All of them, Stokes, Sevajee and Lockhart, had entered the Outer Fort
after the fight for the breaches was finished, and now they stood
watching the failure of Kenny’s assault. The survivors of the attack
were crouching just yards from the broken entrance that boiled with
smoke, and Sharpe knew they were summoning the courage to charge
again.
“Poor bastards,” he said.
“No choice in the matter,” Stokes said bleakly.
“No other way in.”
“That ain’t a way in, sir,” Sharpe said dourly, ‘that’s a fast road to
a shallow grave.”
“Overwhelm them,” Stokes said, ‘that’s the way to do it. Overwhelm
them.”
“Send more men to be killed?” Sharpe asked angrily.
“Get a gun over that side,” Stokes suggested, ‘and blast the gates down
one after the other. Only way to prise the place open, Sharpe.”
The covering fire that had blazed across the ravine died when it was
obvious the first attack had failed, and the lull encouraged the
defenders to come to the outer embrasures and fire down at the stalled
attackers.
“Give them fire!” an officer shouted from the bed of the ravine, and
again the muskets flared across the gorge and the balls spattered
against the walls.
Major Stokes had levelled his telescope at the gate where the thick
smoke had at last dissipated.
“It ain’t good,” he admitted.
“It opens onto a blank wall.”
“It does what, sir?” Eli Lockhart asked. The cavalry Sergeant was
looking aghast at the horror across the ravine, grateful perhaps that
the cavalry was never asked to break into such deathtraps.
“The passage turns,” Stokes said.
“We can’t fire straight up the entranceway. They’ll have to drag a gun
right into the archway.”
“They’ll never make it,” Sharpe said. Any gun positioned in the outer
arch would get the full fury of the defensive fire, and those defenders
were protected by the big outer wall. The only way Sharpe could see of
getting into the fortress was by battering the whole gatehouse flat,
and that would take days of heavy cannon fire.
“The gates of hell,” Stokes said softly, staring through his glass at
the bodies left inside the arch.
“Can I borrow the telescope, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Of course.” Stokes cleaned the eyepiece on the hem of his jacket.
“It ain’t a pretty sight though.”
Sharpe took the glass and aimed it across the ravine. He gave the
gatehouse a cursory glance, then edged the lens along the wall which
led westwards from the besieged gate. The wall was not very high,
perhaps only twelve or fifteen feet, much lower than the great ramparts
about the gatehouse, and its embrasures did not appear to be heavily
manned. But that was hardly a surprise, for the wall stood atop a
precipice. The de fences straight ahead were not the wall and its
handful of defenders, but the stony cliff which fell down into the
ravine.
Stokes saw where Sharpe was aiming the glass.
“No way in there, Richard.”
Sharpe said nothing. He was staring at a place where weeds and small
shrubs twisted up the cliff. He tracked the telescope from the bed of
the ravine to the base of the wall, searching every inch, and he
reckoned it could be climbed. It would be hard, for it was perilously
steep, but if there was space for bushes to find lodgement, then a man
could follow, and at the top of the cliff there was a brief area of
grass between the precipice and the wall. He took the telescope from
his eye.
“Has anyone seen a ladder?”
“Back up there.” It was Ahmed who answered.
“Where, lad?”
“Up there.” The Arab boy pointed to the Outer Fort.
“On the ground,” he said.
Sharpe twisted and looked at Lockhart.
“Can you boys fetch me a ladder?”
“What are you thinking of?” Lockhart asked.
“A way in,” Sharpe said, ‘a bloody way in.” He gave the telescope to
Stokes.
“Get me a ladder, Sergeant,” he said, ‘and I’ll fix those buggers
properly. Ahrned? Show Sergeant Lockhart where you saw the ladder.”
“I stay with you,” the boy said stubbornly.
“You bloody don’t.” Sharpe patted the boy on the head, wondering what