"It'll be slow work now." He poked the fire around which a half-dozen officers were sitting.
Major Simons grinned.
"If I was the enemy, " he said, "I'd attack Mister Sharpe's oxen instead of attacking engineers. If they cut our supply line they'd do some real damage."
"There's no point in shooting engineers, " Pinckney agreed.
"We don't need Royal Engineers anyway. We've been making roads for years. The fellows in the blue coats just get in the way. Mind you, they'll still send us another."
"If there are any left, " Sharpe said. The campaign had been fatal for the engineers. Two had died blowing up the enemy guns at Assaye, another three were fevered and now Elliott was either dying or already dead.
"They'll find one, " Pinckney grumbled.
"If there's something the
King's army doesn't need then you can be sure they've got a healthy supply of it."
"The Company army's better?" Sharpe asked.
"It is, " Major Simons said.
"We work for a sterner master than you, Sharpe. It's called book-keeping. You fight for victories, we fight for profits. Leadenhall Street won't pay for fancy engineers in blue coats, not when they can hire plain men like us at half the cost."
"They could afford me, " Sharpe said.
"Cheap as they come, I am."
Next morning Simons threw a strong picquet line ahead of the work parties, but no Mahrattas opposed the pioneers who were now widening the track where it twisted up a bare and steep slope that was littered with rocks. The track was ancient, worn into the hills by generations of travellers, but it had never been used by wagons, let alone by heavy guns. Merchants who wanted to carry their goods up the escarpment had used the road leading directly to the fortress's Southern Gate, while this track, which looped miles to the east of Gawilghur, was little more than a series of paths connecting the upland valleys where small farms had been hacked from the jungle. It was supposed to be tiger country, but Sharpe saw none of the beasts. At dawn he had returned to Deogaum to collect rice for the sepoys, and then spent the next four hours climbing back to where the pioneers were working. He was nervous at first, both of tigers and of an enemy ambush, but the worst he suffered was a series of drenching rainstorms that swept up the mountains.
The rain stopped when he reached the working parties who were driving the road through a small ridge. Pinckney was setting a charge of gunpowder that would loosen the rock and let him cut out a mile of looping track. His servant brought a mug of tea that Sharpe drank sitting on a rock. He stared southwards, watching the veils of grey rain sweep across the plain.
"Did Wellesley say anything about sending a new engineer?" Major Simons asked him.
"I just collected the rice, sir, " Sharpe said.
"I didn't see the General."
"I thought you were supposed to be a friend of his?" Simons observed sourly.
"Everyone thinks that, " Sharpe said, 'except him and me."
"But you saved his life?"
Sharpe shrugged.
"I reckon so. Either that or stopped him getting captured."
"And killed a few men doing it, I hear?"
Sharpe looked at the tall Simons with some surprise, for he had not realized that his exploit had become common knowledge.
"Don't remember much about it."
"I suppose not. Still, " Simons said, 'a feather in your cap?"
"I don't think Wellesley thinks that, " Sharpe said.
"You're a King's officer now, Sharpe, " Simons said enviously. As an East India Company officer he was trapped in the Company's cumbersome system of promotion.
"If Wellesley thrives, he'll remember you."
Sharpe laughed.
"I doubt it, sir. He ain't the sort." He turned southwards again because Ahmed had called a warning in Arabic. The boy was pointing downhill and Sharpe stood to see over the crown of the slope. Far beneath him, where the road passed through one of the lush valleys, a small party of horsemen was approaching and one of the riders was in a blue coat.
"Friends, Ahmed! " he called.
"Looks like the new engineer, " Sharpe said to Simons.
"Pinckney will be delighted, " Simons said sarcastically.
Pinckney came back to inspect the approaching party through a telescope, and spat when he saw the blue coat of the Royal Engineers.
"Another interfering bastard to teach me how to suck eggs, " he said.
"So let's blow the charge before he gets here, otherwise he'll tell us we're doing it all wrong."
A crowd of grinning sepoys waited expectantly about the end of the fuse. Pinckney struck a light, put it to the quick match then watched the sparks smoke their way towards the distant charge. The smoke trail vanished in grass and it seemed to Sharpe that it must have extinguished itself, but then there was a violent coughing sound and the small ridge heaved upwards. Soil and stone flew outwards in a cloud of filthy smoke. The sepoys cheered. The explosion had seemed small to Sharpe, but when the smoke and dust cleared he could see that the ridge now had a deep notch through which the road could climb to the next high valley.
The pioneers went to shovel the loosened earth away and Sharpe sat again. Ahmed squatted beside him.
"What am I going to do with you?"
Sharpe asked.
"I go to England, " Ahmed said carefully.
"You won't like it there. Cold as buggery."
"Cold?"
"Freezing." Sharpe mimicked a shiver, but plainly it meant nothing to the Arab boy.
"I go to England, " Ahmed insisted.
A half-hour later the new engineer appeared just beneath Sharpe.
He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, rode a grey horse and was trailed by three servants who led pack mules laden with luggage amongst which Sharpe could see a tripod, a surveyor's level and a vast leather tube that he guessed held a telescope. The engineer took off his hat and fanned his face as he rounded the last bend. "Pon my soul, " he said cheerfully, 'but thank God the horse does the climbing and not me."
Pinckney had come back to greet the engineer and held out his hand as the blue-coated Major slid from his saddle.
"Captain Pinckney, sir, " he introduced himself.
"Pinckney, eh?" the white-haired engineer said cheerfully.
"I knew a Pinckney in Hertfordshire. He made plough shares and damn fine ones too."
"My uncle Joshua, sir."
"Then you must be Hugh's boy, yes? An honour! " He shook Pinckney's hand vigorously.
"Major John Stokes, at your service, though I don't suppose you need me, do you? You must have built more roads than I ever did." Major Stokes looked towards Sharpe who had stood and was now smiling.
"Good God in His blessed heaven, " Stokes said, 'it can't be! But it is! My dear Sharpe! My dear Mister Sharpe. I heard all about your commission! Couldn't be more pleased, my dear Sharpe. An officer, eh?"
Sharpe smiled broadly.
"OnJ} an ensign, sir."
"Every ladder has a first rung, Sharpe, " Stokes said in gentle reproof of Sharpe's modesty, then held out his hand.
"We shall be mess mates, as they say in the Navy. Well, I never! Mess mates, indeed! And with a Pinckney too! Hugh Pinckney forges mill gears, Sharpe. Never seen a man make better-toothed wheels in all my life." He clasped Sharpe's hand in both of his.
"They grubbed me out of Seringapatam, Sharpe.
Can you believe that? Told me all the other engineers had the pox, and summoned me here just in time to discover that poor Elliott's dead.
'34
I suppose I shouldn't complain. It's awfully good for my promotion prospects." He let go of Sharpe's hand.
"Oh, and by the way, I travelled north with some of your old comrades! Captain Charles Morris and his company. Not the most charming creature, is he?"