Sharpe's Triumph

Chapter 8

General Wellesley was like a gambler who had emptied his purse onto the table and now had to wait for the cards to fall. There was still time to scoop the money back and walk away from the game, but if he ever felt that temptation, he did not betray it to his aides, nor to any of the army's senior officers. The colonels in his army were all older than Wellesley, some much older, and Wellesley courteously sought their advice, though he largely ignored it. Orrock, a Company colonel and commander of the 78th Madras Infantry, recommended an extravagant outflanking march to the east, though so far as Wellesley could determine the only ambition of such a manoeuvre was to remove the army as far as possible from the enemy horde. The General was forced to pay more attention to his two Williams, Wallace and Harness, the commanding officers of his two Scottish battalions who were also his brigade leaders.

"If we join Stevenson, sir, we might manage the business," Wallace opined, his tone making it clear that, even combined, the two British armies would be dangerously outnumbered. "I've no doubt Harness will agree with me, sir," Wallace added, though William Harness, the commander of the 78th, seemed surprised to have his opinion sought.

"Your business how you fight them, Wellesley," he growled. "Point my men and I warrant they'll fight. The bastards had better fight. I'll flog the scum witless if they don't."

Wellesley forbore to point out that if the 78th refused to fight then there would be no one left to flog, for there would be no army. Harness would not have listened anyway, for he had taken the opportunity to lecture the General on the ameliorative effects of a flogging.

"My first colonel liked to see one well-scourged back a week, Wellesley," he said. "He reckoned it kept the men to their duty. He once flogged a sergeant's wife, I recall. He wanted to know if a woman could take the pain, you see, and she couldn't. The lass was fair wriggling." Harness sighed, recalling happier days. "D'you dream, Wellesley?"

"Dream, Harness?"

"When you sleep."

"At times."

"A flogging will stop it. Nothing to bring on a good night's sleep like a well-whipped back." Harness, a tall black-browed man who seemed to wear a constant expression of wide-eyed disapproval, shook his head sadly. "A dreamless sleep, that's what I dream of! Loosens the bowels too, y'know?"

"Sleep?"

"A flogging!" Harness snapped angrily. "Stimulates the blood, y'see?"

Wellesley disliked making enquiries about senior officers, but he took care to ride alongside his new aide, Colin Campbell.

"Was there much flogging in the ysth?" he asked the aide who, until the siege of Ahmednuggur, had served under Harness.

"There's been much recent talk of it, sir, but not in practice."

"Your Colonel seems much enamoured of the practice."

"His enthusiasms come and go," Campbell said blandly. "But until a few weeks ago, sir, he was not a man for enthusiasms. Now, suddenly, he is. He encouraged us to eat snakes in July, though he didn't insist on it. I gather he tried some cobra seethed in milk, but it didn't agree with him."

"Ah!" the General said, understanding the carefully phrased message.

So Harness was going out of his wits? Wellesley chided himself for not guessing as much from the Colonel's fixed glare.

"The battalion has a doctor?"

"You can take a horse to water, sir," Campbell said carefully.

"Indeed, indeed." Not that the General could do anything about Harness's incipient madness now, nor had the Colonel done anything that deserved dismissal. Indeed, mad or not, he led a fine battalion and Wellesley would need the Scotsmen when he came to Borkardan.

He thought constantly of Borkardan, though what that place was other than a mark on the map, he did not know. He simply imagined the village as swirls of dust and bellowing noise, a place of galloping horses where big guns would flatten the air with their hot thumps and the sky would be ripped apart with shrieking metal and murderous volleys. It would be Wellesley's first field battle. He had fought skirmishes enough, and led a cavalry charge that rode a bandit army into bloody oblivion, but he had never commanded guns and horse and infantry together, and he had never tried to impose his own will on an enemy general. He did not doubt his ability, nor did he doubt that he would stay calm amidst the dust and smoke and flame and blood, but he did fear that some unlucky shot would kill or maim him and the army would then be in the hands of a man without a vision of victory.

Stevenson or Wallace would be competent enough, though Wellesley privately thought them both too cautious, but God help an army guided by Harness's enthusiasms.

The other colonels, all Company men, echoed Wallace's advice to make sure of the junction with Stevenson before battle was joined, and Wellesley recognized the wisdom of that opinion, even while he refused to deflect his army to join Stevenson before they both reached Borkardan.

There was no time for such a nicety, so instead whichever army first came to the enemy must engage him first, and the other must join the battle, to which end Wellesley knew he must keep his left flank open, for that was where Stevenson's men would join his own. The General reckoned he must put the bulk of his cavalry on the left and station one of his two Highland regiments to serve as a bulwark on that flank, but beyond that he did not know what he would do once he reached Borkardan except attack, attack and attack again. He reasoned that when a small army faced a great horde then the small army had better keep moving and so destroy the enemy piece by piece, but if the small army stayed still then it risked being surrounded and pulverized into surrender.

Borkardan on the twenty-fourth day of September, that was the goal, and Wellesley marched his men hard. The cavalry vanguard and the infantry picquets of the day were roused at midnight and, an hour later, just as the rest of the army was being stirred into sullen wakefulness, those men would start the northwards march. By two o'clock the whole army was moving. Dogs barked as the cavalry vanguard clattered through the villages, and after the horsemen came heavy guns hauled by oxen, marching Highlanders and long ranks of sepoys under their leather-cased colours. Ten miles to the west Stevenson's army marched parallel to Wellesley's, but ten miles was a half-day's march and if either force was confronted by the enemy then the other could do nothing to help.

Everything hinged on their meeting at Borkardan.

Most of the men had little idea of what waited for them. They sensed the sudden urgency and guessed it presaged battle, but though the rumours spoke of the enemy as a numberless horde, they marched confidently. They grumbled, of course, for all soldiers grumble. They complained about being hungry, they swore at being made to tramp through the cavalry's manure, and they cursed the oppressive heat that seemed scarcely alleviated by marching at night. Each march finished by midday when the men would rig their tents and sprawl in the shade while the picquets set guards, the cavalry watered horses and the commissary butchered bullocks to provide ration meat.

The cavalry were the busiest men. Their job was to ride ahead and to the flanks of the army to drive any enemy scouts far away so that Scindia would not know that the two red-coated armies marched to trap him, but each morning, as the eastern horizon turned grey, then flushed with pink, then glowed gold and red before finally exploding into light, the patrols searched in vain for any enemies. The Mahratta horse seemed to be staying home, and some of the cavalry officers feared that their enemy might have slipped away again.

As they were nearing Naulniah which would be Wellesley's last resting place before he marched through the night to Borkardan, the General called his patrols closer to the army, ordering them to ride just a mile or two in front of his column. If the enemy was asleep, he explained to his aides, then it was best to do nothing to wake him. It was Sunday, and if the enemy was still engaged in its durbar, then the next day would bring battle. One day to let fears harass hope, though Wellesley's aides seemed careless enough as they marched the last few miles to Naulniah. Major John Blackiston, an engineer on Wellesley's staff, was needling Captain Campbell by saying that the Scots had no harvest to speak of.

"Oats alone, isn't that it, Captain?"

"You've not seen barley, Major, till you've been to Scotland," Campbell declared. "You could hide a regiment in a field of Scottish barley."

"Can't think why you'd want to do such a thing, but doubtless you have your reasons. But as I understand it, Campbell, you heathen Scots have no order of service to give thanks to God for a harvest?"

"You've not heard of the kirn, Major? The mell feast?"

"Kirn?"

"Harvest-home, you call it, when you scavenge those few weeds in England, then beg us generous Scots to send you food. Which we do, being Christian folk who take pity on those less fortunate than ourselves. And talking of the less fortunate, Major, here's the sick list."

Campbell handed Blackiston a piece of paper on which was tallied the number of men from each regiment who were too sick to march. Those men were now being carried on the ox carts of the baggage train and, routinely, those who were unlikely to recover quickly were sent southwards on returning convoys, but Blackiston knew the General would not want to detach any cavalry to protect a convoy just before a battle.

"Tell Sears the sick can all wait in Naulniah," Blackiston ordered, "and warn Captain Mackay to have at least a score of empty wagons ready."

He did not specify why Mackay should prepare empty wagons, but nor did he need to do so. The wagons would carry the men wounded in battle, and Blackiston fervently prayed that no more than a score of ox carts would be needed.

Captain Mackay had anticipated the need for empty wagons and had already put chalk marks on those whose burdens were light and could be transferred to other carts. Once at Naulniah he would have the cargoes rearranged, and he sought out Sergeant Hakeswill to supervise the business, but Obadiah Hakeswill had other plans.

"My criminal's back with the army, sir."

"And you haven't arrested him already?" Mackay asked in surprise.

"Can't march a man in irons, sir, not at this pace. But if you're establishing a camp, sir, at Naulniah, sir, I can hold my prisoner under guard like my duties say I should."

"So I shall be losing your services, Sergeant?"

"It ain't what I want, sir," Hakeswill lied, "but I has my responsibilities, sir, and if we're leaving baggage at Naulniah, sir, then I shall have to stay there with my prisoner. Colonel Gore's orders, sir. Is that Naulniah up ahead, sir?"

"It seems to be," Mackay said, for the distant village was busy with men laying out the lines for the regiments' tents.

"Then, if you'll forgive, sir, I have to be about my duties."

Hakeswill had deliberately waited for this moment, reckoning that it would be far too great a bother to keep marching northwards with Sharpe under escort. It would be better to wait until the army had established the baggage camp where Hakeswill could keep Sharpe while the battle was fought, and if one more redcoat died that day, who would miss him? So now, freed from Mackay's baggage guard, the Sergeant hurried his six men up the column to find Colonel McCandless.

McCandless's leg was still throbbing, and the fever had left him weak, but his spirits had recovered, because riding Aeolus had convinced him that no finer horse had ever stepped on earth. The gelding was tireless, McCandless declared, and better schooled than any horse he had ever ridden. Sevajee was amused by the Colonel's enthusiasm.

"You sound like a man with a new woman, McCandless."

"If you say so, Sevajee, if you say so," McCandless said, not rising to the Indian's bait. "But isn't he a beauty?"

"Magnificent."

"County Meath," the Colonel said. "They breed good hunters in County Meath. They have big hedges! Like jumping a haystack."

"County Meath is in Ireland?" Sevajee asked.

"It is, it is."

"Another country beneath Britain's heel?"

"For a man beneath my heel, Sevajee," the Colonel said, "you look in remarkably fine fettle. Can we talk about tomorrow? Sharpe! I want you to listen."

Sharpe urged his small Mahratta horse alongside the Colonel's big gelding. Like Wellesley, Colonel McCandless was planning what he would do at Borkardan and, though the Colonel's task was much smaller than the General's, it was no less important to him.

"Let us assume, gentlemen, that we shall win this battle at Borkardan tomorrow," he said, and waited for the invariable riposte from Sevajee, but the tall Indian said nothing. "Our task, then," the Colonel went on, "is to hunt Dodd among the fugitives. Hunt him and capture him."

"If he still lives," Sevajee remarked.

"Which I pray God he does. He must face British justice before he goes to God's condemnation. So when the battle is joined, gentlemen, our task is not to get involved with the fighting, but to search for Dodd's men. It won't be difficult. So far as I know they're the only regiment in white jackets, and once we have them, we stay close. Stay close till they break, then we pursue."

"And if they don't break?" Sevajee asked.

"Then we march again and fight again," the Colonel answered grimly. "But by God's grace, Sevajee, we shall find this man even if we have to hunt him into the deserts of Persia. Britain has more than a heavy heel, Sevajee, it has a long arm."

"Long arms are easily cut off," Sevajee said.

Sharpe had stopped listening. He had heard a commotion behind as a group of army wives were thrust off the road and had turned to see who had barged the women aside and, at first, all he had seen was a group of redcoats. Then he had recognized the red facings on the jackets and he had wondered what on earth men of the 33rd were doing here, and then he had recognized Sergeant Hakeswill.

Obadiah Hakeswill! Of all people, Hakeswill! Sharpe stared in horror at his long-time enemy and Obadiah Hakeswill caught his eye and grinned maliciously and Sharpe knew that his appearance boded no good.

Hakeswill broke into a lumbering run so that his haversack, pouches, bayonet and musket thumped against his body.

"Sir!" he called up to Colonel McCandless. "Colonel McCandless, sir!"

McCandless turned and frowned at the interruption, then, like Sharpe, he stared at the Sergeant as though he did not believe his eyes.

McCandless knew Hakeswill, for Hakeswill had been imprisoned in the Tippoo Sultan's dungeons at the same time as Sharpe and the Colonel, and what McCandless knew he did not like. The Scotsman scowled.

"Sergeant Hakeswill? You're far from home."

"As are we all, sir, doing our duties to King and country in an heathen land, sir." Hakeswill slowed to a march, keeping pace with the Scotsman's horse. "I'm ordered to see you, sir, by the General himself, sir. By Sir Arthur Wellesley, sir, God bless him, sir."

"I know who the General is, Sergeant," McCandless said coldly.

"Glad to hear it, sir. Got a paper for you, sir. Urgent paper, sir, what needs your urgent attention, sir." Hakeswill gave a venomous glance at Sharpe, then held the warrant up to McCandless. "This paper, sir, what I've been carrying in my pouch, sir, on Colonel Gore's orders, sir."

McCandless unfolded the warrant. Sevajee had hurried ahead, going to find somewhere to billet his men in the village and, while McCandless read the orders for Sharpe's arrest, Hakeswill fell back so that he was walking beside Sharpe.

"We'll have you off that horse in a quick minute, Sharpie," he said.

"Go and boil your head, Obadiah."

"You always did have ideas above your station, Sharpie. Won't do! Not in this army. We ain't the Frogs. We don't wear pretty long red boots like yours, we don't, 'cos we don't have airs and graces, not in this army. Says so in the scriptures."

Sharpe tugged on his rein so that his small horse swerved into Hakeswill's path. The Sergeant skipped aside.

"Under arrest, you are, Sharpie!" Hakeswill crowed. "Under arrest! Court-martial offence. Be a shooting job, I dare say."

Hakeswill grinned, showing his yellow teeth.

"Bang bang, you're dead. Taken me a long time, Sharpie, but I'm going to be evens with you. All over for you, it is. Says so in the scriptures."

"It says nothing of the sort, Sergeant!" McCandless snapped, turning in his saddle and glaring at the Sergeant. "I've had occasion to speak to you before about the scriptures, and if I hear you cite their authority one more time I shall break you, Sergeant Hakeswill, I shall break you!"

"Sir!" Hakeswill acknowledged. He doubted that McCandless, a Company officer, could break anyone in the King's army, at least not without a deal of effort, but he did not let his scepticism show for Obadiah Hakeswill believed in showing complete subservience to all officers. "Never meant to upset you, sir," he said, "apologize, sir. No offence meant, sir."

McCandless read the warrant a third time. Something about the wording worried him, but he could not quite place his concern.

"It says here, Sharpe," McCandless said, "that you struck an officer on August the fifth this year."

"I did what, sir?" Sharpe asked, horrified.

"Assaulted Captain Morris. Here." And McCandless thrust the warrant towards Sharpe. "Take it, man. Read it."

Sharpe took the paper and while he read Sergeant Hakeswill embellished the charge to Colonel McCandless.

"An assault, sir, with a jakes pot, sir. A full one, sir. Liquids and solids, sir, both. Right on the Captain's head, sir."

"And you were the only witness?" McCandless asked.

"Me and Captain Morris, sir."

"I don't believe a word of it," McCandless growled.

"Up to a court to decide, sir, begging your pardon. Your job, sir, is to deliver the prisoner to my keeping."

"You do not instruct me in my duties, Sergeant!" McCandless said angrily.

"I just knows you will do your duty, sir, like we all does. Except for some as I could mention." Hakeswill smiled at Sharpe. "Finding the long words difficult, are we, Sharpie?"

McCandless reached over and took the warrant back from Sharpe, who had, indeed, been finding some of the longer words difficult. The Colonel had expressed his disbelief in the charge, but that was more out of loyalty to Sharpe than from any conviction, though there was still something out of kilter in the warrant.

"Is it true, Sharpe?" McCandless now asked.

"No, sir!" Sharpe said indignantly.

"He was always a good liar, sir," Hakeswill said helpfully. "Lies like a rug, sir, he does. Famous for it." The Sergeant was becoming breathless as he hurried to keep pace with the Scotsman's horse.

"So what do you intend to do with Sergeant Sharpe?" McCandless asked.

"Do, sir? Do my duty, of course, sir. Escort the prisoner back to battalion, sir, as is ordered." Hakeswill gestured at his six men who marched a few paces behind. "We'll guard him nice and proper, sir, all the way home and then have him stand trial for his filthy crime."

McCandless bit his right thumb and shook his head. He rode in silence for a few paces, and when Sharpe protested he ignored the indignant words. He put the warrant in his right hand again and seemed to read it yet another time. Far off to the east, at least a mile away, there was a sudden flurry of dust and the sparkle of sword blades catching the sun. Some enemy horsemen had been waiting in a grove of trees from where they had been watching the British march, but now they were flushed out by a troop of Mysore horsemen who pursued them northwards.

McCandless glanced at the distant action.

"So they'll know we're here now, more's the pity. How do you spell your name, Sharpe? With or without an "e"?"

"With, sir."

"You will correct me if I'm wrong," McCandless said, "but it seems to me that this is not your name." He handed the warrant back to Sharpe who saw that the 'e' at the end of his name had been smeared out.

There was a smudge of black ink there, and beneath it the impression of the 'e' made by the steel nib in the paper, but the ink had been diluted and nearly erased.

Sharpe hid his astonishment that McCandless, a stickler for honesty and straight-dealing, had resorted to such a subterfuge.

"Not my name, sir," Sharpe said woodenly.

Hakeswill looked from Sharpe to McCandless, then back to Sharpe and finally at McCandless again.

"Sir!" The word exploded from him.

"You're out of breath, Sergeant," McCandless said, taking the warrant back from Sharpe. "But you will see here that you are expressly ordered to arrest a sergeant whose name is Richard Sharp. No "e", Sergeant. This Sergeant Sharpe uses an "e" on his name so he cannot be the man you want, and I certainly cannot release him to your custody on the authority of this piece of paper. Here." McCandless held the warrant out, letting it drop a heartbeat before Hakeswill could take it.

The paper fluttered down to the dusty road.

Hakeswill snatched the warrant up and peered at the writing.

"Ink's run, sir!" he protested. "Sir?" He ran after McCandless's horse, stumbling on the uneven road. "Look, sir! Ink's run, sir."

McCandless ignored the offered warrant.

"It is clear, Sergeant Hakeswill, that the spelling of the name has been corrected. In all conscience I cannot act upon that warrant. What you must do, Sergeant, is send a message to Lieutenant Colonel Gore asking him to clear up the confusion. A new warrant, I think, would be best, and until such time as I see such a warrant, legibly written, I cannot release Sergeant Sharpe from his present duties. Good day, Hakeswill."

"You can't do this, sir!" Hakeswill protested.

McCandless smiled.

"You fundamentally misunderstand the hierarchy of the army, Sergeant. It is I, a colonel, who define your duties, not you, a sergeant, who define mine. I say to a man, go, and he goeth. It says so in the scriptures. I bid you good day." And with that the Scotsman touched his spurs to the gelding's flanks.

Hakeswill's face twitched as he turned on Sharpe.

"I'll have you, Sharpie, I will have you. I ain't forgotten nothing."

"You ain't learned nothing either," Sharpe said, then spurred after the Colonel. He lifted two fingers as he passed Hakeswill, then left him behind in the dust.

He was, for the moment, free.

Simone Joubert placed the eight diamonds on the window ledge of the tiny house where the wives of Scindia's European officers had been quartered. She was alone for the moment, for the other women had gone to visit the three compoos that were stationed on the Kaitna's northern bank, but Simone had not wanted their company and so she had pleaded a turbulent stomach, though she supposed she ought to visit Pierre before the battle, if indeed there was to be a fight. Not that Simone cared much. Let them have their battle, she thought, and at the end of it, when the river was dark with British blood, her life would be no better. She gazed at the diamonds again, thinking about the man who had given them to her. Pierre would be angry if he learned she was concealing such wealth, but once his anger had passed he would sell the stones and send the money back to his rapacious family in France.

"Madame Joubert!" A voice hailed her from outside the window and Simone guiltily swept the diamonds into her small purse, though, because she was on an upper floor, no one could see the gems. She peered down from the window and saw a cheerful Colonel Pohlmann in shirtsleeves and braces standing among the straw in the courtyard of the neighbouring house.

"Colonel," she responded dutifully.

"I am hiding my elephants," the Colonel said, gesturing at the three beasts which were being led into the courtyard. The tallest carried Pohlmann's howdah, while the other two were burdened with the wooden chests in which the Colonel was reputed to keep his gold.

"Might I leave you to guard my menagerie?" the Colonel asked.

"From what?" Simone asked.

"From thieves," the Colonel said happily.

"Not the British?"

"They will never reach this far, Madame," Pohlmann said, "except as prisoners."

And Simone had a sudden vision of Sergeant Richard Sharpe again. She had been raised to believe that the British were a piratical race, a nation without a conscience who mindlessly impeded the spread of French enlightenment, but perhaps, she thought, she liked pirates.

"I will guard your elephants, Colonel," she called down.

"And have some dinner with me?" Pohlmann asked. "I have some cold chicken and warm wine."

"I have promised to join Pierre," Simone said, dreading the two-mile ride across the drab fields to where Dodd's Cobras waited beside the Kaitna.

"Then I shall escort you to his side, Madame," Pohlmann said courteously. Once the battle was over he reckoned he might mount an assault on Madame Joubert's virtue. It would be an amusing diversion, but not, he thought, an especially difficult campaign. Unhappy women yielded to patience and sympathy, and there would be plenty of time for both once Wellesley and Stevenson had been destroyed. And there would be a pleasure, too, in beating Major Dodd to the prize of Simone's virtue.

Pohlmann detailed twenty of his bodyguard to guard the three elephants.

He never rode one of the beasts in battle, for an elephant became the target of every enemy gunner, but he looked forward to mounting the howdah for a great victory parade after the campaign. And victory would leave Pohlmann rich, rich enough to start building his great marble palace in which he planned to hang the captured banners of his enemy. From sergeant to princeling in ten years, and the key to that princedom was the gold that he was storing in Assaye. He ordered his bodyguard that no one, not even the Rajah of Berar whose troops were garrisoning the village, should be allowed into the courtyard, then he instructed his servants to detach the golden panels from the howdah and add them to the boxes of treasure.

"If the worst should happen," he told the subadar who was in charge of the men guarding the treasure, "I'll join you here. Not that it will," he added cheerfully.

A clatter of hooves in the alley outside the courtyard announced the arrival of a patrol of horsemen returning from a foray south of the Kaitna. For three days Pohlmann had kept his cavalry on a tight rein, not wanting to alarm Wellesley as the British General marched north towards the trap, but that morning he had released a few patrols southwards and one of those now returned with the welcome news that the enemy was only four miles south of the Kaitna. Pohlmann already knew that the second British army, that of Colonel Stevenson, was still ten miles off to the west, and that meant that the British had blundered.

Wellesley, in his eagerness to reach Borkardan, had brought his men to the waiting arms of the whole Mahratta army.

The Colonel thought about waiting for Madame Joubert, then decided he could not afford the time and so he mounted the horse he rode in battle and, with those of his bodyguard not deputed to guard his gold, and with a string of aides surrounding him, he galloped south from Assaye to the Kaitna's bank where his trap was set. He passed the news to Dupont and Saleur, then rode to prepare his own troops. He spoke with his officers, finishing with Major William Dodd.

"I hear the British are making camp in Naulniah," Pohlmann said, "so what we should do is march south and hammer him. It's one thing to have Wellesley so close, but it's quite another to bring him to battle."

"So why don't we march?" Dodd asked.

"Because Scindia won't have it, that's why. Scindia insists we fight on the defensive. He's nervous."

Dodd spat, but made no other comment on his employer's timidity.

"So there's a nasty danger," Pohlmann went on, "that Wellesley won't attack us at all, but will retreat towards Stevenson."

"So we beat them both at once," Dodd said confidently.

"As we shall, if we must," Pohlmann agreed drily, "but I'd rather fight them separately."

He was confident of victory, no soldier could be more confident, but he was no fool and given the chance to defeat two small armies instead of one medium-sized force, he would prefer the former.

"If you have a god, Major," he said, "pray that Wellesley is over-confident. Pray that he attacks us."

It was a fervent prayer, for if Wellesley did attack he would be forced to send his men across the Kaitna which was some sixty or seventy paces broad and flowing brown between high banks that were over a hundred paces apart. If the monsoon had come the river would have filled its bed and been twelve or fifteen feet deep, while now it was only six or seven, though that was quite deep enough to stop an army crossing, but right in front of Pohlmann's position there was a series of fords, and Pohlmann's prayer was that the British would try to cross the fords and attack straight up the road to Assaye. Wellesley would have no other choice, not if he wanted a battle, for Pohlmann had summoned farmers from every village in the vicinity, from Assaye and Waroor, from Kodully, Taunklee and Peepulgaon, and asked them where a man could drive a herd of cattle through the river. He had used the example of a herd of oxen because where such a herd could go so could oxen drawing guns, and every man had agreed that in this season the only crossing places were the fords between Kodully and Taunklee. A man could drive his herds upriver to Borkardan, they told Pohlmann's interpreter, and cross there, but that was a half-day's walk away and why would be a man be that foolish when the river provided eight safe fords between the two villages?

"Are there any crossing places downstream?" Pohlmann asked.

A score of dark faces shook in unison.

"No, sahib, not in the wet season."

"This season isn't wet."

"There are still no fords, sahib." They were sure, as sure as only local men who had lived all their lives bounded by the same water and trees and soil could be sure.

Pohlmann had still been unconvinced.

"And if a man does not want to drive a herd, but just wants to cross himself, where would he cross?"

The villagers provided the same answer.

"Between Kodully and Taunklee, sahib."

"Nowhere else?"

Nowhere else, they assured him, and that meant Wellesley would be forced to cross the river in the face of Pohlmann's waiting army. The British infantry and guns would have to slither down the steep southern bank of the Kaitna, cross a wide expanse of mud, wade through the river, then climb the steep northern bank, and all the while they would be under fire from the Mahratta guns until, when they reached the green fields on the northern shore, they would re-form their ranks and march forward into a double storm of musketry and artillery. Wherever the British crossed the Kaitna, anywhere between Kodully and Taunklee, they would find the same murderous reception waiting, for Pohlmann's three prime compoos were arrayed in one long line that fronted that whole stretch of the river. There were eighty guns in that line, and though some threw nothing but a five— or six-pound ball, at least half were heavy artillery and all were manned by Goanese gunners who knew their business. The cannon were grouped in eight batteries, one for each ford, and there was not an inch of ground between the batteries that could not be flailed by canister or beaten by round shot or scorched by shells.

Pohlmann's well-trained infantry waited to pour a devastating weight of volley fire into red-coated regiments already deafened and demoralized by the cannon fire that would have torn their ranks into shreds as they struggled across the bloody fords. The numberless Mahratta cavalry were off to the west, strung along the bank towards Borkardan, and there it would wait until the British were defeated and Pohlmann released the horsemen to the joys of pursuit and slaughter.

The Hanoverian reckoned that his battle line waiting at the fords would decimate the enemy and the horsemen would turn the British defeat into a bloody rout, but there was always a small chance that the enemy might survive the river crossing and succeed in gaining the Kaitna's northern bank in good order. He doubted the British could force his three compoos back, but in case they did Pohlmann planned to retreat two miles to the village of Assaye and invite the British to waste more men in an assault on what was now a miniature fortress. Assaye, like every other village on the plain, lived in fear of bandit raids and so the outermost houses had high, windowless walls made of thick mud, and the houses were joined so that their walls formed a continous rampart as high as the wall at Ahmednuggur. Pohlmann had blocked the village's streets with ox carts, he had ordered loopholes hacked in the outer wall, he had placed all his smaller guns, a score of two— and three-pounder cannon, at the foot of the wall and then he had garrisoned the houses with the Rajah of Berar's twenty thousand infantrymen. Pohlmann doubted that any of those twenty thousand men would need to fight, but he had the luxury of knowing they were in reserve should anything go wrong at the Kaitna.

He had just one problem left and to solve it he asked Dodd to accompany him eastwards along the river bank.

"If you were Wellesley," he asked Dodd, "how would you attack?"

Dodd considered the question, then shrugged as if to suggest that the answer was obvious.

"Concentrate all my best troops at one end of the line and hammer my way through."

"Which end?"

Dodd thought for a few seconds. He had been tempted to say that Wellesley would attack in the west, at the fords by Kodully, for that would keep him closest to Stevenson's army, but Stevenson was a long way away and Pohlmann was deliberately riding eastwards.

"The eastern end?" Dodd suggested diffidently.

Pohlmann nodded.

"Because if he drives our left flank back he can place his army between us and Assaye. He divides us."

"And we surround him," Dodd observed.

"I'd rather we weren't divided," Pohlmann said, for if Wellesley did succeed in driving back the left flank he might well succeed in capturing Assaye, and while that would still leave Pohlmann's compoos on the field, it would mean that the Colonel would lose his gold. So the Colonel needed a good hard anchor at the eastern end of his line to prevent his left flank being turned, and of all the regiments under his command he reckoned Dodd's Cobras were the best. The left flank was now being held by one of Dupont's regiments, a good one, but not as good as Dodd's.

Pohlmann gestured at the Dutchman's brown-coated troops who looked across the river towards the small village of Taunklee.

"Good men," he said, "but not as good as yours."

"Few of them are."

"But we'd best pray those fellows hold," Pohlmann said, "because if I was Wellesley that's where I'd put my sharpest attack. Straight up, turn our flank, cut us off from Assaye. It worries me, it does."

Dodd could not see that it was overmuch cause for worry, for he doubted that the best troops in the world could survive the river crossing under the massed fire of Pohlmann's batteries, but he did see the left flank's importance.

"So reinforce Dupont," he suggested carelessly.

Pohlmann looked surprised, as though the idea had not already occurred to him.

"Reinforce him? Why not? Would you care to hold the left, Major?"

"The left?" Dodd said suspiciously. Traditionally the right of the line was the station of honour on a battlefield and, while most of Pohlmann's troops neither cared nor knew about such courtesies, William Dodd certainly knew, which was why Pohlmann had let the Major suggest that the left should be reinforced rather than simply order the touchy Dodd to move his precious Cobras.

"You would not be under Dupont's orders, of course not," Pohlmann reassured Dodd. "You'll be your own master, Major, answerable to me, only to me."

Pohlmann paused.

"Of course, if you'd rather not take post on the left I'd entirely understand, and some other fellows can have the honour of defeating the British right."

"My fellows can do it!" Dodd said belligerently.

"It is a very responsible post," Pohlmann said diffidently.

"We can do it, sir!" Dodd insisted.

Pohlmann smiled his gratitude.

"I was hoping you'd say so. Every other regiment is commanded by a Frog or a Dutchman, Major, and I need an Englishman to fight the hardest battle."

"And you've found one, sir," Dodd said.

I've found an idiot, Pohlmann thought as he rode back to the line's centre, but Dodd was a reliable idiot and a hard-fighting man. He watched as Dodd's men left the line, and as the line closed up to fill the gap, and then as the Cobras took their place on the left flank. The line was complete now, it was deadly, it was anchored firmly, and it was ready. All it needed was the enemy to compound their blunder by trying to attack, and then Pohlmann would crown his career by filling the Kaitna with British blood. Let them attack, he prayed, just let them attack, and the day, with all its glory, would be his.

The British camp spread around Naulniah. Lines of tents sheltered infantry, quartermasters sought out the village headman and arranged that the women of the village would bake bread in return for rupees, while the cavalry led their horses down to drink from the River Purna which flowed just to the north of the village. One squadron of the 78th Dragoons was ordered to cross the river and ride a couple of miles north in search of enemy patrols and those troopers dropped their bags of forage in the village, watered their horses, washed the dust from their faces, then remounted and rode on out of sight.

Colonel McCandless picked a broad tree as his tent. He had no servant, nor wanted one, so he brushed down Aeolus with handfuls of straw while Sharpe fetched a pail of water from the river. The Colonel, in his shirtsleeves, straightened as Sharpe came back.

"You do realize, Sergeant, that I am guilty of some dishonesty in the matter of that warrant?"

"I wanted to thank you, sir."

"I doubt I deserve any thanks, except that my deception might have staved off a greater evil." The Colonel crossed to his saddlebags and brought out his Bible which he gave to Sharpe. "Put your right hand on the scriptures, Sergeant, and swear to me you are innocent of the charge."

Sharpe placed his right palm on the Bible's worn cover. He felt foolish, but McCandless's face was stern and Sharpe made his own face solemn.

"I do swear it, sir. I never touched the man that night, didn't even see him." His voice proclaimed both his indignation and his innocence, but that was small consolation. The warrant might be defeated for the moment, but Sharpe knew such things did not go away. "What will happen now, sir?"

"We'll just have to make certain the truth prevails," McCandless said vaguely. He was still trying to decide what had been wrong with the warrant, but he could not identify what had troubled him. He took the Bible, stowed it away, then put his hands in the small of his back and arched his spine. "How far have we come today? Fourteen miles? Fifteen?"

"Thereabouts, sir."

"I'm feeling my age, Sharpe, feeling my age. The leg's mending well enough, but now my back aches. Not good. But just a short march tomorrow, God be thanked, no more than ten miles, then battle." He pulled a watch from his fob pocket and snapped open the lid. "We have fifteen minutes, Sergeant, so it might be wise to prepare our weapons."

"Fifteen minutes, sir?"

"It's Sunday, Sharpe! The Lord's day. Colonel Wallace's chaplain will be holding divine service on the hour, and I expect you to come with me. He preaches a fine sermon. But there's still time for you to clean your musket first."

The musket was cleaned with boiling water which Sharpe poured down the barrel, then sloshed about so that the very last remnants of powder residue were washed free. He doubted the musket needed cleaning, but he dutifully did it, then oiled the lock and put a new flint into the dog head. He borrowed a sharpening stone from one of Sevajee's men and honed the bayonet's point so that the tip shone white and deadly, then he dabbed some oil on the blade before sliding it home into its scabbard. There was nothing else to do now except listen to the sermon, sleep and do the mundane tasks. There would be a meal to cook and the horses to water again, but those commonplace jobs were overshadowed by the knowledge that the enemy was just a short march away at Borkardan. Sharpe felt a shudder of nerves. What would battle be like? Would he stand? Or would he turn out like that corporal at Boxtel who had started to rave about angels and then had run like a spring hare through the Flanders rain?

A half-mile behind Sharpe the baggage train began to trudge into a wide field where the oxen were hobbled, the camels picketed and the elephants tethered to trees. Grass-cutters spread out into the countryside to find forage for the animals which were watered from a muddy irrigation channel. The elephants were fed piles of palm leaves and buckets of rice soaked in butter, while Captain Mackay scurried through the chaos on his small bay horse, making sure that the ammunition was being properly stowed and the animals suitably fed.

He suddenly caught sight of a disconsolate Sergeant Hakeswill and his six men.

"Sergeant! You're still here? I thought you'd have your rogue safely pinioned by now?"

"Problems, sir," Hakeswill said, standing rigidly to attention.

"Easy, Sergeant, stand easy. No rogue?"

"Not yet, sir."

"So you're back in my command, are you? That's splendid, just splendid." Mackay was an eager young officer who did his best to see the good in everybody, and though he found the Sergeant from the 33rd somewhat daunting, he did his best to communicate his own enthusiasm.

"Puckalees, Sergeant," he said brightly, "puckalees."

Hakeswill's face wrenched in a series of spasms.

"Puckalees, sir?"

"Water carriers, Sergeant."

"I knows what a pucka lee is, sir, on account of having lived in this heathen land more years than I can count, but begging your pardon, sir, what has a pucka lee to do with me?"

"We have to establish a collecting point for them," Mackay said.

The puckalees were all on the strengths of the individual regiments and in battle their job was to keep the fighting men supplied with water.

"I need a man to watch over them," Mackay said. "They're good fellows, all of them, but oddly frightened of bullets! They need chivvying along. I'll be busy enough with the ammunition wagons tomorrow, so can I rely on you to make sure the puckalees do their job like the stout fellows they are?"

The 'stout fellows' were boys, grandfathers, cripples, the half-blind and the half witted.

"Excellent! Excellent!" the young Captain said. "A problem solved! Make sure you get some rest, Sergeant. We'll all need to be sprightly tomorrow. And if you feel the need for some spiritual refreshment you'll find the 74th are holding divine service any moment now." Mackay smiled at Hakeswill, then set off in pursuit of an errant group of bullock carts. "You! You! You with the tents! Not there! Come here!"

"Puckalees," Hakeswill said, spitting, "puckalees."

None of his men responded for they knew well enough to leave Sergeant Hakeswill alone when he was in a more than usually foul mood.

"Could be worse, though," he said.

"Worse?" Private Flaherty ventured.

Hakeswill's face twitched.

"We has a problem, boys," he said dourly, "and the problem is one Scottish Colonel who is attempting to bugger up the good order of our regiment. I won't abide it, I won't. Regimental honour is at stake, it is. He's been wool-pulling, ain't he? And he thinks he's pulled it clean over our eyes, but he ain't, because I've seen through him, I have, I've seen through his Scotch soul and it's as rotten as rotten eggs. Sharpie's paying him off, ain't he? Stands to reason! Corruption, boys, nothing but corruption." Hakeswill blinked, his mind racing. "If we're flogging puckalees halfway across bleeding India tomorrow, lads, then we will have our moment and the regiment would want us to seize it."

"Seize it?" Lowry asked.

"Kill the bugger, you block headed toad."

"Kill Sharpie?"

"God help me for leading half wits," Hakeswill said. "Not Sharpie! We wants him private like, where we can fillet him fair and square. You kills the Scotchman! Once Mister bleeding McCandless is gone, Sharpie's ours."

"You can't kill a colonel!" Kendrick said aghast.

"You points your firelock, Private Kendrick," Hakeswill said, ramming his own musket's muzzle hard into Kendrick's midriff. "You cocks your musket, Private Kendrick..." Hakeswill pulled back the dog head and the heavy lock clicked into place, "...and then you shoots the bugger clear through." Hakeswill pulled his trigger. The powder in the pan exploded with a small crackle and fizz, and Kendrick leaped back as the smoke drifted away from the lock, but the musket had not been charged.

Hakeswill laughed.

"Got you, didn't I? You thought I was putting a goalie in your belly! But that's what you do to McCandless. A goalie in his belly or in his brain or in any other part what kills him. And you do it tomorrow."

The six men looked dubious, and Hakeswill grinned.

"Extra shares for you all if it happens, boys, extra shares. You'll be paying the officers' whores when you get home, and all it will take is one goalie." He smiled wolfishly. "Tomorrow, boys, tomorrow."

But across the river, where the blue-coated patrol of the 78th Dragoons was exploring the countryside south of the Kaitna, everything was changing.

Wellesley had dismounted, stripped off his jacket and was washing his face from a basin of water held on a tripod. Lieutenant Colonel Orrock, the Company officer who commanded the picquets that day, was complaining about the two galloper guns that were supposedly attached to his small command.

"They wouldn't keep up, sir. Laggards, sir. I found myself four hundred yards ahead of them! Four hundred yards!"

"I asked you to set a brisk pace, Orrock," the General said, wishing the fool would go away. He reached for a towel and vigorously scrubbed his face dry.

"But if we'd been challenged!" Orrock protested.

"Gallopers can move briskly when they must," the General said, then sighed as he realized the prickly Orrock needed placating. "Who commanded the guns?"

"Barlow, sir."

"I'll speak to him," the General promised, then turned as the patrol of 78th Dragoons that had crossed the River Purna to reconnoitre the ground on the far bank came threading through the rising tents towards him. Wellesley had not expected the patrol back this soon and their return puzzled him, then he saw they were escorting a group of bhinjarries, the black-cloaked merchants who traversed India buying and selling food. "You'll excuse me, Orrock," the General said, plucking his coat from a stool.

"You will talk with Barlow, sir?" Orrock asked.

"I said so, didn't I?" Wellesley called as he walked towards the horsemen.

The patrol leader, a captain, slid off his horse and gestured at the bhinjarries' leader.

"We found these fellows a half-mile north of the river, sir. They've got eighteen pack oxen loaded with grain and they reckon the enemy ain't in Borkardan at all. They were planning to sell the grain in Assaye."

"Assaye?" The General frowned at the unfamiliar name.

"It's a village four or five miles north of here, sir. He says it's thick with the enemy."

"Four or five miles?" Wellesley asked in astonishment. "Four or five?"

The cavalry captain shrugged.

"That's what they say, sir." He gestured at the grain merchants who stood impassively among the mounted troopers.

Dear God, Wellesley thought, four or five miles? He had been humbugged! The enemy had stolen a march on him, and at any moment that enemy might appear to the north and launch an attack on the British encampment and there was no chance for Stevenson to come to his help.

The 74th were singing hymns and the enemy was five miles away, maybe less? The General spun round.

"Barclay! Campbell! Horses! Quick now!"

The flurry of activity at the General's tent sent a rumour whipping through the camp, and the rumour was fanned into alarm when the whole of the 78th Dragoons and the 4th Native Cavalry trotted through the river on the heels of the General and his two aides. Colonel McCandless had been walking with Sharpe towards the 74th's lines, but seeing the sudden excitement, he turned and hurried back towards his horse.

"Come on, Sharpe!"

"Where to, sir?"

"We'll find out. Sevajee?"

"We're ready."

McCandless's party left the camp five minutes after the General.

They could see the dust left by the cavalry ahead and McCandless hurried to catch up. They rode through a landscape of small fields cut by deep dry gulches and cactus-thorn hedges. Wellesley had been following the earth road northwards, but after a while the General swerved westwards onto a field of stubble and McCandless did not follow, but kept straight on up the road.

"No point in tiring the horses unnecessarily," he explained, though Sharpe suspected the Colonel was merely impatient to go north and see whatever had caused the excitement. The two British cavalry regiments were in sight to the east, but there was no enemy visible.

Sevajee and his men had ridden ahead, but when they reached a crest some two hundred yards in front of McCandless they suddenly wrenched on their reins and swerved back. Sharpe expected to see a horde of Mahratta cavalry come boiling over the crest, but the skyline stayed empty as Sevajee and his men halted a few yards short of the ridge and there dismounted.

"You'll not want them to see you, Colonel," Sevajee said drily when McCandless caught up.

"Them?"

Sevajee gestured at the crest.

"Take a look. You'll want to dismount."

McCandless and Sharpe both slid from their saddles, then walked to the skyline where a cactus hedge offered concealment and from where they could stare at the country to the north and Sharpe, who had never seen such a sight before, simply gazed in amazement.

It was not an army. It was a horde, a whole people, a nation.

Thousands upon thousands of the enemy, all in line, mile after mile of them. Men and women and children and guns and camels and bullocks and rocket batteries and horses and tents and still more men until there seemed to be no end to them.

"Jesus!" Sharpe said, the imprecation torn from him.

"Sharpe!"

"Sorry, sir." But no wonder he had sworn, for Sharpe had never imagined that an army could look so vast. The nearest men were no more than half a mile away, beyond a discoloured river that flowed between steep mud banks. A village lay on the nearer bank, but on the northern side, just beyond the mud bluff, there was a line of guns.

Big guns, the same painted and sculpted cannon that Sharpe had seen in Pohlmann's camp. Beyond the guns was the infantry and behind the infantry, and spreading far out of sight to the east, was a mass of cavalry and beyond them the myriad of camp followers. More infantry were posted about a distant village where Sharpe could just see a cluster of bright flags.

"How many are there?" he asked.

"At least a hundred thousand men?" McCandless ventured.

"At least," Sevajee agreed, "but most are adventurers come for loot."

The Indian was peering through a long ivory-clad telescope.

"And the cavalry won't help in a battle."

"It'll be down to these fellows," McCandless said, indicating the infantry just behind the gun line. "Fifteen thousand?"

"Fourteen or fifteen," Sevajee said. "Too many."

"Too many guns," McCandless said gloomily. "It'll be a retreat."

"I thought we came here to fight!" Sharpe said belligerentiy.

"We came here expecting to rest, then march on Borkardan tomorrow," McCandless said testily. "We didn't come here to take on the whole enemy army with just five thousand infantry. They know we're coming, they're ready for us and they simply want us to walk into their fire. Wellesley's not a fool, Sharpe. He'll march us back, link up with Stevenson, then find them again."

Sharpe felt a pang of relief that he would not discover the realities of battle but the relief was tempered by a tinge of disappointment. The disappointment surprised him, and the relief made him fear he might be a coward.

"If we retreat," Sevajee warned, "those horsemen will harry us all the way."

"We'll just have to fight them off," McCandless said confidently, then let out a long satisfied breath. "Got him! There, the left flank!" He pointed and Sharpe saw, far away at the very end of the enemy gun line a scatter of white uniforms. "Not that it helps us," McCandless said wryly, "but at least we're on his heels."

"Or he's on ours," Sevajee said, then he offered his telescope to Sharpe. "See for yourself, Sergeant."

Sharpe rested the glass's long barrel on a thick cactus leaf. He moved the lens slowly along the line of infantry. Men slept in the shade, some were in their small tents and others sat in groups and he could have sworn a few were gambling. Officers, Indian and European, strolled behind their men, while in front of them the massive line of guns waited with their ammunition limbers. He moved the glass to the very far left of the enemy line and saw the white jackets of Dodd's men, and saw something else. Two huge guns, much bigger than anything he had seen before.

"They've got their siege guns in the line, sir," he told McCandless, who trained his own telescope.

"Eighteen-pounders," McCandless guessed, "maybe bigger?" The Colonel collapsed his glass. "Why aren't they patrolling this side of the river?"

"Because they don't want to frighten us away," Sevajee said. "They want us to stroll up to their guns and die in the river, but they'll still have some horsemen hidden on this bank, waiting to tell them when we retreat."

The sound of hooves made Sharpe whip round in expectation of those enemy cavalry, but it was only General Wellesley and his two aides who cantered along the lower ground beneath the crest.

"They're all there, McCandless," the General shouted happily.

"So it seems, sir."

The General reined in, waiting for McCandless to come down from the skyline and join him.

"They seem to presume we'll make a frontal attack," Wellesley said wryly, as though he found the idea amusing.

"They're certainly formed for it, sir."

"They must assume we're blockheads. What time is it?"

One of his aides consulted a watch.

"Ten minutes of noon, sir."

"Plenty of time," the General murmured. "Onwards, gentlemen, stay below the skyline. We don't want to frighten them away!"

"Frighten them away?" Sevajee asked with a smile, but Wellesley ignored the comment as he spurred on eastwards, parallel with the river. Some troops of Company cavalry were scouring the fields and at first Sharpe thought they were looking for concealed enemy picquets, then he saw they were hunting down local farmers and harrying them along in the General's wake.

Wellesley rode two miles eastwards, a string of horsemen behind him.

The farmers were breathless by the time they reached the place where his horse was picketed just beneath a low hill. The General was kneeling on the crest, staring east through a glass.

"Ask those fellows if there are any fords east of here!" he shouted down to his aides.

A hurried consultation followed, but the farmers were quite sure there was no ford. The only crossing places, they insisted, were directly in front of Scindia's army.

"Find a clever one," Wellesley ordered, "and bring him up here. Colonel? Maybe you'd translate?"

McCandless picked one of the farmers and led him up the hill.

Sharpe, without being asked, followed and Wellesley did not order him back, but just muttered that they should all keep their heads low.

"There..." the General pointed eastwards to a village on the Kaitna's southern bank, "...that village, what's it called?"

"Peepulgaon," the farmer said, and added that his mother and two sisters lived in the huddle of mud-walled houses with their thatched roofs.

Peepulgaon lay only a half-mile from the low hill, but it was all of two miles east of Taunklee, the village that was opposite the eastern extremity of the Mahratta line. Both villages were on the river's southern bank while the enemy waited on the Kaitna's northern side, and Sharpe did not understand Wellesley's interest.

"Ask him if he has any relatives north of the river," the General ordered McCandless.

"He has a brother and several cousins, sir," McCandless translated.

"So how does his mother visit her son north of the river?" Wellesley asked.

The farmer launched himself into a long explanation. In the dry season, he said, she walked across the river bed, but in the wet season, when the waters rose, she was forced to come upstream and cross at Taunklee. Wellesley listened, then grunted in apparent disbelief.

He was staring intently through the glass.

"Campbell?" he called, but his aide had gone to another low rise a hundred yards westwards that offered a better view of the enemy ranks. "Campbell?" Wellesley called again and, getting no answer, turned. "Sharpe, you'll do. Come here."

"Sir?"

"You've got young eyes. Come here, and keep low."

Sharpe joined the General on the crest where, to his surprise, he was handed the telescope.

"Look at the village," Wellesley ordered, "then look at the opposite bank and tell me what you see."

It took Sharpe a moment to find Peepulgaon in the lens, but suddenly its mud walls filled the glass. He moved the telescope slowly, sliding its view past oxen, goats and chickens, past clothes set to dry on bushes by the river bank, and then the lens slid across the brown water of the River Kaitna and up its opposite bank where he saw a muddy bluff topped by trees and, just beyond the trees, a fold of land. And in the fold of land were roofs, straw roofs.

"There's another village there, sir," Sharpe said.

"You're sure?" Wellesley asked urgently.

"Pretty sure, sir. Might just be cattle sheds."

"You don't keep cattle sheds apart from a village," the General said scathingly, "not in a country infested by bandits." Wellesley twisted round. "McCandless? Ask your fellow if there's a village on the other side of the river from Peepulgaon."

The farmer listened to the question, then nodded.

"Waroor," he said, then helpfully informed the General that his cousin was the village headman, the naique.

"How far apart are those villages, Sharpe?" Wellesley asked.

Sharpe judged the distance for a couple of seconds.

"Three hundred yards, sir?"

Wellesley took the telescope back and moved away from the crest.

"Never in my life," he said, "have I seen two villages on opposite banks of a river that weren't connected by a ford."

"He insists not, sir," McCandless said, indicating the farmer.

"Then he's a rogue, a liar or a blockhead," Wellesley said cheerfully. "The latter, probably." He frowned in thought, his right hand drumming a tattoo on the telescope's barrel. "I'll warrant there is a ford," he said to himself.

"Sir?" Captain Campbell had run back from the western knoll. "Enemy's breaking camp, sir."

"Are they, by God!" Wellesley returned to the crest and stared through the glass again.

The infantry immediately on the Kaitna's north bank were not moving, but far away, close to the fortified village, tents were being struck.

"Preparing to run away, I daresay," Wellesley muttered.

"Or readying to cross the river and attack us," McCandless said grimly.

"And they're sending cavalry across the river," Campbell added ominously.

"Nothing to worry us," Wellesley said, then turned back to stare at the opposing villages of Peepulgaon and Waroor. "There has to be a ford," he said to himself again, so quietly that only Sharpe could hear him. "Stands to reason," he said, then he went silent for a long time.

"That enemy cavalry, sir," Campbell prompted him.

Wellesley seemed startled.

"What?"

"There, sir." Campbell pointed westwards to a large group of enemy horsemen who had appeared from a grove of trees, but who seemed content to watch Wellesley's group from a half-mile away.

"Time we were away," Wellesley said. "Give that lying blockhead a rupee, McCandless, then let's be off."

"You plan to retreat, sir?" McCandless asked.

Wellesley had been hurrying down the slope, but now stopped and stared in surprise at the Scotsman.

"Retreat?"

McCandless blinked.

"You surely don't intend to fight, sir, do you?"

"How else are we to do His Majesty's business? Of course we'll fight! There's a ford there." Wellesley flung his arm east towards Peepulgaon. "That wretched farmer might deny it, but he's a blockhead! There has to be a ford. We'll cross it, turn their left flank and pound them into scraps! But we must hurry! Noon already. Three hours, gentlemen, three hours to bring on battle. Three hours to turn his flank." He ran on down the hill to where Diomed, his white Arab horse, waited.

"Good God," McCandless said. "Good God."

For five thousand infantry would now cross the Kaitna at a place where men said the river was uncross able then fight an enemy horde at least ten times their number.

"Good God," the Colonel said again, then hurried to follow Wellesley south. The enemy had stolen a march, the redcoats had journeyed all night and were bone tired, but Wellesley would have his battle.