Sharpe's Triumph: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803 Read online

  It was a disconsolate expedition. Colonel McCandless had nothing to say to Simone who was still withdrawn. Sharpe tried to cheer her up, but his clumsy attempts only made her more miserable and after a time he, too, fell silent. Women were a mystery, he thought. During the night Simone had clung to him as though she were drowning, but since the dawn it had seemed as if she would prefer to be drowned.

  “Horsemen on our right, Sergeant!” McCandless said, his tone a reproof that Sharpe had not spotted the cavalry first. “Probably ours, but they could be enemy.”

  Sharpe stared eastwards. “They’re ours, sir,” he called, kicking his horse to catch up with McCandless. One of the distant horsemen carried the new Union flag and Sharpe’s good eyes had spotted the banner. The flag was easier to recognize at a distance these days, for since the incorporation of Ireland into the United Kingdom a new red diagonal cross had been added to the flag, and though the new-fangled design looked odd and unfamiliar, it did make the banner stand out.

  The cavalry left a plume of dust as they rode to intercept McCandless’s party. Sevajee and his men cantered to meet them and Sharpe saw the two groups of horsemen greet each other warmly. The strangers turned out to be brindarries from the Mahratta states who, like Sevajee, had sided with the British against Scindia. These mercenaries were under the command of a British officer and, like Sevajee’s men, they carried lances, tulwars, matchlock guns, flintlocks, pistols and bows and arrows. They wore no uniform, but a handful of the sixty men possessed breastplates and most had metal helmets that were crested with feathers or horsehair plumes. Their officer, a dragoon captain, fell in alongside McCandless and reported seeing a white-coated battalion on the far side of the River Godavery. “I didn’t try and cross, sir,” the Captain said, “for they weren’t exactly friendly.”

  “But you’re sure they had white coats?”

  “No doubts at all, sir,” the Captain said, thus confirming that Dodd must have crossed the river already. He added that he had questioned some grain merchants who had traveled south across the Godavery and those men had told him that Pohlmann’s compoo was camped close to Aurungabad. That city belonged to Hyderabad, but the merchants had seen no evidence that the Mahrattas were preparing to besiege the city walls. The Captain tugged his reins, turning his horse southwards so he could carry his news to Wellesley. “Bid you good day, Colonel. Your servant, Ma’am.” The dragoon officer touched his hat to Simone, then led his brigands away.

  McCandless decreed that they would camp that night on the south bank of the River Godavery where Sharpe rigged two horse blankets as a tent for Simone. Sevajee and his men made their beds on the bluff above the river, a score of yards from the tent, and McCandless and Sharpe spread their blankets alongside. The river was high, but it had still not filled the steep-sided ravine that successive monsoons had scarred into the flat earth and Sharpe guessed that the river was only at half flood. If the belated monsoon did arrive the Godavery would swell into a swirling torrent a full quarter-mile wide, but even half full the river looked a formidable obstacle as it surged westwards with its burden of flotsam. “Too deep to wade,” McCandless said as the sun fell.

  “Current looks strong, sir.”

  “It’ll sweep you to your death, man.”

  “So how’s the army to cross it, sir?”

  “With difficulty, Sharpe, with difficulty, but discipline always overcomes difficulty. Dodd got across, so we surely can.” McCandless had been reading his Bible, but the falling dark now obscured the pages and so he closed the book. Simone had eaten with them, but she had been uncommunicative and McCandless was glad when she withdrew behind her blankets. “Women upset matters,” the Scotsman said unhappily.

  “They do, sir?”

  “Perturbations,” McCandless said mysteriously, “perturbations.” The small flames of the campfire made his already gaunt face seem skeletal. He shook his head. “It’s the heat, Sharpe, I’m convinced of it. The further south you travel, the more sin is provoked among womankind. It makes sense, of course. Hell is a hot place, and hell is sin’s destination.”

  “So you think that heaven’s cold, sir?”

  “I like to think it’s bracing,” the Colonel answered seriously. “Something like Scotland, I imagine. Certainly not as hot as India, and the heat here has a very bad effect on some women. It releases things in them.” He paused, evidently deciding he risked saying too much. “I’m not at all convinced India is a place for European women,” the Colonel went on, “and I shall be very glad when we’re rid of Madame Joubert. Still, I can’t deny that her predicament is propitious. It enables us to take a look at Lieutenant Dodd.”

  Sharpe poked a half-burned scrap of driftwood into the hottest part of the fire, provoking an updraft of sparks. “Are you hoping to capture Lieutenant Dodd, sir? Is that why we’re taking Madame back to her husband?”

  McCandless shook his head. “I doubt we’ll get the chance, Sharpe. No, we’re using a heaven-sent opportunity to take a look at our enemy. Our armies are marching into dangerous territory, for no place in India can raise armies the size of the Mahratta forces, and we are precious few in number. We need intelligence, Sharpe, so when we reach them, watch and pray! Keep your eyes skinned. How many battalions? How many guns? What’s the state of the guns? How many limbers? Look hard at the infantry. Matchlocks or firelocks? In a month or so we’ll be fighting these rogues, so the more we know of them the better.” The Colonel scuffed earth onto the fire, dousing the last small flames that Sharpe had just provoked. “Now sleep, man. You’ll be needing all your strength and wits in the morning.”

  Next morning they rode downstream until they found a village next to a vast empty Hindu temple, and in the village were small basket boats that resembled Welsh coracles and McCandless hired a half-dozen of these as ferries. The unsaddled horses were made to swim behind the boats. It was a perilous crossing, for the brown current snatched at the light vessels and whirled them downstream. The horses, white-eyed, swam desperately behind the reed boats that Sharpe noted had no caulking of any kind, but depended on skillful close weaving to keep the water out, and the tug of the horses’ leading reins strained the light wooden frames and stretched the weave so that the boats let in water alarmingly. Sharpe used his shako to bail out his coracle, but the boatmen just grinned at his futile efforts and dug their paddles in harder. Once a half-submerged tree almost speared Sharpe’s boat, and if the trunk had struck them the boat must surely have been tipped over, but the two boatmen skillfully spun the coracle away, let the tree pass, then paddled on.

  It took half an hour to land and saddle the horses. Simone had shared a coracle with McCandless and the brief voyage had soaked the bottom half of her thin linen dress so that the damp weave clung to her legs. McCandless was embarrassed, and offered her a horse blanket for modesty’s sake, but Simone shook her head. “Where do we go now, Colonel?” she asked.

  “Towards Aurungabad, Ma’am,” McCandless said gruffly, keeping his eyes averted from her beguiling figure, “but doubtless we shall be intercepted long before we reach that city. You’ll be with your husband by tomorrow night, I don’t doubt.”

  Sevajee’s men rode far ahead now, spread into a picquet line to give warning of any enemy. This land all belonged to the Rajah of Hyderabad, an ally of the British, but it was frontier land and the only friendly troops now north of the Godavery were the garrisons of Hyderabad’s isolated fortresses. The rest were all Mahrattas, though Sharpe saw no enemies that day. The only people he saw were peasants cleaning out the irrigation channels in their stubble fields or tending the huge brick kilns that smoked in the sunlight. The brick-workers were all women and children, greasy and sweaty, who gave the travelers scarcely a glance. “It’s a hard life,” Simone said to Sharpe as they passed one half-built kiln where an overseer lazed under a woven canopy and shouted at the children to work faster.

  “All life’s hard unless you’ve got money,” Sharpe said, grateful that Simone had at last broken h
er silence. They were riding a few paces behind the Colonel and kept their voices low so he could not hear them.

  “Money and rank,” Simone said.

  “Rank?” Sharpe asked.

  “They’re usually the same thing,” Simone said. “Colonels are richer than captains, are they not?” And captains are generally richer than sergeants, Sharpe thought, but he said nothing. Simone touched the pouch at her waist. “I should give you back your diamonds.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” she said, but then fell silent for a while. “I do not want you to think . . .” she tried again, but the words would not come.

  Sharpe smiled at her. “Nothing happened, love,” he told her. “That’s what you say to your husband. Nothing happened, and you found the diamonds on a dead body.”

  “He will want me to give them to him. For his family.”

  “Then don’t tell him.”

  “He is saving money,” Simone explained, “so his family can live without work.”

  “We all want that. Dream of life without work, we do. That’s why we all want to be officers.”

  “And I think to myself,” she went on as if Sharpe had not spoken, “what shall I do? I cannot stay here in India. I must go to France. We are like ships, Sergeant, who look for a safe harbor.”

  “And Pierre is safe?”

  “He is safe,” Simone said bleakly, and Sharpe understood what she had been thinking for the last two days. He could offer her no security, while her husband could, and although she found Pierre’s world stultifying, she was terrified by the alternative. She had dared taste that alternative for one night, but now shied away from it. “You do not think badly of me?” she asked Sharpe anxiously.

  “I’m probably half in love with you,” Sharpe told her, “so how can I think badly of you?”

  She seemed relieved, and for the rest of that day she chattered happily enough. McCandless questioned her closely about Dodd’s regiment, how it had been trained and how it was equipped, and though she had taken scant interest in such things, her replies satisfied the Colonel who penciled notes in a small black book.

  They slept that night in a village, and next day rode even more warily. “When we meet the enemy, Sharpe,” McCandless advised him, “keep your hands away from your weapon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give a Mahratta one excuse to think you’re hostile,” the Colonel said cheerfully, “and he’ll use you as an archery butt. They don’t make decent heavy horsemen, but as raiders they’re unsurpassed. They attack in swarms, Sharpe. A horde of horsemen. Like watching a storm approach. Nothing but dust and the shine of swords. Magnificent!”

  “You like them, sir?” Sharpe asked.

  “I like the wild, Sharpe,” McCandless said fiercely. “We’ve tamed ourselves at home, but out here a man still lives by his weapon and his wits. I shall miss that when we’ve imposed order.”

  “So why tame it, sir?”

  “Because it is our duty, Sharpe. God’s duty. Trade, order, law, and Christian decency, that’s our business.” McCandless was gazing ahead to where a patch of misty white hung just above the northern horizon. It was dust kicked into the air, and maybe it was nothing more than a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep, but the dust smear grew and suddenly Sevajee’s men veered sharply away to the west and galloped out of sight.

  “Are they running out on us, sir?” Sharpe asked.

  “The enemy will likely enough treat you and me with respect, Sharpe,” McCandless said, “but Sevajee cannot expect courtesy from them. They’d regard him as a traitor and execute him on the spot. We’ll meet up with him when we’ve delivered Madame Joubert to her husband. He and I have arranged a rendezvous.”

  The dust cloud drew nearer and Sharpe saw a sliver of reflected sunlight glint in the whiteness and he knew he was seeing the first sign of McCandless’s magnificent wild horsemen. The storm was coming.

  The Mahratta cavalrymen had spread into a long line as they approached McCandless’s small party. There were, Sharpe guessed, two hundred or more of the horsemen and, as they drew nearer, the flanks of their line quickened to form a pair of horns that would encircle their prey. McCandless feigned not to notice the threat, but kept riding gently ahead while the wild horns streamed past in a flurry of dust and noise.

  They were, Sharpe noticed, small men on small horses. British cavalry were bigger and their horses were heavier, but these nimble horsemen still looked effective enough. The curved blades of their drawn tulwars glittered like their plumed helmets which rose to a sharp point decorated with a crest. Some of the crests were horse-tails, some vultures’ feathers and some just brightly colored ribbons. More ribbons were woven into their horses’ plaited manes or were tied to the horn tips of the archers’ bows. The horsemen pounded past McCandless, then turned with a swerve, a slew of choking dust, a skid of hooves, a jangle of curb chains and the thump of scabbarded weapons.

  The Mahratta leader confronted McCandless who pretended to be surprised to find his path blocked, but nevertheless greeted the enemy with an elaborate and confident courtesy. The cavalry commander was a wildly bearded man with a scarred cheek, a wall eye and lank hair that hung far below his helmet’s cloth-rimmed edge. He held his tulwar menacingly, but McCandless ignored the blade’s threat, indeed he ignored most of what the enemy commander said, and instead boomed his own demands in a voice that showed not the least nervousness. The Scotsman towered over the smaller horsemen and, because he seemed to regard his presence among them as entirely natural, they meekly accepted his version of what was happening. “I have demanded that they escort us to Pohlmann,” the Scotsman informed Sharpe.

  “They probably planned on doing that anyway, sir.”

  “Of course they did, but it’s far better that I should demand it than that they should impose it,” McCandless said and then, with a lordly gesture, he gave permission for the Mahratta chief to lead the way and the enemy dutifully formed themselves into an escort either side of the three Europeans. “Fine-looking beggars, are they not?” McCandless asked.

  “Wicked, sir.”

  “But sadly out of date.”

  “They could fool me, sir,” Sharpe said, for though many of the Mahratta horsemen carried weapons that might have been more usefully employed at Agincourt or Crécy than in modern India, all had firelocks in their saddle holsters and all had savagely curved tulwars.

  McCandless shook his head. “They may be the finest light horsemen in the world, but they won’t press a charge home and they can’t stand volley fire. There’s rarely any need to form square against men like these, Sharpe. They’re fine for picquet work, unrivaled at pursuit, but chary of dying in front of the guns.”

  “Can you blame them?” Simone asked.

  “I don’t blame them, Madame,” McCandless said, “but if a horse can’t stand fire, then it’s of scant use in battle. You don’t gain victories by rattling across country like a pack of hunters, but by enduring the enemy’s fire and overcoming it. That’s where a soldier earns his pay, hard under the enemy muzzles.”

  And that, Sharpe thought, was something he had never really done. He had faced the French in Flanders years before, but those battles had been fleeting and rain-obscured, and the lines had never closed on each other. He had not stared at the whites of the enemy’s eyes, heard his volleys and returned them. He had fought at Malavelly, but that battle had been one volley and a charge, and the enemy had not contested the day, but fled, while at Seringapatam Sharpe had been spared the horror of going through the breach. One day, he realized, he would have to stand in a battle line and endure the volleys, and he wondered whether he would stand or instead break in terror. Or whether he would even live to see a battle, for, despite McCandless’s blithe confidence, there was no assurance that he would survive this visit to the enemy’s encampment.

  They reached Pohlmann’s army that evening. The camp was a short march south of Aurungabad and it was visible from miles away because of the
great smear of smoke that hung in the sky. Most of the campfires were burning dried cakes of bullock dung and the acrid smoke caught in Sharpe’s throat as he trotted through the lines of infantry shelters. It all looked much like a British camp, except that most of the tents were made from reed matting rather than canvas, but the lines were still neatly arrayed, muskets were carefully stacked in threes and a disciplined ring of picquets guarded the camp’s perimeter. They passed some European officers exercising their horses, and one of those men spurred to intercept the newcomers. He ignored McCandless and Sharpe, raising his plumed hat to Simone instead. “Bonsoir, Madame.”

  Simone did not look at the man, but just tapped her horse’s rump with her riding crop. “That fellow’s French, sir,” Sharpe said to McCandless.

  “I do speak the language, Sergeant,” the Colonel said.

  “So what’s a Frog doing here, sir?”

  “The same as Lieutenant Dodd, Sharpe. Teaching Scindia’s infantry how to fight.”

  “Don’t they know how to fight, sir? Thought it came natural.”

  “They don’t fight as we do,” McCandless said, watching the rebuffed Frenchman canter away.

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “The European, Sergeant, has learned to close the gap fast. The closer you are to a man, the more likely you are to kill him; however, the closer you get, the more likely you are to be killed, but it’s no use entertaining that fear in battle. Get up close, hold your ranks and start killing, that’s the trick of it. But given a chance an Indian will hold back and try to kill at long range, and fellows like Dodd are teaching them how to close the gap hard and fast. You need discipline for that, discipline and tight ranks and good sergeants. And no doubt he’s teaching them how to use cannon as well.” The Colonel spoke sourly, for they were trotting beside an artillery park that was crammed with heavy cannon. The guns looked odd to Sharpe, for many of them had been cast with ornate patterns on their barrels, and some were even painted in gaudy colors, but they were neatly parked and all had limbers and full sets of equipment; rammers and wormscrews and handspikes and buckets. The axles gleamed with grease and there was not a spot of rust to be seen on the long barrels. Someone knew how to maintain guns, and that suggested they also knew how to use them. “Counting them, Sharpe?” McCandless asked abruptly.