"No!" Crosby shouted.

Dodd smiled.

"I assume you're surrendering the fort to me, Crosby?"

"Damn you," Crosby riposted feebly.

"You drink too much, Major," Dodd said. "The whole Company knows you're a sot. Didn't put up much of a fight, did you?"

He pulled the trigger and Crosby's head was snatched back in a mist of blood that spattered onto the canvas.

"Pity you're English," Dodd said. "I'd much rather shoot a Scotsman."

The dying Major made a terrible gurgling sound, then his body jerked uncontrollably and was finally still.

"Praise the Lord, pull down the flag and find the pay chest," Dodd said to himself, then he stepped over the Major's corpse to see that the pay chest was where he expected it to be, under the bed.

"Subadar?"

"Sahib?"

"Two men here to guard the pay chest."

"Sahib!"

Major Dodd hurried back onto the parade ground where a small group of redcoats, British redcoats, were offering defiance, and he wanted to make sure that his sepoys took care of them, but a havildar had anticipated Dodd's orders and was leading a squad of men against the half-dozen soldiers.

"Put the blades in!" Dodd encouraged them. "Hard in! Twist them in! That's the way! Watch your left! Left!" His voice was urgent for a tall sergeant had suddenly appeared from behind the cook house — a white man with a musket and bayonet in his hands, but one of the sepoys still had a loaded musket of his own and he twisted, aimed and fired and Dodd saw another mist of bright blood sparkle in the sunlight. The sergeant had been hit in the head. He stopped, looked surprised as the musket fell from his hands and as blood streamed down his face, then he fell backwards and was still.

"Search for the rest of the bastards!" Dodd ordered, knowing that there must still be a score of the garrison hidden in the barracks.