him a job it was a useless errand.
A shout made him look to his right where a score of native cavalrymen
were slicing apart the robes of the dead Arabs in search of coins and
trinkets. The scavengers were Mahrattas who had sold their services to
the British and Sharpe guessed that the horsemen had not joined the
pursuit for fear of being mistaken for the defeated enemy. One of the
Arabs had only been feigning death and now, despite being hugely
outnumbered, defied his enemies with a pistol that he dragged from
beneath his robe. The taunting cavalrymen had made a ring and the Arab
kept twisting around to find that his tormentor had skipped away before
he could aim the small gun.
The Arab was a short man, then he turned again and Sharpe saw the
bruised, bloody face and recognized the child who had charged the 74th
so bravely. The boy was doomed, for the ring of cavalrymen was slowly
closing for the kill. One of the Mahrattas would probably die, or at
least be horribly injured by the pistol ball, but that was part of the
game. The boy had one shot, they had twenty. A man prodded the boy in
the back with a lance point, making him whip round, but the man with
the lance had stepped fast back and another man slapped the boy’s
headdress with a tulwar. The other cavalrymen laughed.
Sharpe reckoned the boy deserved better. He was a kid, nothing more,
but brave as a tiger, and so he crossed to the cavalrymen.
“Let him be!” he called.
The boy turned towards Sharpe. If he recognized that the British
officer was trying to save his life he showed no sign of gratitude;
instead he lifted the pistol so that its barrel pointed at Sharpe’s
face. The cavalrymen, reckoning this was even better sport, urged him
to shoot and one of them approached the boy with a raised tulwar, but
did not strike. He would let the boy shoot Sharpe, then kill him.
“Let him be,” Sharpe said.
“Stand back!” The Mahrattas grinned, but did not move.
Sharpe could take the single bullet, then they would tear the boy into
sabre-shredded scraps of meat.
The boy took a step towards Sharpe.
“Don’t be a bloody fool, lad,” Sharpe said. The boy obviously did not
speak English, but Sharpe’s tone was soothing. It made no difference.
The lad’s hand was shaking and he looked frightened, but defiance had
been bred into his bone. He knew he would die, but he would take an
enemy soul with him and so he nerved himself to die well. Tut the gun
down,” Sharpe said softly.
He was wishing he had not intervened now. The kid was just distraught
enough and mad enough to fire, and Sharpe knew he could do nothing
about it except run away and thus expose himself to the jeers of the
Mahrattas. He was close enough now to see the scratches on the
pistol’s blackened muzzle where the rammer had scraped the metal.
“Don’t be a bloody fool, boy,” he said again. Still the boy pointed
the pistol. Sharpe knew he should turn and run, but instead he took
another pace forward. Just one more and he reckoned he would be close
enough to swat the gun aside.
Then the boy shouted something in Arabic, something about Allah, and
pulled the trigger.
The hammer did not move. The boy looked startled, then pulled the
trigger again.
Sharpe began laughing. The expression of woe on the child’s face was
so sudden, and so unfeigned, that Sharpe could only laugh. The boy
looked as if he was about to cry.
The Mahratta behind the boy swung his tulwar. He reckoned he could
slice clean through the boy’s grubby headdress and decapitate him, but
Sharpe had taken the extra step and now seized the boy’s hand and
tugged him into his belly. The sword hissed an inch behind the boy’s
neck.
“I said to leave him alone!” Sharpe said.
“Or do you want to fight me instead?”
“None of us,” a calm voice said behind Sharpe, ‘wants to fight Ensign
Sharpe.”
Sharpe turned. One of the horsemen was still mounted, and it was this