'They're officers, Tom, ' Sharpe said chidingly, 'only half brained.'
'You should know.' Garrard grinned.
'Buggers make an inviting target, though.' He pointed across the plunging chasm which separated the plateau from the Inner Fort.
'There's a bloody great gun over there.
Size of a bloody hay wain, it is. Buggers have been fussing about it for a half-hour now.'
Sharpe stared past the beleaguered Outer Fort to the distant cliffs.
He thought he could see a wall where a gun might be mounted, but he was not sure.
'I need a bloody telescope.'
'You need a bloody uniform.'
'I'm doing something about that, ' Sharpe said mysteriously.
Garrard slapped at a fly.
'What's it like then?'
'What's what like?'
'Being a Jack-pudding?'
Sharpe shrugged, thought for a while, then shrugged again.
'Don't seem real. Well, it does. I dunno.' He sighed.
'I mean I wanted it, Tom, I wanted it real bad, but I should have known the bastards wouldn't want me. Some are all right. Major Stokes, he's a fine fellow, and there are others. But most of them? God knows. They don't like me, anyway.'
'You got 'em worried, that's why, ' Garrard said.
'If you can become an officer, so can others.' He saw the unhappiness on Sharpe's face.
'Wishing you'd stayed a sergeant, are you?'
«No,» Sharpe said, and surprised himself by saying it so firmly.
'I
can do the job, Tom.'
'What job's that, for Christ's sake? Sitting around while we do all the bloody work? Having a servant to clean your boots and scrub your arse?'
«No,» Sharpe said, and he pointed across the shadowed chasm to the Inner Fort.
'When we go in there, Tom, we're going to need fellows who know what the hell they're doing. That's the job. It's beating hell out of the other side and keeping your own men alive, and I can do that.'
Garrard looked sceptical.
'If they let you.'
'Aye, if they let me, ' Sharpe agreed. He sat in silence for a while, watching the far gun emplacement. He could see men there, but was not sure what they were doing.
'Where's Hakeswill?' he asked.
'I looked for him yesterday, and the bugger wasn't on parade with the rest of you.'
«Captured,» Garrard said.
'Captured?'
'That's what Morris says. Me, I think the bugger ran. Either ways, he's in the fort now.'
'You think he ran?'
'We had two fellows murdered the other night. Morris says it were the enemy, but I didn't see any of the buggers, but there was some fellow creeping round saying he was a Company colonel, only he weren't.' Garrard stared at Sharpe and a slow grin came to his face.
'It were you, Dick.'
'Me?' Sharpe asked straight-faced.
'I was captured, Tom. Only escaped yesterday.'
'And I'm the king of bloody Persia. Lowry and Kendrick were meant to arrest you, weren't they?'
'It was them who died?' Sharpe asked innocently.
Garrard laughed.
'Serve them bloody right. Bastards, both of them.'
An enormous blossom of smoke showed at the distant wall on the top of the cliffs. Two seconds later the sound of the great gun bellowed all around Sharpe and Garrard, while the massive round shot struck the stalled limber just behind the enfilading battery. The wooden vehicle shattered into splinters and all five men were hurled to the ground where they jerked bloodily for a few seconds and then were still.
Fragments of stone and wood hissed past Sharpe.
'Bloody hell, ' Garrard said admiringly, 'five men with one shot!»
'That'll teach 'em to keep their heads down, ' Sharpe said. The sound of the enormous gun had drawn men from their tents towards the plateau's edge. Sharpe looked round and saw that Captain Morris was among them. The Captain was in his shirtsleeves, staring at the great cloud of smoke through a telescope.
'I'm going to stand up in a minute, ' Sharpe said, 'and you're going to hit me.'
'I'm going to do what?' Garrard asked.
'You're going to thump me. Then I'm going to run, and you're going to chase me. But you're not to catch me.'
Garrard offered his friend a puzzled look.
'What are you up to, Dick?'
Sharpe grinned.
'Don't ask, Tom, just do it.'
'You are a bloody officer, aren't you?' Garrard said, grinning back.
'Don't ask, just do it.'
'Are you ready?' Sharpe asked 'I've always wanted to clobber an officer.'
'On your feet then.' They stood.
'So hit me, ' Sharpe said.
'I've tried to pinch some cartridges off you, right? So give me a thump in the belly.'
'Bloody hell, ' Garrard said.
'Go on, do it!»
Garrard gave Sharpe a half-hearted punch, and Sharpe shoved him back, making him fall, then he turned and ran along the cliff's edge.
Garrard shouted, scrambled to his feet and began to pursue. Some of the men who had gone to fetch the five bodies moved to intercept Sharpe, but he dodged to his left and disappeared among some bushes.
The rest of the 33rd's Light Company was whooping and shouting in pursuit, but Sharpe had a long lead on them and he twisted in and out of the shrubs to where he had picketed one of Syud Sevajee's horses. He pulled the peg loose, hauled himself into the saddle and kicked back his heels. Someone yelled an insult at him, but he was clear of the camp now and there were no mounted picquets to pursue him.
A half-hour later Sharpe returned, trotting with a group of native horsemen coming back from a reconnaissance. He peeled away from them and dismounted by his tent where Ahmed waited for him While Sharpe and Garrard had made the diversion the boy had been thieving and he grinned broadly as Sharpe ducked into the hot tent.
'I have every things, ' Ahmed said proudly.
He had taken Captain Morris's red coat, his sash and his sword-belt with its sabre.
'You're a good lad, ' Sharpe said. He needed a red coat, for Colonel Stevenson had given orders that every man who went into Gawilghur with the attackers must be in uniform so that they were not mistaken for the enemy. Syud Sevajee's men, who planned to hunt down Beny Singh, had been issued with some threadbare old sepoys' jackets, some of them still stained with the blood of their previous owners, but none of the jackets had fitted Sharpe. Even Morris's coat would be a tight fit, but at least he had a uniform now.
'No trouble?'
Sharpe asked Ahmed.
'No bugger saw me, ' the boy said proudly. His English was improving every day, though Sharpe worried that it was not quite the King's English. Ahmed grinned again as Sharpe gave him a coin that he stuffed into his
