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

dry grass and starting small fires, then the red hot trail streaked up the back of the gun and down into the touch-hole.

      For a heartbeat nothing happened, then the whole gun just seemed to disintegrate. The charge had tried to propel the double shot up the wedged barrel, but the resistance was just big enough to restrict the explosion. The touch-hole shot out first, the shaped piece of metal tearing out a chunk of the upper breech, then the whole rear of the painted barrel split apart in smoke, flame and whistling lumps of jagged metal. The forward part of the barrel, jaggedly torn off, dropped to the grass as the gun’s wheels were splayed out. The gunners cheered. ‘One less Mahratta gun,’ Wallace said. Ahmed was grinning broadly. ‘Did you know Mackay?’ Wallace asked Sharpe.

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘Captain Mackay. Hugh Mackay. East India Company officer. Fourth Native Cavalry. Very good fellow indeed, Sharpe. I knew his father well. Point is, though, that young Hugh was put in charge of the bullock train before Assaye. And he did a very good job! Very good. But he insisted on joining his troopers in the battle. Disobeyed orders, d’you see? Wellesley was adamant that Mackay must stay with his bullocks, but young Hugh wanted to be on the dance floor, and quite right too, except that the poor devil was killed. Cut in half by a cannonball!’ Wallace sounded shocked, as though such a thing was an outrage. ‘It’s left the bullock train without a guiding hand, Sharpe.’

      Christ, Sharpe thought, but he was to be made bullock master!

      ‘Not fair to say they don’t have a guiding hand,’ Wallace continued, ‘because they do, but the new fellow don’t have any experience with bullocks. Torrance, he’s called, and I’m sure he’s a good fellow, but things are likely to get a bit more sprightly from now on. Going deeper into enemy territory, see? And there are still lots of their damned horsemen at large, and Torrance says he needs a deputy officer. Someone to help him. Thought you might be just the fellow for the job, Sharpe.’ Wallace smiled as though he was granting Sharpe a huge favour.

      ‘Don’t know anything about bullocks, sir,’ Sharpe said doggedly.

      ‘I’m sure you don’t! Who does? And there are dromedaries, and elephants. A regular menagerie, eh? But the experience, Sharpe, will do you good. Think of it as another string to your bow.’

      Sharpe knew a further protest would do no good, so he nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

      ‘Good! Good! Splendid.’ Wallace could not hide his relief. ‘It won’t be for long, Sharpe. Scindia’s already suing for peace, and the Rajah of Berar’s bound to follow. We may not even have to fight at Gawilghur, if that’s where the rogues do take refuge. So go and help Torrance, then you can set a course for England, eh? Become a Greenjacket!’

      So Ensign Sharpe had failed. Failed utterly. He had been an officer for two months and now he was being booted out of a regiment. Sent to the bullocks and the dromedaries, whatever the hell they were, and after that to the green-coated dregs of the army. Bloody hell fire, he thought, bloody hell fire.

      The British and their allied cavalry rode all night, and in the dawn they briefly rested, watered their horses, then hauled themselves into their saddles and rode again. They rode till their horses were reeling with tiredness and white with sweat, and only then did they give up the savage pursuit of the Mahratta fugitives. Their sabre arms were weary, their blades blunted and their appetites slaked. The night had been a wild hunt of victory, a slaughter under the moon that had left the plain reeking with blood, and the sun brought more killing and wide-winged vultures that flapped down to the feast.

      The pursuit ended close to a sudden range of hills that marked the northern limit of the Deccan Plain. The hills were steep and thickly wooded, no place for cavalry, and above the hills reared great cliffs, dizzyingly high cliffs that stretched from the eastern to the western horizon like the nightmare ramparts of a tribe of giants. In places there were deep re-entrants cut into the great cliff and some of the British pursuers, gaping at the vast wall of rock that barred their path, supposed that the wooded clefts would provide a path up to the cliff’s summit, though none could see how anyone could reach the highland if an enemy chose to defend it.

      Between two of the deep re-entrants a great promontory of rock jutted from the cliff face like the prow of a monstrous stone ship. The summit of the jutting rock was two thousand feet above the horsemen on the plain, and one of them, scrubbing blood from his sabre blade with a handful of grass, glanced up at the high peak and saw a tiny puff of whiteness drifting from its crest. He thought it a small cloud, but then he heard a faint bang of gunfire, and a second later a round shot dropped vertically into a nearby patch of millet. His captain pulled out a telescope and trained it high into the sky. He stared for a long time, then gave a low whistle.

      ‘What is it, sir?’

      ‘It’s a fortress,’ the Captain said. He could just see black stone walls, shrunken by distance, poised above the grey-white rock. ‘It’s hell in the bloody sky,’ he said grimly, ‘that’s what it is. It’s Gawilghur.’

      More guns fired from the fortress, but they were so high in the air that their shots lost all their forward momentum long before they reached the ground. The balls fell like nightmare rain and the Captain shouted at his men to lead their horses out of range. ‘Their final refuge,’ he said, then laughed, ‘but it’s nothing to do with us, boys! The infantry will have to deal with that big bastard.’

      The cavalrymen slowly moved southwards. Some of their horses had lost shoes, which meant they had to be walked home, but their night’s work was well done. They had ravaged a broken army, and now the infantry must cope with the Mahrattas’ final refuge.

      A sergeant shouted from the right flank and the Captain turned westwards to see a column of enemy infantry appearing from a grove of trees just over a mile away. The white-coated battalion still possessed their artillery, but they showed no sign of wanting a fight. A crowd of civilians and several companies of fugitive Mahrattas had joined the regiment, which was heading for a road that twisted into the hills beneath the fort, then zigzagged its way up the face of the rock promontory. If that road was the only way into the fort, the cavalry Captain thought, then God help the redcoats who had to attack Gawilghur. He stared at the infantry through his telescope. The white-coated troops were showing small interest in the British cavalry, but it still seemed prudent to quicken his pace southwards.

      A moment later and the cavalry was hidden behind millet fields. The Captain turned a last time and gazed again at the fortress on the soaring cliffs. It seemed to touch the sky, so high it stood above all India. ‘Bastard of a place,’ the Captain said wonderingly, then turned and left. He had done his job, and now the infantry must climb to the clouds to do theirs.

      Colonel William Dodd watched the blue-coated cavalrymen walk their tired horses southwards until they vanished beyond a field of standing millet. The subadar in charge of the regiment’s small cannon had wanted to unlimber and open fire on the horsemen, but Dodd had refused his permission. There would have been no point in attacking, for by the time the guns were loaded the cavalrymen would have walked out of range. He watched a last salvo of round shot plummet to earth from the fort’s high guns. Those cannon were of little use, Dodd thought, except to overawe people on the plain.

      It took Dodd’s regiment over seven hours to climb to the fort of Gawilghur, and by the time he reached the summit Dodd’s lungs were burning, his muscles aching and his uniform soaked with sweat. He had walked every step of the way, refusing to ride his horse, for the beast was tired and, besides, if he expected his men to walk up the long road, then he would walk it as well. He was a tall, sallow-faced man with a harsh voice and an awkward manner, but William Dodd knew how to earn his men’s admiration. They saw that he walked when he could have ridden, and so they did not complain as the steep climb sapped their breath and stole their strength. The regiment’s families, its baggage and its battery of cannon were still far below on the twisting, treacherous track that, in its last few miles, was little more than a ledge hacked from the cliff.

      Dodd formed his Cobras into four ranks as they approached Gawilghur’s southern entrance where the great metal-studded gates were being swung open in welcome. ‘March smartly now!’ Dodd called to his