"The passage turns, " Stokes said.
"We can't fire straight up the entranceway. They'll have to drag a gun right into the archway."
"They'll never make it, " Sharpe said. Any gun positioned in the outer arch would get the full fury of the defensive fire, and those defenders were protected by the big outer wall. The only way Sharpe could see of getting into the fortress was by battering the whole gatehouse flat, and that would take days of heavy cannon fire.
"The gates of hell, " Stokes said softly, staring through his glass at the bodies left inside the arch.
"Can I borrow the telescope, sir?" Sharpe asked.
"Of course." Stokes cleaned the eyepiece on the hem of his jacket.
"It ain't a pretty sight though."
Sharpe took the glass and aimed it across the ravine. He gave the gatehouse a cursory glance, then edged the lens along the wall which led westwards from the besieged gate. The wall was not very high, perhaps only twelve or fifteen feet, much lower than the great ramparts about the gatehouse, and its embrasures did not appear to be heavily manned. But that was hardly a surprise, for the wall stood atop a precipice. The de fences straight ahead were not the wall and its handful of defenders, but the stony cliff which fell down into the ravine.
Stokes saw where Sharpe was aiming the glass.
"No way in there, Richard."
Sharpe said nothing. He was staring at a place where weeds and small shrubs twisted up the cliff. He tracked the telescope from the bed of the ravine to the base of the wall, searching every inch, and he reckoned it could be climbed. It would be hard, for it was perilously steep, but if there was space for bushes to find lodgement, then a man could follow, and at the top of the cliff there was a brief area of grass between the precipice and the wall. He took the telescope from his eye.
"Has anyone seen a ladder?"
"Back up there." It was Ahmed who answered.
"Where, lad?"
"Up there." The Arab boy pointed to the Outer Fort.
"On the ground, " he said.
Sharpe twisted and looked at Lockhart.
"Can you boys fetch me a ladder?"
"What are you thinking of?" Lockhart asked.
"A way in, " Sharpe said, 'a bloody way in." He gave the telescope to Stokes.
"Get me a ladder, Sergeant, " he said, 'and I'll fix those buggers properly. Ahrned? Show Sergeant Lockhart where you saw the ladder."
"I stay with you, " the boy said stubbornly.
"You bloody don't." Sharpe patted the boy on the head, wondering what Ahmed made of the slaughter that had been inflicted on his countrymen in the ravine, but the boy seemed blessedly unaffected.
"Go and help the Sergeant, " he told Ahmed.
Ahmed led the cavalrymen uphill.
"What are you doing, Richard?"
Stokes asked.
"We can climb up to the wall, " Sharpe said, pointing to where the trail of weeds and bushes snaked up the other side of the ravine.
"Not you, sir, but a light company can do it. Go up the ravine, send a ladder up and cross the wall."
Stokes trained the telescope and stared at the opposing cliff for a long while.
"You might get up, " he said dubiously, 'but then what?"
Sharpe grinned.
"We attack the gatehouse from the back, sir."
"One company?"
"Where one company can go, sir, another can follow. Once they see we're up there, other men will come." He still held the great claymore which was too big to fit into the scabbard of his borrowed sword, but now he discarded that scabbard and shoved the claymore into his belt.
He liked the sword. It was heavy, straight-bladed and brutal, not a weapon for delicate work, but a killer. Something to give a man confidence.
"You stay here, sir, " he told Stokes, 'and look after Ahmed for me. The little bugger would love to get in a fight, but he ain't got the sense of a louse when it comes to a scrap and he's bound to get killed. Tom! " he called to Garrard, then beckoned that he and the rest of the 33rd's Light Company should follow him down to where Morris sheltered among the rocks.
"When Eli gets here with the ladder, sir, " he added to Stokes, 'send him down."
Sharpe ran down the ravine's steep side into the smoke-reeking shadows where Morris was seated under a tree making a meal out of bread, salt beef and whatever liquor was left in his canteen.
"Don't have enough food for you, Sharpe, " he said.
"Not hungry, " Sharpe lied.
"You're sweating, man, " Morris complained.
"Why don't you find yourself some shade? There's nothing we can do until the gunners knock that bloody gatehouse flat."
"There is, " Sharpe said.
Morris cocked a sceptical eye up at Sharpe.
"I've had no orders, Ensign, " he said.
"I want you and the Light Company, sir, " Sharpe said respectfully.
"There's a way up the side of the ravine, sir, and if we can get a ladder to the top then we can cross the wall and go at the bastards from the back."
Morris tipped the canteen to his mouth, drank, then wiped his lips.
"If you, twenty like you and the Archangel Gabriel and all the bloody saints asked me to climb the ravine, Sharpe, I would still say no. Now for Christ's sake, man, stop trying to be a bloody hero. Leave it to the poor bastards who are under orders, and go away." He waved a hand.
«Sir,» Sharpe pleaded, 'we can do it! I've sent for a ladder."
«No!» Morris interrupted loudly, attracting the attention of the rest of the company.
"I am not giving you my company, Sharpe. For God's sake, you're not even a proper officer! You're just a bumped-up sergeant! A bloody ensign too big for your boots and, allow me to remind you, Mister Sharpe, forbidden by army regulations to serve in this regiment. Now go away and leave me in peace."
"I thought you'd say that, Charles, " Sharpe said ruefully.
"And stop calling me Charles! " Morris exploded.
"We are not friends, you and I. And kindly obey my order to leave me in peace, or had you not noticed that I outrank you?"
"I had noticed. Sorry, sir, " Sharpe said humbly and he started to turn away, but suddenly whipped back and seized Morris's coat. He dragged the Captain back into the rocks, going so fast that Morris was momentarily incapable of resistance. Once among the rocks, Sharpe let go of the patched coat and thumped Morris in the belly.
"That's for the flogging you gave me, you bastard, " he said.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Sharpe?" Morris asked, scrambling away on his bottom.
Sharpe kicked him in the chest, leaned down, hauled him up and thumped him on the jaw. Morris squealed with pain, then gasped as Sharpe backhanded him across the cheek, then struck him again. A group of men had followed and were watching wide-eyed. Morris turned to appeal to them, but Sharpe hit him yet again and the Cap-268
tain's eyes turned glassy as he swayed and collapsed. Sharpe bent over him.
"You might outrank me, " he said, 'but you're a piece of shit, Charlie, and you always were. Now can I take the company?"
«No,» Morris said through the blood on his lips.
"Thank you, sir, " Sharpe said, and stamped his boot hard down on Morris's head, driving it onto a rock. Morris gasped, choked, then lay immobile as the breath scraped in his throat.
Sharpe kicked Morris's head again, just for the hell of it, then turned, smiling.
"Where's Sergeant Green?"
"Here, sir." Green, looking anxious, pushed through the watching men.
"I'm here, sir, " he said, staring with astonishment at the immobile Morris.
"Captain Morris has eaten something that disagreed with him, " Sharpe said, 'but before he was taken ill he expressed the wish that I should temporarily take command of the company."