The gunners changed their aim, starting the two breaches in the higher inner wall, while the enfilading batteries, which had been gnawing at the embrasures to dismount the enemy's guns, began firing slantwise into the first breach to dissuade the defenders from building obstacles at the head of the ramp. The enemy guns, those which survived, redoubled their efforts to disable the British batteries, but their shots were wasted in the gab ions or overhead. The big gun which had inflicted such slaughter fired three times more, but its balls cracked uselessly into the cliff face, after which the Mahratta gunners mysteriously gave up.
Next day the two inner breaches were made, and now the big guns concentrated on widening all three gaps in the walls. The eighteen pounder shots slammed into rotten stone, gouging out the wall's fill to add to the ramps. By evening the breaches were clearly big enough and now the gunners aimed their pieces at the enemy's remaining cannon.
One by one they were unseated or their embrasures shattered. A constant shroud of smoke hung over the rocky neck of land. It hung thick and pungent, twitching every time a shot whipped through. The enfilading twelve-pounders fired shells into the breaches, while the howitzer lobbed more shells over the walls.
The British guns fired deep into dusk, and minute by minute the enemy response grew feebler as their guns were wrecked or thrown off the fire steps Only as black night dropped did the besiegers' hot guns cease fire, but even now there would be no respite for the enemy. It was at night that the defenders could turn the breaches into deathtraps. They could bury mines in the stony ramps, or dig wide trenches across the breach summits or make new walls behind the raw new openings, but the British kept one heavy gUn firing throughout the darkness. They loaded the eighteen-pounder with canister and,
three times an hour, sprayed the area of the breaches with a cloud of musket balls to deter any Mahratta from risking his life on the rub bled slopes.
Few slept well that night. The cough of the gun seemed unnaturally loud, and even in the British camp men could hear the rattle as the musket balls whipped against Gawilghur's wounded walls. And in the morning, the soldiers knew, they would be asked to go to those walls and climb the tumbled ramps and fight their way through the shattered stones. And what would wait for them? At the very least, they suspected, the enemy would have mounted guns athwart the breaches to fire across the attack route. They expected blood and pain and death.
"I've never been into a breach, " Garrard told Sharpe. The two men met at Syud Sevajee's tents, and Sharpe had given his old friend a bottle of arrack.
"Nor me, " Sharpe said.
"They say it's bad."
"They do, " Sharpe agreed bleakly. It was supposedly the worst ordeal that any soldier could face.
Garrard drank from the stone bottle, wiped its lip, then handed it to Sharpe. He admired Sharpe's coat in the light of the small campfire.
"Smart bit of cloth, Mister Sharpe."
The coat had been given new white turn backs and cuffs by Clare Wall, and Sharpe had done his best to make the jacket wrinkled and dusty, but it still looked expensive.
"Just an old coat, Tom, " he said dismissively.
"Funny, isn't it? Mister Morris lost a coat."
"Did he?" Sharpe asked.
"He should be more careful." He gave Garrard the bottle, then climbed to his feet.
"I've got an errand, Tom." He held out his hand.
"I'll look for you tomorrow."
"I'll look out for you, Dick."
Sharpe led Ahmed through the camp. Some men sang around their fires, others obsessively honed bayonets that were already razor sharp. A cavalryman had set up a grinding stone and a succession of officers' servants brought swords and sabres to be given a wicked edge. Sparks whipped off the stone. The sappers were doing their last job, making ladders from bamboo that had been carried up from the plain. Major Stokes supervised the job, and his eyes widened in joy as he saw Sharpe approaching through the firelight.
"Richard! Is it you? Dear me, it is!
Well, I never! And I thought you were locked up in the enemy's dungeons! You escaped?"
Sharpe shook Stokes's hand.
"I never got taken to Gawilghur. I was held by some horsemen, " he lied, 'but they didn't seem to know what to do with me, so the buggers just let me go."
"I'm delighted, delighted!»
Sharpe turned and looked at the ladders.
"I didn't think we were making an escalade tomorrow?"
"We're not, " Stokes said, 'but you never know what obstacles have to be overcome inside a fortress. Sensible to carry ladders." He peered at Ahmed who was now dressed in one of the sepoy's coats that had been given to Syud Sevajee. The boy wore the red jacket proudly, even though it was a poor, threadbare and bloodstained thing.
"I say, " Stokes admired the boy, 'but you do look like a proper soldier. Don't he just?"
Ahmed stood to attention, shouldered his musket and made a smart about-turn. Major Stokes applauded.
"Well done, lad. I'm afraid you've missed all the excitement, Sharpe."
"Excitement?"
"Your Captain Torrance died. Shot himself, by the look of things.
Terrible way to go. I feel sorry for his father. He's a cleric, did you know? Poor man, poor man. Would you like some tea, Sharpe? Or do you need to sleep?"
"I'd like some tea, sir."
"We'll go to my tent, " Stokes said, leading the way.
"I've still got your pack, by the way. You can take it with you."
"I'd rather you kept it another day, " Sharpe said, "I'll be busy tomorrow."
"Busy?" Stokes asked.
"I'm going in with Kenny's troops, sir."
"Dear God, " Stokes said. He stopped and frowned. "I've no doubt we'll get through the breaches, Richard, for they're good breaches. A bit steep, perhaps, but we should get through, but God only knows what waits beyond. And I fear that the Inner Fort may be a much bigger obstacle than any of us have anticipated." He shook his head.
"I
ain't sanguine, Sharpe, I truly ain't."
Sharpe had no idea what sanguine meant, though he did not doubt that Stokes's lack of it did not augur well for the attack.
"I have to go into the fort, sir. I have to. But I wondered if you'd keep an eye on
Ahmed here." He took hold of the boy's shoulder and pulled him forward.
"The little bugger will insist on coming with me, " Sharpe said, 'but if you keep him out of trouble then he might survive another day."
"He can be my assistant, " Stokes said happily.
"But, Richard, can't I persuade you to the same employment? Are you ordered to accompany Kenny?"
"I'm not ordered, sir, but I have to go. It's personal business."
"It will be bloody in there, " Stokes warned. He walked on to his tent and shouted for his servant.
Sharpe pushed Ahmed towards Stokes's tent.
"You stay here, Ahmed, you hear me? You stay here!»
"I come with you, " Ahmed insisted.
"You bloody well stay, " Sharpe said. He twitched Ahmed's red coat.
"You're a soldier now. That means you take orders, understand? You obey. And I'm ordering you to stay here."
The boy scowled, but he seemed to accept the orders, and Stokes showed him a place where he could sleep. Afterwards the two men talked, or rather Sharpe listened as Stokes enthused about some fine quartz he had discovered in rocks broken open by the enemy's counter battery fire. Eventually the Major began yawning. Sharpe finished his tea, said his good night and then, making certain that Ahmed did not see him go, he slipped away into the dark.