“I warrant that fight’s at the north gate!” McCandless called back excitedly.
“Sounds heavy, sir,” Sharpe said.
“It’ll be panic, man, panic! We’ll just ride in and snatch the fellow!”
McCandless, so close to his quarry, was elated. A third volley sounded, and this time Sharpe heard the musket balls smacking against mud walls or ripping through the thatched roofs. The crowds were suddenly thinner and McCandless drove back his spurs to urge his big gelding closer to the firefight. Sevajee was alongside him, tulwar shining, and his men just behind. The city walls were close to their right-hand side, and ahead, over a jumble of thatched and slate roofs, Sharpe could see a blue and-green-striped flag flying over the ramparts of a square tower like the bastion that crowned the south gate. The tower had to be above the north gate, and he kicked his horse on and hauled back the cock of his musket.
The horsemen cleared the last buildings and the gate was now only thirty yards ahead on the far side of an open, paved space, but the moment McCandless saw the gate he wrenched his reins to swerve his horse aside. Sevajee did the same, but the men behind, Sharpe included, were too late. Sharpe had thought that the disciplined volleys must be being fired by redcoats or sepoys, but instead two companies of white jacketed soldiers were barring the way to the gate and it was those men who were firing to keep the space around the gate clear for other white coated companies who were marching in double-quick time to escape the city. The volleys were being fired indiscriminately at civilians, redcoats and fugitive defenders alike, their aim solely to keep the gate free for the white-coated companies that were under the command of an unnaturally tall man mounted on a gaunt black horse. And just as Sharpe saw the man, and recognized him, so the left-hand company aimed at the horsemen and fired.
A horse screamed. Blood spurted fast and warm over the cobbles as the beast fell, trapping its rider and breaking his leg. Another of Sevajee’s men was down, his tulwar ringing as it skittered across the stones. Sharpe heard the whistle of musket balls all about him and he tugged on the reins, wrenching the mare back towards the alley, but she protested his violence and turned back towards the enemy. He kicked her.
“Move, you bitch!” he shouted.
“Move!” He could hear ramrods rattling in barrels and he knew it would only be seconds, before another volley came his way, but then McCandless was beside him and the Scotsman leaned over, seized Sharpe’s bridle and hauled! him safely into the shelter of an alley.
“Thank you, sir,” Sharpe said. He had lost control of his horse and felt ashamed. The mare was quivering and he patted her neck just as Dodd’s next volley hammered its huge noise through the city. The balls thumped into the mud-brick walls, shattered tiles and tore handfuls out of the palm thatch. McCandless had dismounted, so Sharpe now kicked his feet from the stirrups, dropped from the saddle and ran to join the Colonel at the mouth of the alley. Once there, he looked for Dodd through the clearing smoke, found him and aimed the musket.
McCandless hurriedly pushed the musket down.
“What are you doing, man?”
“Killing the bugger, sir,” Sharpe snarled, remembering the stench of blood at Chasalgaon.
“You’ll do no such thing, Sergeant,” McCandless growled.
“I want him alive!”
Sharpe cursed, but did not shoot. Dodd, he saw, was very calm. He had caused another massacre here, but this time he had been killing Ahmednuggur’s civilians to prevent them from crowding the gateway, and his killers, the two white-coated companies, still stood guard on the gate even though the remaining companies had all vanished into the sunlit country beyond the archway’s long dark tunnel. So why were those two companies lingering? Why did Dodd not extricate them before the rampaging sepoys and Highlanders caught up with him? The ground ahead of the two rear guard companies was littered with dead and dying fugitives and a horrid number of those corpses and casualties were women and children, while more weeping and shrieking people, terrified by the volley fire and equally frightened of the invaders spreading into the city behind them, were crammed into every street or alley that opened onto the cleared space by the gate.