02 Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780006510307
Publisher: Harper­Collins
Published: 1999-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Dodd called his new geld­ing Pe­ter.

“Be­cause it's got no balls, Mon­sew­er,” he in­formed Pierre Jou­bert, and he re­peat­ed the poor joke a dozen times in the next two days just to make cer­tain that its in­sult was un­der­stood. Jou­bert smiled and said noth­ing, and the Ma­jor would launch him­self in­to a pan­egyric on Pe­ter's mer­its. His old horse had whistling lungs, while this one could be rid­den all day and still had its head up and a spring in its long stride.

“A thor­ough­bred, Cap­tain,” he told Jou­bert, 'an En­glish thor­ough­bred. Not some screw-​backed old French nag, but a prop­er horse."

The men in Dodd's Co­bras liked to see their Ma­jor on his fine big horse. It was true that one man had died in the beast's ac­qui­si­tion, yet the theft had still been a fine piece of ban­dit­ry, and the men had laughed to see the En­glish Sergeant search­ing the camp while all the while Ma­jor Dodd's je­madar, Gopal, was hid­ing the hors­es a long way to the north.

Colonel Pohlmann was less amused.

“I promised Mc­Can­dless safe con­duct, Ma­jor,” he growled at Dodd the first time he saw the En­glish­man on his new geld­ing.

“Quite right, sir.”

“And you've added horse-​thiev­ing to your cat­alogue of crimes?”

“I can't think what you mean, sir,” Dodd protest­ed in mock in­no­cence.

"I pur­chased this beast off a horse trad­er yes­ter­day, sir.

Gyp­sy-​look­ing fel­low from Ko­rpal­gaon. Took the last of my sav­ings."

“And your je­madar's new horse?” Pohlmann asked, point­ing to Gopal who was rid­ing Colonel Mc­Can­dless's mare.

“He bought her from the same fel­low,” Dodd said.

“Of course he did, Ma­jor,” Pohlmann said weari­ly. The Colonel knew it was point­less to chide a man for theft in an army that was en­cour­aged to steal for its very ex­is­tence, yet he was of­fend­ed by

Dodd's abuse of the hos­pi­tal­ity that had been ex­tend­ed to Mc­Can­dless.

The Scots­man was right, Pohlmann thought, Dodd was a man with­out hon­our, yet the Hanove­ri­an knew that if Scindia em­ployed none but saints then he would have no Eu­ro­pean of­fi­cers.

The theft of Mc­Can­dless's hors­es on­ly added more rea­son for Pohlmann to dis­like William Dodd. He found the En­glish­man too dour, too jeal­ous and too hu­mour­less, yet still, de­spite his dis­like, he rec­og­nized that the Ma­jor was a fine sol­dier. His res­cue of his reg­iment from Ahmed­nug­gur had been an in­glo­ri­ous op­er­ation ex­ecut­ed su­perbly, and Pohlmann, at least, un­der­stood the achieve­ment, just as he ap­pre­ci­at­ed that Dodd's men liked their new com­mand­ing of­fi­cer. The Hanove­ri­an was not cer­tain why Dodd was pop­ular, for he was not an easy man; he had no small talk, he smiled rarely, and he was punc­til­ious about de­tails that oth­er of­fi­cers might let pass, yet still the men liked him. Maybe they sensed that he was on their side, whol­ly on their side, rec­og­niz­ing that noth­ing is achieved in war by of­fi­cers with­out men, and a good deal by men with­out of­fi­cers, and for that rea­son, if no oth­er, they were glad he was their com­mand­ing of­fi­cer. And men who like their com­mand­ing of­fi­cer are more

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