Sharpe’s Fortress: The Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803. Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe could not remember any other enemy who had stood and taken so much concentrated platoon fire. Indeed, the robed men were trying to advance, but they were checked by the ragged heap of bodies that had been their front ranks. How many damned ranks had they? A dozen? He watched a green flag fall, then the banner was picked up and waved in the air. Their big drums still beat, making a menacing sound to match the redcoats’ pipers. The Arab guns had unnaturally long barrels that spewed dirty smoke and licking tongues of flame. Another bullet whipped close enough to Sharpe to bat his face with a gust of warm air. He fired again, then a hand seized his coat collar and dragged him violently backwards.

      ‘Your place, Ensign Sharpe,’ Captain Urquhart said vehemently, ‘is here! Behind the line!’ The Captain was mounted and his horse had inadvertently stepped back as Urquhart seized Sharpe’s collar, and the weight of the horse had made the Captain’s tug far more violent than he had intended. ‘You’re not a private any longer,’ he said, steadying Sharpe who had almost been pulled off his feet.

      ‘Of course, sir,’ Sharpe said, and he did not meet Urquhart’s gaze, but stared bitterly ahead. He was blushing, knowing he had been reprimanded in front of the men. Damn it to hell, he thought.

      ‘Prepare to charge!’ Major Swinton called.

      ‘Prepare to charge!’ Captain Urquhart echoed, spurring his horse away from Sharpe.

      The Scotsmen pulled out their bayonets and twisted them onto the lugs of their musket barrels.

      ‘Empty your guns!’ Swinton called, and those men who were still loaded raised their muskets and fired a last volley.

      ‘74th!’ Swinton shouted. ‘Forward! I want to hear some pipes! Let me hear pipes!’

      ‘Go on, Swinton, go on!’ Wallace shouted. There was no need to encourage the battalion forward, for it was going willingly, but the Colonel was excited. He drew his claymore and pushed his horse into the rear rank of number seven company. ‘Onto them, lads! Onto them!’ The redcoats marched forward, trampling through the scatter of little fires started by their musket wadding.

      The Arabs seemed astonished that the redcoats were advancing. Some drew their own bayonets, while others pulled long curved swords from scabbards.

      ‘They won’t stand!’ Wellesley shouted. ‘They won’t stand.’

      ‘They bloody well will,’ a man grunted.

      ‘Go on!’ Swinton shouted. ‘Go on!’ And the 74th, released to the kill, ran the last few yards and jumped up onto the heaps of dead before slashing home with their bayonets. Off to the right the 78th were also charging home. The British cannon gave a last violent blast of canister, then fell silent as the Scots blocked the gunners’ aim.

      Some of the Arabs wanted to fight, others wanted to retreat, but the charge had taken them by surprise and the rearward ranks were still not aware of the danger and so pressed forward, forcing the reluctant men at the front onto the Scottish bayonets. The Highlanders screamed as they killed. Sharpe still held the unloaded musket as he closed up on the rear rank. He had no bayonet and was wondering whether he should draw his sabre when a tall Arab suddenly hacked down a front rank man with a scimitar, then pushed forward to slash with the reddened blade at the second man in the file. Sharpe reversed the musket, swung it by the barrel and hammered the heavy stock down onto the swordsman’s head. The Arab sank down and a bayonet struck into his spine so that he twisted like a speared eel. Sharpe hit him on the head again, kicked him for good measure, then shoved on. Men were shouting, screaming, stabbing, spitting, and, right in the face of number six company, a knot of robed men were slashing with scimitars as though they could defeat the 74th by themselves. Urquhart pushed his horse up against the rear rank and fired his pistol. One of the Arabs was plucked back and the others stepped away at last, all except one short man who screamed in fury and slashed with his long curved blade. The front rank parted to let the scimitar cut the air between two files, then the second rank also split apart to allow the short man to come screaming through on his own, with only Sharpe in front.

      ‘He’s only a lad!’ a Scottish voice shouted in warning as the ranks closed again.

      It was not a short man at all, but a boy. Maybe only twelve or thirteen years old, Sharpe guessed as he fended off the scimitar with the musket barrel. The boy thought he could win the battle single-handed and leaped at Sharpe, who parried the sword and stepped back to show he did not want to fight. ‘Put it down, lad,’ he said.

      The boy spat, leaped and cut again. Sharpe parried a third time, then reversed the musket and slammed its stock into the side of the boy’s head. For a second the lad stared at Sharpe with an astonished look, then he crumpled to the turf.

      ‘They’re breaking!’ Wellesley shouted from somewhere close by. ‘They’re breaking!’

      Colonel Wallace was in the front rank now, slicing down with his claymore. He hacked like a farmer, blow after blow. He had lost his cocked hat and his bald pate gleamed in the late sunlight. There was blood on his horse’s flank, and more blood spattered on the white turnbacks of his coat tails. Then the pressure of the enemy collapsed and the horse twisted into the gap and Wallace spurred it on. ‘Come on, boys! Come on!’ A man stooped to rescue Wallace’s cocked hat. Its plumes were blood-soaked.

      The Arabs were fleeing. ‘Go!’ Swinton shouted. ‘Go! Keep ’em running! Go!’

      A man paused to search a corpse’s robes and Sergeant Colquhoun dragged the man up and pushed him on. The file-closers were making sure none of the enemy bodies left behind the Scottish advance were dangerous. They kicked swords and muskets out of injured men’s hands, prodded apparently unwounded bodies with bayonets and killed any man who showed a spark of fight. Two pipers were playing their ferocious music, driving the Scots up the gentle slope where the big Arab drums had been abandoned. Man after man speared the drumskins with bayonets as they passed.

      ‘Forward on! Forward on!’ Urquhart bellowed as though he were on a hunting field.

      ‘To the guns!’ Wellesley called.

      ‘Keep going!’ Sharpe bellowed at some laggards. ‘Go on, you bastards, go on!’

      The enemy gun line was at the crest of the low rise, but the Mahratta gunners dared not fire because the remnants of the Lions of Allah were between them and the redcoats. The gunners hesitated for a few seconds, then decided the day was lost and fled.

      ‘Take the guns!’ Wellesley called.

      Colonel Wallace spurred among the fleeing enemy, striking down with the claymore, then reined in beside a gaudily painted eighteen-pounder. ‘Come on, lads! Come on! To me!’

      The Scotsmen reached the guns. Most had reddened bayonets, all had sweat streaks striping their powder-blackened faces. Some began rifling the limbers where gunners stored food and valuables.

      ‘Load!’ Urquhart called. ‘Load!’

      ‘Form ranks!’ Sergeant Colquhoun shouted. He ran forward and tugged men away from the limbers. ‘Leave the carts alone, boys! Form ranks! Smartly now!’

      Sharpe, for the first time, could see down the long reverse slope. Three hundred paces away were more infantry, a great long line of it massed in a dozen ranks, and beyond that were some walled gardens and the roofs of a village. The shadows were very long for the sun was blazing just above the horizon. The Arabs were running towards the stationary infantry.

      ‘Where are the galloper guns?’ Wallace roared, and an aide spurred back down the slope to fetch the gunners.

      ‘Give them a volley, Swinton!’ Wellesley called.

      The range was very long for a musket, but Swinton hammered the battalion’s fire down the slope, and maybe it was that volley, or perhaps it was the sight of the defeated Arabs that panicked the great mass of infantry. For a few seconds they stood under their big bright flags and then, like sand struck by a flood, they dissolved into a rabble.

      Cavalry trumpets blared. British and sepoy horsemen charged forward with sabres, while the irregular