“You do not think badly of me?” she asked Sharpe anxiously.
I’m probably half in love with you,” Sharpe told her, ‘so how can I think badly of you?”
She seemed relieved, and for the rest of that day she chattered happily enough. McCandless questioned her closely about Dodd’s regiment, how it had been trained and how it was equipped, and though she had taken scant interest in such things, her replies satisfied the Colonel who pencilled notes in a small black book.
They slept that night in a village, and next day rode even more warily.
“When we meet the enemy, Sharpe,” McCandless advised him, ‘keep your hands away from your weapon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give a Mahratta one excuse to think you’re hostile,” the Colonel said cheerfully, ‘and he’ll use you as an archery butt. They don’t make decent heavy horsemen, but as raiders they’re unsurpassed. They attack in swarms, Sharpe. A horde of horsemen. Like watching a storm approach. Nothing but dust and the shine of swords. Magnificent!”
“You like them, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“I like the wild, Sharpe,” McCandless said fiercely.
“We’ve tamed ourselves at home, but out here a man still lives by his weapon and his wits. I shall miss that when we’ve imposed order.”
“So why tame it, sir?”
“Because it is our duty, Sharpe. God’s duty. Trade, order, law, and Christian decency, that’s our business.” McCandless was gazing ahead to where a patch of misty white hung just above the northern horizon. It was dust kicked into the air, and maybe it was nothing more than a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep, but the dust smear grew and suddenly Sevajee’s men veered sharply away to the west and galloped out of sight.
“Are they running out on us, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“The enemy will likely enough treat you and me with respect, Sharpe,” McCandless said, ‘but Sevajee cannot expect courtesy from them. They’d regard him as a traitor and execute him on the spot. We’ll meet up with him when we’ve delivered Madame Joubert to her husband. He and I have arranged a rendezvous.”
The dust cloud drew nearer and Sharpe saw a sliver of reflected sunlight glint in the whiteness and he knew he was seeing the first sign of McCandless’s magnificent wild horsemen. The storm was coming.
The Mahratta cavalrymen had spread into a long line as they approached McCandless’s small party. There were, Sharpe guessed, two hundred or more of the horsemen and, as they drew nearer, the flanks of their line quickened to form a pair of horns that would encircle their prey.
McCandless feigned not to notice the threat, but kept riding gently ahead while the wild horns streamed past in a flurry of dust and noise.
They were, Sharpe noticed, small men on small horses. British cavalry were bigger and their horses were heavier, but these nimble horsemen still looked effective enough. The curved blades of their drawn tulwars glittered like their plumed helmets which rose to a sharp point decorated with a crest. Some of the crests were horse-tails, some vultures’ feathers and some just brightly coloured ribbons. More ribbons were woven into their horses’ plaited manes or were tied to the horn tips of the archers’ bows. The horsemen pounded past McCandless, then turned with a swerve, a slew of choking dust, a skid of hooves, a jangle of curb chains and the thump of scabbarded weapons.
The Mahratta leader confronted McCandless who pretended to be surprised to find his path blocked, but nevertheless greeted the enemy with an elaborate and confident courtesy. The cavalry commander was a wildly bearded man with a scarred cheek, a wall eye and lank hair that hung far below his helmet’s cloth-rimmed edge. He held his tulwar menacingly, but McCandless ignored the blade’s threat, indeed he ignored most of what the enemy commander said, and instead boomed his own demands in a voice that showed not the least nervousness. The Scotsman towered over the smaller horsemen and, because he seemed to regard his presence among them as entirely natural, they meekly accepted his version of what was happening.
“I have demanded that they escort us to Pohlmann,” the Scotsman informed Sharpe.