“If we’re flogging pucka lees halfway across bleeding India tomorrow, lads, then we will have our moment and the regiment would want us to seize it.”
“Seize it?” Lowry asked.
“Kill the bugger, you block headed toad.”
“Kill Sharpie?”
“God help me for leading half wits Hakeswill said.
“Not Sharpie!
We wants him private like, where we can fillet him fair and square. You kills the Scotchman! Once Mister bleeding McCandless is gone, Sharpie’s ours.”
“You can’t kill a colonel!” Kendrick said aghast.
“You points your firelock, Private Kendrick,” Hakeswill said, ramming his own musket’s muzzle hard into Kendrick’s midriff.
“You cocks your musket, Private Kendrick’ Hakeswill pulled back the dog head and the heavy lock clicked into place ‘and then you shoots the bugger clear through.” Hakeswill pulled his trigger. The powder in the pan exploded with a small crackle and fizz, and Kendrick leaped back as the smoke drifted away from the lock, but the musket had not been charged.
Hakeswill laughed.
“Got you, didn’t I? You thought I was putting a goalie in your belly! But that’s what you do to McCandless. A goo he in his belly or in his brain or in any other part what kills him. And you do it tomorrow.” The six men looked dubious, and Hakeswill grinned.
“Extra shares for you all if it happens, boys, extra shares. You’ll be paying the officers’ whores when you get home, and all it will take is one goo he He smiled wolfishly.
“Tomorrow, boys, tomorrow.”
But across the river, where the blue-coated patrol of the igth Dragoons was exploring the countryside south of the Kaitna, everything was changing.
Wellesley had dismounted, stripped off his jacket and was washing his face from a basin of water held on a tripod. Lieutenant Colonel Orrock, the Company officer who commanded the picquets that day, was complaining about the two galloper guns that were supposedly attached to his small command.
“They wouldn’t keep up, sir. Laggards, sir. I found myself four hundred yards ahead of them! Four hundred yards!”
“I asked you to set a brisk pace, Orrock,” the General said, wishing the fool would go away. He reached for a towel and vigorously scrubbed his face dry.
“But if we’d been challenged!” Orrock protested.
“Gallopers can move briskly when they must,” the General said, then sighed as he realized the prickly Orrock needed placating.
“Who commanded the guns?”
“Barlow, sir.”
“I’ll speak to him,” the General promised, then turned as the patrol of iqth Dragoons that had crossed the River Purna to reconnoitre the ground on the far bank came threading through the rising tents towards him. Wellesley had not expected the patrol back this scon and their return puzzled him, then he saw they were escorting a group ofbkinjarries, the black-cloaked merchants who traversed India buying and selling food.
“You’ll excuse me, Orrock,” the General said, plucking his coat from a stool.
“You will talk with Barlow, sir?” Orrock asked.
“I said so, didn’t I?” Wellesley called as he walked towards the horsemen.
The patrol leader, a captain, slid off his horse and gestured at the bhinjarries’ leader.
“We found these fellows a half-mile north of the river, sir. They’ve got eighteen pack oxen loaded with grain and they reckon the enemy ain’t in Borkardan at all. They were planning to sell the grain in Assaye.”
“Assaye?” The General frowned at the unfamiliar name.
“It’s a village four or five miles north of here, sir. He says it’s thick with the enemy.”
“Four or five miles?” Wellesley asked in astonishment.
“Four or five?”
The cavalry captain shrugged.
“That’s what they say, sir.” He gestured at the grain merchants who stood impassively among the mounted troopers.
Dear God, Wellesley thought, four or five miles? He had been humbugged! The enemy had stolen a march on him, and at any moment that enemy might appear to the north and launch an attack on the British encampment and there was no chance for Stevenson to come to his help. The 74th were singing hymns and the enemy was five miles away, maybe less? The General spun round.
“Barclay! Campbell! Horses!
Quick now!”
The flurry of activity at the General’s tent sent a rumour whipping through the camp, and the rumour was fanned into alarm when the whole of the igth Dragoons and the 4th Native Cavalry trotted through the river on the heels of the General and his two aides. Colonel McCandless had been walking with Sharpe towards the 74th’s lines, but seeing the sudden excitement, he turned and hurried back towards his horse.