“Half the army,” Wellesley said, ‘the other half will stay on the
plain.”
He would need to hold Gawilghur between his redcoats like a nut, and
hope that when he squeezed it was the nut, and not the nutcracker, that
broke. He pulled himself back into the saddle, then waited as the
other officers mounted. Then he turned his mare and started back
towards the camp.
“It’ll be up to the engineers to get us onto the heights,” he said,
‘then a week’s hard carrying to lift the ammunition to the batteries.”
The thought of that job made the General frown.
“What’s the problem with the bullock train?” he demanded of Butters.
“I’m hearing complaints.
Over two thousand muskets stolen from convoys, and Huddlestone tells me
there are no spare horseshoes; that can’t be right!”
“Torrance says that bandits have been active, sir,” Butters said.
“And I gather there have bepn accidents,” he added lamely.
“Who’s Torrance?” Wellesley asked.
“Company man, sir, a captain. He took over poor Mackay’s duties.”
“I could surmise all that for myself,” the General said acidly.
“Who is he?”
Butters blushed at the reproof.
“His father’s a canon at Wells, I think.
Or maybe Salisbury? But more to the point, sir, he has an uncle in
Leadenhall Street.”
Wellesley grunted. An uncle in Leadenhall Street meant that Torrance
had a patron who was senior in the East India Company,
someone to wield the influence that a clergyman father might not
have.
“Is he as good as Mackay?”
Butters, a heavy-set man who rode his horse badly, shrugged.
“He was recommended by Huddlestone.”
“Which means Huddlestone wanted to be rid of him,” Wellesley snapped.
“I’m sure he’s doing his best,” Butters said defensively.
“Though he did ask me for an assistant, but I had to turn him down.
I’ve no one to spare. I’m short of engineers already, sir, as you well
know.”
“I’ve sent for more,” Wellesley said.
Wallace intervened.
“I gave Torrance one of my ensigns, Sir Arthur.”
“You can spare an ensign, Wallace?”
“Sharpe, sir.”
“Ah.” Wellesley grimaced.
“Never does work out, does it? You lift a man from the ranks and you
do him no favours.”
“He might be happier in an English regiment,” Wallace said, ‘so I’m
recommending he exchanges into the Rifles.”
“You mean they’re not particular?” Wellesley asked, then scowled.
“How the devil are we to fight a war without horseshoes?” He kicked
back at the mare, angry at the predicament.
“My God, Butters, but your Captain Torrance must do his job!”
Wellesley, better than anyone, knew that he would never take Gawilghur
if the supply train failed.
And Gawilghur had never been taken.
Dear God, Wellesley thought, but how was it ever to be done?
“Big buggers,” Sergeant Eli Lockhart murmured as they neared the two
green tents. The cavalryman was speaking of the guards who lolled in
chairs outside Naig’s tents. There were four in view, and two of them
had bare, oiled chests that bulged with unnatural muscle. Their hair
was never cut, but was instead coiled around their heads. They were
keeping guard outside the larger of the tents, the one Sharpe guessed
was Naig’s brothel. The other tent might have been the merchant’s
living quarters, but its entrance was tightly laced, so Sharpe could
not glimpse inside.
“The two greasy fellows are thejettis,” Sharpe said.
“Big as bloody beeves, they are,” Lockhart said.
“Do they really wring your neck?”
“Back to front,” Sharpe said.
“Or else they drive a nail into your skull with their bare hand.” He
swerved aside to go past the tents. It was not that he feared to pick
a fight with Naig’s guards, indeed he expected a scrap, but there was
no point in going bald-headed into battle. A bit of cleverness would
not go amiss.
“I’m being canny,” he explained to Lockhart, then turned to make sure
that Ahmed was keeping up. The boy was holding Sharpe’s pack as well
as his musket.
The four guards, all of them armed with fire locks and tulwars, watched
the British soldiers walk out of sight.
“They didn’t like the look of us,” Lockhart said.
“Mangy buggers, they are,” Sharpe said. He was glancing about the