Pegu was not as Jack remembered it. British and sepoy infantry patrolled between the huts where laughing Peguese had entertained him and his men with their impromptu pwe. Garrison troops and commissariat stores filled the upper storey of the three-storey pagoda and cannon poked black snouts from behind hastily built walls.
Jack stood back and studied the defences. Years of neglect had reduced parts of the pagoda to disrepair with silvery, reedy grass growing through the crumbling brickwork nearly everywhere he looked. It was not an impressive barrier behind which the garrison rested.
"We"re in a bad position here,." Major Hill spoke to his officers as they stood on the walls. "We are cut off from the main British army and outnumbered by a considerable Burmese force. We must make our stan
