock and reached for his dressing gown,
but Jama twitched the silk garment off the chair back.

“Captain Torrance,” he said with a bow.

“Who let you in?” Torrance demanded.

“I expected to see you in our small establishment tonight, Captain,” Jama said. Where
his brother had been plump, noisy and a braggart, Jama was lean, silent and watchful.

Torrance shrugged.

“Maybe tomorrow night?”

“You will be welcome, Captain, as always. ”Jama took a small sheaf of papers from his
pocket and fanned his face with them.

“Ten thousand welcomes, Captain.”

Ten thousand rupees. That was the value of the papers in Jama's hand, all of them notes
signed by Torrance. He had signed far more, but the others he had paid off with supplies
filched from the convoys. Jama was here to remind Torrance that his greatest debts
remained unpaid.

“About today .. .” Torrance said awkwardly.

“Ah, yes!” Jama said, as though he had momentarily forgotten the reason for his
visit.

“About today, Captain. Do tell me about today.” The jetti said nothing, just leaned
against the wall with folded arms, his oiled muscles shining in the candlelight and his
dark eyes fixed immovably on Torrance.

“I've already told you. It wasn't of my doing,” Torrance said with as much dignity as a
naked man could muster.

“You were the one who demanded my brother's death,” Jama said.

“What choice did I have? Once the supplies were found?”

“But perhaps you arranged for them to be found?”

“No!” Torrance protested.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

Jama was silent a moment, then indicated the huge man at his side.

“His name is Prithviraj. I once saw him castrate a man with his bare hands.” Jama mimed a
pulling action, smiling.

“You'd be astonished at how far a little skin can stretch before it breaks.”

“For God's sake!” Torrance had gone pale.

“It was not my doing!”

“Then whose doing was it?”

“His name is Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe.”

Jama walked to Torrance's table where he turned the pages of Some Reflections on Paul's
Epistle to the Ephesians.

“This Sharpe,” he asked, 'he was not obeying your orders?"

“Of course not!”

Jama shrugged.

“My brother was careless,” he admitted, 'over confident. He believed that with your
friendship he could survive any enquiry."

“We were doing business,” Torrance said.

“It was not friendship. And I told your brother he should have hidden the supplies.”

“Yes,”Jama said, 'he should. And so I told him also. But even so, Captain, I come from a
proud family. You expect me to watch my brother killed and do nothing about it?" He fanned
out the notes of Torrance's debts.

“I shall return these to you, Captain, when you deliver Ensign Sharpe to me. Alive! I
want Prithviraj to take my revenge. You understand?”

Torrance understood well enough.

“Sharpe's a British officer,” he said.

“If he's murdered there'll be an enquiry. A real enquiry. Heads will be broken.”

“That is your problem, Captain Torrance,” Jama said.

“How you explain his disappearance is your affair. As are your debts.” He smiled and
pushed the notes back into the pouch at his belt.

“Give me Sharpe, Captain Torrance, or I shall send Prithviraj to visit you in the night.
In the meantime, you will please continue to patronize our establishment.”

“Bastard,” Torrance said, but Jama and his huge companion had already gone. Torrance
picked up Some Reflections on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians and slammed the heavy book
down on a moth.

“Bastard,” he said again. But on the other hand it was Sharpe who would suffer, not him,
so it did not really matter. And what was Sharpe anyway? Nothing but an upstart from the
ranks, so who would care if he died? Torrance killed another moth, then opened the kitchen
door.

“Come here, Brick.”

“No, sir, please?”

“Shut up. And come here. You can kill these damn moths while I get drunk.”

Filthy drunk, he reckoned, for he had been scared today. He knew he had very nearly got
caught when Sharpe had stripped the tent away from the purloined supplies, but by killing
Naig quickly Torrance had protected himself, and now the price of his continued
survival was Sharpe's death. Arrange that, he thought, and all his troubles would be past.
He forced Brick to drink some arrack, knowing how she hated it.

Then he drank some himself. Damn Sharpe to hell, he thought, damn the interfering
bastard to hell, which was where Sharpe was going anyway so Torrance drank to that happy
prospect. Farewell, Mister Sharpe.

Sharpe was not sure how far away Deogaum was, but guessed it was close to twenty miles and
that was at least a seven-hour journey on foot, and so it was long before dawn when he
stirred Ahmed from his sleep beside the smouldering remains of a bullock-dung fire, then
set off under the stars. He tried to teach Ahmed some English.

“Stars,” Sharpe said, pointing.

“Stars,” Ahmed repeated dutifully.

“Moon,” Sharpe said.

“Moon,” Ahmed echoed.

“Sky.”

“Moon?” Ahmed asked, curious that Sharpe was still pointing to the sky.

“Sky, you bugger.”

“Skyoobugger?”

“Never mind,” Sharpe said. He was hungry, and he had forgotten to ask Captain Torrance
where he was supposed to draw rations, but their northward route took them through the
village of Argaum where the fighting battalions of the army were bivouacked. Unburied
bodies still littered the battlefield, and scavenging wild dogs growled from the dark
stench as Sharpe and Ahmed walked past. A picquet challenged them at the village, and Sharpe
asked the man where he would find the cavalry lines. He could not imagine taking Ahmed to
the 74th's mess for breakfast, but Sergeant Eli Lockhart might be more welcoming.

The reveille had sounded by the time Sharpe came to the gully where the horses were
picketed and the troopers' campfires were being restored to life. Lockhart scowled at
the unexpected visitor through the smoky dawn gloom, then grinned when he recognized
Sharpe.

“Must be some fighting to do, lads,” he announced, 'the bleeding infantry's here. Good
morning, sir. Need our help again?"

“I need some breakfast,” Sharpe admitted.

“Tea, that'll start you off. Smithers! Pork chops! Davies! Some of that bread you're hiding
from me. Look lively now!” Lockhart turned back to Sharpe.

“Don't ask me where the chops come from, sir. I might have to lie.” He spat in a tin mug,
scoured its interior with the end of his blanket, then filled it with tea.

"There you are, sir. Does your boy want some?

Here you are, lad." Lockhart, a mug of tea in his own hand, then insisted on taking
Sharpe to the picketed horses.

“See, sir?” He lifted a horse's leg to show off the new horseshoe.

“My guvnor's beholden to you. I might introduce you after breakfast.”

Sharpe assumed that Lockhart was talking of his troop commander, but once the pork
chops and bread had been eaten, the Sergeant led Sharpe across to the lines of the native
cavalry, and then to the tent of the 7th Native Cavalry's commanding officer who, it
seemed, was in charge of all the army's cavalry.

“He's called Huddlestone,” Lockhart said, 'and he's a decent fellow. He'll probably
offer us another breakfast."

Colonel Huddlestone did indeed insist that both Lockhart and Sharpe join him for a
breakfast of rice and eggs. Sharpe was beginning to see that Lockhart was a useful man,
someone who was trusted by his officers and liked by his troopers, for Huddlestone
greeted the Sergeant warmly and immediately plunged into a conversation about some
local horses that had been purchased for remounts and which Huddlestone reckoned would
never stand the strain of battle, though Lockhart seemed to feel that a few of them would be
adequate.

“So you're the fellow who smoked out Naig?” Huddlestone said to Sharpe after a
while.

“Didn't take much doing, sir.”

“No one else did it, man! Don't shy away from credit. I'm damned grateful to you.”

“Couldn't have done it without Sergeant Lockhart, sir.”

“Damned army would come to a stop without Eli, ain't that so?” the Colonel said, and
Lockhart, his mouth full of egg, just grinned.

Huddlestone turned back to Sharpe.

“So they gave you to Torrance?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He's a lazy bugger,” Huddlestone said vengefully. Sharpe, astonished at the open
criticism, said nothing.

“He's one of my own officers,” Huddlestone went on, 'and I confess I wasn't sorry when
he asked to be given duty with the bullock train."

“He asked, sir?” Sharpe found it curious that a man would prefer to be with the baggage
when he could be in a fighting unit.

“His uncle is grooming him for a career in the Company,” Huddlestone said.

“An uncle in Leadenhall Street. Know what Leaden-hall Street is, Sharpe?”

“Company offices, sir?”

“The very same. The uncle pays him an allowance, and he wants Torrance to get some
experience in dealing with bhinjarries. Got it all planned out! A few years in the
Company's army, another few trading in spices, then home to inherit his uncle's estate
and his seat in the Court of Directors. One day we'll all be tugging our forelocks to the
lazy bugger. Still, if he wants to run the baggage train it's no skin off our bums, Sharpe.
No one likes the job, so Torrance is welcome to it, but my guess is that you'll be doing
most of his work.” The Colonel frowned.

“He arrived in India with three English servants! Can you believe it? It ain't as if
servants are hard to find here, but Torrance wanted the cachet of white scullions. Two of
'em died of the fever, then Torrance had the nerve to say that one of them hadn't earned the
cost of the voyage out and so he's forcing the widow to stay on and pay the debt!”
Huddlestone shook his head, then gestured for his servant to pour more tea.

“So what brings you here, Ensign?”

“On my way to Deogaum, sir.”

“He really came to beg his breakfast, Colonel,” Lockhart put in.

“And I've no doubt the Sergeant fed you before you came to steal my victuals?”
Huddlestone asked, then grinned.

"You're in luck, Ensign.

We're moving up to Deogaum today. You can ride with us."

Sharpe blushed.

“I've no horse, sir.”

“Eli?” Huddlestone looked at Lockhart.

“I've got a horse he can ride, sir.”

“Good.” Huddlestone blew on his tea.

“Welcome to the cavalry, Sharpe.”

Lockhart found two horses, one for Sharpe and the other for Ahmed.

Sharpe, ever uncomfortable on horseback, struggled into the saddle under the
cavalry's sardonic gaze, while Ahmed jumped up and kicked back his heels, revelling in
being back on a horse.

They went gently northwards, taking care not to tire the horses.

Sharpe, as he rode, found himself thinking about Clare Wall, and that made him feel guilty
about Simone Joubert, the young French widow who waited for him in Seringapatam. He had
sent her there with a southbound convoy and a letter for his friend Major Stokes, and
doubtless Simone was waiting for Sharpe to return when the campaign against the Mahrattas
was over, but now he needed to warn her that he was being posted back to England. Would she
come with him? Did he want her to come? He was not sure about either question, though he felt
obscurely responsible for Simone. He could give her a choice, of course, but whenever
Simone was faced by a choice she tended to look limp and wait for someone else to make the
decision. He had to warn her, though. Would she even want to go to England? But what else
could she do? She had no relatives in India, and the nearest French settlements were miles
away.

His thoughts were interrupted at mid-morning when Eli Lockhart spurred alongside his
horse.

“See it?”

“See what?”

“Up there!” Lockhart pointed ahead and Sharpe, peering through the dust haze thrown up by
the leading squadrons, saw a range of high hills.

The lower slopes were green with trees, but above the timber line there was nothing but
brown and grey cliffs that stretched from horizon to horizon. And at the very top of the
topmost bluff he could just see a streak of dark wall broken by a gate-tower.

“Gawilghur!” Lockhart said.

“How the hell do we attack up there?” Sharpe asked.

The Sergeant laughed.

“We don't! It's a job for the infantry. Reckon you're better off attached to that
fellow Torrance.”

Sharpe shook his head.

“I have to get in there, Eli.”

“Why?”

Sharpe gazed at the distant wall.

“There's a fellow called Dodd in there, and the bastard killed a friend of mine.”

Lockhart thought for a second.

“Seven hundred guineas Dodd?”

“That's the fellow,” Sharpe said.

“But I'm not after the reward. I just want to see the bugger dead.”

“Me too,” Lockhart said grimly.

“You?”

“Assaye,” Lockhart said brusquely.

“What happened?”

“We charged his troops. They were knocking seven kinds of hell out of the 74th and we
caught the buggers in line. Knocked 'em hard back, but we must have had a dozen troopers
unhorsed. We didn't stop, though, we just kept after their cavalry and it wasn't till the
battle was over that we found our lads. They'd had their throats cut. All of them.”

“That sounds like Dodd,” Sharpe said. The renegade Englishman liked to spread terror.
Make a man afraid, Dodd had once told Sharpe, and he won't fight you so hard.

“So maybe I'll go into Gawilghur with you,” Lockhart said.

“Cavalry?” Sharpe asked.

“They won't let cavalry into a real fight.”

Lockhart grinned.

“I couldn't let an ensign go into a fight without help. Poor little bugger might get
hurt.”

Sharpe laughed. The cavalry had swerved off the road to pass a long column of marching
infantry who had set off before dawn on their march to Deogaum. The leading regiment was
Sharpe's own, the 74th, and Sharpe moved even farther away from the road so that he would not
have to acknowledge the men who had wanted to be rid of him, but Ensign Venables spotted
him, leaped the roadside ditch, and ran to his side.

“Going up in the world, Richard?” Venables asked.

“Borrowed glory,” Sharpe said.

“The horse belongs to the igth.”

Venables looked slightly relieved that Sharpe had not suddenly been able to afford a
horse.

“Are you with the pioneers now?” he asked.

“Nothing so grand,” Sharpe said, reluctant to admit that he had been reduced to being
a bullock guard.

Venables did not really care.

“Because that's what we're doing,” he explained, 'escorting the pioneers. It seems
they have to make a road."

“Up there?” Sharpe guessed, nodding towards the fortress that dominated the plain.

“Captain Urquhart says you might be selling your commission,” Venables said.

“Does he?”

“Are you?”

“Are you making an offer?”

“I've got a brother, you see,” Venables explained.

"Three actually.

And some sisters. My father might buy." He took a piece of paper from a pocket and
handed it up to Sharpe.

“So if you go home, why not see my pater? That's his address. He reckons one of my
brothers should join the army. Ain't any good for anything else, see?”

“I'll think on it,” Sharpe said, taking the paper. The cavalry had stretched ahead and
so he clapped his heels back, and the horse jerked forward, throwing Sharpe back in the
saddle. For a second he sprawled, almost falling over the beast's rump, then he flailed
wildly to catch his balance and just managed to grasp the saddle pommel. He thought he
heard laughter as he trotted away from the battalion.

Gawilghur soared above the plain like a threat and Sharpe felt like a poacher with nowhere
to hide. From up there, Sharpe reckoned, the approaching British army would look like so
many ants in the dust. He wished he had a telescope to stare at the high, distant fortress,
but he had been reluctant to spend money. He was not sure why. It was not that he was poor,
indeed there were few soldiers richer, yet he feared that the real reason was that he felt
fraudulent wearing an officer's sash, and that if he were to buy the usual
appurtenances of an officer a horse and a telescope and an expensive sword then he
would be mocked by those in the army who claimed he should never have been commissioned in
the first place. Nor should he, he thought. He had been happier as a sergeant. Much
happier. All the same, he wished he had a telescope as he gazed up at the stronghold and saw
a great billow of smoke jet from one of the bastions. Seconds later he heard the fading
boom of the gun, but he saw no sign of the shot falling. It was as though the cannonball had
been swallowed into the warm air.

A mile short of the foothills the road split into three. The sepoy horsemen went
westwards, while the igth Light Dragoons took the right hand path that angled away from the
domineering fortress. The country became more broken as it was cut by small gullies and
heaped with low wooded ridges thfe first hints of the tumultuous surge of land that ended
in the vast cliffs. Trees grew thick in those foothills, and Deogaum was evidently among the
low wooded hills. It lay east of Gawilghur, safely out of range of the fortress's guns. A
crackle of musketry sounded from a timbered cleft and the igth Dragoons, riding ahead of
Sharpe, spread into a line. Ahmed grinned and made sure his musket was loaded. Sharpe
wondered which side the boy was on.

Another spatter of muskets sounded, this time to the west. The Mahrattas must have had
men in the foothills. Perhaps they were stripping the villages of the stored grain? The
sepoys of the East India Company cavalry had vanished, while the horsemen of the igth
were filing into the wooded cleft. A gun boomed in the fort, and this time Sharpe heard a
thump as a cannonball fell to earth like a stone far behind him. A patch of dust drifted
from a field where the shot had plummeted, then he and Ahmed followed the dragoons into
the gully and the leaves hid them from the invisible watchers high above.

The road twisted left and right, then emerged into a patchwork of small fields and woods.
A large village lay beyond the fields Sharpe guessed it must be Deogaum then there were
shots to his left and he saw a crowd of horsemen burst out of the trees a half-mile away.
They were Mahrattas, and at first Sharpe thought they were intent on charging the igth Light
Dragoons, then he realized they were fleeing from the Company cavalry. There were fifty
or sixty of the enemy horsemen who, on seeing the blue-and-yellow-coated dragoons,
swerved southwards to avoid a fight. The dragoons were turning, drawing sabres and spurring
into pursuit. A trumpet sounded and the small fields were suddenly a whirl of horses,
dust and gleaming weapons.