Such walls could be five or six feet in thickness, and though they might crumble to the touch of an artillery bombardment, they still made a formidable obstacle to infantry. Enemy soldiers stood on every rooftop, while outside the wall, in an array as thick as a hedgehog’s quills, was an assortment of cannon.
“A very nasty little place,” the General said.
“We must avoid it. I see your fellows are there, Sharpe!”
“My fellows, sir?” Sharpe asked in puzzlement.
“White coats, Sergeant.”
So Dodd’s regiment had taken their place just to the south of Assaye.
They were still on the left of Pohlmann’s line, but now that line stretched southwards from the bristling de fences about the village to the bank of the River Kaitna. The infantry were already in place and the last of the guns were now being hauled into their positions in front of the enemy line, and Sharpe remembered Syud Sevajee’s grim words about the rivers meeting, and he knew that the only way out of this narrowing neck of land was either back through the fords or else straight ahead through the enemy’s army.
“I see we shall have to earn our pay today,” the General said to no one in particular.
“How far ahead of the infantry is their gun line, Campbell?”
“A hundred yards, sir?” the young Scotsman guessed after gazing through his spyglass for a while.
“A hundred and fifty, I think,” Wellesley said.
Sharpe was watching the village. A lane led from its eastern wall and a file of cavalry was riding out from the houses towards some trees.
“They think to allow us to take the guns,” Wellesley guessed, ‘reckoning we’ll be so pounded by round shot and peppered by canister that their infantry can then administer the coup de grace. They wish to treat us to a double dose! Guns and fire locks
The trees where the cavalry had disappeared dropped into a steep gully that twisted towards the higher ground from where Wellesley was observing the enemy. Sharpe, watching the tree-filled gully, saw birds fly out of the branches as the cavalry advanced beneath the thick leaves.
“Horsemen, sir,” Sharpe warned.
“Where, man, where?” Wellesley asked.
Sharpe pointed towards the gully.
“It’s full of the bastards, sir. They came out of the village a couple of moments ago. You can’t see them, sir, but I think there might be a hundred men hidden there.”
Wellesley did not dispute Sharpe.
“They want to put us in the bag,” he said in seeming amusement.
“Keep an eye out for them, Sharpe. I have no wish to watch the battle from the comfort of Scindia’s tent.” He looked back to the enemy’s line where the last of the heavy guns were being lugged into place. Those last two guns were the big eighteen pounder siege guns that had done the damage as the British army crossed the ford, and now the huge pieces were being em placed in front of Dodd’s regiment. Elephants pulled the guns into position, then were led away towards the baggage park beyond the village.
“How many guns do you reckon, Campbell?” the General asked.
“Eighty-two, sir, not counting the ones by Assaye.”
“Around twenty there, I think. We shall be earning our pay! And their line’s longer than I thought. We shall have to extend.” He was not so much speaking to Campbell as to himself, but now he glanced at the young Scots officer.
“Did you count their infantry?”
“Fifteen thousand in the line, sir?” Campbell hazarded.
“And at least as many again in the village,” Wellesley said, snapping his telescope shut, ‘not to mention a horde of horsemen behind them, but they’ll only count if we meet disaster. It’s the fifteen thousand in front who concern us. Beat them and we beat all.” He made a pencilled note in a small black book, then stared again at the enemy line beneath its bright flags.
“They did manoeuvre well! A creditable performance. But do they fight, eh? That’s the nub of it. Do they fight?”
“Sir!” Sharpe called urgently, for, not two hundred paces away, the first enemy horsemen had emerged from the gully with their tulwars and lances bright in the afternoon sun, and now were spurring towards Wellesley.