had plundered a sabre, a pistol and a leather bag, and had a grin as
wide as his face. The bag held two stale loaves of flat bread, some
glass beads and a small book in a strange script. Ahmed gave one loaf
to Sharpe, threw away the book, draped the cheap beads about his neck
and hung the sabre at his waist, then watched as the dragoons cut into
the rearward ranks of the fugitives. There was the blacksmith’s sound
of steel on steel, two horses stumbled in flurries of dust, a man
staggered bleeding into a ditch, pistols banged, a lance shivered point
downwards in the dry turf, and then the enemy horse was gone and the
British and sepoy cavalry reined in.
“Why can’t you be a proper servant?” Sharpe asked Ahmed.
“Clean my boots, wash my clothes, make my supper, eh?”
Ahmed, who did not understand a word, just grinned.
“Instead I get some murderous urchin. So come on, you bugger.”
Sharpe kicked his horse towards the village. He passed a half-empty
tank where some clothes lay to dry on bushes, then he was in the dusty
main street which appeared to be deserted, though he was aware of faces
watching nervously from dark windows and curtain-hung doorways. Dogs
growled from the shade and two chickens scratched in the dust. The
only person in sight was a naked holy man who sat cross legged under a
tree, with his long hair cascading to the ground about him. He ignored
Sharpe, and Sharpe ignored him.
“We have to find a house,” Sharpe told the uncomprehending Ahmed.
“House, see? House.”
The village headman, the naique, ventured into the street. At least
Sharpe assumed he was the naique, just as the naique assumed that the
mounted soldier was the leader of the newly arrived cavalrymen. He
clasped his hands before his face and bowed to Sharpe, then clicked his
fingers to summon a servant carrying a small brass tray on which stood
a little cup of arrack. The fierce liquor made Sharpe’s head feel
suddenly light. The naique was talking ten to the dozen, but Sharpe
quietened him with a wave.
“No good talking to me,” he said, “I’m nobody. Talk to him.” He
pointed to Colonel Huddlestone who was leading his Indian cavalrymen
into the village. The troopers dismounted as Huddlestone talked to the
headman. There was a squawk as the two chickens were snatched up.
Huddlestone turned at the sound, but his men all looked innocent.
High above Sharpe a gun banged in the fortress. The shot seared out to
fall somewhere in the plain where the British infantry marched.
The dragoons came into the village, some with bloodied sabres, and
Sharpe surrendered the two horses to Lockhart. Then he searched the
street to find a house for Torrance. He saw nothing which had a walled
garden, but he did find a small mud-walled home that had a courtyard
and he dropped his pack in the main room as a sign of ownership. There
was a woman with two small children who shrank away from him.
“It’s all right,” Sharpe said, ‘you get paid. No one will hurt you.”
The woman wailed and crouched as though expecting to be hit.
“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said, ‘does no one in this bleeding country speak
English?”
He had nothing to do now until Torrance arrived. He could have hunted
through the village to discover paper, a pen and ink so he could write
to Simone and tell her about going to England, but he decided that
chore could wait. He stripped off his belt, sabre and jacket, found a
rope bed, and lay down.
Far overhead the fortress guns fired. It sounded like distant
thunder.
Sharpe slept.
Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill tugged off his boots, releasing a stench
into the room that caused Captain Torrance to close his eyes.
“Good God,” Torrance said weakly. The Captain felt ill enough already.
He had drunk the best part of a bottle of arrack, had woken in the
night with gripes in the belly, and then slept unevenly until dawn when
someone had scratched at his door and Torrance had shouted at, the pest
to go away, after which he had at last fallen into a deeper sleep. Now