"Me first," he growled, and began to climb. The rungs were springy and he had the terrible thought that maybe they would break after the first few men had used the ladder, and then a handful of soldiers would be trapped inside the fortress where they would be cut down by the Mahrattas, but there was no time to dwell on that fear, just to keep climbing. The musket b.a.l.l.s raided the stones to left and right in a torrent of fire that had driven the defenders back from the parapet, but at any second Sharpe would be alone up there. He roared a shout of defiance, reached the top of the ladder and extended his free hand to grip the stone. He hauled himself through the embrasure. He paused, trying to get a sense of what lay beyond, but Garrard shoved him and he had no option but to spring through the embrasure.
There was no fire step Jesus, he thought, and jumped. It was not a long jump down, maybe eight or ten feet, for the ground was higher on the inner side of the wall. He sprawled on the turf and a musket bullet whipped over his back. He rolled, got to his feet, and saw that the defenders had low wooden platforms that they had been using to peer over the top of the wall. Those defenders were running towards him now, but they were few, very few, and already Sharpe had five redcoats on his side of the wall, and more were coming. But so was the enemy, some from the west and more from the east.
"Tom! Look after those men." Sharpe pointed westwards, then he turned the other way and dragged three men into a crude rank.
"Present!" he called. The muskets went up into their shoulders.
"Aim low, boys," he said.
"Fire!"
The muskets coughed out smoke. A Mahratta slid on the gra.s.s. The others turned and ran, appalled at the stream of men now crossing the wall. It was a curious mix of English skirmishers, Highland infantry, sepoys, cavalrymen and even some of Syud Sevajee"s followers in their borrowed red jackets.
"Two ranks!" Sharpe shouted.
"Quick now! Two ranks! Tom! What"s happening behind me?"
"b.u.g.g.e.rs have gone, sir."
"Two ranks!" Sharpe shouted again. He could not see the gatehouse from here because the hill inside the wall bulged outwards and hid the great ramparts from him, but the enemy was forming two hundred paces eastwards. The wall"s defenders, in brown jackets, were joining a company of white-coated Cobras who must have been in reserve and those men would have to be defeated before Sharpe could hope to advance on the gatehouse. He glanced up the hill and saw nothing there except a building half hidden by trees in which monkeys gibbered. No defenders there, thank G.o.d, so he could ignore his right flank.
A Scottish sergeant had shoved and tugged the men into two ranks.
"Load!" Sharpe said, though most of the men were already loaded.
"Sergeant?"
"Sir?"
"Advance along the wall. No one"s to fire till I give the word. Sergeant Green?" Sharpe called, waited.
"Sergeant Green!" Green had evidently not crossed the wall yet, or maybe he had not even climbed the cliff.
"Sergeant Green!" Sharpe bellowed again.
"Why do you need him?" a voice called.
It was a Scottish captain. Christ, Sharpe thought, but he was outranked.
"To bring the next group on!"
"I"ll do it," the Scotsman said, "you go!"
"Advance!" Sharpe shouted.
"By the centre!" the Sergeant shouted.
"March!"
It was a ragged advance. The men had no file-closers and they spread out, but Sharpe did not much care. The thing was to close on the enemy. That had always been McCandless"s advice. Get close and start killing, because there"s b.u.g.g.e.r all you can do at long range, though the Scottish Colonel would never have used that word. This is for you, McCandless, Sharpe thought, this one"s for you, and it struck him that this was the first time he had ever taken troops into formal battle, line against line, muskets against muskets. He was nervous, and made even more nervous by the fact that he was leading a makeshift company in full view of the thousands of redcoats on the ravine"s northern slope. It was like being trapped on stage in a full theatre; lose here, he thought, and all the army would know. He watched the enemy officer, a tall man with a dark face and a large moustache. He looked calm and his men marched in three tight ranks. Well trained, Sharpe thought, but then no one had ever said William Dodd could not whip troops into shape.
The Cobras stopped when the two units were a hundred paces apart.
They levelled their muskets and Sharpe saw his men falter.
"Keep going!" he ordered.
"Keep going!"
"You heard the man!" the Scottish Sergeant bellowed.
"Keep going!"
Sharpe was at the right-hand flank of his line. He glanced behind to see more men running to catch up, their equipment flapping as they stumbled over the uneven ground. Christ, Sharpe thought, but I"m inside! We"re in! And then the Cobras fired.
And Sharpe, ensign and bullock driver, had a battle on his hands.
The redcoats stormed the gatehouse a third time, this attempt led by two squads who hugged the walls either side of the pa.s.sage and then turned their muskets up to blast the defenders on the opposite fire step
The tactic seemed to work, for they ripped off their first volley and under its cover a third squad comprised of axe men charged over the dead and dying and scrambled up the steep stone path towards the second gate.
Then the lit rockets began to drop from on high. They struck the bodies and then flamed into life and ricocheted madly about the confined s.p.a.ce. They tore into the two musket squads, flamed among the axe men choked men with their smoke, burned them with flame and exploded to strew the carnage with more blood and guts. The axe men never even reached the gate. They died under the musket fire that followed the rockets, or else, wounded, they tried to crawl back through the thick smoke. Rocks hurtled down from the flanking fire steps pulping the dead and the living into horror. The survivors fled, defeated again.
"Enough!" Colonel Dodd shouted at his men.
"Enough!" He peered down into the stone chamber. It looked like something from h.e.l.l, a place where broken things twitched in blood beneath a reeking pall of smoke. The rocket carca.s.ses still burned. The wounded cried for help that was not coming, and Dodd felt an elation sear through him. It was even easier than he had dared to hope.
"Sahib!" Gopal said urgently.
"Sahib?"
"What?"
"Sahib, look!" Gopal was pointing westwards. There was smoke and the crackling sound of a musket fight. The noise and smoke were coming from just beyond the curve of the hill so Dodd could not see what was happening, but the sound was enough to convince him that a considerable fight had broken out a quarter-mile away, and that might not have mattered, except that the smoke and the noise came from inside the wall.
"Jesus!" Dodd swore.
"Find out what"s happening, Gopal. Quick!" He could not lose. He must not lose.
"Where"s Mister Hakeswill?" he shouted, wanting the deserter to take over Gopal"s responsibilities on the fire step but the twitching Sergeant had vanished. The musketry went on, but beneath Dodd there were only moans and the smell of burning flesh. He stared westwards. If the d.a.m.ned redcoats had crossed the wall then he would need more infantry to drive them out and seal whatever place they had found to penetrate the Inner Fort.
"Havildar!"
He summoned the man who had accompanied Hakeswill to the palace.
"Go to the Southern Gate and tell them to send a battalion here. Quick!"
"Sahib," the man said, and ran.