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

contemplation of Sevajee’s news. ‘How come you know all this?’ he asked.

      ‘I grew up in Gawilghur,’ Sevajee said. ‘My father, before he was murdered, was killadar of the fortress.’

      ‘He knows,’ Wellesley said curtly. ‘And the main entrance of the Outer Fort?’

      ‘That,’ Sevajee said, ‘is the fortress’s weakest point.’ He scratched a line that pierced the uppermost curve of the small circle. ‘It’s the only level approach to the fortress, but it’s very narrow. On one side’ – he tapped the eastern flank of the line – ‘the ground falls steeply away. On the other side is a reservoir tank. So to reach the fort you must risk a narrow neck of land that is swept by two ramparts of guns, one above the other.’

      ‘Two walls?’ Wallace asked.

      ‘Set on a steep hill,’ Sevajee said, nodding. ‘You must fight uphill across both walls. There is an entrance, but it’s like the Inner Fort’s entrance: a series of gates with a narrow passage leading from one to the other, and men above you on both sides hurling down rocks and round shot.’

      ‘And once we’ve captured the Outer Fort,’ Wellesley asked, ‘what then?’

      Sevajee offered a wolfish smile. ‘Then your troubles are just beginning, Sir Arthur.’ He scuffed out the diagram he had made in the dust and scratched another, this one showing two circles, one large and one small, with a space between them. ‘The two forts are not connected. They are separated here’ – he tapped the space between the circles with his tulwar – ‘and that is a ravine. A deep ravine. So once you have the Outer Fort, you still have to assault the Inner Fort, and its defences will be untouched. It has a wall which stands at the top of the ravine’s cliff, and that is where your enemy will be taking refuge; inside the wall of the Inner Fort. My father reckoned no enemy could ever capture Gawilghur’s Inner Fort. If all India should fall, he said, then its heart would still beat at Gawilghur.’

      Wellesley walked a few paces north to stare at the high promontory. ‘How big is the garrison?’

      ‘Normally,’ Sevajee said, ‘about a thousand men, but now? It could be six or seven times that many. There is room inside for a whole army.’

      And if the fort did not fall, Wellesley thought, then the Mahrattas would take heart. They would gather a new army and, in the new year, raid southwards again. There would be no peace in western India till Gawilghur fell. ‘Major Blackiston?’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘You’ll make an exploration of the plateau.’ The General turned to Sevajee. ‘Will you escort Major Blackiston up into the hills? I want sketches, Blackiston, of the neck of land leading to the main entrance. I want you to tell me where we can place breaching batteries. I need to know how we can get guns up to the tops of the hills, and I need to know it all within two days.’

      ‘Two days?’ Blackiston sounded appalled.

      ‘We don’t want the rascals to take root up there, do we? Speed, Blackiston, speed! Can you leave now?’ This question was directed at Sevajee.

      ‘I can,’ Sevajee answered.

      Wellesley waved Blackiston on his way. ‘Two days, Major! I want you back tomorrow evening!’

      Colonel Butters frowned at the far hills. ‘You’re taking the army to the top?’

      ‘Half the army,’ Wellesley said, ‘the other half will stay on the plain.’ He would need to hold Gawilghur between his redcoats like a nut, and hope that when he squeezed it was the nut, and not the nutcracker, that broke. He pulled himself back into the saddle, then waited as the other officers mounted. Then he turned his mare and started back towards the camp. ‘It’ll be up to the engineers to get us onto the heights,’ he said, ‘then a week’s hard carrying to lift the ammunition to the batteries.’ The thought of that job made the General frown. ‘What’s the problem with the bullock train?’ he demanded of Butters. ‘I’m hearing complaints. Over two thousand muskets stolen from convoys, and Huddlestone tells me there are no spare horseshoes; that can’t be right!’

      ‘Torrance says that bandits have been active, sir,’ Butters said. ‘And I gather there have been accidents,’ he added lamely.

      ‘Who’s Torrance?’ Wellesley asked.

      ‘Company man, sir, a captain. He took over poor Mackay’s duties.’

      ‘I could surmise all that for myself,’ the General said acidly. ‘Who is he?’

      Butters blushed at the reproof. ‘His father’s a canon at Wells, I think. Or maybe Salisbury? But more to the point, sir, he has an uncle in Leadenhall Street.’

      Wellesley grunted. An uncle in Leadenhall Street meant that Torrance had a patron who was senior in the East India Company, someone to wield the influence that a clergyman father might not have. ‘Is he as good as Mackay?’

      Butters, a heavy-set man who rode his horse badly, shrugged. ‘He was recommended by Huddlestone.’

      ‘Which means Huddlestone wanted to be rid of him,’ Wellesley snapped.

      ‘I’m sure he’s doing his best,’ Butters said defensively. ‘Though he did ask me for an assistant, but I had to turn him down. I’ve no one to spare. I’m short of engineers already, sir, as you well know.’

      ‘I’ve sent for more,’ Wellesley said.

      Wallace intervened. ‘I gave Torrance one of my ensigns, Sir Arthur.’

      ‘You can spare an ensign, Wallace?’

      ‘Sharpe, sir.’

      ‘Ah.’ Wellesley grimaced. ‘Never does work out, does it? You lift a man from the ranks and you do him no favours.’

      ‘He might be happier in an English regiment,’ Wallace said, ‘so I’m recommending he exchanges into the Rifles.’

      ‘You mean they’re not particular?’ Wellesley asked, then scowled. ‘How the devil are we to fight a war without horseshoes?’ He kicked back at the mare, angry at the predicament. ‘My God, Butters, but your Captain Torrance must do his job!’ Wellesley, better than anyone, knew that he would never take Gawilghur if the supply train failed.

      And Gawilghur had never been taken.

      Dear God, Wellesley thought, but how was it ever to be done?

      ‘Big buggers,’ Sergeant Eli Lockhart murmured as they neared the two green tents. The cavalryman was speaking of the guards who lolled in chairs outside Naig’s tents. There were four in view, and two of them had bare, oiled chests that bulged with unnatural muscle. Their hair was never cut, but was instead coiled around their heads. They were keeping guard outside the larger of the tents, the one Sharpe guessed was Naig’s brothel. The other tent might have been the merchant’s living quarters, but its entrance was tightly laced, so Sharpe could not glimpse inside.

      ‘The two greasy fellows are the jettis,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Big as bloody beeves, they are,’ Lockhart said. ‘Do they really wring your neck?’

      ‘Back to front,’ Sharpe said. ‘Or else they drive a nail into your skull with their bare hand.’ He swerved aside to go past the tents. It was not that he feared to pick a fight with Naig’s guards, indeed he expected a scrap, but there was no point in going bald-headed into battle. A bit of cleverness would not go amiss. ‘I’m being canny,’ he explained to Lockhart, then turned to make sure that Ahmed was keeping up. The boy was holding Sharpe’s pack as well as his musket.

      The four guards, all of them armed with firelocks and tulwars, watched the British soldiers walk out of sight. ‘They didn’t like the look of us,’ Lockhart said.

      ‘Mangy buggers, they are,’ Sharpe said. He was glancing about the encampment and saw what he wanted just a few paces away. It was some straw, and near it was a smouldering