“The 778th,” Dodd said again, and Joubert stood in his stirrups to gaze at the distant sight of the Scottish regiment emerging from low ground to advance against the Mahratta line.
“And no support for them?” Dodd asked, puzzled, and he had begun to think that Boy Wellesley had blundered very badly, but just then he saw the sepoys coming from the valley. The attacking line looked very thin and frail, and he could see men being snatched backwards by the artillery fire.
“Why won’t they come here?” he asked petulantly.
“They are, Monsieur,” Joubert answered, and pointed eastwards.
Dodd turned and stared.
“Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,” he said softly.
“The fools!” For the enemy was not just coming towards Dodd’s position, but approaching in a column of half companies. The enemy infantry had suddenly appeared at the upper edge of the gully, but on Dodd’s side of that obstacle, and it was clear that the redcoats must have wandered far out of their position for they were a long way from the rest of the attacking British infantry. Better still, they had not deployed into line. Their commander must have decided that they would make better progress if they advanced in column and doubtless he planned to deploy into line when he launched his attack, but the men showed no sign of deploying yet.
Dodd aimed his telescope and was momentarily puzzled. The leading half company were King’s troops in red jackets, black shakoes and white trousers, while the forty or fifty men of the half company behind were in kilts, but the other five half companies were all sepoys of the East India Company.
“It’s the picquets of the day,” he said, suddenly understanding the strange formation. He heard a shout as a gun captain ordered his cannon to be levered around to take aim at the approaching men, and he hurriedly shouted to his gunners to hold their fire.
“No one’s to fire yet, Joubert,” Dodd ordered, then he spurred his horse northwards to the village.
The infantry and gunners defending the village of Assaye were not under Dodd’s command, but he issued them orders anyway.
“You’re to hold your fire,” he snapped at them, ‘hold your fire. Wait! Wait!” Some of the Goanese gunners spoke a little English, and they understood him and passed the order on. The Rajah’s infantry, on the mud walls above the guns, were not so quick and some of those men opened fire on the distant redcoats, but their muskets were far outranged and Dodd ignored them.
“You fire when we fire, understand?” he shouted at the gunners, and some of them understood what he was doing, and they grinned approval of his cunning.
He spurred back to the Cobras. A second British formation had appeared a hundred paces behind the picquets. This second unit was a complete battalion of redcoats advancing in line and, because marching an extended line across country was inevitably slower than advancing in a column of half companies, they had fallen behind the picquets who, in sublime disregard of Assaye’s waiting defenders, continued their progress towards the cactus hedge. It seemed to be an isolated attack, far from the clamour in the south that Dodd now ignored. God had given Dodd a chance of victory and he felt the excitement rise in him. It was bliss, pure bliss. He could not lose. He drew the elephant-hilled sword and, as if to give thanks, kissed the steel blade.
The leading half company of picquets had reached the thorn hedge and there they had checked, at last unwilling to continue their suicidal progress towards the waiting Mahrattas. Some artillery from further up the line, wrhich did not lie under Dodd’s control, had opened fire on the column, but the white-coated Mahratta forces immediately to the front of the column were silent and the picquets’ commanding officer seemed encouraged by that and now urged his men onwards.
“Why doesn’t he deploy?” Dodd asked no one, and prayed that they would not deploy, but as soon as the half company of kilted Highlanders had filed through a gap in the cactus thorn they began to spread out and Dodd knew his moment was close. But wait, he told himself, wait for more victims, and sure enough the sepoys pushed through the breaks in the hedge until all the picquets were in front of the cactus and their officers and sergeants began chivvying them forward onto the open pasture where there would be more space for the half companies to deploy into line.