"Exactly nine o'clock, " Stokes said, tapping his watch to see if the hands were stuck.
"We'll use my timepiece, " Kenny decreed, 'and we'll move forward on the strike of ten o'clock. And remember, Plummer, keep firing till we're there! Don't be chary, man, don't stop just because we're close to the summit. Batter the bastards! Batter the bastards! " He frowned at Ahmed who was staying close to Stokes. The boy was wearing his red coat which was far too big for him, and Kenny seemed on the point of demanding an explanation for the boy's odd garb, then abruptly shrugged and walked away.
He went to where his men crouched on the track that led to the fortress gate. They were sheltered from the defenders by the lie of the land, but the moment they advanced over a small rocky rise they would become targets. They then had three hundred yards of open ground to cross, and as they neared the broken walls they would be squeezed into the narrow space between the tank and the precipice where they could expect the fire of the defenders to be at its fiercest. After that it was a climb to the breaches and to whatever horrors waited out of sight.
The men sat, trying to find what small shade was offered by bushes or rocks. Many were half drunk, for their officers had issued extra rations of arrack and rum. None carried a pack, they had only their muskets, their ammunition and bayonets. A few, not many, prayed. An officer of the Scotch Brigade knelt bare-headed amongst a group of his men, and Kenny, intrigued by the sight, swerved towards the kneeling soldiers to hear them softly repeating the twenty-third psalm. Most men just sat, heads low, consumed by their thoughts. The officers forced conversation.
Behind Kenny's thousand men was a second assault force, also composed of sepoys and Scotsmen, which would follow Kenny into the breach. If Kenny failed then the second storming party would try to go farther, but if Kenny succeeded they would secure the Outer Fort while Kenny's troops went on to assault the Inner. Small groups of gunners were included in both assault groups. Their orders were to find whatever serviceable cannon still existed in the Outer Fort and turn them against the defenders beyond the ravine.
An officer wearing the white facings of the 74th picked his way up the track between the waiting troops. The man had a cheap Indian sabre at his waist and, unusually for an officer, was carrying a musket and cartridge box. Kenny hailed him.
"Who the devil are you?"
"Sharpe, sir."
The name rang a bell in Kenny's mind.
"Wellesley's man?"
"Don't know about that, sir."
Kenny scowled at the evasion.
"You were at Assaye, yes?"
"Yes, sir, " Sharpe admitted.
Kenny's expression softened. He knew of Sharpe and he admired a brave man.
"So what the devil are you doing here, Sharpe? Your regiment is miles away! They're climbing the road from Deogaum."
"I was stranded here, sir, " Sharpe said, deciding there was no point in trying to deliver a longer explanation, 'and there wasn't time to join the 74th, sir, so I was hoping to go with my old company. That's Captain Morris's men, sir." He nodded up the track to where the 33rd's Light Company was gathered among some boulders.
"With your permission of course, sir."
"No doubt Morris will be glad of your help, Sharpe, " Kenny said, 'as will I." He was impressed by Sharpe's appearance, for the Ensign was tall, evidently strong and had a roguish fierceness about his face. In the breach, the Colonel knew, victory or defeat as often as not came down to a man's skill and strength, and Sharpe looked as if he knew how to use his weapons.
"Good luck to you, Sharpe."
"And the best to you, sir, " Sharpe said warmly.
He walked on, his borrowed musket heavy on his shoulder. Eli Lockhart and Syud Sevajee were waiting with their men among the third group, the soldiers who would occupy the fort after the assault troops had done their work, if, indeed, the leading two thousand men managed to get through the walls. A rumour was spreading that the breaches were too steep and that no one could carry a weapon and climb the ramps at the same time. The men believed they would need to use their hands to scramble up the stony piles, and so they would be easy targets for any defenders at the top of the breaches. The gunners, they grumbled, should have brought down more of the wall, if not all of it, and the proof of that assertion was the guns' continual firing. Why would the guns go on gnawing at the wall if the breaches were already practical? They could hear the strike of round shot on stone, hear the occasional tumble of rubble, but what they could not hear was any fire from the fortress. The bastards were saving their fire for the assault.
Sharpe edged among sepoys who were carrying one of Major Stokes's bamboo ladders. The dark faces grinned at him, and one man offered Sharpe a canteen which proved to contain a strongly spiced arrack. Sharpe took a small sip, then amused the sepoys by pretending to be astonished by the liquor's fierceness.
"That's rare stuff, lads, " Sharpe said, then walked on towards his old comrades. They watched his approach with a mixture of surprise, welcome and apprehension. When the 33rd's Light Company had last seen Sharpe he had been a sergeant, and not long before that he had been a private strapped to the punishment triangle; now he wore a sword and sash. Although officers promoted from the ranks were not supposed to serve with their old units, Sharpe had friends among these men and if he was to climb the steep rubble of Gawilghur's breaches then he would rather do it among friends.
Captain Morris was no friend, and he watched Sharpe's approach with foreboding. Sharpe headed straight for his old company commander.
"Good to see you, Charles, " he said, knowing that his use of the Christian name would irritate Morris.
"Nice morning, eh?"
Morris looked left and right as though seeking someone who could help him confront this upstart from his past. Morris had never liked Sharpe, indeed he had conspired with Obadiah Hakeswill to have Sharpe flogged in the hope that the punishment would end in death, but Sharpe had survived and had been commissioned. Now the bastard was being familiar, and there was nothing Morris could do about it.
«Sharpe,» he managed to say.
"Thought I'd join you, Charles, " Sharpe said airily.
"I've been stranded up here, and Kenny reckoned I might be useful to you."
"Of course, " Morris said, conscious of his men's gaze. Morris would have liked to tell Sharpe to bugger a long way off, but he could not commit such impolite ness to a fellow officer in front of his men.
"I
never congratulated you, " he forced himself to say.
"No time like the present, " Sharpe said.
Morris blushed.
"Congratulations."
"Thank you, Charles, " Sharpe said, then turned and looked at the company. Most grinned at him, but a few men avoided his gaze.
"No Sergeant Hakeswill?" Sharpe asked guilelessly.
"He was captured by the enemy, " Morris said. The Captain was staring at Sharpe's coat which was not quite big enough and looked, somehow, familiar.
Sharpe saw Morris frowning at the jacket.
"You like the coat?" he asked.
"What?" Morris asked, confused by his suspicions and by Sharpe's easy manner. Morris himself was wearing an old coat that was disfigured by brown cloth patches.
"I bought the coat after Assaye, " Sharpe said.
"You weren't there, were you?"
"No."
"Nor at Argaum?"
«No,» Morris said, stiffening slightly. He resented the fact that Sharpe had survived those battles and was now suggesting, however delicately, that the experience gave him an advantage. The truth was that it did, but Morris could not admit that any more than he could admit his jealousy of Sharpe's reputation.
"So what are our orders today?" Sharpe asked.