“Reload!”
Ramrods rattled in barrels, dog heads were dragged back to the full.
The British line was retreating fast now, but from the north, from the land hard by the river, a mass of Mahratta cavalry was riding south to join the slaughter. Dodd wished the cavalry would stay out of it, for he had an idea that he could have pursued this British battalion clear down the tongue of land to where the rivers met and the last of their men would die in the Kaitna’s muddy shallows, but he dared not fire another volley in case he hit the cavalry.
“The regiment will advance!” he told his interpreter. He would let the cavalry have their moment, then go on with the slaughtering himself.
The British battalion commander saw the cavalry and knew his retreat must stop. His men were still in line, a line of only two ranks, and cavalrymen dreamed of encountering infantry in line.
“Form square!” their commanding officer shouted, and the two wings of the line dutifully withdrew towards the centre. The double rank became four, the four ranks wheeled and dressed, and suddenly the cavalry faced a fortress of redcoats, muskets and bayonets. The front rank of the square knelt and braced their muskets on the ground while the other three readied their muskets for the coming horsemen.
The cavalry should have sheered away at the sight of the square, but they had seen the earlier slaughter and thought to add to it, and so they dipped their penn anted lances, raised their tulwars and screamed their war cries as they galloped straight towards the redcoats. And the redcoats let them come, let them come perilously close before the order was shouted and the face of the square nearest the cavalry exploded in flame and smoke and the horses screamed as they were hit and died. The surviving horsemen swerved aside and received another killing volley as they swept past the sides of the square. More horses tumbled, dust spewing from their sliding bodies. A tulwar spun along the ground, its owner shrieking as his trapped leg was ground into bloody ruin by the weight of his dying horse.
“Reload!” a Scots voice shouted from inside the square and the redcoats recharged their muskets.
The cavalry charged on into open country and there wheeled about.
Some of the horses were riderless now, others were bloody, but all came back towards the square.
“Let them come close!” a mounted British officer shouted inside the square.
“Let them come close. Wait for it! Fire!”
More horses tumbled, their legs cracking as the bones shattered, and this time the cavalry did not sheer away to ride down the square’s lethal flanks, but instead wheeled clean about and spurred out of range. Two lessons were sufficient to teach them caution, but they did not go far away, just far enough to be out of range of the redcoats’ muskets. The cavalry’s leaders had seen Dodd’s regiment come through the cactus hedge and they knew that their own infantry, attacking in line, must overwhelm the square with musketry and, when the square shattered, as it must under the infantry’s assault, the horsemen could sweep back to pick off the survivors and pluck the great gaudy banners as trophies to lay before Scindia.
Dodd could scarcely believe his luck. At first he had resented the cavalry’s intrusion, believing that they were about to steal his victory, but their two impotent charges had forced the enemy battalion to form square and mathematics alone dictated that a battalion in square could only use one quarter of its muskets against an attack from any one side.
And the British battalion, which Dodd now recognized from its white facings as the 74th, was much smaller than Dodd’s Cobras, probably having only half the numbers Dodd possessed. And, in addition to Dodd’s men, a ragged regiment of the Rajah of Berar’s infantry had poured out of Assaye to join the slaughter while a battalion from Dupont’s compoo, which had been posted immediately on Dodd’s right, had also come to join the killing. Dodd resented the presence of those men whom he feared might dilute the glory of his victory, but he could scarcely order them away. The important thing was to slaughter the Highlanders.