Private Tom Garrard of the 33rd's Light Company had wandered to the edge of the cliff to watch the bombardment of the fortress. Not that there was much to see other than the constantly replenished cloud of smoke that shrouded the rocky neck of land between the batteries and the fortress, but every now and then a large piece of stone would fall from Gawilghur's wall. The fire from the de fences was furious, but it seemed to Garrard that it was ill aimed. Many of the shots bounced over the batteries, or else buried themselves in the great piles of protective gab ions The British fire, on the other hand, was slow and sure. The eighteen-pound round shots gnawed at the wall and not one was wasted. The sky was cloudless, the sun rising ever higher and the guns were heating so that after every second shot the gunners poured buckets of water on the long barrels. The metal hissed and steamed, and sweating puckakes hurried up the battery road with yet more skins of water to replenish the great vats.
Garrard was sitting by himself, but he had noticed a ragged Indian was watching him. He ignored the man, hoping he would go away, but the Indian edged closer. Garrard picked up a fist-sized stone and tossed it up and down in his right hand as a hint that the man should go away, but the threat of the stone only made the Indian edge closer.
«Sahib!» the Indian hissed.
"Bugger off, " Garrard growled.
"Sahib! Please!»
"I've got nothing worth stealing, I don't want to buy anything, and I don't want to roger your sister."
"I'll roger your sister instead, sahib, " the Indian said, and Garrard twisted round, the stone drawn back ready to throw, then he saw that the dirty robed man had pushed back his grubby white head cloth and was grinning at him.
"You ain't supposed to chuck rocks at officers, Tom, " Sharpe said.
"Mind you, I always wanted to, so I can't blame you."
"Bloody hell! " Garrard dropped the stone and held out his right hand.
"Dick Sharpe! " He suddenly checked his outstretched hand.
"Do I have to call you "sir"?"
"Of course you don't, " Sharpe said, taking Garrard's hand.
"You and me? Friends from way back, eh? Red sash won't change that, Tom.
How are you?"
"Been worse. Yourself?"
"Been better."
Garrard frowned.
"Didn't I hear that you'd been captured?"
"Got away, I did. Ain't a bugger born who can hold me, Tom. Nor you." Sharpe sat next to his friend, a man with whom he had marched in the ranks for six years.
"Here." He gave Garrard a strip of dried meat.
"What is it?"
"Goat. Tastes all right, though."
The two sat and watched the gunners at work. The closest guns were in the two enfilading batteries, and the gunners were using their twelve pounders to systematically bring down the parapets of the ramparts above Gawilghur's gate. They had already unseated a pair of enemy guns and were now working on the next two embrasures. An ox-drawn limber had just delivered more ammunition, but, on leaving the battery, the limber's wheel had loosened and five men were now standing about the canted wheel arguing how best to mend it. Garrard pulled a piece of stringy meat from between his teeth.
"Pull the broken wheel off and put on a new one, " he said scornfully.
"It don't take a major and two lieutenants to work that out."
"They're officers, Tom, " Sharpe said chidingly, 'only half brained."
"You should know." Garrard grinned.
"Buggers make an inviting target, though." He pointed across the plunging chasm which separated the plateau from the Inner Fort.
"There's a bloody great gun over there.
Size of a bloody hay wain, it is. Buggers have been fussing about it for a half-hour now."
Sharpe stared past the beleaguered Outer Fort to the distant cliffs.
He thought he could see a wall where a gun might be mounted, but he was not sure.
"I need a bloody telescope."
"You need a bloody uniform."
"I'm doing something about that, " Sharpe said mysteriously.
Garrard slapped at a fly.
"What's it like then?"
"What's what like?"
"Being a Jack-pudding?"
Sharpe shrugged, thought for a while, then shrugged again.
"Don't seem real. Well, it does. I dunno." He sighed.
"I mean I wanted it, Tom, I wanted it real bad, but I should have known the bastards wouldn't want me. Some are all right. Major Stokes, he's a fine fellow, and there are others. But most of them? God knows. They don't like me, anyway."
"You got 'em worried, that's why, " Garrard said.
"If you can become an officer, so can others." He saw the unhappiness on Sharpe's face.
"Wishing you'd stayed a sergeant, are you?"
«No,» Sharpe said, and surprised himself by saying it so firmly.
"I
can do the job, Tom."
"What job's that, for Christ's sake? Sitting around while we do all the bloody work? Having a servant to clean your boots and scrub your arse?"
«No,» Sharpe said, and he pointed across the shadowed chasm to the Inner Fort.
"When we go in there, Tom, we're going to need fellows who know what the hell they're doing. That's the job. It's beating hell out of the other side and keeping your own men alive, and I can do that."
Garrard looked sceptical.
"If they let you."
"Aye, if they let me, " Sharpe agreed. He sat in silence for a while, watching the far gun emplacement. He could see men there, but was not sure what they were doing.
"Where's Hakeswill?" he asked.
"I looked for him yesterday, and the bugger wasn't on parade with the rest of you."
«Captured,» Garrard said.
"Captured?"
"That's what Morris says. Me, I think the bugger ran. Either ways, he's in the fort now."
"You think he ran?"
"We had two fellows murdered the other night. Morris says it were the enemy, but I didn't see any of the buggers, but there was some fellow creeping round saying he was a Company colonel, only he weren't." Garrard stared at Sharpe and a slow grin came to his face.
"It were you, Dick."
"Me?" Sharpe asked straight-faced.
"I was captured, Tom. Only escaped yesterday."
"And I'm the king of bloody Persia. Lowry and Kendrick were meant to arrest you, weren't they?"
"It was them who died?" Sharpe asked innocently.
Garrard laughed.
"Serve them bloody right. Bastards, both of them."
An enormous blossom of smoke showed at the distant wall on the top of the cliffs. Two seconds later the sound of the great gun bellowed all around Sharpe and Garrard, while the massive round shot struck the stalled limber just behind the enfilading battery. The wooden vehicle shattered into splinters and all five men were hurled to the ground where they jerked bloodily for a few seconds and then were still.
Fragments of stone and wood hissed past Sharpe.
"Bloody hell, " Garrard said admiringly, 'five men with one shot!»
"That'll teach 'em to keep their heads down, " Sharpe said. The sound of the enormous gun had drawn men from their tents towards the plateau's edge. Sharpe looked round and saw that Captain Morris was among them. The Captain was in his shirtsleeves, staring at the great cloud of smoke through a telescope.
"I'm going to stand up in a minute, " Sharpe said, 'and you're going to hit me."
"I'm going to do what?" Garrard asked.
"You're going to thump me. Then I'm going to run, and you're going to chase me. But you're not to catch me."
Garrard offered his friend a puzzled look.
"What are you up to, Dick?"
Sharpe grinned.
"Don't ask, Tom, just do it."