even more nervous by the fact that he was leading a makeshift company
in full view of the thousands of redcoats on the ravine’s northern
slope. It was like being trapped on stage in a full theatre; lose
here, he thought, and all the army would know. He watched the enemy
officer, a tall man with a dark face and a large moustache. He looked
calm and his men marched in three tight ranks. Well trained, Sharpe
thought, but then no one had ever said William Dodd could not whip
troops into shape.
The Cobras stopped when the two units were a hundred paces apart.
They levelled their muskets and Sharpe saw his men falter.
“Keep going!” he ordered.
“Keep going!”
“You heard the man!” the Scottish Sergeant bellowed.
“Keep going!”
Sharpe was at the right-hand flank of his line. He glanced behind to
see more men running to catch up, their equipment flapping as they
stumbled over the uneven ground. Christ, Sharpe thought, but I’m
inside! We’re in! And then the Cobras fired.
And Sharpe, ensign and bullock driver, had a battle on his hands.
The redcoats stormed the gatehouse a third time, this attempt led by
two squads who hugged the walls either side of the passage and then
turned their muskets up to blast the defenders on the opposite fire
step
The tactic seemed to work, for they ripped off their first volley and
under its cover a third squad comprised of axe men charged over the
dead and dying and scrambled up the steep stone path towards the second
gate.
Then the lit rockets began to drop from on high. They struck the
bodies and then flamed into life and ricocheted madly about the
confined space. They tore into the two musket squads, flamed among the
axe men choked men with their smoke, burned them with flame and
exploded to strew the carnage with more blood and guts. The axe men
never even reached the gate. They died under the musket fire that
followed the rockets, or else, wounded, they tried to crawl back
through the thick smoke. Rocks hurtled down from the flanking fire
steps pulping the dead and the living into horror. The survivors fled,
defeated again.
“Enough!” Colonel Dodd shouted at his men.
“Enough!” He peered down into the stone chamber. It looked like
something from hell, a place where broken things twitched in blood
beneath a reeking pall of smoke. The rocket carcasses still burned.
The wounded cried for help that was not coming, and Dodd felt an
elation sear through him. It was even easier than he had dared to
hope.
“Sahib!” Gopal said urgently.
“Sahib?”
“What?”
“Sahib, look!” Gopal was pointing westwards. There was smoke and the
crackling sound of a musket fight. The noise and smoke were coming
from just beyond the curve of the hill so Dodd could not see what was
happening, but the sound was enough to convince him that a considerable
fight had broken out a quarter-mile away, and that might not have
mattered, except that the smoke and the noise came from inside the
wall.
“Jesus!” Dodd swore.
“Find out what’s happening, Gopal. Quick!” He could not lose. He
must not lose.
“Where’s Mister Hakeswill?” he shouted, wanting the deserter to take
over Gopal’s responsibilities on the fire step but the twitching
Sergeant had vanished. The musketry went on, but beneath Dodd there
were only moans and the smell of burning flesh. He stared westwards.
If the damned redcoats had crossed the wall then he would need more
infantry to drive them out and seal whatever place they had found to
penetrate the Inner Fort.
“Havildar!”
He summoned the man who had accompanied Hakeswill to the palace.
“Go to the Southern Gate and tell them to send a battalion here.
Quick!”
“Sahib,” the man said, and ran.
Dodd found that he was shaking slightly. It was just a small tremor in
his right hand which he stilled by gripping the gold elephant-shaped
hilt of his sword. There was no need to panic, he told himself,
everything was under control, but he could not rid himself of the
thought that there would be no escape from this place. In every other