view, they would have appeared as one hundred and forty small scarlet rectangles spread across a square mile of green country as they advanced steadily towards the waiting line of guns on the enemy-held ridge. The sergeants paced beside the half-companies while the officers either rode or walked ahead. From a distance the red squares looked smart, for the men’s red coats were bright scarlet and slashed with white crossbelts, but in truth the troops were filthy and sweating. Their coats were wool, designed for battlefields in Flanders, not India, and the scarlet dye had run in the heavy rains so that the coats were now a pale pink or a dull purple, and all were stained white with dried sweat. Every man in the 33rd wore a leather stock, a cruel high collar that dug into the flesh of his neck, and each man’s long hair had been pulled harshly back, greased with candle wax, then twisted about a small sand-filled leather bag that was secured with a strip of black leather so that the hair hung like a club at the nape of the neck. The hair was then powdered white with flour, and though the clubbed and whitened hair looked smart and neat, it was a haven for lice and fleas. The native sepoys of the East India Company were luckier. They did not cake their hair with powder, nor did they wear the heavy trousers of the British troops but instead marched bare-legged. They did not wear the leather stocks either and, even more amazing, there was no flogging in the Indian battalions.
An enemy cannonball at last found a target and Sharpe saw a half-company of the 33rd broken apart as the round shot whipped through the ranks. He thought he glimpsed an instant red mist appear in the air above the formation as the ball slashed through, but maybe that was an illusion. Two men stayed on the ground as a sergeant closed the ranks up. Two more men were limping and one of them staggered, reeled and finally collapsed. The drummer boys, advancing just behind the unfurled colours, marked the rhythm of the march with steady beats interspersed with quicker flourishes, but when the boys marched past the twin heaps of offal that had been soldiers of the Grenadier Company a few seconds before they began to hurry their sticks and thus quickened the regiment’s pace until Major Shee turned in his saddle and damned their eagerness.
‘When are we going to load?’ Private Mallinson asked Sergeant Green.
‘When you’re told to, lad, when you’re told to. Not before. Oh, sweet Jesus!’ This last imprecation from Sergeant Green had been caused by a deafening ripple of gunfire from the ridge. A dozen more of the Tippoo’s smaller guns had opened fire and the crest of the ridge was now fogged by a grey-white cloud of smoke. The two British galloper guns off to the right had unlimbered and started to return the fire, but the enemy cannon were hidden by their own smoke and that thick screen obscured any damage the small galloper guns might be inflicting. More cavalry trotted forward to the 33rd’s right. These newcomers were Indian troops dressed in scarlet turbans and holding long, wicked-pointed lances.
‘So what are we bleeding supposed to do?’ Mallinson complained. ‘Just march straight up the bloody ridge with empty muskets?’
‘If you’re told to,’ Sergeant Green said, ‘that’s what you’ll do. Now hold your bloody tongue.’
‘Quiet back there!’ Hakeswill called from the half-company in front. ‘This ain’t a bleeding parish outing! This is a fight, you bastards!’
Sharpe wanted to be ready and so he untied the rag from his musket’s lock and stuffed it into the pocket where he kept the ring Mary had given him. The ring, a plain band of worn silver, had belonged to Sergeant Bickerstaff, Mary’s husband, but the Sergeant was dead now and Green had taken Bickerstaff’s sergeant’s stripes and Sharpe his bed. Mary came from Calcutta. That was no place to run, Sharpe thought. Place was full of redcoats.
Then he forgot any prospect of deserting, for suddenly the landscape ahead was filling with enemy soldiers. A mass of infantry was crossing the northern end of the low ridge and marching down onto the plain. Their uniforms were pale purple, they had wide red hats and, like the British Indian troops, were bare-legged. The flags above the marching men were red and yellow, but the wind was so feeble that the flags hung straight down to obscure whatever device they might have shown. More and more men appeared until Sharpe could not even begin to estimate their numbers.
‘Thirty-third!’ a voice shouted from somewhere ahead. ‘Line to the left!’
‘Line to the left!’ Captain Morris echoed the shout.
‘You heard the officer!’ Sergeant Hakeswill bawled. ‘Line to the left! Smartly now!’
‘On the double!’ Sergeant Green called.
The leading half-company of the 33rd had halted and every other half-company angled to their left and sped their pace, with the final half-company, in which Sharpe marched, having the farthest and fastest to go. The men began to jog, their packs and pouches and bayonet scabbards bumping up and down as they stumbled over the small fields of crops. Like a swinging door, the column, that had been marching directly towards the ridge, was now turning itself into a line that would lie parallel to the ridge and so bar the advance of the enemy infantry.
‘Two files!’ a voice shouted.
‘Two files!’ Captain Morris echoed.
‘You heard the officer!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Two files! On the right! Smartly now!’
All the running half-companies now split themselves into two smaller units, each of two ranks and each aligning itself on the unit to its right so that the whole battalion formed a fighting line two ranks deep. As Sharpe ran into position he glanced to his right and saw the drummer boys taking their place behind the regiment’s colours which were guarded by a squad of sergeants armed with long, axe-headed poles.
The Light Company was the last into position. There were a few seconds of shuffling as the men glanced right to check their alignment, then there was stillness and silence except for the corporals fussily closing up the files. In less than a minute, in a marvellous display of drill, the King’s 33rd had deployed from column of march into line of battle so that seven hundred men, arrayed in two long ranks, now faced the enemy.
‘You may load, Major Shee!’ That was Colonel Wellesley’s voice. He had galloped his horse close to where Major Shee brooded under the regiment’s twin flags. The six Indian battalions were still hurrying forward on the left, but the enemy infantry had appeared at the northern end of the ridge and that meant the 33rd was the nearest unit and the one most likely to receive the Tippoo’s assault.
‘Load!’ Captain Morris shouted at Hakeswill.
Sharpe felt suddenly nervous as he dropped the musket from his shoulder to hold it across his body. He fumbled with the musket’s hammer as he pulled it back to the half cock. Sweat stung his eyes. He could hear the enemy drummers.
‘Handle cartridge!’ Sergeant Hakeswill shouted, and each man of the Light Company pulled a cartridge from his belt pouch and bit through the tough waxed paper. They held the bullets in their mouths, tasting the sour salty gunpowder.
‘Prime!’ Seventy-six men trickled a small pinch of powder from the opened cartridges into their muskets’ pans, then closed the locks so that the priming was trapped.
‘Cast about!’ Hakeswill called and seventy-six right hands released their musket stocks so that the weapons’ butts dropped towards the ground. ‘And I’m watching you!’ Hakeswill added. ‘If any of you lilywhite bastards don’t use all his powder, I’ll skin your hides off you and rub salt on your miserable flesh. Do it proper now!’ Some old soldiers advised only using half the powder of a cartridge, letting the rest trickle to the ground so that the musket’s brutal kick would be diminished, but faced by an advancing enemy, no man thought of employing that trick this day. They poured the remainder of their cartridges’ powder down
