“I have good news, Madame,” the Scotsman went on.
“General Wellesley is agreeable that you should rejoin your husband. There is, however, a difficulty.” It was McCandless’s turn to blush.
“I can provide no chaperone, Madame, and you do not possess a maid. I assure you that you may rely utterly upon my honour, but your husband might object if you lack a female companion on the journey.”
Tierre will have no objection, Colonel,” Simone said meekly.
“And I warrant Sergeant Sharpe will behave like a gentleman,” McCandless said with a fierce look at Sharpe.
“He does, Colonel, he does,” Simone said, offering Sharpe a very shy glance.
“Good!” McCandless said, relieved to be done with such a delicate topic. He slapped his cocked hat against his leg.
“No rain again,” he declared, ‘and I dare say it’ll be a hot day. You can be ready to ride in an hour, Madame?”
“In less, Colonel.”
“One hour will suffice, Madame. You will do me the honour, perhaps, of meeting me by the north gate? I’ll have your horse ready, Sharpe.”
They left promptly, riding northwards past the battery that had been dug to hammer the fort’s big walls. The battery’s four guns were mere twelve-pounders, scarce big enough to dent the fort’s wall, let alone break it down, but General Wellesley reckoned the garrison would be so disheartened by the city’s swift defeat that even a few twelve-pound shots might persuade them into surrender. The four guns had opened fire at dawn, but their firing was sporadic until McCandless led his party out of the city when they suddenly all fired at once and Simone’s horse, startled by the unexpected noise, skittered sideways. Simone rode side-saddle just behind the Colonel, while Sevajee and his men brought up the rear. Sharpe was wearing boots at last; the tall red leather boots with steel spurs that he had dragged from the body of an Arab.
He glanced back as they rode away. He saw the huge jet of smoke burst from a twelve-pounder’s muzzle and a second later heard the percussive thump of the exploding charge and, just as that sound faded, a crack as the ball struck the wall of the fort. Then the other three guns fired and he imagined the steam hissing into the air as the gunners poured water on the overheated barrels. The fort’s red walls blossomed with smoke as the defenders’ cannon replied, but the pioneers had dug the gunners a deep battery and protected it with a thick wall of red earth, and the enemy’s fire wasted itself in those de fences Then Sharpe rode past a grove of trees and the distant fight was hidden and the sound of the guns grew fainter and fainter as they rode farther north until, at last, the sound of the cannonade was a mere grumbling on the horizon. Then they dropped down the escarpment and the noise of the guns faded away altogether.
It was a disconsolate expedition. Colonel McCandless had nothing to say to Simone who was still withdrawn. Sharpe tried to cheer her up, but his clumsy attempts only made her more miserable and after a time he too fell silent. Women were a mystery, he thought. During the night Simone had clung to him as though she were drowning, but since the dawn it had seemed as if she would prefer to be drowned.
“Horsemen on our right, Sergeant!” McCandless said, his tone a reproof that Sharpe had not spotted the cavalry first.
“Probably ours, but they could be enemy.”
Sharpe stared eastwards.
“They’re ours, sir,” he called, kicking his horse to catch up with McCandless. One of the distant horsemen carried the new Union flag and Sharpe’s good eyes had spotted the banner. The flag was easier to recognize at a distance these days, for since the incorporation of Ireland into the United Kingdom a new red diagonal cross had been added to the flag, and though the new-faingled design looked odd and unfamiliar, it did make the banner stand out.
The cavalry left a plume of dust as they rode to intercept McCandless’s party. Sevajee and his men cantered to meet them and Sharpe saw the two groups of horsemen greet each other warmly. The strangers turned out to be bnndarries from the Mahratta states who, like Sevajee, had sided with the British against Scindia. These mercenaries were under the command of a British officer and, like Sevajee’s men, they carried lances, tulwars, matchlock guns, flintlocks, pistols and bows and arrows.