LITMIR.BIZ

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but it seemed that no one except Fitzgerald had any control in the chaos. ‘Fitzgerald!’ Morris shouted.

      ‘Still here, sir! Got the buggers worried, we have.’

      ‘I want you here, Lieutenant!’ Morris insisted. ‘Hakeswill! Where are you?’

      ‘Here, sir,’ Hakeswill said, but not moving from his hiding place among the bushes. He guessed he was a few paces north of Morris, but Hakeswill did not want to risk being ambushed by a tiger-striped soldier as he blundered about in search of his Captain and so he stayed put. ‘Coming to join you, sir,’ he called, then crouched even lower among the shrouding leaves.

      ‘Fitzgerald!’ Morris shouted irritably. ‘Come here!’

      ‘The bloody man,’ Fitzgerald said under his breath. His left arm was useless now, and he sensed it had been injured more badly than he had supposed. He had ordered a man to tie a handkerchief round the wound and hoped the pressure would staunch the blood. The thought of gangrene was nagging at him, but he pushed that worry away to concentrate on keeping his men alive. ‘Sergeant Green?’

      ‘Sir?’ Green responded stoically.

      ‘Stay with the men here, Sergeant,’ Fitzgerald ordered. The Irishman had led a score of the Light Company deep into the tope and he saw no point in surrendering the ground just because Morris was nervous. Besides, Fitzgerald was fairly sure that the Tippoo’s troops were just as confused as the British and if Green stayed steady and used volley fire he should be safe enough. ‘I’ll bring the rest of the company back here,’ Fitzgerald promised Sergeant Green, then the Lieutenant turned and called back through the trees. ‘Where are you, sir?’

      ‘Here!’ Morris called irritably. ‘Hurry, damn you!’

      ‘Back in a minute, Sergeant,’ Fitzgerald reassured Green, and headed off through the trees in search of Morris.

      He strayed too far north, and suddenly a rocket flared up from the tope’s eastern edge to lodge with a tearing crash among the tangling branches of a tall tree. For a few seconds the trapped missile thrashed wildly, startling scared birds up into the dark, then it became firmly wedged in the crook of a branch. The exhaust poured an impotent torrent of fire and smoke to illuminate a whole patch of the thick woodland, and in the sudden blaze Hakeswill saw the Lieutenant stumbling towards him. ‘Mister Fitzgerald!’ Hakeswill called.

      ‘Sergeant Hakeswill?’ Fitzgerald asked.

      ‘It’s me, sir. Right here, sir. This way, sir.’

      ‘Thank God.’ Fitzgerald crossed the clearing at a run, his left arm hanging useless at his side. ‘No one knows what the hell they’re doing. Or where they are.’

      ‘I know what I’m doing, sir,’ Hakeswill said, and as the fierce crackling fire in the high leaves died away he lunged upwards with the halberd’s spear point at the Lieutenant’s belly. His face twitched as the newly sharpened blade ripped through the Lieutenant’s clothes and into his stomach. ‘It isn’t the soldierly thing, sir, to contradict a sergeant in front of his men, sir,’ he said respectfully. ‘You do understand that, sir, don’t you, sir?’ Hakeswill said, and grinned with joy for the pleasure of the moment. The spear point was deep in Fitzgerald’s belly, so deep that Hakeswill was certain he had felt its razor-sharp point lodge against the man’s backbone. Fitzgerald was on the ground now and his body was jerking like a gaffed and landed fish. His mouth was opening and closing, but he seemed unable to speak, only to moan as Hakeswill gave the spear a savage twist in an effort to free its blade. ‘We is talking about proper respect, sir,’ Hakeswill hissed at the Lieutenant. ‘Respect! Sergeants must be supported, sir, says so in the scriptures, sir. Don’t worry, sir, won’t hurt, sir. Just a prick,’ and he jerked the bloodied blade free and thrust it down again, this time into the Lieutenant’s throat. ‘Won’t be showing me up again, sir, will you, sir? Not in front of the men. Sorry about that, sir. And good night, sir.’

      ‘Fitzgerald!’ Morris shouted frantically. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lieutenant! Where the hell are you?’

      ‘He’s gone to hell.’ Hakeswill chuckled softly. He was searching the Lieutenant’s body for coins. He dared not take anything that might be recognized as the Lieutenant’s property, so he left the dead man’s sabre and the gilded gorget he had worn about his throat, but he did find a handful of unidentifiable small change which he pushed into his pouch before scrambling a few feet away to make sure no one saw him with his victim.

      ‘Who’s that?’ Morris called as he heard Hakeswill pushing through the undergrowth.

      ‘Me, sir!’ Hakeswill called. ‘I’m looking for Lieutenant Fitzgerald, sir.’

      ‘Come here instead!’ Morris snapped.

      Hakeswill ran the last few yards and dropped down between Morris and a frightened Ensign Hicks. ‘I’m worried about Mister Fitzgerald, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Heard him up in the bushes, and there was heathens there, sir. I know, sir, ’cos I killed a couple of the black bastards.’ He flinched as some muskets flamed and banged some yards away, but he could not tell who fired, or at what.

      ‘You think the bastards found Fitzgerald?’ Morris asked.

      ‘I reckon so,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Poor little bastard. I tried to find him, sir, but there was just heathens there.’

      ‘Jesus.’ Morris ducked as a volley of bullets flicked through the leaves overhead. ‘What about Sergeant Green?’

      ‘Probably skulking, sir. Hiding his precious hide, I don’t wonder.’

      ‘We’re all bloody skulking,’ Morris answered truthfully enough.

      ‘Not me, sir. Not Obadiah Hakeswill, sir. Got me halberd proper wet, sir. Want to feel it, sir?’ Hakeswill held out the spear point. ‘Heathen blood, sir, still warm.’

      Morris shuddered at the thought of touching the spear, but took some comfort in having Hakeswill at his side. The tope was filled with shouts as a group of the Tippoo’s troops charged. Muskets hammered. A rocket exploded nearby, while another, this one with a solid shot in its cone, ripped through bushes and crashed into a tree. A man screamed, then the scream was abruptly chopped off. ‘Jesus,’ Morris cursed uselessly.

      ‘Maybe we should go back?’ Ensign Hicks suggested. ‘Back across the aqueduct?’

      ‘Can’t, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Buggers are behind us.’

      ‘You’re sure?’ Morris asked.

      ‘Fought the black buggers there myself, sir. Couldn’t hold them. A whole tribe of the bastards, sir. Did my best. Lost some good men.’ Hakeswill sniffed with pretended emotion.

      ‘You’re a brave man, Hakeswill,’ Morris said gruffly.

      ‘Just following your lead, sir,’ Hakeswill said, then ducked as another enemy volley whipped overhead. A huge cheer sounded, followed by the screaming roar of rockets as the Tippoo’s reinforcements, sent from the city, came shouting and fighting through the trees to drive every last infidel from the tope. ‘Bleeding hell,’ Hakeswill said. ‘But not to worry! I can’t die, sir! I can’t die!’

      Behind him there was another cheer as the rest of the 33rd at last crossed the aqueduct.

      ‘Forward!’ a voice shouted from somewhere behind the Light Company’s scattered fugitives. ‘Forward!’

      ‘Bloody hell!’ Morris snapped. ‘Who the hell is that?’

      ‘33rd!’ the voice shouted. ‘To me! To me!’

      ‘Stay where you are!’ Morris called to a few eager men, and so they crouched in the warm dark that was loud with the ripping of bullets and filled by the whimpers of dying men and bright with the glare of rockets and foul with the stench of blood that was being spilt in a black place where only chaos and fear prevailed.

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