Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

Tippoo's dungeons

    with Colonel Hector McCandless and if it was possible for a sergeant and a colonel to be

    friends, then a friendship existed between the two men. McCandless, tall, vigorous and

    in his sixties, was the East India Company's head of intelligence for all southern and

    western India, and in the last four years he and Sharpe had talked a few times whenever the

    Colonel passed through Seringapatam, but those had been social conversations and the

    Colonel's grim face suggested that this meeting was anything but social.
    “You were at Chasalgaon?” McCandless demanded.
    “I was, sir, yes.”
    “So you saw Lieutenant Dodd?”
    Sharpe nodded.
    “Won't ever forget the bastard. Sorry, sir.” He apologized because McCandless was a

    fervent Christian who abhorred all foul language. The Scotsman was a stern man, honest as

    a saint, and Sharpe sometimes wondered why he liked him so much. Maybe it was because

    McCandless was always fair, always truthful and could talk to any man, rajah or sergeant,

    with the same honest directness.
    “I never met Lieutenant Dodd,” McCandless said, 'so describe him to me."
    “Tall, sir, and thin like you or me.”
    “Not like me,” Major Stokes put in.
    “Sort of yellow-faced,” Sharpe went on, 'as if he'd had the fever once. Long face, like he

    ate something bitter." He thought for a second.
    He had only caught a few glimpses of Dodd, and those had been sideways.
    "He's got lank hair, sir, when he took off his hat. Brown hair.
    Long nose on him, like Sir Arthur's, and a bony chin. He's calling himself Major Dodd

    now, sir, not Lieutenant. I heard one of his men call him Major."
    “And he killed every man in the garrison?” McCandless asked.
    “He did, sir. Except me. I was lucky.”
    “Nonsense, Sharpe!” McCandless said.
    “The hand of the Lord was upon you.”
    “Amen,” Major Stokes intervened.
    McCandless stared broodingly at Sharpe. The Colonel had a hard planed face with oddly

    blue eyes. He was forever claiming that he wanted to retire to his native Scotland, but

    he always found some reason to stay on in India. He had spent much of his life riding the

    states that bordered the land administered by the Company, for his job was to explore

    those lands and report their threats and weaknesses to his masters. Little happened in

    India that escaped McCandless, but Dodd had escaped him, and Dodd was now McCandless's

    concern.
    “We have placed a price on his head,” the Colonel said, 'of five hundred guineas."
    “Bless me!” Major Stokes said in astonishment.
    “He's a murderer,” McCandless went on.
    “He killed a goldsmith in Seedesegur, and he should be facing trial, but he ran instead

    and I want you, Sharpe, to help me catch him. And I'm not pursuing the rogue because I want

    the reward money; in fact I'll refuse it. But I do want him, and I want your help.”
    Major Stokes began to protest, saying that Sharpe was his best man and that the armoury

    would go to the dogs if the Sergeant was taken away, but McCandless shot the amiable Major

    a harsh look that was sufficient to silence him.
    “I want Lieutenant Dodd captured,” McCandless said implacably, 'and I want him tried,

    and I want him executed, and I need someone who will know him by sight."
    Major Stokes summoned the courage to continue his objections.
    “But I need Sergeant Sharpe,” he protested.
    “He organizes everything! The duty rosters, the stores, the pay chest,

    everything!”
    “I need him more,” McCandless snarled, turning on the hapless Major.
    “Do you know how many Britons are in India, Major? Maybe twelve thousand, and less than

    half of those are soldiers. Our power does not rest on the shoulders of white men, Major,

    but on the muskets of our sepoys. Nine men out of every ten who invade the Mahratta states

    will be sepoys, and Lieutenant Dodd persuaded over a hundred of those men to desert! To

    desert! Can you imagine our fate if the other sepoys