Sharpe`s Fortress

CHAPTER 3

Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley rode northwards among a cavalcade of officers whose horses kicked up a wide trail of dust that lingered in the air long after the horsemen had passed. Two troops of East India Company cavalry provided the General's escort. Manu Bappoo's army might have been trounced and its survivors sent skeltering back into Gawilghur, but the Deccan Plain was still infested with Mahratta cavalry ready to pounce on supply convoys, wood-cutting parties or the grass-cutters who supplied the army's animals with fodder and so the two troops rode with sabres drawn. Wellesley set a fast pace, revelling in the freedom to ride in the long open country.

"Did you visit Colonel Stevenson this morning?" he called back to an aide.

"I did, sir, and he's no better than he was."

"But he can get about?"

"On his elephant, sir."

Wellesley grunted. Stevenson was the commander of his smaller army, but the old Colonel was ailing. So was Harness, the commander of one of Wellesley's two brigades, but there was no point in asking about Harness. It was not just physical disease that assaulted Harness, for the Scotsman's wits were gone as well. The doctors claimed it was the heat that had desiccated his brains, but Wellesley doubted the diagnosis. Heat and rum, maybe, but not the heat alone, though he did not doubt that India's climate was bad for a European's health. Few men lived long without falling prey to some wasting fever, and Wellesley was thinking it was time he left himself. Time to go back home before his health was abraded and, more important, before his existence was forgotten in London. French armies were unsettling all Europe and it could not be long before London despatched an army to fight the old foe, and Wellesley wanted to be a part of it. He was in his middle thirties and he had a reputation to make, but first he had to finish off the Mahrattas, and that meant taking Gawilghur, and to that end he was now riding towards the great rampart of cliffs that sealed off the plain's northern edge.

An hour's ride brought him to the summit of a small rise which offered a view northwards. The plain looked dun, starved of water by the failed monsoon, though here and there patches of millet grew tall. In a good year, Wellesley guessed, the millet would cover the plain from horizon to horizon, a sea of grain bounded by the Gawilghur cliffs. He dismounted on the small knoll and took out a telescope that he settled on his horse's saddle. It was a brand new glass, a gift from the merchants of Madras to mark Wellesley's pacification of Mysore. Trade now moved freely on India's eastern flank, and the telescope, which had been specially ordered from Matthew Berge of London, was a generous token of the merchants' esteem, but Wellesley could not get used to it.

The shape of the eyepiece was less concave than the one he was used to, and after a moment he snapped the new telescope shut and pulled out his old glass which, though lower powered, was more comfortable.

He stared for a long time, gazing at the fort which crowned the rock promontory. The black stone of the fortress walls looked particularly sinister, even in the sunlight.

"Good God, " the General muttered after a while. Fail up there, he thought, and there would be no point in going home. He could go to London with some victories under his belt, and men would respect him even if the victories had not been against the French, but go with a defeat and they would despise him. Gawilghur, he thought sourly, had the look of a career-breaker.

Colonel Wallace, Wellesley's healthy brigade commander, had also dismounted and was inspecting the fortress through his own glass.

"Devil of a place, Sir Arthur, " Wallace said "How high is it, Blackiston?" Wellesley called to one of his aides, an engineer.

"I took a triangulation yesterday, sir, " Blackiston said, 'and discovered the fortress walls are eighteen hundred feet above the plain."

"Is there water up there?" Colonel Butters, the chief engineer, asked.

"We hear there is, sir, " Blackiston said.

"There are tanks in the fort;

huge things like lakes."

"But the water level must be low this year?" Butters suggested.

"I doubt it's low enough, sir, " Blackiston murmured, knowing that Butters had been hoping that thirst might defeat the garrison.

"And the rascals will have food, no doubt, " Wellesley commented.

«Doubtless,» Wallace agreed drily.

"Which means they'll have to be prised out, " the General said, then bent to the glass again and lowered the lens to look at the foothills below the bluff. Just south of the fort was a conical hill that rose almost halfway up the flank of the great promontory.

"Can we get guns on that near hill?" he asked.

There was a pause while the other officers decided which hill he was referring to. Colonel Butters flinched.

"We can get them up there, sir, but I doubt they'll have the elevation to reach the fort."

"You'll get nothing bigger than a twelve-pounder up there, " Wallace said dubiously, then slid the telescope's view up the bluff to the walls.

"And you'll need bigger shot than twelve-pounders to break down that wall."

"Sir Arthur! " The warning call came from the officer commanding the East India Company cavalry who was pointing to where a group of Mahratta horsemen had appeared in the south. They had evidently been following the lingering dust cloud left by the General's party and, though the approaching horsemen only numbered about twenty men, the sepoy cavalry wheeled to face them and spread into a line.

"It's all right, " Wellesley called, 'they're ours. I asked them to meet us here." He had inspected the approaching horsemen through his telescope and now, waving the sepoy cavalry back, he walked to greet the silladars.

"Syud Sevajee, " Wellesley acknowledged the man in the shabby green and silver coat who led the cavalrymen, 'thank you for coming."

Syud Sevajee nodded brusquely at Wellesley, then stared up at Gawilghur.

"You think you can get in?"

"I think we must, " Wellesley said.

"No one ever has, " Sevajee said with a sly smile.

Wellesley returned the smile, but slowly, as if accepting the implied challenge, and then, as Sevajee slid down from his saddle, the General turned to Wallace.

"You've met Syud Sevajee, Wallace?"

"I've not had that pleasure, sir."

Wellesley made the introduction, then added that Syud Sevajee's father had been one of the Rajah of Berar's generals.

"But is no longer?" Wallace asked Sevajee.

"Beny Singh murdered him, " Sevajee said grimly, 'so I fight with you, Colonel, to gain my chance to kill Beny Singh. And Beny Singh now commands that fortress." He nodded towards the distant promontory.

"So how do we get inside?" Wellesley asked.

The officers gathered around Sevajee as the Indian drew his tulwar and used its tip to draw a figure eight in the dust. He tapped the lower circle of the eight, which he had drawn far larger than the upper.

"That's what you're looking at, " he said, 'the Inner Fort. And there are only two entrances. There's a road that climbs up from the plain and goes to the Southern Gate." He drew a squiggly line that tailed away from the bottom of the figure eight.

"But that road is impossible. You will climb straight into their guns. A child with a pile of rocks could keep an army from climbing that road. The only possible route into the Inner Fort is through the main entrance." He scratched a brief line across the junction of the two circles.

"Which will not be easy?" Wellesley asked drily.

Sevajee offered the General a grim smile.

"The main entrance is a long corridor, barred by four gates and flanked by high walls. But even to reach it, Sir Arthur, you will have to take the Outer Fort." He tapped the small upper circle of the figure eight.

Wellesley nodded.

"And that, too, is difficult?"

"Again, two entrances, " Sevajee said.

"One is a road that climbs from the plain. You can't see it from here, but it twists up the hills to the west and it comes to the fort here." He tapped the waist of the figure eight.

"It's an easier climb than the southern road, but for the last mile of the journey your men will be under the guns of the Outer Fort. And the final half-mile, General, is steep." He stressed the last word.

"On one side of the road is a cliff, and on the other is a precipice, and the guns of the Outer Fort can fire straight down that half-mile of road."

Colonel Butters shook his head in gloomy contemplation of Sevajee's news.

"How come you know all this?" he asked.

"I grew up in Gawilghur, " Sevajee said.

"My father, before he was murdered, was kill adar of the fortress."

"He knows, " Wellesley said curtly.

"And the main entrance of the Outer Fort?"

«That,» Sevajee said, 'is the fortress's weakest point." He scratched a line that pierced the uppermost curve of the small circle.

"It's the only level approach to the fortress, but it's very narrow. On one side' he tapped the eastern flank of the line 'the ground falls steeply away.

On the other side is a reservoir tank. So to reach the fort you must risk a narrow neck of land that is swept by two ramparts of guns, one above the other."

"Two walls?" Wallace asked.

"Set on a steep hill, " Sevajee said, nodding.

"You must fight uphill across both walls. There is an entrance, but it's like the Inner Fort's entrance: a series of gates with a narrow passage leading from one to the other, and men above you on both sides hurling down rocks and round shot."

"And once we've captured the Outer Fort, " Wellesley asked, 'what then?"

Sevajee offered a wolfish smile.

"Then your troubles are just beginning, Sir Arthur." He scuffed out the diagram he had made in the dust and scratched another, this one showing two circles, one large and one small, with a space between them.

"The two forts are not connected. They are separated here' he tapped the space between the circles with his tulwar — 'and that is a ravine. A deep ravine. So once you have the Outer Fort, you still have to assault the Inner Fort, and its de fences will be untouched. It has a wall which stands at the top of the ravine's cliff, and that is where your enemy will be taking refuge; inside the wall of the Inner Fort. My father reckoned no enemy could ever capture Gawilghur's Inner Fort. If all India should fall, he said, then its heart would still beat at Gawilghur."

Wellesley walked a few paces north to stare at the high promontory.

"How big is the garrison?"

«Normally,» Sevajee said, 'about a thousand men, but now? It could be six or seven times that many. There is room inside for a whole army."

And if the fort did not fall, Wellesley thought, then the Mahrattas would take heart. They would gather a new army and, in the new year, raid southwards again. There would be no peace in western India till Gawilghur fell.

"Major Blackiston?"

"Sir?"

"You'll make an exploration of the plateau." The General turned to

Sevajee.

"Will you escort Major Blackiston up into the hills? I want sketches, Blackiston, of the neck of land leading to the main entrance. I want you to tell me where we can place breaching batteries. I need to know how we can get guns up to the tops of the hills, and I need to know it all within two days."

"Two days?" Blackiston sounded appalled.

"We don't want the rascals to take root up there, do we? Speed, Blackiston, speed! Can you leave now?" This question was directed at Sevajee.

"I can, " Sevajee answered.

Wellesley waved Blackiston on his way.

"Two days, Major! I want you back tomorrow evening!»

Colonel Butters frowned at the far hills.

"You're taking the army to the top?"

"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 encampment and saw what he wanted just a few paces away. It was some straw, and near it was a smouldering campfire, and he screwed a handful of the straw stalks into a spill that he lit and carried to the rear of the smaller tent. He pushed the flaming spill into a fold of the canvas.

A child watched, wide-eyed.

"If you say anything, " Sharpe told the halfnaked child, "I'll screw your head off back to front." The child, who did not understand a word, grinned broadly.

"You're not really supposed to be doing this, are you?" Lockhart asked.

«No,» Sharpe said. Lockhart grinned, but said nothing. Instead he just watched as the flames licked at the faded green canvas which, for a moment or two, resisted the fire. The material blackened, but did not burn, then suddenly it burst into fire that licked greedily up the tent's high side.

"That'll wake 'em up, " Sharpe said.

"What now?" Lockhart asked, watching the flame sear up the tent's side.

"We rescue what's inside, of course." Sharpe drew his sabre.

"Come on, lads! " He ran back to? the front of the tent.

«Fire!» he shouted.

"Fire!

Fetch water! Fire!»

The four guards stared uncomprehendingly at the Englishman, then leaped to their feet as Sharpe slashed at the laces of the small tent's doorway. One of them called a protest to Sharpe.

«Fire!» Lockhart bellowed at the guards who, still unsure of what was happening, did not try to stop Sharpe. Then one of them saw the smoke billowing over the ridge of the tent. He yelled a warning into the larger tent as his companions suddenly moved to pull the Englishman away from the tent's entrance.

"Hold them off! " Sharpe called, and Lockhart's six troopers closed on the three men. Sharpe slashed at the lacing, hacking down through the tough rope as the troopers thumped into the guards. Someone swore, there was a grunt as a fist landed, then a yelp as a trooper's boot slammed into ajettfs groin. Sharpe sawed through the last knot, then pushed through the loosened tent flaps.

«Jesus!» He stopped, staring at the boxes and barrels and crates that were stacked in the tent's smoky gloom.

Lockhart had followed him inside.

"Doesn't even bother to hide the stuff properly, does he?" the Sergeant said in amazement, then crossed to a barrel and pointed to a 19 that had been cut into one of the staves.

"That's our mark! The bugger's got half our supplies! " He looked up at the flames that were now eating away the tent roof.

"We'll lose the bloody lot if we don't watch it."

"Cut the tent ropes, " Sharpe suggested, 'and push it all down."

The two men ran outside and slashed at the guy ropes with their sabres, but more of Naig's men were coming from the larger tent now.

"Watch your back, Eli! " Sharpe called, then turned and sliced the curved blade towards ajetti's face. The man stepped back, and Sharpe followed up hard, slashing again, driving the huge man farther back.

"Now bugger off! " he shouted at the vast brute.

"There's a bloody fire! Fire!»

Lockhart had put his attacker on the ground and was now stamping on his face with a spurred boot. The troopers were coming to help and Sharpe let them deal with Naig's men while he cut through the last of the guy ropes, then ran back into the tent and heaved on the nearest pole. The air inside the tent was choking with swirling smoke, but at last the whole heavy array of canvas sagged towards the fire, lifting the canvas wall behind Sharpe into the air.

«Sahib!» Ahmed's shrill voice shouted and Sharpe turned to see a man aiming a musket at him. The lifting tent flap was exposing Sharpe, but he was too far away to rush the man, then Ahmed fired his own musket and the man shuddered, turned to look at the boy, then winced as the pain in his shoulder struck home. He dropped the gun and clapped a hand onto the wound. The sound of the shot startled the other guards and some reached for their own muskets, but Sharpe ran at them and used his sabre to beat the guns down.

"There's a bloody fire! " he shouted into their faces.

"A fire! You want everything to burn?" They did not understand him, but some realized that the fire threatened their master's supplies and so ran to haul the half-collapsed burning canvas away from the wooden crates.

"But who started the fire?" a voice said behind Sharpe, and he turned to see a tall, fat Indian dressed in a green robe that was embroidered with looping fish and long-legged water-birds. The fat man was holding a halfnaked child by the hand, the same small boy who had watched Sharpe push the burning straw into a crease of the canvas.

"British officers, " the fat man said, 'have a deal of freedom in this country, but does that mean they can destroy an honest man's property?"

"Are you Naig?" Sharpe asked.

The fat man waved to his guards so that they gathered behind him.

The tent had been dragged clear of the crates and was burning itself out harmlessly. The green-robed man now had sixteen or seventeen men with him, four of themjettis and all of them armed, while Sharpe had Lockhart and his battered troopers and one defiant child who was reloading a musket as tall as himself.

"I will give you my name, " the fat man said unpleasantly, 'when you tell me yours."

"Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe."

"A mere ensign! " The fat man raised his eyebrows.

"I thought ensigns were children, like this young man." He patted the half-naked boy's head.

"I am Naig."

"So perhaps you can tell me, " Sharpe said, 'why that tent was stuffed full of our supplies?"

"Your supplies! " Naig laughed.

"They are my goods, Ensign Sharpe.

Perhaps some of them are stored in old boxes that once belonged to your army, but what of that? I buy the boxes from the quartermaster's department."

"Lying bastard, " Sergeant Lockhart growled. He had prised open the barrel with the number 19 incised on its side and now flourished a horseshoe.

«Ours!» he said.

Naig seemed about to order his guards to finish off Sharpe's small band, but then he glanced to his right and saw that two British officers had come from the larger tent. The presence of the two, both captains, meant that Naig could not just drive Sharpe away, for now there were witnesses. Naig might take on an ensign and a few troopers, but captains carried too much authority. One of the captains, who wore the red coat of the Scotch Brigade, crossed to Sharpe.

"Trouble?" he asked. His revels had plainly been interrupted, for his trousers were still unbuttoned and his sword and sash were slung across one shoulder.

"This bastard, sir, has been pilfering our supplies." Sharpe jerked his thumb at Naig then nodded towards the crates.

"It's all marked as stolen in the supply ledgers, but I'll wager it's all there. Buckets, muskets, horseshoes."

The Captain glanced at Naig, then crossed to the crates.

"Open that one, " he ordered, and Lockhart obediently stooped to the box and levered up its nailed lid with his sabre.

"I have been storing these boxes, " Naig explained. He turned to the second captain, an extraordinarily elegant cavalryman in Company uniform, and he pleaded with him in an Indian language. The Company Captain turned away and Naig went back to the Scotsman. The merchant was in trouble now, and he knew it.

"I was asked to store the boxes! " he shouted at the Scotsman.

But the infantry Captain was staring down into the opened crate where ten brand new muskets lay in their wooden cradles. He stooped for one of the muskets and peered at the lock. Just forward of the hammer and behind the pan was an engraved crown with the letters GR beneath it, while behind the hammer the word Tower was engraved.

«Ours,» the Scotsman said flatly.

"I bought them." Naig was sweating now.

"I thought you said you were storing them?" the Scotsman said.

"Now you say you bought them. Which is it?"

"My brother and I bought the guns from silladars, " Naig said.

"We don't sell these Tower muskets, " the Captain said, hefting the gun that was still coated with grease.

Naig shrugged.

"They must have been captured from the supply convoys. Please, sahib, take them. I want no trouble. How was I to know they were stolen?" He turned and pleaded again with the Company cavalry Captain who was a tall, lean man with a long face, but the cavalryman turned and walked a short distance away. A crowd had collected now and watched the drama silently, and Sharpe, looking along their faces, suspected there was not much sympathy for Naig. Nor, Sharpe thought, was there much hope for the fat man. Naig had been playing a dangerous game, but with such utter confidence that he had not even bothered to conceal the stolen supplies. At the very least he could have thrown away the government issue boxes and tried to file the lock markings off the muskets, but Naig must have believed he had powerful friends who would protect him. The cavalryman seemed to be one of those friends, for Naig had followed him and was hissing in his ear, but the cavalryman merely pushed the Indian away, then turned to Sharpe.

"Hang him, " he said curtly.

"Hang him?" Sharpe asked in puzzlement.

"It's the penalty for theft, ain't it?" the cavalryman insisted.

Sharpe looked to the Scottish Captain, who nodded uncertainly.

"That's what the General said, " the Scotsman confirmed.

"I'd like to know how he got the supplies, sir, " Sharpe said.

"You'll give the fat bastard time to concoct a story?" the cavalryman demanded. He had an arrogance that annoyed Sharpe, but everything about the cavalryman irritated Sharpe. The man was a dandy. He wore tall, spurred boots that sheathed his calves and knees in soft, polished leather. His white breeches were skin tight, his waistcoat had gold buttons, while his red tail coat was clean, uncreased and edged with gold braid. He wore a frilled stock, a red silk sash was draped across his right shoulder and secured at his left hip by a knot of golden braid, his sabre was scabbarded in red leather, while his cocked hat was plumed with a lavishly curled feather that had been dyed pale green. The clothes had cost a fortune, and clearly his servants must spend hours on keeping their master so beautifully dressed. He looked askance at Sharpe, a slight wrinkle of his nostrils suggesting that he found Sharpe's appearance distressing. The cavalryman's face suggested he was a clever man, but also that he despised those who were less clever than himself.

"I don't suppose Sir Arthur will be vastly pleased when he hears that you let the fellow live, Ensign, " he said acidly.

"Swift and certain justice, ain't that the penalty for theft? Hang the fat beast."

"That is what the standing orders say, " the Scotch Brigade Captain agreed, 'but does it apply to civilians?"

"He should have a trial! " Sharpe protested, not because he was so committed to Naig's right to a hearing, but because he feared the whole episode was getting out of hand. He had thought to find the supplies, maybe have a mill with Naig's guards, but no one was supposed to die.

Naig deserved a good kicking, but death?

"Standing orders apply to anyone within the picquet lines, " the cavalry Captain averred confidently.

"So for God's sake get on with it!

Dangle the bastard! " He was sweating, and Sharpe sensed that the elegant cavalryman was not quite so confident as he appeared.

"Bugger a trial, " Sergeant Lockhart said happily.

"I'll hang the bastard."

He snapped at his troopers to fetch a nearby ox cart. Naig had tried to retreat to the protection of his guards, but the cavalry Captain had drawn a pistol that he now held close to Naig's head as the grinning troopers trundled the empty ox cart into the open space in front of the pilfered supplies.

Sharpe crossed to the tall cavalryman.

"Shouldn't we talk to him, sir?"

"My dear fellow, have you ever tried to get the truth out of an Indian?"

the Captain asked.

"They swear by a thousand gaudy gods that they'll tell the truth, then lie like a rug! Be quiet! " Naig had begun to protest and the cavalryman rammed the pistol into the Indian's mouth, breaking a tooth and gashing Naig's gum.

"Another damned word, Naig, and I'll castrate you before I hang you." The cavalryman glanced at Sharpe, who was frowning.

"Are you squeamish, Ensign?"

"Don't seem right, sir. I mean I agree he deserves to be hung, but shouldn't we talk to him first?"

"If you like conversation so much, " the cavalryman drawled, 'institute a Philosophical Society. Then you can enjoy all the hot air you like.

Sergeant?" This last was to Lockhart. Take the bastard off my hands, will you?"

"Pleasure, sir." Lockhart seized Naig and shoved him towards the cart.

One of the cavalry troopers had cut a length of guy rope from the burnt remnants of the tent and he now tied one end to the tip of the single shaft that protruded from the front of the ox cart. He made a loop in the rope's end.

Naig screamed and tried to pull away. Some of his guards started forward, but then a hard voice ordered them back and Sharpe turned to see that a tall, thin Indian in a black and green striped robe had come from the larger tent. The newcomer, who looked to be in his forties, walked with a limp. He crossed to the cavalry Captain and spoke quietly, and Sharpe saw the cavalryman shake his head vehemently, then shrug as if to suggest that he was powerless. Then the Captain gestured to Sharpe and the tall Indian gave the Ensign a look of such malevolence that Sharpe instinctively put his hand on his sabre's hilt.

Lockhart had pulled the noose over Naig's head.

"Are you sure, sir?" he asked the cavalry Captain.

"Of course I'm sure, Sergeant, " the cavalryman said angrily.

"Just get on with it."

"Sir?" Sharpe appealed to the Scots Captain, who frowned uncertainly, then turned and walked away as though he wanted nothing more to do with the affair. The tall Indian in the striped robe spat into the dust, then limped back to the tent.

Lockhart ordered his troopers to the back of the cart. Naig was attempting to pull the noose free of his neck, but Lockhart slapped his hands down.

"Now, boys! " he shouted.

The troopers reached up and hauled down on the backboard so that the cart tipped like a seesaw on its single axle and, as the troopers pulled down, so the shaft rose into the air. The rope stretched and tightened.

Naig screamed, then the cavalryman jumped up to sit on the cart's back and the shaft jerked higher still and the scream was abruptly choked off.

Naig was dangling now, his feet kicking wildly under the lavishly embroidered robe. None of the crowd moved, none protested.

Naig's face was bulging and his hands were scrabbling uselessly at the noose which was tight about his neck. The cavalry officer watched with a small smile.

"A pity, " he said in his elegant voice.

"The wretched man ran the best brothel I ever found."

"We're not killing his girls, sir, " Sharpe said.

"That's true, Ensign, but will their next owner treat them as well?"

The cavalryman turned to the big tent's entrance and took off his plumed hat to salute a group of said-clad girls who now watched wideeyed as their employer did the gallows dance.

"I saw Nancy Merrick hang in Madras, " the cavalryman said, 'and she did the jig for thirty seven minutes! Thirty-seven! I'd wagered on sixteen, so lost rather a lot of tin. Don't think I can watch Naig dance for half an hour. It's too damned hot. Sergeant? Help his soul to perdition, will you?"

Lockhart crouched beneath the dying man and caught hold of his heels. Then he tugged down hard, swearing when Naig pissed on him.

He tugged again, and at last the body went still.

"Do you see what happens when you steal from us?" the cavalry Captain shouted at the crowd, then repeated the words in an Indian language.

"If you steal from us, you will die! " Again he translated his words, then gave Sharpe a crooked grin.

"But only, of course, if you're stupid enough to be caught, and I didn't think Naig was stupid at all. Rather the reverse. Just how did you happen to discover the supplies, Ensign?"

"Tent was on fire, sir, " Sharpe said woodenly.

"Me and Sergeant Lockhart decided to rescue whatever was inside."

"How very public-spirited of you." The Captain gave Sharpe a long, speculative look, then turned back to Lockhart.

"Is he dead, Sergeant?"

"Near as makes no difference, sir, " Lockhart called back.

"Use your pistol to make sure, " the Captain ordered, then sighed.

"A

shame, " he said.

"I rather liked Naig. He was a rogue, of course, but rogues are so much more amusing than honest men." He watched as Lockhart lowered the shaft, then stooped over the prostrate body and put a bullet into its skull.

"I suppose I'll have to find some carts to fetch these supplies back where they belong, " the Captain said.

"I'll do that, sir, " Sharpe said.

"You will?" The Captain seemed astonished to discover such willingness.

"Why on earth would you want to do that, Ensign?"

"It's my job, sir, " Sharpe said.

"I'm Captain Torrance's assistant."

"You poor benighted bastard, " the Captain said pityingly.

"Poor, sir? Why?"

"Because I'm Captain Torrance. Good day to you, Ensign." Torrance turned on his heel and walked away through the crowd.

«Bastard,» Sharpe said, for he had suddenly understood why Torrance had been so keen to hang Naig.

He spat after the departed Captain, then went to find some bullocks and carts. The army had its supplies back, but Sharpe had made a new enemy. As if Hakeswill were not enough, he now had Torrance as well.

The palace in Gawilghur was a sprawling one-storey building that stood on the highest point within the Inner Fort. To its north was a garden that curled about the largest of the fortress's lakes. The lake was a tank, a reservoir, but its banks had been planted with flowering trees, and a flight of steps led from the palace to a small stone pavilion on the lake's northern shore. The pavilion had an arched ceiling on which the reflections of the lake's small waves should have rippled, but the season had been so dry that the lake had shrunk and the water level was some eight or nine feet lower than usual. The water and the exposed banks were rimed with a green, foul-smelling scum, but Beny

Singh, the Killadar of Gawilghur, had arranged for spices to be burned in low, flat braziers so that the dozen men inside the pavilion were not too offended by the lake's stench.

"If only the Rajah was here, " Beny Singh said, 'we should know what to do." Beny Singh was a short, plump man with a curling moustache and nervous eyes. He was the fortress commander, but he was a courtier by avocation, not a soldier, and he had always regarded his command of the great fortress as a licence to make his fortune rather than to fight the Rajah's enemies.

Prince Manu Bappoo was not surprised that his brother had chosen not to come to Gawilghur, but had instead fled farther into the hills. The Rajah was like Beny Singh, he had no belly for a fight, but Bappoo had watched the first British troops creep across the plain beneath the fort's high walls and he welcomed their coming.

"We don't need my brother here to know what we must do, " he said.

"We fight." The other men, all commanders of the various troops that had taken refuge in Gawilghur, voiced their agreement.

"The British cannot be stopped by walls, " Beny Singh said. He was cradling a small white lap dog which had eyes as wide and frightened as its master's.

"They can, and they will, " Bappoo insisted.

Singh shook his head.

"Were they stopped at Seringapatam? At Ahmednuggur? They crossed those city walls as though they had wings!

They are what is the word your Arabs use? — djinnsl' He looked about the gathered council and saw no one who would support him.

"They must have the djinns on their side, " he added weakly.

"So what would you do?" Bappoo asked.

"Treat with them, " Beny!Ungh said.

"Ask for cowle."

"Cowled It was Colonel Dodd who intervened, speaking in his crude, newly learned Marathi.

"I'll tell you what terms Wellesley will offer you. None! He'll march you away as a prisoner, he'll slight these walls and take away the Rajah's treasures."

"There are no treasures here, " Beny Singh said, but no one believed him. He was soothing the little dog which had been frightened by the Englishman's harsh voice.

"And he'll give your women to his men as playthings, " Dodd added nastily.

Beny Singh shuddered. His wife, his concubines and his children were all in the palace, and they were all dear to him. He pampered them, worshipped them and adored them.

"Perhaps I should remove my people from the fort?" he suggested hesitantly.

"I could take them to Multai?

The British will never reach Multai."

"You'd run away?" Dodd asked in his harsh voice.

"You bloody won't!»

He spoke those three words in English, but everyone understood what they meant. He leaned forward.

"If you run away, " he said, 'the garrison loses heart. The rest of the soldiers can't take their women away, so why should you? We fight them here, and we stop them here. Stop them dead!»

He stood and walked to the pavilion's edge where he spat onto the green-scummed bank before turning back to Beny Singh.

"Your women are safe here, Killadar. I could hold this fortress from now till the world's end with just a hundred men."

"The British are djinns, " Beny Singh whispered. The dog in his arms was shivering.

"They are not djinns, " Dodd snapped.

"There are no demons! They don't exist!»

"Winged djinns, " Beny Singh said in almost a whimper, 'invisible djinnsl In the air!»

Dodd spat again.

"Bloody hell, " he said in English, then turned fast towards Beny Singh.

"I'm an English demon. Me! Understand? I'm a djinn, and if you take your women away I'll follow you and I'll come to them at night and fill them with black bile." He bared his yellowed teeth and the Killadar shuddered. The white dog barked shrilly.

Manu Bappoo waved Dodd back to his seat. Dodd was the only European officer left in his forces and, though Bappoo was glad to have the Englishman's services, there were times when Colonel Dodd could be tiresome.

"If there are djinns, " Bappoo told Singh, 'they will be on our side." He waited while the Killadar soothed the frightened dog, then he leaned forward.

"Tell me, " he demanded of Beny Singh, 'can the British take the fortress by using the roads up the hill?"

Beny Singh thought about those two steep winding roads that twisted up the hill beneath Gawilghur's walls. No man could survive those climbs, not if the defenders were raining round shot and rocks down the precipitous slopes.

«No,» he admitted.

"So they can only come one way. Only one way! Across the land bridge. And my men will guard the Outer Fort, and Colonel Dodd's men will defend the Inner Fort."

"And no one, " Dodd said harshly, 'no one will get past my Cobras."

He still resented that his well-trained, white-coated soldiers were not defending the Outer Fort, but he had accepted Manu Bappoo's argument that the important thing was to hold the Inner Fort. If, by some chance, the British did capture the Outer Fort, they would never fight past Dodd's men.

"My men, " Dodd growled, 'have never been defeated. They never will be."

Manu Bappoo smiled at the nervous Beny Singh.

"You see, Killadar, you will die here of old age."

"Or of too many women, " another man put in, provoking laughter.

A cannon sounded from the Outer Fort's northern ramparts, followed a few seconds later by another. No one knew what might have caused the firing and so the dozen men followed Manu Bappoo as he left the pavilion and walked towards the Inner Fort's northern ramparts. Silverfurred monkeys chattered at the soldiers from the high branches.

Arab guards stood at the gate of the Rajah's garden. They were posted to stop any common soldiers of the garrison going to the paths beside the tank where the Killadar's women liked to stroll in the cool of the evening. A hundred paces beyond the garden gate was a steep sided rock pit, about twice as deep as a man stood high, and Dodd paused to look down into its shadowed depths. The sides had been chiselled smooth by stone-workers so that nothing could climb up from the floor that was littered with white bones.

"The Traitor's Hole, " Bappoo said, as he paused beside Dodd, 'but the bones are from baby monkeys."

"But they do eat men?" Dodd asked, intrigued by the shadowed blackness at the foot of the'^hole.

"They kill men, " Bappoo said, 'but don't eat them. They're not big enough."

"I can't see any, " Dodd said, disappointed, then suddenly a sinuous shadow writhed swiftly between two crevices.

«There!» he said happily.

"Don't they grow big enough to eat men?"

"Most years they escape, " Bappoo said.

"The monsoon floods the pit and the snakes swim to the top and wriggle out. Then we must find new ones. This year we've been saved the trouble. These snakes will grow bigger than usual."

Beny Singh waited a few paces away, clutching his small dog as though he feared Dodd would throw it down to the snakes.

"There's a bastard who ought to be fed to the snakes, " Dodd said to Bappoo, nodding towards the Killadar.

"My brother likes him, " Bappoo said mildly, touching Dodd's arm to indicate that they should walk on.

"They share tastes."

"Such as?"

"Women, music, luxury. We really do not need him here."

Dodd shook his head.

"If you let him go, sahib, then half the damned garrison will want to run away. And if you let the women go, what will the men fight for? Besides, do you really think there's any danger?"

«None,» Bappoo admitted. He had led the officers up a steep rock stairway to a natural bastion where a vast iron gun was trained across the chasm towards the distant cliffs of the high plateau. From here the far cliffs were almost a mile away, but Dodd could just see a group of horsemen clustered at the chasm's edge. It was those horsemen, all in native robes, who had prompted the Outer Fort's gunners to open fire, but the gunners, seeing their shots fall well short of the target, had given up.

Dodd drew out his telescope, trained it, and saw a man in the uniform of the Royal Engineers sitting on the ground a few paces from his companions. The engineer was sketching. The horsemen were all Indians.

Dodd lowered the telescope and looked at the huge iron gun.

"Is it loaded?" he asked the gunners.

"Yes, sahib."

"A haideri apiece if you can kill the man in the dark uniform. The one sitting at the cliff's edge."

The gunners laughed. Their gun was over twenty feet long and its wrought-iron barrel was cast with decorations that had been painted green, white and red. A pile of round shot, each over a foot in diameter, stood beside the massive carriage that was made from giant baulks of teak. The gun captain fussed over his aim, shouting at his men to lever the vast carriage a thumb's width to the right, then a finger's breadth back, until at last he was satisfied. He squinted along the barrel for a second, waved the officers who had followed Bappoo to move away from the great gun, then leaned over the breach to dab his glowing port fire onto the gun's touch-hole.

The reed glowed and smoked for a second as the fire dashed down to the charge, then the vast cannon crashed back, the teak runners sliding up the timber ramp that formed the lower half of the carriage.

Smoke jetted out into the chasm as a hundred startled birds flapped from their nests on the rock faces and circled in the warm air.

Dodd had been standing to one side, watching the engineer through his glass. For a second he actually saw the great round shot as a flicker of grey in the lower right quadrant of his lens, then he saw a boulder close to the engineer shatter into scraps. The engineer fell sideways, his sketch pad falling, but then he picked himself up and scrambled up the slope to where his horse was being guarded by the cavalrymen.

Dodd took a single gold coin from his pouch and tossed it to the gunner.

"You missed, " he said, 'but it was damned fine shooting."

"Thank you, sahib."

A whimper made Dodd turn. Beny Singh had handed his dog to a servant and was staring through an ivory-barrelled telescope at the enemy horsemen.

"What is it?" Bappoo asked him.

"Syud Sevajee, " Singh said in a small voice.

"Who's Syud Sevajee?" Dodd asked.

Bappoo grinned.

"His father was once kill adar here, but he died.

Was it poison?" he asked Beny Singh.

"He just died, " Singh said.

"He just died!»

"Murdered, probably, " Bappoo said with amusement, 'and Beny Singh became kill adar and took the dead man's daughter as his concubine."

Dodd turned to see the enemy horsemen vanishing among the trees beyond the far cliff.

"Come for revenge, has he? You still want to leave?" he demanded of Beny Singh.

"Because that fellow will be waiting for you. He'll track you through the hills, Killadar, and slit your throat in the night's darkness."

"We shall stay here and fight, " Beny Singh declared, retrieving the dog from his servant.

"Fight and win, " Dodd said, and he imagined the British breaching batteries on that far cliff, and he imagined the slaughter that would be made among the crews by this one vast gun. And there were fifty other heavy guns waiting to greet the British approach, and hundreds of lighter pieces that fired smaller missiles. Guns, rockets, canister, muskets and cliffs, those were Gawilghur's de fences and Dodd reckoned the British stood no chance. No chance at all. The big gun's smoke drifted away in the small breeze.

"They will die here, " Dodd said, 'and we shall chase the survivors south and cut them down like dogs." He turned and looked at Beny Singh.

"You see the chasm? That is where their demons will die. Their wings will be scorched, they will fall like burning stones to their deaths, and their screams will lull your children to a dreamless sleep." He knew he spoke true, for Gawilghur was impregnable.

"I take pleasure, no, Dilip, make that I take humble pleasure in reporting the recovery of a quantity of stolen stores." Captain Torrance paused. Night had just fallen and Torrance uncorked a bottle of arrack and took a sip.

"Am I going too fast for you?"

"Yes, sahib, " Dilip, the middle-aged clerk, answered.

"Humble pleasure, " he said aloud as his pen moved laboriously over the paper, 'in reporting the recovery of a quantity of stolen stores."

"Add a list of the stores, " Torrance ordered.

"You can do that later.

Just leave a space, man."

"Yes, sahib, " Dilip said.

"I had suspected for some time, " Torrance intoned, then scowled as someone knocked on the door.

«Come,» he shouted, 'if you must."

Sharpe opened the door and was immediately entangled in the muslin. He fought his way past its folds.

"It's you, " Torrance said unpleasantly.

"Me, sir."

"You let some moths in, " Torrance complained.

"Sorry, sir."

"That is why the muslin is there, Sharpe, to keep out moths, ensigns and other insignificant nuisances. Kill the moths, Dilip."

The clerk dutifully chased the moths about the room, swatting them with a roll of paper. The windows, like the door, were closely screened with muslin on the outside of which moths clustered, attracted by the candles that were set in silver sticks on Torrance's table. Dilip's work was spread on the table, while Captain Torrance lay in a wide hammock slung from the roof beams. He was naked.

"Do I offend you, Sharpe?"

"Offend me, sir?"

"I am naked, or had you not noticed?"

"Doesn't bother me, sir."

"Nudity keeps clothes clean. You should try it. Is the last of the enemy dead, Dilip?"

"The moths are all deceased, sahib."

"Then we shall continue. Where were we?"

' "I had suspected for some time, " Dilip read back the report.

"Surmised is better, I think. I had surmised for some time." Torrance paused to draw on the mouthpiece of a silver-bellied hookah.

"What are you doing here, Sharpe?"

"Come to get orders, sir."

"How very assiduous of you. I had surmised for some time that depredations I can spell it if you cannot, Dilip were being made upon the stores entrusted to my command. What the devil were you doing, Sharpe, poking about Naig's tents?"

"Just happened to be passing them, sir, " Sharpe said, 'when they caught fire."

Torrance gazed at Sharpe, plainly not believing a word. He shook his head sadly.

"You look very old to be an ensign, Sharpe?"

"I was a sergeant two months ago, sir."

Torrance adopted a look of pretended horror.

"Oh, good God, " he said archly, 'good God alive. May all the spavined saints preserve us. You're not telling me you've been made up from the ranks?"

"Yes, sir."

"Sweet suffering Jesus, " Torrance said. He lay his head back on the hammock's pillow and blew a perfect smoke ring that he watched wobble its way up towards the ceiling.

"Having confidential information as to the identity of the thief, I took steps to apprehend him. You will notice, Sharpe, that I am giving you no credit in this report?"

"No, sir?"

"Indeed I am not. This report will go to Colonel Butters, an appallingly bombastic creature who will, I suspect, attempt to take some of the credit for himself before passing the papers on to Arthur Wellesley who, as you may know, is our commander. A very stern man, our Arthur. He likes things done properly. He plainly had a very stern governess in his nursery."

"I know the General, sir."

"You do?" Torrance turned his head to look at Sharpe.

"Socially, perhaps? You and he dine together, do you? Pass the time of day, do you? Hunt together, maybe? Drink port? Talk about old times? Whore together, perhaps?" Torrance was mocking, but there was just an edge of interest in his voice in case Sharpe really did know Sir Arthur.

"I mean I've met him, sir."

Torrance shook his head as though Sharpe had been wasting his time.

"Do stop calling me «sir». It may be your natural subservience, Sharpe, or more likely it is the natural air of superiority that emanates from my person, but it ill becomes an officer, even one dredged up from the ranks. A search of his tents, Dilip, secured the missing items. I then, in accordance with general orders, hanged the thief as an example. I have the honour to be, et cetera, et cetera."

"Two thousand muskets are still missing, sir, " Sharpe said.

"Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to call you "sir"."

"If it pleases you to grovel, Sharpe, then do so. Two thousand muskets still missing, eh? I suspect the bugger sold them on, don't you?"

"I'm more interested in how he got them in the first place, " Sharpe said.

"How very tedious of you, " Torrance said lightly.

"I'd suggest talking to Sergeant Hakeswill when he gets back, " Sharpe said.

"I won't hear a word spoken against Obadiah, " Torrance said.

"Obadiah is a most amusing fellow."

"He's a lying, thieving bastard, " Sharpe said vehemently.

"Sharpe! Please! " Torrance's voice was pained.

"How can you say such wicked things? You don't even know the fellow."

"Oh, I know him, sir. I served under him in the Havercakes."

"You did?" Torrance smiled.

"I see we are in for interesting times.

Perhaps I should keep the two of you apart. Or perhaps not. Brick!»

The last word was shouted towards a door that led to the back of the commandeered house.

The door opened and the black-haired woman slipped past the muslin.

"Captain?" she asked. She blushed when she saw Torrance was naked, and Torrance, Sharpe saw, enjoyed her embarrassment.

"Brick, my dear, " Torrance said, 'my hookah has extinguished itself.

Will you attend to it? Dilip is busy, or I would have asked him. Sharpe?

May I have the honour of naming you to Brick? Brick? This is Ensign Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe? This is Brick."

"Pleased to meet you, sir, " the woman said, dropping a brief curtsey before she stooped to the hookah. She had clearly not told Torrance that she had met Sharpe earlier.

"Ma'am, " Sharpe said.

"Ma'am! " Torrance said with a laugh.

"She's called Brick, Sharpe."

"Brick, sir?" Sharpe asked sourly. The name was utterly unsuited to the delicate-featured woman who now deftly disassembled the hookah.

"Her real name is Mrs. Wall, " Torrance explained, 'and she is my laundress, seamstress and conscience. Is that not right, little Brick?"

"If you say so, sir."

"I cannot abide dirty clothes, " Torrance said.

"They are an abomination unto the Lord. Cleanliness, we are constantly told by tedious folk, is next to godliness, but I suspect it is a superior virtue. Any peasant can be godly, but it is a rare person who is clean. Brick, however, keeps me clean. If you pay her a trifle, Sharpe, she will doubtless wash and mend those rags you are pleased to call a uniform."

"They're all I've got, sir."

"So? Walk naked until Brick has serviced you, or does the idea embarrass you?"

"I wash my own clothes, sir."

"I wish you would, " Torrance said tartly.

"Remind me why you came here, Sharpe?"

"Orders, sir."

"Very well, " Torrance said.

"At dawn you will go to Colonel Butters's quarters and find an aide who can tell you what is required of us. You then tell Dilip. Dilip then arranges everything. After that you may take your rest. I trust you will not find these duties onerous?"

Sharpe wondered why Torrance had asked for a deputy if the clerk did all the work, then supposed that the Captain was so lazy that he could not be bothered to get up early in the morning to fetch his orders.

"I get tomorrow's orders at dawn, sir, " Sharpe said, 'from an aide of Colonel Butters."

«There!» Torrance said with mock amazement.

"You have mastered your duties, Ensign. I congratulate you."

"We already have tomorrow's orders, sahib, " Dilip said from the table where he was copying a list of the recovered stores into Torrance's report.

"We are to move everything to Deogaum. The pioneers' stores are to be moved first, sahib. The Colonel's orders are on the table, sahib, with the chitties Pioneers' stores first, then everything else."

"Well, I never! " Torrance said.

"See? Your first day's work is done, Sharpe." He drew on the hookah which the woman had relit.

"Excellent,

my dear, " he said, then held out a hand to stop her from leaving. She crouched beside the hammock, averting her eyes from Torrance's naked body. Sharpe sensed her unhappiness, and Torrance sensed Sharpe's interest in her.

"Brick is a widow, Sharpe, " he said, 'and presumably looking for a husband, though I doubt she's ever dared to dream of marrying as high as an ensign. But why not? The social ladder is there to be climbed and, low a rung as you might be, Sharpe, you still represent a considerable advancement for Brick. Before she joined my service she was a mop-squeezer. From mop-squeezer to an officer's wife! There's progress for you. I think the two of you would suit each other vastly well. I shall play Cupid, or rather Dilip will. Take a letter to the chaplain of the 94th, Dilip. He's rarely sober, but I'm sure he can waddle through the marriage ceremony without falling over."

"I can't marry, sir! " Sharpe protested.

Torrance, amused at himself, raised an eyebrow.

"You are averse to women? You dislike dear Brick? Or you've taken an oath of celibacy, perhaps?"

Sharpe blushed.

"I'm spoken for, sir."

"You mean you're engaged? How very touching. Is she an heiress, perhaps?"

Sharpe shrugged.

"She's in Seringapatam, " he said lamely.

"And we're not engaged."

"But you have an understanding, " Torrance said, 'with this ravishing creature in Seringapatam. Is she black, Sharpe? A black bibbi? I'm sure Clare wouldn't mind, would you? A white man in India needs a bibbi or two as well as a wife. Don't you agree, Brick?" He turned to the woman, who ignored him.

"The late Mister Wall died of the fever, " Torrance said to Sharpe, 'and in the Christian kindness of my heart I continue to employ his widow. Does that not speak well of my character?"

"If you say so, sir, " Sharpe said.

"I see my attempt to play Cupid is not meeting with success, " Torrance said.

"So, Sharpe, to business. Tomorrow morning I suggest you go to Deogaum, wherever the hell that is."

"With the bullocks, sir?"

Torrance raised his eyebrows in exasperation.

"You are an officer, Sharpe, not a bullock driver. You don't prod rumps, you leave that to the natives. Go early. Ride there at dawn, and your first duty will be to find me quarters."

"I don't have a horse, " Sharpe said.

"You don't have a horse? Don't have a horse? Good God alive, man, what bloody use are you? You'll just have to bloody well walk then. I shall find you in Deogaum tomorrow afternoon and God help you if you haven't found me decent quarters. A front room, Sharpe, where Dilip can conduct business. A large room for me, and a hole for Brick. I would also like to have a walled garden with adequate shade trees and a small pool."

"Where is Deogaum?" Sharpe asked.

"Northwards, sahib, " Dilip answered.

"Close to the hills."

"Beneath Gawilghur?" Sharpe guessed.

"Yes, sahib."

Sharpe looked back to Torrance.

"Can I ask a favour of you, sir?"

Torrance sighed.

"If you insist."

"At Gawilghur, sir, I'd like permission to join the assault party."

Torrance stared at Sharpe for a long time.

"You want what?" he finally asked.

"I want to be with the attack, sir. There's a fellow inside, see, who killed a friend of mine. I want to see him dead."

Torrance blinked at Sharpe.

"Don't tell me you're enthusiastic! Good God! " A sudden look of terror came to the Captain's face.

"You're not a Methodist, are you?"

"No, sir."

Torrance pointed the hookah's mouthpiece towards a corner of the room.

"There is a linen press, Sharpe, d'you see it? Inside it are my clothes. Amidst my clothes you will find a pistol. Take the pistol, remove yourself from my presence, apply the muzzle to your head and pull the trigger. It is a much quicker and less painful way of dying."

"But you won't mind if I join the attack?"

"Mind? You're not, surely, labouring under the misapprehension that I care about your existence? You think I might mourn you, even after such a short acquaintance? My dear Sharpe, I fear I shall not miss you at all. I doubt I'll even remember your name once you're dead. Of course you can join the assaulting party. Do what you like! Now I suggest you get some sleep. Not here, though, I like my privacy.

Find a tree, perhaps, and slumber beneath its sheltering branches.

Good night to you, Sharpe."

"Good night, sir."

"And don't let any moths in!»

Sharpe negotiated the muslin and slipped out of the door. Torrance listened to the footsteps go away, then sighed.

"A tedious man, Dilip."

"Yes, sahib."

"I wonder why he was made an officer?" Torrance frowned as he sucked on his hookah, then shook his head.

"Poor Naig! Sacrificed to a mere ensign's ambition. How did that wretched Sharpe even know to look in Naig's tent? Did he talk to you?"

"Yes, sahib, " Dilip admitted.

Torrance stared at him.

"Did you let him look at the ledgers?"

"He insisted, sahib."

"You're a bloody fool, Dilip! A bloody, bloody fool. I should thrash you if I wasn't so tired. Maybe tomorrow."

"No, sahib, please."

"Oh, just bugger away off, Dilip, " Torrance snarled.

"And you can go too, Brick."

The girl fled to the kitchen door. Dilip collected his ink bottle and sand-sprinkler.

"Shall I take the chitties now, sahib, for the morning?"

«Go!» Torrance roared.

"You bore me! Go! " Dilip fled to the front room, and Torrance lay back in the hammock. He was indeed bored.

He had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Most nights he would go to Naig's tents and there drink, gamble and whore, but he could hardly visit the green pavilion this night, not after stringing Naig up by the neck.

Damn it, he thought. He glanced at the table where a book, a gift from his father, lay unopened. The first volume of Some Reflections on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians by the Reverend Courtney Mallison, and it would be a frigid day in the devil's house before Torrance read that turgid tome. The Reverend Mallison had been Torrance's childhood tutor, and a vicious beast he had been. A whipper, that was Mallison.

Loved to whip his pupils. Torrance stared at the ceiling. Money. It was all down to money. Everything in the damned world was down to money. Make money, he thought, and he could go home and make Courtney Mallison's life a misery. Have the bastard on his knees. And Mallison's daughter. Have that prim bitch on her back.

There was a knock on the door.

"I said I didn't want to be disturbed!»

Torrance shouted, but despite his protest the door opened and the muslin billowed inward, letting in a flutter of moths.

"For Christ's sake, " Torrance cursed, then fell abruptly silent.

He fell silent, for the first man through the door was ajetti, his bare torso gleaming with oil, and behind him came the tall man with a limp, the same man who had pleaded for Naig's life. His name was Jama, and he was Naig's brother, and his presence made Torrance acutely aware of his nudity. He swung off the hammock and reached for his dressing gown, but Jama twitched the silk garment off the chair back.

"Captain Torrance, " he said with a bow.

"Who let you in?" Torrance demanded.

"I expected to see you in our small establishment tonight, Captain, " Jama said. Where his brother had been plump, noisy and a braggart, Jama was lean, silent and watchful.

Torrance shrugged.

"Maybe tomorrow night?"

"You will be welcome, Captain, as always. "Jama took a small sheaf of papers from his pocket and fanned his face with them.

"Ten thousand welcomes, Captain."

Ten thousand rupees. That was the value of the papers in Jama's hand, all of them notes signed by Torrance. He had signed far more, but the others he had paid off with supplies filched from the convoys. Jama was here to remind Torrance that his greatest debts remained unpaid.

"About today.. " Torrance said awkwardly.

"Ah, yes! " Jama said, as though he had momentarily forgotten the reason for his visit.

"About today, Captain. Do tell me about today." The jetti said nothing, just leaned against the wall with folded arms, his oiled muscles shining in the candlelight and his dark eyes fixed immovably on Torrance.

"I've already told you. It wasn't of my doing, " Torrance said with as much dignity as a naked man could muster.

"You were the one who demanded my brother's death, " Jama said.

"What choice did I have? Once the supplies were found?"

"But perhaps you arranged for them to be found?"

«No!» Torrance protested.

"Why the hell would I do that?"

Jama was silent a moment, then indicated the huge man at his side.

"His name is Prithviraj. I once saw him castrate a man with his bare hands." Jama mimed a pulling action, smiling.

"You'd be astonished at how far a little skin can stretch before it breaks."

"For God's sake! " Torrance had gone pale.

"It was not my doing!»

"Then whose doing was it?"

"His name is Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe."

Jama walked to Torrance's table where he turned the pages of Some Reflections on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians.

"This Sharpe, " he asked, 'he was not obeying your orders?"

"Of course not!»

Jama shrugged.

"My brother was careless, " he admitted, 'over confident. He believed that with your friendship he could survive any enquiry."

"We were doing business, " Torrance said.

"It was not friendship. And I told your brother he should have hidden the supplies."

"Yes, "Jama said, 'he should. And so I told him also. But even so, Captain, I come from a proud family. You expect me to watch my brother killed and do nothing about it?" He fanned out the notes of Torrance's debts.

"I shall return these to you, Captain, when you deliver Ensign Sharpe to me. Alive! I want Prithviraj to take my revenge. You understand?"

Torrance understood well enough.

"Sharpe's a British officer, " he said.

"If he's murdered there'll be an enquiry. A real enquiry. Heads will be broken."

"That is your problem, Captain Torrance, " Jama said.

"How you explain his disappearance is your affair. As are your debts." He smiled and pushed the notes back into the pouch at his belt.

"Give me Sharpe, Captain Torrance, or I shall send Prithviraj to visit you in the night. In the meantime, you will please continue to patronize our establishment."

«Bastard,» Torrance said, but Jama and his huge companion had already gone. Torrance picked up Some Reflections on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians and slammed the heavy book down on a moth.

«Bastard,» he said again. But on the other hand it was Sharpe who would suffer, not him, so it did not really matter. And what was Sharpe anyway? Nothing but an upstart from the ranks, so who would care if he died? Torrance killed another moth, then opened the kitchen door.

"Come here, Brick."

"No, sir, please?"

"Shut up. And come here. You can kill these damn moths while I get drunk."

Filthy drunk, he reckoned, for he had been scared today. He knew he had very nearly got caught when Sharpe had stripped the tent away from the purloined supplies, but by killing Naig quickly Torrance had protected himself, and now the price of his continued survival was Sharpe's death. Arrange that, he thought, and all his troubles would be past. He forced Brick to drink some arrack, knowing how she hated it.

Then he drank some himself. Damn Sharpe to hell, he thought, damn the interfering bastard to hell, which was where Sharpe was going anyway so Torrance drank to that happy prospect. Farewell, Mister Sharpe.