“They won’t stand,” he told his aides.
“A handful of round shot and the sight of some bayonets will send them packing.”
The village still held a small army. The Rajah of Berar’s twenty thousand men were behind its thick walls, and Major Dodd had succeeded in marching his own regiment into the village. He had seen the remainder of the Mahratta line crumple, he had watched Anthony Pohlmann discard his hat and coat as he fled to the village and, rather than let the panic infect his own men, Dodd had turned them eastwards, ordered the regiment’s cumbersome guns to be abandoned, then followed his commanding officer into the tangle of Assaye’s narrow alleys. Beny Singh, the Rajah of Berar’s warlord and the kill adar of the village’s garrison, was glad to see the European.
“What do we do?” he asked Dodd.
“Do? We get out, of course. The battle’s lost.”
Beny Singh blinked at him.
“We just go?”
Dodd dismounted from his horse and steered Beny Singh away from his aides.
“Who are your best troops?” he asked.
“The Arabs.”
“Tell them you’re going to fetch reinforcements, tell them to defend the village, and promise that if they can hold the place till nightfall then help will come in the morning.”
“But it won’t,” Beny Singh protested.
“But if they hold,” Dodd said, ‘they cover your escape, sahib.” He smiled ingratiatingly, knowing that men like Beny Singh could yet play a part in his future.
“The British will pounce on any fugitives leaving the village,” Dodd explained, ‘but they won’t dare attack men who are well drilled and well commanded. I proved that at Ahmednuggur. So you’re most welcome to march north with my men, sahib. I promise they won’t be broken like the rest.” He climbed back into his saddle and rode back to his Cobras and ordered them to join Captain Joubert at the ford.
“You’re to wait for me there,” he told them, then shouted for his own sepoy company to follow him deeper into the village.
The battle might be lost, but Dodd’s men had not failed him and he was determined they should have a reward and so he led them to the house where Colonel Pohlmann had stored his treasure. Dodd knew that if he did not give his men gold then they would melt away to find another warlord who would reward them, but if he paid them they would stay under his command while he sought another prince as employer.
He heard the sonorous bang of a great gun being fired beyond the village and he reckoned that the British had begun to pound Assaye’s mud wall. Dodd knew that wall could not last long, for every shot would crumble the dried mud bricks and collapse the roof beams of the outermost houses so that in a few minutes there would be a wide breach leading into Assaye’s heart. A moment later the redcoats would be ordered into the dusty breach and the village’s alleys would be clogged by panic and filled with screams and bayonets.
Dodd reached the alley leading to the courtyard where Pohlmann had placed his elephants and he saw, as he had expected, that the big gate was still shut. Pohlmann was undoubtedly inside the courtyard, readying to escape, but Dodd could not wait for the Hanoverian to throw open the gates, so instead he ordered his men to fight their way through the house. He left a dozen men to block the alley, gave one of those men his horse to hold, then led the rest of the sepoys towards the house. Pohlmann’s bodyguard saw them coming and fired, but fired too early and Dodd survived the panicked volley and roared his men on.
“Kill them!” he shouted as, sword in hand, he charged through the musket smoke. He kicked the house door open and plunged into a kitchen crowded with purple-coated men. He lunged with his sword, driving the defenders back, and then his sepoys arrived to carry their bayonets to Pohlmann’s men.
“Gopal!” Dodd shouted.
“Sahib?” the Jemadar said, tugging his tulwar from the body of a dead man.
“Find the gold! Make sure it’s loaded on the elephants, then open the courtyard gate!” Dodd snapped the orders, then went on killing.