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

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 campfire, and he screwed a handful of the straw stalks into a spill that he lit and carried to the rear of the smaller tent. He pushed the flaming spill into a fold of the canvas. A child watched, wide-eyed. ‘If you say anything,’ Sharpe told the half-naked child, ‘I’ll screw your head off back to front.’ The child, who did not understand a word, grinned broadly.

‘You’re not really supposed to be doing this, are you?’ Lockhart asked.

‘No,’ Sharpe said. Lockhart grinned, but said nothing. Instead he just watched as the flames licked at the faded green canvas which, for a moment or two, resisted the fire. The material blackened, but did not burn, then suddenly it burst into fire that licked greedily up the tent’s high side. ‘That’ll wake ’em up,’ Sharpe said.

‘What now?’ Lockhart asked, watching the flame sear up the tent’s side.

‘We rescue what’s inside, of course.’ Sharpe drew his sabre. ‘Come on, lads!’ He ran back to the front of the tent. ‘Fire!’ he shouted. ‘Fire! Fetch water! Fire!’

The four guards stared uncomprehendingly at the Englishman, then leaped to their feet as Sharpe slashed at the laces of the small tent’s doorway. One of them called a protest to Sharpe.

‘Fire!’ Lockhart bellowed at the guards who, still unsure of what was happening, did not try to stop Sharpe. Then one of them saw the smoke billowing over the ridge of the tent. He yelled a warning into the larger tent as his companions suddenly moved to pull the Englishman away from the tent’s entrance.

‘Hold them off!’ Sharpe called, and Lockhart’s six troopers closed on the three men. Sharpe slashed at the lacing, hacking down through the tough rope as the troopers thumped into the guards. Someone swore, there was a grunt as a fist landed, then a yelp as a trooper’s boot slammed into a jetti’s groin. Sharpe sawed through the last knot, then pushed through the loosened tent flaps. ‘Jesus!’ He stopped, staring at the boxes and barrels and crates that were stacked in the tent’s smoky gloom.

Lockhart had followed him inside. ‘Doesn’t even bother to hide the stuff properly, does he?’ the Sergeant said in amazement, then crossed to a barrel and pointed to a 19 that had been cut into one of the staves. ‘That’s our mark! The bugger’s got half our supplies!’ He looked up at the flames that were now eating away the tent roof. ‘We’ll lose the bloody lot if we don’t watch it.’

‘Cut the tent ropes,’ Sharpe suggested, ‘and push it all down.’

The two men ran outside and slashed at the guy ropes with their sabres, but more of Naig’s men were coming from the larger tent now. ‘Watch your back, Eli!’ Sharpe called, then turned and sliced the curved blade towards a jetti’s face. The man stepped back, and Sharpe followed up hard, slashing again, driving the huge man farther back. ‘Now bugger off!’ he shouted at the vast brute. ‘There’s a bloody fire! Fire!’

Lockhart had put his attacker on the ground and was now stamping on his face with a spurred boot. The troopers were coming to help and Sharpe let them deal with Naig’s men while he cut through the last of the guy ropes, then ran back into the tent and heaved on the nearest pole. The air inside the tent was choking with swirling smoke, but at last the whole heavy array of canvas sagged towards the fire, lifting the canvas wall behind Sharpe into the air.

‘Sahib!’ Ahmed’s shrill voice shouted and Sharpe turned to see a man aiming a musket at him. The lifting tent flap was exposing Sharpe, but he was too far away to rush the man, then Ahmed fired his own musket and the man shuddered, turned to look at the boy, then winced as the pain in his shoulder struck home. He dropped the gun and clapped a hand onto the wound. The sound of the shot startled the other guards and some reached for their own muskets, but Sharpe ran at them and used his sabre to beat the guns down. ‘There’s a bloody fire!’ he shouted into their faces. ‘A fire! You want everything to burn?’ They did not understand him, but some realized that the fire threatened their master’s supplies and so ran to haul the half-collapsed burning canvas away from the wooden crates.

‘But who started the fire?’ a voice said behind Sharpe, and he turned to see a tall, fat Indian dressed in a green robe that was embroidered with looping fish and long-legged water-birds. The fat man was holding a half-naked child by the hand, the same small boy who had watched Sharpe push the burning straw into a crease of the canvas. ‘British officers,’ the fat man said, ‘have a deal of freedom in this country, but does that mean they can destroy an honest man’s property?’

‘Are you Naig?’ Sharpe asked.

The fat man waved to his guards so that they gathered behind him. The tent had been dragged clear of the crates and was burning itself out harmlessly. The green-robed man now had sixteen or seventeen men with him, four of them jettis and all of them armed, while Sharpe had Lockhart and his battered troopers and one defiant child who was reloading a musket as tall as himself. ‘I will give you my name,’ the fat man said unpleasantly, ‘when you tell me yours.’

‘Sharpe. Ensign Sharpe.’

‘A mere ensign!’ The fat man raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought ensigns were children, like this young man.’ He patted the half-naked boy’s head. ‘I am Naig.’

‘So perhaps you can tell me,’ Sharpe said, ‘why that tent was stuffed full of our supplies?’

‘Your supplies!’ Naig laughed. ‘They are my goods, Ensign Sharpe. Perhaps some of them are stored in old boxes that once belonged to your army, but what of that? I buy the boxes from the quartermaster’s department.’

‘Lying bastard,’ Sergeant Lockhart growled. He had prised open the barrel with the number 19 incised on its side and now flourished a horseshoe. ‘Ours!’ he said.

Naig seemed about to order his guards to finish off Sharpe’s small band, but then he glanced to his right and saw that two British officers had come from the larger tent. The presence of the two, both captains, meant that Naig could not just drive Sharpe away, for now there were witnesses. Naig might take on an ensign and a few troopers, but captains carried too much authority. One of the captains, who wore the red coat of the Scotch Brigade, crossed to Sharpe. ‘Trouble?’ he asked. His revels had plainly been interrupted, for his trousers were still unbuttoned and his sword and sash were slung across one shoulder.

‘This bastard, sir, has been pilfering our supplies.’ Sharpe jerked his thumb at Naig then nodded towards the crates. ‘It’s all marked as stolen in the supply ledgers, but I’ll wager it’s all there. Buckets, muskets, horseshoes.’

The Captain glanced at Naig, then crossed to the crates. ‘Open that one,’ he ordered, and Lockhart obediently stooped to the box and levered up its nailed lid with his sabre.

‘I have been storing these boxes,’ Naig explained. He turned to the second captain, an extraordinarily elegant cavalryman in Company uniform, and he pleaded with him in an Indian language. The Company Captain turned away and Naig went back to the Scotsman. The merchant was in trouble now, and he knew it. ‘I was asked to store the boxes!’ he shouted at the Scotsman.

But the infantry Captain was staring down into the opened crate where ten brand new muskets lay in their wooden cradles. He stooped for one of the muskets and peered at the lock. Just forward of the hammer and behind the pan was an engraved crown with the letters GR beneath it, while behind the hammer the word Tower was engraved. ‘Ours,’ the Scotsman said flatly.

‘I bought them.’ Naig was sweating now.

‘I thought you said you were storing them?’ the Scotsman said. ‘Now you say you bought them. Which is it?’

‘My brother and I bought the guns from silladars,’ Naig said.

‘We don’t sell these Tower muskets,’ the Captain said, hefting the gun that was still coated with grease.

Naig shrugged. ‘They must have been captured from the supply convoys. Please, sahib, take them. I want no trouble. How was I to know they were stolen?’ He turned and pleaded again with the Company cavalry Captain who was a tall, lean man with a long face, but the cavalryman turned and walked a short distance away. A crowd had collected now and watched the drama silently, and Sharpe, looking along their faces, suspected there was not much sympathy for Naig. Nor, Sharpe thought, was there much hope for the fat man. Naig had been playing a dangerous game, but with such utter confidence that he had not even bothered to conceal the stolen supplies. At the very least he could have thrown away the government issue boxes and tried to file the lock markings off the muskets, but Naig must have believed he had powerful friends who would protect him. The cavalryman seemed to be one of those friends, for Naig had followed him and was hissing in his ear, but the cavalryman merely pushed the Indian away, then turned to Sharpe. ‘Hang him,’ he said curtly.

‘Hang him?’ Sharpe asked in puzzlement.

‘It’s the penalty for theft, ain’t it?’ the cavalryman insisted.

Sharpe looked to the Scottish Captain, who nodded uncertainly. ‘That’s what the General said,’ the Scotsman confirmed.

‘I’d like to know how he got the supplies, sir,’ Sharpe said.

‘You’ll give the fat bastard time to concoct a story?’ the cavalryman demanded. He had an arrogance that annoyed Sharpe, but everything about the cavalryman irritated Sharpe. The man was a dandy. He wore tall, spurred boots that sheathed his calves and knees in soft, polished leather. His white breeches were skin tight, his waistcoat had gold buttons, while his red tail coat was clean, uncreased and edged with gold braid. He wore a frilled stock, a red silk sash was draped across his right shoulder and secured at his left hip by a knot of golden braid, his sabre was scabbarded in red leather, while his cocked hat was plumed with a lavishly curled feather that had been dyed pale green. The clothes had cost a fortune, and clearly his servants must spend hours on keeping their master so beautifully dressed. He looked askance at Sharpe, a slight wrinkle of his nostrils suggesting that he found Sharpe’s appearance distressing. The cavalryman’s face suggested he was a clever man, but also that he despised those who were less clever than himself. ‘I don’t suppose Sir Arthur will be vastly pleased when he hears that you let the fellow live, Ensign,’ he said acidly. ‘Swift and certain justice, ain’t that the penalty for theft? Hang the fat beast.’

‘That is what the standing orders say,’ the Scotch Brigade Captain agreed, ‘but does it apply to civilians?’

‘He should have a trial!’ Sharpe protested, not because he was so committed to Naig’s right to a hearing, but because he feared the whole episode was getting out of hand. He had thought to find the supplies, maybe have a mill with Naig’s guards, but no one was supposed to die. Naig deserved a good kicking, but death?

‘Standing orders apply to anyone within the picquet lines,’ the cavalry Captain averred confidently. ‘So for God’s sake get on with it! Dangle the bastard!’ He was sweating, and Sharpe sensed that the elegant cavalryman was not quite so confident as he appeared.

‘Bugger a trial,’ Sergeant Lockhart said happily. ‘I’ll hang the bastard.’ He snapped at his troopers to fetch a nearby ox cart. Naig had tried to retreat to the protection of his guards, but the cavalry Captain had drawn a pistol that he now held close to Naig’s head as the grinning troopers trundled the empty ox cart into the open space in front of the pilfered supplies.

Sharpe crossed to the tall cavalryman. ‘Shouldn’t we talk to him, sir?’

‘My dear fellow, have you ever tried to get the truth out of an Indian?’ the Captain asked. ‘They swear by a thousand gaudy gods that they’ll tell the truth, then lie like a rug! Be quiet!’ Naig had begun to protest and the cavalryman rammed the pistol into the Indian’s mouth, breaking a tooth and gashing Naig’s gum. ‘Another damned word, Naig, and I’ll castrate you before I hang you.’ The cavalryman glanced at Sharpe, who was frowning. ‘Are you squeamish, Ensign?’

‘Don’t seem right, sir. I mean I agree he deserves to be hung, but shouldn’t we talk to him first?’

‘If you like conversation so much,’ the cavalryman drawled, ‘institute a Philosophical Society. Then you can enjoy all the hot air you like. Sergeant?’ This last was to Lockhart. ‘Take the bastard off my hands, will you?’

‘Pleasure, sir.’ Lockhart seized Naig and shoved him towards the cart. One of the cavalry troopers had cut a length of guy rope from the burnt remnants of the tent and he now tied one end to the tip of the single shaft that protruded from the front of the ox cart. He made a loop in the rope’s end.

Naig screamed and tried to pull away. Some of his guards started forward, but then a hard voice ordered them back and Sharpe turned to see that a tall, thin Indian in a black and green striped robe had come from the larger tent. The newcomer, who looked to be in his forties, walked with a limp. He crossed to the cavalry Captain and spoke quietly, and Sharpe saw the cavalryman shake his head vehemently, then shrug as if to suggest that he was powerless. Then the Captain gestured to Sharpe and the tall Indian gave the Ensign a look of such malevolence that Sharpe instinctively put his hand on his sabre’s hilt. Lockhart had pulled the noose over Naig’s head. ‘Are you sure, sir?’ he asked the cavalry Captain.

‘Of course I’m sure, Sergeant,’ the cavalryman said angrily. ‘Just get on with it.’

‘Sir?’ Sharpe appealed to the Scots Captain, who frowned uncertainly, then turned and walked away as though he wanted nothing more to do with the affair. The tall Indian in the striped robe spat into the dust, then limped back to the tent.

Lockhart ordered his troopers to the back of the cart. Naig was attempting to pull the noose free of his neck, but Lockhart slapped his hands down. ‘Now, boys!’ he shouted.