no way of reaching the plateau except to ride all the way down to the
plain and then back up the newly cut road, a distance of over twenty
miles. He could only wait and hope.
“You’ll advance your skirmishers, Colonel?” he suggested to Wallace.
The 74th’s skirmishers could not hope to achieve much, but at least
their presence would confirm the threat to the southern walls and so
pin those defenders down.
“But spread them out,” Wellesley advised, ‘spread them well out.” By
scattering the Light Company across the hot hillside he would protect
them from cannon fire.
Beyond the southern ramparts, far beyond, a pillar of smoke smeared the
sky grey. The sound of firing rose and fell, muted by the hot air that
shimmered over the fort’s black walls. Wellesley fidgeted and hoped to
God his gamble would pay off and that his redcoats, God alone knew how,
had found a way into the fort that had never before fallen.
“Give them fire!” Major Stokes roared at the men on the ravine’s
northern side.
“Give them fire!” Other officers took up the call, and the men who had
been watching the fight across the ravine loaded their fire locks and
began peppering the gatehouse with musket balls. Stokes had climbed
back up the northern side of the ravine so that he could see across the
farther wall, and he now watched as the two small groups of redcoats
advanced raggedly over the hillside. A column was farthest away, while
the nearer men were in a line, and both advanced on the strongly
garrisoned gatehouse which had just repelled yet another British attack
through the broken gate. Those defenders would now turn their muskets
on the new attackers and so Stokes roared at men to fire across the
ravine. The range was terribly long, but any distraction would help.
The gunners who had smashed down the gate fired at the parapets, their
shots chipping at stone.
“Go, man, go!” Stokes urged Sharpe.
“Go!”
Captain Morris, his mouth swollen and bleeding, and with a bruise
blackening one eye and another disfiguring his forehead, staggered up
the hillside.
“Major Stokes!” he called petulantly.
“Major Stokes.”
Stokes turned to him. His first reaction was that Morris must have
been wounded trying to cross the wall, and he decided he must have
misjudged the man who was not, after all, such a coward.
“You need a surgeon, Captain?”
“That bloody man, Sharpe! He hit me! Hit me! Stole my company. I
want charges levelled.”
“Hit you?” Stokes asked, bemused.
“Stole my company!” Morris said in outrage.
“I ordered him to go away, and he hit me! I’m telling you, sir,
because you’re a senior officer.
You can talk to some of my men, sir, and hear their story. Some of
them witnessed the assault, and I shall look for your support, sir, in
the proceedings.”
Stokes wanted to laugh. So that was how Sharpe had found the men!
“I
think you’d better forget bringing charges against Mister Sharpe,” the
engineer said.
“Forget bringing charges?” Morris exclaimed.
“I will not! I’ll break the bastard!”
“I doubt it,” Stokes said.
“He hit me!” Morris protested.
“He assaulted me!”
“Nonsense,” Stokes said brusquely.
“You fell over. I saw you do it.
Tripped and tumbled. And that’s precisely what I’ll allege at any
court martial. Not that there’ll be a court martial. You simply fell
over, man, and now you’re suffering from delusions! Maybe it’s a touch
of the sun, Captain? You should be careful, otherwise you’ll end up
like poor
Harness. We shall ship you home and you’ll end your days in bedlam
with chains round your ankles.”
“Sir! I protest!” Morris said.
“You protest too much, Captain,” Stokes said.
“You tripped, and that’s what I shall testify if you’re foolish enough
to bring charges.
Even my boy saw you trip. Ain’t that so, Ahmed?” Stokes turned to get
Ahmed’s agreement, but he had vanished.
“Oh, God,” Stokes said, and started down the hill to find the boy.
But sensed he was already too late.
The first hundred paces of Sharpe’s advance were easy enough, for the
sun-baked ground was open and his men were still out of sight of the