Sharpe`s Fortress

CHAPTER 6

Sharpe knew he was in an ox cart. He could tell that from the jolting motion and from the terrible squeal of the ungreased axles. The ox carts that followed the army made a noise like the shrieking of souls in perdition.

He was naked, bruised and in pain. It hurt even to breathe. His mouth was gagged and his hands and feet were tied, but even if they had been free he doubted he could have moved for he was wrapped in a thick dusty carpet. Hakeswill! The bastard had ambushed him, stripped him and robbed him. He knew it was Hakeswill, for Sharpe had heard the Sergeant's hoarse voice as he was rolled into the rug.

Then he had been carried out of the tent and slung into the cart, and he was not sure how long ago that had been because he was in too much pain and he kept slipping in and out of a dreamlike daze. A nightmare daze. There was blood in his mouth, a tooth was loose, a rib was probably cracked and the rest of him simply ached or hurt. His head throbbed. He wanted to be sick, but knew he would choke on his vomit because of the gag and so he willed his belly to be calm.

Calm! The only blessing was that he was alive, and he suspected that was no blessing at all. Why had Hakeswill not killed him? Not out of mercy, that was for sure. So presumably he was to be killed somewhere else, though why Hakeswill had run the terrible risk of having a British officer tied hand and foot and smuggled past the picquet line Sharpe could not tell. It made no sense. All he did know was that by now Obadiah Hakeswill would have teased Sharpe's gems from their hiding places. God damn it all to hell. First Simone, now Hakeswill, and Hakeswill, Sharpe realized, could never have trapped Sharpe if Torrance had not helped.

But knowing his enemies would not help Sharpe now. He knew he had as much hope of living as those dogs who were hurled onto the mud flats beside the Thames in London with stones tied to their necks.

The children used to laugh as they watched the dogs struggle. Some of the dogs had come from wealthy homes. They used to be snatched and if their owners did not produce the ransom money within a couple of days, the dogs were thrown to the river. Usually the ransom was paid, brought by a nervous footman to a sordid public house near the docks, but no one would ransom Sharpe. Who would care? Dust from the rug was thick in his nose. Just let the end be quick, he prayed.

He could hear almost nothing through the rug. The axle squealing was the loudest noise, and once he heard a thump on the cart's side and thought he heard a man laugh. It was night-time. He was not sure how he knew that, except that it would make sense, for no one would try to smuggle a British officer out in daylight, and he knew he had lain in the tent for a long time after Hakeswill had hit him. He remembered ducking under the tent's canvas, remembered a glimpse of the brass-bound musket butt, and then it was nothing but a jumble of pain and oblivion. A weight pressed on his waist, and he guessed after a while that a man was resting his feet on the rug. Sharpe tested the assumption by trying to move and the man kicked him. He lay still again. One dog had escaped, he remembered. It had somehow slipped the rope over its neck and had paddled away downstream with the children shrieking along the bank and hurling stones at the frightened head. Did the dog die? Sharpe could not remember. God, he thought, but he had been a wild child, wild as a hawk. They had tried to beat the wildness out of him, beat him till the blood ran, then told him he would come to a bad end. They had prophesied that he would be strung up by the neck at Tyburn Hill. Dick Sharpe dangling, pissing down his legs while the rope burned into his gullet. But it had not happened. He was an officer, a gentleman, and he was still alive, and he pulled at the tether about his wrists, but it would not shift.

Was Hakeswill riding in the cart? That seemed possible, and suggested the Sergeant wanted somewhere safe and private to kill Sharpe. But how? Quick with a knife? That was a forlorn wish, for Hakeswill was not merciful. Perhaps he planned to repay Sharpe by putting him beneath an elephant's foot and he would scream and writhe until the great weight would not let him scream ever again and his bones would crack and splinter like eggshells. Be sure your sin will find you out.

How many times had he heard those words from the Bible? Usually thumped into him at the foundling home with a blow across the skull for every syllable, and the blows would keep coming as they chanted the reference. The Book of Numbers, chapter thirty-two, verse twenty-three, syllable by syllable, blow by blow, and now his sin was finding him out and he was to be punished for all the unpunished of fences So die well, he told himself. Don't cry out. Whatever was about to happen could not be worse than the flogging he had taken because of Hakeswill's lies.

That had hurt. Hurt like buggery, but he had not cried out. So take the pain and go like a man. What had Sergeant Major Bywaters said as he had thrust the leather gag into Sharpe's mouth?

"Be brave, boy. Don't let the regiment down." So he would be brave and die well, and then what?

Hell, he supposed, and an eternity of torment at the hands of a legion of Hakeswills. Just like the army, really.

The cart stopped. He heard feet thump on the wagon boards, the murmur of voices, then hands seized the rug and dragged him off. He banged hard down onto the ground, then the rug was picked up and carried. Die well, he told himself, die well, but that was easier said than done. Not all men died well. Sharpe had seen strong men reduced to shuddering despair as they waited for the cart to be run out from under the gallows, just as he had seen others go into eternity with a defiance so brittle and hard that it had silenced the watching crowd. Yet all men, the brave and the cowardly, danced the gallows dance in the end, jerking from a length of Bridport hemp, and the crowd would laugh at their twitching antics. Best puppet show in London, they said. There was no good way to die, except in bed, asleep, unknowing. Or maybe in battle, at the cannon's mouth, blown to kingdom come in an instant of oblivion.

He heard the footsteps of the men who carried him slap on stone, then heard a loud murmur of voices. There were a lot of voices, all apparently talking at once and all excited, and he felt the rug being jostled by a crowd and then he seemed to be carried down some steps and the crowd was gone and he was thrown onto a hard floor. The voices seemed louder now, as if he was indoors, and he was suddenly possessed by the absurd notion that he had been brought into a cock-fighting arena like the one off Vinegar Street where, as a child, he had earned farthings by carrying pots of porter to spectators who were alternatively morose or maniacally excited.

He lay for a long time. He could hear the voices, even sometimes a burst of laughter. He remembered the fat man in Vinegar Street, whose trade, rat-catching, took him to the great houses in west London that he reconnoitred for his thieving friends.

"You'd make a good snaffler, Dicky, " he'd say to Sharpe, then he would clutch Sharpe's arm and point to the cockerels waiting to fight.

"Which one'll win, lad, which one?"

And Sharpe would make a haphazard choice and, as often as not, the bird did win.

"He's a lucky boy, " the rat-catcher would boast to his friends as he tossed Sharpe a farthing.

"Nipper's got the luck of the devil!»

But not tonight, Sharpe thought, and suddenly the rug was seized, unwound, and Sharpe was spilt naked onto hard stones. A cheer greeted his appearance. Light flared in Sharpe's eyes, dazzling him, but after a while he saw he was in a great stone courtyard lit by the flames of torches mounted on pillars that surrounded the yard. Two white-robed men seized him, dragged him upright and pushed him onto a stone bench where, to his surprise, his hands and feet were loosed and the gag taken from his mouth. He sat flexing his fingers and gasping deep breaths of humid air. He could see no sign of Hakeswill.

He could see now that he was in a temple. A kind of cloister ran around the courtyard and, because the cloister was raised three or four feet, it made the stone-paved floor into a natural arena. He had not been so wrong about the cock-fighting pit, though Vinegar Street had never aspired to ornately carved stone arches smothered with writhing gods and snarling beasts. The raised cloister was packed with men who were in obvious good humour. There were hundreds of them, all anticipating a night's rare entertainment. Sharpe touched his swollen lip and winced at the pain. He was thirsty, and with every deep breath his bruised or broken ribs hurt. There was a swelling on his forehead that was thick with dried blood. He looked about the crowd, seeking one friendly face and finding none. He just saw Indian peasants with dark eyes that reflected the flame light. They must have come from every village within ten miles to witness whatever was about to happen.

In the centre of the courtyard was a small stone building, fantastically carved with elephants and dancing girls, and crowned by a stepped tower that had been sculpted with yet more gods and animals painted red, yellow, green and black. The crowd's noise subsided as a man showed at the doorway of the small shrine and raised his arms as a signal for silence. Sharpe recognized the man. He was the tall, thin, limping man in the green and black striped robe who had pleaded with Torrance for Naig's life, and behind him came a pair ofjettis. So that was the sum of it. Revenge for Naig, and Sharpe realized that Hakeswill had never intended to kill him, only deliver him to these men.

A murmur ran through the spectators as they admired the jet tis Vast brutes, they were, who dedicated their extraordinary strength to some strange Indian god. Although Sharpe had met jet tis before and had killed some in Seringapatam, he did not fancy his chances against these two bearded brutes. He was too weak, too thirsty, too bruised, too hurt, while these two fanatics were tall and hugely muscled. Their bronze skin had been oiled so that it gleamed in the flame light. Their long hair was coiled about their skulls, and one had red lines painted on his face, while the other, who was slightly shorter, carried a long spear. Each man wore a loincloth and nothing else. They glanced at Sharpe, then the taller man prostrated himself before a small shrine. A dozen guards came from the courtyard's rear and lined its edge.

They carried muskets tipped with bayonets.

The tall man in the striped robe clapped his hands to silence the crowd's last murmurs. It took a while, for still more spectators were pushing into the temple and there was scarce room in the cloister.

Somewhere outside a horse neighed. Men shouted protests as the newcomers shoved their way inside, but at last the commotion ended and the tall man stepped to the edge of the stone platform on which the small shrine stood. He spoke for a long time, and every few moments his words would provoke a growl of agreement, and then the crowd would look at Sharpe and some would spit at him. Sharpe stared sullenly back at them. They were getting a rare night's amusement, he reckoned. A captured Englishman was to be killed in front of them, and Sharpe could not blame them for relishing the prospect. But he was damned if he would die easy. He could do some damage, he reckoned, maybe not much, but enough so that the jet tis remembered the night they were given a redcoat to kill.

The tall man finished his speech, then limped down the short flight of steps and approached Sharpe. He carried himself with dignity, like a man who knows his own worth to be high. He stopped a few paces from Sharpe and his face showed derision as he stared at the Englishman's sorry state.

"My name, " he said in English, 'is Jama."

Sharpe said nothing.

"You killed my brother, " Jama said.

"I've killed a lot of men, " Sharpe said, his voice hoarse so that it scarcely carried the few paces that separated the two men. He spat to clear his throat.

"I've killed a lot of men, " he said again.

"And Naig was one, " Jama said.

"He deserved to die, " Sharpe said.

Jama sneered at that answer.

"If my brother deserved to die then so did the British who traded with him."

That was probably true, Sharpe thought, but he said nothing. He could see some pointed helmets at the back of the crowd and he guessed that some of the Mahratta horsemen who still roamed the Deccan Plain had come to see his death. Maybe the same Mahrattas who had bought the two thousand missing muskets, muskets that Hakeswill had supplied and Torrance had lied about to conceal the theft.

"So now you will die, " Jama said simply.

Sharpe shrugged. Run to the right, he was thinking, and grab the nearest musket, but he knew he would be slowed by the pain. Besides, the men on the cloister would jump down to overpower him. But he had to do something. Anything! A man could not just be killed like a dog.

"You will die slowly, "Jama said, 'to satisfy the debt of blood that is owed to my family."

"You want a death, " Sharpe asked, 'to balance your brother's death?"

"Exactly so, "Jama said gravely.

"Then kill a rat, " Sharpe said, 'or strangle a toad. Your brother deserved to die. He was a thief."

"And you English have come to steal all India, " Jama said equably.

He looked again at Sharpe's wounds, and seemed to get satisfaction from them.

"You will soon be pleading for my mercy, " he said.

"Do you know what jet tis are?"

"I know, " Sharpe said.

«Prithviraj,» Jama said, gesturing towards the taller jetti who was bowing before the small altar, 'has castrated a man with his bare hands.

He will do that to you and more, for tonight I have promised these people they will see the death of a hundred parts. You will be torn to pieces, Englishman, but you will live as your body is divided, for that is a jettfs skill. To kill a man slowly, without weapons, tearing him piece by piece, and only when your screams have assuaged the pain of my brother's death will I show you mercy. "Jama gave Sharpe one last look of disdain, then turned and walked back to the shrine's steps.

Prithviraj leaned forward and rang a tiny hand bell to draw the god's attention, then put his hands together and bowed his head a last time.

The second jetti, the one with the spear, watched Sharpe with an expressionless face.

Sharpe forced himself to stand. His back ached and his legs were weak so that he tottered, making the crowd laugh at him. He took a step to his right, but the closest guard just edged away. A carved stool had been fetched from the shrine and Jama was now sitting at the top of the steps. A huge bat flickered in and out of the torchlight. Sharpe walked forward, testing his legs, and was amazed he could stand at all. The crowd jeered his faltering gait, and the sound made Prithviraj turn from his devotions. He saw that Sharpe posed no danger and so turned back to the god.

Sharpe staggered. He did it deliberately, making himself look weaker than he really was. He swayed, pretending that he was about to fall, then took some slurred sideways steps to get close to one of the guards. Seize a musket, he told himself, then ram its muzzle into Jama's face. He swayed sideways again, and the closest guard just stepped back and levelled the bayonet at Sharpe. The dozen sentries plainly had orders to keep Sharpe inside thejettfs killing ground. Sharpe measured the distance, wondering if he could get past the bayonet to seize the musket, but a second guard came to reinforce the first.

Then Prithviraj stood.

He was a bloody giant, Snarpe thought, a giant with an oiled skin and upper arms as thick as most men's thighs. The crowd murmured in admiration again, and then Prithviraj undid his loincloth and let it fall so that he was naked like Sharpe. The gesture seemed to imply that he sought no advantage over his opponent, though as the huge man came down from the shrine the second jetti took care to stay close beside him.

Two against one, and the second had a spear, and Sharpe had nothing.

He glanced at the burning torches, wondering if he could seize one and brandish it as a weapon, but they were mounted too high. Christ, he thought, but do something! Anything! Panic began to close in on him, fluttering like the bat which swooped into the flame light again.

He backed away from the jet tis and the crowd jeered him. He did not care. He was watching Prithviraj. A slow-moving man, too musclebound to be quick, and Sharpe guessed that was why the second jetti was present. His job would be to herd Sharpe with the glittering spear, and afterwards to hold him still as Prithviraj tore off fingers, toes and ears.

So take the spearman first, Sharpe told himself, put the bastard down and take his weapon. He edged to his left, circling the courtyard to try and position himself closer to the spear-carrying jetti. The crowd sighed as he moved, enjoying the thought that the Englishman would put up a fight.

The spear followed Sharpe's movements. He would have to be quick, Sharpe thought, desperately quick, and he doubted he could do it.

HakeswilPs kicking had slowed him, but he had to try and so he kept on circling, then abruptly charged in to attack the spearman, but the weapon was jabbed towards him and Prithviraj was much faster than Sharpe had expected and leaped to catch him, and Sharpe had to twist awkwardly away. The crowd laughed at his clumsiness.

"Accept your death, " Jama called. A servant was fanning the merchant's face.

Sweat poured down Sharpe's cheeks. He had been forced towards that part of the courtyard nearest the temple's entrance where there were two stone flights of stairs leading up to the cloister. The steps, jutting into the yard, formed a bay in which Sharpe suddenly realized he was trapped. He moved sideways, but the spear-carrying jetti covered him. The two men knew he was cornered now and came slowly towards him and Sharpe could only back away until his spine touched the cloister's edge.

One of the spectators kicked him, but with more malice than force. The jet tis came on slowly, wary in case he suddenly broke to right or left.

Prithviraj was flexing his huge fingers, making them supple for the night's work. Scraps of smouldering ash whirled away from the torches, one settling on Sharpe's shoulder. He brushed it off.

"Sahib?" a voice hissed from behind Sharpe.

"Sahib?"

Prithviraj looked calm and confident. No bloody wonder, Sharpe thought. So kick the naked bugger in the crotch. He reckoned that was his last chance. One good kick, and hope that Prithviraj doubled over. Either that or run onto the spear and hope the blade killed him quickly.

«Sahib!» the voice hissed again. Prithviraj was turning sideways so that he would not expose his groin to Sharpe, then he beckoned for the other jetti to close in on the Englishman and drive him out from the wall with his spear.

"You bugger! " the voice said impatiently.

Sharpe turned to see that Ahmed was on hands and knees among the legs of the spectators, and what was more the child was pushing forward the hilt of the tulwar he had captured at Deogaum. Sharpe leaned on the cloister edge and the crowd, seeing him rest against the stone, believed he had given up. Some groaned for they had been anticipating more of a fight, but most of the watching men just jeered at him for being a weakling.

Sharpe winked at Ahmed, then reached for the tulwar. He seized the handle, pushed away from the stone and turned, dragging the blade from the scabbard that was still in Ahmed's grasp. He turned fast as a striking snake, the curved steel silver-red in the courtyard's flame light, and the jet tis thinking he was a beaten man, were not prepared. The man with the spear was closest, and the curved blade slashed across his face, springing blood, and he instinctively clutched his eyes and let the spear drop. Sharpe moved to the right, scooped up the fallen spear, and Prithviraj at last looked worried.

The guards raised their muskets. Sharpe heard the clicks as the dog heads were hauled back. So let them shoot him, he thought, for that was a quicker death than being dismembered and gelded by a naked giant. Jama was standing, one hand in the air, reluctant to let his guards shoot Sharpe before he had suffered pain. The wounded jetti was on his knees, his hands clutched to his face which was streaming blood.

Then a musket fired, its sound unnaturally loud in the confines of the courtyard's carved walls. One of the guards flinched as the musket ball whipped past his head to chip a flake of stone from one of the decorated arches. Then a voice shouted from the cloister by the temple entrance.

The man spoke in an Indian language, and he spoke to Jama who was staring appalled as a group of armed men pushed their way to the very front of the crowd.

It was Syud Sevajee who had fired, and who had spoken to Jama, and who now grinned down at Sharpe.

"I've told him it must be a fair fight, Ensign."

"Me against him?" Sharpe jerked his chin at Prithviraj.

"We came for entertainment, " Syud Sevajee said, 'the least you can do is provide us with some."

"Why don't you just shoot the bugger and have done with it?"

Sevajee smiled.

"This crowd will accept the result of a fair fight, Ensign. They might not like it if I simply rescue you. Besides, you don't want to be in my debt, do you?"

"I'm in your debt already, " Sharpe said, 'up to my bloody eyeballs." He turned and looked at Prithviraj who was waiting for a sign from Jama.

"Hey! Goliath! " Sharpe shouted.

«Here!» He threw the tulwar at the man, keeping the spear.

"You want a fair fight? So you've got a weapon now."

The pain seemed to have vanished and even the thirst had gone away.

It was like that moment at Assaye when he had been surrounded by enemies, and suddenly the world had seemed a calm, clear-cut place full of delicious opportunity. He had a chance now. He had more than a chance, he was going to put the big bastard down. It was a fair fight, and Sharpe had grown up fighting. He had been bred to it from the gutter, driven to it by poverty and inured to it by desperation. He was nothing if he was not a fighter, and now the crowd would get the bloody sport they wanted. He hefted the spear.

"So come on, you bastard!»

Prithviraj stooped and picked up the tulwar. He swung it in a clumsy arc, then looked again at Jama.

"Don't look at him, you great ox! Look at me! " Sharpe went forward, the spear low, then he raised the blade and lunged towards the big man's belly and Prithviraj made a clumsy parry that rang against the spear blade.

"You'll have to put more strength into it than that, " Sharpe said, pulling back the spear and standing still to tempt thejetti forward.

Prithviraj stepped towards him, swung the blade and Sharpe stepped back so that the tulwar's tip slashed inches from his chest.

"You have to be quick, " Sharpe said, and he feinted right, spun away and walked back to the left leaving Prithviraj off balance. Sharpe turned and lunged with the spear, pricking the big man's back and leaving a trickle of blood.

"Ain't the same, is it, when the other fellow's got a weapon?" He smiled at the jetti.

"So come on, you daft pudding. Come on!»

The crowd was silent now. Prithviraj seemed puzzled. He had not expected to fight, not with a weapon, and it was plain he was not accustomed to a tulwar.

"You can give up, " Sharpe said.

"You can kneel down and give up. I won't kill you if you do that, but if you stay on your feet I'll pick you apart like a joint of bloody meat."

Prithviraj did not understand a word, but he knew Sharpe was dangerous and he was trying to work out how best to kill him. He glanced at the spear, wishing he had that weapon instead of the tulwar, but Sharpe knew the point should always beat the edge, which was why he had kept the spear.

"You want it quick or slow, Sevajee?" Sharpe called.

"Whichever you prefer, Ensign, " Sevajee said, smiling.

"It is not for the audience to tell the actors how the play should go."

"Then I'll make it quick, " Sharpe said, and he pointed at Prithviraj with his free hand and motioned that thejetti could kneel down.

"Just kneel, " he said, 'and I'll spare you. Tell him that, Sevajee!»

Sevajee called out in an Indian language and Prithviraj must have decided the offer was an insult, for he suddenly ran forward, tulwar swinging, and Sharpe had to step quickly aside and parry one of the cuts with the spear's staff. The blade cut a sliver of wood from the shaft, but went nowhere near Sharpe.

"No good doing that, " Sharpe said.

"You're not making hay, you great pudding, you're trying to stay alive."

Prithviraj attacked again, but all he could think to do was make great swings with the blade, any one of which might have slit Sharpe into two, but the attacks were clumsy and Sharpe backed away, always circling around to the middle of the courtyard so that he was not trapped against its edges. The crowd, sensing that Prithviraj might win, began to urge him on, but some noticed that the Englishman was not even trying to fight yet. He was taunting thejetti, he was evading him and he was keeping his spear low.

"I thought you said it would be quick, " Sevajee said.

"You want it over?" Sharpe asked. He crouched, raising the spear blade, and the motion checked Prithviraj who stared at him warily.

"What I'm going to do, " Sharpe said, 'is cut your belly open, then slit your throat. Are you ready?" He went forward, jabbing the spear, still low, and Prithviraj backed away, trying to parry the small lunges, but Sharpe dragged the spear back each time before the parry could connect, and Prithviraj frowned. He seemed hypnotized by the shining blade that flickered like a snake's tongue, and behind it Sharpe was grinning at him and taunting him, and Prithviraj tried to counter-attack once, but the spear slashed up to within an inch of his face and he went on stepping backwards. Then he backed into the blinded jettt who still crouched on the flagstones and Prithviraj staggered as he lost his balance.

Sharpe came up from the crouch, the spear lancing forward and the wild parry came far too late and suddenly the blade was punching and tearing through the skin and muscle of the jettfs stomach. Sharpe twisted the leaf-shaped steel so that it did not get trapped in the flesh and then he ripped it out, and blood washed across the temple floor and Prithviraj was bending forward as if he could seal the pain in his belly by folding over, and then the spear sliced from the side to slash across his throat.

The crowd sighed.

Prithviraj was on the stones now, curled up with blood bubbling from his sliced belly and pulsing from his neck.

Sharpe kicked the tulwar from the jettt's unresisting hand, then turned and looked at Jama.

"You and your brother did business with Captain Torrance?"

Jama said nothing.

Sharpe walked towards the shrine. The guards moved to stop him, but Sevajee's men raised their muskets and some, grinning, jumped down into the courtyard. Ahmed also jumped down and snatched the tulwar from the flagstones. Prithviraj was on his side now, dying.

Jama stood as Sharpe reached the steps, but he could not move fast with his limp and suddenly the spear was at his belly.

"I asked you a question, " Sharpe said.

Jama still said nothing.

"You want to live?" Sharpe asked. Jama looked down at the spear blade that was thick with blood.

"Was it Torrance who gave me to you?" Sharpe asked.

«Yes,» Jama said.

"If I see you again, " Sharpe said, "I'll kill you. If you go back to the British camp I'll hang you like your brother, and if you so much as send a message to Torrance, I'll follow you to the last corner on God's earth and I'll castrate you with my bare hands." He jabbed the spear just enough to prick Jama's belly, then turned away. The crowd was silent, cowed by Sevajee's men and by the ferocity they had witnessed in the temple courtyard. Sharpe tossed away the spear, pulled Ahmed towards him and patted the boy's head.

"You're a good lad, Ahmed. A bloody good lad. And I need a drink. By Christ, I'm thirsty."

But he was also alive.

Which meant some other men would soon be dead.

Because Sharpe was more than alive. He was angry. Angry as hell.

And wanting revenge.

Sharpe borrowed a cloak from one of Sevajee's men, then pulled himself up behind Ahmed onto Major Stokes's horse. They rode slowly away from the village where the torches guttered in the temple towards the smear of red light that betrayed where the British encampment lay some miles to the west. Sevajee talked as they rode, telling Sharpe how Ahmed had fled straight into the arms of his men.

"Luckily for you, Ensign, " the Indian said, "I recognized him."

"Which is why you sent for help, isn't it?" Sharpe asked sarcastically.

"It's why you fetched some redcoats to get me out of that bloody tent."

"Your gratitude touches me deeply, " Sevajee said with a smile.

"It took us a long time to make sense of what your boy was saying, and I confess we didn't wholly believe him even then, and by the time we thought to take him seriously, you were already being carried away.

So we followed. I thought we might fetch some entertainment from the evening, and so we did."

"Glad to be of service, sahib, " Sharpe said.

"I knew you could beat ajetti in a fair fight."

"I beat three at once in Seringapatam, " Sharpe said, 'but I don't know as it was a fair fight. I'm not much in favour of fair fights. I like them to be unfair. Fair fights are for gentlemen who don't know any better."

"Which is why you gave the sword to the jetti, " Sevajee observed drily.

"I knew he'd make a bollocks of it, " Sharpe said. He was tired suddenly, and all the aches and throbs and agony had come back.

Above him the sky was brilliant with stars, while a thin sickle moon hung just above the faraway fortress. Dodd was up there, Sharpe thought, another life to take. Dodd and Torrance, Hakeswill and his two men. A debt to be paid by sending all the bastards to hell.

"Where shall I take you?" Sevajee asked.

"Take me?"

"You want to go to the General?"

"Christ, no." Sharpe could not imagine complaining to Wellesley. The cold bugger would probably blame Sharpe for getting into trouble.

Stokes, maybe? Or the cavalry? Sergeant Lockhart would doubtless welcome him, but then he had a better idea.

"Take me to wherever you're camped, " he told Sevajee.

"And in the morning?"

"You've got a new recruit, " Sharpe said.

"I'm one of your men for now."

Sevajee looked amused.

"Why?"

"Why do you think? I want to hide."

"But why?"

Sharpe sighed.

"D'you think Wellesley will believe me? If I go to Wellesley he'll think I've got sunstroke, or he'll reckon I'm drunk. And Torrance will stand there with a plum in his bloody mouth and deny everything, or else he'll blame Hakeswill."

"Hakeswill?" Sevajee asked.

"A bastard I'm going to kill, " Sharpe said.

"And it'll be easier if he doesn't know I'm still alive." And this time, Sharpe vowed, he would make sure of the bastard.

"My only worry, " he told Sevajee, 'is Major Stokes's horse. He's a good man, Stokes."

"That horse?" Sevajee asked, nodding at the grey mare.

"You reckon a couple of your fellows could return it to him in the morning?"

"Of course."

"Tell him I got thrown from the saddle and snatched up by the enemy, " Sharpe said.

"Let him think I'm a prisoner in Gawilghur."

"And meanwhile you'll be one of us?" Sevajee asked.

"I've just become a Mahratta, " Sharpe said.

«Welcome,» said Sevajee.

"And what you need now, Sharpe, is some rest."

"I've had plenty of rest, " Sharpe said.

"What I need now are some clothes, and some darkness."

"You need food too, " Sevajee insisted. He glanced up at the sliver of moon above the fort. It was waning.

"Tomorrow night will be darker, " he promised, and Sharpe nodded. He wanted a deep darkness, a shadowed blackness, in which a living ghost could hunt.

Major Stokes was grateful for the return of his horse, but saddened over Sharpe's fate.

«Captured!» he told Sir Arthur Wellesley.

"And my own fault too."

"Can't see how that can be, Stokes."

"I should never have let him ride off on his own. Should have made him wait till a group went back."

"Won't be the first prison cell he's seen, " Wellesley said, 'and I daresay it won't be the last."

"I shall miss him, " Stokes said, 'miss him deeply. A good man."

Wellesley grunted. He had ridden up the improved road to judge its progress for himself and he was impressed, though he took care not to show his approval. The road now snaked up into the hills and one more day's work would see it reach the edge of the escarpment. Half the necessary siege guns were already high on the road, parked in an upland meadow, while bullocks were trudging up the lower slopes with their heavy burdens of round shot that would be needed to break open Gawilghur's walls. The Mahrattas had virtually ceased their raids on the road-makers ever since Wellesley had sent two battalions of sepoys up into the hills to hunt the enemy down. Every once in a while a musket shot would be fired from a long distance, but the balls were usually spent before they reached a target.

"Your work won't end with the road, " Wellesley told Stokes, as the General and his staff followed the engineer on foot towards some higher ground from where they could inspect the fortress.

"I doubted it would, sir."^ "You know Stevenson?"

"I've dined with the Colonel."

"I'm sending him up here. His troops will make the assault. My men will stay below and climb the two roads." Wellesley spoke curtly, almost offhandedly. He was proposing to divide his army into two again, just as it had been split for most of the war against the Mahrattas. Stevenson's part of the army would climb to the plateau and make the main assault on the fortress. That attack would swarm across the narrow neck of land to climb the breaches, but to stop the enemy from throwing all their strength into the defence of the broken wall Wellesley proposed sending two columns of his own men up the steep tracks that led directly to the fortress. Those men would have to approach unbroken walls up slopes too steep to permit artillery to be deployed, and Wellesley knew those columns could never hope to break into Gawilghur. Their job was to spread the defenders thin, and to block off the garrison's escape routes while Colonel Stevenson's men did the bloody work.

"You'll have to establish Stevenson's batteries, " Wellesley told Stokes.

"Major Blackiston's seen the ground' he indicated his aide 'and he reckons two eighteens and three iron twelves should suffice. Major Blackiston, of course, will give you whatever advice he can."

"No glacis?" Stokes directed the question to Blackiston.

"Not when I was there, " Blackiston said, 'though of course they could have made one since. I just saw curtain walls with a few bastions.

Ancient work, by the look of it."

"Fifteenth-century work, " Wellesley put in and, when he saw that the two engineers were impressed by his knowledge, he shrugged.

"Syud Sevajee claims as much, anyway."

"Old walls break fastest, " Stokes said cheerfully. The two big guns, with the three smaller cannon, would batter the wall head on to crumble the ancient stone that was probably unprotected by a glacis of embanked earth to soak up the force of the bombardment, and the Major had yet to find a fortress wall in India that could resist the strike of an eighteen-pounder shot travelling half a mile every two seconds.

"But you'll want some enfilading fire, " he warned Wellesley.

"I'll send you some more twelves, " Wellesley promised.

"A battery of twelves and an howitzer, " Stokes suggested.

"I'd like to drop some nasties over the wall. There's nothing like an howitzer for spreading gloom."

"I'll send an howitzer, " Wellesley promised. The enfilading batteries would fire at an angle through the growing breaches to keep the enemy from making repairs, and the howitzer, which fired high in the air so that its shells dropped steeply down, could bombard the repair parties behind the fortress ramparts.

"And I want the batteries established quickly, " Wellesley said.

"No dallying, Major."

"I'm not a man to dally, Sir Arthur, " Stokes said cheerfully. The Major was leading the General and his staff up a particularly steep patch of road where an elephant, supplemented by over sixty sweating sepoys, forced an eighteen-pounder gun up the twisting road. The officers dodged the sepoys, then climbed a knoll from where they could stare across at Gawilghur.

By now they were nearly as high as the stronghold itself and the profile of the twin forts stood clear against the bright sky beyond. It formed a double hump. The narrow neck of land led from the plateau to the first, lower hump on which the Outer Fortress stood. It was that fortress which would receive Stokes's breaching fire, and that fortress which would be assailed by Stevenson's men, but beyond it the ground dropped into a deep ravine, then climbed steeply to the much larger second hump on which the Inner Fortress with its palace and its lakes and its houses stood. Sir Arthur spent a long time staring through his glass, but said nothing.

"I'll warrant I can get you into the smaller fortress, " Stokes said, 'but how do you cross the central ravine into the main stronghold?"

It was that question that Wellesley had yet to answer in his own mind, and he suspected there was no simple solution. He hoped that the attackers would simply surge across the ravine and flood up the second slope like an irresistible wave that had broken through one barrier and would now overcome everything in its path, but he dared not admit to such impractical optimism. He dared not confess that he was condemning his men to an attack on an Inner Fortress that would have unbreached walls and well-prepared defenders.

"If we can't take it by escalade, " he said curtly, collapsing his glass, 'we'll have to dig breaching batteries in the Outer Fortress and do it the hard way."

In other words, Stokes thought, Sir Arthur had no idea how it was to be done. Only that it must be done. By escalade or by breach, and by God's mercy, if they were lucky, for once they were into the central ravine the attackers would be in the devil's hands.

It was a hot December day, but Stokes shivered, for he feared for the men who must go up against Gawilghur Captain Torrance had enjoyed a remarkably lucky evening. Jama had still not returned to the camp, and his big green tents with their varied delights stood empty, but there were plenty of other diversions in the British camp. A group of Scottish officers, augmented by a sergeant who played the flute, gave a concert, and though Torrance had no great taste for chamber music he found the melodies were in tune with his jaunty mood. Sharpe was gone, Torrance's debts were paid, he had survived, and he had strolled on from the concert to the cavalry lines where he knew he would find a game of whist. Torrance had succeeded in taking fifty-three guineas from an irascible major and another twelve from a whey-cheeked ensign who kept scratching his groin.

"If you've got the pox, " the Major had finally said, 'then get the hell to a surgeon."

"It's lice, sir."

"Then for Christ's sake stop wriggling. You're distracting me."

"Scratch on, " Torrance had said, laying down a winning hand. He had yawned, scooped up the coins, and bid his partners a good night.

"It's devilish early, " the Major had grumbled, wanting a chance to win his money back.

«Duty,» Torrance had said vaguely, then he had strolled to the merchant encampment and inspected the women who fanned themselves in the torrid night heat. An hour later, well pleased with himself, he had returned to his quarters. His servant squatted on the porch, but he waved the man away.

Sajit was still at his candle-lit desk, unclogging his pen of the soggy paper scraps that collected on the nib. He stood, touched his inky hands together and bowed as Torrance entered.

"Sahib."

"All well?"

"All is well, sahib. Tomorrow's chitties He pushed a pile of papers across the desk.

"I'm sure they're in order, " Torrance said, quite confident that he spoke true. Sajit was proving to be an excellent clerk. He went to the door of his quarters, then turned with a frown.

"Your uncle hasn't come back?"

"Tomorrow, sahib, I'm sure."

"Tell him I'd like a word. But not if he comes tonight. I don't want to be disturbed tonight."

"Of course not, sahib." Sajit offered another bow as Torrance negotiated the door and the muslin screen.

The Captain shot the iron bolt, then chased down the few moths that had managed to get past the muslin. He lit a second lamp, piled the night's winnings on the table, then called for Clare. She came sleepy eyed from the kitchen.

'75

"Arrack, Brick, " Torrance ordered, then peeled off his coat while Clare un stoppered a fresh jar of the fierce spirit. She kept her eyes averted as Torrance stripped himself naked and lay back in his hammock.

"You could light me a hookah, Brick, " he suggested, 'then sponge me down. Is there a clean shirt for the morning?"

"Of course, sir."

"Not the darned one?"

"No, sir."

He turned his head to stare at the coins which glittered so prettily in the smoky lamplight. In funds again! Winning! Perhaps his luck had turned. It seemed so. He had lost so much money at cards in the last month that he had thought nothing but ruin awaited him, but now the goddess of fortune had turned her other cheek. Rule of halves, he told himself as he sucked on the hookah. Save half, gamble the other half.

Halve the winnings and save half again. Simple really. And now that Sharpe was gone he could begin some careful trading once more, though how the market would hold up once the Mahrattas were defeated he could not tell. Still, with a slice of luck he might make sufficient money to set himself up in a comfortable civilian life in Madras. A carriage, a dozen horses and as many women servants. He would have an harem.

He smiled at the thought, imagining his father's disgust. An harem, a courtyard with a fountain, a wine cellar deep beneath his house that should be built close to the sea so that cooling breezes could waft through its windows. He would need to spend an hour or two at the office each week, but certainly not more for there were always Indians to do the real work. The buggers would cheat him, of course, but there seemed plenty of money to go around so long as a man did not gamble it away. Rule of halves, he told himself again. The golden rule of life.

The sound of singing came from the camp beyond the village.

Torrance did not recognize the tune, which was probably some Scottish song. The sound drifted him back to his childhood when he had sung in the cathedral choir. He grimaced, remembering the frosty mornings when he had run in the dark across the close and pushed open the cathedral's great side door to be greeted by a clout over the ear because he was late. The choristers' cloudy breath had mingled with the smoke of the guttering candles. Lice under the robes, he remembered. He had caught his first lice off a counter-tenor who had held him against a wall behind a bishop's tomb and hoisted his robe. I hope the bastard's dead, he thought.

Sajit yelped.

«Quiet!» Torrance shouted, resenting being jarred from his reverie. There was silence again, and Torrance sucked on the hookah. He could hear Clare pouring water in the yard and he smiled as he anticipated the soothing touch of the sponge.

Someone, it had to be Sajit, tried to open the door from the front room.

"Go away, " Torrance called, but then something hit the door a massive blow. The bolt held, though dust sifted from crevices in the plaster wall either side of the frame. Torrance stared in shock, then twitched with alarm as another huge bang shook the door, and this time a chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate fell from the wall.

Torrance swung his bare legs out of the hammock. Where the devil were his pistols?

A third blow reverberated round the room, and this time the bracket holding the bolt was wrenched out of the wall and the door swung in onto the muslin screen. Torrance saw a robed figure sweep the screen aside, then he threw himself over the room and pawed through his discarded clothes to find his guns.

A hand gripped his wrist.

"You won't need that, sir, " a familiar voice said, and Torrance turned, wincing at the strength of the man's grip.

He saw a figure dressed in blood-spattered Indian robes, with a tulwar scabbarded at his waist and a face shrouded by a head cloth. But Torrance recognized his visitor and blanched.

"Reporting for duty, sir, " Sharpe said, taking the pistol from Torrance's unresisting gripTorrance gaped. He could have sworn that the blood on the robe was fresh for it gleamed wetly. There was more blood on a short-bladed knife in Sharpe's hand. It dripped onto the floor and Torrance gave a small pitiful mew.

"It's Sajit's blood, " Sharpe said.

"His penknife too." He tossed the wet blade onto the table beside the gold coins.

"Lost your tongue, sir?"

"Sharpe?"

"He's dead, sir, Sharpe is, " Sharpe said.

"He was sold to Jama, remember, sir? Is that the blood money?" Sharpe glanced at the rupees on the table.

«Sharpe,» Torrance said again, somehow incapable of saying anything else.

"I'm his ghost, sir, " Sharpe said, and Torrance did indeed look as though a spectre had just broken through his door. Sharpe tutted and shook his head in self-reproof.

"I'm not supposed to call you «sir», am I, sir? On account of me being a fellow officer and a gentleman. Where's Sergeant Hakeswill?"

«Sharpe!» Torrance said once more, collapsing onto a chair.

"We heard you'd been captured!»

"So I was, sir, but not by the enemy. Leastwise, not by any proper enemy." Sharpe examined the pistol.

"This ain't loaded. What were you hoping to do, sir? Beat me to death with the barrel?"

"My robe, Sharpe, please, " Torrance said, gesturing to where the silk robe hung on a wooden peg.

"So where is Hakeswill, sir?" Sharpe asked. He had pushed back his head cloth and now opened the pistol's friz zen and blew dust off the pan before scraping at the layer of caked powder with a fingernail.

"He's on the road, " Torrance said.

"Ah! Took over from me, did he? You should keep this pistol clean, sir. There's rust on the spring, see? Shame to keep an expensive gun so shabbily. Are you sitting on your cartridge box?"

Torrance meekly raised his bottom to take out his leather pouch which held the powder and bullets for his pistols. He gave the bag to Sharpe, thought about fetching the robe himself, then decided that any untoward move might upset his visitor.

"I'm delighted to see you're alive, Sharpe, " he said.

"Are you, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Of course."

"Then why did you sell me to Jama?"

"Sell you? Don't be ridiculous, Sharpe. No! " The cry came as the pistol barrel whipped towards him, and it turned into a moan as the barrel slashed across his cheek. Torrance touched his face and winced at the blood on his fingers.

"Sharpe' he began.

"Shut it, sir, " Sharpe said nastily. He perched on the table and poured some powder into the pistol barrel.

"I talked to Jama last night. He tried to have me killed by a couple ofjettis. You know what jet tis are, sir?

Religious strongmen, sir, but they must have been praying to the wrong God, for I cut one's throat and left the other bugger blinded." He paused to select a bullet from the pouch.

"And I had a chat with

Jama when I'd killed his thugs and he told me lots of interesting things. Like that you traded with him and his brother. You're a traitor, Torrance."

"Sharpe- "I said shut it! " Sharpe snapped. He pushed the bullet into the pistol's muzzle, then drew out the short ramrod and shoved it down the barrel.

"The thing is, Torrance, " he went on in a calmer tone, "I know the truth. All of it. About you and Hakeswill and about you and Jama and about you and Naig." He smiled at Torrance, then slotted the short ramrod back into its hoops.

"I used to think officers were above that sort of crime. I knew the men were crooked, because I was crooked, but you don't have much choice, do you, when you've got nothing?

But you, sir, you had everything you wanted. Rich parents, proper schooling." Sharpe shook his head.

"You don't understand, Sharpe."

"But I do, sir. Now look at me. My ma was a whore, and not a very good one by all accounts, and she went and died and left me with nothing.

Bloody nothing! And the thing is, sir, that when I go to General Wellesley and I tells him about you selling muskets to the enemy, who's he going to believe? You, with your proper education, or me with a dead frow as a mother?" Sharpe looked at Torrance as though he expected an answer, but none came.

"He's going to believe you, sir, isn't he? He'd never believe me, on account of me not being a proper gentleman who knows his Latin. And you know what that means, sir?"

"Sharpe?"

"It means justice won't be done, sir. But, on the other hand, you're a gentleman, so you knows your duty, don't you?" Sharpe edged off the table and gave the pistol, butt first, to Torrance.

"Hold it just in front of your ear, " he advised Torrance, 'or else put it in your mouth. Makes more mess that way, but it's surer."

«Sharpe!» Torrance said, and found he had nothing to say. The pistol felt heavy in his hand.

"It won't hurt, sir, " Sharpe said comfortingly.

"You'll be dead in the blink of an eyelid." He began scooping the coins off the table into Torrance's pouch. He heard the heavy click as the pistol was cocked, then glanced round to see that the muzzle was pointing at his face.

He frowned and shook his head in disappointment.

"And I thought you were a gentleman, sir."

"I'm not a fool, Sharpe, " Torrance said vengefully. He stood and took a pace closer to the Ensign.

"And I'm worth ten of you. Up from the ranks? You know what that makes you, Sharpe? It makes you a brute, a lucky brute, but it don't make you a real officer. You're not going to be welcome anywhere, Sharpe. You'll be endured, Sharpe, because officers have manners, but they won't welcome you because you ain't a proper officer. You weren't born to it, Sharpe." Torrance laughed at the look of horrified outrage on Sharpe's face.

"Christ, I despise you! " he said savagely.

"You're like a dressed-up monkey, Sharpe, only you can't even wear clothes properly! I could give you lace and braid, and you'd still look like a peasant, because that's what you are, Sharpe. Officers should have style! They should have wit!

And all you can do is grunt. You know what you are, Sharpe? You're an embarrassment, you're.. " He paused, trying to find the right insult, and shook his head in frustration as the words would not come.

"You're a lump, Sharpe! That's what you are, a lump! And the kindest thing is to finish you off." Torrance smiled.

"Goodbye, Mister Sharpe." He pulled the trigger.

The flint smashed down on the steel and the spark flashed into the empty pan.

Sharpe reached out in the silence and took the pistol from Torrance's hand.

"I loaded it, sir, but I didn't prime it. On account of the fact that I might be a lump, but I ain't any kind of fool." He pushed Torrance back into the chair, and Torrance could only watch as Sharpe dropped a pinch of powder into the pan. He flinched as Sharpe closed the friz zen then shuddered as Sharpe walked towards him.

"No, Sharpe, no!»

Sharpe stood behind Torrance.

"You tried to have me killed, sir, and I don't like that." He pressed the pistol into the side of the Captain's head.

«Sharpe!» Torrance pleaded. He was shaking, but he seemed powerless to offer any resistance, then the muslin curtain from the kitchen was swept aside and Clare Wall came into the room. She stopped and stared with huge eyes at Sharpe.

«Clare!» Torrance pleaded.

"Fetch help! Quickly now! " Clare did not move.

"Fetch help, my dear! " Torrance said.

"She'll be a witness against you, Sharpe." Torrance had turned to look at Sharpe and was babbling now.

"So the best thing you can do is to put the gun down. I'll say nothing about this, nothing! Just a touch of fever in you, I expect. It's all a misunderstanding and we shall forget it ever happened. Maybe we could share a bottle of arrack? Clare, my dear, maybe you could find a bottle?"

Clare stepped towards Sharpe and held out her hand.

"Fetch help, my dear, " Torrance said, 'he's not going to give you the gun."

"He is, " Sharpe said, and he gave Clare the pistol.

Torrance breathed a great sigh of relief, then Clare clumsily turned the gun and pointed it at Torrance's head. The Captain just stared at her.

"Eyes front, Captain, " Sharpe said, and turned Torrance's head so that the bullet would enter from the side, just as it might if Torrance had committed suicide.

"Are you sure?" he asked Clare.

"God help me, " she said, 'but I've dreamed of doing this." She straightened her arm so that the pistol's muzzle touched Torrance's temple.

«No!» he called.

"No, please! No!»

But she could not pull the trigger. Sharpe could see she wanted to, but her finger would not tighten and so Sharpe took the gun from her, edged her gently aside, then pushed the barrel into Torrance's oiled hair.

"No, please! " the Captain appealed. He was weeping.

"I beg you, Sharpe. Please!»

Sharpe pulled the trigger, stepping back as a gush of blood spouted from the shattered skull. The sound of the pistol had been hugely loud in the small room that was now hazed with smoke.

Sharpe knelt and pushed the pistol into Torrance's dead hand, then picked up the pouch with its gold and thrust it into Clare's hands.

"We're going, " he told her, 'right now."

She understood the haste and, without bothering to fetch any of her belongings, followed him back into the outer room where Sajit's body lay slumped over the table. His blood had soaked the chitties Clare whimpered when she saw the blood.

"I didn't really mean to kill him, " Sharpe explained, 'then realized he'd be a witness if I didn't." He saw the fear on Clare's face.

"I trust you, love. You and me? We're the same, aren't we? So come on, let's get the hell out of here."

Sharpe had already taken the three jewels from Sajit and he added those to the pouch of gold, then went to the porch where Ahmed stood guard. No one seemed to have been alarmed by the shot, but it was not wise to linger.

"I've got you some gold, Ahmed, " Sharpe said.

"Gold!»

"You know that word, you little bugger, don't you?" Sharpe grinned, then took Clare's hand and led her into the shadows. A dog barked briefly, a horse whinnied from the cavalry lines, and afterwards there was silence.