"Give them fire! " Major Stokes roared at the men on the ravine's northern side.
"Give them fire! " Other officers took up the call, and the men who had been watching the fight across the ravine loaded their fire locks and began peppering the gatehouse with musket balls. Stokes had climbed back up the northern side of the ravine so that he could see across the farther wall, and he now watched as the two small groups of redcoats advanced raggedly over the hillside. A column was farthest away, while the nearer men were in a line, and both advanced on the strongly garrisoned gatehouse which had just repelled yet another British attack through the broken gate. Those defenders would now turn their muskets on the new attackers and so Stokes roared at men to fire across the ravine. The range was terribly long, but any distraction would help. The gunners who had smashed down the gate fired at the parapets, their shots chipping at stone.
"Go, man, go! " Stokes urged Sharpe.
"Go!»
Captain Morris, his mouth swollen and bleeding, and with a bruise blackening one eye and another disfiguring his forehead, staggered up the hillside.
"Major Stokes! " he called petulantly.
"Major Stokes."
Stokes turned to him. His first reaction was that Morris must have been wounded trying to cross the wall, and he decided he must have misjudged the man who was not, after all, such a coward.
"You need a surgeon, Captain?"
"That bloody man, Sharpe! He hit me! Hit me! Stole my company. I want charges levelled."
"Hit you?" Stokes asked, bemused.
"Stole my company! " Morris said in outrage.
"I ordered him to go away, and he hit me! I'm telling you, sir, because you're a senior officer.
You can talk to some of my men, sir, and hear their story. Some of them witnessed the assault, and I shall look for your support, sir, in the proceedings."
Stokes wanted to laugh. So that was how Sharpe had found the men!
"I
think you'd better forget bringing charges against Mister Sharpe, " the engineer said.
"Forget bringing charges?" Morris exclaimed.
"I will not! I'll break the bastard!»
"I doubt it, " Stokes said.
"He hit me! " Morris protested.
"He assaulted me!»
«Nonsense,» Stokes said brusquely.
"You fell over. I saw you do it.
Tripped and tumbled. And that's precisely what I'll allege at any court martial. Not that there'll be a court martial. You simply fell over, man, and now you're suffering from delusions! Maybe it's a touch of the sun, Captain? You should be careful, otherwise you'll end up like poor
Harness. We shall ship you home and you'll end your days in bedlam with chains round your ankles."
"Sir! I protest! " Morris said.
"You protest too much, Captain, " Stokes said.
"You tripped, and that's what I shall testify if you're foolish enough to bring charges.
Even my boy saw you trip. Ain't that so, Ahmed?" Stokes turned to get Ahmed's agreement, but he had vanished.
"Oh, God, " Stokes said, and started down the hill to find the boy.
But sensed he was already too late.
The first hundred paces of Sharpe's advance were easy enough, for the sun-baked ground was open and his men were still out of sight of the gatehouse. The few defenders who had manned the wall above the ravine had fled, but as soon as the redcoats breasted the slope of the hill to see the gatehouse ahead, the enemy musketry began.
"Keep running! " Sharpe shouted, though it was hardly a run. They staggered and stumbled, their scabbards and haversacks banging and flapping, and the sun burned down relentlessly and the dry ground spurted puffs of dust as enemy musket balls flicked home. Sharpe was dimly aware of a cacophony of musketry from his left, the fire of the thousands of redcoats on the other side of the ravine, but the gatehouse defenders were sheltered by the outer parapet. A group of those defenders was manhandling a cannon round to face the new attack.
"Just keep going!»
Sharpe called, the breath rasping in his throat. Christ, but he was thirsty.
Thirsty, hungry and excited. The gatehouse was fogged by smoke as its defenders fired their muskets at the unexpected attack that was coming out of the west.
Off to his right Sharpe could see more defenders, but they were not firing, indeed they were not even formed in ranks. Instead they bunched beside a low wall that seemed to edge some gardens and supinely watched the confrontation. A building reared up beyond that, half obscured by trees. The place was huge! Hilltop after hilltop lay within the vast ring of Gawilghur's Inner Fort, and there had to be a thousand places for the enemy to assemble a force to attack Sharpe's open right flank, but he dared not worry about that possibility. All that mattered now was to reach the gatehouse and kill its defenders and so let a torrent of redcoats through the entrance.
The cannon fired from the gatehouse. The ball struck the dry ground fifty yards ahead of Sharpe and bounced clean over his head. The smoke of the gun spread in front of the parapet, spoiling the aim of the defenders, and Sharpe blessed the gunners and prayed that the smoke would linger. He had a stitch in his side, and his ribs still hurt like hell from the kicking that Hakeswill had given him, but he knew they had surprised this enemy, and an enemy surprised was already half beaten.
The smoke thinned and the muskets flamed from the wall again, making more smoke. Sharpe turned to shout at his men.
"Come on!
Hurry! " He was crossing a stretch of ground where some of the garrison had made pathetic little lodges of thin branches propped against half dead trees and covered with sacking. Ash showed where fires had burned. It was a dumping ground. There was a rusting iron cannon carriage, a stone trough that had split in two and the remains of an ancient windlass made of wood that had been sun-whitened to the colour of bone. A small brown snake twisted away from him. A woman, thin as the snake and clutching a baby, fled from one of the shelters. A cat hissed at him from another. Sharpe dodged between the small trees, kicking up dust, breathing dust. A musket ball flicked up a puff of fire ash, another clanged off the rusting gun carriage.
He blinked through the sweat that stung his eyes to see that the gate passage's inner wall was lined with white-coated soldiers. The wall was a good hundred paces long, and its fire step was reached by climbing the flight of stone steps that led up beside the innermost gate.
Campbell and his men were running towards that gate and Sharpe was now alongside them. He would have to fight his way up the stairs, and he knew that it would be impossible, that there were too many defenders, and he flinched as the cannon fired again, only this time it belched a barrelful of canister that threw up a storm of dust devils all about Sharpe's leading men.
«Stop!» he shouted.
"Stop! Form line! " He was close to the wall, damned close, not more than forty paces.
«Present!» he shouted, and his men raised their muskets to aim at the top of the wall. Smoke still hid half the rampart, though the other half was clear and the defenders were firing fast. A Scotsman staggered backwards and a sepoy folded over silently and clutched his bleeding belly. A small dog yapped at the soldiers. The smoke was clearing from the mouth of the cannon.
"You've got one volley, " Sharpe called, 'then we charge. Sergeant
Green? I don't want your men to fire now. Wait till we reach the top of the steps, then give us covering fire." Sharpe wanted to lash out with his boot at the damned dog, but he forced himself to show calm as he paced down the front of the line.
"Aim well, boys, aim well! I want that wall cleared." He stepped into a space between two files.
"Fire!»
The single volley flamed towards the top of the wall and Sharpe immediately ran at the steps without waiting to see the effect of the fire. Campbell was already at the innermost gate, lifting its heavy bar.