Sharpe's Fortress Part 79

"Overwhelm them," Stokes said, 'that's the way to do it. Overwhelm them."

"Send more men to be killed?" Sharpe asked angrily.

"Get a gun over that side," Stokes suggested, 'and blast the gates down one after the other. Only way to prise the place open, Sharpe."

The covering fire that had blazed across the ravine died when it was obvious the first attack had failed, and the lull encouraged the defenders to come to the outer embrasures and fire down at the stalled attackers.

"Give them fire!" an officer shouted from the bed of the ravine, and again the muskets flared across the gorge and the b.a.l.l.s spattered against the walls.

Major Stokes had levelled his telescope at the gate where the thick smoke had at last dissipated.

"It ain't good," he admitted.

"It opens onto a blank wall."

"It does what, sir?" Eli Lockhart asked. The cavalry Sergeant was looking aghast at the horror across the ravine, grateful perhaps that the cavalry was never asked to break into such deathtraps.

"The pa.s.sage turns," Stokes said.

"We can't fire straight up the entranceway. They'll have to drag a gun right into the archway."

"They'll never make it," Sharpe said. Any gun positioned in the outer arch would get the full fury of the defensive fire, and those defenders were protected by the big outer wall. The only way Sharpe could see of getting into the fortress was by battering the whole gatehouse flat, and that would take days of heavy cannon fire.

"The gates of h.e.l.l," Stokes said softly, staring through his gla.s.s at the bodies left inside the arch.

"Can I borrow the telescope, sir?" Sharpe asked.

"Of course." Stokes cleaned the eyepiece on the hem of his jacket.

"It ain't a pretty sight though."

Sharpe took the gla.s.s and aimed it across the ravine. He gave the gatehouse a cursory glance, then edged the lens along the wall which led westwards from the besieged gate. The wall was not very high, perhaps only twelve or fifteen feet, much lower than the great ramparts about the gatehouse, and its embrasures did not appear to be heavily manned. But that was hardly a surprise, for the wall stood atop a precipice. The de fences straight ahead were not the wall and its handful of defenders, but the stony cliff which fell down into the ravine.

Stokes saw where Sharpe was aiming the gla.s.s.

"No way in there, Richard."

Sharpe said nothing. He was staring at a place where weeds and small shrubs twisted up the cliff. He tracked the telescope from the bed of the ravine to the base of the wall, searching every inch, and he reckoned it could be climbed. It would be hard, for it was perilously steep, but if there was s.p.a.ce for bushes to find lodgement, then a man could follow, and at the top of the cliff there was a brief area of gra.s.s between the precipice and the wall. He took the telescope from his eye.

"Has anyone seen a ladder?"

"Back up there." It was Ahmed who answered.

"Where, lad?"

"Up there." The Arab boy pointed to the Outer Fort.

"On the ground," he said.

Sharpe twisted and looked at Lockhart.

"Can you boys fetch me a ladder?"

"What are you thinking of?" Lockhart asked.

"A way in," Sharpe said, 'a b.l.o.o.d.y way in." He gave the telescope to Stokes.

"Get me a ladder, Sergeant," he said, 'and I'll fix those b.u.g.g.e.rs properly. Ahrned? Show Sergeant Lockhart where you saw the ladder."

"I stay with you," the boy said stubbornly.

"You b.l.o.o.d.y don't." Sharpe patted the boy on the head, wondering what Ahmed made of the slaughter that had been inflicted on his countrymen in the ravine, but the boy seemed blessedly unaffected.

"Go and help the Sergeant," he told Ahmed.

Ahmed led the cavalrymen uphill.

"What are you doing, Richard?"

Stokes asked.

"We can climb up to the wall," Sharpe said, pointing to where the trail of weeds and bushes snaked up the other side of the ravine.

"Not you, sir, but a light company can do it. Go up the ravine, send a ladder up and cross the wall."

Stokes trained the telescope and stared at the opposing cliff for a long while.

"You might get up," he said dubiously, 'but then what?"

Sharpe grinned.

"We attack the gatehouse from the back, sir."

"One company?"

"Where one company can go, sir, another can follow. Once they see we're up there, other men will come." He still held the great claymore which was too big to fit into the scabbard of his borrowed sword, but now he discarded that scabbard and shoved the claymore into his belt.

He liked the sword. It was heavy, straight-bladed and brutal, not a weapon for delicate work, but a killer. Something to give a man confidence.

"You stay here, sir," he told Stokes, 'and look after Ahmed for me. The little b.u.g.g.e.r would love to get in a fight, but he ain't got the sense of a louse when it comes to a sc.r.a.p and he's bound to get killed. Tom!" he called to Garrard, then beckoned that he and the rest of the 33rd's Light Company should follow him down to where Morris sheltered among the rocks.

"When Eli gets here with the ladder, sir," he added to Stokes, 'send him down."

Sharpe ran down the ravine's steep side into the smoke-reeking shadows where Morris was seated under a tree making a meal out of bread, salt beef and whatever liquor was left in his canteen.

"Don't have enough food for you, Sharpe," he said.

"Not hungry," Sharpe lied.