“He’ll want him when the bay’s tired,” Fletcher told Sharpe, nodding ahead at Wellesley who was now riding a tall bay stallion.
“And the mare’s in case both horses get shot,” he added, slapping the rump of the horse he rode.
“So what do you do?” Sharpe asked the dragoon.
“Just stay close until he wants to change horses and keep him from getting thirsty,” Fletcher said. He carried no less than five water canteens on his belt, bulked over a heavy sabre in a metal scabbard, the first time Sharpe had ever seen the orderly carrying a weapon.
“Vicious thing, that,” Fletcher said when he saw Sharpe glance at the weapon, ‘a good wide blade, perfect for slicing.”
“Ever used it?” Sharpe asked.
“Against Dhoondiah,” Fletcher answered. Dhoondiah had been a bandit chieftain whose depredations in Mysore had finally persuaded Wellesley to pursue him with cavalry. The resultant battle had been a short clash of horsemen that had been won in moments by the British.
“And I killed a goat with it for the General’s supper a week ago,” Fletcher continued, drawing the heavy curved blade, ‘and I think the poor bugger died of fright when it saw the blade coming. Took its head clean off, it did. Look at this, Sergeant.” He handed the blade to Sharpe.
“See what it says there? Just above the hilt?”
Sharpe tipped the sabre to the sun. ‘”Warranted Never to Fail”,” he read aloud. He grinned, for the boast seemed oddly out of place on a thing designed to kill or maim.
“Made in Sheffield,” Fletcher said, taking the blade back, ‘and guaranteed never to fail! Good slicer this is, real good. You can cut a man in half with one of these if you get the stroke right.”
Sharpe grinned.
“I’ll stick with a musket.”
“Not on horseback, you won’t, Sergeant,” Fletcher said.
“A firelock’s no good on horseback. You want a blade.”
“Never learned to use one,” Sharpe said.
“It ain’t difficult,” Fletcher said with the scorn of a man who had mastered a difficult trade.
“Keep your arm straight and use the point when you’re fighting cavalry, because if you bend the elbow the bastards will chop through your wrist as sure as eggs, and slash away like a haymaker at infantry because there ain’t bugger all they can do back to you, not once they’re on the run. Not that you could use any kind of sword off the back of that horse.” He nodded at Sharpe’s small native beast.
“It’s more like an overgrown dog, that is. Does it fetch?”
The road reached the high point between the two rivers and Fletcher, mounted high on the General’s mare, caught his first glimpse of the enemy army on the distant northern bank of the Kaitna. He whistled softly.
“Millions of the buggers!”
“We’re going to turn their flank,” Sharpe said, repeating what he had heard the General say. So far as Sharpe understood, the idea was to cross the river at the ford which no one except Wellesley believed existed, then make an attack on the left flank of the waiting infantry.
The idea made sense to Sharpe, for the enemy line was facing south and, by coming at them from the east, the British could well plunge the compoos into confusion.
“Millions of the buggers!” Fletcher said again in wonderment, but then the road dropped and took the enemy out of their view. The dragoon orderly sheathed his sabre.
“But he’s confident,” he said, nodding ahead at Wellesley who was dressed in his old uniform coat of the 33rd. The General wore a slim straight sword, but had no other weapon, not even a pistol.
“He was always confident,” Sharpe said.
“Cool as you like.”
“He’s a good fellow,” Fletcher said loyally.
“Proper officer. He ain’t friendly, of course, but he’s always fair.” He touched his spurs to the mare’s flanks because Wellesley and his aides had hurried ahead into the village of Peepulgaon where the villagers gaped at the foreigners in their red coats and black cocked hats. Wellesley scattered chickens from his path as he cantered down the dusty village street to where the road dropped down a precipitous bluff into the half-dry bed of the Kaitna.