Joubert ran off. Dodd watched him go, then turned to Silliere.
“When were the men last paid?”
Tour months ago, sir.”
“Where did you learn English, Lieutenant?”
“Colonel Mathers insisted we speak it, sir.”
“And where did Madame Joubert learn it?”
Silliere gave Dodd a suspicious glance.
“I would not know, sir.”
Dodd sniffed.
“Are you wearing perfume, Monsewer?”
“No!” Silliere blushed.
“Make sure you never do, Lieutenant. And in the meantime take your company, find the kill adar and tell him to break open the city treasury.
If you have any trouble, break the damn thing open yourself with one of our guns. Give every man three months’ pay and load the rest of the money on pack animals. We’ll take it with us.”
Silliere looked astonished at me order.
“But the kill adar Monsieur…” he began.
“The kill adar Monsewer, is a wretched little man wit ii the balls of a mouse! You are a soldier. If we don’t take the money, the British will get it. Now go!” Dodd shook his head in exasperation as the Lieutenant went. Four months without pay! There was nothing unusual in such a lapse, but Dodd disapproved of it. A soldier risked his life for his country, and the least his country could do in return was pay him promptly.
He walked eastwards along the fire step trying to anticipate where the British would site their batteries and where they would make a breach. There was always a chance that Wellesley would pass by Ahmednuggur and simply march north towards Scindia’s army, but Dodd doubted the enemy would choose that course, for then the city and fort would lie athwart the British supply lines and the garrison could play havoc with the convoys carrying ammunition, shot and food to the redcoats.
A small crowd was gathered on the southernmost ramparts to gaze towards the distant cloud that betrayed the presence of the enemy army. Simone Joubert was among them, sheltering her face from the westering sun with a frayed parasol. Dodd took off his cocked hat. He always felt oddly awkward with women, at least white women, but his new rank gave him an unaccustomed confidence.
“I see you have come to observe the enemy, Ma’am,” he said.
“I like to walk about the walls, Major,” Simone answered, ‘but today, as you see, the way is blocked with people.”
“I can clear a path for you, Ma’am,” Dodd offered, touching the gold hilt of his new sword.
“It is not necessary, Major,” Simone said.
“You speak good English, Ma’am.”
“I was taught it as a child. We had a Welsh governess.”
“In France, Ma’am?”
“In the lie de France, Monsieur,” Simone said. She was not looking at Dodd as she spoke, but staring into the heat-hazed south.
“Mauritius,” Dodd said, giving the island the name used by the British.
“The lie de France, Monsieur, as I said.”
“A remote place, Ma’am.”
Simone shrugged. In truth she agreed with Dodd. Mauritius was remote, an island four hundred miles east of Africa and the only decent French naval base in the Indian Ocean. There she had been raised as the daughter of the port’s captain, and it was there, at sixteen, that she had been wooed by Captain Joubert who was on passage to India where he had been posted as an adviser to Scindia. Joubert had dazzled Simone with tales of the riches that a man could make for himself in India, and Simone, bored with the small petty society of her island, had allowed herself to be swept away, only to discover that Captain Joubert was a timid man at heart, and that his impoverished family in Lyons had first claim on his earnings, and whatever was left was assiduously saved so that the Captain could retire to France in comfort. Simone had expected a life of parties and jewels, of dancing and silks, and instead she scrimped, she sewed and she suffered. Colonel Pohlmann had offered her a way out of poverty, and now she sensed that the lanky Englishman was clumsily attempting to make the same offer, but Simone was not minded to become a man’s mistress just because she was bored. She might for love, and in the absence of any love in her life she was fighting an attraction for Lieutenant Silliere, although she knew that the Lieutenant was almost as worthless as her I husband and the dilemma was making her think that she was going! mad. She wept about it, and the tears only added to her self-diagnosis I of insanity.