‘Forward!’ Sharpe obediently bellowed into the dark trees. ‘Forward!’ He paused, listening for an answer. ’33rd! To me! To me!’
No one responded. ‘Try a name,’ Gudin suggested.
Sharpe invented an officer’s name. ‘Captain Fellows! This way!’ He called it a dozen times, but there was no response. ‘Hakeswill!’ he finally shouted. ‘Sergeant Hakeswill!’
Then, from maybe thirty paces away, the hated voice called back, ‘Who’s that?’ The Sergeant sounded suspicious.
‘Come here, man!’ Sharpe snapped.
Hakeswill ignored the order, but me fact that a man had replied at all cheered Gudin who had quiedy formed the stray unit of the Tippoo’s infantry into a line that waited to kill whoever came in response to Sharpe’s hailing. Chaos reigned ahead. Rockets banged into branches, musket flames flared in the drifting smoke, while bullets thumped into trees or crackled through the thick leaves. A bloodthirsty cheer sounded a long way off, but whether it was Indian or British troops who cheered, Sharpe could not tell.
One thing was plain to Sharpe. The 33rd was in trouble. Poor Jed Mallinson should never have been abandoned to die, and that sad death, along with the scattered sounds of firing, suggested that the Tippoo’s men had succeeded in splitting the attacking force and was now picking it off piece by piece. It was now or never, Sharpe reckoned. He had to get away from Gudin and somehow rejoin his battalion. ‘I
need to get closer, sir,’ he told the Colonel and, without waiting for Gudin’s consent, he ran deeper into the trees. ‘Sergeant Hakeswill!’ he shouted as he ran. ‘To me, now! Now! Come on, you miserable bastard! Move your bloody self! Come on!’ He could hear Gudin following him, so Sharpe fell silent and, suddenly deep in shadow, dodged off to his right.
‘Sharpe!’ Gudin hissed, but Sharpe was well away from the Colonel now and he reckoned he had done it without looking like a deserter.
‘Sergeant Hakeswill!’ Sharpe bellowed, then ran on again. There was a danger that by shouting he would keep Gudin on his heels, but it was a greater danger to let the Frenchman think that he was deliberately trying to rejoin the British, for then Lawford might suffer, and so Sharpe ran the risk as he worked his way still farther into the dense trees. ‘Hakeswill! To me! To me!’ He pushed through thick foliage, tripped over a bush, picked himself up and ran on into a clearing. ‘Hakeswill!’ he shouted.
A rocket crashed into a branch high above Sharpe and slashed straight down into the clearing ahead of him. Once on the ground the missile circled furiously like a mad dog chasing its own tail and the brilliant light of the exhaust lit the trees all around. Sharpe flinched away from the lash of the fiery tail and almost ran straight into Sergeant Hakeswill who had suddenly appeared from the bushes to his left.
‘Sharpie!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘You bastard!’ He slashed wildly at Sharpe with his bloody halberd. Morris, hearing Hakeswill’s name shouted, had ordered the Sergeant to find whoever was summoning him and Hakeswill had unwillingly obeyed. Now, suddenly, Hakeswill was alone with Sharpe and the Sergeant slammed the spear forward again. ‘Traitorous little bastard!’ Hakeswill said.
‘For Christ’s sake, drop it!’ Sharpe shouted, retreating before the quick lunges of the spear head.
‘Running off to the enemy, Sharpie?’ Hakeswill said. ‘I
should take you in, shouldn’t I? It’ll be another court martial and a firing party this time. But I won’t risk that. I’m going to put your gizzards on a skewer, Sharpie, and send you back to your maker. And wearing a frock, too?’ The Sergeant stabbed again, and Sharpe leapt back once more, but then the dying rocket fizzed across the clearing and its long bamboo stick tangled Sharpe’s legs. He fell backwards and Hakeswill gave a shout of triumph as he sprang towards him with the halberd poised ready to lunge downwards.
Sharpe felt the rocket’s iron tube under his right hand, gripped it and threw it up at Hakeswill’s face. The rocket’s gunpowder fuel was almost gone, but there was just enough left to spurt one last sudden flame that licked across Hakeswill’s blue-eyed face. The Sergeant screamed, dropped the halberd and clapped his hands to his eyes. To his surprise he discovered he could still see and that his face was not badly burned, but in his panic he had stumbled past Sharpe and so now he turned back and, as he did so, he dragged a pistol out of his belt.