the hell they’re doing. That’s the job. It’s beating hell out of the
other side and keeping your own men alive, and I can do that.”
Garrard looked sceptical.
“If they let you.”
“Aye, if they let me,” Sharpe agreed. He sat in silence for a while,
watching the far gun emplacement. He could see men there, but was not
sure what they were doing.
“Where’s Hakeswill?” he asked.
“I looked for him yesterday, and the bugger wasn’t on parade with the
rest of you.”
“Captured,” Garrard said.
“Captured?”
“That’s what Morris says. Me, I think the bugger ran. Either ways,
he’s in the fort now.”
“You think he ran?”
“We had two fellows murdered the other night. Morris says it were the
enemy, but I didn’t see any of the buggers, but there was some fellow
creeping round saying he was a Company colonel, only he weren’t.”
Garrard stared at Sharpe and a slow grin came to his face.
“It were you, Dick.”
“Me?” Sharpe asked straight-faced.
“I was captured, Tom. Only escaped yesterday.”
“And I’m the king of bloody Persia. Lowry and Kendrick were meant to
arrest you, weren’t they?”
“It was them who died?” Sharpe asked innocently.
Garrard laughed.
“Serve them bloody right. Bastards, both of them.”
An enormous blossom of smoke showed at the distant wall on the top of
the cliffs. Two seconds later the sound of the great gun bellowed all
around Sharpe and Garrard, while the massive round shot struck the
stalled limber just behind the enfilading battery. The wooden vehicle
shattered into splinters and all five men were hurled to the ground
where they jerked bloodily for a few seconds and then were still.
Fragments of stone and wood hissed past Sharpe.
“Bloody hell,” Garrard said admiringly, ‘five men with one shot!”
“That’ll teach ’em to keep their heads down,” Sharpe said. The sound
of the enormous gun had drawn men from their tents towards the
plateau’s edge. Sharpe looked round and saw that Captain Morris was
among them. The Captain was in his shirtsleeves, staring at the great
cloud of smoke through a telescope.
“I’m going to stand up in a minute,” Sharpe said, ‘and you’re going to
hit me.”
“I’m going to do what?” Garrard asked.
“You’re going to thump me. Then I’m going to run, and you’re going to
chase me. But you’re not to catch me.”
Garrard offered his friend a puzzled look.
“What are you up to, Dick?”
Sharpe grinned.
“Don’t ask, Tom, just do it.”
“You are a bloody officer, aren’t you?” Garrard said, grinning back.
“Don’t ask, just do it.”
“Are you ready?” Sharpe asked “I’ve always wanted to clobber an
officer.”
“On your feet then.” They stood.
“So hit me,” Sharpe said.
“I’ve tried to pinch some cartridges off you, right? So give me a
thump in the belly.”
“Bloody hell,” Garrard said.
“Go on, do it!”
Garrard gave Sharpe a half-hearted punch, and Sharpe shoved him back,
making him fall, then he turned and ran along the cliff’s edge.
Garrard shouted, scrambled to his feet and began to pursue. Some of
the men who had gone to fetch the five bodies moved to intercept
Sharpe, but he dodged to his left and disappeared among some bushes.
The rest of the 33rd’s Light Company was whooping and shouting in
pursuit, but Sharpe had a long lead on them and he twisted in and out
of the shrubs to where he had picketed one of Syud Sevajee’s horses. He
pulled the peg loose, hauled himself into the saddle and kicked back
his heels. Someone yelled an insult at him, but he was clear of the
camp now and there were no mounted picquets to pursue him.
A half-hour later Sharpe returned, trotting with a group of native
horsemen coming back from a reconnaissance. He peeled away from them
and dismounted by his tent where Ahmed waited for him While Sharpe and
Garrard had made the diversion the boy had been thieving and he grinned
broadly as Sharpe ducked into the hot tent.
“I have every things,” Ahmed said proudly.
He had taken Captain Morris’s red coat, his sash and his sword-belt
with its sabre.
“You’re a good lad,” Sharpe said. He needed a red coat, for Colonel