Sharpe stood to one side. No one spoke to him, no one even looked at him, and no wonder, he thought, for this was a farce. All the officers must have known that Dodd was the guilty man, yet the sepoy must die. The paraded troops seemed to agree with Sharpe, for there was a sullenness in the ranks. Pohlmann’s compoo might be well armed and superbly trained, but it was not happy.
The four bodyguards finished tying the prisoner down, then walked away to leave him alone in the centre of the execution ground. An Indian officer, resplendent in silk robes and with a lavishly curved tulwar hanging from his belt, made a speech. Sharpe did not understand a word, but he guessed that the watching soldiers were being harangued about the fate which awaited any thief. The officer finished, glanced once at the prisoner, then walked back to the tent and, just as he entered its shade, so Pohlmann’s great elephant with its silver-encased tusks and cascading metal coat was led out from behind the marquee. The mahout guided the beast by tugging on one of its ears, but as soon as the elephant saw the prisoner it needed no guidance, but just plodded across to the spreadeagled man. The victim shouted for mercy, but Pohlmann was deaf to the pleas.
The Colonel twisted round.
“You’re watching, Sharpe?”
“You’ve got the wrong man, sir. You should have Dodd there.”
“Justice must be done,” the Colonel said, and turned back to the elephant that was standing quietly beside the victim who twisted in his bonds, thrashed, and even managed to free one hand, but instead of using that free hand to tug at the other three ropes that held him, he flailed uselessly at the elephant’s trunk. A murmur ran through the watching sixteen companies, but the jemadars and havildars shouted and the sullen murmur ceased. Pohlmann watched the prisoner struggle for a few more seconds, then took a deep breath.
“Haddahl’ he shouted.
Had daM The prisoner screamed in anticipation as, very slowly, the elephant lifted one ponderous forefoot and moved its body slightly forward. The great foot came down on the prisoner’s chest and seemed to rest there.
The man tried to push the foot away, but he might as well have attempted to shove a mountain aside. Pohlmann leaned forward, his mouth open, as, slowly, very slowly, the elephant transferred its weight onto the man’s chest. There was another scream, then the man could not draw breath to scream again, but still he jerked and twitched and still the weight pressed on him, and Sharpe saw his legs try to contract against the bonds at his ankles, and saw his head jerk up, and then he heard the splinter of ribs and saw the blood spill and bubble at the victim’s mouth.
He winced, trying to imagine the pain as the elephant pressed on down, crushing bone and lung and spine. The prisoner gave one last jerk, his hair flapping, then his head fell back and a great wash of blood brimmed from his open mouth and puddled beside his corpse.
There was a last crunching sound, then the elephant stepped back and a sigh sounded gently through the watching ranks. Pohlmann applauded, and the officers joined in. Sharpe turned away. Bastards, he thought, bastards.
And that night Pohlmann marched north.
Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill was not an educated man, and he was not even particularly clever unless slyness passed for wits, but he did understand one thing very well, and that was the impression he made on other men. They feared him. It did not matter whether the other man was a raw private, fresh from the recruiting sergeant, or a general whose coat was bright with gold lace and heavy with braid. They all feared him, all but two, and those two frightened Obadiah Hakeswill. One was Sergeant Richard Sharpe, in whom Hakeswill sensed a violence that was equal to his own, while the other was Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley who, when he had been colonel of the 33rd, had always been serenely impervious to Hakeswill’s threats.
So Sergeant Hakeswill would have much preferred not to confront General Wellesley, but when his convoy reached Ahmednuggur his enquiries established that Colonel McCandless had ridden north and had taken Sharpe with him, and the Sergeant had known he could do nothing further without Wellesley’s permission and so he had gone to the General’s tent where he announced himself to an orderly who had informed an aide who had commanded the Sergeant to wait in the shade of a banyan tree.