Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Triumph

"Men do not join Scindia's army merely for the pleasures of doing their duty," Pohlmann said, "but for the rewards such service offers. We are here to become rich, are we not?" He unhooked the elephant-hilted sword from his belt. The scabbard was made of soft red leather and was studded with small emeralds. "Here." Pohlmann offered the sword to Dodd.

"I can't take your sword!" Dodd protested.

"I have many, Major, and many finer. I insist."

Dodd took the sword. He drew the blade from the scabbard and saw that it was finely made, much better than the drab sword he had worn as a lieutenant these last twenty years. Many Indian swords were made of soft steel and broke easily in combat, but Dodd guessed this blade had been forged in France or Britain, then given its beautiful elephant hilt in India. That hilt was of gold, the elephant's head made the pommel, while the handguard was the beast's curved trunk. The grip was of black leather bound with gold wire.

"Thank you, sir," he said feelingly.

"It is the first of many rewards," Pohlmann said airily, "and those rewards will shower on us when we beat the British. Which we shall, though not here."

He paused to drink rum.

"The British will attack any day now," he went on, "and they doubtless hope I'll stay and fight them here, but I don't have a mind to oblige them. Better to make the bastards march after us, eh? The rains may come while they pursue us and the rivers will hold them up. Disease will weaken them. And once they are weak and tired, we shall be strong. All Scindia's compoos will join together and the Rajah of Berar has promised his army, and once we are all gathered we shall crush the British. But that means I have to give up Ahmednuggur."

"Not an important city," Dodd commented. He noticed that Simone Joubert was sipping wine. She kept her eyes lowered, only occasionally glancing up at her husband or at Lieutenant Silliere. She took no notice of Dodd, but she would, he promised himself, she would. Her nose was too small, he decided, but even so she was a thing of pale and fragile wonder in this hot, dark-skinned land. Her blonde hair, which was hung with ringlets in a fashion that had prevailed ten years before in Europe, was held in place by small mother-of-pearl clips.

"Ahmednuggur is not important," Pohlmann agreed, "but Scindia hates losing any of his cities and he stuffed Ahmednuggur full of supplies and insisted I post one regiment inside the city." He nodded towards the white-coated troops. "That regiment, Major. It's probably my best regiment, but I am forced to quarter it in Ahmednuggur."

Dodd understood Pohlmann's predicament.

"You can't take them out of the city without upsetting Scindia," he said, "but you don't want to lose the regiment when the city falls."

"I can't lose it!" Pohlmann said indignantly. "A good regiment like that? Mathers trained it well, very well. Now he's gone to join our enemies, but I can't lose his regiment as well, so whoever takes over from Mathers must know how to extricate his men from trouble."

Dodd felt a surge of excitement. He liked to think that it was not just for the money that he had deserted the Company, nor because of his legal troubles, but for the long overdue chance of leading his own regiment. He could do it well, he knew that, and he knew what Pohlmann was leading up to.

Pohlmann smiled.

"Suppose I give you Mathers's regiment, Major? Can you pull it out of the fire for me?"

"Yes, sir," Dodd said simply. Simone Joubert, for the first time since she had been introduced to Dodd, looked up at him, but without any friendliness.

"All of it?" Pohlmann asked. "With its cannon?"

"All of it," Dodd said firmly, "and with every damned gun."

"Then from now it is Dodd's regiment," Pohlmann said, "and if you lead it well, Major, I shall make you a colonel and give you a second regiment to command."

Dodd celebrated by draining his cup of wine. He was so overcome with emotion that he hardly dared speak, though the look on his face said it all. His own regiment at last! He had waited so long for this moment and now, by God, he would show the Company how well their despised officers could fight.

Pohlmann snapped his fingers so that a servant girl brought him more rum.

"How many men will Wellesley bring?" he asked Dodd.

"No more than fifteen thousand infantry," the new commander of Dodd's regiment answered confidently. "Probably fewer, and they'll be split into two armies. Boy Wellesley will command one, Colonel Stevenson the other."

"Stevenson's old, yes?"

"Ancient and cautious," Dodd said dismissively.

"Cavalry?"

"Five or six thousand. Mostly Indians."

"Guns?"

"Twenty-six at most. Nothing bigger than a twelve-pounder."

"And Scindia can field eighty guns," Pohlmann said, "some of them twenty-eight-pounders. And once the Rajah of Berar's forces join us, we'll have forty thousand infantry and at least fifty more guns." The Hanoverian smiled. "But battles aren't just numbers. They're also won by generals. Tell me about this Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley."

"Boy Wellesley?" Dodd responded scathingly. The British General was younger than Dodd, but that was not the cause of the derisory nickname.

Rather it was envy, for Wellesley had connections and wealth, while Dodd had neither.

"He's young," Dodd said, "only thirty four."

"Youth is no barrier to good soldiering," Pohlmann said chidingly, though he well understood Dodd's resentment. For years Dodd had watched younger men rise up through the ranks of the King's army while he had been stuck in the Company's hidebound ranks. A man could not buy promotion in the Company, nor were promotions given by merit, but only by seniority, and so forty-year-old men like Dodd were still lieutenants while, in the King's army, mere boys were captains or majors.

"Is Wellesley good?" Pohlmann asked.

"He's never fought a battle," Dodd said bitterly, "not unless you count Malavelly."

"One volley?" Pohlmann asked, half recalling stories of the skirmish.

"One volley and a bayonet charge," Dodd said, "not a proper battle."

"He defeated Dhoondiah."

"A cavalry charge against a bandit," Dodd said scornfully. "My point, sir, is that Boy Wellesley has never faced artillery and infantry on a real battlefield. He was jumped up to major general solely because his brother is Governor General. If his name had been Dodd instead of Wellesley he'd be lucky to command a company, let alone an army."

"He's an aristocrat?" Pohlmann enquired.

"Of course. What else?" Dodd asked. "His father was an earl."

"So..." Pohlmann put a handful of almonds in his mouth and paused to chew them. "So," he went on, "he's the younger son of a nobleman, sent into the army because he wasn't good for anything else, and his family purchased him up the ranks?"

"Exactly, sir, exactly."

"But I hear he is efficient?"

"Efficient?" Dodd thought about it. "He's efficient, sir, because his brother gives him the cash. He can afford a big bullock train. He carries his supplies with him, so his men are well fed. But he still ain't ever seen a cannon's muzzle, not facing him, not alongside a score of others and backed by steady infantry."

"He did well as Governor of Mysore," Pohlmann observed mildly.

"So he's an efficient governor? Does that make him a general?"

"A disciplinarian, I hear," Pohlmann said.

"He sets a lovely parade ground," Dodd agreed sarcastically.

"But he isn't a fool?"

"No," Dodd admitted, "not a fool, but not a general either. He's been promoted too fast and too young, sir. He's beaten bandits, but he took a beating himself outside Seringapatam."

"Ah, yes. The night attack." Pohlmann had heard of that skirmish, how Arthur Wellesley had attacked a wood outside Seringapatam and there been roundly thrashed by the Tippoo's troops.