Sharpe's Triumph (39 page)

“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 spurred 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.