that gate.” He touched the scorch mark on his cheek.
“That bloody hurts!”
Tut some butter on it,” Garrard said.
“And where do I get bleeding butter here?” Sharpe asked. He shaded
his eyes and peered at the complex ramparts above the big gate, trying
to spot either Dodd or Hakeswill, but although he could see the white
jackets of the Cobras, he could not see a white man on the ramparts.
“It’s going to be a long fight, Tom,” he said.
The British gunners had succeeded in bringing an enemy five pounder
cannon to the edge of the ravine. The sight of the gun provoked a
flurry of fire from the Inner Fort, wreathing its gatehouse in smoke as
the round shot screamed across the ravine to plunge all around the
threatening gun. Somehow it survived. The gunners rammed it, aimed
it, then fired a shot that bounced just beneath the gate, ricocheted up
into the woodwork, but fell back.
The defenders kept firing, but their smoke obscured their aim and the
small captured cannon had been positioned behind a large low rock that
served as a makeshift breastwork. The gunners elevated the barrel a
trifle and their next shot struck plumb on the gates, breaking a
timber.
Each successive shot splintered more wood and was greeted by an ironic
cheer from the redcoats who watched from across the ravine. The gate
was being demolished board by board, and at last a round shot cracked
into its locking bar and the half-shattered timbers sagged on their
hinges.
Colonel Kenny was gathering his assault troops at the foot of the
ravine. They were the same men who had gone first into the breaches of
the Outer Fort, and their faces were stained with powder burns, with
dust and sweat. They watched the destruction of the outer gate of the
Inner Fort and they knew they must climb the path into the enemy’s fire
as soon as the gun had done its work. Kenny summoned an aide.
“You know Plummer?” he asked the man.
“Gunner Major, sir?”
“Find him,” Kenny said, ‘or any gunner officer. Tell them we might
need a light piece up in the gateway.” He pointed with a reddened
sword at the Inner Fort’s gatehouse.
“The passage ain’t straight,” he explained to the aide.
“Get through the gate and we turn hard left. If our axe men can’t deal
with the other gates we’ll need a gun to blow them in.”
The aide climbed back up to the Outer Fort, looking for a gunner.
Kenny talked to his men, explaining that once they were through the
shattered gate they would find themselves faced by another and that the
infantry were to fire up at the flanking fire steps to protect the axe
men who would try to hack their way through the successive obstacles.
“If we put up enough fire,” Kenny said, ‘the enemy’ll take shelter. It
won’t take long.” He looked at his axe men all of them huge sappers,
all carrying vast-bladed axes that had been sharpened to wicked
edges.
Kenny turned and watched the effect of the five-pounder shots. The
gate’s locking bar had been struck plumb, but the gate still held. A
badly aimed shot cracked into the stone beside the gate, starting up
dust, then a correction to the gun sent a ball hammering into the bar
again and the thick timber broke and the remnants of the gates fell
inwards.
“Forward!”
Kenny shouted.
“Forward!”
Four hundred redcoats followed the Colonel up the narrow track that led
to the Inner Fort. They could not run to the assault, for the hill was
too steep; they could only trudge into the fury of Dodd’s fusillade.
Cannon, rockets and muskets blasted down the hill to tear gaps in
Kenny’s ranks.
“Give them fire!” an officer on the ravine’s northern side shouted at
the watching redcoats, and the men loaded their muskets and fired at
the smoke-masked gatehouse. If nothing else, the wild fire might keep
the defenders’ heads down. Another cannon had been fetched from the
Outer Fort, and now added its small round shots to the fury that beat
audibly on the gatehouse ramparts. Those ramparts were thick with the