Sharpe's Fortress by Bernard Cornwell Page B

view up the bluff to the walls.
    “And you'll need bigger shot than twelve-pounders to break down that wall.”
    “Sir Arthur!” The warning call came from the officer commanding the East India

    Company cavalry who was pointing to where a group of Mahratta horsemen had appeared in

    the south. They had evidently been following the lingering dust cloud left by the

    General's party and, though the approaching horsemen only numbered about twenty men,

    the sepoy cavalry wheeled to face them and spread into a line.
    “It's all right,” Wellesley called, 'they're ours. I asked them to meet us here." He had

    inspected the approaching horsemen through his telescope and now, waving the sepoy

    cavalry back, he walked to greet the silladars.
    “Syud Sevajee,” Wellesley acknowledged the man in the shabby green and silver coat

    who led the cavalrymen, 'thank you for coming."
    Syud Sevajee nodded brusquely at Wellesley, then stared up at Gawilghur.
    “You think you can get in?”
    “I think we must,” Wellesley said.
    “No one ever has,” Sevajee said with a sly smile.
    Wellesley returned the smile, but slowly, as if accepting the implied challenge, and

    then, as Sevajee slid down from his saddle, the General turned to Wallace.
    “You've met Syud Sevajee, Wallace?”
    “I've not had that pleasure, sir.”
    Wellesley made the introduction, then added that Syud Sevajee's father had been one

    of the Rajah of Berar's generals.
    “But is no longer?” Wallace asked Sevajee.
    “Beny Singh murdered him,” Sevajee said grimly, 'so I fight with you, Colonel, to gain

    my chance to kill Beny Singh. And Beny Singh now commands that fortress." He nodded

    towards the distant promontory.
    “So how do we get inside?” Wellesley asked.
    The officers gathered around Sevajee as the Indian drew his tulwar and used its tip

    to draw a figure eight in the dust. He tapped the lower circle of the eight, which he had

    drawn far larger than the upper.
    “That's what you're looking at,” he said, 'the Inner Fort. And there are only two

    entrances. There's a road that climbs up from the plain and goes to the Southern Gate." He

    drew a squiggly line that tailed away from the bottom of the figure eight.
    “But that road is impossible. You will climb straight into their guns. A child with a

    pile of rocks could keep an army from climbing that road. The only possible route into the

    Inner Fort is through the main entrance.” He scratched a brief line across the junction of

    the two circles.
    “Which will not be easy?” Wellesley asked drily.
    Sevajee offered the General a grim smile.
    “The main entrance is a long corridor, barred by four gates and flanked by high walls.

    But even to reach it, Sir Arthur, you will have to take the Outer Fort.” He tapped the small

    upper circle of the figure eight.
    Wellesley nodded.
    “And that, too, is difficult?”
    “Again, two entrances,” Sevajee said.
    “One is a road that climbs from the plain. You can't see it from here, but it twists up the

    hills to the west and it comes to the fort here.” He tapped the waist of the figure eight.
    “It's an easier climb than the southern road, but for the last mile of the journey your

    men will be under the guns of the Outer Fort. And the final half-mile, General, is

    steep.” He stressed the last word.
    “On one side of the road is a cliff, and on the other is a precipice, and the guns of the

    Outer Fort can fire straight down that half-mile of road.”
    Colonel Butters shook his head in gloomy contemplation of Sevajee's news.
    “How come you know all this?” he asked.
    “I grew up in Gawilghur,” Sevajee said.
    “My father, before he was murdered, was kill adar of the fortress.”
    “He knows,” Wellesley said curtly.
    “And the main entrance of the Outer Fort?”
    “That,” Sevajee said, 'is the fortress's weakest point." He scratched a line that pierced

    the uppermost curve of the small circle.
    "It's the only level