“And she said yes?”
“More or less,” Lockhart said again, blushing more deeply.
“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said admiringly, ‘that’s quick!”
“Real soldiers don’t wait,” Lockhart said, then frowned.
“I heard a rumour you’d been snaffled by the enemy?”
“Got away,” Sharpe said vaguely.
“Buggers were careless.” He turned and watched as an errant rocket
from the fort soared up into the cloudless sky to leave a thickening
pile of smoke through which, eventually, it tumbled harmlessly to
earth.
“Are you really joining the attack?” he asked Lockhart.
“Not in the front rank,” Lockhart said.
“I ain’t a fool. But Colonel Huddlestone says we can go in and look
for Dodd. So we’ll wait for you boys to do the hard work, then
follow.”
“I’ll look out for you.”
“And we’ll keep an eye on you,” Lockhart promised.
“But in the meantime I’ll go and see if someone needs a needle
threaded.”
“You do that,” Sharpe said. He watched the cavalryman walk away, and
saw, at the same time, that Ahmed had been evicted from Clare’s tent
with Sharpe’s few belongings. The boy looked indignant, but Sharpe
guessed their exile from the tent would not last long, for Clare would
surely move to the cavalryman’s quarters before nightfall. Ding dong,
he thought, wedding bells. He took the pouch with its jewels from
Ahmed, then, while his uniform was being tailored, he went to watch the
guns gnaw and batter at the fort.
The young horseman who presented himself at the gate of Gawilghur’s
Inner Fort was tall, arrogant and self-assured. He was dressed in a
white silk robe that was tied at the waist with a red leather belt from
which a golden-hilted tulwar hung in a gem-encrusted scabbard, and he
did not request that the gates be opened, but rather demanded it. There
was, in truth, no good reason to deny his orders, for men were
constantly traversing the ravine between the two forts and Dodd’s
Cobras were accustomed to opening and closing the gates a score of
times each day, but there was something in the young man’s demeanour
that annoyed Gopal. So he sent for Colonel Dodd.
Dodd arrived a few moments later with the twitching English Sergeant at
his side. The horseman rounded on Dodd, shouting at him to punish
Gopal, but Dodd just spat, then turned to Hakeswill.
“Why would a man be riding a horse out of this gate?”
“Wouldn’t know, sir,” Hakeswill said. The Sergeant was now dressed in
a white coat that was crossed with a black sash as a sign of rank,
though quite what rank the sash denoted was uncertain.
“There’s nowhere to exercise a horse,” Dodd said, ‘not unless he plans
to ride through the Outer Fort into the English camp. Ask him his
business, Gopal.”
The young man refused to answer. Dodd shrugged, drew his pistol and
aimed it at the horseman’s head. He cocked the gun and the sound of
the hammer engaging echoed loudly from the ramparts. The young man
blanched and shouted at Gopal.
“He says, sahib, that he is on an errand for the Killadar,” Gopal
explained to Dodd.
“What errand?” Dodd demanded. The young man plainly did not want to
answer, but Dodd’s grim face and the levelled pistol persuaded him to
take a sealed packet from the pouch that hung from his belt.
He showed Dodd the Killadar’s seal, but Dodd was not impressed by the
red wax with its impression of a snake curled about a knife blade.
“Who is it addressed to?” he demanded, gesturing that the young man
turn the package over.
The horseman obeyed and Dodd saw that the packet was addressed to the
commanding officer of the British camp. It must have been written by a
clerk who was unfamiliar with the English language, for it was
atrociously spelt, but the words were unmistakable and Dodd stepped
forward and seized the horse’s bridle.
“Haul him out of the saddle, Gopal,” Dodd ordered, ‘hold him in the
guardroom and send a man to fetch Manu Bappoo.”
The young man attempted a momentary resistance, even half drawing his
tulwar from its precious scabbard, but a dozen of Dodd’s men easily
overpowered him. Dodd himself turned away and climbed the steps to the