Sharpe's Fortress Read Online Free PDF

mercenary

    horsemen who had allied themselves to the British in hope of loot. Drums beat and pipes

    played. The colours hung above the shakos. A great swathe of crops was trodden flat as the

    cumbersome line marched north.
    The British guns opened fire, their small six-pound missiles aimed at the Mahratta

    guns.
    Those Mahratta guns fired constantly. Sharpe, walking behind the left flank of number

    six company, watched one particular gun which stood just beside a bright clump of flags on

    the enemy-held skyline. He slowly counted to sixty in his head, then counted it again,

    and worked out that the gun had managed five shots in two minutes. He could not be certain

    just how many guns were on the horizon, for the great cloud of powder smoke hid them, but he

    tried to count the muzzle flashes that appeared as momentary bright flames amidst the

    grey-white vapour and, as best he could guess, he reckoned there were nearly forty cannon

    there. Forty times five was what? Two hundred. So a hundred shots a minute were being fired,

    and each shot, if properly aimed, might kill two men, one in the front rank and one behind.

    Once the attack was close, of course, the bastards would switch to canister and then every

    shot could pluck a dozen men out of the line, but for now, as the redcoats silently trudged

    forward, the enemy was sending round shot down the gentle slope. A good many of these

    missed. Some screamed overhead and a few bounced over the line, but the enemy gunners were

    good, and they were lowering their cannon barrels so that the round shot struck the ground

    well ahead of the redcoat line and, by the time the missile reached the target, it had

    bounced a dozen times and so struck at waist height or below. Grazing, the gunners called

    it, and it took skill. If the first graze was too close to the gun then the ball would lose its

    momentum and do nothing but raise jeers from the redcoats as it rolled to a harmless stop,

    while if the first graze was too close to the attacking line then the ball would bounce clean

    over the redcoats. The skill was to skim the ball low enough to be certain of a hit, and all

    along the line the round shots were taking their toll. Men were plucked back with shattered

    hips and legs. Sharpe passed one spent cannonball that was sticky with blood and thick with

    flies, lying twenty paces from the man it had eviscerated.
    “Close up!” the sergeants shouted, and the file-closers tugged men to fill the gaps. The

    British guns were firing into the enemy smoke cloud, but their shots seemed to have no

    effect, and so the guns were ordered farther forward. The ox teams were brought up, the

    guns were attached to the limbers, and the six-pounders trundled on up the slope.
    “Like ninepins.” Ensign Venables had appeared at Sharpe's side.
    Roderick Venables was sixteen years old and attached to number seven company. He

    had been the battalion's most junior officer till Sharpe joined, and Venables had taken

    it on himself to be a tutor to Sharpe in how officers should behave.
    “They're bowling us over like ninepins, eh, Richard?”
    Before Sharpe could reply a half-dozen men of number six company threw themselves

    aside as a cannonball bounced hard and low towards them. It whipped harmlessly through the

    gap they had made. The men laughed at having evaded it, then Sergeant Colquhoun ordered them

    back into their two ranks.
    “Aren't you supposed to be on the left of your company?” Sharpe asked Venables.
    “You're still thinking like a sergeant, Richard,” Venables said.
    “Pigears doesn't mind where I am.” Pig-ears was Captain Lomax, who had earned his

    nickname not because of any peculiarity about his ears, but because he had a passion for

    crisply fried pig-ears. Lomax was easygoing, unlike Urquhart who liked everything done

    strictly according to regulations.
    “Besides,” Venables went on, 'there's damn all to do. The lads know their