the claymore out from his belt and pushed Garrard away from the foot of
the ladder.
“Me first,” he growled, and began to climb. The rungs were springy and
he had the terrible thought that maybe they would break after the first
few men had used the ladder, and then a handful of soldiers would be
trapped inside the fortress where they would be cut down by the
Mahrattas, but there was no time to dwell on that fear, just to keep
climbing. The musket balls raided the stones to left and right in a
torrent of fire that had driven the defenders back from the parapet,
but at any second Sharpe would be alone up there. He roared a shout of
defiance, reached the top of the ladder and extended his free hand to
grip the stone. He hauled himself through the embrasure. He paused,
trying to get a sense of what lay beyond, but Garrard shoved him and he
had no option but to spring through the embrasure.
There was no fire step Jesus, he thought, and jumped. It was not a
long jump down, maybe eight or ten feet, for the ground was higher on
the inner side of the wall. He sprawled on the turf and a musket
bullet whipped over his back. He rolled, got to his feet, and saw that
the defenders had low wooden platforms that they had been using to peer
over the top of the wall. Those defenders were running towards him
now, but they were few, very few, and already Sharpe had five redcoats
on his side of the wall, and more were coming. But so was the enemy,
some from the west and more from the east.
“Tom! Look after those men.” Sharpe pointed westwards, then he turned
the other way and dragged three men into a crude rank.
“Present!” he called. The muskets went up into their shoulders.
“Aim low, boys,” he said.
“Fire!”
The muskets coughed out smoke. A Mahratta slid on the grass. The
others turned and ran, appalled at the stream of men now crossing the
wall. It was a curious mix of English skirmishers, Highland infantry,
sepoys, cavalrymen and even some of Syud Sevajee’s followers in their
borrowed red jackets.
“Two ranks!” Sharpe shouted.
“Quick now! Two ranks! Tom! What’s happening behind me?”
“Buggers have gone, sir.”
“Two ranks!” Sharpe shouted again. He could not see the gatehouse
from here because the hill inside the wall bulged outwards and hid the
great ramparts from him, but the enemy was forming two hundred paces
eastwards. The wall’s defenders, in brown jackets, were joining a
company of white-coated Cobras who must have been in reserve and those
men would have to be defeated before Sharpe could hope to advance on
the gatehouse. He glanced up the hill and saw nothing there except a
building half hidden by trees in which monkeys gibbered. No defenders
there, thank God, so he could ignore his right flank.
A Scottish sergeant had shoved and tugged the men into two ranks.
“Load!” Sharpe said, though most of the men were already loaded.
“Sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“Advance along the wall. No one’s to fire till I give the word.
Sergeant Green?” Sharpe called, waited.
“Sergeant Green!” Green had evidently not crossed the wall yet, or
maybe he had not even climbed the cliff.
“Sergeant Green!” Sharpe bellowed again.
“Why do you need him?” a voice called.
It was a Scottish captain. Christ, Sharpe thought, but he was
outranked.
“To bring the next group on!”
“I’ll do it,” the Scotsman said, ‘you go!”
“Advance!” Sharpe shouted.
“By the centre!” the Sergeant shouted.
“March!”
It was a ragged advance. The men had no file-closers and they spread
out, but Sharpe did not much care. The thing was to close on the
enemy. That had always been McCandless’s advice. Get close and start
killing, because there’s bugger all you can do at long range, though
the Scottish Colonel would never have used that word. This is for you,
McCandless, Sharpe thought, this one’s for you, and it struck him that
this was the first time he had ever taken troops into formal battle,
line against line, muskets against muskets. He was nervous, and made