“Come on, Sharpe!”
“Where to, sir?”
“We’ll find out. Sevajee?”
“We’re ready.”
McCandless’s party left the camp five minutes after the General.
They could see the dust left by the cavalry ahead and McCandless hurried to catch up. They rode through a landscape of small fields cut by deep dry gulches and cactus-thorn hedges. Wellesley had been following the earth road northwards, but after a while the General swerved westwards onto a field of stubble and McCandless did not follow, but kept straight on up the road.
“No point in tiring the horses unnecessarily,” he explained, though Sharpe suspected the Colonel was merely impatient to go north and see whatever had caused the excitement. The two British cavalry regiments were in sight to the east, but there was no enemy visible.
Sevajee and his men had ridden ahead, but when they reached a crest some two hundred yards in front of McCandless they suddenly wrenched on their reins and swerved back. Sharpe expected to see a horde of Mahratta cavalry come boiling over the crest, but the skyline stayed empty as Sevajee and his men halted a few yards short of the ridge and there dismounted.
“You’ll not want them to see you, Colonel,” Sevajee said drily when McCandless caught up.
Them?”
Sevajee gestured at the crest.
“Take a look. You’ll want to dismount.”
McCandless and Sharpe both slid from their saddles, then walked to the skyline where a cactus hedge offered concealment and from where they could stare at the country to the north and Sharpe, who had never seen such a sight before, simply gazed in amazement.
It was not an army. It was a horde, a whole people, a nation.
Thousands upon thousands of the enemy, all in line, mile after mile of them. Men and women and children and guns and camels and bullocks and rocket batteries and horses and tents and still more men until there seemed to be no end to them.
“Jesus!” Sharpe said, the imprecation torn from him.
“Sharpe!”
“Sorry, sir.” But no wonder he had sworn, for Sharpe had never imagined that an army could look so vast. The nearest men were no more than half a mile away, beyond a discoloured river that flowed between steep mud banks. A village lay on the nearer bank, but on the northern side, just beyond the mud bluff, there was a line of guns.
Big guns, the same painted and sculpted cannon that Sharpe had seen in Pohlmann’s camp. Beyond the guns was the infantry and behind the infantry, and spreading far out of sight to the east, was a mass of cavalry and beyond them the myriad of camp followers. More infantry were posted about a distant village where Sharpe could just see a cluster of bright flags.
“How many are there?” he asked.
“At least a hundred thousand men?” McCandless ventured.
“At least,” Sevajee agreed, ‘but most are adventurers come for loot.”
The Indian was peering through a long ivory-clad telescope.
“And the cavalry won’t help in a battle.”
“It’ll be down to these fellows,” McCandless said, indicating the infantry just behind the gun line.
“Fifteen thousand?”
“Fourteen or fifteen,” Sevajee said.
“Too many.”
“Too many guns,” McCandless said gloomily.
“It’ll be a retreat.”
“I thought we came here to fight!” Sharpe said belligerentiy.
“We came here expecting to rest, then march on Borkardan tomorrow,” McCandless said testily.
“We didn’t come here to take on the whole enemy army with just five thousand infantry. They know we’re coming, they’re ready for us and they simply want us to walk into their fire. Wellesley’s not a fool, Sharpe. He’ll march us back, link up with Stevenson, then find them again.”
Sharpe felt a pang of relief that he would not discover the realities of bat de but the relief was tempered by a tinge of disappointment. The disappointment surprised him, and the relief made him fear he might be a coward.
“If we retreat,” Sevajee warned, ‘those horsemen will harry us all the way.”
“We’ll just have to fight them off,” McCandless said confidently, then let out a long satisfied breath.
“Got him! There, the left flank!” He pointed and Sharpe saw, far away at the very end of the enemy gun line a scatter of white uniforms.