Sharpe’s Triumph: The Battle of Assaye, September 1803. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ stared broodingly at Sharpe. The Colonel had a hard-planed face with oddly blue eyes. He was forever claiming that he wanted to retire to his native Scotland, but he always found some reason to stay on in India. He had spent much of his life riding the states that bordered the land administered by the Company, for his job was to explore those lands and report their threats and weaknesses to his masters. Little happened in India that escaped McCandless, but Dodd had escaped him, and Dodd was now McCandless’s concern. ‘We have placed a price on his head,’ the Colonel said, ‘of five hundred guineas.’

      ‘Bless me!’ Major Stokes said in astonishment.

      ‘He’s a murderer,’ McCandless went on. ‘He killed a goldsmith in Seedesegur, and he should be facing trial, but he ran instead and I want you, Sharpe, to help me catch him. And I’m not pursuing the rogue because I want the reward money; in fact I’ll refuse it. But I do want him, and I want your help.’

      Major Stokes began to protest, saying that Sharpe was his best man and that the armoury would go to the dogs if the Sergeant was taken away, but McCandless shot the amiable Major a harsh look that was sufficient to silence him.

      ‘I want Lieutenant Dodd captured,’ McCandless said implacably, ‘and I want him tried, and I want him executed, and I need someone who will know him by sight.’

      Major Stokes summoned the courage to continue his objections. ‘But I need Sergeant Sharpe,’ he protested. ‘He organizes everything! The duty rosters, the stores, the pay chest, everything!’

      ‘I need him more,’ McCandless snarled, turning on the hapless Major. ‘Do you know how many Britons are in India, Major? Maybe twelve thousand, and less than half of those are soldiers. Our power does not rest on the shoulders of white men, Major, but on the muskets of our sepoys. Nine men out of every ten who invade the Mahratta states will be sepoys, and Lieutenant Dodd persuaded over a hundred of those men to desert! To desert! Can you imagine our fate if the other sepoys follow them? Scindia will shower Dodd’s men with gold, Major, with lucre and with spoil, in the hope that others will follow them. I have to stop that, and I need Sharpe.’

      Major Stokes recognized the inevitable. ‘You will bring him back, sir?’

      ‘If it is the Lord’s will, yes. Well, Sergeant? Will you come with me?’

      Sharpe glanced at Major Stokes who shrugged, smiled, then nodded his permission. ‘I’ll come, sir,’ Sharpe said to the Scotsman.

      ‘How soon can you be ready?’

      ‘Ready now, sir.’ Sharpe indicated the newly issued pack and musket that lay at his feet.

      ‘You can ride a horse?’

      Sharpe frowned. ‘I can sit on one, sir.’

      ‘Good enough,’ the Scotsman said. He pulled on his oilcloth cape, then untied the two reins and gave one set to Sharpe. ‘She’s a docile thing, Sharpe, so don’t saw on her bit.’

      ‘We’re going right now, sir?’ Sharpe asked, surprised by the suddenness of it all.

      ‘Right now,’ McCandless said. ‘Time waits for no man, Sharpe, and we have a traitor and a murderer to catch.’ He pulled himself into his saddle and watched as Sharpe clumsily mounted the second horse.

      ‘So where are you going?’ Stokes asked McCandless.

      ‘Ahmednuggur first, and after that God will decide.’ The Colonel touched his horse’s flanks with his spurs and Sharpe, his pack hanging from one shoulder and his musket slung on the other, followed.

      He would redeem himself for the failure at Chasalgaon. Not with punishment, but with something better: with vengeance.

      Major William Dodd ran a white-gloved finger down the spoke of a gunwheel. He inspected his fingertip and nearly nine hundred men, or at least as many of the nine hundred on parade who could see the Major, inspected him in return.

      No mud or dust on the glove. Dodd straightened his back and glowered at the gun crews, daring any man to show pleasure in having achieved a near perfect turn-out. It had been hard work, too, for it had rained earlier in the day and the regiment’s five guns had been dragged through the muddy streets to the parade ground just inside Ahmednuggur’s southern gate, but the gunners had still managed to clean their weapons meticulously. They had removed every scrap of mud, washed the mahogany trails, then polished the barrels until their alloy of copper and tin gleamed like brass.

      Impressive, Dodd thought, as he peeled off the glove. Pohlmann had left Ahmednuggur, retreating north to join his compoo to Scindia’s gathering army, and Dodd had ordered this surprise inspection of his new command. He had given the regiment just one hour’s notice, but so far he had found nothing amiss. They were impressive indeed; standing in four long white-coated ranks with their four cannon and single howitzer paraded at the right flank. The guns themselves, despite their gleam, were pitiful things. The four field guns were mere four-pounders, while the fifth was a five-inch howitzer, and not one of the pieces fired a ball of real weight. Not a killing ball. ‘Peashooters!’ Dodd said disparagingly.

      ‘Monsieur?’ Captain Joubert, the Frenchman who had desperately hoped to be given command of the regiment himself, asked.

      ‘You heard me, Monsewer. Peashooters!’ Dodd said as he lifted a limber’s lid and hoisted out one of the four-pounder shots. It was half the size of a cricket ball. ‘You might as well spit at them, Monsewer!’

      Joubert, a small man, shrugged. ‘At close range, Monsieur…’ he began to defend the guns.

      ‘At close range, Monsewer, close range!’ Dodd tossed the shot to Joubert who fumbled the catch. ‘That’s no use at close range! No more use than a musket ball, and the gun’s ten times more cumbersome than a musket.’ He rummaged through the limber. ‘No canister? No grape?’

      ‘Canister isn’t issued for four-pounder guns,’ Joubert said. ‘It isn’t even made for them.’

      ‘Then we make our own,’ Dodd said. ‘Bags of scrap metal, Monsewer, strapped to a sabot and a charge. One and a half pounds of powder per round. Find a dozen women in the town and have them sew up the bags. Maybe your wife can help, Monsewer?’ He leered at Joubert who showed no reaction. Dodd could smell a man’s weakness, and the oddly attractive Simone Joubert was undoubtedly her husband’s weakness, for she clearly despised him and he, just as clearly, feared losing her. ‘I want thirty bags of grape for each gun by this time tomorrow,’ Dodd ordered.

      ‘But the barrels, Major!’ Joubert protested.

      ‘You mean they’ll be scratched?’ Dodd jeered. ‘What do you want, Monsewer? A scratched bore and a live regiment? Or a clean gun and a row of dead men? By tomorrow, thirty rounds of canister per gun, and if there ain’t room in the limbers then throw out that bloody round shot. Might as well spit cherrystones as fire those pebbles.’ Dodd slammed down the limber’s lid. Even if the guns fired makeshift grapeshot he was not certain that they were worth keeping. Every battalion in India had such close-support artillery, but in Dodd’s opinion the guns only served to slow down a regiment’s manoeuvres. The weapons themselves were cumbersome, and the livestock needed to haul them was a nuisance, and if he were ever given his own compoo he would strip the regiments of field guns, for if a battalion of infantry could not defend itself with firelocks, what use was it? But he was stuck with the five guns, so he would use them as giant shotguns and open fire at three hundred yards. The gunners would moan about the СКАЧАТЬ