Sharpe's Triumph

Chapter 4

Sharpe followed McCandless into the gatehouse's high archway, using the weight of his mare to push through the sepoys and Highlanders who jostled in the narrow roadway that was still half blocked by the six pounder cannon. The mare shied from the thick powder smoke that hung in the air between the scorched and smoking remnants of the two gates and Sharpe, gripping the mane to keep in the saddle, kicked his heels back so that the horse shot forward and trampled through the fly-blown intestines of the sepoy who had been struck in the belly by the six-pound shot. He hauled on the reins, checking the mare's fright among the sprawled bodies of the Arabs who had died trying to defend the gate.

The fight here had been short and brutal, but there was no resistance left in the city by the time Sharpe caught up with McCandless who was staring in disapproval at the victorious redcoats who hurried into Ahmednuggur's alleyways. The first screams were sounding.

"Women and drink," McCandless said disapprovingly. "That's all they'll be thinking of, women and drink."

"Loot too, sir," Sharpe corrected the Scotsman. "It's a wicked world, sir," he added hastily, wishing he could be let off the leash himself to join the plunderers. Sevajee and his men were through the gate now, wheeling their horses behind Sharpe, who glanced up at the walls to see, with some surprise, that many of the city's defenders were still on the fire step though they were making no effort to fire at the red-coated enemy who flooded through the broken gate. "So what do we do, sir?" he asked.

McCandless, usually so sure of himself, seemed at a momentary loss, but then he saw a wounded Mahratta crawling across the cleared space inside the wall and, throwing his reins to Sharpe, he dismounted and crossed to the casualty. He helped the wounded man into the shelter of a doorway and there propped him against a wall and gave him a drink from his canteen. He spoke to the wounded man for a few seconds. Sevajee, his tulwar still drawn, came alongside Sharpe.

"First we kill them, then we give them water," the Indian said.

"Funny business, war, sir," Sharpe said.

"Do you enjoy it?" Sevajee asked.

"Don't rightly know, sir. Haven't seen much." A short skirmish in Flanders, the swift victory of Malavelly, the chaos at the fall of Seringapatam, the horror of Chasalgaon and today's fierce escalade; that was Sharpe's full experience of war and he harboured all the memories and tried to work out from them some pattern that would tell him how he would react when the next violence erupted in his life. He thought he enjoyed it, but he was dimly aware that perhaps he ought not to enjoy it. "You, sir?" he asked Sevajee.

"I love it, Sergeant," the Indian said simply.

"You've never been wounded?" Sharpe guessed.

"Twice. But a gambler does not stop throwing dice because he loses."

McCandless came running back from the wounded man.

"Dodd's heading for the north gate!"

"This way," Sevajee said, sawing his reins and leading his cut-throats off to the right where he reckoned they would avoid the press of panicked people crowding the centre of the city.

"That wounded man was the kill adar," McCandless said as he fiddled his left boot into the stirrup, then hauled himself into the saddle. "Dying, poor fellow. Took a bullet in the stomach."

"Their chief man, eh?" Sharpe said, looking up at the gatehouse where a Highlander was ripping down Scindia's flags.

"And he was bitterly unhappy with our Lieutenant Dodd," McCandless said as he spurred his horse after Sevajee. "It seems he deserted the defences."

"He's in a hurry to get away, sir," Sharpe suggested.

"Then let us hurry to stop him," McCandless said, quickening his horse so that he could push through Sevajee's men to reach the front ranks of the pursuers.

Sevajee was using the alleyways beneath the eastern walls and for a time the narrow streets were comparatively empty, but then the crowds increased and their troubles began. A dog yapped at the heels of McCandless's horse, making it rear, then a holy cow with blue painted horns wandered into their path and Sevajee insisted they wait for the beast, but McCandless angrily banged the cow's bony rump with the flat of his claymore to drive it aside, then his horse shied again as a blast of musketry sounded just around the corner. A group of sepoys were shooting open a locked door, but McCandless could not spare the time to stop their depredations.

"Wellesley will have to hang some of them," he said, spurring on.

Refugees were fleeing into the alleys, hammering on locked doors or scaling mud walls to find safety. A woman, carrying a vast bundle on her head, was knocked to the ground by a sepoy who began slashing at the bundle's ropes with his bayonet. Two Arabs, both armed with massive matchlock guns with pearl-studded stocks, appeared ahead of them and Sharpe unslung his musket, but the two men were not disposed to continue a lost fight and so vanished into a gateway. The street was littered with discarded uniform jackets, some green, some blue, some brown, all thrown off by panicking defenders who now tried to pass themselves off as civilians. The crowds thickened as they neared the city's northern edge and the air of panic here was palpable. Muskets sounded constantly in the city and every shot, like every scream, sent a shudder through the crowds that eddied in hopeless search of an escape.

McCandless was shouting at the crowds, and using the threat of his sword to make a passage. There were plenty of men in the streets who might have opposed the Colonel's party, and some of those men still had weapons, but none made any threatening move. Ahmednuggur's surviving defenders only wanted to live, while the civilians had been plunged into terror. A crowd had invaded a Hindu temple where the women swayed and wailed in front of their garlanded idols. A child carrying a birdcage scurried across the road and McCandless wrenched his horse aside to avoid trampling the toddler, and then a loud volley of musketry sounded close ahead. There was a pause, and Sharpe imagined the men tearing open new cartridges and ramming the bullets into their muzzles, and then, exactly at the moment he expected it, the second volley sounded. This was not the ragged noise of plundering men blasting open locked doors, but a disciplined infantry fight.

"I warrant that fight's at the north gate!" McCandless called back excitedly.

"Sounds heavy, sir," Sharpe said.

"It'll be panic, man, panic! We'll just ride in and snatch the fellow!"

McCandless, so close to his quarry, was elated. A third volley sounded, and this time Sharpe heard the musket balls smacking against mud walls or ripping through the thatched roofs. The crowds were suddenly thinner and McCandless drove back his spurs to urge his big gelding closer to the firefight. Sevajee was alongside him, tulwar shining, and his men just behind. The city walls were close to their right-hand side, and ahead, over a jumble of thatched and slate roofs, Sharpe could see a blue-and-green-striped flag flying over the ramparts of a square tower like the bastion that crowned the south gate. The tower had to be above the north gate, and he kicked his horse on and hauled back the cock of his musket.

The horsemen cleared the last buildings and the gate was now only thirty yards ahead on the far side of an open, paved space, but the moment McCandless saw the gate he wrenched his reins to swerve his horse aside. Sevajee did the same, but the men behind, Sharpe included, were too late. Sharpe had thought that the disciplined volleys must be being fired by redcoats or sepoys, but instead two companies of white jacketed soldiers were barring the way to the gate and it was those men who were firing to keep the space around the gate clear for other white coated companies who were marching in double-quick time to escape the city. The volleys were being fired indiscriminately at civilians, redcoats and fugitive defenders alike, their aim solely to keep the gate free for the white-coated companies that were under the command of an unnaturally tall man mounted on a gaunt black horse. And just as Sharpe saw the man, and recognized him, so the left-hand company aimed at the horsemen and fired.

A horse screamed. Blood spurted fast and warm over the cobbles as the beast fell, trapping its rider and breaking his leg. Another of Sevajee's men was down, his tulwar ringing as it skittered across the stones. Sharpe heard the whistle of musket balls all about him and he tugged on the reins, wrenching the mare back towards the alley, but she protested his violence and turned back towards the enemy. He kicked her.

"Move, you bitch!" he shouted. "Move!"

He could hear ramrods rattling in barrels and he knew it would only be seconds, before another volley came his way, but then McCandless was beside him and the Scotsman leaned over, seized Sharpe's bridle and hauled him safely into the shelter of an alley.

"Thank you, sir," Sharpe said. He had lost control of his horse and felt ashamed. The mare was quivering and he patted her neck just as Dodd's next volley hammered its huge noise through the city. The balls thumped into the mud-brick walls, shattered tiles and tore handfuls out of the palm thatch. McCandless had dismounted, so Sharpe now kicked his feet from the stirrups, dropped from the saddle and ran to join the Colonel at the mouth of the alley. Once there, he looked for Dodd through the clearing smoke, found him and aimed the musket.

McCandless hurriedly pushed the musket down.

"What are you doing, man?"

"Killing the bugger, sir," Sharpe snarled, remembering the stench of blood at Chasalgaon.

"You'll do no such thing, Sergeant," McCandless growled. "I want him alive!"

Sharpe cursed, but did not shoot. Dodd, he saw, was very calm. He had caused another massacre here, but this time he had been killing Ahmednuggur's civilians to prevent them from crowding the gateway, and his killers, the two white-coated companies, still stood guard on the gate even though the remaining companies had all vanished into the sunlit country beyond the archway's long dark tunnel. So why were those two companies lingering? Why did Dodd not extricate them before the rampaging sepoys and Highlanders caught up with him? The ground ahead of the two rear guard companies was littered with dead and dying fugitives and a horrid number of those corpses and casualties were women and children, while more weeping and shrieking people, terrified by the volley fire and equally frightened of the invaders spreading into the city behind them, were crammed into every street or alley that opened onto the cleared space by the gate.

"Why doesn't he leave?" McCandless wondered aloud.

"He's waiting for something, sir," Sharpe said.

"We need men," McCandless said. "Go and fetch some. I'll keep an eye on Dodd."

"Me, sir? Fetch men?"

"You're a sergeant, aren't you?" McCandless snapped. "So behave like one. Get me an infantry company. Highlanders, preferably. Now go!"

Sharpe cursed under his breath, then sprinted back into the city. How the hell was he expected to find men? There were plenty of redcoats in sight, but none was under discipline, and demanding that looters abandon their plunder to go into another fight would like as not prove a waste of time if not downright suicidal. Sharpe needed to find an officer, and so he bullied his way through the terrified crowd in hope of discovering a company of Highlanders that was still obeying orders.

A splintering crash directly above his head made him duck into a doorway just seconds before a flimsy balcony collapsed under the weight of three sepoys and a dark wooden trunk they had dragged from a bedroom. The trunk split apart when it hit the street, spilling out a trickle of coins, and the three injured sepoys screamed as they were trampled by a rush of soldiers and civilians who plunged in to collect the loot. A tall Scottish sergeant used his musket butt to clear a space about the broken trunk, then knelt and began scooping the coins into his upturned bearskin. He snarled at Sharpe, thinking him a rival for the plunder, but Sharpe stepped over the Sergeant, tripped on the broken leg of one of the sepoys, and shoved on. Bloody chaos!

A half-naked girl ran out of a potter's shop, then suddenly stopped as her unwinding said jerked her to a halt. Two redcoats hauled her back towards the shop. The girl's father, blood on his temple, was slumped just outside the doorway amidst the litter of his wares. The girl stared into Sharpe's eyes and he saw her mute appeal, then the door of the shop was slammed shut and he heard the bar dropping into place.

Whooping Highlanders had discovered a tavern and were setting up shop, while another Highlander was calmly reading his Bible while sitting on a brassbound trunk he had pulled from a goldsmith's shop.

"It's a fine day, Sergeant," he said equably, though he took care to keep his hand on his musket until Sharpe had safely gone past.

Another woman screamed in an alley, and Sharpe instinctively headed towards the terrible sound. He discovered a riotous mob of sepoys fighting with a small squad of white-jacketed soldiers who had to be among the very last of the city's defenders still in recognizable uniforms.

They were led by a very young European officer who flailed a slender sword from his saddle, but just as Sharpe caught sight of him, the officer was caught from behind by a bayonet. He arched his back, and his mouth opened in a silent scream as his sword faltered, then a mass of dark hands reached up and hauled him down from his white-eyed horse.

Bayonets plunged down, then the officer's blood-soaked uniform was being rifled for money.

Beyond the dead officer, and also on horseback, was a woman. She was wearing European clothes and had a white net veil hanging from the brim of her straw hat, and it was her scream that Sharpe had heard. Her horse had been trapped against a wall and she was clinging to a roof beam that jutted just above her head. She was sitting sidesaddle, facing the street and screaming as excited sepoys clawed at her. Other sepoys were looting a pack mule that had been following her horse, and she turned and shouted at them to stop, then gasped as two men caught her legs.

"No!" she shouted. A small riding whip hung from a loop about her right wrist and she tried letting go of the roof beam and slashing down with the leather thong, but the defiance only made her predicament worse.

Sharpe used his musket butt to hammer his way through the sepoys.

He was a good six inches taller than any of them, and much stronger, and he used his anger as a weapon to drive them aside. He kicked a man away from the slaughtered officer, stepped over the body, and swung the musket butt into the skull of one of the men trying to pull the woman from her horse. That man went down and Sharpe turned the musket and drove its muzzle into the belly of the second sepoy. That man doubled over and staggered backwards, but just then a third man seized the horse's bridle and yanked it out from the wall so fast that the woman fell back onto the roadway. The sepoys, seeing her upended with her long legs in the air, shouted in triumph and surged forward and Sharpe whirled the musket like a club to drive them backwards. One of them aimed his musket at Sharpe who stared him in the eyes.

"Go on, you bastard," Sharpe said, "I dare you."

The sepoys decided not to make a fight of it. There were other women in the city and so they backed away. A few paused to plunder the dead European officer, while others finished looting the woman's pack mule which had been stripped of its load and grinning sepoys now tore apart her linen dresses, stockings and shawls. The woman was kneeling behind Sharpe, shaking and sobbing, and so he turned and took her by the elbow.

"Come on, love," he said, "you're all right now. Safe now."

She stood. Her hat had come off when she fell from her horse and her dishevelled golden hair hung about her pale face. Sharpe saw she was tall, had an impression that she was pretty even though her blue eyes were wide with shock and she was still shaking. He stooped for her hat.

"You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, you do," he said, then shook the dust off her hat and held it out to her.

Her horse was standing free in the street, so he grabbed the beast's bridle then led woman and animal to a nearby gateway that opened into a courtyard.

"Have to look after your horse," he said, "valuable things, horses. You know how a trooper gets a replacement mount?"

He was not entirely sure why he was talking so much and he did not even know if the woman understood him, but he sensed that if he stopped talking she would burst into tears again and so he kept up his chatter.

"If a trooper loses his horse he has to prove it's died, see? To show he hasn't sold it. So he chops off a hoof. They carry little axes for that, some of them do. Can't sell a three-footed horse, see? He shows the hoof to his officers and they issue a new horse."

There was a rope bed in the courtyard and he led the woman to it.

She sat and cuffed at her face.

"They said you wouldn't come for three more days," she said bitterly in a strong accent.

"We were in a hurry, love," Sharpe said. She had still not taken the hat so he crouched and held it close to her. "Are you French?"

She nodded. She had begun to cry again and tears were running down her cheeks.

"It's all right," he said, "you're safe now."

Then he saw the wedding ring on her finger and a terrible thought struck him. Had the white-coated officer been her husband? And had she watched him hacked down in front of her?

"That officer," he said, jerking his head towards the street where sepoys were kicking at doors and forcing shuttered windows with their fire locks, "was he your husband, love?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, no," she said, "no. He was a lieutenant. My husband is a captain." She at last took the hat, then sniffed. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Sharpe said, "except you had a nasty fright. It's all right now."

She took a deep breath, then wiped her eyes.

"I seem to be crying always." She looked into Sharpe's eyes. "Life is always tears, isn't it?"

"Not for me, love, no. Haven't had a weep since I was a kid, not that I can remember."

She shrugged.

"Thank you," she said, gesturing towards the street where she had been assailed by the sepoys. "Thank you."

Sharpe smiled. "I didn't do anything, love, 'cept drive the buggers off. A dog could have done that as well as me. Are you all right? You weren't hurt?"

"No."

He patted her hand. "Your husband went without you, did he?"

"He sent Lieutenant Silliere to fetch me. No, he didn't. Major Dodd sent Silliere."

"Dodd?" Sharpe asked.

The woman heard the interest in Sharpe's voice.

"You know him?" she asked.

"I know of him," Sharpe said carefully. "Ain't met him, not properly."

She studied Sharpe's face.

"You don't like him?"

"I hate him, Ma'am."

"I hate him too." She shrugged. "I am called Simone. Simone Joubert."

"It's a pretty name, Ma'am. Simone? Very pretty."

She smiled at his clumsy gallantry. "You have a name?"

"Richard Sharpe, Ma'am, Sergeant Richard Sharpe, King's 33rd."

"Richard," she said, trying it out, "it suits you. Richard the Lion Heart yes?"

"He was a great one for fighting, Ma'am."

"For fighting the French, Sergeant," she said reprovingly.

"Someone has to," Sharpe said with a grin, and Simone Joubert laughed and at that moment Sharpe thought she was the prettiest girl he had seen in years. Maybe not really pretty, but vivacious and blue eyed and golden-haired and smiling. But an officer's woman, Sharpe told himself, an officer's woman.

"You must not fight the French, Sergeant," Simone said. "I won't let you."

"If it looks like it's going to happen, Ma'am, then I'll let you know and you'll have to hold me down."

She laughed again, then sighed. A fire had broken out not far away and scraps of burning thatch were floating in the warm air.

One of the smuts landed on Simone's white dress and she brushed at it, smearing the black ash into the weave.

"They have taken everything," she said sadly. "I had little enough, but it is gone. All my clothes! All!"

"Then you get more," Sharpe said.

"What with? This?" She showed him a tiny purse hanging from her waist. "What will happen to me, Sergeant?"

"You'll be all right, Ma'am. You'll be looked after. You're an officer's wife, aren't you? So our officers will make sure you're all right. They'll probably send you back to your husband."

Simone gave him a dutiful smile and Sharpe wondered why she was not overjoyed at the thought of being reunited with her captain, then he forgot the question as a ragged volley of shots sounded in the street and he turned to see an Arab staggering in the gateway, his robes bright with blood, and an instant later a half-dozen Highlanders leaped onto the twitching body and began to tear its clothing apart. One of them slit the victim's robes with his bayonet and Sharpe saw that the dying man had a fine pair of riding boots.

"There's a woman!" one of the looters shouted, seeing Simone in the courtyard, but then he saw Sharpe's levelled musket and he raised a placatory hand. "All yours, eh? No trouble, Sergeant, no trouble." Then the man twisted to look down the street and shouted a warning to his comrades and the six men took to their heels. A moment later a file of sepoys showed in the gateway under the command of a mounted officer. They were the first disciplined troops Sharpe had seen in the city and they were restoring order. The officer peered into the courtyard, saw nothing amiss, and so ordered his men onwards. A half company of kilted redcoats followed the sepoys and Sharpe assumed that Wellesley had ordered the picquets of the day into the city. The picquets, who provided the sentries for the army, were made up of half companies from every battalion.

There was a well in the corner of the yard and Sharpe hauled up its leather bucket to give himself and Simone a drink. He brought up more water for the Frenchwoman's horse, and just then heard McCandless shouting his name through the streets.

"Here, sir!" he called back. "Here!"

It took a moment or two for McCandless to find him, and when he did the Scotsman was furious.

"Where were you, man?" the Colonel demanded querulously. "He got away! Clean away! Marched away like a toy soldier!" He had remounted his gelding and stared imperiously down on Sharpe from his saddle. "Got clean away!"

"Couldn't find men, sir, sorry, sir," Sharpe said.

"Just one company! That's all we needed!" McCandless said angrily, then he noticed Simone Joubert and snatched off his hat. "Ma'am," he said, nodding his head.

"This is Colonel McCandless, Ma'am," Sharpe made the introduction. "And this is Simone, sir." He could not recall her surname.

"Madame Joubert," Simone introduced herself.

McCandless scowled at her. He had ever been awkward in the presence of women, and he had nothing to say to this young woman so he just glowered at Sharpe instead.

"All I needed was one company, Sharpe. One company!"

"He was rescuing me, Colonel," Simone said.

"So I surmised, Madame, so I surmised," the Colonel said unhappily, implying that Sharpe had been wasting his time. More smuts swirled in the smoke down to the yard, while in the street beyond the gateway the picquets were hauling looters from the shops and houses. McCandless stared irritably at Simone who gazed placidly back. The Scotsman was a gentleman and knew the woman was now his responsibility, but he resented the duty. He cleared his throat, then found he still had nothing to say.

"Madame Joubert's husband, sir," Sharpe said, "serves in Dodd's regiment."

"He does, does he?" McCandless asked, showing sudden interest.

"My husband hoped to take command of the regiment when Colonel Mathers left," Simone explained, "but, alas, Major Dodd arrived." She shrugged.

The Colonel frowned.

"Why didn't you leave with your husband?" he demanded sternly.

"That is what I was trying to do, Colonel."

"And you were caught, eh?" The Colonel patted his horse which had been distracted by one of the burning scraps of straw. "Tell me, Ma'am, do you have quarters in the city?"

"I did, Colonel, I did. Though if anything is left now?.." Simone shrugged again, implying that she expected to find the quarters ransacked.

"You have servants?"

"The landlord had servants and we used them. My husband has a groom, of course."

"But you have somewhere to stay, Ma'am," McCandless demanded.

"I suppose so, yes." Simone paused. "But I am alone, Colonel."

"Sergeant Sharpe will look after you, Ma'am," McCandless said, then a thought struck him forcibly. "You don't mind doing that, do you, Sharpe?" he enquired anxiously.

"I'll manage, sir," Sharpe said.

"And I am just to stay here?" Simone demanded fiercely. "Nothing else? That is all you propose, Colonel?"

"I propose, Ma'am, to reunite you with your husband," McCandless said, "but it will take time. A day or two. You must be patient."

"I am sorry, Colonel," Simone said, regretting the tone of the questions she had shot at McCandless.

"I'm sorry to give you so unfortunate a duty, Sharpe," McCandless said, "but keep the lady safe till we can arrange things. Send word to me where you are, and I'll come and find you when everything's arranged."

"Yes, sir."

The Colonel turned and spurred out of the courtyard. His spirits, which had collapsed when Dodd had marched out of the city's northern gate, were reviving again for he saw in Simone Joubert a God-sent opportunity to ride into the heart of his enemy's army. Restoring the woman to her husband might do nothing to visit the vengeance of the Company on Dodd, but it would surely be an unparalleled opportunity to scout Scindia's forces and so McCandless rode to fetch Wellesley's permission for such an excursion, while Simone led Sharpe through the exhausted streets to find her house. On their way they passed an ox cart that had been tipped backwards and weighted down with stones so that its single shaft pointed skywards. A sepoy hung from the shaft's tip by his neck. The man was not quite dead yet and so made small spasmodic motions, and officers, both Scottish and Indian, were forcing sheepish and half-drunken men to stare at the dying sepoy as a reminder of the fate that awaited plunderers. Simone shuddered and Sharpe hurried her past, her horse's reins in his left hand.

"Here, Sergeant," she said, leading him into an alley that was littered with discarded plunder. Above them smoke drifted across a city where women wept and redcoats patrolled the walls. Ahmednuggur had fallen.

Major Dodd had misjudged Wellesley, and that misjudgement shook him. An escalade seemed too intrepid, too headstrong, for the man Dodd derided as Boy Wellesley. It was neither what Dodd had expected nor what he had wanted from Wellesley. Dodd had wanted caution, for a cautious enemy is more easily defeated, but instead Wellesley had shown a scathing contempt for Ahmednuggur's defenders and launched an assault that should have been easily beaten back. If Dodd's men had been on the ramparts directly in the path of the assault then the attack would have been defeated, of that Dodd had no doubt, for there had only been four ladders deployed and that small number made the ease and swiftness of the British victory even more humiliating. It suggested that General Sir Arthur Wellesley possessed a confidence that neither his age nor experience should have provided, and it also suggested that Dodd might have underestimated Wellesley, and that worried him. Dodd's decision to desert to Pohlmann's army had been forced on him by circumstance, but he had not regretted the decision, for European officers who served the Mahratta chiefs were notorious for the riches they made, and the Mahratta armies far outnumbered their British opponents and were thus likely to be the winners of this war, but if the British were suddenly to prove invincible there would be no riches and no victory. There would only be defeat and ignominious flight.

And so, as he rode away from the fallen city, Dodd was inclined to ascribe Wellesley's sudden success to beginner's luck. Dodd persuaded himself that the escalade must have been a foolish gamble that had been unfairly rewarded with victory. It had been a rash strategy, Dodd told himself, and though it had succeeded, it could well tempt Wellesley into rashness again, and next time the rashness would surely be punished.

Thus Dodd attempted to discover good news within the bad.

Captain Joubert could find no good news. He rode just behind Dodd and continually turned in his saddle for a glimpse of Simone's white dress among the fugitives that streamed from the northern gate, but there was no sign of her, nor of Lieutenant Silliere, and each disappointment made Pierre Joubert's loss harder to bear. He felt a tear prickle at the corner of his eye, and then the thought that his young Simone might be raped made the tear run down his cheek.

"What the hell are you blubbing about?" Dodd demanded.

"Something in my eye," Joubert answered.

He wished he could be more defiant, but he felt belittled by the Englishman and unable to stand up to his bullying. In truth Pierre Joubert had felt belittled for most of his life. His small stature and timid nature made him a target, and he had been the obvious choice when his regiment in France had been ordered to find one officer who could be sent as an adviser to Scindia, the Maharajah of Gwalior. They had chosen Joubert, the one officer no one would miss, but the unpopular posting had brought Joubert the one stroke of good fortune that had ever come his way when the ship bringing him to India had stopped at the lie de France. He had met Simone, he had wooed her, he had won her, and he was proud of her, intensely proud, for he knew other men found her attractive and Joubert might have enjoyed that subtle flattery had he not known how desperately unhappy she was. He put her unhappiness down to the vagaries of a newly married woman's temperament and to the heat of India. He consoled himself with the thought that in a year or two he would be summoned back to France and there Simone would learn contentment in the company of his huge family. She would become a mother, learn to keep house and so accept her comfortable fate. So long, that was, as she had survived Ahmednuggur's fall. He spurred his horse alongside Dodd's.

"You were right, Colonel," the Frenchman said grudgingly. "There was nothing to be gained by fighting."

He was making conversation in order to keep his mind away from his fears for Simone.

Dodd acknowledged the compliment with a grunt.

"I'm sorry about Madame Joubert," he forced himself to say.

"The British will send news, I'm sure," Joubert said, clinging to a hope that Simone would have been rescued by some gallant officer.

"But a soldier's best off without a woman," Dodd said, then twisted in his saddle to look at the rear guard "Sikal's company is lagging," he told Joubert. "Tell the buggers to hurry up!" He watched Joubert ride away, then spurred to the head of the column where his vanguard marched with fixed bayonets and charged muskets.

The regiment might have escaped from Ahmednuggur, but it was not yet clear of all danger. British and Mahratta cavalry had ridden around the city to harass any of the garrison who might succeed in escaping, and those horsemen now threatened both flanks of Dodd's column, but their threat was small. Scores of other men were fleeing the city, and those fugitives, because they were not marching in disciplined formations, made much easier targets for the horsemen who gleefully swooped and circled about the refugees. Dodd watched as lances and sabres slashed into the scattered fugitives, but if any of the horsemen came too close to his own white-jacketed ranks he called a company to halt, turned it outwards and made them level their muskets. The threat of a volley was usually enough to drive the horsemen to search for easier pickings, and not one of the enemy came within pistol shot of Dodd's ranks. Once, when the column was some two miles north of the city, a determined squadron of British dragoons tried to head off the regiment's march, but Dodd ordered two of his small cannon to be unlimbered and their paltry round shots, bouncing across the flat, dry ground, were sufficient to make the blue-coated horsemen veer away to find another angle of attack. Dodd reinforced the threat by having his lead company fire one volley of musketry which, even though it was at long range, succeeded in unholing one dragoon. Dodd watched the defeated horsemen ride away and felt a surge of pride in his new regiment. This was the first time he had observed them in action, and though the excited cavalry was hardly a worthy foe, the men's calmness and efficiency were entirely praiseworthy. None of them hurried, none shot a ramrod out in panic, none seemed unsettled by the sudden, savage fall of the city and none had shown any reluctance to fire on the civilians who had threatened to obstruct their escape through the north gate. Instead they had bitten the enemy like a cobra defending itself, and that gave Dodd an idea. The Cobras! That was what he would call his regiment, the Cobras! He reckoned the name would inspire his men and put fear into an enemy. Dodd's Cobras. He liked the thought.

Dodd soon left his pursuers far behind. At least four hundred other men, most of them Arabs, had attached themselves to his regiment and he welcomed them for the more men he brought from the disaster, the higher his reputation would stand with Colonel Pohlmann. By early afternoon his Cobras had reached the crest of the escarpment that looked across the vast Deccan plain to where, far in the hazy distance, he could see the brown River Godavery snaking through the dry land.

Beyond that river was safety. Behind him the road was empty, but he knew it would not be long before the pursuing cavalry reappeared. The regiment had paused on the escarpment's edge and Dodd let them rest for a while. Some of the fugitive Arabs were horsemen and Dodd sent those men ahead to find a village that would yield food for his regiment.

He guessed he would need to camp short of the Godavery, but tomorrow he would find a way to cross, and a day or so later he would march with flying colours into Pohlmann's camp. Ahmednuggur might have fallen like a rotted tree, but Dodd had brought his regiment out for the loss of only a dozen men. He regretted those twelve men, though not the loss of Silliere, but he particularly regretted that Simone Joubert had failed to escape from the city. Dodd had sensed her dislike of him, and he had taken a piquant delight in the thought of cuckolding her despised husband in spite of that dislike, but it seemed that pleasure must be forgotten or at least postponed. Not that it mattered. He had saved his regiment and saved his guns and the future promised plenty of profitable employment for both.

So William Dodd marched north a happy man.

Simone led Sharpe to three small rooms on an upper floor of a house that smelt as though it belonged to a tanner. One room had a table and four mismatched chairs, two of which had been casually broken by looters, the second had been given over to a huge hip bath, while the third held nothing but a straw mattress that had been slit open and its stuffing scattered over the floorboards.

"I thought men joined Scindia to become rich," Sharpe said in wonderment at the cramped, ill-furnished rooms.

Simone sat on one of the undamaged chairs and looked close to tears.

"Pierre is not a mercenary," she said, "but an adviser. His salary is paid by France, not by Scindia, and what money he makes, he saves."

"He certainly doesn't spend it, does he?" Sharpe asked, looking about the small grubby rooms. "Where are the servants?"

"Downstairs. They work for the house owner."

Sharpe had spotted a broom in the stable where they had put Simone's horse, so now he went and fetched it. He drew a pail of water from the well and climbed the steps that ran up the side of the house to discover that Simone had not moved, except to hide her face in her hands, and so he set about cleaning up the mess himself. Whichever men had searched the rooms for loot had decided to use the bath as a lavatory, so he began by dragging it to the window, throwing open the shutters and pouring the contents into the alley. Then he sloshed the bath with water and scrubbed it with a dirty towel.

"The landlord is very proud of the bath," Simone had come to the door and was watching him, "and makes us pay extra."

"I've never had a proper bath." Sharpe gave the zinc tub a slap. He assumed it must have been brought to India by a European, for the outside was painted with square-rigged ships. "How do you fill it?"

"The servants do it. It takes a long time, and even then it's usually cold."

"I'll have them fill it for you, if you want."

Simone shrugged. "We need food first."

"Who cooks? Don't tell me, the servants downstairs?"

"But we have to buy the food." She touched the purse at her waist.

"Don't worry about money, love," Sharpe said. "Can you sew?"

"My needles were on the packhorse."

"I've got a sewing kit," Sharpe said, and he took the broom through to the bedroom and swept up the straw and stuffed it into the slit mattress.

Then he took the sewing kit from his pack, gave it to Simone, and told her to sew the mattress together.

"I'll find some food while you do that," he said, and went out with his pack. The city was silent now, its survivors cowering from their conquerors, but he managed to barter a handful of cartridges for some bread, some lentil paste and some mangoes. He was stopped twice by patrolling redcoats and sepoys, but his sergeant's stripes and Colonel McCandless's name convinced the officers he was not up to mischief. He found the body of the Arab who had been shot just outside the courtyard where he had sheltered Simone and dragged the riding boots off the corpse. They were fine boots of red leather with hawk-claw steel spurs, and Sharpe hoped they would fit. Nearby, in an alley, he discovered a pile of silk saris evidently dropped by a looter and he gathered up the whole bundle before hurrying back to Simone's rooms.

He pushed open the door.

"Even got you some sheets," he called, then dropped the bundle of silks because Simone had screamed from the bedroom.

Sharpe ran to the door to see her facing three Indians who now turned to confront him. One was an older man dressed in a dark tunic richly embroidered with flowers, while the younger two were in simple white robes.

"You got trouble?" Sharpe asked Simone.

The older man snarled at Sharpe, letting loose a stream of words in Marathi.

"Shut your face," Sharpe said, "I was talking to the lady."

"It is the house owner," Simone said, gesturing to the man in the embroidered tunic.

"He wants you out?" Sharpe guessed, and Simone nodded. "Reckons he can get a better rent from a British officer, is that it?" Sharpe asked. He put his food on the floor, then walked to the landlord. "You want more rent? Is that it?"

The landlord stepped back from Sharpe and said something to his two servants who closed in on either side of the redcoat. Sharpe slammed his right elbow into the belly of one and stamped his left foot onto the instep of the other, then grabbed both men's heads and brought them together with a crack. He let go of them and they staggered away in a daze as Sharpe pulled the bayonet from its sheath and smiled at the landlord.

"She wants a bath, you understand? Bath." He pointed at the room where the bath stood. "And she wants it hot, you greedy bastard, hot and steaming. And she needs food." He pointed at the miserable pile of food. "You cook it, we eat it, and if you want to make any other changes, you bastard, you talk to me first. Understand?"

One of the servants had recovered enough to intervene and was unwise enough to try to tug Sharpe away from his master. The servant was a big and young man, but he had none of Sharpe's ferocity. Sharpe hit him hard, hit him again, kneed him in the crotch, and by then the servant was halfway across the living-room floor and Sharpe pursued him, hauled him upright, hit him again and that last blow took the servant onto the small balcony at the top of the outside stairs.

"Go and break a leg, you sod," Sharpe said, and tipped the man over the balustrade. He heard the man cry out as he fell into the alley, but Sharpe had already turned back towards the bedroom.

"Have we still got a problem?" he demanded of the landlord.

The man did not understand a word of English, but he understood Sharpe by now. There was no problem. He backed out of the rooms, followed by his remaining servant, and Sharpe went with them to the stairs.

"Food," he said, pushing the bread, lentils and fruit into the hands of the cowed landlord.

"And Madame's horse needs cleaning and watering. And feeding. Horse, there, see?" He pointed into the courtyard.

"Feed the bugger," he ordered. The servant he had pushed over the balcony had propped himself against the alley's far wall where he was gingerly touching his bleeding nose. Sharpe spat on him for good measure, then went back inside.

"I never did like landlords," he said mildly.

Simone was half laughing and half afraid that the landlord would exact a terrible vengeance.

"Pierre was afraid of him," she explained, 'and he knows we are poor."

"You're not poor, love, you're with me," Sharpe said.

"Rich Richard?" Simone said, pleased to have made a joke in a foreign language.

"Richer then you know, love. How much thread is left?

"Thread? Ah, for the needle. You have plenty, why?"

"Because, my love, you can do me a favour," he said, and he stripped off his pack, his belt and his jacket. "I'm not that handy with a needle," he explained. "I can patch and darn, of course, but what I need now is some fine needlework. Real fine."

He sat, and Simone, intrigued, sat opposite and watched as he tipped out the contents of his pack. There were two spare shirts, his spare foot cloths, a blacking ball, a brush and the tin of flour he was supposed to use on his clubbed hair, though ever since he had ridden from Seringapatam with McCandless he had let his hair go unpowdered. He took out his stock, which he had similarly abandoned, then the copy of Gulliver's Travels that Mister Lawford had given him so he could practise his reading. He had neglected that lately, and the book was damp and had lost some of its pages.

"You can read?" Simone asked, touching the book with a tentative finger.

"I'm not very good."

"I like to read."

"Then you can help me get better, eh?" Sharpe said, and he pulled out the folded piece of leather that was for repairing his shoes, and beneath that was a layer of sacking. He took that out, then tipped the rest of the pack's contents onto the table.

Simone gasped. There were rubies and emeralds and pearls, there was gold and more emeralds and sapphires and diamonds and one great ruby half the size of a hen's egg.

"The thing is," Sharpe said, "that there's bound to be a battle before this Scindia fellow learns his lesson, and as like as not we won't wear packs in a battle, on account of them being too heavy, see? So I don't want to leave this lot in my pack to be looted by some bastard of a baggage guard."

Simone touched one of the stones, then looked up at Sharpe with wonderment in her eyes. He was not sure that it was wise to show her the treasure, for such things were best kept very secret, but he knew he was trying to impress her, and it was evident that he had.

"Yours?" she asked.

"All mine," he said.

Simone shook her blonde head in amazement, then began arranging the stones into ranks and files. She formed platoons of emeralds, platoons of rubies and another of pearls, there was a company of sapphires and a skirmish line of diamonds, and all of them were commanded by the great ruby.

"That belonged to the Tippoo Sultan," Sharpe said, touching the ruby. "He wore it in his hat."

"The Tippoo? He's dead, isn't he?" Simone asked.

"And me it was who killed him," Sharpe said proudly. "It wasn't really a hat, it was a cloth helmet, see? And the ruby was right in the middle, and he reckoned he couldn't die because the hat had been dipped in the fountain of Zum-Zum."

Simone smiled.

"Zum-Zum?"

"It's in Mecca. Wherever the hell Mecca is. Didn't work, though. I put a bullet in his skull, right through the bloody hat. Might as well have dunked it in the Thames for all the good it did him."

"You are rich!" Simone said.

The problem was how to stay rich. Sharpe had not had time to make false compartments in the new pack and pouch that had replaced those he had burned at Chasalgaon, and so he had kept the stones loose in his pack. He had a layer of emeralds at the bottom of his new cartridge pouch, where they would be safe enough, but he needed secure hiding places for the other jewels. He gave a file of diamonds to Simone and she tried to refuse, then shyly accepted the stones and held one against the side of her nose where fashionable Indian women often wore just such a jewel.

"How does it look?" she asked.

"Like a piece of expensive snot."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"It's beautiful," she said. She peered at the diamond that still had its black velvet backing so that the stone would shine more brightly, then she opened her purse. "Are you sure?"

"Go on, girl, take them."

"How do I explain them to Pierre?"

"You say you found them on a dead body after the fight. He'll believe that."

He watched her put the diamonds in the purse.

"I have to hide the rest," he explained to her.

He reckoned some of the stones could go in his canteen, where they would rattle a bit when it was dry, and he would have to take care when drinking in case he swallowed a fortune, but that still left a mound of gems unhidden. He used his knife to slit open a seam of his red coat and began feeding the small rubies into the slot, but the stones bunched along the bottom hem and the bulge was an advertisement to every soldier that he was carrying plunder.

"See what I mean?" He showed Simone the bulging seam.

She took the coat, fetched Sharpe's sewing kit from the bedroom, and then began to trap each gem in its own small pouch of the opened seam.

The job took her all afternoon, and when she was finished the red coat was twice as heavy. The most difficult stone to hide was the huge ruby, but Sharpe solved that by unwinding his long hair from the shot weighted bag that clubbed it, then slitting open the bag and emptying the shot. He filled the bag with the ruby and with whatever small stones were left, then Simone rewound his hair about the bag. By nightfall the jewels had vanished.

They ate by lamplight. The bath had never been filled, but Simone said she had taken one a week before so it did not matter. Sharpe had made a brief excursion in the dusk and had returned with two clay bottles filled with arrack, and they drank the liquor in the gloom. They talked, they laughed, and at last the oil in the lamp ran dry and the flame flickered out to leave the room lit by shafts of moonlight coming through the filigree shutters. Simone had fallen silent and Sharpe knew she was thinking of bed.

"I brought you some sheets." He pointed to the saris.

She looked up at him from under her fringe.

"And where will you sleep, Sergeant Sharpe?"

"I'll find a place, love."

It was the first time he had slept in silk, not that he noticed, so showing her the gems had not been such a bad idea after all.

He woke to the crowing of cockerels and the bang of a twelve-pounder gun, a reminder that the world and the war went on.

Major Stokes had decided that the real problem with the Rajah's clock was its wooden bearings. They swelled in damp weather, and he was happily contemplating the problem of making a new set of bearings out of brass when the twitching Sergeant reappeared in his office.

"You again," the Major greeted him. "Can't remember your name."

"Hakeswill, sir. Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill."

"Punishment on Edom, eh?" the Major said, wondering whether to cast or drill the brass.

"Edom, sir? Edom?"

"The prophet Obadiah, Sergeant, foretells punishment on Edom," the Major said. "He threatened it with fire and captivity, as I recall."

"He doubtless had his reasons, sir," Hakeswill said, his face jerking in its uncontrollable spasms, "like I have mine. It's Sergeant Sharpe I'm after, sir."

"Not here, Sergeant, alas. The place falls apart!"

"He's gone, sir?" Hakeswill demanded.

"Summoned away, Sergeant, by higher authority. Not my doing, not my doing at all. If it was up to me I'd keep Sharpe here for ever, but a Colonel McCandless demanded him and when colonels demand, mere majors comply. So far as I know, which isn't much, they went to join General Wellesley's forces." The Major was now rummaging through a wooden chest. "We had some fine augers, I know. Same ones we use on touch-holes. Not that we ever did. Haven't had to rebore a touch-hole yet."

"McCandless, sir?"

"A Company colonel, but still a colonel. I'll need a round-file too, I suspect."

"I knows Colonel McCandless, sir," Hakeswill said gloomily. He had shared the Tippoo's dungeons with McCandless and Sharpe, and he knew the Scotsman disliked him. Which did not matter by itself, for Hakeswill did not like McCandless either, but the Scotsman was a colonel and, as Major Stokes had intimated, when colonels demand, other men obey. Colonel McCandless, Hakeswill decided, could be a problem.

But a problem that could wait. The urgent need was to catch up with Sharpe.

"Do you have any convoys going north, sir? To the army, sir?"

"One leaves tomorrow," Stokes said helpfully, "carrying ammunition. But have you authority to travel?"

"I have authority, sir, I have authority." Hakeswill touched the pouch where he kept the precious warrant. He was angry that Sharpe had gone, but knew there was little point in displaying the anger. The thing was to catch up with the quarry, and then God would smile on Obadiah Hakeswill's fortunes.

He explained as much to his detail of six men as they drank in one of Seringapatam's soldiers' taverns. So far the six men only knew that they were ordered to arrest Sergeant Sharpe, but Hakeswill had long worked out that he needed to share more information with his chosen men if they were to follow him enthusiastically, especially if they were to follow him northwards to where Wellesley was fighting the Mahrattas.

Hakeswill considered them all good men, by which he meant that they were all cunning, violent and biddable, but he still had to make sure of their loyalty.

"Sharpie's rich," he told them. "Drinks when he likes, whores when he likes. He's rich."

"He works in the stores," Private Kendrick explained. "Always on the fiddle, the stores."

"And he never gets caught? He can't be fiddling that much," Hakeswill said, his face twitching. "You want to know the truth of Dick Sharpe? I'll tell you. He was the lucky bugger what caught the Tippoo at Seringapatam."

"Course he weren't!" Flaherty said.

"So who was it?" Hakeswill challenged them. "And why was Sharpie made up into a sergeant after the battle? He shouldn't be a sergeant! He ain't experienced."

"He fought well. That's what Mister Lawford says."

"Mister bloody Lawford," Hakeswill said scathingly. "Sharpie didn't get noticed for fighting well! Bleeding hell, boys, I'd be a major-general if that's all it took! No, it's my belief he paid his way up to the stripes."

"Paid?" The privates stared at Hakeswill.

"Stands to reason. No other way. Says so in the scriptures! Bribes, boys, bribes, and I knows where he got the money. I know 'cos I followed him once. Here in Seringapatam. Down to the goldsmiths' street, he went, and he did his business and after he done it I went to see the fellow he did it with. He didn't want to tell me what the business was, but I thumped him a bit, friendly like, and he showed me a ruby. Like this it was!" The Sergeant held a finger and thumb a quarter-inch apart. "Sharpie was selling it, see? And where does Sharpie get a prime bit of glitter?"

"Off the Tippoo?" Kendrick said wonderingly.

"And do you know how much loot the Tippoo had? Weighed down with it, he was! Had more stones on him than a Christmas whore, and you know where those stones are?"

"Sharpe," Flaherty breathed.

"Right, Private Flaherty," Hakeswill said. "Sewn into his uniform seams, in his boots, hidden in his pouches, tucked away in his hat. A bloody fortune, lads, which is why when we gets him, we don't want him to get back to the battalion, do we?"

The six men stared at Hakeswill. They knew they were his favourites, and all of them were in his debt, but now they realized he was giving them even more reason to be grateful.

"Equal shares, Sergeant?" Private Lowry asked.

"Equal shares?" Hakeswill exclaimed. "Equal? Listen, you horrid toad, you wouldn't have no chance of any share, not one, if it wasn't for my loving kindness. Who chose you to come on this parish outing?"

"You did, Sergeant."

"I did. I did. Kindness of my heart, and you repays it by wanting equal shares?" Hakeswill's face shuddered. "I've half a mind to send you back, Lowry." He looked aggrieved and the privates were silent. "Ingratitude," Hakeswill said in a hurt voice, "sharp as a serpent's tooth, it is. Equal shares! Never heard the like! But I'll see you right, don't you worry." He took out the precious orders for Sharpe's arrest and smoothed the paper on the table, carefully avoiding the spills of arrack. "Look at that, boys," he breathed, "a fortune. Half for me, and you leprous toads get to share the other half. Equally." He paused to prod in Lowry in the chest. "Equally. But I gets one half, like it says in the scriptures." He folded the paper and put it carefully in his pouch. "Shot while escaping," Hakeswill said, and grinned. "I've waited four years for this chance, lads, four bloody years." He brooded for a few seconds. "Put me in among the tigers, he did! Me! In a tigers' den!" His face contorted in a rictus at the memory. "But they spared me, they spared me. And you know why? Because I can't die, lads! Touched by God, I am! Says so in the scriptures."

The six privates were silent. Mad, he was, mad as a twitching hatter, and no one knew why hatters were mad either, but they were. Even the army was reluctant to recruit a hatter because they dribbled and twitched and talked to themselves, but they had taken on Hakeswill and he had survived; malevolent, powerful and apparently indestructible.

Sharpe had put him among the Tippoo's tigers, yet the tigers were dead and Hakeswill still breathed. He was a bad man to have as an enemy, and now the piece of paper in Hakeswill's pouch put Sharpe into his power and Obadiah could taste the money already. A fortune.

All that was needed was to travel north, join the army, produce the warrant and skin the victim. Obadiah shuddered. The money was so near he could almost spend it already.

"Got him," he said to himself, 'got him. And I'll piss on his rotten corpse, I will. Piss on it good. That'll learn him."

The seven men left Seringapatam in the morning, travelling north.