The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [298]
Now a stomach-turning howl rose from the advancing natives; the sowars spurred forward, the infantry broke into a trot, bayonets at the ready; behind them a curtain of yellow dust climbed into the heat-distorted air. At two hundred yards Harry gave Ram the order to fire; once again there was a crash that sent the debris dancing on the flagstones; but this time there was no round shot or shrapnel shell to be seen sailing towards the river...only a solid-looking ball of smoke driven from the muzzle by a jet of flame. Yet now they saw the dreadful effect as the oncoming men and horses were sprayed with the invisible lead balls. The fierce cry became swollen with the shrieks of the wounded...The charge faltered, then continued as the wave of dust rolled forward and swallowed up the scene of carnage.
They worked desperately to re-load the cannon. Fleury sponged and then primed the vent with a shaking hand that scattered powder everywhere, while the Padre, his puny ecclesiastical arms scarcely able to heft such a burden, handed the morbid canister to Ram, and Harry spun the elevating screw until it marked point blank.
But how few seconds it takes a galloping horseman to cover two hundred yards! Already, by the time Harry, grabbing the portfire in his excitement, had touched it to the vent, the leading sowars had ridden under the muzzle and were spurring along the rampart lopping the heads off Eurasians and planters as if they had been dandelions. But again the gun vomited its metal meal into the faces of the advancing sepoys, this time into the very midst of their cavalry. Men and horses melted into the ground like wax at the touch of its searing breath. Death, whirring on its great pinions high above, plummeted down to seize its prey.
Again they wrenched and prodded and fumbled to load the six-pounder. Fleury’s hand was now shaking so much that he seemed to spray priming powder everywhere but in the vent and Harry prayed that there would be enough to fire the charge, for if it failed there would be no second chance. He could now see the silhouettes of the sepoy infantry as they plunged through the veil of dust with sparkling bayonets.
“Even among insects God has not left himself without witness,” wailed the Padre. “Is not the proboscis of the bee designed for drawing nectar from flowers?”
Harry touched the portfire to the vent and in front of the rampart the advancing infantry, like the legs of a monstrous millipede whose body was hidden in the dust cloud above them, collapsed all together, writhed, and lay still. The men behind who were still on their feet hesitated, unable to see what lay ahead of them in the dust. All they could see was the looming shape of the banqueting hall and, startling in their clarity, two vast, white faces, calmly gazing towards them with expressions of perfect wisdom, understanding and compassion. The sepoys quailed at the sight of such invincible superiority.
“Come on,” shouted Harry, and grasping their sabres he and Fleury blundered through the dark banqueting hall and out into the light again. Here they were met with a terrible sight, two sowars were in the act of cleaving the skull of the last of the Eurasian defenders. Harry grasped a riderless horse, swung himself into the saddle and charged headlong as the two sowars turned away from their fatal business; but they were both ready for him and both cut at him simultaneously as he was sent flying by the momentum with which his horse came into contact with theirs. One cut missed, the other laid open his tunic at the breast. He lay still and the sowars turned away, leaving him for dead. Meanwhile, in unmilitary fashion, Fleury had come hareing up behind them on tiptoe and now he dealt the nearest a blow in the face which dropped him from his horse. The other sowar promply spurred after Fleury with his lance, driving his horse up the steps of the banqueting hall, chasing him in and out of the “Greek” pillars and then down the steps again, so close that Fleury