The Great Ellini (Book One of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Sixty Three: The Cavalry

Lucknow, 1876:

The army lined up on the plain outside Lucknow was insultingly small, and just out of range of the field guns mounted on the city walls. Jack had been placed at the head of it as an added temptation. He liked to think the Lieutenant-governor was up there, watching him through an eyeglass, seething with impatience to swat him away.

He wasn't disappointed by the response. Within half an hour of his arrival, the ponderous city gates were being swung open, and the Lieutenant-governor was leading a sortie out of the city to scratch the itch that had been placed so tantalizingly out of reach.

Of course, this was all part of the plan—and he was relishing every second of it—but Jack couldn't help admitting, as he sat in the saddle at the head of his tiny band of men, that the Lieutenant-governor's army looked frightening. Perhaps two hundred cavalrymen, and five hundred foot-soldiers in the rear, ready to spike you with a bayonet once the cavalry had knocked you off your horse.

There were so many ways this could go wrong. The thought of them was making his heart race and his mouth water.

The light cavalry came at them first, like darting silver needles threading through the ranks of Jack's men. They were sparse and quick, armed with those light carbines which allowed them to shoot and ride with lightning-like ease.

Jack spurred his horse into a gallop and bent low over its neck to try and avoid the rain of bullets. He could already hear shouts and explosions coming from the city gates, behind the Lieutenant-governor's regiment. Now people were pouring out—not mounted on horseback and organized into columns, but haphazardly, stumbling over their feet, as though they were fleeing something dire and dreadful behind them. Some of them had thrown their rifles to the ground to get a better turn of speed.

Jack half-closed his eyes and counted under his breath. Nothing too dramatic yet. The Lieutenant-governor's regiment hadn't noticed that their fellow soldiers from inside the city were deserting their posts. It would be a few more seconds. Alim was to wait until the heavy cavalry was in shooting-range of Jack's men, and Alim's timing was legendary.

Tongue between his teeth, Jack balanced his rifle on the back of his horse's neck, took careful aim, and fired.

He loved moments like this. On the rare occasions when he had played piano as part of an orchestra, he'd felt a similar sensation. It was wonderful to just melt into the rhythm of a huge, complex, collective enterprise—to know exactly when the violins were going to break in, and when you were supposed to back them up.

And, oddly enough, he had imagined it as a battle. He had pictured each part of the symphony as a different stage of attack. The flutes were like light cavalry, darting in and then feinting back. The percussion was the steady thud of the infantry. The violins were like a rain of arrows sweeping across the sky, and the cymbals were the soldier nearest you getting smashed in the face with a rifle-butt.

He ducked in his saddle to avoid a bayonet wielded by one of the light cavalrymen. Good God, this was risky. It would only take one stray bullet or bit of shrapnel, and he'd never see Ellini again. But if he survived—and if he won—what a hero he would be. She might even voluntarily put her book down when he walked into the room.

He jerked his horse to one side to avoid another bayonet, and that was when he heard the whistling sound of a shell being fired from the field guns on top of the city walls. It was such a clean, shrill, perfect sound against the low rumble of the horses' hooves and the clattering gunfire. It was so beautifully timed that he wanted to clap. Oh, Alim would have made a great musician, if he hadn't seen that sort of thing as a frivolous waste of time.