“Charge the bastards! Charge them!” The same young officer who had led the assault now rallied his men and led them against the robed defenders who were reloading their longbarrelled muskets. The Highlanders attacked with bayonets and a ferocity born of desperation.
The Scots were inside the city, but so far the only route to reinforce them was up the three remaining ladders, and one of those was bending dangerously after being struck by a small round shot. Wellesley was shouting at Wallace to get the gate open, and Colonel Wallace was bellowing at his gunners to get their damned weapon into place. The defenders above the gate did their best to stop the advancing cannon, but Wallace ordered a company of infantry to help the gunners roll the cannon forward and those men cheered as they bounced and rattled the heavy gun towards the gate.
“Give them fire,” Wallace shouted, ‘give them fire!” and his remaining infantrymen blasted a ragged volley up at the gate’s defenders. The flags above the rampart twitched as the balls snatched at the silk. The six-pounder rumbled forward, thumping over the uneven road surface that was being pocked by musket balls spat from the gatehouse loopholes. A bagpipe was playing and the savage music made a fine accompaniment to the gun’s wild charge.
“Keep firing,” Wallace shouted at his infantry, ‘keep firing!” His men’s musket balls struck tiny puffs of dust and flakes of stone from the gate that was wreathed in smoke, smoke so thick that the gun seemed to disappear in fog as it rolled the last few yards, but then Sharpe heard the resounding thump as the gun’s muzzle was rammed hard against the big wooden gate.
“Get back,” the gun commander shouted, ‘get back!” and the men who had hauled the gun scrambled clear.
“Make ready!” Wallace shouted, and his men stopped their firing and dragged out bayonets that they slotted over their blackened musket muzzles.
“Fire the gun!” Wallace shouted.
“Fire it! For God’s sake, fire!” A rocket seethed out of the smoke, trailing sparks, and for a second Sharpe thought it would plunge into the heart of Wallace’s waiting men, but then it arced up into the clear blue sky and blazed safely away.
Inside the city the Arabs who had tried to defend the bastion now retreated in front of the battle-maddened Scots who swarmed out of the bastion’s inner door. The Arabs might come from a hard, warlike country, but so did the kilted men who came snarling into the city.
Sepoys were climbing the ladders now and they joined the Highlanders.
Their instinct was to charge across the cleared space inside the wall and so reach the cover of the city’s alleyways, but the young officer who led the attack knew that the defenders could still rally if he did not open the gate and so let in a flood of attackers.
“To the gate!” he shouted, and led his men along the inner face of the wall to reach the south gate. The Arabs waiting just inside the arch turned and fired as the Scots approached, but the young officer seemed invincible. He screamed as he charged, then his reddened claymore slashed down, and his men’s bayonets lunged forward. Two sepoys joined them, stabbing and screaming, and the outnumbered Arabs died or fled.
“Open the gate!” the young officer shouted, and one of the sepoys ran forward to lift the heavy locking bar out of its iron brackets.
“Fire!” Colonel Wallace shouted on the gate’s far side.
The gun captain touched his port fire to the priming reed. There was a fizz of spark, a wisp of smoke and then the double-charged gun leaped back and the sound of its massive discharge was magnified by the echo that bounced deafeningly off the gate’s high archway. The doors splintered, and the sepoy who had been lifting the bar was cut in two by the six-pound ball and by the wicked-edged scraps of shattered timber that exploded into the city. The other attackers on the inner side of the gate reeled away from the smoke and flame of the blast, but the bar was lifted and the cannon’s discharge swung the gates open.