get through the breaches, Richard, for they’re good breaches. A bit
steep, perhaps, but we should get through, but God only knows what
waits beyond. And I fear that the Inner Fort may be a much bigger
obstacle than any of us have anticipated.” He shook his head.
“I
ain’t sanguine, Sharpe, I truly ain’t.”
Sharpe had no idea what sanguine meant, though he did not doubt that
Stokes’s lack of it did not augur well for the attack.
“I have to go into the fort, sir. I have to. But I wondered if you’d
keep an eye on
Ahmed here.” He took hold of the boy’s shoulder and pulled him
forward.
“The little bugger will insist on coming with me,” Sharpe said, ‘but if
you keep him out of trouble then he might survive another day.”
“He can be my assistant,” Stokes said happily.
“But, Richard, can’t I persuade you to the same employment? Are you
ordered to accompany Kenny?”
“I’m not ordered, sir, but I have to go. It’s personal business.”
“It will be bloody in there,” Stokes warned. He walked on to his tent
and shouted for his servant.
Sharpe pushed Ahmed towards Stokes’s tent.
“You stay here, Ahmed, you hear me? You stay here!”
“I come with you,” Ahmed insisted.
“You bloody well stay,” Sharpe said. He twitched Ahmed’s red coat.
“You’re a soldier now. That means you take orders, understand? You
obey. And I’m ordering you to stay here.”
The boy scowled, but he seemed to accept the orders, and Stokes showed
him a place where he could sleep. Afterwards the two men talked, or
rather Sharpe listened as Stokes enthused about some fine quartz he had
discovered in rocks broken open by the enemy’s counter battery fire.
Eventually the Major began yawning. Sharpe finished his tea, said his
good night and then, making certain that Ahmed did not see him go, he
slipped away into the dark.
He still could not sleep. He wished Clare had not gone to Eli
Lockhart, although he was glad for the cavalryman that she had, but her
absence made Sharpe feel lonely. He walked to the cliff’s edge and he
stood staring across the great gulf towards the fortress. A few lights
showed in Gawilghur, and every twenty minutes or so the rocky isthmus
would be lit by the monstrous flame of the eighteen-pounder gun. The
balls would rattle against stone, then there would be silence except
for the distant sound of singing, the crackle of insects and the soft
sigh of the wind against the cliffs. Once, when the great gun fired,
Sharpe distinctly saw the three ragged holes in the two walls. And
why, he wondered, was he so intent on going into those deathtraps? Was
it revenge? Just to find Hakeswill and Dodd? He could wait for the
attackers to do their work, then stroll into the fort unopposed, but he
knew he would not choose that easy path. He would go with Kenny’s men
and he would fight his way into Gawilghur for no other reason than
pride. He was failing as an officer. The 74th had rejected him,
the Rifles did not yet know him, so Sharpe must take a reputation back
to England if he was to stand any chance of success.
So tomorrow he must fight. Or else he must sell his commission and
leave the army. He had thought about that, but he wanted to stay in
uniform. He enjoyed the army, he even suspected he was good at the
army’s business of fighting the King’s enemies. So tomorrow he would
do it again, and thus demonstrate that he deserved the red sash and the
sword.
So in the morning, when the drums beat and the enemy guns beat even
harder, Sharpe would go into Gawilghur.
CHAPTER 9
At dawn there was a mist in Deogaum, a mist that sifted through the
rain trees and pooled in the valleys and beaded on the tents.
“A touch of winter, don’t you think?” Sir Arthur Wellesley commented
to his aide, Campbell.
“The thermometer’s showing seventy-eight degrees, sir,” the young
Scotsman answered drily.
“Only a touch of winter, Campbell, only a touch,” the General said.