"His uncle is grooming him for a career in the Company, " Huddlestone said.

"An uncle in Leadenhall Street. Know what Leaden-hall Street is, Sharpe?"

"Company offices, sir?"

"The very same. The uncle pays him an allowance, and he wants Torrance to get some experience in dealing with bhinjarries. Got it all planned out! A few years in the Company's army, another few trading in spices, then home to inherit his uncle's estate and his seat in the Court of Directors. One day we'll all be tugging our forelocks to the lazy bugger. Still, if he wants to run the baggage train it's no skin off our bums, Sharpe. No one likes the job, so Torrance is welcome to it, but my guess is that you'll be doing most of his work." The Colonel frowned.

"He arrived in India with three English servants! Can you believe it? It ain't as if servants are hard to find here, but Torrance wanted the cachet of white scullions. Two of 'em died of the fever, then Torrance had the nerve to say that one of them hadn't earned the cost of the voyage out and so he's forcing the widow to stay on and pay the debt! " Huddlestone shook his head, then gestured for his servant to pour more tea.

"So what brings you here, Ensign?"

"On my way to Deogaum, sir."

"He really came to beg his breakfast, Colonel, " Lockhart put in.

"And I've no doubt the Sergeant fed you before you came to steal my victuals?" Huddlestone asked, then grinned.

"You're in luck, Ensign.

We're moving up to Deogaum today. You can ride with us."

Sharpe blushed.

"I've no horse, sir."

"Eli?" Huddlestone looked at Lockhart.

"I've got a horse he can ride, sir."

"Good." Huddlestone blew on his tea.

"Welcome to the cavalry, Sharpe."

Lockhart found two horses, one for Sharpe and the other for Ahmed.

Sharpe, ever uncomfortable on horseback, struggled into the saddle under the cavalry's sardonic gaze, while Ahmed jumped up and kicked back his heels, revelling in being back on a horse.

They went gently northwards, taking care not to tire the horses.

Sharpe, as he rode, found himself thinking about Clare Wall, and that made him feel guilty about Simone Joubert, the young French widow who waited for him in Seringapatam. He had sent her there with a southbound convoy and a letter for his friend Major Stokes, and doubtless Simone was waiting for Sharpe to return when the campaign against the Mahrattas was over, but now he needed to warn her that he was being posted back to England. Would she come with him? Did he want her to come? He was not sure about either question, though he felt obscurely responsible for Simone. He could give her a choice, of course, but whenever Simone was faced by a choice she tended to look limp and wait for someone else to make the decision. He had to warn her, though. Would she even want to go to England? But what else could she do? She had no relatives in India, and the nearest French settlements were miles away.

His thoughts were interrupted at mid-morning when Eli Lockhart spurred alongside his horse.

"See it?"

"See what?"

"Up there! " Lockhart pointed ahead and Sharpe, peering through the dust haze thrown up by the leading squadrons, saw a range of high hills.

The lower slopes were green with trees, but above the timber line there was nothing but brown and grey cliffs that stretched from horizon to horizon. And at the very top of the topmost bluff he could just see a streak of dark wall broken by a gate-tower.

«Gawilghur!» Lockhart said.

"How the hell do we attack up there?" Sharpe asked.

The Sergeant laughed.

"We don't! It's a job for the infantry. Reckon you're better off attached to that fellow Torrance."

Sharpe shook his head.

"I have to get in there, Eli."

"Why?"

Sharpe gazed at the distant wall.

"There's a fellow called Dodd in there, and the bastard killed a friend of mine."

Lockhart thought for a second.

"Seven hundred guineas Dodd?"

"That's the fellow, " Sharpe said.

"But I'm not after the reward. I just want to see the bugger dead."

"Me too, " Lockhart said grimly.

"You?"

«Assaye,» Lockhart said brusquely.

"What happened?"

"We charged his troops. They were knocking seven kinds of hell out of the 74th and we caught the buggers in line. Knocked 'em hard back, but we must have had a dozen troopers unhorsed. We didn't stop, though, we just kept after their cavalry and it wasn't till the battle was over that we found our lads. They'd had their throats cut. All of them."

"That sounds like Dodd, " Sharpe said. The renegade Englishman liked to spread terror. Make a man afraid, Dodd had once told Sharpe, and he won't fight you so hard.

"So maybe I'll go into Gawilghur with you, " Lockhart said.

"Cavalry?" Sharpe asked.

"They won't let cavalry into a real fight."

Lockhart grinned.

"I couldn't let an ensign go into a fight without help. Poor little bugger might get hurt."

Sharpe laughed. The cavalry had swerved off the road to pass a long column of marching infantry who had set off before dawn on their march to Deogaum. The leading regiment was Sharpe's own, the 74th, and Sharpe moved even farther away from the road so that he would not have to acknowledge the men who had wanted to be rid of him, but Ensign Venables spotted him, leaped the roadside ditch, and ran to his side.

"Going up in the world, Richard?" Venables asked.

"Borrowed glory, " Sharpe said.

"The horse belongs to the igth."

Venables looked slightly relieved that Sharpe had not suddenly been able to afford a horse.

"Are you with the pioneers now?" he asked.

"Nothing so grand, " Sharpe said, reluctant to admit that he had been reduced to being a bullock guard.

Venables did not really care.

"Because that's what we're doing, " he explained, 'escorting the pioneers. It seems they have to make a road."

"Up there?" Sharpe guessed, nodding towards the fortress that dominated the plain.

"Captain Urquhart says you might be selling your commission, " Venables said.

"Does he?"

"Are you?"

"Are you making an offer?"

"I've got a brother, you see, " Venables explained.

"Three actually.

And some sisters. My father might buy." He took a piece of paper from a pocket and handed it up to Sharpe.

"So if you go home, why not see my pater? That's his address. He reckons one of my brothers should join the army. Ain't any good for anything else, see?"

"I'll think on it, " Sharpe said, taking the paper. The cavalry had stretched ahead and so he clapped his heels back, and the horse jerked forward, throwing Sharpe back in the saddle. For a second he sprawled, almost falling over the beast's rump, then he flailed wildly to catch his balance and just managed to grasp the saddle pommel. He thought he heard laughter as he trotted away from the battalion.

Gawilghur soared above the plain like a threat and Sharpe felt like a poacher with nowhere to hide. From up there, Sharpe reckoned, the approaching British army would look like so many ants in the dust. He wished he had a telescope to stare at the high, distant fortress, but he had been reluctant to spend money. He was not sure why. It was not that he was poor, indeed there were few soldiers richer, yet he feared that the real reason was that he felt fraudulent wearing an officer's sash, and that if he were to buy the usual appurtenances of an officer a horse and a telescope and an expensive sword then he would be mocked by those in the army who claimed he should never have been commissioned in the first place. Nor should he, he thought. He had been happier as a sergeant. Much happier. All the same, he wished he had a telescope as he gazed up at the stronghold and saw a great billow of smoke jet from one of the bastions. Seconds later he heard the fading boom of the gun, but he saw no sign of the shot falling. It was as though the cannonball had been swallowed into the warm air.