staggered backwards and a sepoy folded over silently and clutched his
bleeding belly. A small dog yapped at the soldiers. The smoke was
clearing from the mouth of the cannon.
“You’ve got one volley,” Sharpe called, ‘then we charge. Sergeant
Green? I don’t want your men to fire now. Wait till we reach the top
of the steps, then give us covering fire.” Sharpe wanted to lash out
with his boot at the damned dog, but he forced himself to show calm as
he paced down the front of the line.
“Aim well, boys, aim well! I want that wall cleared.” He stepped into
a space between two files.
“Fire!”
The single volley flamed towards the top of the wall and Sharpe
immediately ran at the steps without waiting to see the effect of the
fire. Campbell was already at the innermost gate, lifting its heavy
bar.
He had a dozen men ready to enter the passageway, while the rest of his
company faced back into the fort’s interior to fight off any of the
garrison who might come down from the buildings on the hill.
Sharpe took the steps two at a time. This is bloody madness, he
thought. Suicide in a hot place. Should have stayed in the ravine.
The sun beat off the stones so that it was like being in an oven. There
were men with him, though he could not see who they were, for he was
only aware of the top of the stairs, and of the men in white who were
turning to face him with bayonets, and then Green’s first volley
slammed into them, and one of the men spun sideways, spurting a spray
of blood from his scalp, and the others instinctively twitched away
from the volley and Sharpe was there, the claymore slashing in a
haymaker’s sweep that bounced off the wounded man’s skull to drive a
second man over the wall’s unprotected edge and into the passageway.
Where the innermost gate was opening, scraping on the stone and
squealing on its huge hinges as Campbell’s men heaved on the vast
doors.
A bayonet lunged at Sharpe, catching his coat, and he hammered the hilt
of the claymore down onto the man’s head, then brought up his knee.
Lockhart was beside him, fighting with a cold-blooded ferocity, his
sabre spattering drops of blood with every cut or lunge.
“Over there!” Lockhart shouted to his men, and a half-dozen of the
cavalrymen ran across the top of the archway to challenge the defenders
on the outer walkway. Tom Garrard came up on Sharpe’s right and
plunged his bayonet forward in short, disciplined strokes. More men
ran up the stairs and pushed at those in front so that Sharpe, Lockhart
and Garrard were shoved forward against the enemy who had no space to
use their bayonets. The press of men also protected Sharpe from the
enemy’s muskets. He beat down with the heavy sword, using his height
to dominate the Indians who were keening a high-pitched war cry.
A bayonet hit Sharpe plumb on his hip bone and he felt the steel grind
on bone and he slammed the claymore’s hilt down onto the man’s head to
crumple his shako, then down again to beat the man to the ground. The
bayonet fell away and Sharpe climbed over the stunned man to slash at
another defender. A musket banged close by him and he felt the scorch
of the barrel flame on his burnt cheek. The press of men was thick,
too thick to make progress, even though he beat at them with the sword
which he cut downwards with both hands.
“Throw them over the bloody side!” Lockhart shouted, and the tall
cavalryman slashed his sabre, just missing Sharpe, but the hissing
blade drove the enemy frantically back and two of them, caught on the
edge of the fire step screamed and fell to where they were beaten to
death by the musket butts of Campbell’s Highlanders. Campbell himself
was running to the next gate. Two more gates to unbar and the way
would be open, but the Cobras were thick on the walls and Dodd was
screaming at them to shoot into the press of men, attackers and