“They’ve been south, east, back north again. But now they’re going to hold a durbar, Colonel.”
“A durbar]’ McCandless brightened, and Sharpe wondered what on earth a durbar was.
“They’ve gone to Borkardan,” Sevajee announced happily.
“All of them! Scindia, the Rajah of Berar, the whole lot! A sea of enemies.”
“Borkardan,” McCandless said, summoning a mental map in his head.
“Where’s that? Two days’ march north?”
“One for a horseman, two on foot,” Sevajee agreed.
McCandless, his shave forgotten, stared northwards.
“But how long will they stay there?”
“Long enough,” Sevajee said gleefully, ‘and first they have to make a place fit for a prince’s durbar and that will take them two or three days, and then they’ll talk for another two or three days. And they need to rest their animals too, and in Borkardan they’ve found plenty of forage.”
“How do you know?” McCandless asked.
“Because we met some brin dames Sevajee said with a smile, and turned at the same time to indicate four small, lean and riderless horses that were the trophies of that meeting.
“We had a talk with them,” Sevajee said airily, and Sharpe wondered how brutal that talk had been.
“Forty thousand infantry, sixty thousand cavalry,” Sevajee said, ‘and over a hundred guns.”
McCandless limped back into the house to fetch paper and ink from his saddlebag. Then, back in the sunlight, he wrote a despatch and Sevajee detailed six of his horsemen to take the precious news south as fast as they could. They would need to search for Wellesley’s army and Sevajee told them to whip their horses bloody because, if the British moved fast, there was a chance to catch the Mahrattas while they were encamped for their durbar and then to attack them before they could form their battle array.
“That would even things up,” McCandless announced happily.
“A surprise attack!”
“They’re not fools,” Sevajee warned, ‘they’ll have a host of picquets.”
“But it takes time to organize a hundred thousand men, Sevajee, a lot of time! They’ll be milling about like sheep while we march into battle!”
The six horsemen rode away with the precious despatch and McCandless, tired again, let Sharpe shave him.
“All we can do now is wait,” the Colonel said.
“Wait?” Sharpe asked indignantly, believing that McCandless was implying that they would do nothing while the battle was being fought.
“If Scindia’s at Borkardan,” the Colonel said, ‘then our armies will have to march this way to reach him. So we might as well wait for them to come to us. Then we can join up again.”
It was time to stop dreaming. It was time to fight.
Wellesley’s army had crossed the Godavery and marched towards Aurungabad, then heard that Scindia’s forces had gone far to the east before lunging south towards the heartland of Hyderabad, and the report made sense for the old Nizam had just died and left a young son on the throne and a young ruler’s state could make for rich pickings, and so Wellesley had turned his small army and hurried back to the Godavery.
They laboriously recrossed the river, swimming the horses, bullocks and elephants to the southern bank, and floating the guns, limbers and wagons across on rafts. The men used boats made from inflated bladders, and it took two whole days to make the crossing and then, after a day’s march south towards threatened Hyderabad, more news came that the enemy had turned about and gone back northwards.
“Don’t know what they’re bleeding doing,” Hakeswill declared.
“Captain Mackay says we’re looking for the enemy,” Private Lowry suggested helpfully.
“Looking for his arse, more like. Bloody Wellesley.” Hakeswill was sitting beside the river, watching the bullocks being goaded back into the water to cross once again to the north bank.
“In the water, out the water, up one road, down the next, walk in bleeding circles, then back through the bleeding river again.” His blue eyes opened wide in indignation and his face twitched.
“Arthur Wellesley should never be a general.”
“Why not, Sarge?” Private Kendrick asked, knowing that Hakeswill wanted the opportunity to explain.
“Stands to reason, lad, stands to reason.” Hakeswill paused to light a clay pipe.