towards the camp. None went near their targets, but their sound and
the flaming exhausts were nerve-racking. The first shells were fired,
and they added to the night’s din as they cracked apart among the rocks
to whistle shards of shattered casing over the struggling sappers. The
firing was deliberate as the gun captains took care to lay their pieces
before firing, but still there were six or seven shots every minute,
while the rockets were more constant. Morris tried to use the
brightness of the rocket trails to see the ground between his hiding
place and the fort, but there was too much smoke, the shadows flickered
wildly, and his imagination made movement where there was none. He
held his fire, reckoning he would hear the gate open or the sound of
enemy footsteps. He could hear the defenders shouting on the wall,
either calling insults to the enemy hidden in the dark or else
encouraging each other.
Hakeswill, at the very right-hand end of the line, cowered among the
rocks. He had been sheltering with Kendrick and Lowry, but the enemy
cannonade had driven him still further right to where there was a deep
cleft. He knew he was safe there, but even so every screaming rocket
made him flinch, while the sound of the shells exploding and the round
shots cracking against stone made him draw his knees up into his chest.
He knew there was a senior officer visiting the picquet line because
the message telling of the Colonel’s presence had been passed down the
line. Kenny’s visit struck Hakeswill as a daft thing for any man with
gold braid on his coat to do, but when the Colonel hissed his name
aloud he kept silent. At least he assumed it was the visiting officer,
for the summons was insistent and authoritative, but Hakeswill ignored
it. He did not want to draw attention to himself in case the heathen
blackamoor gunners aimed their cannon at him. Let the officer hiss
away, he decided, and a moment later the man went away.
“Who are you?” a low voice asked Private Kendrick just a few yards
from Hakeswill’s hiding place.
“Kendrick, sir.”
“To me, Private. I need your help.”
Kendrick slipped back towards the voice. Bastard interfering officer,
he thought, but he had to obey.
“Where are you, sir?” he asked.
“Here, man! Hurry, now, hurry!”
Kendrick slipped on a slanting stone and sat down with a bump. A
rocket slashed overhead, spewing fire and sparks, and in its brief
light he saw a shadow above him, then felt a blade at his throat.
“One noise,” the voice hissed, ‘and you’re dead.”
Kendrick went very still. He did not make any noise at all, but he
still died.
A lucky shell struck a pair of oxen, disembowelling the beasts that
lowed pitifully as they collapsed onto the road.
“Get them out of the way!” a voice roared, and sepoys struggled with
the massive animals, cutting their harnesses and pulling the dying
beasts into the rocks.
Other men ran the empty cart back to the encampment, making way for the
next wagon to drag more gab ions forward.
“Kill them!” the officer ordered.
“Use your bayonets! No musket fire!” The sepoys finished off the
oxen, stabbing again and again into their thick necks while the bloody
hooves thrashed violently. Another shell landed nearby, slicing its
fragments among the rocks. The road was slippery with spilled guts
over which the next cart rolled impassively, its axle screeching like a
demon.
“All well, soldier?” a voice asked Private Lowry.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m Colonel Kenny,” the man said, dropping down beside Lowry.
“Yes, sir,” Lowry acknowledged nervously.
“See anything?”
“Nothing, sir,” Lowry said, then gasped as he felt a blade at his
throat.
“Where’s Hakeswill?” the voice hissed in his ear, and Lowry suddenly
knew this was not Colonel Kenny who had him in a tight grip.
“Dunno, sir,” Lowry said, then began to cry out, but the cry was cut
off as the blade sawed deep into his gullet.
A ball, fired low, struck plumb on the great boulder that sheltered
Hakeswill and the Sergeant whimpered as he tried to wriggle deeper into