Sharpe's Fortress Part 17

"Devil of a place, Sir Arthur," Wallace said "How high is it, Blackiston?" Wellesley called to one of his aides, an engineer.

"I took a triangulation yesterday, sir," Blackiston said, 'and discovered the fortress walls are eighteen hundred feet above the plain."

"Is there water up there?" Colonel b.u.t.ters, the chief engineer, asked.

"We hear there is, sir," Blackiston said.

"There are tanks in the fort; huge things like lakes."

"But the water level must be low this year?" b.u.t.ters suggested.

"I doubt it's low enough, sir," Blackiston murmured, knowing that b.u.t.ters had been hoping that thirst might defeat the garrison.

"And the rascals will have food, no doubt," Wellesley commented.

"Doubtless," Wallace agreed drily.

"Which means they'll have to be prised out," the General said, then bent to the gla.s.s again and lowered the lens to look at the foothills below the bluff. Just south of the fort was a conical hill that rose almost halfway up the flank of the great promontory.

"Can we get guns on that near hill?" he asked.

There was a pause while the other officers decided which hill he was referring to. Colonel b.u.t.ters flinched.

"We can get them up there, sir, but I doubt they'll have the elevation to reach the fort."

"You'll get nothing bigger than a twelve-pounder up there," Wallace said dubiously, then slid the telescope's view up the bluff to the walls.

"And you'll need bigger shot than twelve-pounders to break down that wall."

"Sir Arthur!" The warning call came from the officer commanding the East India Company cavalry who was pointing to where a group of Mahratta hors.e.m.e.n had appeared in the south. They had evidently been following the lingering dust cloud left by the General's party and, though the approaching hors.e.m.e.n only numbered about twenty men, the sepoy cavalry wheeled to face them and spread into a line.

"It's all right," Wellesley called, 'they're ours. I asked them to meet us here." He had inspected the approaching hors.e.m.e.n through his telescope and now, waving the sepoy cavalry back, he walked to greet the silladars.

"Syud Sevajee," Wellesley acknowledged the man in the shabby green and silver coat who led the cavalrymen, 'thank you for coming."

Syud Sevajee nodded brusquely at Wellesley, then stared up at Gawilghur.

"You think you can get in?"

"I think we must," Wellesley said.

"No one ever has," Sevajee said with a sly smile.

Wellesley returned the smile, but slowly, as if accepting the implied challenge, and then, as Sevajee slid down from his saddle, the General turned to Wallace.

"You've met Syud Sevajee, Wallace?"

"I've not had that pleasure, sir."

Wellesley made the introduction, then added that Syud Sevajee's father had been one of the Rajah of Berar's generals.

"But is no longer?" Wallace asked Sevajee.

"Beny Singh murdered him," Sevajee said grimly, 'so I fight with you, Colonel, to gain my chance to kill Beny Singh. And Beny Singh now commands that fortress." He nodded towards the distant promontory.

"So how do we get inside?" Wellesley asked.

The officers gathered around Sevajee as the Indian drew his tulwar and used its tip to draw a figure eight in the dust. He tapped the lower circle of the eight, which he had drawn far larger than the upper.

"That's what you're looking at," he said, 'the Inner Fort. And there are only two entrances. There's a road that climbs up from the plain and goes to the Southern Gate." He drew a squiggly line that tailed away from the bottom of the figure eight.

"But that road is impossible. You will climb straight into their guns. A child with a pile of rocks could keep an army from climbing that road. The only possible route into the Inner Fort is through the main entrance." He scratched a brief line across the junction of the two circles.

"Which will not be easy?" Wellesley asked drily.

Sevajee offered the General a grim smile.

"The main entrance is a long corridor, barred by four gates and flanked by high walls. But even to reach it, Sir Arthur, you will have to take the Outer Fort." He tapped the small upper circle of the figure eight.

Wellesley nodded.

"And that, too, is difficult?"

"Again, two entrances," Sevajee said.

"One is a road that climbs from the plain. You can't see it from here, but it twists up the hills to the west and it comes to the fort here." He tapped the waist of the figure eight.

"It's an easier climb than the southern road, but for the last mile of the journey your men will be under the guns of the Outer Fort. And the final half-mile, General, is steep." He stressed the last word.

"On one side of the road is a cliff, and on the other is a precipice, and the guns of the Outer Fort can fire straight down that half-mile of road."

Colonel b.u.t.ters shook his head in gloomy contemplation of Sevajee's news.

"How come you know all this?" he asked.

"I grew up in Gawilghur," Sevajee said.

"My father, before he was murdered, was kill adar of the fortress."

"He knows," Wellesley said curtly.

"And the main entrance of the Outer Fort?"

"That," Sevajee said, 'is the fortress's weakest point." He scratched a line that pierced the uppermost curve of the small circle.

"It's the only level approach to the fortress, but it's very narrow. On one side' he tapped the eastern flank of the line 'the ground falls steeply away.

On the other side is a reservoir tank. So to reach the fort you must risk a narrow neck of land that is swept by two ramparts of guns, one above the other."