man to be filthy and unnatural. He liked the bibb is he did. He was a
Christian. A Christian gentleman, that’s what he was, and he didn’t
kill himself. I knows who killed him, I do.”
Morris gave Stokes a shrug, as if Hakeswill’s maunderings were beyond
understanding.
“But the nub of the thing is, sir’ – Hakeswill turned back to face
Morris and stood to attention ‘that I ain’t with the bullocks no more,
sir. I’ve got orders, sir, to be back with you where I belongs, sir,
seeing as some other officer has got Captain Torrance’s duties and he
didn’t want me no more on account of having his own sergeant.” He
replaced his shako, then saluted Morris.
“Under orders, sir! With Privates Kendrick and Lowry, sir. Others
have taken over our bullocking duties, sir, and we is back with you
like we always wanted to be. Sir!”
“Welcome back, Sergeant,” Morris said laconically.
“I’m sure the company will be overjoyed at your return.”
“I knows they will, sir,” Hakeswill said.
“I’m like a father to them, sir, I am,” Hakeswill added to Stokes.
Stokes frowned.
“Who do you think killed Captain Torrance, Sergeant?” he asked, and
when Hakeswill said nothing, but just stood with his face twitching,
the Major became insistent.
“If you know, man, you must speak! This is a crime! You have a duty
to speak.”
Hakeswill’s face wrenched itself.
“It were him, sir.” The Sergeant’s eyes widened.
“It were Sharpie, sir!”
Stokes laughed.
“Don’t be so absurd, man. Poor Sharpe is a prisoner!
He’s locked away in the fortress, I’ve no doubt.”
“That’s what we all hear, sir,” Hakeswill said, ‘but I knows better.”
“A touch of the sun,” Morris explained to Stokes, then waved the
Sergeant away.
“Put your kit with the company, Sergeant. And I’m glad you’re back.”
“Touched by your words, sir,” Hakeswill said fervently, ‘and I’m glad
to be home, sir, back in me own kind where I belong.” He saluted
again, then swivelled on his heel and marched away.
:
“Salt of the earth,” Morris said.
Major Stokes, from his brief acquaintance with Hakeswill, was not
sure of that verdict, but he said nothing. Instead he wandered a few
paces northwards to watch the sappers who were busy scraping at the
plateau’s thin soil to fill gabions that had been newly woven from
green bamboo. The gab ions great wicker baskets stuffed with earth,
would be stacked as a screen to soak up the enemy gunfire while the
battery sites were being levelled. Stokes had already decided to do
the initial work at night, for the vulnerable time for making batteries
close to a fortress was the first few hours, and at night the enemy
gunfire was , likely to be inaccurate.
The Major was making four batteries. Two, the breaching ones, would be
constructed far down the isthmus among an outcrop of great black
boulders that lay less than a quarter-mile from the fortress. The
rocks, with the gab ions would provide the gunners some protection :
from the fortress’s counter-fire. Sappers, hidden from the fort by the
lie of the land, were already driving a road to the proposed site of
the breaching guns. Two other batteries would be constructed to the
east of the isthmus, on the edge of the plateau, and those guns would
enfilade the growing breaches.
There would be three breaches. That decision had been made when
Stokes, early in the dawn, had crept as close to the fortress as he had
dared and, hidden among the tumbled rocks above the half-filled tank,
had examined the Outer Fort’s wall through his telescope. He had
stared a long time, counting the gun embrasures and trying to estimate
how many men were stationed on the bastions and fire steps Those were
details that did not really concern him for Stokes’s business was
confined to breaking the walls, but what he saw encouraged him.
There were two walls, both built on the steep slope which faced the
, plateau. The slope was so steep that the base of the inner wall
showed high above the parapet of the outer wall, and that was excellent
news, for making a breach depended on being able to batter the base of