The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell [108]
“Come on! The guns!”
Throwing down the Eradicator (which he now realized had certain flaws of design) Fleury followed Harry through the choking yellow fog. Lieutenant Peterson was already labouring with two Sikhs to limber up a six-pounder to bring back to their lines; Mr Ford and an indigo planter were working to silence the dreaded eighteen-pounder.
“Spike the twelve-pounder!” shouted Harry and handed Fleury a six-inch nail. Fleury took the nail but shouted back: “Alright but where’s the spike?”
“The nail, you fool! Hammer it into the vent and then break it off.”
Nobody likes to be called a fool...even less a person of Fleury’s intelligence...Least of all, a person of Fleury’s intelligence by a person of Harry’s. And how was Fleury to know that spiking guns did not mean what it said (and what any normally intelligent person would have thought it meant: namely, hammering a large spike into the muzzle) but something quite different? Decidedly, Harry was letting his military training go to his head, but he had already hurried away to hammer nails into other guns, so Fleury, too, set to work and made rather a good job, he thought, of spiking the twelve-pounder.
The six-pounder and a howitzer were dragged away by Sikhs towards the Residency ramparts. Lieutenant Peterson shouted the order to retreat; the yellow fog had now cleared to a light, sparkling mist and the sepoys were re-grouping to launch a counter-attack. Now only Lieutenant Peterson himself lingered. He had found one of the sepoy ammunition stores, had quickly scattered a train of powder to it, and was now attempting to fire it. At last, he succeeded, swung himself into the saddle and was away. His horse cleared the sepoy rampart and sped like an arrow after his men across the open ground. Suddenly they saw him hit. He slid out of the saddle and bounced in the dust. Without hesitation both Harry and Fleury turned their horses and spurred back to where he lay. Fleury rode on to catch the reins of the Lieutenant’s horse while Harry tried to lift him from the ground. Then together they struggled to get him into the saddle, but again he was hit. They felt his body shudder as another ball struck him in the back and they were obliged to give up the attempt. At this moment there was a great flash and an explosion rang around the plain. Harry and Fleury knelt beside Peterson and shook hands with him for the last time, and as they did so the pallor of death came over his face. Fleury struggled for a moment to remove the locket from around his neck to bring back to his wife, but it was too securely fastened. Then they were both in the saddle once more and riding for the safety of the Residency rampart. They sailed over it at last, accompanied by a volley of musket balls.
16
In spite of his difficulties with the Eradicator Fleury came very well out of this attack. He and Harry had both behaved with great bravery in full view of everyone. The ladies in the billiard room, who had been reciting the litany throughout the attack, were chattering with excitement and could talk of little else. Perhaps, if one takes the long view, this gallant action might be seen as a solstice in Fleury’s life, for from now on as the days went by he grew steadily less responsive to beauty and steadily more bluff, good-natured and interested in physical things. So pleased was he, so busily engaged in modest assurances that anyone would have done the same in his place, that when at dusk he paid his usual evening visit to the Residency and found Miriam, Louise, Harry and Lucy (whom they had felt sorry for) waiting to lead him to a special celebration, his birthday had gone completely out of his mind. And it was a splendid affair, for Lucy, who was good at that sort