Sharpe's Fortress Read Online Free Page B

stolid

    indifference to death in those red ranks that let them march calmly into the fiercest

    cannonade. He had not seen it happen, but he had heard about it from enough men to credit

    the reports. Even so he found it hard to abandon the tried and tested methods of battle.

    It would seem unnatural to advance his infantry in front of the guns, and so render the

    artillery useless. He had thirty-eight cannon, all of them heavier than anything the

    British had yet deployed, and his gunners were as well trained as any in the world.

    Thirty-eight heavy cannon could make a fine slaughter of advancing infantry, yet if what

    Dodd said was true, then the red-coated ranks would stoically endure the punishment and

    keep coming. Except some had already run, which suggested they were nervous, so perhaps

    this was the day when the gods would finally turn against the British.
    “I saw two eagles this morning,” Bappoo told Dodd, 'outlined against the sun."
    So bloody what? Dodd thought. The Indians were great ones for auguries, forever

    staring into pots of oil or consulting holy men or worrying about the errant fall of a

    trembling leaf, but there was no better augury for victory than the sight of an enemy

    running away before they even reached the fight.
    “I assume the eagles mean victory?” Dodd asked politely.
    “They do,” Bappoo agreed. And the augury suggested the victory would be his whatever

    tactics he used, which inclined him against trying anything new. Besides, though Prince

    Manu Bappoo had never fought the British, nor had the British ever faced the Lions of

    Allah in battle.
    And the numbers were in Bappoo's favour. He was barring the British advance with forty

    thousand men, while the redcoats were not even a third of that number.
    “We shall wait,” Bappoo decided, 'and let the enemy get closer." He would crush them

    with cannon fire first, then with musketry.
    “Perhaps I shall release the Lions of Allah when the British are closer, Colonel,” he

    said to pacify Dodd.
    “One regiment won't do it,” Dodd said, 'not even your Arabs, sahib.
    Throw every man forward. The whole line."
    “Maybe,” Bappoo said vaguely, though he had no intention of advancing all his

    infantry in front of the precious guns. He had no need to. The vision of eagles had

    persuaded him that he would see victory, and he believed the gunners would make that

    victory. He imagined dead red-coated bodies among the crops. He would avenge Assaye and

    prove that redcoats could die like any other enemy.
    “To your men, Colonel Dodd,” he said sternly.
    Dodd wheeled his horse and spurred towards the right of the line where his Cobras waited

    in four ranks. It was a fine regiment, splendidly trained, which Dodd had extricated from

    the siege of Ahmednuggur and then from the panicked chaos of the defeat at Assaye. Two

    disasters, yet Dodd's men had never flinched. The regiment had been a part of Scindia's

    army, but after Assaye the Cobras had retreated with the Rajah of Berar's infantry, and

    Prince Manu Bappoo, summoned from the north country to take command of Berar's shattered

    forces, had persuaded Dodd to change his allegiance from Scindia to the Rajah of Berar.

    Dodd would have changed allegiance anyway, for the dispirited Scindia was seeking to make

    peace with the British, but Bappoo had added the inducement of gold, silver and a

    promotion to colonel. Dodd's men, mercenaries all, did not care which master they served

    so long as his purse was deep.
    Gopal, Dodd's second-in-command, greeted the Colonel's return with a rueful look.
    “He won't advance?”
    “He wants the guns to do the work.”
    Gopal heard the doubt in Dodd's voice.
    “And they won't?”
    “They didn't at Assaye,” Dodd said sourly.
    “Damn it! We shouldn't be fighting them here at all! Never give redcoats open ground. We

    should be making the bastards climb walls or cross rivers.” Dodd was nervous of defeat, and

    he had cause