‘Fitzgerald!’ Morris shouted frantically. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lieutenant! Where the hell are you?’
‘He’s gone to hell.’ Hakeswill chuckled softly. He was searching the Lieutenant’s body for coins. He dared not take anything that might be recognized as the Lieutenant’s property, so he left the dead man’s sabre and the gilded gorget he had worn about his throat, but he did find a handful of unidentifiable small change which he pushed into his pouch before scrambling a few feet away to make sure no one saw him with his victim.
“Who’s that?’ Morris called as he heard Hakeswill pushing through the undergrowth.
‘Me, sir!’ Hakeswill called. ‘I’m looking for Lieutenant Fitzgerald, sir.’
‘Come here instead!’ Morris snapped.
Hakeswill ran the last few yards and dropped down between Morris and a frightened Ensign Hicks. Tm worried about Mister Fitzgerald, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Heard him up in the bushes, and there was heathens there, sir. I know, sir, ‘cos I killed a couple of the black bastards.’ He flinched as some muskets flamed and banged some yards away, but he could not tell who fired, or at what.
‘You think the bastards found Fitzgerald?’ Morris asked.
‘I reckon so,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Poor little bastard. I tried to find him, sir, but there was just heathens there.’
‘Jesus.’ Morris ducked as a volley of bullets flicked through the leaves overhead. ‘What about Sergeant Green?’
‘Probably skulking, sir. Hiding his precious hide, I don’t wonder.’
‘We’re all bloody skulking,’ Morris answered truthfully enough.
‘Not me, sir. Not Obadiah Hakeswill, sir. Got me halberd proper wet, sir. Want to feel it, sir?’ Hakeswill held out the spear point. ‘Heathen blood, sir, still warm.’
Morris shuddered at the thought of touching the spear, but took some comfort in having Hakeswill at his side. The tope was filled with shouts as a group of the Tippoo’s troops charged. Muskets hammered. A rocket exploded nearby, while another, this one with a solid shot in its cone, ripped through bushes and crashed into a tree. A man screamed, then the scream was abruptly chopped off. ‘Jesus,’ Morris cursed uselessly.
‘Maybe we should go back?’ Ensign Hicks suggested. ‘Back across the aqueduct?’
‘Can’t, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Buggers are behind us.’
‘You’re sure?’ Morris asked.
‘Fought the black buggers there myself, sir. Couldn’t hold them. A whole tribe of the bastards, sir. Did my best. Lost some good men.’ Hakeswill sniffed with pretended emotion.
‘You’re a brave man, Hakeswill,’ Morris said gruffly.
‘Just following your lead, sir,’ Hakeswill said, then ducked as another enemy volley whipped overhead. A huge cheer sounded, followed by the screaming roar of rockets as the Tippoo’s reinforcements, sent from the city, came shouting and fighting through the trees to drive every last infidel from the tope. ‘Bleeding hell,’ Hakeswill said. ‘But not to worry! I can’t die, sir! I can’t die!’
Behind him there was another cheer as the rest of the 33rd at last crossed the aqueduct.
‘Forward!’ a voice shouted from somewhere behind the Light Company’s scattered fugitives. ‘Forward!’
‘Bloody hell!’ Morris snapped. ‘Who the hell is that?’ ’33rd!’ the voice shouted. ‘To me! To me!’ ‘Stay where you are!’ Morris called to a few eager men, and so they crouched in the warm dark that was loud with the ripping of bullets and filled by the whimpers of dying men and bright with the glare of rockets and foul with the stench of blood that was being spilt in a black place where only chaos and fear prevailed.
CHAPTER 7
‘Sharpe! Sharpe!’ It was Colonel Gudin who, at nightfall, burst’into the barracks room. ‘Come, quick! As you are, hurry!’
‘What about me, sir?’ Lawford asked. The Lieutenant had been idly reading his Bible as he lay on his cot.
‘Come on, Sharpe!’ Gudin did not wait to answer Lawford, but just ran across the barracks’ courtyard and out into the street which separated the European soldiers’ quarters from the Hindu temple. ‘Quick, Sharpe!’ the Frenchman called back as he hurried past a pile of mud bricks that were stacked at the street corner. Sharpe, dressed in tiger-striped tunic and boots, but with no hat, crossbelt, pouches or musket, ran after the Colonel. He leapt over a half-naked man who was sitting cross-legged beside the temple wall, shoved a cow out of his way, then turned the corner and hurried after Gudin towards the Mysore Gate. Lawford had paused to tug on his boots and by the time he reached the street beside the temple, Sharpe had already vanished.