Dodd soon left his pursuers far behind. At least four hundred other men, most of them Arabs, had attached themselves to his regiment and he welcomed them for the more men he brought from the disaster, the higher his reputation would stand with Colonel Pohlmann. By early afternoon his Cobras had reached the crest of the escarpment that looked across the vast Deccan plain to where, far in the hazy distance, he could see the brown River Godavery snaking through the dry land.
Beyond that river was safety. Behind him the road was empty, but he knew it would not be long before the pursuing cavalry reappeared. The regiment had paused on the escarpment’s edge and Dodd let them rest for a while. Some of the fugitive Arabs were horsemen and Dodd sent those men ahead to find a village that would yield food for his regiment.
He guessed he would need to camp short of the Godavery, but tomorrow he would find a way to cross, and a day or so later he would march with flying colours into Pohlmann’s camp. Ahmednuggur might have fallen like a rotted tree, but Dodd had brought his regiment out for the loss of only a dozen men. He regretted those twelve men, though not the loss of Silliere, but he particularly regretted that Simone Joubert had failed to escape from the city. Dodd had sensed her dislike of him, and he had taken a piquant delight in the thought of cuckolding her despised husband in spite of that dislike, but it seemed that pleasure must be forgotten or at least postponed. Not that it mattered. He had saved his regiment and saved his guns and the future promised plenty of profitable employment for both.
So William Dodd marched north a happy man.
Simone led Sharpe to three small rooms on an upper floor of a house that smelt as though it belonged to a tanner. One room had a table and four mismatched chairs, two of which had been casually broken by looters, the second had been given over to a huge hip bath, while the third held nothing but a straw mattress that had been slit open and its stuffing scattered over the floorboards.
“I thought men joined Scindia to become rich,” Sharpe said in wonderment at the cramped, ill-furnished rooms.
Simone sat on one of the undamaged chairs and looked close to tears.
Tierre is not a mercenary,” she said, ‘but an adviser. His salary is paid by France, not by Scindia, and what money he makes, he saves.”
“He certainly doesn’t spend it, does he?” Sharpe asked, looking about the small grubby rooms.
“Where are the servants?”
“Downstairs. They work for the house owner.”
Sharpe had spotted a broom in the stable where they had put Simone’s horse, so now he went and fetched it. He drew a pail of water from the well and climbed the steps that ran up the side of the house to discover that Simone had not moved, except to hide her face in her hands, and so he set about cleaning up the mess himself. Whichever men had searched the rooms for loot had decided to use the bath as a lavatory, so he began by dragging it to the window, throwing open the shutters and pouring the contents into the alley. Then he sloshed the bath with water and scrubbed it with a dirty towel.
“The landlord is very proud of the bath’ Simone had come to the door and was watching him ‘and makes us pay extra.”
“I’ve never had a proper bath.” Sharpe gave the zinc tub a slap. He assumed it must have been brought to India by a European, for the outside was painted with square-rigged ships.
“How do you fill it?”
“The servants do it. It takes a long time, and even then it’s usually cold.”
“I’ll have them fill it for you, if you want.”
Simone shrugged.
“We need food first.”
“Who cooks? Don’t tell me, the servants downstairs?”
“But we have to buy the food.” She touched the purse at her waist.
“Don’t worry about money, love,” Sharpe said.
“Can you sew?”
“My needles were on the packhorse.”