Sharpe's Fortress Read Online Free

sepoys, leaving a

    vast plume of dust where the axle boss dragged through the dry soil. The gunners ran to head

    the oxen off, but then a second team panicked. The beasts had their painted horns down and

    were galloping away from the bombardment. The Mahratta guns were firing fast now.
    A round shot slashed into another gun team, spurting ox blood bright into the sky. The

    enemy guns were big brutes, and with a much longer range than the small British six-pounders.

    A pair of shells exploded behind the panicked oxen, driving them even faster towards the

    sepoy battalions on the right of Wellesley's line. The limbers were bouncing

    frantically on the uneven ground and every lurch sent shot tumbling or powder spilling.

    Sharpe saw General Wellesley turn his horse towards the sepoys. He was doubtless

    shouting at them to open ranks and so allow the bolting oxen to pass through the line, but

    instead, quite suddenly, the men themselves turned and ran.
    “Jesus!” Sharpe said aloud, earning himself a reproving look from Sergeant

    Colquhoun.
    Two battalions of the sepoys were fleeing. Sharpe saw the General riding among the

    fugitives, and he imagined Wellesley shouting at the frightened men to stop and re-form,

    but instead they kept running towards the millet. They had been panicked by the oxen and

    by the weight of enemy shot that beat the dry grassland with dust and smoke.
    The men vanished in the high stalks, leaving nothing behind but a scatter of

    embarrassed officers and, astonishingly, the two panicked gun teams which had

    inexplicably stopped short of the millet and now waited patiently for the gunners to

    catch them.
    “Sit yourselves down!” Urquhart called to his men, and the company squatted in the dry

    riverbed. One man took a stump of clay pipe from his pouch and lit it with a tinderbox. The

    tobacco smoke drifted slowly in the small wind. A few men drank from their canteens, but

    most were hoarding their water against the dryness that would come when they bit into their

    cartridges. Sharpe glanced behind, hoping to see the pucka lees who brought the battalion

    water, but there was no sign of them. When he turned back to the north he saw that some enemy

    cavalry had appeared on the crest, their tall lances making a spiky thicket against the

    sky. Doubtless the enemy horsemen were tempted to attack the broken British line and so

    stampede more of the nervous sepoys, but a squadron of British cavalry emerged from a wood

    with their sabres drawn to threaten the flank of the enemy horsemen. Neither side charged,

    but instead they just watched each other. The 74th's pipers had ceased their playing. The

    remaining British galloper guns were deploying now, facing up the long gentle slope to

    where the enemy cannon lined the horizon.
    “Are all the muskets loaded?” Urquhart asked Colquhoun.
    “They'd better be, sir, or I'll want to know why.”
    Urquhart dismounted. He had a dozen full canteens of water tied to his saddle and he

    unstrung six of them and gave them to the company.
    “Share it out,” he ordered, and Sharpe wished he had thought to bring some extra water

    himself. One man cupped some water in his hands and let his dog lap it up. The dog then sat

    and scratched its fleas while its master lay back and tipped his shako over his eyes.
    What the enemy should do, Sharpe thought, is throw their infantry forward. All of it.

    Send a massive attack across the skyline and down towards the millet. Flood the riverbed

    with a horde of screaming warriors who could add to the panic and so snatch victory.
    But the skyline stayed empty except for the guns and the stalled enemy lancers.
    And so the redcoats waited.
    Colonel William Dodd, commanding officer of Dodd's Cobras, spurred his horse to the

    skyline from where he stared down the slope to see the British force in disarray. It looked

    to him as though two or more battalions had fled in panic, leaving a gaping hole on the

    right