Sharpe’s Tiger: The Siege of Seringapatam, 1799
Sharpe’s Tiger: The Siege of Seringapatam, 1799
Bernard Cornwell
Richard Sharpe avoids the tyrannical Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill and endeavours to rescue a British officer from under the nose of the Tippoo of Mysore.But in fleeing Hakeswill, Sharpe enters the exotic and dangerous world of the Tippoo. An adventure that will require all of his wits just to stay alive, let alone save the British army from catastrophe.Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
SHARPE’S
TIGER
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of
Seringapatam, 1799
BERNARD CORNWELL
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 1997
Map © Ken Lewis
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018. Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006490357
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007334537
Version: 2018-04-17
Sharpe’s Tiger is for Muir Sutherland and Malcolm Craddock, with many thanks
‘Cornwell’s combination of breakneck action and pigheaded man behaving badly – but with dazzling brio – is unbeatable. His historical setting is well observed, adding a degree of poignancy: an ancient civilisation destroyed by an army of brutalised illiterates, confused and far from home, but dogged and unquestionably brave’
Daily Telegraph
Contents
Title Page (#u712a1d32-e897-5670-86e2-e9b7d5cceece)
Copyright (#ud79314fc-7541-5bd1-ac61-736027c5ecf1)
Dedication (#u19bd69d7-eddd-5d5c-9a9e-9ee146a16ae5)
Praise (#u9c6e6141-0b79-507a-ba2c-fd38079da7a7)
Map (#u1e75ba40-5e61-5ca3-a9f4-04014c3d7e27)
Chapter One (#ud4fd9672-2148-5edc-8bd5-cba3693dd9ba)
Chapter Two (#u762388f9-2fad-51e9-a48e-52f5567b9de4)
Chapter Three (#ud7116216-f9ec-5026-b1cf-80233ffc0080)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading
Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Sharpe’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
The SHARPE Series (in chronological order) (#litres_trial_promo)
The SHARPE Series (in order of publication) (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Bernard Cornwell (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
It was funny, Richard Sharpe thought, that there were no vultures in England. None that he had seen, anyway. Ugly things they were. Rats with wings.
He thought about vultures a lot, and he had a lot of time to think because he was a soldier, a private, and so the army insisted on doing a lot of his thinking for him. The army decided when he woke up, when he slept, when he ate, when he marched, and when he was to sit about doing nothing and that was what he did most of the time – nothing. Hurry up and do nothing, that was the army’s way of doing things, and he was fed up with it. He was bored and thinking of running.
Him and Mary. Run away. Desert. He was thinking about it now, and it was an odd thing to worry about right now because the army was about to give Richard Sharpe his first proper battle. He had been in one fight, but that was five years ago and it had been a messy, confused business in fog, and no one had known why the 33rd Regiment was in Flanders or what they were supposed to be doing there, and in the end they had done nothing except fire some shots at the mist-shrouded French and the whole thing had been over almost before young Richard Sharpe had known it had begun. He had seen a couple of men killed. He remembered Sergeant Hawthorne’s death best because the Sergeant had been hit by a musket ball that drove a rib clean out of his red coat. There was hardly a drop of blood to be seen, just the white rib sticking out of the faded red cloth. ‘You could hang your hat on that,’ Hawthorne had said in a tone of wonder, then he had sobbed, and after that he had choked up blood and collapsed. Sharpe had gone on loading and firing, and then, just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, the battalion had marched away and sailed back to England. Some battle.
Now he was in India. He did not know why he was invading Mysore and nor did he particularly care. King George III wanted Richard Sharpe to be in India, so in India Richard Sharpe was, but Richard Sharpe had now become bored with the King’s service. He was young and he reckoned life had more to offer than hurrying up and doing nothing. There was money to be made. He was not sure how to make money, except by thieving, but he did know that he was bored and that he could do better than stay on the bottom of the dungheap. That was where he was, he kept telling himself, the bottom of a dungheap and everyone knew what was piled on top of a dungheap. Better to run, he told himself. All that was needed to get ahead in the world was a bit of sense and the ability to kick a bastard faster than the bastard could kick you, and Richard Sharpe reckoned he had those talents right enough.
Though where to run in India? Half the natives seemed to be in British pay and those would turn you in for a handful of tin pice, and the pice was only worth a farthing, and the other Indians were all fighting against the British, or readying to fight them, and if he ran to them he would just be forced to serve in their armies. He would fetch more pay in a native army, probably far more than the tuppence a day Sharpe got now after stoppages, but why change one uniform for another? No, he would have to run to some place where the army would never find him, or else it would be the firing squad on some hot morning. A blast of musket shots, a scrape in the red earth for a grave, and next day the rats with wings would be yanking the guts out of your belly like a bunch of blackbirds tugging worms out of a lawn.
That was why he was thinking about vultures. He was thinking that he wanted to run, but that he did not want to feed the vultures. Do not get caught. Rule number one in the army, and the only rule that mattered. Because if you got caught the bastards would flog you to death or else reorganize your ribs with musket balls, and either way the vultures got fat.
The vultures were always there, sometimes circling on long wings that tilted to the sudden winds of the warm upper air and sometimes standing hunched on branches. They fed on death and a marching army gave them a glutton’s diet, and now, in this last year of the eighteenth century, two allied armies were crossing this hot fertile plain in southern India. One was a British army and the other belonged to a British ally, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and both armies provided a feast of vulture fodder. Horses died, oxen died, camels died, even two of the elephants that had seemed so indestructible had died, and then the people died. The twin armies had a tail ten times longer than themselves: a great sprawl of camp followers, merchants, herders, whores, wives, and children, and among all of those people, as it did among the armies themselves, the plagues ran riot. Men died with bloody dysentery, or shaking with a fever or choking on their own vomit. They died struggling for breath or drenched in sweat or raving like mad things or with skins blistered raw. Men, women and children all died, and whether they were buried or burned it did not matter because, in the end, the vultures fed on them anyway, for there was never enough time nor sufficient timber to make a proper funeral pyre and so the vultures would rip the half-cooked flesh off the scorched bones, and if the bodies were buried then no amount of stones heaped on the soil would stop the scavenging beasts from digging up the swollen, rotting flesh and the vultures’ hooked beaks took what the ravenous teeth left behind.
And this hot March day promised food in abundance and the vultures seemed to sense it for, as the early afternoon passed, more and more birds joined the spiring column of wings that circled above the marching men. The birds did not flap their wings, but simply soared in the warm air as they glided, tilted, slid and waited, always waited, as if they knew that death’s succulence would fill their gullets soon enough. ‘Ugly bastard birds,’ Sharpe said, ‘just rats with wings,’ but no one in the 33rd’s Light Company answered him. No one had the breath to answer him. The air was choking from the dust kicked up by the men ahead so that the rearward ranks stumbled through a warm, gritty mix that parched their throats and stung their eyes. Most of the men were not even aware of the vultures, while others were so weary that they had not even noticed the troop of cavalry that had suddenly appeared a half-mile to the north. The horsemen trotted beside a grove of trees that were bright with red blossom, then accelerated away. Their drawn sabres flashed reflected sunlight as they wheeled away from the infantrymen, but then, as inexplicably as they had hurried and swerved away, they suddenly stopped. Sharpe noticed them. British cavalry, they were. The fancy boys come to see how proper soldiers fought.
Ahead, from the low rise of land where a second group of horsemen was silhouetted against the furnace whiteness of the sky, a gun fired. The crack of the cannon was immense, a billow of sound that punched hollow and malignant across the plain. The gun’s smoke billowed white as the heavy ball thrashed into some bushes, tore leaves and blossoms to tatters, struck dust from the baked ground, then ran on in ever decreasing bounces to lodge against a gnarled fallen tree from which a pale shower of decaying wood spurted. The shot had missed the red-coated infantry by a good two hundred paces, but the sound of the cannon woke up the weary. ‘Jesus!’ a voice in the rear file said. ‘What was that?’
‘A bleeding camel farted, what the hell do you think it was?’ a corporal answered.
‘It was a bloody awful shot,’ Sharpe said. ‘My mother could lay a gun better than that.’
‘I didn’t think you had a mother,’ Private Garrard said.
‘Everyone’s got a mother, Tom.’
‘Not Sergeant Hakeswill,’ Garrard said, then spat a mix of dust and spittle. The column of men had momentarily halted, not because of any orders, but rather because the cannon shot had unnerved the officer leading the front company who was no longer sure exactly where he was supposed to lead the battalion. ‘Hakeswill wasn’t born of a mother,’ Garrard said vehemently. He took off his shako and used his sleeve to wipe the dust and sweat from his face. The woollen sleeve left a faint trace of red dye on his forehead. ‘Hakeswill was spawned of the devil,’ Garrard said, jamming the shako back on his white-powdered hair.
Sharpe wondered whether Tom Garrard would run with him. Two men might survive better than one. And what about Mary? Would she come? He thought about Mary a lot, when he was not thinking about everything else, except that Mary was inextricably twisted into everything else. It was confusing. She was Sergeant Bickerstaff’s widow and she was half Indian and half English and she was twenty-two, which was the same age as Sharpe, or at least he thought it was the same age. It could be that he was twenty-one, or twenty-three; he was not really sure on account of not ever having had a mother to tell him. Of course he did have a mother, everyone had a mother, but not everyone had a Cat Lane whore for a mother who disappeared just after her son was born. The child had been named for the wealthy patron of the foundling home that had raised him, but the naming had not brought Richard Sharpe any patronage, only brought him to the reeking bottom of the army’s dungheap. Still, Sharpe reckoned, he could have a future, and Mary spoke one or two Indian languages which could be useful if he and Tom did run.
The cavalry off to Sharpe’s right spurred into a trot again and disappeared beyond the red-blossomed trees, leaving only a drifting cloud of dust behind. Two galloper guns, light six-pounder cannons, followed them, bouncing dangerously on the uneven ground behind their teams of horses. Every other cannon in the army was drawn by oxen, but the galloper guns had horse teams that were three times as fast as the plodding draught cattle. The lone enemy cannon fired again, its brutal sound punching the warm air with an almost palpable impact. Sharpe could see more enemy guns on the ridge, but they were smaller than the gun that had just fired and Sharpe presumed they did not have the long range of the bigger cannon. Then he saw a trace of grey in the air, a flicker like a vertical pencil stroke drawn against the pale blue sky and he knew that the big gun’s shot must be coming straight towards him, and he knew too that there was no wind to carry the heavy ball gently aside, and all that he realized in the second or so that the ball was in the air, too short a time to react, only to recognize death’s approach, but then the ball slammed into the ground a dozen paces short of him and bounced on up over his head to run harmlessly into a field of sugar cane. ‘I reckon the bastards have got your mother laying the gun now, Dick,’ Garrard said.
‘No talking now!’ Sergeant Hakeswill’s voice screeched suddenly. ‘Save your godless breath. Was that you talking, Garrard?’
‘Not me, Sarge. Ain’t got the breath.’
‘You ain’t got the breath?’ Sergeant Hakeswill came hurrying down the company’s ranks and thrust his face up towards Garrard. ‘You ain’t got the breath? That means you’re dead, Private Garrard! Dead! No use to King or country if you’s dead, but you never was any bleeding use anyway.’ The Sergeant’s malevolent eyes flicked to Sharpe. ‘Was it you talking, Sharpie?’
‘Not me, Sarge.’
‘You ain’t got orders to talk. If the King wanted you to have a conversation I’d have told you so. Says so in the scriptures. Give me your firelock, Sharpie. Quick now!’
Sharpe handed his musket to the Sergeant. It was Hakeswill’s arrival in the company that had persuaded Sharpe that it was time to run from the army. He had been bored anyway, but Hakeswill had added injustice to boredom. Not that Sharpe cared about injustice, for only the rich had justice in this world, but Hakeswill’s injustice was touched with such malevolence that there was hardly a man in the Light Company not ready to rebel, and all that kept them from mutiny was the knowledge that Hakeswill understood their desire, wanted it and wanted to punish them for it. He was a great man for provoking insolence and then punishing it. He was always two steps ahead of you, waiting round a corner with a bludgeon. He was a devil, was Hakeswill, a devil in a smart red coat decorated with a sergeant’s badges.
Yet to look at Hakeswill was to see the perfect soldier. It was true that his oddly lumpy face twitched every few seconds as though an evil spirit was twisting and jerking just beneath his sun-reddened skin, but his eyes were blue, his hair was powdered as white as the snow that never fell on this land, and his uniform was as smart as though he stood guard at Windsor Castle. He performed drill like a Prussian, each movement so crisp and clean that it was a pleasure to watch, but then the face would twitch and his oddly childlike eyes would flicker a sideways glance and you could see the devil peering out. Back when he had been a recruiting sergeant Hakeswill had taken care not to let the devil show, and that was when Sharpe had first met him, but now, when the Sergeant no longer needed to gull and trick young fools into the ranks, Hakeswill did not care who saw his malignancy.
Sharpe stood motionless as the Sergeant untied the scrap of rag that Sharpe used to protect his musket’s lock from the insidious red dust. Hakeswill peered at the lock, found nothing wrong, then turned away from Sharpe so that the sun could fall full on the weapon. He peered again, cocked the gun, dry-fired it, then seemed to lose interest in the musket as a group of officers spurred their horses towards the head of the stalled column. ‘Company!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Company! ’Shun!’
The men shuffled their feet together and straightened as the three officers galloped past. Hakeswill had stiffened into a grotesque pose; his right boot tucked behind his left, his legs straight, his head and shoulders thrown back, his belly thrust forward and his bent elbows straining to meet in the concavity at the small of his back. None of the other companies of the King’s 33rd Regiment had been stood to attention in honour of the passing officers, but Hakeswill’s gesture of respect was nevertheless ignored. The neglect had no effect on the Sergeant who, when the trio of officers had gone past, shouted at the company to stand easy and then peered again at Sharpe’s musket.
‘You’ll not find ’owt wrong with it, Sarge,’ Sharpe said.
Hakeswill, still standing at attention, did an elaborate about turn, his right boot thumping down to the ground. ‘Did I hear me give you permission to speak, Sharpie?’
‘No, Sarge.’
‘No, Sarge. No, you did not. Flogging offence that, Sharpie.’ Hakeswill’s right cheek twitched with the involuntary spasm that disfigured his face every few seconds and the vehement evil of the face was suddenly so intense that the whole Light Company momentarily held its breath in expectation of Sharpe’s arrest, but then the thumping discharge of the enemy cannon rolled across the countryside and the heavy ball splashed and bounced and tore its way through a bright-green patch of growing rice, and the violence of the harmless missile served to distract Hakeswill who turned to watch as the ball rolled to a stop. ‘Poor bloody shooting,’ Hakeswill said scathingly. ‘Heathens can’t lay guns, I dare say. Or maybe they’re toying with us. Toying!’ The thought made him laugh. It was not, Sharpe suspected, the anticipation of excitement that had brought Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill to this state of near joviality, but rather the thought that a battle would cause casualties and misery, and misery was the Sergeant’s delight. He liked to see men cowed and frightened, for that made them biddable, and Sergeant Hakeswill was always at his happiest when he was in control of unhappy men.
The three officers had stopped their horses at the head of the column and now used telescopes to inspect the distant ridge which was clouded by a ragged fringe of smoke left from the last discharge of the enemy cannon. ‘That’s our Colonel, boys,’ Hakeswill announced to the 33rd’s Light Company, ‘Colonel Arthur Wellesley himself, God bless him for a gentleman, which he is and you ain’t. He’s come to see you fight, so make sure you do. Fight like the Englishmen you are.’
‘I’m a Scot,’ a sour voice spoke from the rear rank.
‘I heard that! Who said that?’ Hakeswill glared at the company, his face twitching uncontrollably. In a less blithe mood the Sergeant would have ferreted out the speaker and punished him, but the excitement of pending battle persuaded him to let the offence pass. ‘A Scot!’ he said derisively instead. ‘What is the finest thing a Scotsman ever saw? Answer me that!’ No one did. ‘The high road to England, that’s what. Says so in the scriptures, so it must be true.’ He hefted Sharpe’s musket as he looked down the waiting ranks. ‘I shall be watching you,’ he snarled. ‘You ain’t none of you been in a proper fight before, not a proper fight, but on the other side of that bleeding hill there’s a horde of black-faced heathens what can’t wait to lay their filthy hands on your womenfolk, so if so much as one of you turns his back I’ll have the skin off the lot of you! Bare bones and blood, that’s what you’ll be. But you does your duty and obeys your orders and you can’t go wrong. And who gives the orders?’
The Sergeant waited for an answer and eventually Private Mallinson offered one. ‘The officers, Sergeant.’
‘The officers! The officers!’ Hakeswill spat his disgust at the answer. ‘Officers are here to show us what we are fighting for. Gentlemen, they are. Proper gentlemen! Men of property and breeding, not broken potboys and scarlet-coated pickpockets like what you are. Sergeants give the orders. Sergeants is what the army is. Remember that, lads! You’re about to go into battle against heathens and if you ignore me then you’ll be dead men!’ The face twitched grotesquely, its jaw wrenched suddenly sideways, and Sharpe, watching the Sergeant’s face, wondered if it was nervousness that had made Hakeswill so voluble. ‘But keeps your eyes on me, lads,’ Hakeswill went on, ‘and you’ll be right as trivets. And you know why?’ He cried the last word out in a high dramatic tone as he stalked down the Light Company’s front rank. ‘You know why?’ he asked again, now sounding like some dissenting preacher ranting in a hedgerow. ‘Because I cannot die, boys, I cannot die!’ He was suddenly intense, his voice hoarse and full of fervour as he spoke. It was a speech that all the Light Company had heard many times before, but it was remarkable for all that, though Sergeant Green, who was outranked by Hakeswill, turned away in disgust. Hakeswill jeered at Green, then tugged at the tight constriction of the leather stock that circled his neck, pulling it down so that an old dark scar was visible at his throat. ‘The hangman’s noose, boys!’ he cried. ‘That’s what marked me there, the hangman’s noose! See it? See it? But I am alive, boys, alive and on two feet instead of being buried under the sod, proof as never was that you needs not die!’ His face twitched again as he released the stock. ‘Marked by God,’ he finished, his voice gruff with emotion, ‘that’s what I am, marked by God!’
‘Mad as a hare,’ Tom Garrard muttered.
‘Did you speak, Sharpie!’ Hakeswill whipped around to stare at Sharpe, but Sharpe was so palpably still and staring mutely ahead that his innocence was indisputable. Hakeswill paced back down the Light Company. ‘I have watched men die, better men than any of you pieces of scum, proper men, but God has spared me! So you do what I says, boys, or else you’ll be carrion.’ He abruptly thrust the musket back into Sharpe’s hands. ‘Clean weapon, Sharpie. Well done, lad.’ He paced smartly away and Sharpe, to his surprise, saw that the scrap of rag had been neatly retied about the lock.
The compliment to Sharpe had astonished all the Light Company. ‘He’s in a rare good mood,’ Garrard said.
‘I heard that, Private Garrard!’ Hakeswill shouted over his shoulder. ‘Got ears in the back of me head, I have. Silence now. Don’t want no heathen horde thinking you’re frit! You’re white men, remember, bleached in the cleansing blood of the bleeding lamb, so no bleeding talking in the ranks! Nice and quiet, like them bleeding nuns what never utters a sound on account of having had their papist tongues cut out.’ He suddenly crashed to attention once again and saluted by bringing his spear-tipped halberd across his body. ‘Company all present, sir!’ he shouted in a voice that must have been audible on the enemy-held ridge. ‘All present and quiet, sir! Have their backs whipped bloody else, sir.’
Lieutenant William Lawford curbed his horse and nodded at Sergeant Hakeswill. Lawford was the Light Company’s second officer, junior to Captain Morris and senior to the brace of young ensigns, but he was newly arrived in the battalion and was as frightened of Hakeswill as were the men in the ranks. ‘The men can talk, Sergeant,’ Lawford observed mildly. ‘The other companies aren’t silent.’
‘No, sir. Must save their breath, sir. Too bleeding hot to talk, sir, and besides, they got heathens to kill, sir, mustn’t waste breath on chit-chat, not when there are black-faced heathens to kill, sir. Says so in the scriptures, sir.’
‘If you say so, Sergeant,’ Lawford said, unwilling to provoke a confrontation, then he found he had nothing else to say and so, awkwardly aware of the scrutiny of the Light Company’s seventy-six men, he stared at the enemy-held ridge. But he was also conscious of having ignominiously surrendered to the will of Sergeant Hakeswill and so he slowly coloured as he gazed towards the west. Lawford was popular, but thought to be weak, though Sharpe was not so sure of that judgement. He thought the Lieutenant was still finding his way among the strange and sometimes frightening human currents that made up the 33rd, and that in time Lawford would prove a tough and resilient officer. For now, though, William Lawford was twenty-four years old and had only recently purchased his lieutenancy, and that made him unsure of his authority.
Ensign Fitzgerald, who was only eighteen, strolled back from the column’s head. He was whistling as he walked and slashing with a drawn sabre at tall weeds. ‘Off in a moment, sir,’ he called up cheerfully to Lawford, then seemed to become aware of the Light Company’s ominous silence. ‘Not frightened, are you?’ he asked.
‘Saving their breath, Mister Fitzgerald, sir,’ Hakeswill snapped.
‘They’ve got breath enough to sing a dozen songs and still beat the enemy,’ Fitzgerald said scornfully. ‘Ain’t that so, lads?’
‘We’ll beat the bastards, sir,’ Tom Garrard said.
‘Then let me hear you sing,’ Fitzgerald demanded. ‘Can’t bear silence. We’ll have a quiet time in our tombs, lads, so we might as well make a noise now.’ Fitzgerald had a fine tenor voice that he used to start the song about the milkmaid and the rector, and by the time the Light Company had reached the verse that told how the naked rector, blindfolded by the milkmaid and thinking he was about to have his heart’s desire, was being steered towards Bessie the cow, the whole company was bawling the song enthusiastically.
They never did reach the end. Captain Morris, the Light Company’s commanding officer, rode back from the head of the battalion and interrupted the singing. ‘Half-companies!’ he shouted at Hakeswill.
‘Half-companies it is, sir! At once, sir. Light Company! Stop your bleeding noise! You heard the officer!’ Hakeswill bellowed. ‘Sergeant Green! Take charge of the after ranks. Mister Fitzgerald! I’ll trouble you to take your proper place on the left, sir. Forward ranks! Shoulder firelocks! Twenty paces, forward, march! Smartly now! Smartly!’
Hakeswill’s face shuddered as the front ten ranks of the company marched twenty paces and halted, leaving the other nine ranks behind. All along the battalion column the companies were similarly dividing, their drill as crisp as though they were back on their Yorkshire parade ground. A quarter-mile off to the 33rd’s left another six battalions were going through the same manoeuvre, and performing it with just as much precision. Those six battalions were all native soldiers in the service of the East India Company, though they wore red coats just like the King’s men. The six sepoy battalions shook out their colours and Sharpe, seeing the bright flags, looked ahead to where the 33rd’s two great regimental banners were being loosed from their leather tubes to the fierce Indian sun. The first, the King’s Colour, was a British flag on which the regiment’s battle honours were embroidered, while the second was the Regimental Colour and had the 33rd’s badge displayed on a scarlet field, the same scarlet as the men’s jacket facings. The tasselled silk banners blazed, and the sight of them prompted a sudden cannonade from the ridge. Till now there had only been the one heavy gun firing, but abruptly six other cannon joined the fight. The new guns were smaller and their round shot fell well short of the seven battalions.
Major Shee, the Irishman who commanded the 33rd while its Colonel, Arthur Wellesley, had control of the whole brigade, cantered his horse back, spoke briefly to Morris, then wheeled away towards the head of the column. ‘We’re going to push the bastards off the ridge!’ Morris shouted at the Light Company, then bent his head to light a cigar with a tinderbox. ‘Any bastard that turns tail, Sergeant,’ Morris went on when his cigar was properly alight, ‘will be shot. You hear me?’
‘Loud and clear, sir!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Shot, sir! Shot like the coward he is.’ He turned and scowled at the two half-companies. ‘Shot! And your names posted in your church porch at home as the cowards you are. So fight like Englishmen!’
‘Scotsmen,’ a voice growled behind Sharpe, but too softly for Hakeswill to hear.
‘Irish,’ another man said.
‘We ain’t none of us cowards,’ Garrard said more loudly.
Sergeant Green, a decent man, hushed him. ‘Quiet, lads. I know you’ll do your duty.’
The front of the column was marching now, but the rearmost companies were kept waiting so that the battalion could advance with wide intervals between its twenty half-companies. Sharpe guessed that the scattered formation was intended to reduce any casualties caused by the enemy’s bombardment which, because it was still being fired at extreme range, was doing no damage. Behind him, a long way behind, the rest of the allied armies were waiting for the ridge to be cleared. That mass looked like a formidable horde, but Sharpe knew that most of what he saw was the two armies’ civilian tail: the chaos of merchants, wives, sutlers and herdsmen who kept the fighting soldiers alive and whose supplies would make the siege of the enemy’s capital possible. It needed more than six thousand oxen just to carry the cannonballs for the big siege guns, and all those oxen had to be herded and fed and the herdsmen all travelled with their families who, in turn, needed more oxen to carry their own supplies. Lieutenant Lawford had once remarked that the expedition did not look like an army on the march, but like a great migrating tribe. The vast horde of civilians and animals was encircled by a thin crust of red-coated infantry, most of them Indian sepoys, whose job was to protect the merchants, ammunition and draught animals from the quick-riding, hard-hitting light cavalry of the Tippoo Sultan.
The Tippoo Sultan. The enemy. The tyrant of Mysore and the man who was presumably directing the gunfire on the ridge. The Tippoo ruled Mysore and he was the enemy, but what he was, or why he was an enemy, or whether he was a tyrant, beast or demigod, Sharpe had no idea. Sharpe was here because he was a soldier and it was sufficient that he had been told that the Tippoo Sultan was his enemy and so he waited patiently under the Indian sun that was soaking his lean tall body in sweat.
Captain Morris leaned on his saddle’s pommel. He took off his cocked hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief that had been soaked in cologne water. He had been drunk the previous night and his stomach was still churning with pain and wind. If the battalion had not been going into battle he would have galloped away, found a private spot and voided his bowels, but he could hardly do that now in case his men thought it a sign of weakness and so he raised his canteen instead and swallowed some arrack in the hope that the harsh spirit would calm the turmoil in his belly. ‘Now, Sergeant!’ he called when the company in front had moved sufficiently far ahead.
‘Forward half-company!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Forward march! Smartly now!’
Lieutenant Lawford, given supervision of the last half-company of the battalion, waited until Hakeswill’s men had marched twenty paces, then nodded at Sergeant Green. ‘Forward, Sergeant.’
The redcoats marched with unloaded muskets for the enemy was still a long way off and there was no sign of the Tippoo Sultan’s infantry, nor of his feared cavalry. There were only the enemy’s guns and, high in the fierce sky, the circling vultures. Sharpe was in the leading rank of the final half-company and Lieutenant Lawford, glancing at him, thought once again what a fine-looking man Sharpe was. There was a confidence in Sharpe’s thin, sun-darkened face and hard blue eyes that spoke of an easy competence, and that appearance was a comfort to a young nervous lieutenant advancing towards his first battle. With men like Sharpe, Lawford thought, how could they lose?
Sharpe was ignorant of the Lieutenant’s glance and would have laughed had he been told that his very appearance inspired confidence. Sharpe had no conception of how he looked, for he rarely saw a mirror and when he did the reflected image meant nothing, though he did know that the ladies liked him and that he liked them. He knew, too, that he was the tallest man in the Light Company, so tall, indeed, that he should have been in the Grenadier Company that led the battalion’s advance, but when he had first joined the regiment, six years before, the commanding officer of the Light Company had insisted on having Sharpe in his ranks. Captain Hughes was dead now, killed by a bowel-loosening flux in Calcutta, but in his time Hughes had prided himself on having the quickest, smartest men in his company, men he could trust to fight alone in the skirmish line, and it had been Hughes’s tragedy that he had only ever seen his picked men face an enemy once, and that once had been the misbegotten, fever-ridden expedition to the foggy island off the coast of Flanders where no amount of quick-wittedness by the men could salvage success from the commanding general’s stupidity. Now, five years later, on an Indian field, the 33rd again marched towards an enemy, though instead of the enthusiastic and generous Captain Hughes, the Light Company was now commanded by Captain Morris who did not care how clever or quick his men were, only that they gave him no trouble. Which was why he had brought Sergeant Hakeswill into the company. And that was why the tall, good-looking, hard-eyed private called Richard Sharpe was thinking of running.
Except he would not run today. Today there would be a fight and Sharpe was happy at that prospect. A fight meant plunder, what the Indian soldiers called loot, and any man who was thinking of running and striking up life on his own could do with a bit of loot to prime the pump.
The seven battalions marched towards the ridge. They were all in columns of half-companies so that, from a vulture’s view, they would have appeared as one hundred and forty small scarlet rectangles spread across a square mile of green country as they advanced steadily towards the waiting line of guns on the enemy-held ridge. The sergeants paced beside the half-companies while the officers either rode or walked ahead. From a distance the red squares looked smart, for the men’s red coats were bright scarlet and slashed with white crossbelts, but in truth the troops were filthy and sweating. Their coats were wool, designed for battlefields in Flanders, not India, and the scarlet dye had run in the heavy rains so that the coats were now a pale pink or a dull purple, and all were stained white with dried sweat. Every man in the 33rd wore a leather stock, a cruel high collar that dug into the flesh of his neck, and each man’s long hair had been pulled harshly back, greased with candle wax, then twisted about a small sand-filled leather bag that was secured with a strip of black leather so that the hair hung like a club at the nape of the neck. The hair was then powdered white with flour, and though the clubbed and whitened hair looked smart and neat, it was a haven for lice and fleas. The native sepoys of the East India Company were luckier. They did not cake their hair with powder, nor did they wear the heavy trousers of the British troops but instead marched bare-legged. They did not wear the leather stocks either and, even more amazing, there was no flogging in the Indian battalions.
An enemy cannonball at last found a target and Sharpe saw a half-company of the 33rd broken apart as the round shot whipped through the ranks. He thought he glimpsed an instant red mist appear in the air above the formation as the ball slashed through, but maybe that was an illusion. Two men stayed on the ground as a sergeant closed the ranks up. Two more men were limping and one of them staggered, reeled and finally collapsed. The drummer boys, advancing just behind the unfurled colours, marked the rhythm of the march with steady beats interspersed with quicker flourishes, but when the boys marched past the twin heaps of offal that had been soldiers of the Grenadier Company a few seconds before they began to hurry their sticks and thus quickened the regiment’s pace until Major Shee turned in his saddle and damned their eagerness.
‘When are we going to load?’ Private Mallinson asked Sergeant Green.
‘When you’re told to, lad, when you’re told to. Not before. Oh, sweet Jesus!’ This last imprecation from Sergeant Green had been caused by a deafening ripple of gunfire from the ridge. A dozen more of the Tippoo’s smaller guns had opened fire and the crest of the ridge was now fogged by a grey-white cloud of smoke. The two British galloper guns off to the right had unlimbered and started to return the fire, but the enemy cannon were hidden by their own smoke and that thick screen obscured any damage the small galloper guns might be inflicting. More cavalry trotted forward to the 33rd’s right. These newcomers were Indian troops dressed in scarlet turbans and holding long, wicked-pointed lances.
‘So what are we bleeding supposed to do?’ Mallinson complained. ‘Just march straight up the bloody ridge with empty muskets?’
‘If you’re told to,’ Sergeant Green said, ‘that’s what you’ll do. Now hold your bloody tongue.’
‘Quiet back there!’ Hakeswill called from the half-company in front. ‘This ain’t a bleeding parish outing! This is a fight, you bastards!’
Sharpe wanted to be ready and so he untied the rag from his musket’s lock and stuffed it into the pocket where he kept the ring Mary had given him. The ring, a plain band of worn silver, had belonged to Sergeant Bickerstaff, Mary’s husband, but the Sergeant was dead now and Green had taken Bickerstaff’s sergeant’s stripes and Sharpe his bed. Mary came from Calcutta. That was no place to run, Sharpe thought. Place was full of redcoats.
Then he forgot any prospect of deserting, for suddenly the landscape ahead was filling with enemy soldiers. A mass of infantry was crossing the northern end of the low ridge and marching down onto the plain. Their uniforms were pale purple, they had wide red hats and, like the British Indian troops, were bare-legged. The flags above the marching men were red and yellow, but the wind was so feeble that the flags hung straight down to obscure whatever device they might have shown. More and more men appeared until Sharpe could not even begin to estimate their numbers.
‘Thirty-third!’ a voice shouted from somewhere ahead. ‘Line to the left!’
‘Line to the left!’ Captain Morris echoed the shout.
‘You heard the officer!’ Sergeant Hakeswill bawled. ‘Line to the left! Smartly now!’
‘On the double!’ Sergeant Green called.
The leading half-company of the 33rd had halted and every other half-company angled to their left and sped their pace, with the final half-company, in which Sharpe marched, having the farthest and fastest to go. The men began to jog, their packs and pouches and bayonet scabbards bumping up and down as they stumbled over the small fields of crops. Like a swinging door, the column, that had been marching directly towards the ridge, was now turning itself into a line that would lie parallel to the ridge and so bar the advance of the enemy infantry.
‘Two files!’ a voice shouted.
‘Two files!’ Captain Morris echoed.
‘You heard the officer!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Two files! On the right! Smartly now!’
All the running half-companies now split themselves into two smaller units, each of two ranks and each aligning itself on the unit to its right so that the whole battalion formed a fighting line two ranks deep. As Sharpe ran into position he glanced to his right and saw the drummer boys taking their place behind the regiment’s colours which were guarded by a squad of sergeants armed with long, axe-headed poles.
The Light Company was the last into position. There were a few seconds of shuffling as the men glanced right to check their alignment, then there was stillness and silence except for the corporals fussily closing up the files. In less than a minute, in a marvellous display of drill, the King’s 33rd had deployed from column of march into line of battle so that seven hundred men, arrayed in two long ranks, now faced the enemy.
‘You may load, Major Shee!’ That was Colonel Wellesley’s voice. He had galloped his horse close to where Major Shee brooded under the regiment’s twin flags. The six Indian battalions were still hurrying forward on the left, but the enemy infantry had appeared at the northern end of the ridge and that meant the 33rd was the nearest unit and the one most likely to receive the Tippoo’s assault.
‘Load!’ Captain Morris shouted at Hakeswill.
Sharpe felt suddenly nervous as he dropped the musket from his shoulder to hold it across his body. He fumbled with the musket’s hammer as he pulled it back to the half cock. Sweat stung his eyes. He could hear the enemy drummers.
‘Handle cartridge!’ Sergeant Hakeswill shouted, and each man of the Light Company pulled a cartridge from his belt pouch and bit through the tough waxed paper. They held the bullets in their mouths, tasting the sour salty gunpowder.
‘Prime!’ Seventy-six men trickled a small pinch of powder from the opened cartridges into their muskets’ pans, then closed the locks so that the priming was trapped.
‘Cast about!’ Hakeswill called and seventy-six right hands released their musket stocks so that the weapons’ butts dropped towards the ground. ‘And I’m watching you!’ Hakeswill added. ‘If any of you lilywhite bastards don’t use all his powder, I’ll skin your hides off you and rub salt on your miserable flesh. Do it proper now!’ Some old soldiers advised only using half the powder of a cartridge, letting the rest trickle to the ground so that the musket’s brutal kick would be diminished, but faced by an advancing enemy, no man thought of employing that trick this day. They poured the remainder of their cartridges’ powder down their musket barrels, stuffed the cartridge paper after the powder, then took the balls from their mouths and pushed them into the muzzles. The enemy infantry was two hundred yards away and advancing steadily to the beat of drums and the blare of trumpets. The Tippoo’s guns were still firing, but they had turned their barrels away from the 33rd for fear of hitting their own infantry and were instead aiming at the six Indian regiments that were hurrying to close the gap between themselves and the 33rd.
‘Draw ramrod!’ Hakeswill shouted and Sharpe tugged the ramrod free of the three brass pipes that held it under the musket’s thirty-nine-inch barrel. His mouth was salty with the taste of gunpowder. He was still nervous, not because the enemy was tramping ever closer, but because he had a sudden idiotic idea that he might have forgotten how to load a musket. He twisted the ramrod in the air, then placed the ramrod’s flared tip into the barrel.
‘Ram cartridge!’ Hakeswill snapped. Seventy-six men thrust down, forcing the ball, wadding and powder charge to the bottom of the barrels.
‘Return ramrod!’ Sharpe tugged the ramrod up, listening to it scrape against the barrel, then twirled it about so that its narrow end would slide down into the brass pipes. He let it drop into place.
‘Order arms!’ Captain Morris called and the Light Company, now with loaded muskets, stood to attention with their guns held against their right sides. The enemy was still too far off for a musket to be either accurate or lethal and the long, two-deep line of seven hundred redcoats would wait until their opening volley could do real damage.
‘’Talion!’ Sergeant Major Bywaters’s voice called from the centre of the line. ‘Fix bayonets!’
Sharpe dragged the seventeen-inch blade from its sheath which hung behind his right hip. He slotted the blade over the musket’s muzzle, then locked it in place by twisting its slot onto the lug. Now no enemy could pull the bayonet off the musket. Having the blade mounted made reloading the musket far more difficult, but Sharpe guessed that Colonel Wellesley had decided to shoot one volley and then charge. ‘Going to be a right mucky brawl,’ he said to Tom Garrard.
‘More of them than us,’ Garrard muttered, staring at the enemy. ‘The buggers look steady enough.’
The enemy indeed looked steady. The leading troops had momentarily paused to allow the men behind to catch up, but now, reformed into a solid column, they were readying to advance again. Their ranks and files were ramrod straight. Their officers wore waist sashes and carried highly curved sabres. One of the flags was being waved to and fro and Sharpe could just make out that it showed a golden sun blazoned against a scarlet sky. Vultures swooped lower. The galloper guns, unable to resist the target of the great column of infantry, poured solid shot into its flank, but the Tippoo’s men stoically endured the punishment as their officers made certain that the column was tight packed and ready to deliver its crushing blow on the waiting redcoat line.
Sharpe licked his dry lips. So these, he thought, were the Tippoo’s men. Fine-looking bastards they were, too, and close enough now so that he could see that their tunics were not plain pale purple, but were instead cut from a creamy-white cloth decorated with mauve tiger stripes. Their crossbelts were black and their turbans and waist sashes crimson. Heathens, they might be, but not to be despised for that, for only seventeen years before these same tiger-striped men had torn apart a British army and forced its survivors to surrender. These were the famed tiger troops of Mysore, the warriors of the Tippoo Sultan who had dominated all of southern India until the British thought to climb the ghats from the coastal plain and plunge into Mysore itself. The French were these men’s allies, and some Frenchmen served in the Tippoo’s forces, but Sharpe could see no white faces in the massive column that at last was ready and, to the deep beat of a single drum, lurched ponderously forward. The tiger-striped troops were marching directly towards the King’s 33rd and Sharpe, glancing to his left, saw that the sepoys of the East India Company regiments were still too far away to offer help. The 33rd would have to deal with the Tippoo’s column alone.
‘Private Sharpe!’ Hakeswill’s sudden scream was loud enough to drown the cheer that the Tippoo’s troops gave as they advanced. ‘Private Sharpe!’ Hakeswill screamed again. He was hurrying along the back of the Light Company and Captain Morris, momentarily dismounted, was following him. ‘Give me your musket, Private Sharpe!’ Hakeswill bellowed.
‘Nothing wrong with it,’ Sharpe protested. He was in the front rank and had to turn and push his way between Garrard and Mallinson to hand the gun over.
Hakeswill snatched the musket and gleefully presented it to Captain Morris. ‘See, sir!’ the Sergeant crowed. ‘Just as I thought, sir! Bastard sold his flint, sir! Sold it to an ’eathen darkie.’ Hakeswill’s face twitched as he gave Sharpe a triumphant glance. The Sergeant had unscrewed the musket’s doghead, extracted the flint in its folded leather pad and now offered the scrap of stone to Captain Morris. ‘Piece of common rock, sir, no good to man or beast. Must have flogged his flint, sir. Flogged it in exchange for a pagan whore, sir, I dare say. Filthy beast that he is.’
Morris peered at the flint. ‘Sell the flint, did you, Private?’ he asked in a voice that mingled derision, pleasure and bitterness.
‘No, sir.’
‘Silence!’ Hakeswill screamed into Sharpe’s face, spattering him with spittle. ‘Lying to an officer! Flogging offence, sir, flogging offence. Selling his flint, sir? Another flogging offence, sir. Says so in the scriptures, sir.’
‘It is a flogging offence,’ Morris said with a tone of satisfaction. He was as tall and lean as Sharpe, with fair hair and a fine-boned face that was just beginning to show the ravages of the liquor with which the Captain assuaged his boredom. His eyes betrayed his cynicism and something much worse: that he despised his men. Hakeswill and Morris, Sharpe thought as he watched them, a right bloody pair.
‘Nothing wrong with that flint, sir,’ Sharpe insisted.
Morris held the flint in the palm of his right hand. ‘Looks like a chip of stone to me.’
‘Common grit, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Common bloody grit, sir, no good to man or beast.’
‘Might I?’ A new voice spoke. Lieutenant William Lawford had dismounted to join Morris and now, without waiting for his Captain’s permission, he reached over and took the flint from Morris’s hand. Lawford was blushing again, astonished by his own temerity in thus intervening. ‘There’s an easy way to check, sir,’ Lawford said nervously, then he drew out his pistol, cocked it and struck the loose flint against the pistol’s steel. Even in the day’s bright sunlight there was an obvious spark. ‘Seems like a good flint to me, sir,’ Lawford said mildly. Ensign Fitzgerald, standing behind Lawford, gave Sharpe a conspiratorial grin. ‘A perfectly good flint,’ Lawford insisted less diffidently.
Morris gave Hakeswill a furious look then turned on his heel and strode back towards his horse. Lawford tossed the flint to Sharpe. ‘Make your gun ready, Sharpe,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Lawford and Fitzgerald walked away as Hakeswill, humiliated, thrust the musket back at Sharpe. ‘Clever bastard, Sharpie, aren’t you?’
‘I’ll have the leather as well, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said and, once he had the flint’s seating back, he called after Hakeswill who had begun to walk away. ‘Sergeant!’
Hakeswill turned back.
‘You want this, Sergeant?’ Sharpe called. He took a chip of stone out of his pocket. He had found it when he had untied the rag from the musket’s lock and realized that Hakeswill had substituted the stone for the flint when he had pretended to inspect Sharpe’s musket. ‘No use to me, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said. ‘Here.’ He tossed the stone at Hakeswill who ignored it. Instead the Sergeant spat and turned away. ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Sharpe said, for it had been Garrard who had supplied him with a spare flint.
‘Worth being in the army to see that,’ Garrard said, and all around him men laughed to have seen Hakeswill and Morris defeated.
‘Eyes to your front, lads!’ Ensign Fitzgerald called. The Irish Ensign was the youngest officer in the company, but he had the confidence of a much older man. ‘Got some shooting to do.’
Sharpe pushed back into his file. He brought up the musket, folded the leather over the flint and seated it in the doghead, then looked up to see that the mass of the enemy was now just a hundred paces away. They were shouting rhythmically and pausing occasionally to let a trumpet sound or a drum flourish a ripple, but the loudest sound was the beat of their feet on the dry earth. Sharpe tried to count the column’s front rank, but kept losing count as enemy officers marched slantwise across the column’s face. There had to be thousands of the tiger troops, all marching like a great sledgehammer to shatter the two-deep line of redcoats.
‘Cutting it fine, aren’t we?’ a man complained.
‘Wait lads, wait,’ Sergeant Green said calmly.
The enemy now filled the landscape ahead. They came in a column formed of sixty ranks of fifty men, three thousand in all, though to Sharpe’s inexperienced eye it seemed as if there must be ten times that number. None of the Tippoo’s men fired as they advanced, but held their fire just as the 33rd were holding theirs. The enemy’s muskets were tipped with bayonets while their officers were holding deeply curved sabres. On they came and to Sharpe, who was watching the column from the left of the line so that he could see its flank as well as its leading file, the enemy formation seemed as unstoppable as a heavily loaded farm wagon that was rolling slowly and inexorably towards a flimsy fence.
He could see the enemy’s faces now. They were dark, with black moustaches and oddly white teeth. The tiger men were close, so close, and their chanting began to dissolve into individual war shouts. Any second now, Sharpe thought, and the heavy column would break into a run and charge with levelled bayonets.
‘Thirty-third!’ Colonel Wellesley’s voice called out sharply from beneath the regiment’s colours. ‘Make ready!’
Sharpe put his right foot behind his left so that his body half turned to the right, then he brought his musket to hip height and pulled the hammer back to full cock. It clicked solidly into place, and somehow the pent-up pressure of the gun’s mainspring was reassuring. To the approaching enemy it seemed as though the whole British line had half turned and the sudden movement, coming from men who had been waiting so silently, momentarily checked their eagerness. Above the tiger troops of Mysore, beneath a bunch of flags on the ridge where the guns fired, a group of horsemen watched the column. Was the Tippoo himself there? Sharpe wondered. And was the Tippoo dreaming of that far-off day when he had broken three and half thousand British and Indian troops and marched them off to captivity in his capital at Seringapatam? The cheers of the attackers were filling the sky now, but still Colonel Wellesley’s voice was audible over the tumult. ‘Present!’
Seven hundred muskets came up to seven hundred shoulders. The muskets were tipped with steel, seven hundred muskets aimed at the head of the column and about to blast seven hundred ounces of lead at the leading ranks of that fast-moving, confident mass that was plunging straight towards the pair of British colours under which Colonel Arthur Wellesley waited. The tiger men were hurrying now, their front rank breaking apart as they began running. The wagon was about to hit the fence.
Arthur Wellesley had waited six years for this moment. He was twenty-nine years old and had begun to fear that he would never see battle, but now, at last, he would discover whether he and his regiment could fight, and so he filled his lungs to give the order that would start the slaughter.
Colonel Jean Gudin sighed, then, for the thousandth time in the last hour, he fanned his face to drive away the flies. He liked India, but he hated flies, which made India quite hard to like, but on balance, despite the flies, he did like India. Not nearly as much as he liked his native Provence, but where on earth was as lovely as Provence? ‘Your Majesty?’ he ventured diffidently, then waited as his interpreter struggled to gain the Tippoo’s attention. The interpreter was exchanging Gudin’s French for the Tippoo’s Persian tongue. The Tippoo did understand some French and he spoke the local Kanarese language well enough, but he preferred Persian for it reminded him that his lineage went back to the great Persian dynasties. The Tippoo was ever mindful that he was superior to the darker-skinned natives of Mysore. He was a Muslim, he was a Persian and he was a ruler, while they were mostly Hindus, and all of them, whether rich, poor, great or lowly, were his obedient subjects. ‘Your Majesty?’ Colonel Gudin tried again.
‘Colonel?’ The Tippoo was a short man inclined to plumpness, with a moustached face, wide eyes and a prominent nose. He was not an impressive-looking man, but Gudin knew the Tippoo’s unprepossessing appearance disguised a decisive mind and a brave heart. Although the Tippoo acknowledged Gudin, he did not turn to look at the Colonel. Instead he leaned forward in his saddle with one hand clasped over the tiger hilt of his curved sabre as he watched his infantry march on the infidel British. The sword was slung on a silken sash that crossed the pale yellow silk jacket that the Tippoo wore above chintz trousers. His turban was of red silk and pinned with a gold badge showing a tiger’s mask. The Tippoo’s every possible accoutrement was decorated with the tiger, for the tiger was his mascot and inspiration, but the badge on his turban also incorporated his reverence for Allah, for the tiger’s snarling face was formed by a cunning cipher that spelled out a verse of the Koran: ‘The Lion of God is the Conqueror.’ Above it, pinned to the turban’s brief white plume and brilliant in the day’s sunlight, there glittered a ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg. ‘Colonel?’ the Tippoo said again.
‘It might be wise, Your Majesty,’ Gudin suggested hesitantly, ‘if we advanced cannon and cavalry onto the British flank.’ Gudin gestured to where the 33rd waited in its thin red line to receive the charge of the Tippoo’s column. If the Tippoo threatened a flank of that fragile line with cavalry then the British regiment would be forced to shrink into square and thus deny three quarters of their muskets a chance to fire at the column.
The Tippoo shook his head. ‘We shall sweep that scum away with our infantry, Gudin, then send the cavalry against the baggage.’ He let go of his sword’s hilt to touch his fingers fleetingly together. ‘Please Allah.’
‘And if it does not please Allah?’ Gudin asked, and suspected that his interpreter would change the insolence of the question into something more acceptable to the Tippoo.
‘Then we shall fight them from the walls of Seringapatam,’ the Tippoo answered, and turned briefly from watching the imminent battle to offer Colonel Gudin a quick smile. It was not a friendly smile, but a feral grimace of anticipation. ‘We shall destroy them with cannon, Colonel,’ the Tippoo continued with relish, ‘and shatter them with rockets, and in a few weeks the monsoon will drown their survivors, and after that, if Allah pleases, we shall hunt fugitive Englishmen from here to the sea.’
‘If Allah pleases,’ Gudin said resignedly. Officially he was an adviser to the Tippoo, sent by the Directorate in Paris to help Mysore defeat the British, and the patient Gudin had just done his best to give advice and it was none of his fault if the advice was spurned. He brushed flies from his face, then watched as the 33rd brought their muskets to their shoulders. When those muskets flamed, the Frenchman thought, the front of the Tippoo’s column would crumple like a honeycomb hit by a hammer, but at least the slaughter would teach the Tippoo that battles could not be won against disciplined troops unless every weapon was used against them: cavalry to force them to bunch up in protection, then artillery and infantry to pour fire into the massed ranks. The Tippoo surely knew that, yet he had insisted on throwing his three thousand infantry forward without cavalry support, and Gudin could only suppose that either the Tippoo believed Allah would be fighting on his side this afternoon, or else he was so consumed by his famous victory over the British seventeen years before that he believed he could always beat them in open conflict.
Gudin slapped at flies again. It was time, he thought, to go home. Much as he liked India he felt frustrated. He suspected that the government in Paris had forgotten about his existence, and he was keenly aware that the Tippoo was not receptive to his advice. He did not blame the Tippoo; Paris had made so many promises, but no French army had come to fight for Mysore and Gudin sensed the Tippoo’s disappointment and even sympathized with it, while Gudin himself felt useless and abandoned. Some of his contemporaries were already generals; even little Bonaparte, a Corsican whom Gudin had known slightly in Toulon, now had an army of his own, while Jean Gudin was stranded in distant Mysore. Which made victory all the more important, and if the British were not broken here then they would have to be beaten by the massed artillery and rockets that waited on Seringapatam’s walls. That was also where Gudin’s small battalion of European soldiers was waiting, and Seringapatam, he suspected, was where this campaign would be decided. And if there was victory, and if the British were thrown out of southern India, then Gudin’s reward would surely be back in France. Back home where the flies did not swarm like mice.
The enemy regiment waited with levelled muskets. The Tippoo’s men cheered and charged impetuously onwards. The Tippoo leaned forward, unconsciously biting his lower lip as he waited for the impact.
Gudin wondered whether his woman in Seringapatam would like Provence, or whether Provence would like her. Or maybe it was time for a new woman. He sighed, slapped at flies, then involuntarily shuddered.
For, beneath him, the killing had begun.
‘Fire!’ Colonel Wellesley shouted.
Seven hundred men pulled their triggers and seven hundred flints snapped forward onto frizzens. The sparks ignited the powder in the pans, there was a pause as the fire fizzed through the seven hundred touchholes, then an almighty crackling roar as the heavy muskets flamed.
The brass butt of the gun slammed into Sharpe’s shoulder. He had aimed the weapon at a sashed officer leading the enemy column, though even at sixty yards’ range it was hardly worth aiming a musket for it was a frighteningly inaccurate weapon, but unless the ball flew high it ought to hit someone. He could not tell what damage the volley had caused for the instant the musket banged into his shoulder his vision was obscured by the filthy bank of rolling smoke coughed out of the seven hundred musket muzzles. He could hardly hear anything either, for the sound of the rear rank muskets, going off close beside his head, had left his ears ringing. His right hand automatically went to find a new cartridge from his pouch, but then, above the ringing in his ears, he heard the Colonel’s brusque voice. ‘Forward! Thirty-third, forward!’
‘Go on, boys!’ Sergeant Green called. ‘Steady now! Don’t run! Walk!’
‘Damn your eagerness!’ Ensign Fitzgerald shouted at the company. ‘Hold your ranks! This ain’t a race!’
The regiment marched into the musket smoke which stank like rotting eggs. Lieutenant Lawford suddenly remembered to draw his sword. He could see nothing beyond the smoke, but imagined a terrible enemy waiting with raised muskets. He touched the pocket of his coat in which he kept the Bible given to him by his mother.
The front rank advanced clear of the stinking smoke fog and suddenly there was nothing ahead but chaos and carnage.
The seven hundred lead balls had converged on the front of the column to strike home with a brutal efficiency. Where there had been orderly ranks there were now only dead men and dying men who writhed on the ground. The rearward ranks of the enemy could not advance over the barrier of the dead and injured, so they stood uncertainly as, out of the smoke, the seven hundred bayonets appeared.
‘On the double! On the double! Don’t let them stand!’ Colonel Wellesley called.
‘Give them a cheer, boys!’ Sergeant Green called. ‘Go for them now! Kill the buggers!’
Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King’s enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There was loot ahead. Loot and food and stunned men to slaughter and there were few men in the 33rd who did not like a good fight. Not many had joined the ranks out of patriotism; instead, like Sharpe, they had taken the King’s shilling because hunger or desperation had forced them into uniform, but they were still good soldiers. They came from the gutters of Britain where a man survived by savagery rather than by cleverness. They were brawlers and bastards, alley-fighters with nothing to lose but tuppence a day.
Sharpe howled as he ran. The sepoy battalions were closing up on the left, but there was no need for their musketry now, for the Tippoo’s vaunted tiger infantry were not staying to contest the afternoon. They were edging backwards, looking for escape, and then, out of the north where they had been half hidden by the red-blossomed trees, the British and Indian cavalry charged to the sound of a trumpet’s call. Lances were lowered and sabres held like spears as the horsemen thundered onto the enemy’s flank.
The Tippoo’s infantry fled. A few, the lucky few, scrambled back up the ridge, but most were caught in the open ground between the 33rd and the ridge’s slope and there the killing became a massacre. Sharpe reached the pile of dead and leapt over them. Just beyond the bloody pile a wounded man tried to bring up his musket, but Sharpe slammed the butt of his gun onto the man’s head, kicked the musket out of his enfeebled hands and ran on. He was aiming for an officer, a brave man who had tried to rally his troops and who now hesitated fatally. The man was carrying a drawn sabre, then he remembered the pistol in his belt and fumbled to draw it, but saw he was too late and turned to run after his men. Sharpe was faster. He rammed his bayonet forward and struck the Indian officer on the side of the neck. The man turned, his sabre whistling as he sliced the curved blade at Sharpe’s head. Sharpe parried the blow with the barrel of his musket. A sliver of wood was slashed off the stock as Sharpe kicked the officer between the legs. Sharpe was screaming a challenge, a scream of hate that had nothing to do with Mysore or the enemy officer, and everything to do with the frustrations of his life. The Indian staggered, hunched over and Sharpe slammed the musket’s heavy butt into the dark face. The enemy officer went down, his sabre falling from his hand. He shouted something, maybe offering his surrender, but Sharpe did not care. He just put his left foot on the man’s sword arm, then drove the bayonet hard down into his throat. The fight might have lasted three seconds.
Sharpe advanced no farther. Other men ran past, screaming as they pursued the fleeing enemy, but Sharpe had found his victim. He had thrust the bayonet so hard that the blade had gone clean through the officer’s neck into the soil beneath and it was hard work to pull the steel free, and in the end he had to put a boot on the dying man’s forehead before he could tug the bayonet out. Blood gushed from the wound, then subsided to a throbbing pulse of spilling red as Sharpe knelt and began rifling the man’s gaudy uniform, oblivious of the choking, bubbling sound that the officer was making as he died. Sharpe ripped off the yellow silk sash and tossed it aside together with the silver-hilted sabre and the pistol. The sabre scabbard was made of boiled leather, nothing of any value to Sharpe, but behind it was a small embroidered pouch and Sharpe drew out his knife, unfolded the blade and slashed through the pouch’s straps. He fumbled the pouch open to find that it was filled with nothing but dry rice and one small scrap of what looked like cake. He smelt it gingerly and guessed it was made of some kind of bean. He tossed the food aside and spat a curse at the dying man. ‘Where’s your bleeding money?’
The man gasped, made a choking sound, then his whole body jerked as his heart finally gave up the struggle. Sharpe tore at the tunic that was decorated with mauve tiger stripes. He felt the seams, looking for coins, found none so pulled off the wide red turban that was sticky with fresh blood. The dead man’s face was already crawling with flies. Sharpe pulled the turban apart and there, in the very centre of the greasy cloth, he found three silver and a dozen small copper coins. ‘Knew you’d have something,’ he told the dead man, then pushed the coins into his own pouch.
The cavalry was finishing off the remnants of the Tippoo’s infantry. The Tippoo himself, with his entourage and standard-bearers, had gone from the top of the ridge, and there were no cannon firing there either. The enemy had slipped away, abandoning their trapped infantry to the sabres and lances of the British and Indian cavalry. The Indian cavalry had been recruited from the city of Madras and the East Coast states which had all suffered from the Tippoo’s raids and now they took a bloody revenge, whooping and laughing as their blades cut down the terrified fugitives. Some cavalrymen, running out of targets, were already dismounted and searching the dead for plunder. The sepoy infantry, too late to join the killing, arrived to join the plunder.
Sharpe twisted the bayonet off his musket, wiped it clean on the dead man’s sash, scooped up the sabre and pistol, then went to find more loot. He was grinning, and thinking that there was nothing to this fighting business, nothing at all. A few shots in Flanders, one volley here; and neither fight was worthy of the name battle. Flanders had been a muddle and this fight had been as easy as slaughtering sheep. No wonder Sergeant Hakeswill would live for ever. And so would he, Sharpe reckoned, because there was nothing to this business. Just a couple of bangs and it was all over. He laughed, slid the bayonet into its sheath and knelt beside another dead man. There was work to do and a future to finance.
If only he could decide where it would be safe to run.
CHAPTER TWO
Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill glanced about to see what his men were doing. Just about all of them were plundering, and quite right too. That was a soldier’s privilege. Fight the battle then strip the enemy of anything worth a penny. The officers were not looting, but officers never did, at least not so that anyone noticed them, but Hakeswill did see that Ensign Fitzgerald had somehow managed to get himself a jewelled sabre that he was now flashing around like a shilling whore given a guinea fan. Mister bloody Ensign Fitzgerald was getting above himself in Sergeant Hakeswill’s considered opinion. Ensigns were the lowest of the low, apprentice officers, lads in silver lace, and Mister bloody Fitzgerald had no business countermanding Hakeswill’s orders so Mister bloody Fitzgerald must be taught his place, but the trouble was that Mister Fitzgerald was Irish and Hakeswill was of the opinion that the Irish were only half civilized and never did understand their place. Most of them, anyway. Major Shee was Irish, and he was civilized, at least when he was sober, and Colonel Wellesley, who was from Dublin, was wholly civilized, but the Colonel had possessed the sense to make himself more English than the English, while Mister bloody Fitzgerald made no pretence about his birth.
‘See this, Hakeswill?’ Fitzgerald, sublimely unaware of Hakeswill’s glowering thoughts, stepped across a body to show off his new sabre.
‘See what, sir?’
‘Damned blade is made in Birmingham! Will you credit that? Birmingham! Says so on the blade, see? “Made in Birmingham.”’
Hakeswill dutifully examined the legend on the blade, then fingered the sabre’s pommel which was elegantly set with a ring of seven small rubies. ‘Looks like glass to me, sir,’ he said dismissively, hoping he could somehow persuade Fitzgerald to relinquish the blade.
‘Nonsense!’ Fitzgerald said cheerfully. ‘Best rubies! Bit small, maybe, but I doubt the ladies will mind that. Seven pieces of glitter? That adds up to a week of sin, Sergeant. It was worth killing the rascal for that.’
If you did kill him, Hakeswill thought sourly as he stumped away from the exuberant Ensign. More likely picked it up off the ground. And Fitzgerald was right; seven rubies, even small ones, would buy a lot of Naig’s ladies. ‘Nasty’ Naig was a merchant from Madras, one of the many travelling with the army, and he had brought his brothel with him. It was an expensive brothel, officers only, or at least only those who could pay an officer’s price, and that made Hakeswill think of Mary Bickerstaff. Mrs Mary Bickerstaff. She was a half and half, half Indian and half British, and that made her valuable. Very valuable. Most of the women who followed the army were dark as Hades, and while Obadiah Hakeswill had no distaste for dark skin he did miss the touch of white flesh. So did many of the officers, and there was a guinea or two to be made out of that lust. Naig would pay well for a skin as pale as Mary Bickerstaff’s.
She was a rare beauty, Mary Bickerstaff. A beauty amongst a pack of ugly, rancid women. Hakeswill watched as a group of the battalion’s wives ran to take part in the plundering and almost shuddered as he contemplated their ugliness. About two thirds of the wives were bibbis, Indians, and most of those, Hakeswill knew, were not properly married with the Colonel’s permission, while the rest were those lucky British women who had won the brutal lottery that had taken place on the night before the battalion had sailed from England. The wives had been gathered in a barrack room, their names had been put into ten shakos, one for each company, and the first ten names drawn from each hat were allowed to accompany their husbands. The rest had to stay in Britain, and what happened to them there was anybody’s guess. Most went on the parish, but parishes resented feeding soldiers’ wives, so as like as not they were forced to become whores. Barrack-gate whores, for the most part, because they lacked the looks for anything better. But a few, a precious few, were pretty, and none was prettier than Sergeant Bickerstaff’s half and half widow.
The women spread out among the dead and dying Mysoreans. If anything they were even more efficient than their men at plundering the dead, for the men tended to hurry and so missed the hiding places where a soldier secreted his money. Hakeswill watched Flora Placket strip the body of a tall tiger-striped corpse whose throat had been slashed to the backbone by the slice of a cavalryman’s sabre. She did not rush her work, but searched carefully, garment by garment, then handed each piece of clothing to one of her two children to fold and stack. Hakeswill approved of Flora Placket for she was a large and steady woman who kept her man in good order and made no fuss about a campaign’s discomforts. She was a good mother too, and that was why Obadiah did not care that Flora Placket was as ugly as a haversack. Mothers were sacred. Mothers were not expected to be pretty. Mothers were Obadiah Hakeswill’s guardian angels, and Flora Placket reminded Obadiah of his own mother who was the only person in all his life who had shown him kindness. Biddy Hakeswill was long dead now, she had died a year before the twelve-year-old Obadiah had dangled on a scaffold for the trumped-up charge of sheep stealing and, to amuse the crowd, the executioner had not let any of that day’s victims drop from the gallows, but had instead hoisted them gently into the air so that they choked slowly as their piss-soaked legs jerked in the death dance of the gibbet. No one had taken much notice of the small boy at the scaffold’s end and, when the heavens had opened and the rain come down in bucketfuls to scatter the crowd, no one had bothered when Biddy Hakeswill’s brother had cut the boy down and set him loose. ‘Did it for your mother,’ his uncle had snarled. ‘God rest her soul. Now be off with you and don’t ever show your face in the dale again.’ Hakeswill had run south, joined the army as a drummer boy, had risen to sergeant and had never forgotten his dying mother’s words. ‘No one will ever get rid of Obadiah,’ she had said, ‘not my Obadiah. Death’s too good for him.’ The gallows had proved that. Touched by God, he was, indestructible!
A groan sounded near Hakeswill and the Sergeant snapped out of his reverie to see a tiger-striped Indian struggling to turn onto his belly. Hakeswill scurried over, forced the man onto his back again and placed his halberd’s spear point at the man’s throat. ‘Money?’ Hakeswill snarled, then held out his left hand and motioned the counting of coins. ‘Money?’
The man blinked slowly, then said something in his own language.
‘I’ll let you live, you bugger,’ Hakeswill promised, leering at the wounded man. ‘Not that you’ll live long. Got a goolie in your belly, see?’ He pointed at the wound in the man’s belly where the bullet had driven home. ‘Now where’s your money? Money! Pice? Dan? Pagodas? Annas? Rupees?’
The man must have understood for his hand fluttered weakly towards his chest.
‘Good boy, now,’ Hakeswill said, smiling again, then his face jerked in its involuntary spasms as he pushed the spear point home, but not too quickly for he liked to see the realization of death on a man’s face. ‘You’re a stupid bugger, too,’ Hakeswill said when the man’s death throes had ended, then he cut open the tunic and found that the man had strapped some coins to his chest with a cotton sash. He undid the sash and pocketed the handful of copper change. Not a big haul, but Hakeswill was not dependent on his own plundering to fill his purse. He would take a cut from whatever the soldiers of the Light Company found. They knew they would have to pay up or else face punishment.
He saw Sharpe kneeling beside a body and hurried across. ‘Got a sword there, Sharpie?’ Hakeswill asked. ‘Stole it, did you?’
‘I killed the man, Sergeant.’ Sharpe looked up.
‘Doesn’t bleeding matter, does it, lad? You ain’t permitted to carry a sword. Officer’s weapon, a sword is. Mustn’t get above your station, Sharpie. Get above yourself, boy, and you’ll be cut down. So I’ll take the blade, I will.’ Hakeswill half expected Sharpe to resist, but the Private did nothing as the Sergeant picked up the silver-hilted blade. ‘Worth a few bob, I dare say,’ Hakeswill said appreciatively, then he laid the sword’s tip against the stock at Sharpe’s neck. ‘Which is more than you’re worth, Sharpie. Too clever for your own good, you are.’
Sharpe edged away from the sword and stood up. ‘I ain’t got a quarrel with you, Sergeant,’ he said.
‘But you do, boy, you do.’ Hakeswill grimaced as his face went into spasm. ‘And you know what the quarrel’s about, don’t you?’
Sharpe backed away from the sword. ‘I ain’t got a quarrel with you,’ he repeated stubbornly.
‘I think our quarrel is called Mrs Bickerstaff,’ Hakeswill said, and grinned when Sharpe said nothing. ‘I almost got you with that flint, didn’t I? Would have had you flogged raw, boy, and you’d have died of a fever within a week. A flogging does that in this climate. Wears a man down, a flogging does. But you got a friendly officer, don’t you? Mister Lawford. He likes you, does he?’ He prodded Sharpe’s chest with the sword’s tip. ‘Is that what it is? Officer’s pet, are you?’
‘Mister Lawford ain’t nothing to me,’ Sharpe said.
‘That’s what you say, but my eyes tell different.’ Hakeswill giggled. ‘Sweet on each other, are you? You and Mister Lawford? Ain’t that nice, Sharpie, but it don’t make you much use to Mrs Bickerstaff, does it? Reckon she’d be better off with a real man.’
‘She ain’t your business,’ Sharpe said.
‘Ain’t my business! Oh, listen to it!’ Hakeswill sneered, then prodded the sword forward again. He wanted to provoke Sharpe into resisting, for then he could charge him with attacking a superior, but the tall young man just backed away from the blade. ‘You listen, Sharpie,’ Hakeswill said, ‘and you listen well. She’s a sergeant’s wife, not the whore of some common ranker like you.’
‘Sergeant Bickerstaff’s dead,’ Sharpe protested.
‘So she needs a man!’ Hakeswill said. ‘And a sergeant’s widow doesn’t get rogered by a stinking bit of dirt like you. It ain’t right. Ain’t natural. It’s beneath her station, Sharpie, and it can’t be allowed. Says so in the scriptures.’
‘She can choose who she wants,’ Sharpe insisted.
‘Choose, Sharpie? Choose?’ Hakeswill laughed. ‘Women don’t choose, you soft bugger. Women get taken by the strongest. Says so in the scriptures, and if you stand in my way, Sharpie’ – he pushed the sword hard forward – ‘then I’ll have your spine laid open to the daylight. A lost flint? That would have been two hundred lashes, lad, but next time? A thousand. And laid on hard! Real hard! Be blood and bones, boy, bones and blood, and who’ll look after your Mrs Bickerstaff then? Eh? Tell me that. So you takes your filthy hands off her. Leave her to me, Sharpie.’ He leered at Sharpe, but still the younger man refused to be provoked and Hakeswill at last abandoned the attempt. ‘Worth a few guineas, this sword,’ the Sergeant said again as he backed away. ‘Obliged to you, Sharpie.’
Sharpe swore uselessly at Hakeswill’s back, then turned as a woman hailed him from among the heaped bodies that had been the leading ranks of the Tippoo’s column. Those bodies were now being dragged apart to be searched and Mary Bickerstaff was helping the work along.
He walked towards her and, as ever, was struck by the beauty of the girl. She had black hair, a thin face and dark big eyes that could spark with mischief. Now, though, she looked worried. ‘What did Hakeswill want?’ she asked.
‘You.’
She spat, then crouched again to the body she was searching. ‘He can’t touch you, Richard,’ she said, ‘not if you do your duty.’
‘The army’s not like that. And you know it.’
‘You’ve just got to be clever,’ Mary insisted. She was a soldier’s daughter who had grown up in the Calcutta barrack lines. She had inherited her dark Indian beauty from her mother and learned the ways of soldiers from her father who had been an engineer sergeant in the Old Fort’s garrison before an outbreak of cholera had killed him and his native wife. Mary’s father had always claimed she was pretty enough to marry an officer and so rise in the world, but no officer would marry a half-caste, at least no officer who cared about advancement, and so after her parents’ death Mary had married Sergeant Jem Bickerstaff of the 33rd, a good man, but Bickerstaff had died of the fever shortly after the army had left Madras to climb to the Mysore plateau and Mary, at twenty-two, was now an orphan and a widow. She was also wise to the army’s ways. ‘If you’re made up to sergeant, Richard,’ she told Sharpe now, ‘then Hakeswill can’t touch you.’
Sharpe laughed. ‘Me? A sergeant? That’ll be the day, lass. I made corporal once, but that didn’t last.’
‘You can be a sergeant,’ she insisted, ‘and you should be a sergeant. And Hakeswill couldn’t touch you if you were.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘It ain’t me he wants to touch, lass, but you.’
Mary had been cutting a tiger-striped tunic from a dead man, but now she paused and looked quizzically up at Sharpe. She had not been in love with Jem Bickerstaff, but she had recognized that the Sergeant was a good, kind man, and she saw the same decency in Sharpe. It was not exactly the same decency, for Sharpe, she reckoned, had ten times Jem Bickerstaff’s fire and he could be as cunning as a snake when it suited him, but Mary still trusted Sharpe. She was also attracted to him. There was something very striking about Sharpe’s lean good looks, something dangerous, she acknowledged, but very exciting. She looked at him for a few seconds, then shrugged. ‘Maybe he won’t dare touch me if we’re married,’ she said. ‘I mean proper married, with the Colonel’s permission.’
‘Married!’ Sharpe said, flustered by the word.
Mary stood. ‘It ain’t easy being a widow in the army, Richard. Every man reckons you’re loot.’
‘Aye, I know it’s hard,’ Sharpe said, frowning. He stared at her as he thought about the idea of getting married. Till now he had only been thinking of desertion, but maybe marriage was not such a bad idea. At least it would make it much harder for Hakeswill to get his hands on Mary’s skin. And a married man, Sharpe reckoned, was more likely to be promoted. But what was the point of rising an inch or two in the dunghill? Even a sergeant was still at the bottom of the heap. It was better to be out of the army altogether and Mary, Sharpe decided, would be more likely to desert with him if she was properly married to him. That thought made him nod slowly. ‘I reckon I might like to be married,’ he said shyly.
‘Me too.’ She smiled and, awkwardly, Sharpe smiled back. For a moment neither had anything to say, then Mary excitedly fished in the pocket of her apron to produce a jewel she had taken from a dead man. ‘Look what I found!’ She handed Sharpe a red stone, half the size of a hen’s egg. ‘You reckon it’s a ruby?’ Mary asked eagerly.
Sharpe tossed the stone up and down. ‘I reckon it’s glass, lass,’ he said gently, ‘just glass. But I’ll get you a ruby for a wedding gift, just you watch me.’
‘I’ll more than watch you, Dick Sharpe,’ she said happily and put her arm into his. Sergeant Hakeswill, a hundred paces away, watched them and his face twitched.
While on the edges of the killing place, where the looted and naked bodies lay scattered, the vultures came down, sidled forward and began to tear at the dead.
The allied armies camped a quarter of a mile short of the place where the dead lay. The camp sprawled across the plain: an instant town where fifty thousand soldiers and thousands of camp followers would spend the night. Tents went up for officers well away from the places where the vast herds of cattle were guarded for the night. Some of the cattle were beeves, being herded and slaughtered for food, some were oxen that carried panniers filled with the eighteen- and twenty-four-pounder cannonballs that would be needed to blast a hole through the walls of Seringapatam, while yet others were bullocks that hauled the wagons and guns, and the heaviest guns, the big siege pieces, needed sixty bullocks apiece. There were more than two hundred thousand cattle with the army, but all were now scrawny for the Tippoo’s cavalry was stripping the land of fodder as the British and Hyderabad armies advanced.
The common soldiers had no tents. They would sleep on the ground close to their fires, but first they ate and this night the feeding was good, at least for the men of the King’s 33rd who had coins taken from the enemy dead to spend with the bhinjarries, the merchant clans that travelled with the army and had their own private guards to protect their goods. The bhinjarries all sold chickens, rice, flour, beans and, best of all, the throat-burning skins of arrack which could make a man drunk even faster than rum. Some of the bhinjarries also hired out whores and the 33rd gave those men good business that night.
Captain Morris expected to visit the famous green tents of Naig, the bhinjarrie whose stock in trade was the most expensive whores of Madras, but for now he was stuck in his own tent where, under the feeble light of a candle that flickered on his table, he disposed of the company’s business. Or rather Sergeant Hakeswill disposed of it while Morris, his coat unbuttoned and silk stock loosened, sprawled in a camp chair. Sweat dripped down his face. There was a small wind, but the muslin screen hanging at the entrance to the tent took away its cooling effects, and if the screen was discarded the tent would fill with savagely huge moths. Morris hated moths, hated the heat, hated India. ‘Guard rosters, sir,’ Hakeswill said, offering the papers.
‘Anything I should know?’
‘Not a thing, sir. Just like last week’s, sir. Ensign Hicks made up the roster, sir. A good man, sir, Ensign Hicks. Knows his place.’
‘You mean he does what you tell him to do?’ Morris asked drily.
‘Learning his trade, sir, learning his trade, just like a good little ensign should. Unlike some as I could mention.’
Morris ignored the sly reference to Fitzgerald and instead dipped his quill in ink and scrawled his name at the foot of the rosters. ‘I assume Ensign Fitzgerald and Sergeant Green have been assigned all the night duty?’ he asked.
‘They needs the practice, sir.’
‘And you need your sleep, Sergeant?’
‘Punishment book, sir,’ Hakeswill said, offering the leather-bound ledger and taking back the guard roster without acknowledging Morris’s last comment.
Morris leafed through the book. ‘No floggings this week?’
‘Will be soon, sir, will be soon.’
‘Private Sharpe escaped you today, eh?’ Morris laughed. ‘Losing your touch, Obadiah.’ There was no friendliness in his use of the Christian name, just scorn, but Sergeant Hakeswill took no offence. Officers were officers, at least those above ensigns were proper officers in Hakeswill’s opinion, and such gentlemen had every right to be scornful of lesser ranks.
‘I ain’t losing nothing, sir,’ Hakeswill answered equably. ‘If the rat don’t die first shake, sir, then you puts the dog in again. That’s how it’s done, sir. Says so in the scriptures. Sick report, sir. Nothing new, except that Sears has the fever, so he won’t be with us long, but he won’t be no loss, sir. No good to man or beast, Private Sears. Better off dead, he is.’
‘Are we done?’ Morris asked when he had signed the sick report, but then a tactful cough sounded at the tent’s opening and Lieutenant Lawford ducked under the flap and pushed through the muslin screen.
‘Busy, Charles?’ Lawford asked Morris.
‘Always pleased to see you, William,’ Morris said sarcastically, ‘but I was about to go for a stroll.’
‘There’s a soldier to see you,’ Lawford explained. ‘Man’s got a request, sir.’
Morris sighed as though he was too busy to be bothered with such trifles, but then he shrugged and waved a hand as if to suggest he was making a great and generous gesture by giving the man a moment of his precious time. ‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Private Sharpe, sir.’
‘Troublemaker, sir,’ Hakeswill put in.
‘He’s a good man,’ Lawford insisted hotly, but then decided his small experience of the army hardly qualified him to make such judgements and so, diffidently, he added that it was only his opinion. ‘But he seems like a good man, sir,’ he finished.
‘Let him in,’ Morris said. He sipped from a tin mug of arrack while Sharpe negotiated the muslin screen and then stood to attention beneath the ridge pole. ‘Hat off, boy!’ Hakeswill snapped. ‘Don’t you know to take your hat off in the presence of an officer?’
Sharpe snatched off his shako.
‘Well?’ Morris asked.
For a second it seemed that Sharpe did not know what to say, but then he cleared his throat and, staring at the tent wall a few inches above Captain Morris’s head, he at last found his voice. ‘Permission to marry, sir.’
Morris grinned. ‘Marry! Found yourself a bibbi, have you?’ He sipped more arrack, then looked at Hakeswill. ‘How many wives are on the company strength now, Sergeant?’
‘Full complement, sir! No room for more, sir! Full up, sir. Not a vacancy to be had. Shall I dismiss Private Sharpe, sir?’
‘This girl’s on the complement,’ Lieutenant Lawford intervened. ‘She’s Sergeant Bickerstaff’s widow.’
Morris stared up at Sharpe. ‘Bickerstaff,’ he said vaguely as though the name was strange to him. ‘Bickerstaff. Fellow who died of a fever on the march, is that right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hakeswill answered.
‘Didn’t know the man was even married,’ Morris said. ‘Official wife, was she?’
‘Very official, sir,’ Hakeswill answered. ‘On the company strength, sir. Colonel’s signature on the certificate, sir. Proper married before God and the army, sir.’
Morris sniffed and looked up at Sharpe again. ‘Why on earth do you want to marry, Sharpe?’
Sharpe looked embarrassed. ‘Just do, sir,’ he said lamely.
‘Can’t say I disapprove of marriage,’ Morris said. ‘Steadies a man does marriage, but a fellow like you, Sharpe, can do better than a soldier’s widow, can’t you? Dreadful creatures, soldiers’ widows! Used goods, Private. Fat and greasy, like lumps of lard wrapped up in linen. Get yourself a sweet little bibbi, man, something that ain’t yet run to seed.’
‘Very good advice, sir,’ Hakeswill said, his face twitching. ‘Words of wisdom, sir. Shall I dismiss him, sir?’
‘Mary Bickerstaff is a good woman, sir,’ Lieutenant Lawford said. The Lieutenant, whom Sharpe had first approached with his request, was eager to do his best. ‘Sharpe could do a lot worse than marry Mary Bickerstaff, sir.’
Morris cut a cigar and lit it from the guttering candle that burned on his camp table. ‘White, is she?’ he asked negligently.
‘Half bibbi and half Christian, sir,’ Hakeswill said, ‘but she had a good man for her husband.’ He sniffed, pretending that he was suddenly overcome with emotion. ‘And Jem Bickerstaff ain’t this month in his grave, sir. Too soon for the trollop to marry again. It ain’t right, sir. Says so in the scriptures.’
Morris offered Hakeswill a cynical glance. ‘Don’t be absurd, Sergeant. Most army widows marry the next day! The ranks are hardly high society, you know.’
‘But Jem Bickerstaff was a friend of mine, sir,’ Hakeswill said, sniffing again and even cuffing at an invisible tear. ‘Friend of mine, sir,’ he repeated more hoarsely, ‘and on his dying bed, sir, he begged me to look after his little wife, sir. I know she ain’t through and through white, he told me, but she deserves to be looked after. His very dying words, sir.’
‘He bloody hated you!’ Sharpe could not resist the words.
‘Quiet in front of an officer!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to, boy, and otherwise keep your filthy mouth buttoned like God wanted it.’
Morris frowned as though Hakeswill’s loud voice was giving him a headache. Then he looked up at Sharpe. ‘I’ll talk to Major Shee about it, Sharpe. If the woman is on the strength and wants to marry you, then I don’t suppose we can stop her. I’ll talk to the Major. You’re dismissed.’
Sharpe hesitated, wondering whether he should thank the Captain for the laconic words, but before he could say anything, Hakeswill was bawling in his ear. ‘About turn! Smartly now! Hat on! Quick march! One two one two, smartly now. Mind the bleeding curtain, boy! This ain’t a pig sty like what you grew up in, but an officer’s quarters!’
Morris waited till Sharpe was gone, then looked up at Lawford. ‘Nothing more, Lieutenant?’
Lawford guessed that he too was dismissed. ‘You will talk to Major Shee, Charles?’ he pressed Morris.
‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ Morris glared up at the Lieutenant.
Lawford hesitated, then nodded. ‘Good night, sir,’ he said and ducked under the muslin screen.
Morris waited until he was certain that both men were out of earshot. ‘Now what do we do?’ he asked Hakeswill.
‘Tell the silly bugger that Major Shee refused permission, sir.’
‘And Willie Lawford will talk to the Major and find that he didn’t. Or else he’ll go straight to Wellesley. Lawford’s uncle is on the staff, or had you forgotten that? Use your wits, man!’ Morris slapped at a moth that had managed to slip through the screen. ‘What do we do?’ he asked again.
Hakeswill sat on a stool opposite the camp table. He scratched his head, glanced into the night, then looked back to Morris. ‘He’s a sharp one, Sharpie, he is. Slippery. But I’ll do him.’ He paused. ‘Of course, sir, if you helped, it’d be quicker. Much quicker.’
Morris looked dubious. ‘The girl will only find herself another protector,’ he said. ‘I think you’re wasting my time, Sergeant.’
‘What me, sir? No, sir. Not at all, sir. I’ll have the girl, sir, just you watch, and Nasty Naig says you can have all you want of her. Free and gratis, sir, like you ought to.’
Morris stood, pulled on his jacket and picked up his hat and sword. ‘You think I’d share your woman, Hakeswill?’ The Captain shuddered. ‘And get your pox?’
‘Pox, sir? Me, sir?’ Hakeswill stood. ‘Not me, sir. Clean as a whistle, I am, sir. Cured, sir. Mercury.’ His face twitched. ‘Ask the surgeon, sir, he’ll tell you.’
Morris hesitated, thinking of Mary Bickerstaff. He thought a great deal about Mary Bickerstaff. Her beauty ensured that, and men on campaign were deprived of beauty and so Mary’s allure only increased with every mile the army marched westwards. Morris was not alone. On the night when Mary’s husband had died, the 33rd’s officers, at least those who had a mind for such games, had wagered which of them would first take the widow to their bed and so far none of them had succeeded. Morris wanted to win, not only for the fourteen guineas that would accrue to the successful seducer, but because he had become besotted by the woman. Soon after she had become a widow he had asked Mary to do his laundry, thinking that thereby he could begin the intimacy he craved, but she had refused him with a lacerating scorn. Morris wanted to punish her for that scorn, and Hakeswill, with his intuition for other men’s weaknesses, had sensed what Morris wanted and promised he would arrange everything. Naig, Hakeswill assured his bitter officer, had a way of breaking reluctant girls. ‘There ain’t a bibbi born that Nasty can’t break, sir,’ Hakeswill had promised Morris, ‘and he’d give a small fortune for a proper white one. Not that Mrs Bickerstaff’s proper white, sir, not like a Christian, but in the dark she’d pass well enough.’ The Sergeant needed Morris’s help in ridding Mrs Bickerstaff of Richard Sharpe and as an inducement he had offered Morris the free run of Naig’s tent. In return, Morris knew, Hakeswill would expect a lifetime’s patronage. As Morris climbed the army’s ranks, so Hakeswill would be drawn ineluctably after him and with each step the Sergeant would garner more power and influence.
‘So when will you free Mrs Bickerstaff of Sharpe?’ Morris asked, buckling his sword belt.
‘Tonight, sir. With your help. You’ll be back here by midnight, I dare say?’
‘I might.’
‘If you are, sir, we’ll do him. Tonight, sir.’
Morris clapped the cocked hat on his head, made sure his purse was in his coat-tail pocket and ducked under the muslin. ‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ he called back.
‘Sir!’ Hakeswill stood to attention for a full ten seconds after the Captain was gone, and then, with a sly grin twitching on his lumpy face, followed Morris into the night.
Nineteen miles to the south lay a temple. It was an ancient place, deep in the country, one of the many Hindu shrines where the country folk came on high days and holidays to do honour to their gods and to pray for a timely monsoon, for good crops and for the absence of warlords. For the rest of the year the temple lay abandoned, its gods and altars and richly carved spires home to scorpions, snakes and monkeys.
The temple was surrounded by a wall through which one gate led, though the wall was not high and the gate was never shut. Villagers left small offerings of leaves, flowers and food in niches of the gateposts, and sometimes they would go into the temple itself, cross the courtyard and climb to the inner shrine where they would place their small gifts beneath the image of a god, but at night, when the Indian sky lay black over a heat-exhausted land, no one would ever dream of disturbing the gods.
But this night, the night after battle, a man entered the temple. He was tall and thin, with white hair and a harsh, suntanned face. He was over sixty years old, but his back was still straight and he moved with the ease of a much younger man. Like many Europeans who had lived a long time in India he was prone to bouts of debilitating fever, but otherwise he was in sterling health, and Colonel Hector McCandless ascribed that good health to his religion and to a regimen that abjured alcohol, tobacco and meat. His religion was Calvinism for Hector McCandless had grown up in Scotland and the godly lessons that had been whipped into his young, earnest soul had never been forgotten. He was an honest man, a tough man, and a wise one.
His soul was old in experience, but even so it was offended by the idols that reflected the small light of the lantern he had lit once he was through the temple’s ever open gate. He had lived in India for over sixteen years now and he was more accustomed to these heathen shrines than to the kirks of his childhood, but still, whenever he saw these strange gods with their multiplicity of arms, their elephant heads, their grotesquely coloured faces and their cobra-hooded masks, he felt a stab of disapproval. He never let that disapproval show, for that would have imperilled his duty, and McCandless was a man who believed that duty was a master second only to God.
He wore the red coat and the tartan kilt of the King’s Scotch Brigade, a Highland regiment that had not seen McCandless’s stern features for sixteen years. He had served with the brigade for over thirty years, but lack of funds had obstructed his promotion and so, with his Colonel’s blessing, he had accepted a job with the army of the East India Company which governed those parts of India that were under British rule. In his time he had commanded battalions of sepoys, but McCandless’s first love was surveying. He had mapped the Carnatic coast, he had charted the Sundarbans of the Hoogli, and he had once ridden the length and breadth of Mysore, and while he had been so engaged he had learned a half-dozen Indian languages and met a score of princes, rajahs and nawabs. Few men understood India as McCandless did, which was why the Company had promoted him to Colonel and attached him to the British army as its chief of intelligence. It was McCandless’s task to advise General Harris of the enemy’s strength and dispositions, and, in particular, to discover just what defences waited for the allied armies when they reached Seringapatam.
It was his search for that particular answer that had brought Colonel McCandless to this ancient temple. He had surveyed the temple seven years before, when Lord Cornwallis’s army had marched against Mysore, and back then McCandless had admired the extraordinary carvings that covered every inch of the temple’s walls. The Scotsman’s religion had been offended by so much decoration, but he was too honest a man to deny that the old stoneworkers had been marvellous craftsmen, for the sculpture here was as fine, if not finer, than anything produced in medieval Europe. The wan yellow light of his lantern washed across caparisoned elephants, fierce gods and marching armies, all made of stone.
He climbed the steps to the central shrine, passed between its vast, squat pillars and so went into the sanctuary. The roof here, beneath the temple’s high carved tower, was fashioned into lotus blossoms. The idols stared blankly from their niches with flowers and leaves drying at their feet. The Colonel placed the lantern on the flagstone floor, then sat cross-legged and waited. He closed his eyes, letting his ears identify the noises of the night beyond the temple’s walls. McCandless had come to this remote temple with an escort of six Indian lancers, but he had left that escort two miles away in case their presence should have inhibited the man he was hoping to meet. So now he just waited with eyes closed and arms folded, and after a while he heard the thump of a hoof on dry earth, the chink of a snaffle chain, and then, once again, silence. And still he waited with eyes closed.
‘If you were not in that uniform,’ a voice said a few moments later, ‘I would think you were at your prayers.’
‘The uniform does not disqualify me from prayer, any more than does your uniform,’ the Colonel answered, opening his eyes. He stood. ‘Welcome, General.’
The man who faced McCandless was younger than the Scot, but every inch as tall and lean. Appah Rao was now a general in the forces of the Tippoo Sultan, but once, many years before, he had been an officer in one of McCandless’s sepoy battalions and it was that old acquaintanceship, which had verged upon friendship, that had persuaded McCandless it was worth risking his own life to talk to Appah Rao. Appah Rao had served under McCandless’s orders until his father had died, and then, trained as a soldier, he had returned to his native Mysore. Today he had watched from the ridge as the Tippoo’s infantry had been massacred by a single British volley. The experience had made him sour, but he forced a grudging courtesy into his voice. ‘So you’re still alive, Major?’ Appah Rao spoke in Kanarese, the language of the native Mysoreans.
‘Still alive, and a full colonel now,’ McCandless answered in the same tongue. ‘Shall we sit?’
Appah Rao grunted, then sat opposite McCandless. Behind him, beyond the sunken courtyard where they were framed by the temple’s gateway, were two soldiers. They were Appah Rao’s escort and McCandless knew they must be trusted men, for if the Tippoo Sultan were ever to discover that this meeting had taken place then Appah Rao and all his family would be killed. Unless, of course, the Tippoo already knew and was using Appah Rao to make some mischief of his own.
The Tippoo’s General was dressed in his master’s tiger-striped tunic, but over it he wore a sash of the finest silk and slung across his shoulder was a second silk sash from which hung a gold-hilted sword. His boots were red leather and his hat a coil of watered red silk on which a milky-blue jewel gleamed soft in the lantern’s flickering light. ‘You were at Malavelly today?’ he asked McCandless.
‘I was,’ McCandless said. Malavelly was the nearest village to where the battle had been fought.
‘So you know what happened?’
‘I know the Tippoo sacrificed hundreds of your people,’ McCandless said. ‘Your people, General, not his.’
Appah Rao dismissed the distinction. ‘The people follow him.’
‘Because they have no choice. They follow, but do they love him?’
‘Some do,’ Appah Rao answered. ‘But what does it matter? Why should a ruler want his people’s love? Their obedience, yes, but love? Love is for children, McCandless, and for gods and for women.’
McCandless smiled, tacitly yielding the argument which was not important. He did not have to persuade Appah Rao to treachery, the very presence of the Mysorean General was proof that he was already halfway to betraying the Tippoo, but McCandless did not expect the General to yield gracefully. There was pride at stake here, and Appah Rao’s pride was great and needed to be handled as gently as a cocked duelling pistol. Appah Rao had always been thus, even when he was a young man in the Company’s army, and McCandless approved of that pride. He had always respected Appah Rao, and still did, and he believed Appah Rao returned the respect. It was in that belief that the Colonel had sent a message to Seringapatam. The message was carried by one of the Company’s native agents who wandered as a naked fakir through southern India. The message had been concealed in the man’s long greasy hair and it had invited Appah Rao to a reunion with his old commanding officer. The reply had specified this temple and this night as the rendezvous. Appah Rao was flirting with treachery, but that did not mean he was finding it either easy or pleasant.
‘I have a gift,’ McCandless said, changing the subject, ‘for your Rajah.’
‘He is in need of gifts.’
‘Then this comes with our most humble duty and high respect.’ McCandless took a leather bag from his sporran and placed it beside the lantern. The bag chinked as it was laid down and, though Appah Rao glanced at it, he did not take it. ‘Tell your Rajah,’ McCandless said, ‘that it is our desire to place him back on his throne.’
‘And who will stand behind his throne?’ Appah Rao demanded. ‘Men in red coats?’
‘You will,’ McCandless said, ‘as your family always did.’
‘And you?’ the General asked. ‘What do you want?’
‘To trade. That is the Company’s business: trade. Why should we become rulers?’
Appah Rao sneered. ‘Because you always do. You come as merchants, but you bring guns and use them to make yourselves into taxmen, judges and executioners. Then you bring your churches.’ He shuddered.
‘We come to trade,’ McCandless insisted equably. ‘And what would you prefer, General? To trade with the British or be ruled by Muslims?’
And that, McCandless knew, was the question that had brought Appah Rao to this temple in the dark night. Mysore was a Hindu country and its ancient rulers, the Wodeyars, were Hindus like their people, but the Tippoo’s father, the fierce Hyder Ali, had come from the north and conquered their state and the Tippoo had inherited his father’s stolen throne. To give himself a shred of legality the Tippoo, like his father before him, kept the old ruling family alive, but the Wodeyars were now reduced to poverty and to ceremonial appearances only. The new Rajah was scarce more than a child, but to many of Mysore’s Hindus he was still their rightful monarch, though that was an opinion best kept secret from the Tippoo.
Appah Rao had not answered the Scotsman’s question, so McCandless phrased it differently. ‘Are you the last Hindu senior officer in the Tippoo’s army?’
‘There are others,’ Appah Rao said evasively.
‘And the rest?’
Appah Rao paused. ‘Fed to his tigers,’ he eventually admitted.
‘And soon, General,’ McCandless said softly, ‘there will be no more Hindu officers in Mysore and some very fat tigers. And if you defeat us you will still not be safe. The French will come.’
Appah Rao shrugged. ‘There are already Frenchmen in Seringapatam. They demand nothing of us.’
‘Yet,’ McCandless said ominously. ‘But let me tell you what stirs in the wide world, General. There is a new French general named Bonaparte. His army sits on the Nile now, but there is nothing in Egypt that interests Bonaparte or the French. They have their eyes farther east. They have their eyes on India. Bonaparte wrote to the Tippoo earlier this year. Did the Tippoo show you his letter?’ Appah Rao said nothing and McCandless took the silence to mean that Rao knew nothing of the French General’s letter and so he took from his sporran a piece of paper. ‘Do you speak French, General?’
‘No.’
‘Then let me translate for you. One of our agents copied the letter before it was sent and it reads, “le sept pluviôse, l’an six de la République Française.” That’s the twenty-seventh of January this year to the rest of us, and it says, “I have reached the borders of the Red Sea with an innumerable and invincible army, full of the desire to deliver you from the yoke of England.” Here.’ McCandless offered Appah Rao the letter. ‘There’s plenty more in the letter like that. Take it back with you and find someone who will translate it.’
‘I believe you,’ Appah Rao said, ignoring the proffered letter. ‘But why should I fear this French General?’
‘Because Bonaparte’s ally is the Tippoo and Bonaparte’s ambition is to take away the Company’s trade. His victory will strengthen the Muslims and weaken the Hindus. But if he sees Mysore defeated, and if he sees your Rajah back on his ancestor’s throne, and if he sees a Hindu army led by General Appah Rao then he will think twice before he takes ship. Bonaparte needs allies in this land, and without Mysore he will have none.’
Appah Rao frowned. ‘This Bonaparte, he is a Muslim?’
‘He’s friendly to Muslims, but he has no religion that we know of.’
‘If he’s friendly to Muslims,’ Appah Rao observed, ‘why should he not be friendly to Hindus also?’
‘Because it is to the Muslims that he looks for allies. He will reward them.’
Appah Rao shifted on the hard floor. ‘Why should we not let this Bonaparte come and defeat you?’
‘Because then he will have made the Tippoo all powerful, and after that, General, how long will there be any Hindus in his service? And how long will the surviving Wodeyars live? The Tippoo keeps the Wodeyar family alive for he needs Hindu infantry and cavalry, but if he no longer has enemies, why will he need reluctant friends?’
‘And you will restore the Wodeyars?’
‘I promise it.’
Appah Rao looked past McCandless, gazing up at the small light reflecting off the serene image of a Hindu goddess. The temple was still here, as were all Mysore’s temples, for though the Tippoo was a Muslim he had not torn down the Hindu sanctuaries. Indeed, like his father, the Tippoo had restored some of the temples. Life was not hard under the Tippoo, but all the same the Tippoo was not the ancestral ruler of Appah Rao’s country. That ruler was a boy kept in poverty in a small house in a back alley of Seringapatam, and Appah Rao’s hidden loyalty was to the Wodeyar dynasty, not to the Muslim interlopers. The General’s dark eyes shifted to McCandless. ‘You British captured the city seven years ago. Why didn’t you replace the Tippoo then?’
‘A mistake,’ McCandless admitted candidly. ‘We thought he could be trusted to keep his promises, but we were wrong. This time, if God wills it, we shall replace him. A man bitten by a snake once does not let the snake live a second time.’
Appah Rao brooded for a while. Bats flickered in the courtyard. The two men in the gateway watched as McCandless let the silence stretch. The Colonel knew it would not serve to pressure this General too hard, but McCandless also knew he did not need to press. Appah Rao might not be certain that a British victory would be in Mysore’s best interest, but what would serve that interest in these hard, confusing times? Appah Rao’s choice lay between the Muslim usurpers and foreign domination, and McCandless knew only too well of the simmering distrust that lay between Hindus and Muslims. It was that breach that the Scotsman was assaulting in the hope that he could widen the rift into full betrayal.
Appah Rao finally shook his head, then raised an arm and beckoned. One of the two men in the gateway came running forward and knelt beside the General. He was a young man of startling good looks, black-haired and with a fine long face of strong bones and defiant eyes. Like Appah Rao he wore the tiger tunic and had a gold-hilted sword slung at his hip. ‘This is Kunwar Singh,’ Appah Rao introduced the young man. ‘He is the son of a cousin of mine’ – he announced the relationship vaguely, intimating that it was not close – ‘and the commander of my bodyguard.’
McCandless looked into Kunwar Singh’s eyes. ‘Do your job well, my friend. Your master is valuable.’
Kunwar Singh smiled and then, at a signal from Appah Rao, he took a roll of paper from inside his tunic. He unrolled the sheet and weighted its corners with a pistol, a knife, a handful of bullets and the lantern.
McCandless leaned forward. The scroll was a map and it showed the big island in the River Cauvery on which the Tippoo’s capital of Seringapatam was built. The fortress town occupied the island’s western tip, while beyond its walls, to the east, were pleasure gardens, suburbs, the Tippoo’s summer palace and the mausoleum where the fearsome Hyder Ali was entombed.
Appah Rao drew a knife from his belt. He tapped the island’s northern bank where it fronted the Cauvery’s main channel. ‘That is where General Cornwallis crossed. But since then the walls have been strengthened. The French advised us how to do it. There are new guns on the walls, hundreds of them.’ He looked up into McCandless’s eyes. ‘I mean hundreds, McCandless. That is not an exaggeration. The Tippoo is fond of cannon and rockets. He has thousands of rocketmen and deep arsenals crammed with weapons. All this’ – he swept the knife’s tip around the walls that faced the river – ‘has been rebuilt, refortified and given cannon and rockets.’
‘We have cannon too,’ McCandless said.
Appah Rao ignored the comment. Instead he tapped the knife against the western ramparts that overlooked the Cauvery’s smaller channel. ‘At this time of year, McCandless, the river here is shallow. The crocodiles have gone to the deeper pools and a man can walk across the river with dry knees. And when your army reaches Seringapatam they will see that these walls’ – he tapped the western fortifications again – ‘have not been rebuilt. They are made of mud bricks and the rains have crumbled the rampart. It looks like a weak place and you will be tempted to attack there. Do not, for that is where the Tippoo wants you to attack.’ A beetle flew onto the map and crawled along the line marking the western walls. Appah Rao gently swept the insect aside. ‘There is another wall there, a new wall, hidden behind that rampart, McCandless, and when your men get through the first wall they will be in a trap. Here’ – he pointed to a bastion that connected the outer and inner walls – ‘that used to be a water gate, but it’s been blocked up and there are hundreds of pounds of gunpowder inside. Once your men are trapped between the two walls the Tippoo plans to blow the mine.’ Appah Rao shrugged. ‘Hundreds of pounds of powder, McCandless, just waiting for you. And when that attack has failed you will have no time to make another before the monsoon comes, and when the rains do come the river will rise and the roads will turn to mud and you will be forced to retreat, and every foot of your way back to Madras will be dogged by the Tippoo’s cavalry. That is how he plans to beat you.’
‘So we must attack anywhere but in the west?’
‘Anywhere but from the west,’ Appah Rao said. ‘The new inner wall’ – he demonstrated on the map with the tip of his knife – ‘extends all the way round the north. These other walls’ – he tapped the southern and eastern ramparts – ‘look stronger, but don’t be deceived. The west wall is a trap, and if you fall into it, it will be your death.’ He moved the weights off the corners of the map and let it roll itself up. Then he unshielded McCandless’s lantern and held one end of the scroll in the candle flame. The paper blazed, lighting the intricate carvings of the shrine. The three men watched as the paper burned to ash. ‘Anywhere but from the west,’ Appah Rao said, then, after a moment’s hesitation, he lifted the bag of gold coins from beside the lantern. ‘All this will go to my Rajah,’ he said. ‘I shall keep none.’
‘I never expected you to,’ McCandless said. ‘You have my thanks, General.’
‘I don’t want your thanks. I want my Rajah back. That is why I came. And if you disappoint me, then you English will have a new enemy.’
‘I’m a Scot.’
‘But you would still be my enemy,’ Appah Rao said, then turned away, but paused and looked back from the inner shrine’s threshold. ‘Tell your General that his men should be gentle with the people of the city.’
‘I will tell General Harris.’
‘Then I shall look to see you in Seringapatam,’ Appah Rao said heavily.
‘Me and thousands of others,’ McCandless said.
‘Thousands!’ Appah Rao’s tone mocked the claim. ‘You may have thousands, Colonel, but the Tippoo has tigers.’ He turned and walked to the temple’s outer gateway, followed by Kunwar Singh.
McCandless burned the copy of Bonaparte’s letter, waited another half-hour and then, as silently as he had come to the temple, he left it. He would join his escort, sleep a few hours, then ride with his precious secret to the waiting army.
Few men of the 33rd slept that night for the excitement of fighting and beating the Tippoo’s vaunted troops had filled them with a nervous energy. Some spent their loot on arrack, and those fell asleep soon enough, but the others stayed around their fires and relived the day’s brief excitement. For most of the troops it had been their first battle, and on its slim evidence they built a picture of war and their own valour.
Mary Bickerstaff sat with Sharpe and listened patiently to the tales. She was accustomed to soldiers’ stories and shrewd enough to know which men exaggerated their prowess and which pretended not to have been nauseated by the horrors of the dead and wounded. Sharpe, after he returned from Captain Morris’s tent with the news that the Captain would ask Major Shee’s permission for them to marry, was silent and Mary sensed he was not really listening to the tales, not even when he pretended to be amused or amazed. ‘What is it?’ she asked him after a long while.
‘Nothing, lass.’
‘Are you worried about Captain Morris?’
‘If he says no, we just ask Major Shee,’ Sharpe said with a confidence he did not entirely feel. Morris was a bastard, but Shee was a drunk, and in truth there was little to choose between them. Sharpe had an idea that Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the 33rd’s real commanding officer, was a man who might be reasonable, but Wellesley had been temporarily appointed as one of the army’s two deputy commanders and had thus shrugged off all regimental business. ‘We’ll get our permission,’ he told Mary.
‘So what’s worrying you?’
‘I told you. Nothing.’
‘You’re miles away, Richard.’
He hesitated. ‘Wish I was.’
Mary tightened the grip of her hand on his fingers, then lowered her voice to something scarce above a whisper. ‘Are you thinking of running, Richard Sharpe?’
He leaned away from the fire, trying to make a small private space where they could talk without being overheard. ‘Got to be a better life than this, love,’ he said.
‘Don’t do it!’ Mary said fiercely, but laying a hand on his cheek as she spoke. Some of the men on the other side of the fire saw the tender gesture and greeted it with a chorus of jeers and whistles. Mary ignored them. ‘They’ll catch you, Richard,’ she insisted, ‘catch you and shoot you.’
‘Not if we run far enough.’
‘We?’ she asked cautiously.
‘I’d want you, lass.’
Mary took hold of one of his hands and squeezed it. ‘Listen,’ she hissed. ‘Work to become a sergeant! Once you’re a sergeant, you’re made. You could even become an officer! Don’t laugh, Richard! Mister Lambert in Calcutta, he was a sergeant once, and he was a private before that. They made him up to ensign.’
Sharpe smiled and traced a finger down her cheek. ‘You’re mad, Mary. I love you, but you’re mad. I couldn’t be an officer! You have to know how to read!’
‘I can teach you,’ Mary said.
Sharpe glanced at her with some surprise. He had never known she could read and the knowledge made him somewhat nervous of her. ‘I wouldn’t want to be an officer anyway,’ he said scathingly. ‘Stuck-up bastards, all of them.’
‘But you can be a sergeant,’ Mary insisted, ‘and a good one. But don’t run, love. Whatever you do, don’t run.’
‘Is that the lovebirds?’ Sergeant Hakeswill’s mocking voice cut through their conversation. ‘Ah, it’s sweet, isn’t it? Good to see a couple in love. Restores a man’s faith in human nature, it does.’
Sharpe and Mary sat up and disentangled their fingers as the Sergeant stalked through the ring of men beside the fire. ‘I want you, Sharpie,’ Hakeswill said when he reached their side. ‘Got a message for you, I have.’ He touched his hat to Mary. ‘Not you, Ma’am,’ he said as she stood to accompany Sharpe. ‘This is men’s business, Mrs Bickerstaff. Soldiers’ business. No business for bibbis. Come on, Sharpie! Ain’t got all night! Look lively now!’ He strode away, thumping the ground with the butt of his halberd as he threaded his way between the fires. ‘Got news for you, Sharpie,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘good news, lad, good news.’
‘I can marry?’ Sharpe asked eagerly.
Hakeswill threw a sly glance over his shoulder as he led Sharpe towards the picketed lines of officers’ horses. ‘Now why would a lad like you want to marry? Why throw all your spunk away on one bibbi, eh? And that one used goods, too? Another man’s leavings, that’s all Mary Bickerstaff is. You should spread it about, boy. Enjoy yourself when you’re still young.’ Hakeswill pushed his way between the horses to reach the dark space between the two picketed lines where he turned and faced Sharpe. ‘Good news, Sharpe. You can’t marry. Permission is refused. You want to know why, boy?’
Sharpe felt his hopes crumbling. At that moment he hated Hakeswill more than ever, but his pride forced him not to show that hate, nor his disappointment. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘I’ll tell you why, Sharpie,’ Hakeswill said. ‘And stand still, boy! When a sergeant condescends to talk to you, you stand still! ’Tenshun! That’s better, lad. Bit of respect, like what is proper to show to a sergeant.’ His face twitched as he grinned. ‘You want to know why, boy? Because I don’t want you to marry her, Sharpie, that is why. I don’t want little Mrs Bickerstaff married to anyone. Not to you, not to me, not even to the King of England himself, God bless him.’ He was circling Sharpe as he talked. ‘And do you know why, boy?’ He stopped in front of Sharpe and pushed his face up towards the younger man. ‘Because that Mrs Bickerstaff is a bibbi, Sharpie, with possibilities. Possibibbibilities!’ He giggled at his joke. ‘Got a future, she has.’ He grinned again, and the grin was suddenly twisted as his face shuddered with its distorting rictus. ‘You familiar with Naig? Nasty Naig? Answer me, boy!’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ Sharpe said.
‘Fat bugger, Sharpie, he is. Fat and rich. Rides a helephant, he does, and he’s got a dozen green tents. One of the army’s followers, Sharpie, and rich as a rich man can be. Richer than you’ll ever be, Sharpie, and you know why? ’Cos Nasty Naig provides the officers with their women, that’s why. And I’m not talking about those rancid slags the other heathens hires out to you nasty common soldiers, I’m talking about the desirable women, Sharpie. Desirable.’ He lingered on the word. ‘Nasty’s got a whole herd of expensive whores, Sharpie, he does, all riding in those closed wagons with the coloured curtains. Full of officers’ meat, those wagons are, fat ones, skinny ones, dark ones, light ones, dirty ones, clean ones, tall ones, short ones, all sorts of ones, and all of ’em are prettier than you could ever dream of, but there ain’t one of them as pretty as little Mrs Bickerstaff, and there ain’t one who looks as white as pretty little Mary does, and if there’s one thing an English officer abroad wants once in a while, Sharpie, it’s a spot of the white meat. That’s the itch Morris has got, Sharpie, got it bad, but he ain’t no different from the others. They get bored with the dark meat, Sharpie. And the Indian officers! Naig tells me they’ll pay a month’s wages for a white. You following me, Sharpie? You and me marching in step, are we?’
Sharpe said nothing. It had taken all his self discipline not to hit the Sergeant, and Hakeswill knew it and mocked him for it. ‘Go on, Sharpie! Hit me!’ Hakeswill taunted him, and when Sharpe did not move, the Sergeant laughed. ‘You ain’t got the guts, have you?’
‘I’ll find a place and time,’ Sharpe said angrily.
‘Place and time! Listen to him!’ Hakeswill chuckled, then began pacing around Sharpe once again. ‘We’ve made a deal, Nasty and me. Like brothers, we are, me and him, just like brothers. We understand each other, see, and Nasty’s right keen on your little Mary. Profit there, you see, boy. And I’ll get a cut of it.’
‘Mary stays with me, Sarge,’ Sharpe said stubbornly, ‘married or not.’
‘Oh, Sharpie, dear me. You don’t understand, do you? You didn’t hear me, boy, did you? Nasty and me, we’ve made a bargain. Drunk to it, we did, and not in arrack, neither, but in proper gentlemen’s brandy. I give him little Mrs Bickerstaff and he gives me half the money she earns. He’ll cheat me, of course he’ll cheat me, but she’ll make so much that it won’t signify. She won’t have a choice, Sharpie. She’ll get snatched on the march and given to one of Nasty’s men. One of the ugly buggers. She’ll be raped wicked for a week, whipped every night, and at the end of it, Sharpie, she’ll do whatever she’s told. That’s the way the business works, Sharpie, says so in the scriptures, and how are you going to stop it? Answer me that, boy. Are you going to pay me more than Nasty will?’ Hakeswill stopped in front of Sharpe where he waited for an answer and, when none came, he shook his head derisively. ‘You’re a boy playing in men’s games, Sharpie, and you’re going to lose unless you’re a man. Are you man enough to fight me here? Put me down? Claim I was kicked by a horse in the night? You can try, Sharpie, but you’re not man enough, are you?’
‘Hit you, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said, ‘and be put on a flogging charge? I’m not daft.’
Hakeswill made an elaborate charade of looking right and left. ‘Ain’t no one here but you and me, Sharpie. Nice and private!’
Sharpe resisted the urge to lash out at his persecutor. ‘I’m not daft,’ he said again, stubbornly remaining at attention.
‘But you are, boy. Daft as a bucket. Don’t you understand? I’m offering you the soldier’s way out! Forget the bloody officers, you daft boy. You and me, Sharpie, we’re soldiers, and soldiers settle their arguments by fighting. Says so in the scriptures, don’t it? So beat me now, lad, beat me here and now, beat me in a square fight and I warrant you can keep Mrs Bickerstaff all to your little self.’ He paused, grinning up into Sharpe’s face. ‘That’s a promise, Sharpie. Fight me now, fair and honest, and our argument’s over. But you’re not man enough, are you? You’re just a boy.’
‘I’m not falling for your tricks, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said.
‘There ain’t no trick, boy,’ Hakeswill said hoarsely. He stepped two paces away from Sharpe, reversed his halberd and thrust its steel point hard into the turf. ‘I can beat you, Sharpie, that’s what I’m reckoning. I’ve been around a bit. Know how to fight. You might be taller than me, and you might be stronger, but you ain’t as quick as me and you ain’t half as dirty. I’m going to pound the bloody guts out of you, and when I’ve finished with you I’ll take little Mary down to Nasty’s tents and earn my money. But not if you beat me, boy. You beat me, and on a soldier’s honour, I’ll persuade Captain Morris to let you marry. You’ve got my word on it, boy. A soldier’s honour.’ He waited for an answer. ‘You ain’t a soldier,’ he said scornfully when Sharpe still kept quiet. ‘You ain’t got the guts!’ He stepped up to Sharpe and slapped him hard across the face. ‘Nothing but a lily, ain’t you? Lieutenant Lawford’s lily-boy. Maybe that’s why you ain’t got the guts to fight for your Mary!’
The last insult provoked Sharpe to hit Hakeswill. He did it hard and fast. He slammed a low blow into Hakeswill’s belly that folded the Sergeant over, then cut his other hand hard up into the Sergeant’s face to split open Hakeswill’s nose and jerk his head back up. Sharpe brought up his knee, missed the Sergeant’s crotch, but his left hand had hold of Hakeswill’s clubbed hair now and he was just feeling with his right fingers for the squealing Sergeant’s eyeballs when a voice was suddenly shouting close behind him.
‘Guard!’ the voice called. ‘Guard!’
‘Jesus!’ Sharpe let go of his enemy, turned and saw Captain Morris standing just beyond the picketed horses. Ensign Hicks was with him.
Hakeswill had sunk onto the ground, but now hauled himself upright on the staff of his halberd. ‘Assaulted me, sir, he did!’ The Sergeant could scarcely speak for the pain in his belly. ‘He went mad, sir! Just mad, sir!’
‘Don’t worry, Sergeant, Hicks and I both saw it,’ Morris said. ‘Came to check on the horses, ain’t that right, Hicks?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hicks said. He was a small young man, very officious, who would never contradict a superior. If Morris claimed the clouds were made of cheese Hicks would just stand to attention, twitch his nose, and swear blind he could smell Cheddar. ‘Plain case of assault, sir,’ the Ensign said. ‘Unprovoked assault.’
‘Guard!’ Morris shouted. ‘Here! Now!’
Blood was pouring down Hakeswill’s face, but the Sergeant managed a grin. ‘Got you, Sharpie,’ he said softly, ‘got you. Flogging offence, that.’
‘You bastard,’ Sharpe said softly, and wondered if he should run. He wondered if he would stand any chance of making it safely away if he just sprinted into the dark, but Ensign Hicks had drawn his pistol and the sound of the hammer being cocked stilled Sharpe’s tiny impulse to flee.
A panting Sergeant Green arrived with four men of the guard and Morris pushed the horses aside to let them through. ‘Arrest Private Sharpe, Sergeant,’ he told Green. ‘Close arrest. He struck Sergeant Hakeswill, and Hicks and I witnessed the assault. Ensign Hicks will do the paperwork.’
‘Gladly, sir,’ Hicks agreed. The Ensign was slurring his words, betraying that he had been drinking.
Morris looked at Sharpe. ‘It’s a court martial offence, Sharpe,’ the Captain said, then he turned back to Green who had not moved to obey his orders. ‘Do it!’
‘Sir!’ Green said, stepping forward. ‘Come on, Sharpie.’
‘I didn’t do nothing, Sergeant,’ Sharpe protested.
‘Come on, lad. It’ll sort itself out,’ Green said quietly, then he took Sharpe’s elbow and led him away. Hicks went with them, happy to please Morris by writing up the charge.
Morris waited until the prisoner and his escort had gone, then grinned at Hakeswill. ‘The boy was faster than you thought, Sergeant.’
‘He’s a devil, that one, sir, a devil. Broke my nose, he did.’ Hakeswill gingerly tried to straighten the cartilage and the bleeding nose made a horrible crunching noise. ‘But his woman’s ours.’
‘Tonight?’ Morris could not keep the eagerness from his voice.
‘Not tonight, sir,’ Hakeswill said in a tone that suggested the Captain had made a foolish suggestion. ‘There’ll be enough trouble in the company with Sharpe arrested, sir, and if we go after his bibbi tonight there’ll be a rare brawl. Half the bastards are full of arrack. No, sir. Wait till the bastard’s flogged to death. Wait for that, sir, and then they’ll all be meek as lambs. Meek as lambs. Flogging does that to men. Quietens them down something proper, a good whipping does. All be done in a couple of days, sir.’
Morris flinched as Hakeswill tried to straighten his nose again. ‘You’d better see Mister Micklewhite, Hakeswill.’
‘No, sir. Don’t believe in doctors, sir, except for the pox. I’ll strap it up, sir, and soon be right as rain. Besides, watching Sharpie flogged will be treatment enough. I reckon we done him, sir. You won’t have long to wait, sir, not long at all.’
Morris found Hakeswill’s intimate tone unseemly, and stepped stiffly back. ‘Then I’ll wish you a good night, Sergeant.’
‘Thank you kindly, sir, and the same to you, sir. And sweet dreams too, sir.’ Hakeswill laughed. ‘Just as sweet as sweet can ever be, sir.’
For Sharpie was done.
CHAPTER THREE
Colonel McCandless woke as the dawn touched the world’s rim with a streak of fire. The crimson light glowed bright on the lower edge of a long cloud that lay on the eastern horizon like the smoke rill left by a musket volley. It was the only cloud in the sky. He rolled his plaid and tied it onto his saddle’s cantle, then rinsed his mouth with water. His horse, picketed close by, had been saddled all night in case some enemy discovered McCandless and his escort. That escort, six picked men of the 4th Native Cavalry, had needed no orders to be about the day. They grinned a greeting at McCandless, stowed their meagre bedding, then made a breakfast out of warm canteen water and a dry cake of ground lentils and rice. McCandless shared the cavalrymen’s meal. He liked a cup of tea in the mornings, but he dared not light a fire for the smoke might attract the pestilential patrols of the Tippoo’s Light Cavalry. ‘It will be a hot day, sahib,’ the Havildar remarked to McCandless.
‘They’re all hot,’ McCandless answered. ‘Haven’t had a cold day since I came here.’ He thought for a second, then worked out that it must be Thursday the twenty-eighth of March. It would be cold in Scotland today and, for an indulgent moment, he thought of Lochaber and imagined the snow lying deep in Glen Scaddle and the ice edging the loch’s foreshore, and though he could see the image clearly enough, he could not really imagine what the cold would feel like. He had been away from home too long and now he wondered if he could ever live in Scotland again. He certainly would not live in England, not in Hampshire where his sister lived with her petulant English husband. Harriet kept pressing him to retire to Hampshire, saying that they had no relatives left in Scotland and that her husband had a wee cottage that would suit McCandless’s declining years to perfection, but the Colonel had no taste for a soft, plump, English landscape, nor, indeed, for his soft plump sister’s company. Harriet’s son, McCandless’s nephew William Lawford, was a decent enough young fellow even if he had forgotten his Scottish ancestry, but young William was now in the army, here in Mysore indeed, which meant that the only relative McCandless liked was close at hand and that circumstance merely strengthened McCandless’s distaste for retiring to Hampshire. But to Scotland? He often dreamed of going back, though whenever the opportunity arose for him to take the Company’s pension and sail to his native land, he always found some unfinished business that kept him in India. Next year, he promised himself, the year of our Lord 1800, would be a good year to go home, though in truth he had promised himself the same thing every year for the last decade.
The seven men unpicketed the horses and hauled themselves into their worn saddles. The Indian escort was armed with lances, sabres and pistols, while McCandless carried a claymore, a horse pistol and a carbine that was holstered on his saddle. He glanced once towards the rising sun to check his direction, then led his men northwards. He said nothing, but he needed to give these men no orders. They knew well enough to keep a keen lookout in this dangerous land.
For this was the kingdom of Mysore, high on the southern Indian plateau, and as far as the horsemen could see the land was under the rule of the Tippoo Sultan. Indeed this was the Tippoo’s heartland, a fertile plain rich with villages, fields and water cisterns; only now, as the British army advanced and the Tippoo’s retreated, the country was being blighted. McCandless could see six pillars of smoke showing where the Tippoo’s cavalry had burned granaries to make sure that the hated British could not find food. The cisterns would all have been poisoned, the livestock driven westwards and every storehouse emptied, thus forcing the armies of Britain and Hyderabad to carry all their own supplies on the cumbersome bullock carts. McCandless guessed that yesterday’s brief and unequal battle had been an attempt by the Tippoo to draw the escorting troops away from the precious baggage onto his infantry, after which he would have released his fearsome horsemen onto the wagons of grain and rice and salt, but the British had not taken the bait which meant that General Harris’s ponderous advance would continue. Say another week until they arrived at Seringapatam? Then they would face two months of short rations and searing weather before the monsoon broke, but McCandless reckoned that two months was plenty enough time to do the job, especially as the British would soon know how to avoid the Tippoo’s trap at the western walls.
He threaded his horse through a grove of cork trees, glad of the shade cast by the deep-green leaves. He paused at the grove’s edge to watch the land ahead, which dropped gently into a valley where a score of people were working in rice paddies. The valley, McCandless supposed, lay far enough from the line of the British advance to have been spared the destruction of its stores and water supply. A small village lay to the west of the rice paddies, and McCandless could see another dozen people working in the small gardens around the houses, and he knew that he and his men would be spotted as soon as they left the cover of the cork grove, but he doubted that any of the villagers would investigate seven strange horsemen. The folk of Mysore, like villagers throughout all the Indian states, avoided mysterious soldiers in the hope that the soldiers would avoid them. At the far side of the rice paddies were plantations of mango and date palms, and beyond them a bare hill crest. McCandless watched that empty crest for a few minutes and then, satisfied that no enemy was nearby, he spurred his mare forward.
The people working the rice immediately fled towards their homes and McCandless swerved eastwards to show them he meant no harm, then kicked the mare into a trot. He rode beside a grove of carefully tended mulberry trees, part of the Tippoo’s scheme to make silk weaving into a major industry of Mysore, then he spurred into a canter as he approached the bed of the valley. His escort’s curb and scabbard chains jingled behind him as the horses pounded down the slope, splashed through the shrunken stream that trickled from the paddies, then began the gentle climb to the date palm grove.
It was then that McCandless saw the flash of light in the mango trees.
He instinctively dragged his horse around to face the rising sun and pricked back his spurs. He looked behind as he rode, hoping that the flash of light was nothing but some errant reflection, but then he saw horsemen spurring from the trees. They carried lances and all of them were dressed in the tiger-striped tunic. There were a dozen men at least, but the Scotsman had no time to count them properly for he was plunging his spurs back to race his mare diagonally up the slope towards the crest.
One of the pursuing horsemen fired a shot that echoed through the valley. The bullet went wide. McCandless doubted it had been supposed to hit anything, but was rather intended as a signal to alert other horsemen who must be in the area. For a second or two the Scotsman debated turning and charging directly at his pursuers, but he rejected the idea. The odds were marginally too great and his news far too important to be gambled on a skirmish. Flight was his only option. He pulled the carbine from its saddle holster, cocked it, then clapped his heels hard onto the mare’s flank. Once over the crest he reckoned there was a good chance he could outrun his pursuers.
Goats scattered from his path as he spurred the mare over the ridge’s skyline. One glance behind satisfied McCandless that he had gained a long enough lead to let him turn north without being headed off, and so he twitched the rein and let the mare run. A long stretch of open, tree-dotted country lay ahead and beyond were thick stands of timber in which he and his escort could lose themselves. ‘Run, girl!’ he called to the mare, then looked behind to make certain his escort was closed up and safe. Sweat dripped down his face, his scabbarded claymore thumped up and down on his hip, but the strong mare was running like the wind now, her speed blowing the kilt back up around his hips. This was not the first time McCandless had raced away from enemies. He had once run for a whole day, dawn to twilight, to escape a Mahratta band and the mare had never once lost her footing. In all India, and that meant all the world, McCandless had no friend better than this mare. ‘Run, girl!’ he called to her again, then looked behind once more and it was then that the Havildar shouted a warning. McCandless turned to see more horsemen coming from the trees to the north.
There must have been fifty or sixty horsemen racing towards the Scotsman and, even as he swerved the mare eastwards, he realized that his original dozen pursuers must have been the scouts for this larger party of cavalry and that by running north he had been galloping towards the enemy rather than away from them. Now he rode towards the rising sun again, but there was no cover to the east and these new pursuers were already dangerously close. He angled back to the south, hoping he might find some shelter in the valley beyond the crest, but then a wild volley of shots sounded from his pursuers.
One bullet struck the mare. It was a fortunate shot, fired at the gallop, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred such a shot would have flown yards wide, but this ball struck the mare’s haunch and McCandless felt her falter. He slapped her rump with the stock of his carbine and she tried to respond, but the bullet had driven close to the mare’s spine and the pain was growing and she stumbled, neighed, yet still she tried to run again. Then one of her back legs simply stopped working and the horse slewed round in a cloud of dust. McCandless kicked his feet out of the stirrups as his escort galloped past. The Havildar was already hauling on his reins, wheeling his horse to rescue McCandless, but the Scotsman knew it was too late. He sprawled on the ground, hurled free of the falling mare, and shouted at the Havildar. ‘Go, man!’ he called. ‘Go!’ But the escort had sworn to protect the Colonel and, instead of fleeing, the Havildar led his men towards the rapidly approaching enemy.
‘You fools!’ McCandless shouted after them. Brave fools, but fools. He was bruised, but otherwise unhurt, though his mare was dying. She was whinnying and somehow she had managed to raise the front part of her body on her forelegs and seemed puzzled that her back legs would not work. She whinnied again, and McCandless knew she would never again run like the wind and so he did the friend’s duty. He went to her head, pulled it down by the reins, kissed her nose and then put a bullet into her skull just above her eyes. She reared back, white-eyed and with blood spraying, then she slumped down. Her forelegs kicked a few times and after that she was still. The flies came to settle on her wounds.
The Havildar’s small group rode full tilt into the enemy’s pursuit. That enemy had been scattered by their gallop and the Havildar’s men were closed up and so the first few seconds were an easy victory. Two lances found Mysore bellies, two sabres drew more blood, but then the main body of the enemy crashed into the fight. The Havildar himself had ridden clean through the leading ranks, leaving his lance behind, and he now looked back to see his men fighting desperately among a milling group of enemy horsemen. He drew his sabre and turned back to help when he heard McCandless shouting. ‘Go, man, go! Go!’ McCandless yelled, pointing north. The Havildar could not take back the vital news McCandless had gained from Appah Rao, but it was still important to let the army know that the Colonel had been captured. McCandless was not a vain man, but he knew his own value, and he had left some careful instructions that might retrieve some of the damage of his capture. Those instructions offered a chance for the army to rescue McCandless, and that dangerous expedient was now the Scotsman’s only hope of passing on Appah Rao’s message. ‘Go!’ McCandless roared as loudly as he could.
The Havildar was caught between his duty to his men and his duty to obey McCandless’s orders. He hesitated, and two of the pursuers swerved aside to pounce on him. That made up his mind. He clapped his spurs back, charged the pursuers, touched the rein at the last moment and swung his sabre as he went past the two men. The blade sliced across the nape of the nearer man’s neck and then the Havildar curved away northwards, galloping free while the rest of the enemy gathered about the survivors for the kill.
McCandless threw down his pistol and carbine, drew his heavy claymore and walked towards the mêlée. He never reached it, for an enemy officer detached himself from the clash of sabres and turned his horse to meet the Scotsman. The Mysorean officer sheathed his sabre, then mutely held out his right hand for McCandless’s blade. Behind him the sabres and lances worked briefly, then the small fight was over and McCandless knew that his escort, all but the Havildar, was dead. He looked at the horseman above him. ‘This sword,’ he said bitterly, ‘belonged to my father and to his father.’ He spoke in English. ‘This sword,’ McCandless said, ‘was carried for Charles Stuart at Culloden.’
The officer said nothing, just held his hand out, his eyes steady on McCandless. The Scotsman slowly reversed his blade, then held the hilt upwards. The Mysorean officer took it and seemed surprised by the claymore’s weight. ‘What were you doing here?’ the officer asked in Kanarese.
‘Do you speak English?’ McCandless asked in that tongue, determined to hide his knowledge of India’s languages.
The officer shrugged. He looked at the old claymore then slid it into his sash. His men, their horses white with sweat, gathered excitedly to stare at the captured heathen. They saw an old man and some wondered if they had captured the enemy’s General, but the captive seemed to speak no language any of them knew and so his identity would have to wait. He was given one of his dead escort’s horses and then, as the sun climbed towards its daily furnace heat, McCandless was taken west towards the Tippoo’s stronghold.
While behind him the vultures circled and at last, sure that nothing lived where the dust and flies had settled on the newly made corpses, flew down for their feast.
It took two days to convene the court martial. The army could not spare the time in its march for the business to be done immediately and so Captain Morris had to wait until the great ponderous horde was given a half-day’s rest to allow the straggling herds to catch up with the main armies. Only then was there time to assemble the officers and have Private Sharpe brought into Major Shee’s tent which had one of its sides brailed up to make more space. Captain Morris laid the charge and Sergeant Hakeswill and Ensign Hicks gave evidence.
Major John Shee was irritable. The Major was irritable at the best of times, but the need to stay at least apparently sober had only shortened his already short Irish temper. He did not, in truth, enjoy commanding the 33rd. Major Shee suspected, when he was sober enough to suspect anything, that he did the job badly and that suspicion had given rise to a haunting fear of mutiny, and mutiny, to Major Shee’s befuddled mind, was signalled by any sign of disrespect for established authority. Private Sharpe was plainly a man who brimmed over with such disrespect and the offence with which he was charged was plain and the remedy just as obvious, but the court proceedings were delayed because Lieutenant Lawford, who should have spoken for Sharpe, was not present. ‘Then where the devil is he?’ Shee demanded.
Captain Fillmore, commander of the fourth company, spoke for Lawford. ‘He was summoned to General Harris’s tent, sir.’
Shee frowned at Fillmore. ‘He knew he was supposed to be here?’
‘Indeed, sir. But the General insisted.’
‘And we’re just supposed to twiddle our thumbs while he takes tea with the General?’ Shee demanded.
Captain Fillmore glanced through the tent’s open side as if he hoped to see Lawford hurrying towards the court martial, but there were only sentries to be seen. ‘Lieutenant Lawford did ask me to assure the court, sir, that Private Sharpe is a most reliable man,’ Fillmore said, fearing that he was not doing a very good job of defending the unfortunate prisoner. ‘The Lieutenant would have spoken most forcibly for the prisoner’s character, sir, and begged the court to grant him the benefit of any doubt.’
‘Doubt?’ Shee snapped. ‘What doubt is there? He struck a sergeant, he was seen doing it by two officers, and you think there’s doubt? It’s an open-and-shut case! That’s what it is, open and shut!’
Fillmore shrugged. ‘Ensign Fitzgerald would also like to say something.’
Shee glared at Fitzgerald. ‘Not much to say, Ensign, I trust?’
‘Whatever it might take, sir, to prevent a miscarriage of justice.’ Fitzgerald, young and confident, stood and smiled at his commanding officer and fellow Irishman. ‘I doubt we’ve a better soldier in the regiment, sir, and I suspect Private Sharpe was given provocation.’
‘Captain Morris says not,’ Shee insisted, ‘and so does Ensign Hicks.’
‘I cannot contradict the Captain, sir,’ Fitzgerald said blandly, ‘but I was drinking with Timothy Hicks earlier that evening, sir, and if his eyes weren’t crossed by midnight then he must possess a belly like a Flanders cauldron.’
Shee looked dangerously belligerent. ‘Are you accusing a fellow officer of being under the influence of liquor?’
Fitzgerald reckoned that most of the 33rd’s mess was ever under the influence of arrack, rum or brandy, but he also knew better than to say as much. ‘I’m just agreeing with Captain Fillmore, sir, that we should give Private Sharpe the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Doubt?’ Shee spat. ‘There is no doubt! Open and shut!’ He gestured at Sharpe who stood hatless in front of his escort. Flies crawled on Sharpe’s face, but he was not allowed to brush them away. Shee seemed to shudder at the thought of Sharpe’s villainy. ‘He struck a sergeant in full view of two officers, and you think there’s doubt about what happened?’
‘I do, sir,’ Fitzgerald declared forcibly. ‘Indeed I do.’
Sergeant Hakeswill’s face twitched. He watched Fitzgerald with loathing. Major Shee stared at Fitzgerald for a few seconds, then shook his head as though questioning the Ensign’s sanity.
Captain Fillmore tried one last time. Fillmore doubted the evidence of Morris and Hicks, and he had never trusted Hakeswill, but he knew Shee could never be persuaded to take the word of a private against that of two officers and a sergeant. ‘Might I beg the court,’ Fillmore said respectfully, ‘to suspend judgment until Lieutenant Lawford can speak for the prisoner?’
‘What can Lawford say, in the name of God?’ Shee demanded. There was a flask of arrack waiting in his baggage and he wanted to get these proceedings over and done. He had a brief, muttered conversation with his two fellow judges, both of them field officers from other regiments, then glared at the prisoner. ‘You’re a damned villain, Sharpe, and the army has no need of villains. If you can’t respect authority, then don’t expect authority to respect you. Two thousand lashes.’ He ignored the shudder of astonishment and horror that some of the onlookers gave and looked instead at the Sergeant Major. ‘How soon can it be done?’
‘This afternoon’s as good a time as any, sir,’ Bywaters answered stolidly. He had expected a flogging verdict, though not as severe as this, and he had already made the necessary arrangements.
Shee nodded. ‘Parade the battalion in two hours. These proceedings are over.’ He gave Sharpe one foul glance, then pushed his chair back. He would need some arrack, Shee thought, if he was to sit his horse in the sun through two thousand lashes. Maybe he should have only given one thousand, for a thousand lashes were as liable to kill as two, but it was too late now, the verdict was given, and Shee’s only hope of respite from the dreadful heat was his hope that the prisoner would die long before the awful punishment was finished.
Sharpe was kept under guard. His sentinels were not men from his own battalion, but six men from the King’s 12th who did not know him and who could therefore be trusted not to connive in his escape. They kept him in a makeshift pen behind Shee’s tent and no one spoke to Sharpe there until Sergeant Green arrived. ‘I’m sorry about this, Sharpie,’ Green said, stepping over the ammunition boxes that formed the crude walls of the pen.
Sharpe was sitting with his back against the boxes. He shrugged. ‘I’ve been whipped before, Sergeant.’
‘Not in the army, lad, not in the army. Here.’ Green held out a canteen. ‘It’s rum.’
Sharpe uncorked the canteen and drank a good slug of the liquor. ‘I didn’t do nothing anyway,’ he said sullenly.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Green said, ‘but the more you drink the less you’ll feel. Finish it, lad.’
‘Tomkins says you don’t feel a damn thing after the first thirty,’ Sharpe said.
‘I hope he’s right, lad, I hope he’s right, but you drink that rum anyway.’ Green took off his shako and wiped the sweat from his bald head with a scrap of rag.
Sharpe tipped the canteen again. ‘And where was Mister Lawford?’ he asked bitterly.
‘You heard, son. He was called off to see the General.’ Green hesitated. ‘But what could he have said anyway?’ he added.
Sharpe leaned his head against the box-built wall. ‘He could have said that Morris is a lying bastard and that Hicks will say anything to please him.’
‘No, he couldn’t say that, lad, and you know it.’ Green filled a clay pipe with tobacco and lit it with his tinderbox. He sat on the ground opposite Sharpe and saw the fear in the younger man’s eyes. Sharpe was doing his best to hide it, but it was plainly there and so it should be, for only a fool did not fear two thousand lashes and only a lucky man came away alive. No man had ever actually walked away from such a punishment, but a handful had recovered after a month in the sick tent. ‘Your Mary’s all right,’ Green told Sharpe.
Sharpe gave a sullen grimace. ‘You know what Hakeswill told me? That he was going to sell her as a whore.’
Green frowned. ‘He won’t, lad. He won’t.’
‘And how will you stop him?’ Sharpe asked bitterly.
‘She’s being looked after now,’ Green reassured him. ‘The lads are making sure of that, and the women are all protecting her.’
‘But for how long?’ Sharpe asked. He drank more of the rum which seemed to be having no effect that he could sense. He momentarily closed his eyes. He knew he had been given an effective death sentence, but there was always hope. Some men had survived. Their ribs might have been bared to the sun and their skin and flesh be hanging from their backs in bloody ribbons, yet they had lived, but how was he to look after Mary when he was bandaged in a bed? If he was even lucky enough to reach a sick bed instead of a grave. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, not for the punishment he faced, but for Mary. ‘How long can they protect her?’ he asked gruffly, cursing himself for being so near to weeping.
‘I tell you she’ll be all right,’ Green insisted.
‘You don’t know Hakeswill,’ Sharpe said.
‘Oh, but I do, lad, I do,’ Green said feelingly, then paused. For a second or two he looked embarrassed, then glanced up at Sharpe. ‘The bastard can’t touch her if she’s married. Married proper, I mean, with the Colonel’s blessing.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Green drew on the pipe. ‘If the worst does happen, Sharpie …’ he said, then stopped in embarrassment again.
‘Aye?’ Sharpe prompted him.
‘Not that it will, of course,’ Green said hurriedly. ‘Billy Nixon survived a couple of thousand tickles, but you probably don’t remember him, do you? Little fellow, with a wall eye. He survived all right. He was never quite the same afterwards, of course, but you’re a tough lad, Sharpie. Tougher than Billy.’
‘But if the worst does happen?’ Sharpe reminded the Sergeant.
‘Well,’ Green said, colouring, but then at last he summoned the courage to say what he had come to say. ‘I mean if it don’t offend you, lad, and only if the worst does happen, which of course it won’t, and I pray it won’t, but if it does then I thought I might ask for Mrs Bickerstaff’s hand myself, if you follow my meaning.’
Sharpe almost laughed, but then the thought of two thousand lashes choked off even the beginnings of a smile. Two thousand! He had seen men with backs looking like offal after just a hundred lashes and how the hell was he to survive with another nineteen hundred strokes on top of that? Such survival really depended on the battalion surgeon. If Mister Micklewhite thought Sharpe was dying after five or six hundred lashes he might stop the punishment to give his back time to heal before the rest of the lashes were given, but Micklewhite was not known for stopping whippings. The rumour in the battalion was that so long as the man did not scream like a baby and thus disturb the more squeamish of the officers, the surgeon would keep the blows coming, even if they were falling onto a dead man’s spine. That was the rumour, and Sharpe could only hope it was not true.
‘Did you hear me, Sharpie?’ Sergeant Green interrupted Sharpe’s gloomy thoughts.
‘I heard you, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said.
‘So would you mind? If I asked her?’
‘Have you asked her already?’ Sharpe said accusingly.
‘No!’ Green said hastily. ‘Wouldn’t be right! Not while you’re still, well, you know.’
‘Alive,’ Sharpe said bitterly.
‘It’s only if the worst happens.’ Green tried to sound optimistic. ‘Which it won’t.’
‘You won’t need my permission when I’m dead, Sergeant.’
‘No, but if I can tell Mary you wanted her to accept me, then it’ll help. Don’t you see that? I’ll be a good man to her, Sharpie. I was married before, I was, only she died on me, but she never complained about me. No more than any woman ever complains, anyhow.’
‘Hakeswill might stop you marrying her.’
Green nodded. ‘Aye, he might, but I can’t see how. Not if we tie the knot quick. I’ll ask Major Shee, and he’s always fair with me. Ask him tonight, see? But only if the worst happens.’
‘But you need a chaplain,’ Sharpe warned the Sergeant. The 33rd’s own chaplain had committed suicide on the voyage from Calcutta to Madras and no marriage in the army was considered official unless it had the regimental commander’s permission and the blessing of a chaplain.
‘The lads in the Old Dozen tell me they’ve got a Godwalloper,’ Green said, gesturing at the soldiers guarding Sharpe, ‘and he can do the splicing tomorrow. I’ll probably have to slip the bugger a shilling, but Mary’s worth a bob.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘Ask her, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘ask her.’ What else could he say? And if Mary was properly married to Sergeant Green then she would be protected by the army’s regulations. ‘But see what happens to me first,’ Sharpe added.
‘Of course I will, Sharpie. Hope for the best, eh? Never say die.’
Sharpe drained the canteen. ‘There’s a couple of things in my pack, Sergeant. A good pistol I took off an Indian officer the other day and a few coins. You’ll give them to Mary?’
‘Of course I will,’ Green said, carefully hiding the fact that Hakeswill had already plundered Sharpe’s pack. ‘She’ll be all right, Sharpie. Promise you, lad.’
‘And some dark night, Sergeant, give bloody Hakeswill a kicking for me.’
Green nodded. ‘Be a pleasure, Sharpie. Be a pleasure.’ He knocked the ashes of his pipe against the ammunition boxes, then stood. ‘I’ll bring you some more rum, lad. The more the better.’
The preparations for Sharpe’s flogging had all been made. Not that they were many, but it took a few moments to make sure everything was to the Sergeant Major’s satisfaction. A tripod had been constructed out of three sergeant’s halberds, their spear points uppermost and lashed together so that the whole thing stood two feet higher than a tall man. The three halberd butts were sunk into the dry soil, then a fourth halberd was firmly lashed crosswise on one face of the tripod at the height of a man’s armpits.
Sergeant Hakeswill personally selected two of the 33rd’s drummer boys. The drummer boys always administered the floggings, a small element of mercy in a bestial punishment, but Hakeswill made certain that the two biggest and strongest boys were given the task and then he collected the two whips from the Sergeant Major and made the boys practise on a tree trunk. ‘Put your body into it, lads,’ he told them, ‘and keep the arm moving fast after the whip’s landed. Like this.’ He took one of the whips and slashed it across the bark, then showed them how to keep the lash sliding across the target by following the stroke through. ‘I did it often enough when I was a drummer,’ he told them, ‘and I always did a good job. Best flogger in the battalion, I was. Second to none.’ Once he was sure their technique was sufficient for the task he warned them not to tire too quickly, and then, with a pocket knife, he nicked the edges of the leather lashes so that their abrasions would tear at the exposed flesh as they were dragged across Sharpe’s back. ‘Do it well, lads,’ he promised them, ‘and there’s one of these for each of you.’ He showed them one of the Tippoo’s gold coins which had been part of the battle’s loot. ‘I don’t want this bastard walking again,’ he told them. ‘Nor do you neither, for if Sharpie ever finds his feet he’ll give you two a rare kicking, so make sure you finish the bastard off proper. Whip him bloody then put him underground, like it says in the scriptures.’
Hakeswill coiled the two whips and hung them on the halberd that was mounted crosswise on the tripod, then went to find the surgeon. Mister Micklewhite was in his tent where he was trying to tie his white silk stock in preparation for the punishment parade. He grunted when he saw Hakeswill. ‘You don’t need more mercury, do you?’ he snarled.
‘No, sir. Cured, sir. Thanks to your worship’s skill, sir. Clean as a whistle I am, sir.’
Micklewhite swore as the knot in the damned stock loosened. He did not like Hakeswill, but like everyone else in the regiment he feared him. There was a wildness in the back of Hakeswill’s childlike eyes that spoke of terrible mischief, and, though the Sergeant was always punctilious in his dealings with officers, Micklewhite still felt obscurely threatened. ‘So what do you want, Sergeant?’
‘Major Shee asked me to say a word, sir.’
‘Couldn’t speak to me himself?’
‘You know the Major, sir. No doubt he’s thirsty. A hot day.’ Hakeswill’s face quivered in a series of tremors. ‘It’s about the prisoner, sir.’
‘What about him?’
‘Troublemaker, sir. Known for it. A thief, a liar and a cheat.’
‘So he’s a redcoat. So?’
‘So Major Shee ain’t keen to see him back among the living, sir, if you follow my meaning. Is this what I owe you for the mercury, sir?’ Hakeswill held up a gold coin, a haideri, which was worth around two shillings and sixpence. The coin was certainly not payment for the cure of his pox, for that cost had already been deducted from the Sergeant’s pay, so Micklewhite knew it was a bribe. Not a great bribe, but half a crown could still go a long way. Micklewhite glanced at it, then nodded. ‘Put it on the table, Sergeant.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Micklewhite tugged the silk stock tight, then waved Hakeswill off. He pulled on his coat and pocketed the gold coin. The bribe had not been necessary, for Micklewhite’s opposition to the coddling of flogging victims was well enough known in the battalion. Micklewhite hated caring for men who had been flogged, for in his experience they almost always died, and if he did stop a punishment then the recovering victim only cluttered up his sick cots. And if, by some miracle, the man was restored to health, it was only so he could be strapped to the triangle to be given the rest of his punishment and that second dose almost always proved fatal and so, all things considered, it was more prudent to let a man die at the first flogging. It saved money on medicine and, in Micklewhite’s view, it was kinder too. Micklewhite buttoned his coat and wondered just why Sergeant Hakeswill wanted this particular man dead. Not that Micklewhite really cared, he just wanted the bloody business over and done.
The 33rd paraded under the afternoon’s burning sun. Four companies faced the tripod, while three were arrayed at either side so that the battalion’s ten companies formed a hollow oblong with the tripod standing in the one empty long side. The officers sat on their horses in front of their companies while Major Shee, his aides and the adjutant stood their horses just behind the tripod. Mister Micklewhite, his head protected from the sun by a wide straw hat, stood to one side of the triangle. Major Shee, fortified by arrack and satisfied that everything was in proper order, nodded to Bywaters. ‘You will begin punishment, Sergeant Major.’
‘Sir!’ Bywaters acknowledged, then turned and bellowed for the prisoner to be fetched. The two drummer boys stood nervously with their whips in hand. They alone of the parading soldiers were in shirtsleeves, while everyone else was in full wool uniform. Women and children peered between the company intervals. Mary Bickerstaff was not there. Hakeswill had looked for her, wanting to enjoy her horror, but Mary had stayed away. The women who had come for the spectacle, like their men, were silent and sullen. Sharpe was a popular man, and Hakeswill knew that everyone here was hating him for engineering this flogging, but Obadiah Hakeswill had never been concerned by such enmity. Power did not lie in being liked, but in being feared.
Sharpe was brought to the triangle. He was bareheaded and already stripped to the waist. The skin of his chest and back were as white as his powdered hair and contrasted oddly with his darkly tanned face. He walked steadily, for though he had the best part of a pint of rum in his belly, the liquor had not seemed to have the slightest effect. He did not look at either Hakeswill or Morris as he walked to the tripod.
‘Arms up, lad,’ the Sergeant Major said quietly. ‘Stand against the triangle. Feet apart. There’s a good lad.’
Sharpe obediently stepped up to the triangular face of the tripod. Two corporals knelt at his feet and lashed his ankles to the halberds, then stood and pushed his arms over the crosswise halberd. They pulled his hands down and tied them to the uprights, thus forcing his naked back up and outwards. That way he could not sag between the triangle and so hope to exhaust some of the blows on the halberd staffs. The corporals finished their knots, then stepped back.
The Sergeant Major went to the back of the triangle and brought from his pouch a folded piece of leather that was deeply marked by tooth prints. ‘Open your mouth, lad,’ he said softly. He smelt the rum on the prisoner’s breath and hoped it would help him survive, then he pushed the leather between Sharpe’s teeth. The gag served a double purpose. It would stifle any cries the victim might make and would stop him biting off his tongue. ‘Be brave, boy,’ Bywaters said quietly. ‘Don’t let the regiment down.’
Sharpe nodded.
Bywaters stepped smartly back and came to attention. ‘Prisoner ready for punishment, sir!’ he called to Major Shee.
The Major looked to the surgeon. ‘Is the prisoner fit for punishment, Mister Micklewhite?’
Micklewhite did not even give Sharpe a glance. ‘Hale and fit, sir.’
‘Then carry on, Sergeant Major.’
‘Right, boys,’ the Sergeant Major said, ‘do your duty! Lay it on hard now, and keep the strokes high. Above his trousers. Drummer! Begin.’
A third drummer boy was standing behind the floggers. He lifted his sticks, paused, then brought the first stick down.
The boy to the right brought his whip hard down on Sharpe’s back.
‘One!’ Bywaters shouted.
The whip had left a red mark across Sharpe’s shoulder blades. Sharpe had flinched, but the rope fetters restricted his movement and only those close to the triangle saw the tremor run through his muscles. He stared up at Major Shee who took good care to avoid the baleful gaze.
‘Two!’ Bywaters called and the drummer brought down his stick as the second boy planted a red mark crosswise on the first.
Hakeswill’s face twitched uncontrollably, but he was smiling under the rictus. For the drumbeat of death had begun.
Colonel McCandless stood alone in the centre of the courtyard of the Tippoo’s Inner Palace inside Seringapatam. The Scotsman was still in his full uniform: red-coated, tartan-kilted and with his feather-plumed cocked hat on his head. Six tigers were chained to the courtyard’s walls and those tigers sometimes strained to reach him, but they were always checked by the heavy chains that quivered tautly whenever one of the muscled beasts sprang towards the Scotsman. McCandless did not move and the tigers, after one or two fruitless lunges, contented themselves with snarling at him. The tigers’ keepers, big men armed with long staves, watched from the courtyard entrance. It was those men who might receive the orders to unleash the tigers and McCandless was determined to show them a calm face.
The courtyard was covered with sand, its lower walls were of dressed stone, but above the stone the palace’s second storey was a riot of stuccoed teak that had been painted red, white, green and yellow. That decorated second storey was composed of Moorish arches and McCandless knew just enough Arabic to guess that the writing incised above each arch was a surah from the Koran. There were two entrances to the courtyard. The one behind McCandless, through which he had entered and where the tigers’ keepers now stood, was a plain double gateway that led to a tangle of stables and storehouses behind the palace, while in front of him, and evidently leading into the palace’s staterooms, was a brief marble staircase rising to a wide door of black wood that had been decorated with patterns of inlaid ivory. Above that lavish door was a balcony that jutted out from three of the stuccoed arches. A screen of intricately carved wood hid the balcony, but McCandless could see that there were men behind the screen. He suspected the Tippoo was there and, the Scotsman trusted, so was the Frenchman who had first questioned him. Colonel Gudin had struck him as an honest fellow and right now, McCandless hoped, Gudin was pleading to let him live, though McCandless had taken good care not to offer the Frenchman his real name. He feared that the Tippoo would recognize it, and realize just what a prize his cavalry had taken, and so the Scotsman had given his name as Ross instead.
McCandless was right. Colonel Gudin and the Tippoo were both staring down through the screen. ‘This Colonel Ross,’ the Tippoo asked, ‘he says he was looking for forage?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Gudin replied through the interpreter.
‘You believe him?’ It was plain from his tone that the Tippoo was sceptical.
Gudin shrugged. ‘Their horses are thin.’
The Tippoo grunted. He had done his best to deny the advancing enemy any food, but the British had taken to making sudden marches north or south of their approach to enter territory where his horsemen had not yet destroyed the villagers’ supplies. Not only that, but they had brought a vast amount of food with them. Yet even so the Tippoo’s spies reported that the enemy was going hungry. Their horses and oxen were especially ill fed, so it was not unlikely that this British officer had been searching for forage. But why would a full colonel be sent on such an errand? The Tippoo could find no answer to that, and the question fed his suspicions. ‘Could he have been spying?’
‘Scouting, maybe,’ Gudin said, ‘but not spying. Spies do not ride in uniform, Your Majesty.’
The Tippoo grunted when the answer was translated into Persian. He was a naturally suspicious man, as any ruler should be, but he consoled himself with the observation that whatever this Britisher had been doing, he must have failed. The Tippoo turned to his entourage and saw the tall, dark-faced Appah Rao. ‘You think this Colonel Ross was looking for food, General?’
Appah Rao knew exactly who Colonel Ross truly was, and what McCandless had been looking for, and worse, Rao now knew that his own treachery was in dire danger of being discovered which meant that this was no time to look weak in front of the Tippoo. But nor was Appah Rao ready to betray McCandless. That was partly because of an old friendship, and partly because Appah Rao half suspected he might have a better future if he was allied to the British. ‘We know they’re short of food,’ he said, ‘and that man looks thin enough.’
‘So you don’t consider him a spy?’
‘Spy or not,’ Appah Rao said coldly, ‘he is your enemy.’
The Tippoo shrugged at the evasive answer. His good sense suggested that the prisoner was not a spy, for why would he wear his uniform? But even if he was, that did not worry the Tippoo overmuch. He expected Seringapatam was full of spies, just as he had two score of his own men marching with the British, but most spies, in the Tippoo’s experience, were useless. They passed on rumours, they inflated guesses and they muddled far more than they ever made plain.
‘Kill him,’ one of the Tippoo’s Muslim generals suggested.
‘I shall think about it,’ the Tippoo said, and turned back through one of the balcony’s inner archways into a gorgeous room of marble pillars and painted walls. The room was dominated by his throne, which was a canopied platform eight feet wide, five foot deep and held four feet above the tiled floor by a model of a snarling tiger that supported the platform’s centre and was flanked on each side by four carved tiger legs. Two silver gilt ladders gave access to the throne’s platform which was made of ebony wood on which a sheet of gold, thick as a prayer mat, had been fixed with silver nails. The edge of the platform was carved with quotations from the Koran, the Arabic letters picked out in gold, while above each of the throne’s eight legs was a finial in the form of a tiger’s head. The tiger heads were each the size of a pineapple, cast from solid gold and studded with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. The central tiger, whose long lean body supported the middle of the throne, was made of wood covered with gold, while its head was entirely of gold. The tiger’s mouth was open, revealing teeth cut from rock crystal between which a gold tongue was hinged so that it could be moved up and down. The canopy above the golden platform was supported by a curved pole which, like the canopy itself, had been covered with sheet gold. The fringes of the canopy were made of strung pearls, and at its topmost point was a golden model of the fabulous hummah, the royal bird that rose from fire. The hummah, like the tiger finials, was studded with jewels; its back was one solid glorious emerald and its peacock-like tail a dazzle of precious stones arrayed so thickly that the underlying gold was scarcely visible.
The Tippoo did not spare the gorgeous throne a glance. He had ordered the throne made, but had then sworn an oath that he would never climb its silver steps nor sit on the cushions of its golden platform until he had at last driven the British from southern India. Only then would he take his royal place beneath the pearl-strung canopy and until that bright day the tiger throne would stay empty. The Tippoo had made his oath, and the oath meant that he would either sit on the tiger throne or else he would die, and the Tippoo’s dreams had given him no presentiment of death. Instead he expected to expand Mysore’s frontiers and to drive the infidel British into the sea where they belonged, for they had no business here. They had their own land, and if that far country was not good enough for them, then let them all drown.
So the British must go, and if their destruction meant an alliance with the French, then that was a small price to pay for the Tippoo’s ambitions. He envisaged his empire spreading throughout southern India, then northwards into the Mahratta territories which were all ruled by weak kings or child kings or by tired kings and in their place the Tippoo would offer what his dynasty had already given to Mysore: a firm and tolerant government. The Tippoo was a Muslim, and a devout one, but he knew the surest way to lose his throne was to upset his Hindu subjects and so he took good care to show their temples reverence. He did not entirely trust the Hindu aristocracy, and he had done what he could to weaken that elite over the years, but he wished only prosperity on his other Hindu subjects for if they were prosperous then they would not care what god was worshipped in the new mosque that the Tippoo had built in the city. In time, he prayed, every person in Mysore would kneel to Allah, but until that happy day he would take care not to stir the Hindus into rebellion. He needed them. He needed them to fight for him against the infidel British. He needed them to cut down the red-coated enemy before the walls of Seringapatam.
For it was here, on his island capital, that the Tippoo expected to defeat the British and their allies from Hyderabad. Here, in front of his tiger-muzzled guns, the redcoats would be beaten down like rice under a flail. He hoped they could be lured into the slaughteryard he was preparing on the western bastions, but even if they did not take the bait and came at the southern or eastern walls, he was still ready for them. He had thousands of cannon and thousands of rockets and thousands of men ready to fight. He would turn their infidel army into blood and he would destroy the army of Hyderabad and then he would hunt down the Nizam of Hyderabad, a fellow Muslim, and torture him to a slow and deserved death which the Tippoo would watch from his canopied golden throne.
He walked past the throne to stare at his favourite tiger. This one was a lifesize model, made by a French craftsman, that showed a full-grown beast crouching above the carved figure of a British redcoat. There was a handle in the tiger’s flank and when it was turned the tiger’s paw mauled at the redcoat’s face and reeds hidden within the tiger’s body made a growling sound and a pathetic noise that imitated the cries of a man dying. A flap opened in the tiger’s flank to reveal a keyboard on which an organ, concealed in the tiger’s belly, could be played, but the Tippoo rarely bothered with the instrument, preferring to operate the separate bellows that made the tiger growl and the victim cry out. He turned the handle now, delighting in the thin, reedy sound of the dying man. In a few days’ time, he thought, he would stun the very heavens with the genuine cries of dying redcoats.
The Tippoo finally let the tiger organ fall silent. ‘I suspect the man is a spy,’ he said suddenly.
‘Then kill him,’ Appah Rao said.
‘A failed spy,’ the Tippoo said. ‘You say he is a Scot?’ he asked Gudin.
‘Indeed, Your Majesty.’
‘Not English, then?’
‘No, sire.’
The Tippoo shrugged at the distinction. ‘Whatever his tribe, he is an old man, but is that reason to show him mercy?’
The question was directed at Colonel Gudin who, once it was translated, stiffened. ‘He was captured in uniform, Your Majesty, so he does not deserve death.’ Gudin would have liked to add that it would be uncivilized even to contemplate killing such a prisoner, but he knew the Tippoo hated being patronized and so he kept silent.
‘He is here, is he not?’ the Tippoo demanded. ‘Does that not deserve death? This is not his land, these are not his people, and the bread and water he consumes are not his.’
‘Kill him, Your Majesty,’ Gudin warned, ‘and the British will show no mercy on any prisoners they take.’
‘I am full of mercy,’ the Tippoo said, and mostly that was true. There was a time for being ruthless and a time for showing mercy, and maybe this Scotsman would be a useful pawn if there was a need to hold a hostage. Besides, the Tippoo’s dream the night before had promised well, and this morning’s auguries had been similarly hopeful, so today he could afford to show mercy. ‘Put him in the cells for now,’ the Tippoo said. Somewhere in the palace a French-made clock chimed the hour, reminding the Tippoo that it was time for his prayers. He dismissed his entourage, then went to the simple chamber where, facing west towards Mecca, he made his daily obeisances.
Outside, cheated of their prey, the tigers slunk back to the courtyard’s shadows. One beast yawned, another slept. There would be other days and other men to eat. That was what the six tigers lived for, the days when their master was not merciful.
While up in the Inner Palace, with his back to the canopied throne of gold, Colonel Jean Gudin turned the tiger’s handle. The tiger growled, the claws raked back and forth across the wooden, blood-painted flesh, and the redcoat cried aloud.
Sharpe had not meant to cry out. Before the punishment had begun he had been determined to show no weakness and he had even been angry with himself that he had flinched as the first blow fell, but that sudden pain had been so acute that he had involuntarily shuddered. Since then he had closed his eyes and bitten down on the leather, but in his head a silent scream shrilled as the lashes landed one after the other.
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Bernard Cornwell
Richard Sharpe avoids the tyrannical Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill and endeavours to rescue a British officer from under the nose of the Tippoo of Mysore.But in fleeing Hakeswill, Sharpe enters the exotic and dangerous world of the Tippoo. An adventure that will require all of his wits just to stay alive, let alone save the British army from catastrophe.Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
SHARPE’S
TIGER
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of
Seringapatam, 1799
BERNARD CORNWELL
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997
Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 1997
Map © Ken Lewis
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018. Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)
Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780006490357
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007334537
Version: 2018-04-17
Sharpe’s Tiger is for Muir Sutherland and Malcolm Craddock, with many thanks
‘Cornwell’s combination of breakneck action and pigheaded man behaving badly – but with dazzling brio – is unbeatable. His historical setting is well observed, adding a degree of poignancy: an ancient civilisation destroyed by an army of brutalised illiterates, confused and far from home, but dogged and unquestionably brave’
Daily Telegraph
Contents
Title Page (#u712a1d32-e897-5670-86e2-e9b7d5cceece)
Copyright (#ud79314fc-7541-5bd1-ac61-736027c5ecf1)
Dedication (#u19bd69d7-eddd-5d5c-9a9e-9ee146a16ae5)
Praise (#u9c6e6141-0b79-507a-ba2c-fd38079da7a7)
Map (#u1e75ba40-5e61-5ca3-a9f4-04014c3d7e27)
Chapter One (#ud4fd9672-2148-5edc-8bd5-cba3693dd9ba)
Chapter Two (#u762388f9-2fad-51e9-a48e-52f5567b9de4)
Chapter Three (#ud7116216-f9ec-5026-b1cf-80233ffc0080)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading
Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Sharpe’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
The SHARPE Series (in chronological order) (#litres_trial_promo)
The SHARPE Series (in order of publication) (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Bernard Cornwell (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
It was funny, Richard Sharpe thought, that there were no vultures in England. None that he had seen, anyway. Ugly things they were. Rats with wings.
He thought about vultures a lot, and he had a lot of time to think because he was a soldier, a private, and so the army insisted on doing a lot of his thinking for him. The army decided when he woke up, when he slept, when he ate, when he marched, and when he was to sit about doing nothing and that was what he did most of the time – nothing. Hurry up and do nothing, that was the army’s way of doing things, and he was fed up with it. He was bored and thinking of running.
Him and Mary. Run away. Desert. He was thinking about it now, and it was an odd thing to worry about right now because the army was about to give Richard Sharpe his first proper battle. He had been in one fight, but that was five years ago and it had been a messy, confused business in fog, and no one had known why the 33rd Regiment was in Flanders or what they were supposed to be doing there, and in the end they had done nothing except fire some shots at the mist-shrouded French and the whole thing had been over almost before young Richard Sharpe had known it had begun. He had seen a couple of men killed. He remembered Sergeant Hawthorne’s death best because the Sergeant had been hit by a musket ball that drove a rib clean out of his red coat. There was hardly a drop of blood to be seen, just the white rib sticking out of the faded red cloth. ‘You could hang your hat on that,’ Hawthorne had said in a tone of wonder, then he had sobbed, and after that he had choked up blood and collapsed. Sharpe had gone on loading and firing, and then, just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, the battalion had marched away and sailed back to England. Some battle.
Now he was in India. He did not know why he was invading Mysore and nor did he particularly care. King George III wanted Richard Sharpe to be in India, so in India Richard Sharpe was, but Richard Sharpe had now become bored with the King’s service. He was young and he reckoned life had more to offer than hurrying up and doing nothing. There was money to be made. He was not sure how to make money, except by thieving, but he did know that he was bored and that he could do better than stay on the bottom of the dungheap. That was where he was, he kept telling himself, the bottom of a dungheap and everyone knew what was piled on top of a dungheap. Better to run, he told himself. All that was needed to get ahead in the world was a bit of sense and the ability to kick a bastard faster than the bastard could kick you, and Richard Sharpe reckoned he had those talents right enough.
Though where to run in India? Half the natives seemed to be in British pay and those would turn you in for a handful of tin pice, and the pice was only worth a farthing, and the other Indians were all fighting against the British, or readying to fight them, and if he ran to them he would just be forced to serve in their armies. He would fetch more pay in a native army, probably far more than the tuppence a day Sharpe got now after stoppages, but why change one uniform for another? No, he would have to run to some place where the army would never find him, or else it would be the firing squad on some hot morning. A blast of musket shots, a scrape in the red earth for a grave, and next day the rats with wings would be yanking the guts out of your belly like a bunch of blackbirds tugging worms out of a lawn.
That was why he was thinking about vultures. He was thinking that he wanted to run, but that he did not want to feed the vultures. Do not get caught. Rule number one in the army, and the only rule that mattered. Because if you got caught the bastards would flog you to death or else reorganize your ribs with musket balls, and either way the vultures got fat.
The vultures were always there, sometimes circling on long wings that tilted to the sudden winds of the warm upper air and sometimes standing hunched on branches. They fed on death and a marching army gave them a glutton’s diet, and now, in this last year of the eighteenth century, two allied armies were crossing this hot fertile plain in southern India. One was a British army and the other belonged to a British ally, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and both armies provided a feast of vulture fodder. Horses died, oxen died, camels died, even two of the elephants that had seemed so indestructible had died, and then the people died. The twin armies had a tail ten times longer than themselves: a great sprawl of camp followers, merchants, herders, whores, wives, and children, and among all of those people, as it did among the armies themselves, the plagues ran riot. Men died with bloody dysentery, or shaking with a fever or choking on their own vomit. They died struggling for breath or drenched in sweat or raving like mad things or with skins blistered raw. Men, women and children all died, and whether they were buried or burned it did not matter because, in the end, the vultures fed on them anyway, for there was never enough time nor sufficient timber to make a proper funeral pyre and so the vultures would rip the half-cooked flesh off the scorched bones, and if the bodies were buried then no amount of stones heaped on the soil would stop the scavenging beasts from digging up the swollen, rotting flesh and the vultures’ hooked beaks took what the ravenous teeth left behind.
And this hot March day promised food in abundance and the vultures seemed to sense it for, as the early afternoon passed, more and more birds joined the spiring column of wings that circled above the marching men. The birds did not flap their wings, but simply soared in the warm air as they glided, tilted, slid and waited, always waited, as if they knew that death’s succulence would fill their gullets soon enough. ‘Ugly bastard birds,’ Sharpe said, ‘just rats with wings,’ but no one in the 33rd’s Light Company answered him. No one had the breath to answer him. The air was choking from the dust kicked up by the men ahead so that the rearward ranks stumbled through a warm, gritty mix that parched their throats and stung their eyes. Most of the men were not even aware of the vultures, while others were so weary that they had not even noticed the troop of cavalry that had suddenly appeared a half-mile to the north. The horsemen trotted beside a grove of trees that were bright with red blossom, then accelerated away. Their drawn sabres flashed reflected sunlight as they wheeled away from the infantrymen, but then, as inexplicably as they had hurried and swerved away, they suddenly stopped. Sharpe noticed them. British cavalry, they were. The fancy boys come to see how proper soldiers fought.
Ahead, from the low rise of land where a second group of horsemen was silhouetted against the furnace whiteness of the sky, a gun fired. The crack of the cannon was immense, a billow of sound that punched hollow and malignant across the plain. The gun’s smoke billowed white as the heavy ball thrashed into some bushes, tore leaves and blossoms to tatters, struck dust from the baked ground, then ran on in ever decreasing bounces to lodge against a gnarled fallen tree from which a pale shower of decaying wood spurted. The shot had missed the red-coated infantry by a good two hundred paces, but the sound of the cannon woke up the weary. ‘Jesus!’ a voice in the rear file said. ‘What was that?’
‘A bleeding camel farted, what the hell do you think it was?’ a corporal answered.
‘It was a bloody awful shot,’ Sharpe said. ‘My mother could lay a gun better than that.’
‘I didn’t think you had a mother,’ Private Garrard said.
‘Everyone’s got a mother, Tom.’
‘Not Sergeant Hakeswill,’ Garrard said, then spat a mix of dust and spittle. The column of men had momentarily halted, not because of any orders, but rather because the cannon shot had unnerved the officer leading the front company who was no longer sure exactly where he was supposed to lead the battalion. ‘Hakeswill wasn’t born of a mother,’ Garrard said vehemently. He took off his shako and used his sleeve to wipe the dust and sweat from his face. The woollen sleeve left a faint trace of red dye on his forehead. ‘Hakeswill was spawned of the devil,’ Garrard said, jamming the shako back on his white-powdered hair.
Sharpe wondered whether Tom Garrard would run with him. Two men might survive better than one. And what about Mary? Would she come? He thought about Mary a lot, when he was not thinking about everything else, except that Mary was inextricably twisted into everything else. It was confusing. She was Sergeant Bickerstaff’s widow and she was half Indian and half English and she was twenty-two, which was the same age as Sharpe, or at least he thought it was the same age. It could be that he was twenty-one, or twenty-three; he was not really sure on account of not ever having had a mother to tell him. Of course he did have a mother, everyone had a mother, but not everyone had a Cat Lane whore for a mother who disappeared just after her son was born. The child had been named for the wealthy patron of the foundling home that had raised him, but the naming had not brought Richard Sharpe any patronage, only brought him to the reeking bottom of the army’s dungheap. Still, Sharpe reckoned, he could have a future, and Mary spoke one or two Indian languages which could be useful if he and Tom did run.
The cavalry off to Sharpe’s right spurred into a trot again and disappeared beyond the red-blossomed trees, leaving only a drifting cloud of dust behind. Two galloper guns, light six-pounder cannons, followed them, bouncing dangerously on the uneven ground behind their teams of horses. Every other cannon in the army was drawn by oxen, but the galloper guns had horse teams that were three times as fast as the plodding draught cattle. The lone enemy cannon fired again, its brutal sound punching the warm air with an almost palpable impact. Sharpe could see more enemy guns on the ridge, but they were smaller than the gun that had just fired and Sharpe presumed they did not have the long range of the bigger cannon. Then he saw a trace of grey in the air, a flicker like a vertical pencil stroke drawn against the pale blue sky and he knew that the big gun’s shot must be coming straight towards him, and he knew too that there was no wind to carry the heavy ball gently aside, and all that he realized in the second or so that the ball was in the air, too short a time to react, only to recognize death’s approach, but then the ball slammed into the ground a dozen paces short of him and bounced on up over his head to run harmlessly into a field of sugar cane. ‘I reckon the bastards have got your mother laying the gun now, Dick,’ Garrard said.
‘No talking now!’ Sergeant Hakeswill’s voice screeched suddenly. ‘Save your godless breath. Was that you talking, Garrard?’
‘Not me, Sarge. Ain’t got the breath.’
‘You ain’t got the breath?’ Sergeant Hakeswill came hurrying down the company’s ranks and thrust his face up towards Garrard. ‘You ain’t got the breath? That means you’re dead, Private Garrard! Dead! No use to King or country if you’s dead, but you never was any bleeding use anyway.’ The Sergeant’s malevolent eyes flicked to Sharpe. ‘Was it you talking, Sharpie?’
‘Not me, Sarge.’
‘You ain’t got orders to talk. If the King wanted you to have a conversation I’d have told you so. Says so in the scriptures. Give me your firelock, Sharpie. Quick now!’
Sharpe handed his musket to the Sergeant. It was Hakeswill’s arrival in the company that had persuaded Sharpe that it was time to run from the army. He had been bored anyway, but Hakeswill had added injustice to boredom. Not that Sharpe cared about injustice, for only the rich had justice in this world, but Hakeswill’s injustice was touched with such malevolence that there was hardly a man in the Light Company not ready to rebel, and all that kept them from mutiny was the knowledge that Hakeswill understood their desire, wanted it and wanted to punish them for it. He was a great man for provoking insolence and then punishing it. He was always two steps ahead of you, waiting round a corner with a bludgeon. He was a devil, was Hakeswill, a devil in a smart red coat decorated with a sergeant’s badges.
Yet to look at Hakeswill was to see the perfect soldier. It was true that his oddly lumpy face twitched every few seconds as though an evil spirit was twisting and jerking just beneath his sun-reddened skin, but his eyes were blue, his hair was powdered as white as the snow that never fell on this land, and his uniform was as smart as though he stood guard at Windsor Castle. He performed drill like a Prussian, each movement so crisp and clean that it was a pleasure to watch, but then the face would twitch and his oddly childlike eyes would flicker a sideways glance and you could see the devil peering out. Back when he had been a recruiting sergeant Hakeswill had taken care not to let the devil show, and that was when Sharpe had first met him, but now, when the Sergeant no longer needed to gull and trick young fools into the ranks, Hakeswill did not care who saw his malignancy.
Sharpe stood motionless as the Sergeant untied the scrap of rag that Sharpe used to protect his musket’s lock from the insidious red dust. Hakeswill peered at the lock, found nothing wrong, then turned away from Sharpe so that the sun could fall full on the weapon. He peered again, cocked the gun, dry-fired it, then seemed to lose interest in the musket as a group of officers spurred their horses towards the head of the stalled column. ‘Company!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Company! ’Shun!’
The men shuffled their feet together and straightened as the three officers galloped past. Hakeswill had stiffened into a grotesque pose; his right boot tucked behind his left, his legs straight, his head and shoulders thrown back, his belly thrust forward and his bent elbows straining to meet in the concavity at the small of his back. None of the other companies of the King’s 33rd Regiment had been stood to attention in honour of the passing officers, but Hakeswill’s gesture of respect was nevertheless ignored. The neglect had no effect on the Sergeant who, when the trio of officers had gone past, shouted at the company to stand easy and then peered again at Sharpe’s musket.
‘You’ll not find ’owt wrong with it, Sarge,’ Sharpe said.
Hakeswill, still standing at attention, did an elaborate about turn, his right boot thumping down to the ground. ‘Did I hear me give you permission to speak, Sharpie?’
‘No, Sarge.’
‘No, Sarge. No, you did not. Flogging offence that, Sharpie.’ Hakeswill’s right cheek twitched with the involuntary spasm that disfigured his face every few seconds and the vehement evil of the face was suddenly so intense that the whole Light Company momentarily held its breath in expectation of Sharpe’s arrest, but then the thumping discharge of the enemy cannon rolled across the countryside and the heavy ball splashed and bounced and tore its way through a bright-green patch of growing rice, and the violence of the harmless missile served to distract Hakeswill who turned to watch as the ball rolled to a stop. ‘Poor bloody shooting,’ Hakeswill said scathingly. ‘Heathens can’t lay guns, I dare say. Or maybe they’re toying with us. Toying!’ The thought made him laugh. It was not, Sharpe suspected, the anticipation of excitement that had brought Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill to this state of near joviality, but rather the thought that a battle would cause casualties and misery, and misery was the Sergeant’s delight. He liked to see men cowed and frightened, for that made them biddable, and Sergeant Hakeswill was always at his happiest when he was in control of unhappy men.
The three officers had stopped their horses at the head of the column and now used telescopes to inspect the distant ridge which was clouded by a ragged fringe of smoke left from the last discharge of the enemy cannon. ‘That’s our Colonel, boys,’ Hakeswill announced to the 33rd’s Light Company, ‘Colonel Arthur Wellesley himself, God bless him for a gentleman, which he is and you ain’t. He’s come to see you fight, so make sure you do. Fight like the Englishmen you are.’
‘I’m a Scot,’ a sour voice spoke from the rear rank.
‘I heard that! Who said that?’ Hakeswill glared at the company, his face twitching uncontrollably. In a less blithe mood the Sergeant would have ferreted out the speaker and punished him, but the excitement of pending battle persuaded him to let the offence pass. ‘A Scot!’ he said derisively instead. ‘What is the finest thing a Scotsman ever saw? Answer me that!’ No one did. ‘The high road to England, that’s what. Says so in the scriptures, so it must be true.’ He hefted Sharpe’s musket as he looked down the waiting ranks. ‘I shall be watching you,’ he snarled. ‘You ain’t none of you been in a proper fight before, not a proper fight, but on the other side of that bleeding hill there’s a horde of black-faced heathens what can’t wait to lay their filthy hands on your womenfolk, so if so much as one of you turns his back I’ll have the skin off the lot of you! Bare bones and blood, that’s what you’ll be. But you does your duty and obeys your orders and you can’t go wrong. And who gives the orders?’
The Sergeant waited for an answer and eventually Private Mallinson offered one. ‘The officers, Sergeant.’
‘The officers! The officers!’ Hakeswill spat his disgust at the answer. ‘Officers are here to show us what we are fighting for. Gentlemen, they are. Proper gentlemen! Men of property and breeding, not broken potboys and scarlet-coated pickpockets like what you are. Sergeants give the orders. Sergeants is what the army is. Remember that, lads! You’re about to go into battle against heathens and if you ignore me then you’ll be dead men!’ The face twitched grotesquely, its jaw wrenched suddenly sideways, and Sharpe, watching the Sergeant’s face, wondered if it was nervousness that had made Hakeswill so voluble. ‘But keeps your eyes on me, lads,’ Hakeswill went on, ‘and you’ll be right as trivets. And you know why?’ He cried the last word out in a high dramatic tone as he stalked down the Light Company’s front rank. ‘You know why?’ he asked again, now sounding like some dissenting preacher ranting in a hedgerow. ‘Because I cannot die, boys, I cannot die!’ He was suddenly intense, his voice hoarse and full of fervour as he spoke. It was a speech that all the Light Company had heard many times before, but it was remarkable for all that, though Sergeant Green, who was outranked by Hakeswill, turned away in disgust. Hakeswill jeered at Green, then tugged at the tight constriction of the leather stock that circled his neck, pulling it down so that an old dark scar was visible at his throat. ‘The hangman’s noose, boys!’ he cried. ‘That’s what marked me there, the hangman’s noose! See it? See it? But I am alive, boys, alive and on two feet instead of being buried under the sod, proof as never was that you needs not die!’ His face twitched again as he released the stock. ‘Marked by God,’ he finished, his voice gruff with emotion, ‘that’s what I am, marked by God!’
‘Mad as a hare,’ Tom Garrard muttered.
‘Did you speak, Sharpie!’ Hakeswill whipped around to stare at Sharpe, but Sharpe was so palpably still and staring mutely ahead that his innocence was indisputable. Hakeswill paced back down the Light Company. ‘I have watched men die, better men than any of you pieces of scum, proper men, but God has spared me! So you do what I says, boys, or else you’ll be carrion.’ He abruptly thrust the musket back into Sharpe’s hands. ‘Clean weapon, Sharpie. Well done, lad.’ He paced smartly away and Sharpe, to his surprise, saw that the scrap of rag had been neatly retied about the lock.
The compliment to Sharpe had astonished all the Light Company. ‘He’s in a rare good mood,’ Garrard said.
‘I heard that, Private Garrard!’ Hakeswill shouted over his shoulder. ‘Got ears in the back of me head, I have. Silence now. Don’t want no heathen horde thinking you’re frit! You’re white men, remember, bleached in the cleansing blood of the bleeding lamb, so no bleeding talking in the ranks! Nice and quiet, like them bleeding nuns what never utters a sound on account of having had their papist tongues cut out.’ He suddenly crashed to attention once again and saluted by bringing his spear-tipped halberd across his body. ‘Company all present, sir!’ he shouted in a voice that must have been audible on the enemy-held ridge. ‘All present and quiet, sir! Have their backs whipped bloody else, sir.’
Lieutenant William Lawford curbed his horse and nodded at Sergeant Hakeswill. Lawford was the Light Company’s second officer, junior to Captain Morris and senior to the brace of young ensigns, but he was newly arrived in the battalion and was as frightened of Hakeswill as were the men in the ranks. ‘The men can talk, Sergeant,’ Lawford observed mildly. ‘The other companies aren’t silent.’
‘No, sir. Must save their breath, sir. Too bleeding hot to talk, sir, and besides, they got heathens to kill, sir, mustn’t waste breath on chit-chat, not when there are black-faced heathens to kill, sir. Says so in the scriptures, sir.’
‘If you say so, Sergeant,’ Lawford said, unwilling to provoke a confrontation, then he found he had nothing else to say and so, awkwardly aware of the scrutiny of the Light Company’s seventy-six men, he stared at the enemy-held ridge. But he was also conscious of having ignominiously surrendered to the will of Sergeant Hakeswill and so he slowly coloured as he gazed towards the west. Lawford was popular, but thought to be weak, though Sharpe was not so sure of that judgement. He thought the Lieutenant was still finding his way among the strange and sometimes frightening human currents that made up the 33rd, and that in time Lawford would prove a tough and resilient officer. For now, though, William Lawford was twenty-four years old and had only recently purchased his lieutenancy, and that made him unsure of his authority.
Ensign Fitzgerald, who was only eighteen, strolled back from the column’s head. He was whistling as he walked and slashing with a drawn sabre at tall weeds. ‘Off in a moment, sir,’ he called up cheerfully to Lawford, then seemed to become aware of the Light Company’s ominous silence. ‘Not frightened, are you?’ he asked.
‘Saving their breath, Mister Fitzgerald, sir,’ Hakeswill snapped.
‘They’ve got breath enough to sing a dozen songs and still beat the enemy,’ Fitzgerald said scornfully. ‘Ain’t that so, lads?’
‘We’ll beat the bastards, sir,’ Tom Garrard said.
‘Then let me hear you sing,’ Fitzgerald demanded. ‘Can’t bear silence. We’ll have a quiet time in our tombs, lads, so we might as well make a noise now.’ Fitzgerald had a fine tenor voice that he used to start the song about the milkmaid and the rector, and by the time the Light Company had reached the verse that told how the naked rector, blindfolded by the milkmaid and thinking he was about to have his heart’s desire, was being steered towards Bessie the cow, the whole company was bawling the song enthusiastically.
They never did reach the end. Captain Morris, the Light Company’s commanding officer, rode back from the head of the battalion and interrupted the singing. ‘Half-companies!’ he shouted at Hakeswill.
‘Half-companies it is, sir! At once, sir. Light Company! Stop your bleeding noise! You heard the officer!’ Hakeswill bellowed. ‘Sergeant Green! Take charge of the after ranks. Mister Fitzgerald! I’ll trouble you to take your proper place on the left, sir. Forward ranks! Shoulder firelocks! Twenty paces, forward, march! Smartly now! Smartly!’
Hakeswill’s face shuddered as the front ten ranks of the company marched twenty paces and halted, leaving the other nine ranks behind. All along the battalion column the companies were similarly dividing, their drill as crisp as though they were back on their Yorkshire parade ground. A quarter-mile off to the 33rd’s left another six battalions were going through the same manoeuvre, and performing it with just as much precision. Those six battalions were all native soldiers in the service of the East India Company, though they wore red coats just like the King’s men. The six sepoy battalions shook out their colours and Sharpe, seeing the bright flags, looked ahead to where the 33rd’s two great regimental banners were being loosed from their leather tubes to the fierce Indian sun. The first, the King’s Colour, was a British flag on which the regiment’s battle honours were embroidered, while the second was the Regimental Colour and had the 33rd’s badge displayed on a scarlet field, the same scarlet as the men’s jacket facings. The tasselled silk banners blazed, and the sight of them prompted a sudden cannonade from the ridge. Till now there had only been the one heavy gun firing, but abruptly six other cannon joined the fight. The new guns were smaller and their round shot fell well short of the seven battalions.
Major Shee, the Irishman who commanded the 33rd while its Colonel, Arthur Wellesley, had control of the whole brigade, cantered his horse back, spoke briefly to Morris, then wheeled away towards the head of the column. ‘We’re going to push the bastards off the ridge!’ Morris shouted at the Light Company, then bent his head to light a cigar with a tinderbox. ‘Any bastard that turns tail, Sergeant,’ Morris went on when his cigar was properly alight, ‘will be shot. You hear me?’
‘Loud and clear, sir!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Shot, sir! Shot like the coward he is.’ He turned and scowled at the two half-companies. ‘Shot! And your names posted in your church porch at home as the cowards you are. So fight like Englishmen!’
‘Scotsmen,’ a voice growled behind Sharpe, but too softly for Hakeswill to hear.
‘Irish,’ another man said.
‘We ain’t none of us cowards,’ Garrard said more loudly.
Sergeant Green, a decent man, hushed him. ‘Quiet, lads. I know you’ll do your duty.’
The front of the column was marching now, but the rearmost companies were kept waiting so that the battalion could advance with wide intervals between its twenty half-companies. Sharpe guessed that the scattered formation was intended to reduce any casualties caused by the enemy’s bombardment which, because it was still being fired at extreme range, was doing no damage. Behind him, a long way behind, the rest of the allied armies were waiting for the ridge to be cleared. That mass looked like a formidable horde, but Sharpe knew that most of what he saw was the two armies’ civilian tail: the chaos of merchants, wives, sutlers and herdsmen who kept the fighting soldiers alive and whose supplies would make the siege of the enemy’s capital possible. It needed more than six thousand oxen just to carry the cannonballs for the big siege guns, and all those oxen had to be herded and fed and the herdsmen all travelled with their families who, in turn, needed more oxen to carry their own supplies. Lieutenant Lawford had once remarked that the expedition did not look like an army on the march, but like a great migrating tribe. The vast horde of civilians and animals was encircled by a thin crust of red-coated infantry, most of them Indian sepoys, whose job was to protect the merchants, ammunition and draught animals from the quick-riding, hard-hitting light cavalry of the Tippoo Sultan.
The Tippoo Sultan. The enemy. The tyrant of Mysore and the man who was presumably directing the gunfire on the ridge. The Tippoo ruled Mysore and he was the enemy, but what he was, or why he was an enemy, or whether he was a tyrant, beast or demigod, Sharpe had no idea. Sharpe was here because he was a soldier and it was sufficient that he had been told that the Tippoo Sultan was his enemy and so he waited patiently under the Indian sun that was soaking his lean tall body in sweat.
Captain Morris leaned on his saddle’s pommel. He took off his cocked hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief that had been soaked in cologne water. He had been drunk the previous night and his stomach was still churning with pain and wind. If the battalion had not been going into battle he would have galloped away, found a private spot and voided his bowels, but he could hardly do that now in case his men thought it a sign of weakness and so he raised his canteen instead and swallowed some arrack in the hope that the harsh spirit would calm the turmoil in his belly. ‘Now, Sergeant!’ he called when the company in front had moved sufficiently far ahead.
‘Forward half-company!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Forward march! Smartly now!’
Lieutenant Lawford, given supervision of the last half-company of the battalion, waited until Hakeswill’s men had marched twenty paces, then nodded at Sergeant Green. ‘Forward, Sergeant.’
The redcoats marched with unloaded muskets for the enemy was still a long way off and there was no sign of the Tippoo Sultan’s infantry, nor of his feared cavalry. There were only the enemy’s guns and, high in the fierce sky, the circling vultures. Sharpe was in the leading rank of the final half-company and Lieutenant Lawford, glancing at him, thought once again what a fine-looking man Sharpe was. There was a confidence in Sharpe’s thin, sun-darkened face and hard blue eyes that spoke of an easy competence, and that appearance was a comfort to a young nervous lieutenant advancing towards his first battle. With men like Sharpe, Lawford thought, how could they lose?
Sharpe was ignorant of the Lieutenant’s glance and would have laughed had he been told that his very appearance inspired confidence. Sharpe had no conception of how he looked, for he rarely saw a mirror and when he did the reflected image meant nothing, though he did know that the ladies liked him and that he liked them. He knew, too, that he was the tallest man in the Light Company, so tall, indeed, that he should have been in the Grenadier Company that led the battalion’s advance, but when he had first joined the regiment, six years before, the commanding officer of the Light Company had insisted on having Sharpe in his ranks. Captain Hughes was dead now, killed by a bowel-loosening flux in Calcutta, but in his time Hughes had prided himself on having the quickest, smartest men in his company, men he could trust to fight alone in the skirmish line, and it had been Hughes’s tragedy that he had only ever seen his picked men face an enemy once, and that once had been the misbegotten, fever-ridden expedition to the foggy island off the coast of Flanders where no amount of quick-wittedness by the men could salvage success from the commanding general’s stupidity. Now, five years later, on an Indian field, the 33rd again marched towards an enemy, though instead of the enthusiastic and generous Captain Hughes, the Light Company was now commanded by Captain Morris who did not care how clever or quick his men were, only that they gave him no trouble. Which was why he had brought Sergeant Hakeswill into the company. And that was why the tall, good-looking, hard-eyed private called Richard Sharpe was thinking of running.
Except he would not run today. Today there would be a fight and Sharpe was happy at that prospect. A fight meant plunder, what the Indian soldiers called loot, and any man who was thinking of running and striking up life on his own could do with a bit of loot to prime the pump.
The seven battalions marched towards the ridge. They were all in columns of half-companies so that, from a vulture’s view, they would have appeared as one hundred and forty small scarlet rectangles spread across a square mile of green country as they advanced steadily towards the waiting line of guns on the enemy-held ridge. The sergeants paced beside the half-companies while the officers either rode or walked ahead. From a distance the red squares looked smart, for the men’s red coats were bright scarlet and slashed with white crossbelts, but in truth the troops were filthy and sweating. Their coats were wool, designed for battlefields in Flanders, not India, and the scarlet dye had run in the heavy rains so that the coats were now a pale pink or a dull purple, and all were stained white with dried sweat. Every man in the 33rd wore a leather stock, a cruel high collar that dug into the flesh of his neck, and each man’s long hair had been pulled harshly back, greased with candle wax, then twisted about a small sand-filled leather bag that was secured with a strip of black leather so that the hair hung like a club at the nape of the neck. The hair was then powdered white with flour, and though the clubbed and whitened hair looked smart and neat, it was a haven for lice and fleas. The native sepoys of the East India Company were luckier. They did not cake their hair with powder, nor did they wear the heavy trousers of the British troops but instead marched bare-legged. They did not wear the leather stocks either and, even more amazing, there was no flogging in the Indian battalions.
An enemy cannonball at last found a target and Sharpe saw a half-company of the 33rd broken apart as the round shot whipped through the ranks. He thought he glimpsed an instant red mist appear in the air above the formation as the ball slashed through, but maybe that was an illusion. Two men stayed on the ground as a sergeant closed the ranks up. Two more men were limping and one of them staggered, reeled and finally collapsed. The drummer boys, advancing just behind the unfurled colours, marked the rhythm of the march with steady beats interspersed with quicker flourishes, but when the boys marched past the twin heaps of offal that had been soldiers of the Grenadier Company a few seconds before they began to hurry their sticks and thus quickened the regiment’s pace until Major Shee turned in his saddle and damned their eagerness.
‘When are we going to load?’ Private Mallinson asked Sergeant Green.
‘When you’re told to, lad, when you’re told to. Not before. Oh, sweet Jesus!’ This last imprecation from Sergeant Green had been caused by a deafening ripple of gunfire from the ridge. A dozen more of the Tippoo’s smaller guns had opened fire and the crest of the ridge was now fogged by a grey-white cloud of smoke. The two British galloper guns off to the right had unlimbered and started to return the fire, but the enemy cannon were hidden by their own smoke and that thick screen obscured any damage the small galloper guns might be inflicting. More cavalry trotted forward to the 33rd’s right. These newcomers were Indian troops dressed in scarlet turbans and holding long, wicked-pointed lances.
‘So what are we bleeding supposed to do?’ Mallinson complained. ‘Just march straight up the bloody ridge with empty muskets?’
‘If you’re told to,’ Sergeant Green said, ‘that’s what you’ll do. Now hold your bloody tongue.’
‘Quiet back there!’ Hakeswill called from the half-company in front. ‘This ain’t a bleeding parish outing! This is a fight, you bastards!’
Sharpe wanted to be ready and so he untied the rag from his musket’s lock and stuffed it into the pocket where he kept the ring Mary had given him. The ring, a plain band of worn silver, had belonged to Sergeant Bickerstaff, Mary’s husband, but the Sergeant was dead now and Green had taken Bickerstaff’s sergeant’s stripes and Sharpe his bed. Mary came from Calcutta. That was no place to run, Sharpe thought. Place was full of redcoats.
Then he forgot any prospect of deserting, for suddenly the landscape ahead was filling with enemy soldiers. A mass of infantry was crossing the northern end of the low ridge and marching down onto the plain. Their uniforms were pale purple, they had wide red hats and, like the British Indian troops, were bare-legged. The flags above the marching men were red and yellow, but the wind was so feeble that the flags hung straight down to obscure whatever device they might have shown. More and more men appeared until Sharpe could not even begin to estimate their numbers.
‘Thirty-third!’ a voice shouted from somewhere ahead. ‘Line to the left!’
‘Line to the left!’ Captain Morris echoed the shout.
‘You heard the officer!’ Sergeant Hakeswill bawled. ‘Line to the left! Smartly now!’
‘On the double!’ Sergeant Green called.
The leading half-company of the 33rd had halted and every other half-company angled to their left and sped their pace, with the final half-company, in which Sharpe marched, having the farthest and fastest to go. The men began to jog, their packs and pouches and bayonet scabbards bumping up and down as they stumbled over the small fields of crops. Like a swinging door, the column, that had been marching directly towards the ridge, was now turning itself into a line that would lie parallel to the ridge and so bar the advance of the enemy infantry.
‘Two files!’ a voice shouted.
‘Two files!’ Captain Morris echoed.
‘You heard the officer!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Two files! On the right! Smartly now!’
All the running half-companies now split themselves into two smaller units, each of two ranks and each aligning itself on the unit to its right so that the whole battalion formed a fighting line two ranks deep. As Sharpe ran into position he glanced to his right and saw the drummer boys taking their place behind the regiment’s colours which were guarded by a squad of sergeants armed with long, axe-headed poles.
The Light Company was the last into position. There were a few seconds of shuffling as the men glanced right to check their alignment, then there was stillness and silence except for the corporals fussily closing up the files. In less than a minute, in a marvellous display of drill, the King’s 33rd had deployed from column of march into line of battle so that seven hundred men, arrayed in two long ranks, now faced the enemy.
‘You may load, Major Shee!’ That was Colonel Wellesley’s voice. He had galloped his horse close to where Major Shee brooded under the regiment’s twin flags. The six Indian battalions were still hurrying forward on the left, but the enemy infantry had appeared at the northern end of the ridge and that meant the 33rd was the nearest unit and the one most likely to receive the Tippoo’s assault.
‘Load!’ Captain Morris shouted at Hakeswill.
Sharpe felt suddenly nervous as he dropped the musket from his shoulder to hold it across his body. He fumbled with the musket’s hammer as he pulled it back to the half cock. Sweat stung his eyes. He could hear the enemy drummers.
‘Handle cartridge!’ Sergeant Hakeswill shouted, and each man of the Light Company pulled a cartridge from his belt pouch and bit through the tough waxed paper. They held the bullets in their mouths, tasting the sour salty gunpowder.
‘Prime!’ Seventy-six men trickled a small pinch of powder from the opened cartridges into their muskets’ pans, then closed the locks so that the priming was trapped.
‘Cast about!’ Hakeswill called and seventy-six right hands released their musket stocks so that the weapons’ butts dropped towards the ground. ‘And I’m watching you!’ Hakeswill added. ‘If any of you lilywhite bastards don’t use all his powder, I’ll skin your hides off you and rub salt on your miserable flesh. Do it proper now!’ Some old soldiers advised only using half the powder of a cartridge, letting the rest trickle to the ground so that the musket’s brutal kick would be diminished, but faced by an advancing enemy, no man thought of employing that trick this day. They poured the remainder of their cartridges’ powder down their musket barrels, stuffed the cartridge paper after the powder, then took the balls from their mouths and pushed them into the muzzles. The enemy infantry was two hundred yards away and advancing steadily to the beat of drums and the blare of trumpets. The Tippoo’s guns were still firing, but they had turned their barrels away from the 33rd for fear of hitting their own infantry and were instead aiming at the six Indian regiments that were hurrying to close the gap between themselves and the 33rd.
‘Draw ramrod!’ Hakeswill shouted and Sharpe tugged the ramrod free of the three brass pipes that held it under the musket’s thirty-nine-inch barrel. His mouth was salty with the taste of gunpowder. He was still nervous, not because the enemy was tramping ever closer, but because he had a sudden idiotic idea that he might have forgotten how to load a musket. He twisted the ramrod in the air, then placed the ramrod’s flared tip into the barrel.
‘Ram cartridge!’ Hakeswill snapped. Seventy-six men thrust down, forcing the ball, wadding and powder charge to the bottom of the barrels.
‘Return ramrod!’ Sharpe tugged the ramrod up, listening to it scrape against the barrel, then twirled it about so that its narrow end would slide down into the brass pipes. He let it drop into place.
‘Order arms!’ Captain Morris called and the Light Company, now with loaded muskets, stood to attention with their guns held against their right sides. The enemy was still too far off for a musket to be either accurate or lethal and the long, two-deep line of seven hundred redcoats would wait until their opening volley could do real damage.
‘’Talion!’ Sergeant Major Bywaters’s voice called from the centre of the line. ‘Fix bayonets!’
Sharpe dragged the seventeen-inch blade from its sheath which hung behind his right hip. He slotted the blade over the musket’s muzzle, then locked it in place by twisting its slot onto the lug. Now no enemy could pull the bayonet off the musket. Having the blade mounted made reloading the musket far more difficult, but Sharpe guessed that Colonel Wellesley had decided to shoot one volley and then charge. ‘Going to be a right mucky brawl,’ he said to Tom Garrard.
‘More of them than us,’ Garrard muttered, staring at the enemy. ‘The buggers look steady enough.’
The enemy indeed looked steady. The leading troops had momentarily paused to allow the men behind to catch up, but now, reformed into a solid column, they were readying to advance again. Their ranks and files were ramrod straight. Their officers wore waist sashes and carried highly curved sabres. One of the flags was being waved to and fro and Sharpe could just make out that it showed a golden sun blazoned against a scarlet sky. Vultures swooped lower. The galloper guns, unable to resist the target of the great column of infantry, poured solid shot into its flank, but the Tippoo’s men stoically endured the punishment as their officers made certain that the column was tight packed and ready to deliver its crushing blow on the waiting redcoat line.
Sharpe licked his dry lips. So these, he thought, were the Tippoo’s men. Fine-looking bastards they were, too, and close enough now so that he could see that their tunics were not plain pale purple, but were instead cut from a creamy-white cloth decorated with mauve tiger stripes. Their crossbelts were black and their turbans and waist sashes crimson. Heathens, they might be, but not to be despised for that, for only seventeen years before these same tiger-striped men had torn apart a British army and forced its survivors to surrender. These were the famed tiger troops of Mysore, the warriors of the Tippoo Sultan who had dominated all of southern India until the British thought to climb the ghats from the coastal plain and plunge into Mysore itself. The French were these men’s allies, and some Frenchmen served in the Tippoo’s forces, but Sharpe could see no white faces in the massive column that at last was ready and, to the deep beat of a single drum, lurched ponderously forward. The tiger-striped troops were marching directly towards the King’s 33rd and Sharpe, glancing to his left, saw that the sepoys of the East India Company regiments were still too far away to offer help. The 33rd would have to deal with the Tippoo’s column alone.
‘Private Sharpe!’ Hakeswill’s sudden scream was loud enough to drown the cheer that the Tippoo’s troops gave as they advanced. ‘Private Sharpe!’ Hakeswill screamed again. He was hurrying along the back of the Light Company and Captain Morris, momentarily dismounted, was following him. ‘Give me your musket, Private Sharpe!’ Hakeswill bellowed.
‘Nothing wrong with it,’ Sharpe protested. He was in the front rank and had to turn and push his way between Garrard and Mallinson to hand the gun over.
Hakeswill snatched the musket and gleefully presented it to Captain Morris. ‘See, sir!’ the Sergeant crowed. ‘Just as I thought, sir! Bastard sold his flint, sir! Sold it to an ’eathen darkie.’ Hakeswill’s face twitched as he gave Sharpe a triumphant glance. The Sergeant had unscrewed the musket’s doghead, extracted the flint in its folded leather pad and now offered the scrap of stone to Captain Morris. ‘Piece of common rock, sir, no good to man or beast. Must have flogged his flint, sir. Flogged it in exchange for a pagan whore, sir, I dare say. Filthy beast that he is.’
Morris peered at the flint. ‘Sell the flint, did you, Private?’ he asked in a voice that mingled derision, pleasure and bitterness.
‘No, sir.’
‘Silence!’ Hakeswill screamed into Sharpe’s face, spattering him with spittle. ‘Lying to an officer! Flogging offence, sir, flogging offence. Selling his flint, sir? Another flogging offence, sir. Says so in the scriptures, sir.’
‘It is a flogging offence,’ Morris said with a tone of satisfaction. He was as tall and lean as Sharpe, with fair hair and a fine-boned face that was just beginning to show the ravages of the liquor with which the Captain assuaged his boredom. His eyes betrayed his cynicism and something much worse: that he despised his men. Hakeswill and Morris, Sharpe thought as he watched them, a right bloody pair.
‘Nothing wrong with that flint, sir,’ Sharpe insisted.
Morris held the flint in the palm of his right hand. ‘Looks like a chip of stone to me.’
‘Common grit, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Common bloody grit, sir, no good to man or beast.’
‘Might I?’ A new voice spoke. Lieutenant William Lawford had dismounted to join Morris and now, without waiting for his Captain’s permission, he reached over and took the flint from Morris’s hand. Lawford was blushing again, astonished by his own temerity in thus intervening. ‘There’s an easy way to check, sir,’ Lawford said nervously, then he drew out his pistol, cocked it and struck the loose flint against the pistol’s steel. Even in the day’s bright sunlight there was an obvious spark. ‘Seems like a good flint to me, sir,’ Lawford said mildly. Ensign Fitzgerald, standing behind Lawford, gave Sharpe a conspiratorial grin. ‘A perfectly good flint,’ Lawford insisted less diffidently.
Morris gave Hakeswill a furious look then turned on his heel and strode back towards his horse. Lawford tossed the flint to Sharpe. ‘Make your gun ready, Sharpe,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Lawford and Fitzgerald walked away as Hakeswill, humiliated, thrust the musket back at Sharpe. ‘Clever bastard, Sharpie, aren’t you?’
‘I’ll have the leather as well, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said and, once he had the flint’s seating back, he called after Hakeswill who had begun to walk away. ‘Sergeant!’
Hakeswill turned back.
‘You want this, Sergeant?’ Sharpe called. He took a chip of stone out of his pocket. He had found it when he had untied the rag from the musket’s lock and realized that Hakeswill had substituted the stone for the flint when he had pretended to inspect Sharpe’s musket. ‘No use to me, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said. ‘Here.’ He tossed the stone at Hakeswill who ignored it. Instead the Sergeant spat and turned away. ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Sharpe said, for it had been Garrard who had supplied him with a spare flint.
‘Worth being in the army to see that,’ Garrard said, and all around him men laughed to have seen Hakeswill and Morris defeated.
‘Eyes to your front, lads!’ Ensign Fitzgerald called. The Irish Ensign was the youngest officer in the company, but he had the confidence of a much older man. ‘Got some shooting to do.’
Sharpe pushed back into his file. He brought up the musket, folded the leather over the flint and seated it in the doghead, then looked up to see that the mass of the enemy was now just a hundred paces away. They were shouting rhythmically and pausing occasionally to let a trumpet sound or a drum flourish a ripple, but the loudest sound was the beat of their feet on the dry earth. Sharpe tried to count the column’s front rank, but kept losing count as enemy officers marched slantwise across the column’s face. There had to be thousands of the tiger troops, all marching like a great sledgehammer to shatter the two-deep line of redcoats.
‘Cutting it fine, aren’t we?’ a man complained.
‘Wait lads, wait,’ Sergeant Green said calmly.
The enemy now filled the landscape ahead. They came in a column formed of sixty ranks of fifty men, three thousand in all, though to Sharpe’s inexperienced eye it seemed as if there must be ten times that number. None of the Tippoo’s men fired as they advanced, but held their fire just as the 33rd were holding theirs. The enemy’s muskets were tipped with bayonets while their officers were holding deeply curved sabres. On they came and to Sharpe, who was watching the column from the left of the line so that he could see its flank as well as its leading file, the enemy formation seemed as unstoppable as a heavily loaded farm wagon that was rolling slowly and inexorably towards a flimsy fence.
He could see the enemy’s faces now. They were dark, with black moustaches and oddly white teeth. The tiger men were close, so close, and their chanting began to dissolve into individual war shouts. Any second now, Sharpe thought, and the heavy column would break into a run and charge with levelled bayonets.
‘Thirty-third!’ Colonel Wellesley’s voice called out sharply from beneath the regiment’s colours. ‘Make ready!’
Sharpe put his right foot behind his left so that his body half turned to the right, then he brought his musket to hip height and pulled the hammer back to full cock. It clicked solidly into place, and somehow the pent-up pressure of the gun’s mainspring was reassuring. To the approaching enemy it seemed as though the whole British line had half turned and the sudden movement, coming from men who had been waiting so silently, momentarily checked their eagerness. Above the tiger troops of Mysore, beneath a bunch of flags on the ridge where the guns fired, a group of horsemen watched the column. Was the Tippoo himself there? Sharpe wondered. And was the Tippoo dreaming of that far-off day when he had broken three and half thousand British and Indian troops and marched them off to captivity in his capital at Seringapatam? The cheers of the attackers were filling the sky now, but still Colonel Wellesley’s voice was audible over the tumult. ‘Present!’
Seven hundred muskets came up to seven hundred shoulders. The muskets were tipped with steel, seven hundred muskets aimed at the head of the column and about to blast seven hundred ounces of lead at the leading ranks of that fast-moving, confident mass that was plunging straight towards the pair of British colours under which Colonel Arthur Wellesley waited. The tiger men were hurrying now, their front rank breaking apart as they began running. The wagon was about to hit the fence.
Arthur Wellesley had waited six years for this moment. He was twenty-nine years old and had begun to fear that he would never see battle, but now, at last, he would discover whether he and his regiment could fight, and so he filled his lungs to give the order that would start the slaughter.
Colonel Jean Gudin sighed, then, for the thousandth time in the last hour, he fanned his face to drive away the flies. He liked India, but he hated flies, which made India quite hard to like, but on balance, despite the flies, he did like India. Not nearly as much as he liked his native Provence, but where on earth was as lovely as Provence? ‘Your Majesty?’ he ventured diffidently, then waited as his interpreter struggled to gain the Tippoo’s attention. The interpreter was exchanging Gudin’s French for the Tippoo’s Persian tongue. The Tippoo did understand some French and he spoke the local Kanarese language well enough, but he preferred Persian for it reminded him that his lineage went back to the great Persian dynasties. The Tippoo was ever mindful that he was superior to the darker-skinned natives of Mysore. He was a Muslim, he was a Persian and he was a ruler, while they were mostly Hindus, and all of them, whether rich, poor, great or lowly, were his obedient subjects. ‘Your Majesty?’ Colonel Gudin tried again.
‘Colonel?’ The Tippoo was a short man inclined to plumpness, with a moustached face, wide eyes and a prominent nose. He was not an impressive-looking man, but Gudin knew the Tippoo’s unprepossessing appearance disguised a decisive mind and a brave heart. Although the Tippoo acknowledged Gudin, he did not turn to look at the Colonel. Instead he leaned forward in his saddle with one hand clasped over the tiger hilt of his curved sabre as he watched his infantry march on the infidel British. The sword was slung on a silken sash that crossed the pale yellow silk jacket that the Tippoo wore above chintz trousers. His turban was of red silk and pinned with a gold badge showing a tiger’s mask. The Tippoo’s every possible accoutrement was decorated with the tiger, for the tiger was his mascot and inspiration, but the badge on his turban also incorporated his reverence for Allah, for the tiger’s snarling face was formed by a cunning cipher that spelled out a verse of the Koran: ‘The Lion of God is the Conqueror.’ Above it, pinned to the turban’s brief white plume and brilliant in the day’s sunlight, there glittered a ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg. ‘Colonel?’ the Tippoo said again.
‘It might be wise, Your Majesty,’ Gudin suggested hesitantly, ‘if we advanced cannon and cavalry onto the British flank.’ Gudin gestured to where the 33rd waited in its thin red line to receive the charge of the Tippoo’s column. If the Tippoo threatened a flank of that fragile line with cavalry then the British regiment would be forced to shrink into square and thus deny three quarters of their muskets a chance to fire at the column.
The Tippoo shook his head. ‘We shall sweep that scum away with our infantry, Gudin, then send the cavalry against the baggage.’ He let go of his sword’s hilt to touch his fingers fleetingly together. ‘Please Allah.’
‘And if it does not please Allah?’ Gudin asked, and suspected that his interpreter would change the insolence of the question into something more acceptable to the Tippoo.
‘Then we shall fight them from the walls of Seringapatam,’ the Tippoo answered, and turned briefly from watching the imminent battle to offer Colonel Gudin a quick smile. It was not a friendly smile, but a feral grimace of anticipation. ‘We shall destroy them with cannon, Colonel,’ the Tippoo continued with relish, ‘and shatter them with rockets, and in a few weeks the monsoon will drown their survivors, and after that, if Allah pleases, we shall hunt fugitive Englishmen from here to the sea.’
‘If Allah pleases,’ Gudin said resignedly. Officially he was an adviser to the Tippoo, sent by the Directorate in Paris to help Mysore defeat the British, and the patient Gudin had just done his best to give advice and it was none of his fault if the advice was spurned. He brushed flies from his face, then watched as the 33rd brought their muskets to their shoulders. When those muskets flamed, the Frenchman thought, the front of the Tippoo’s column would crumple like a honeycomb hit by a hammer, but at least the slaughter would teach the Tippoo that battles could not be won against disciplined troops unless every weapon was used against them: cavalry to force them to bunch up in protection, then artillery and infantry to pour fire into the massed ranks. The Tippoo surely knew that, yet he had insisted on throwing his three thousand infantry forward without cavalry support, and Gudin could only suppose that either the Tippoo believed Allah would be fighting on his side this afternoon, or else he was so consumed by his famous victory over the British seventeen years before that he believed he could always beat them in open conflict.
Gudin slapped at flies again. It was time, he thought, to go home. Much as he liked India he felt frustrated. He suspected that the government in Paris had forgotten about his existence, and he was keenly aware that the Tippoo was not receptive to his advice. He did not blame the Tippoo; Paris had made so many promises, but no French army had come to fight for Mysore and Gudin sensed the Tippoo’s disappointment and even sympathized with it, while Gudin himself felt useless and abandoned. Some of his contemporaries were already generals; even little Bonaparte, a Corsican whom Gudin had known slightly in Toulon, now had an army of his own, while Jean Gudin was stranded in distant Mysore. Which made victory all the more important, and if the British were not broken here then they would have to be beaten by the massed artillery and rockets that waited on Seringapatam’s walls. That was also where Gudin’s small battalion of European soldiers was waiting, and Seringapatam, he suspected, was where this campaign would be decided. And if there was victory, and if the British were thrown out of southern India, then Gudin’s reward would surely be back in France. Back home where the flies did not swarm like mice.
The enemy regiment waited with levelled muskets. The Tippoo’s men cheered and charged impetuously onwards. The Tippoo leaned forward, unconsciously biting his lower lip as he waited for the impact.
Gudin wondered whether his woman in Seringapatam would like Provence, or whether Provence would like her. Or maybe it was time for a new woman. He sighed, slapped at flies, then involuntarily shuddered.
For, beneath him, the killing had begun.
‘Fire!’ Colonel Wellesley shouted.
Seven hundred men pulled their triggers and seven hundred flints snapped forward onto frizzens. The sparks ignited the powder in the pans, there was a pause as the fire fizzed through the seven hundred touchholes, then an almighty crackling roar as the heavy muskets flamed.
The brass butt of the gun slammed into Sharpe’s shoulder. He had aimed the weapon at a sashed officer leading the enemy column, though even at sixty yards’ range it was hardly worth aiming a musket for it was a frighteningly inaccurate weapon, but unless the ball flew high it ought to hit someone. He could not tell what damage the volley had caused for the instant the musket banged into his shoulder his vision was obscured by the filthy bank of rolling smoke coughed out of the seven hundred musket muzzles. He could hardly hear anything either, for the sound of the rear rank muskets, going off close beside his head, had left his ears ringing. His right hand automatically went to find a new cartridge from his pouch, but then, above the ringing in his ears, he heard the Colonel’s brusque voice. ‘Forward! Thirty-third, forward!’
‘Go on, boys!’ Sergeant Green called. ‘Steady now! Don’t run! Walk!’
‘Damn your eagerness!’ Ensign Fitzgerald shouted at the company. ‘Hold your ranks! This ain’t a race!’
The regiment marched into the musket smoke which stank like rotting eggs. Lieutenant Lawford suddenly remembered to draw his sword. He could see nothing beyond the smoke, but imagined a terrible enemy waiting with raised muskets. He touched the pocket of his coat in which he kept the Bible given to him by his mother.
The front rank advanced clear of the stinking smoke fog and suddenly there was nothing ahead but chaos and carnage.
The seven hundred lead balls had converged on the front of the column to strike home with a brutal efficiency. Where there had been orderly ranks there were now only dead men and dying men who writhed on the ground. The rearward ranks of the enemy could not advance over the barrier of the dead and injured, so they stood uncertainly as, out of the smoke, the seven hundred bayonets appeared.
‘On the double! On the double! Don’t let them stand!’ Colonel Wellesley called.
‘Give them a cheer, boys!’ Sergeant Green called. ‘Go for them now! Kill the buggers!’
Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King’s enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There was loot ahead. Loot and food and stunned men to slaughter and there were few men in the 33rd who did not like a good fight. Not many had joined the ranks out of patriotism; instead, like Sharpe, they had taken the King’s shilling because hunger or desperation had forced them into uniform, but they were still good soldiers. They came from the gutters of Britain where a man survived by savagery rather than by cleverness. They were brawlers and bastards, alley-fighters with nothing to lose but tuppence a day.
Sharpe howled as he ran. The sepoy battalions were closing up on the left, but there was no need for their musketry now, for the Tippoo’s vaunted tiger infantry were not staying to contest the afternoon. They were edging backwards, looking for escape, and then, out of the north where they had been half hidden by the red-blossomed trees, the British and Indian cavalry charged to the sound of a trumpet’s call. Lances were lowered and sabres held like spears as the horsemen thundered onto the enemy’s flank.
The Tippoo’s infantry fled. A few, the lucky few, scrambled back up the ridge, but most were caught in the open ground between the 33rd and the ridge’s slope and there the killing became a massacre. Sharpe reached the pile of dead and leapt over them. Just beyond the bloody pile a wounded man tried to bring up his musket, but Sharpe slammed the butt of his gun onto the man’s head, kicked the musket out of his enfeebled hands and ran on. He was aiming for an officer, a brave man who had tried to rally his troops and who now hesitated fatally. The man was carrying a drawn sabre, then he remembered the pistol in his belt and fumbled to draw it, but saw he was too late and turned to run after his men. Sharpe was faster. He rammed his bayonet forward and struck the Indian officer on the side of the neck. The man turned, his sabre whistling as he sliced the curved blade at Sharpe’s head. Sharpe parried the blow with the barrel of his musket. A sliver of wood was slashed off the stock as Sharpe kicked the officer between the legs. Sharpe was screaming a challenge, a scream of hate that had nothing to do with Mysore or the enemy officer, and everything to do with the frustrations of his life. The Indian staggered, hunched over and Sharpe slammed the musket’s heavy butt into the dark face. The enemy officer went down, his sabre falling from his hand. He shouted something, maybe offering his surrender, but Sharpe did not care. He just put his left foot on the man’s sword arm, then drove the bayonet hard down into his throat. The fight might have lasted three seconds.
Sharpe advanced no farther. Other men ran past, screaming as they pursued the fleeing enemy, but Sharpe had found his victim. He had thrust the bayonet so hard that the blade had gone clean through the officer’s neck into the soil beneath and it was hard work to pull the steel free, and in the end he had to put a boot on the dying man’s forehead before he could tug the bayonet out. Blood gushed from the wound, then subsided to a throbbing pulse of spilling red as Sharpe knelt and began rifling the man’s gaudy uniform, oblivious of the choking, bubbling sound that the officer was making as he died. Sharpe ripped off the yellow silk sash and tossed it aside together with the silver-hilted sabre and the pistol. The sabre scabbard was made of boiled leather, nothing of any value to Sharpe, but behind it was a small embroidered pouch and Sharpe drew out his knife, unfolded the blade and slashed through the pouch’s straps. He fumbled the pouch open to find that it was filled with nothing but dry rice and one small scrap of what looked like cake. He smelt it gingerly and guessed it was made of some kind of bean. He tossed the food aside and spat a curse at the dying man. ‘Where’s your bleeding money?’
The man gasped, made a choking sound, then his whole body jerked as his heart finally gave up the struggle. Sharpe tore at the tunic that was decorated with mauve tiger stripes. He felt the seams, looking for coins, found none so pulled off the wide red turban that was sticky with fresh blood. The dead man’s face was already crawling with flies. Sharpe pulled the turban apart and there, in the very centre of the greasy cloth, he found three silver and a dozen small copper coins. ‘Knew you’d have something,’ he told the dead man, then pushed the coins into his own pouch.
The cavalry was finishing off the remnants of the Tippoo’s infantry. The Tippoo himself, with his entourage and standard-bearers, had gone from the top of the ridge, and there were no cannon firing there either. The enemy had slipped away, abandoning their trapped infantry to the sabres and lances of the British and Indian cavalry. The Indian cavalry had been recruited from the city of Madras and the East Coast states which had all suffered from the Tippoo’s raids and now they took a bloody revenge, whooping and laughing as their blades cut down the terrified fugitives. Some cavalrymen, running out of targets, were already dismounted and searching the dead for plunder. The sepoy infantry, too late to join the killing, arrived to join the plunder.
Sharpe twisted the bayonet off his musket, wiped it clean on the dead man’s sash, scooped up the sabre and pistol, then went to find more loot. He was grinning, and thinking that there was nothing to this fighting business, nothing at all. A few shots in Flanders, one volley here; and neither fight was worthy of the name battle. Flanders had been a muddle and this fight had been as easy as slaughtering sheep. No wonder Sergeant Hakeswill would live for ever. And so would he, Sharpe reckoned, because there was nothing to this business. Just a couple of bangs and it was all over. He laughed, slid the bayonet into its sheath and knelt beside another dead man. There was work to do and a future to finance.
If only he could decide where it would be safe to run.
CHAPTER TWO
Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill glanced about to see what his men were doing. Just about all of them were plundering, and quite right too. That was a soldier’s privilege. Fight the battle then strip the enemy of anything worth a penny. The officers were not looting, but officers never did, at least not so that anyone noticed them, but Hakeswill did see that Ensign Fitzgerald had somehow managed to get himself a jewelled sabre that he was now flashing around like a shilling whore given a guinea fan. Mister bloody Ensign Fitzgerald was getting above himself in Sergeant Hakeswill’s considered opinion. Ensigns were the lowest of the low, apprentice officers, lads in silver lace, and Mister bloody Fitzgerald had no business countermanding Hakeswill’s orders so Mister bloody Fitzgerald must be taught his place, but the trouble was that Mister Fitzgerald was Irish and Hakeswill was of the opinion that the Irish were only half civilized and never did understand their place. Most of them, anyway. Major Shee was Irish, and he was civilized, at least when he was sober, and Colonel Wellesley, who was from Dublin, was wholly civilized, but the Colonel had possessed the sense to make himself more English than the English, while Mister bloody Fitzgerald made no pretence about his birth.
‘See this, Hakeswill?’ Fitzgerald, sublimely unaware of Hakeswill’s glowering thoughts, stepped across a body to show off his new sabre.
‘See what, sir?’
‘Damned blade is made in Birmingham! Will you credit that? Birmingham! Says so on the blade, see? “Made in Birmingham.”’
Hakeswill dutifully examined the legend on the blade, then fingered the sabre’s pommel which was elegantly set with a ring of seven small rubies. ‘Looks like glass to me, sir,’ he said dismissively, hoping he could somehow persuade Fitzgerald to relinquish the blade.
‘Nonsense!’ Fitzgerald said cheerfully. ‘Best rubies! Bit small, maybe, but I doubt the ladies will mind that. Seven pieces of glitter? That adds up to a week of sin, Sergeant. It was worth killing the rascal for that.’
If you did kill him, Hakeswill thought sourly as he stumped away from the exuberant Ensign. More likely picked it up off the ground. And Fitzgerald was right; seven rubies, even small ones, would buy a lot of Naig’s ladies. ‘Nasty’ Naig was a merchant from Madras, one of the many travelling with the army, and he had brought his brothel with him. It was an expensive brothel, officers only, or at least only those who could pay an officer’s price, and that made Hakeswill think of Mary Bickerstaff. Mrs Mary Bickerstaff. She was a half and half, half Indian and half British, and that made her valuable. Very valuable. Most of the women who followed the army were dark as Hades, and while Obadiah Hakeswill had no distaste for dark skin he did miss the touch of white flesh. So did many of the officers, and there was a guinea or two to be made out of that lust. Naig would pay well for a skin as pale as Mary Bickerstaff’s.
She was a rare beauty, Mary Bickerstaff. A beauty amongst a pack of ugly, rancid women. Hakeswill watched as a group of the battalion’s wives ran to take part in the plundering and almost shuddered as he contemplated their ugliness. About two thirds of the wives were bibbis, Indians, and most of those, Hakeswill knew, were not properly married with the Colonel’s permission, while the rest were those lucky British women who had won the brutal lottery that had taken place on the night before the battalion had sailed from England. The wives had been gathered in a barrack room, their names had been put into ten shakos, one for each company, and the first ten names drawn from each hat were allowed to accompany their husbands. The rest had to stay in Britain, and what happened to them there was anybody’s guess. Most went on the parish, but parishes resented feeding soldiers’ wives, so as like as not they were forced to become whores. Barrack-gate whores, for the most part, because they lacked the looks for anything better. But a few, a precious few, were pretty, and none was prettier than Sergeant Bickerstaff’s half and half widow.
The women spread out among the dead and dying Mysoreans. If anything they were even more efficient than their men at plundering the dead, for the men tended to hurry and so missed the hiding places where a soldier secreted his money. Hakeswill watched Flora Placket strip the body of a tall tiger-striped corpse whose throat had been slashed to the backbone by the slice of a cavalryman’s sabre. She did not rush her work, but searched carefully, garment by garment, then handed each piece of clothing to one of her two children to fold and stack. Hakeswill approved of Flora Placket for she was a large and steady woman who kept her man in good order and made no fuss about a campaign’s discomforts. She was a good mother too, and that was why Obadiah did not care that Flora Placket was as ugly as a haversack. Mothers were sacred. Mothers were not expected to be pretty. Mothers were Obadiah Hakeswill’s guardian angels, and Flora Placket reminded Obadiah of his own mother who was the only person in all his life who had shown him kindness. Biddy Hakeswill was long dead now, she had died a year before the twelve-year-old Obadiah had dangled on a scaffold for the trumped-up charge of sheep stealing and, to amuse the crowd, the executioner had not let any of that day’s victims drop from the gallows, but had instead hoisted them gently into the air so that they choked slowly as their piss-soaked legs jerked in the death dance of the gibbet. No one had taken much notice of the small boy at the scaffold’s end and, when the heavens had opened and the rain come down in bucketfuls to scatter the crowd, no one had bothered when Biddy Hakeswill’s brother had cut the boy down and set him loose. ‘Did it for your mother,’ his uncle had snarled. ‘God rest her soul. Now be off with you and don’t ever show your face in the dale again.’ Hakeswill had run south, joined the army as a drummer boy, had risen to sergeant and had never forgotten his dying mother’s words. ‘No one will ever get rid of Obadiah,’ she had said, ‘not my Obadiah. Death’s too good for him.’ The gallows had proved that. Touched by God, he was, indestructible!
A groan sounded near Hakeswill and the Sergeant snapped out of his reverie to see a tiger-striped Indian struggling to turn onto his belly. Hakeswill scurried over, forced the man onto his back again and placed his halberd’s spear point at the man’s throat. ‘Money?’ Hakeswill snarled, then held out his left hand and motioned the counting of coins. ‘Money?’
The man blinked slowly, then said something in his own language.
‘I’ll let you live, you bugger,’ Hakeswill promised, leering at the wounded man. ‘Not that you’ll live long. Got a goolie in your belly, see?’ He pointed at the wound in the man’s belly where the bullet had driven home. ‘Now where’s your money? Money! Pice? Dan? Pagodas? Annas? Rupees?’
The man must have understood for his hand fluttered weakly towards his chest.
‘Good boy, now,’ Hakeswill said, smiling again, then his face jerked in its involuntary spasms as he pushed the spear point home, but not too quickly for he liked to see the realization of death on a man’s face. ‘You’re a stupid bugger, too,’ Hakeswill said when the man’s death throes had ended, then he cut open the tunic and found that the man had strapped some coins to his chest with a cotton sash. He undid the sash and pocketed the handful of copper change. Not a big haul, but Hakeswill was not dependent on his own plundering to fill his purse. He would take a cut from whatever the soldiers of the Light Company found. They knew they would have to pay up or else face punishment.
He saw Sharpe kneeling beside a body and hurried across. ‘Got a sword there, Sharpie?’ Hakeswill asked. ‘Stole it, did you?’
‘I killed the man, Sergeant.’ Sharpe looked up.
‘Doesn’t bleeding matter, does it, lad? You ain’t permitted to carry a sword. Officer’s weapon, a sword is. Mustn’t get above your station, Sharpie. Get above yourself, boy, and you’ll be cut down. So I’ll take the blade, I will.’ Hakeswill half expected Sharpe to resist, but the Private did nothing as the Sergeant picked up the silver-hilted blade. ‘Worth a few bob, I dare say,’ Hakeswill said appreciatively, then he laid the sword’s tip against the stock at Sharpe’s neck. ‘Which is more than you’re worth, Sharpie. Too clever for your own good, you are.’
Sharpe edged away from the sword and stood up. ‘I ain’t got a quarrel with you, Sergeant,’ he said.
‘But you do, boy, you do.’ Hakeswill grimaced as his face went into spasm. ‘And you know what the quarrel’s about, don’t you?’
Sharpe backed away from the sword. ‘I ain’t got a quarrel with you,’ he repeated stubbornly.
‘I think our quarrel is called Mrs Bickerstaff,’ Hakeswill said, and grinned when Sharpe said nothing. ‘I almost got you with that flint, didn’t I? Would have had you flogged raw, boy, and you’d have died of a fever within a week. A flogging does that in this climate. Wears a man down, a flogging does. But you got a friendly officer, don’t you? Mister Lawford. He likes you, does he?’ He prodded Sharpe’s chest with the sword’s tip. ‘Is that what it is? Officer’s pet, are you?’
‘Mister Lawford ain’t nothing to me,’ Sharpe said.
‘That’s what you say, but my eyes tell different.’ Hakeswill giggled. ‘Sweet on each other, are you? You and Mister Lawford? Ain’t that nice, Sharpie, but it don’t make you much use to Mrs Bickerstaff, does it? Reckon she’d be better off with a real man.’
‘She ain’t your business,’ Sharpe said.
‘Ain’t my business! Oh, listen to it!’ Hakeswill sneered, then prodded the sword forward again. He wanted to provoke Sharpe into resisting, for then he could charge him with attacking a superior, but the tall young man just backed away from the blade. ‘You listen, Sharpie,’ Hakeswill said, ‘and you listen well. She’s a sergeant’s wife, not the whore of some common ranker like you.’
‘Sergeant Bickerstaff’s dead,’ Sharpe protested.
‘So she needs a man!’ Hakeswill said. ‘And a sergeant’s widow doesn’t get rogered by a stinking bit of dirt like you. It ain’t right. Ain’t natural. It’s beneath her station, Sharpie, and it can’t be allowed. Says so in the scriptures.’
‘She can choose who she wants,’ Sharpe insisted.
‘Choose, Sharpie? Choose?’ Hakeswill laughed. ‘Women don’t choose, you soft bugger. Women get taken by the strongest. Says so in the scriptures, and if you stand in my way, Sharpie’ – he pushed the sword hard forward – ‘then I’ll have your spine laid open to the daylight. A lost flint? That would have been two hundred lashes, lad, but next time? A thousand. And laid on hard! Real hard! Be blood and bones, boy, bones and blood, and who’ll look after your Mrs Bickerstaff then? Eh? Tell me that. So you takes your filthy hands off her. Leave her to me, Sharpie.’ He leered at Sharpe, but still the younger man refused to be provoked and Hakeswill at last abandoned the attempt. ‘Worth a few guineas, this sword,’ the Sergeant said again as he backed away. ‘Obliged to you, Sharpie.’
Sharpe swore uselessly at Hakeswill’s back, then turned as a woman hailed him from among the heaped bodies that had been the leading ranks of the Tippoo’s column. Those bodies were now being dragged apart to be searched and Mary Bickerstaff was helping the work along.
He walked towards her and, as ever, was struck by the beauty of the girl. She had black hair, a thin face and dark big eyes that could spark with mischief. Now, though, she looked worried. ‘What did Hakeswill want?’ she asked.
‘You.’
She spat, then crouched again to the body she was searching. ‘He can’t touch you, Richard,’ she said, ‘not if you do your duty.’
‘The army’s not like that. And you know it.’
‘You’ve just got to be clever,’ Mary insisted. She was a soldier’s daughter who had grown up in the Calcutta barrack lines. She had inherited her dark Indian beauty from her mother and learned the ways of soldiers from her father who had been an engineer sergeant in the Old Fort’s garrison before an outbreak of cholera had killed him and his native wife. Mary’s father had always claimed she was pretty enough to marry an officer and so rise in the world, but no officer would marry a half-caste, at least no officer who cared about advancement, and so after her parents’ death Mary had married Sergeant Jem Bickerstaff of the 33rd, a good man, but Bickerstaff had died of the fever shortly after the army had left Madras to climb to the Mysore plateau and Mary, at twenty-two, was now an orphan and a widow. She was also wise to the army’s ways. ‘If you’re made up to sergeant, Richard,’ she told Sharpe now, ‘then Hakeswill can’t touch you.’
Sharpe laughed. ‘Me? A sergeant? That’ll be the day, lass. I made corporal once, but that didn’t last.’
‘You can be a sergeant,’ she insisted, ‘and you should be a sergeant. And Hakeswill couldn’t touch you if you were.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘It ain’t me he wants to touch, lass, but you.’
Mary had been cutting a tiger-striped tunic from a dead man, but now she paused and looked quizzically up at Sharpe. She had not been in love with Jem Bickerstaff, but she had recognized that the Sergeant was a good, kind man, and she saw the same decency in Sharpe. It was not exactly the same decency, for Sharpe, she reckoned, had ten times Jem Bickerstaff’s fire and he could be as cunning as a snake when it suited him, but Mary still trusted Sharpe. She was also attracted to him. There was something very striking about Sharpe’s lean good looks, something dangerous, she acknowledged, but very exciting. She looked at him for a few seconds, then shrugged. ‘Maybe he won’t dare touch me if we’re married,’ she said. ‘I mean proper married, with the Colonel’s permission.’
‘Married!’ Sharpe said, flustered by the word.
Mary stood. ‘It ain’t easy being a widow in the army, Richard. Every man reckons you’re loot.’
‘Aye, I know it’s hard,’ Sharpe said, frowning. He stared at her as he thought about the idea of getting married. Till now he had only been thinking of desertion, but maybe marriage was not such a bad idea. At least it would make it much harder for Hakeswill to get his hands on Mary’s skin. And a married man, Sharpe reckoned, was more likely to be promoted. But what was the point of rising an inch or two in the dunghill? Even a sergeant was still at the bottom of the heap. It was better to be out of the army altogether and Mary, Sharpe decided, would be more likely to desert with him if she was properly married to him. That thought made him nod slowly. ‘I reckon I might like to be married,’ he said shyly.
‘Me too.’ She smiled and, awkwardly, Sharpe smiled back. For a moment neither had anything to say, then Mary excitedly fished in the pocket of her apron to produce a jewel she had taken from a dead man. ‘Look what I found!’ She handed Sharpe a red stone, half the size of a hen’s egg. ‘You reckon it’s a ruby?’ Mary asked eagerly.
Sharpe tossed the stone up and down. ‘I reckon it’s glass, lass,’ he said gently, ‘just glass. But I’ll get you a ruby for a wedding gift, just you watch me.’
‘I’ll more than watch you, Dick Sharpe,’ she said happily and put her arm into his. Sergeant Hakeswill, a hundred paces away, watched them and his face twitched.
While on the edges of the killing place, where the looted and naked bodies lay scattered, the vultures came down, sidled forward and began to tear at the dead.
The allied armies camped a quarter of a mile short of the place where the dead lay. The camp sprawled across the plain: an instant town where fifty thousand soldiers and thousands of camp followers would spend the night. Tents went up for officers well away from the places where the vast herds of cattle were guarded for the night. Some of the cattle were beeves, being herded and slaughtered for food, some were oxen that carried panniers filled with the eighteen- and twenty-four-pounder cannonballs that would be needed to blast a hole through the walls of Seringapatam, while yet others were bullocks that hauled the wagons and guns, and the heaviest guns, the big siege pieces, needed sixty bullocks apiece. There were more than two hundred thousand cattle with the army, but all were now scrawny for the Tippoo’s cavalry was stripping the land of fodder as the British and Hyderabad armies advanced.
The common soldiers had no tents. They would sleep on the ground close to their fires, but first they ate and this night the feeding was good, at least for the men of the King’s 33rd who had coins taken from the enemy dead to spend with the bhinjarries, the merchant clans that travelled with the army and had their own private guards to protect their goods. The bhinjarries all sold chickens, rice, flour, beans and, best of all, the throat-burning skins of arrack which could make a man drunk even faster than rum. Some of the bhinjarries also hired out whores and the 33rd gave those men good business that night.
Captain Morris expected to visit the famous green tents of Naig, the bhinjarrie whose stock in trade was the most expensive whores of Madras, but for now he was stuck in his own tent where, under the feeble light of a candle that flickered on his table, he disposed of the company’s business. Or rather Sergeant Hakeswill disposed of it while Morris, his coat unbuttoned and silk stock loosened, sprawled in a camp chair. Sweat dripped down his face. There was a small wind, but the muslin screen hanging at the entrance to the tent took away its cooling effects, and if the screen was discarded the tent would fill with savagely huge moths. Morris hated moths, hated the heat, hated India. ‘Guard rosters, sir,’ Hakeswill said, offering the papers.
‘Anything I should know?’
‘Not a thing, sir. Just like last week’s, sir. Ensign Hicks made up the roster, sir. A good man, sir, Ensign Hicks. Knows his place.’
‘You mean he does what you tell him to do?’ Morris asked drily.
‘Learning his trade, sir, learning his trade, just like a good little ensign should. Unlike some as I could mention.’
Morris ignored the sly reference to Fitzgerald and instead dipped his quill in ink and scrawled his name at the foot of the rosters. ‘I assume Ensign Fitzgerald and Sergeant Green have been assigned all the night duty?’ he asked.
‘They needs the practice, sir.’
‘And you need your sleep, Sergeant?’
‘Punishment book, sir,’ Hakeswill said, offering the leather-bound ledger and taking back the guard roster without acknowledging Morris’s last comment.
Morris leafed through the book. ‘No floggings this week?’
‘Will be soon, sir, will be soon.’
‘Private Sharpe escaped you today, eh?’ Morris laughed. ‘Losing your touch, Obadiah.’ There was no friendliness in his use of the Christian name, just scorn, but Sergeant Hakeswill took no offence. Officers were officers, at least those above ensigns were proper officers in Hakeswill’s opinion, and such gentlemen had every right to be scornful of lesser ranks.
‘I ain’t losing nothing, sir,’ Hakeswill answered equably. ‘If the rat don’t die first shake, sir, then you puts the dog in again. That’s how it’s done, sir. Says so in the scriptures. Sick report, sir. Nothing new, except that Sears has the fever, so he won’t be with us long, but he won’t be no loss, sir. No good to man or beast, Private Sears. Better off dead, he is.’
‘Are we done?’ Morris asked when he had signed the sick report, but then a tactful cough sounded at the tent’s opening and Lieutenant Lawford ducked under the flap and pushed through the muslin screen.
‘Busy, Charles?’ Lawford asked Morris.
‘Always pleased to see you, William,’ Morris said sarcastically, ‘but I was about to go for a stroll.’
‘There’s a soldier to see you,’ Lawford explained. ‘Man’s got a request, sir.’
Morris sighed as though he was too busy to be bothered with such trifles, but then he shrugged and waved a hand as if to suggest he was making a great and generous gesture by giving the man a moment of his precious time. ‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Private Sharpe, sir.’
‘Troublemaker, sir,’ Hakeswill put in.
‘He’s a good man,’ Lawford insisted hotly, but then decided his small experience of the army hardly qualified him to make such judgements and so, diffidently, he added that it was only his opinion. ‘But he seems like a good man, sir,’ he finished.
‘Let him in,’ Morris said. He sipped from a tin mug of arrack while Sharpe negotiated the muslin screen and then stood to attention beneath the ridge pole. ‘Hat off, boy!’ Hakeswill snapped. ‘Don’t you know to take your hat off in the presence of an officer?’
Sharpe snatched off his shako.
‘Well?’ Morris asked.
For a second it seemed that Sharpe did not know what to say, but then he cleared his throat and, staring at the tent wall a few inches above Captain Morris’s head, he at last found his voice. ‘Permission to marry, sir.’
Morris grinned. ‘Marry! Found yourself a bibbi, have you?’ He sipped more arrack, then looked at Hakeswill. ‘How many wives are on the company strength now, Sergeant?’
‘Full complement, sir! No room for more, sir! Full up, sir. Not a vacancy to be had. Shall I dismiss Private Sharpe, sir?’
‘This girl’s on the complement,’ Lieutenant Lawford intervened. ‘She’s Sergeant Bickerstaff’s widow.’
Morris stared up at Sharpe. ‘Bickerstaff,’ he said vaguely as though the name was strange to him. ‘Bickerstaff. Fellow who died of a fever on the march, is that right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hakeswill answered.
‘Didn’t know the man was even married,’ Morris said. ‘Official wife, was she?’
‘Very official, sir,’ Hakeswill answered. ‘On the company strength, sir. Colonel’s signature on the certificate, sir. Proper married before God and the army, sir.’
Morris sniffed and looked up at Sharpe again. ‘Why on earth do you want to marry, Sharpe?’
Sharpe looked embarrassed. ‘Just do, sir,’ he said lamely.
‘Can’t say I disapprove of marriage,’ Morris said. ‘Steadies a man does marriage, but a fellow like you, Sharpe, can do better than a soldier’s widow, can’t you? Dreadful creatures, soldiers’ widows! Used goods, Private. Fat and greasy, like lumps of lard wrapped up in linen. Get yourself a sweet little bibbi, man, something that ain’t yet run to seed.’
‘Very good advice, sir,’ Hakeswill said, his face twitching. ‘Words of wisdom, sir. Shall I dismiss him, sir?’
‘Mary Bickerstaff is a good woman, sir,’ Lieutenant Lawford said. The Lieutenant, whom Sharpe had first approached with his request, was eager to do his best. ‘Sharpe could do a lot worse than marry Mary Bickerstaff, sir.’
Morris cut a cigar and lit it from the guttering candle that burned on his camp table. ‘White, is she?’ he asked negligently.
‘Half bibbi and half Christian, sir,’ Hakeswill said, ‘but she had a good man for her husband.’ He sniffed, pretending that he was suddenly overcome with emotion. ‘And Jem Bickerstaff ain’t this month in his grave, sir. Too soon for the trollop to marry again. It ain’t right, sir. Says so in the scriptures.’
Morris offered Hakeswill a cynical glance. ‘Don’t be absurd, Sergeant. Most army widows marry the next day! The ranks are hardly high society, you know.’
‘But Jem Bickerstaff was a friend of mine, sir,’ Hakeswill said, sniffing again and even cuffing at an invisible tear. ‘Friend of mine, sir,’ he repeated more hoarsely, ‘and on his dying bed, sir, he begged me to look after his little wife, sir. I know she ain’t through and through white, he told me, but she deserves to be looked after. His very dying words, sir.’
‘He bloody hated you!’ Sharpe could not resist the words.
‘Quiet in front of an officer!’ Hakeswill shouted. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to, boy, and otherwise keep your filthy mouth buttoned like God wanted it.’
Morris frowned as though Hakeswill’s loud voice was giving him a headache. Then he looked up at Sharpe. ‘I’ll talk to Major Shee about it, Sharpe. If the woman is on the strength and wants to marry you, then I don’t suppose we can stop her. I’ll talk to the Major. You’re dismissed.’
Sharpe hesitated, wondering whether he should thank the Captain for the laconic words, but before he could say anything, Hakeswill was bawling in his ear. ‘About turn! Smartly now! Hat on! Quick march! One two one two, smartly now. Mind the bleeding curtain, boy! This ain’t a pig sty like what you grew up in, but an officer’s quarters!’
Morris waited till Sharpe was gone, then looked up at Lawford. ‘Nothing more, Lieutenant?’
Lawford guessed that he too was dismissed. ‘You will talk to Major Shee, Charles?’ he pressed Morris.
‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ Morris glared up at the Lieutenant.
Lawford hesitated, then nodded. ‘Good night, sir,’ he said and ducked under the muslin screen.
Morris waited until he was certain that both men were out of earshot. ‘Now what do we do?’ he asked Hakeswill.
‘Tell the silly bugger that Major Shee refused permission, sir.’
‘And Willie Lawford will talk to the Major and find that he didn’t. Or else he’ll go straight to Wellesley. Lawford’s uncle is on the staff, or had you forgotten that? Use your wits, man!’ Morris slapped at a moth that had managed to slip through the screen. ‘What do we do?’ he asked again.
Hakeswill sat on a stool opposite the camp table. He scratched his head, glanced into the night, then looked back to Morris. ‘He’s a sharp one, Sharpie, he is. Slippery. But I’ll do him.’ He paused. ‘Of course, sir, if you helped, it’d be quicker. Much quicker.’
Morris looked dubious. ‘The girl will only find herself another protector,’ he said. ‘I think you’re wasting my time, Sergeant.’
‘What me, sir? No, sir. Not at all, sir. I’ll have the girl, sir, just you watch, and Nasty Naig says you can have all you want of her. Free and gratis, sir, like you ought to.’
Morris stood, pulled on his jacket and picked up his hat and sword. ‘You think I’d share your woman, Hakeswill?’ The Captain shuddered. ‘And get your pox?’
‘Pox, sir? Me, sir?’ Hakeswill stood. ‘Not me, sir. Clean as a whistle, I am, sir. Cured, sir. Mercury.’ His face twitched. ‘Ask the surgeon, sir, he’ll tell you.’
Morris hesitated, thinking of Mary Bickerstaff. He thought a great deal about Mary Bickerstaff. Her beauty ensured that, and men on campaign were deprived of beauty and so Mary’s allure only increased with every mile the army marched westwards. Morris was not alone. On the night when Mary’s husband had died, the 33rd’s officers, at least those who had a mind for such games, had wagered which of them would first take the widow to their bed and so far none of them had succeeded. Morris wanted to win, not only for the fourteen guineas that would accrue to the successful seducer, but because he had become besotted by the woman. Soon after she had become a widow he had asked Mary to do his laundry, thinking that thereby he could begin the intimacy he craved, but she had refused him with a lacerating scorn. Morris wanted to punish her for that scorn, and Hakeswill, with his intuition for other men’s weaknesses, had sensed what Morris wanted and promised he would arrange everything. Naig, Hakeswill assured his bitter officer, had a way of breaking reluctant girls. ‘There ain’t a bibbi born that Nasty can’t break, sir,’ Hakeswill had promised Morris, ‘and he’d give a small fortune for a proper white one. Not that Mrs Bickerstaff’s proper white, sir, not like a Christian, but in the dark she’d pass well enough.’ The Sergeant needed Morris’s help in ridding Mrs Bickerstaff of Richard Sharpe and as an inducement he had offered Morris the free run of Naig’s tent. In return, Morris knew, Hakeswill would expect a lifetime’s patronage. As Morris climbed the army’s ranks, so Hakeswill would be drawn ineluctably after him and with each step the Sergeant would garner more power and influence.
‘So when will you free Mrs Bickerstaff of Sharpe?’ Morris asked, buckling his sword belt.
‘Tonight, sir. With your help. You’ll be back here by midnight, I dare say?’
‘I might.’
‘If you are, sir, we’ll do him. Tonight, sir.’
Morris clapped the cocked hat on his head, made sure his purse was in his coat-tail pocket and ducked under the muslin. ‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ he called back.
‘Sir!’ Hakeswill stood to attention for a full ten seconds after the Captain was gone, and then, with a sly grin twitching on his lumpy face, followed Morris into the night.
Nineteen miles to the south lay a temple. It was an ancient place, deep in the country, one of the many Hindu shrines where the country folk came on high days and holidays to do honour to their gods and to pray for a timely monsoon, for good crops and for the absence of warlords. For the rest of the year the temple lay abandoned, its gods and altars and richly carved spires home to scorpions, snakes and monkeys.
The temple was surrounded by a wall through which one gate led, though the wall was not high and the gate was never shut. Villagers left small offerings of leaves, flowers and food in niches of the gateposts, and sometimes they would go into the temple itself, cross the courtyard and climb to the inner shrine where they would place their small gifts beneath the image of a god, but at night, when the Indian sky lay black over a heat-exhausted land, no one would ever dream of disturbing the gods.
But this night, the night after battle, a man entered the temple. He was tall and thin, with white hair and a harsh, suntanned face. He was over sixty years old, but his back was still straight and he moved with the ease of a much younger man. Like many Europeans who had lived a long time in India he was prone to bouts of debilitating fever, but otherwise he was in sterling health, and Colonel Hector McCandless ascribed that good health to his religion and to a regimen that abjured alcohol, tobacco and meat. His religion was Calvinism for Hector McCandless had grown up in Scotland and the godly lessons that had been whipped into his young, earnest soul had never been forgotten. He was an honest man, a tough man, and a wise one.
His soul was old in experience, but even so it was offended by the idols that reflected the small light of the lantern he had lit once he was through the temple’s ever open gate. He had lived in India for over sixteen years now and he was more accustomed to these heathen shrines than to the kirks of his childhood, but still, whenever he saw these strange gods with their multiplicity of arms, their elephant heads, their grotesquely coloured faces and their cobra-hooded masks, he felt a stab of disapproval. He never let that disapproval show, for that would have imperilled his duty, and McCandless was a man who believed that duty was a master second only to God.
He wore the red coat and the tartan kilt of the King’s Scotch Brigade, a Highland regiment that had not seen McCandless’s stern features for sixteen years. He had served with the brigade for over thirty years, but lack of funds had obstructed his promotion and so, with his Colonel’s blessing, he had accepted a job with the army of the East India Company which governed those parts of India that were under British rule. In his time he had commanded battalions of sepoys, but McCandless’s first love was surveying. He had mapped the Carnatic coast, he had charted the Sundarbans of the Hoogli, and he had once ridden the length and breadth of Mysore, and while he had been so engaged he had learned a half-dozen Indian languages and met a score of princes, rajahs and nawabs. Few men understood India as McCandless did, which was why the Company had promoted him to Colonel and attached him to the British army as its chief of intelligence. It was McCandless’s task to advise General Harris of the enemy’s strength and dispositions, and, in particular, to discover just what defences waited for the allied armies when they reached Seringapatam.
It was his search for that particular answer that had brought Colonel McCandless to this ancient temple. He had surveyed the temple seven years before, when Lord Cornwallis’s army had marched against Mysore, and back then McCandless had admired the extraordinary carvings that covered every inch of the temple’s walls. The Scotsman’s religion had been offended by so much decoration, but he was too honest a man to deny that the old stoneworkers had been marvellous craftsmen, for the sculpture here was as fine, if not finer, than anything produced in medieval Europe. The wan yellow light of his lantern washed across caparisoned elephants, fierce gods and marching armies, all made of stone.
He climbed the steps to the central shrine, passed between its vast, squat pillars and so went into the sanctuary. The roof here, beneath the temple’s high carved tower, was fashioned into lotus blossoms. The idols stared blankly from their niches with flowers and leaves drying at their feet. The Colonel placed the lantern on the flagstone floor, then sat cross-legged and waited. He closed his eyes, letting his ears identify the noises of the night beyond the temple’s walls. McCandless had come to this remote temple with an escort of six Indian lancers, but he had left that escort two miles away in case their presence should have inhibited the man he was hoping to meet. So now he just waited with eyes closed and arms folded, and after a while he heard the thump of a hoof on dry earth, the chink of a snaffle chain, and then, once again, silence. And still he waited with eyes closed.
‘If you were not in that uniform,’ a voice said a few moments later, ‘I would think you were at your prayers.’
‘The uniform does not disqualify me from prayer, any more than does your uniform,’ the Colonel answered, opening his eyes. He stood. ‘Welcome, General.’
The man who faced McCandless was younger than the Scot, but every inch as tall and lean. Appah Rao was now a general in the forces of the Tippoo Sultan, but once, many years before, he had been an officer in one of McCandless’s sepoy battalions and it was that old acquaintanceship, which had verged upon friendship, that had persuaded McCandless it was worth risking his own life to talk to Appah Rao. Appah Rao had served under McCandless’s orders until his father had died, and then, trained as a soldier, he had returned to his native Mysore. Today he had watched from the ridge as the Tippoo’s infantry had been massacred by a single British volley. The experience had made him sour, but he forced a grudging courtesy into his voice. ‘So you’re still alive, Major?’ Appah Rao spoke in Kanarese, the language of the native Mysoreans.
‘Still alive, and a full colonel now,’ McCandless answered in the same tongue. ‘Shall we sit?’
Appah Rao grunted, then sat opposite McCandless. Behind him, beyond the sunken courtyard where they were framed by the temple’s gateway, were two soldiers. They were Appah Rao’s escort and McCandless knew they must be trusted men, for if the Tippoo Sultan were ever to discover that this meeting had taken place then Appah Rao and all his family would be killed. Unless, of course, the Tippoo already knew and was using Appah Rao to make some mischief of his own.
The Tippoo’s General was dressed in his master’s tiger-striped tunic, but over it he wore a sash of the finest silk and slung across his shoulder was a second silk sash from which hung a gold-hilted sword. His boots were red leather and his hat a coil of watered red silk on which a milky-blue jewel gleamed soft in the lantern’s flickering light. ‘You were at Malavelly today?’ he asked McCandless.
‘I was,’ McCandless said. Malavelly was the nearest village to where the battle had been fought.
‘So you know what happened?’
‘I know the Tippoo sacrificed hundreds of your people,’ McCandless said. ‘Your people, General, not his.’
Appah Rao dismissed the distinction. ‘The people follow him.’
‘Because they have no choice. They follow, but do they love him?’
‘Some do,’ Appah Rao answered. ‘But what does it matter? Why should a ruler want his people’s love? Their obedience, yes, but love? Love is for children, McCandless, and for gods and for women.’
McCandless smiled, tacitly yielding the argument which was not important. He did not have to persuade Appah Rao to treachery, the very presence of the Mysorean General was proof that he was already halfway to betraying the Tippoo, but McCandless did not expect the General to yield gracefully. There was pride at stake here, and Appah Rao’s pride was great and needed to be handled as gently as a cocked duelling pistol. Appah Rao had always been thus, even when he was a young man in the Company’s army, and McCandless approved of that pride. He had always respected Appah Rao, and still did, and he believed Appah Rao returned the respect. It was in that belief that the Colonel had sent a message to Seringapatam. The message was carried by one of the Company’s native agents who wandered as a naked fakir through southern India. The message had been concealed in the man’s long greasy hair and it had invited Appah Rao to a reunion with his old commanding officer. The reply had specified this temple and this night as the rendezvous. Appah Rao was flirting with treachery, but that did not mean he was finding it either easy or pleasant.
‘I have a gift,’ McCandless said, changing the subject, ‘for your Rajah.’
‘He is in need of gifts.’
‘Then this comes with our most humble duty and high respect.’ McCandless took a leather bag from his sporran and placed it beside the lantern. The bag chinked as it was laid down and, though Appah Rao glanced at it, he did not take it. ‘Tell your Rajah,’ McCandless said, ‘that it is our desire to place him back on his throne.’
‘And who will stand behind his throne?’ Appah Rao demanded. ‘Men in red coats?’
‘You will,’ McCandless said, ‘as your family always did.’
‘And you?’ the General asked. ‘What do you want?’
‘To trade. That is the Company’s business: trade. Why should we become rulers?’
Appah Rao sneered. ‘Because you always do. You come as merchants, but you bring guns and use them to make yourselves into taxmen, judges and executioners. Then you bring your churches.’ He shuddered.
‘We come to trade,’ McCandless insisted equably. ‘And what would you prefer, General? To trade with the British or be ruled by Muslims?’
And that, McCandless knew, was the question that had brought Appah Rao to this temple in the dark night. Mysore was a Hindu country and its ancient rulers, the Wodeyars, were Hindus like their people, but the Tippoo’s father, the fierce Hyder Ali, had come from the north and conquered their state and the Tippoo had inherited his father’s stolen throne. To give himself a shred of legality the Tippoo, like his father before him, kept the old ruling family alive, but the Wodeyars were now reduced to poverty and to ceremonial appearances only. The new Rajah was scarce more than a child, but to many of Mysore’s Hindus he was still their rightful monarch, though that was an opinion best kept secret from the Tippoo.
Appah Rao had not answered the Scotsman’s question, so McCandless phrased it differently. ‘Are you the last Hindu senior officer in the Tippoo’s army?’
‘There are others,’ Appah Rao said evasively.
‘And the rest?’
Appah Rao paused. ‘Fed to his tigers,’ he eventually admitted.
‘And soon, General,’ McCandless said softly, ‘there will be no more Hindu officers in Mysore and some very fat tigers. And if you defeat us you will still not be safe. The French will come.’
Appah Rao shrugged. ‘There are already Frenchmen in Seringapatam. They demand nothing of us.’
‘Yet,’ McCandless said ominously. ‘But let me tell you what stirs in the wide world, General. There is a new French general named Bonaparte. His army sits on the Nile now, but there is nothing in Egypt that interests Bonaparte or the French. They have their eyes farther east. They have their eyes on India. Bonaparte wrote to the Tippoo earlier this year. Did the Tippoo show you his letter?’ Appah Rao said nothing and McCandless took the silence to mean that Rao knew nothing of the French General’s letter and so he took from his sporran a piece of paper. ‘Do you speak French, General?’
‘No.’
‘Then let me translate for you. One of our agents copied the letter before it was sent and it reads, “le sept pluviôse, l’an six de la République Française.” That’s the twenty-seventh of January this year to the rest of us, and it says, “I have reached the borders of the Red Sea with an innumerable and invincible army, full of the desire to deliver you from the yoke of England.” Here.’ McCandless offered Appah Rao the letter. ‘There’s plenty more in the letter like that. Take it back with you and find someone who will translate it.’
‘I believe you,’ Appah Rao said, ignoring the proffered letter. ‘But why should I fear this French General?’
‘Because Bonaparte’s ally is the Tippoo and Bonaparte’s ambition is to take away the Company’s trade. His victory will strengthen the Muslims and weaken the Hindus. But if he sees Mysore defeated, and if he sees your Rajah back on his ancestor’s throne, and if he sees a Hindu army led by General Appah Rao then he will think twice before he takes ship. Bonaparte needs allies in this land, and without Mysore he will have none.’
Appah Rao frowned. ‘This Bonaparte, he is a Muslim?’
‘He’s friendly to Muslims, but he has no religion that we know of.’
‘If he’s friendly to Muslims,’ Appah Rao observed, ‘why should he not be friendly to Hindus also?’
‘Because it is to the Muslims that he looks for allies. He will reward them.’
Appah Rao shifted on the hard floor. ‘Why should we not let this Bonaparte come and defeat you?’
‘Because then he will have made the Tippoo all powerful, and after that, General, how long will there be any Hindus in his service? And how long will the surviving Wodeyars live? The Tippoo keeps the Wodeyar family alive for he needs Hindu infantry and cavalry, but if he no longer has enemies, why will he need reluctant friends?’
‘And you will restore the Wodeyars?’
‘I promise it.’
Appah Rao looked past McCandless, gazing up at the small light reflecting off the serene image of a Hindu goddess. The temple was still here, as were all Mysore’s temples, for though the Tippoo was a Muslim he had not torn down the Hindu sanctuaries. Indeed, like his father, the Tippoo had restored some of the temples. Life was not hard under the Tippoo, but all the same the Tippoo was not the ancestral ruler of Appah Rao’s country. That ruler was a boy kept in poverty in a small house in a back alley of Seringapatam, and Appah Rao’s hidden loyalty was to the Wodeyar dynasty, not to the Muslim interlopers. The General’s dark eyes shifted to McCandless. ‘You British captured the city seven years ago. Why didn’t you replace the Tippoo then?’
‘A mistake,’ McCandless admitted candidly. ‘We thought he could be trusted to keep his promises, but we were wrong. This time, if God wills it, we shall replace him. A man bitten by a snake once does not let the snake live a second time.’
Appah Rao brooded for a while. Bats flickered in the courtyard. The two men in the gateway watched as McCandless let the silence stretch. The Colonel knew it would not serve to pressure this General too hard, but McCandless also knew he did not need to press. Appah Rao might not be certain that a British victory would be in Mysore’s best interest, but what would serve that interest in these hard, confusing times? Appah Rao’s choice lay between the Muslim usurpers and foreign domination, and McCandless knew only too well of the simmering distrust that lay between Hindus and Muslims. It was that breach that the Scotsman was assaulting in the hope that he could widen the rift into full betrayal.
Appah Rao finally shook his head, then raised an arm and beckoned. One of the two men in the gateway came running forward and knelt beside the General. He was a young man of startling good looks, black-haired and with a fine long face of strong bones and defiant eyes. Like Appah Rao he wore the tiger tunic and had a gold-hilted sword slung at his hip. ‘This is Kunwar Singh,’ Appah Rao introduced the young man. ‘He is the son of a cousin of mine’ – he announced the relationship vaguely, intimating that it was not close – ‘and the commander of my bodyguard.’
McCandless looked into Kunwar Singh’s eyes. ‘Do your job well, my friend. Your master is valuable.’
Kunwar Singh smiled and then, at a signal from Appah Rao, he took a roll of paper from inside his tunic. He unrolled the sheet and weighted its corners with a pistol, a knife, a handful of bullets and the lantern.
McCandless leaned forward. The scroll was a map and it showed the big island in the River Cauvery on which the Tippoo’s capital of Seringapatam was built. The fortress town occupied the island’s western tip, while beyond its walls, to the east, were pleasure gardens, suburbs, the Tippoo’s summer palace and the mausoleum where the fearsome Hyder Ali was entombed.
Appah Rao drew a knife from his belt. He tapped the island’s northern bank where it fronted the Cauvery’s main channel. ‘That is where General Cornwallis crossed. But since then the walls have been strengthened. The French advised us how to do it. There are new guns on the walls, hundreds of them.’ He looked up into McCandless’s eyes. ‘I mean hundreds, McCandless. That is not an exaggeration. The Tippoo is fond of cannon and rockets. He has thousands of rocketmen and deep arsenals crammed with weapons. All this’ – he swept the knife’s tip around the walls that faced the river – ‘has been rebuilt, refortified and given cannon and rockets.’
‘We have cannon too,’ McCandless said.
Appah Rao ignored the comment. Instead he tapped the knife against the western ramparts that overlooked the Cauvery’s smaller channel. ‘At this time of year, McCandless, the river here is shallow. The crocodiles have gone to the deeper pools and a man can walk across the river with dry knees. And when your army reaches Seringapatam they will see that these walls’ – he tapped the western fortifications again – ‘have not been rebuilt. They are made of mud bricks and the rains have crumbled the rampart. It looks like a weak place and you will be tempted to attack there. Do not, for that is where the Tippoo wants you to attack.’ A beetle flew onto the map and crawled along the line marking the western walls. Appah Rao gently swept the insect aside. ‘There is another wall there, a new wall, hidden behind that rampart, McCandless, and when your men get through the first wall they will be in a trap. Here’ – he pointed to a bastion that connected the outer and inner walls – ‘that used to be a water gate, but it’s been blocked up and there are hundreds of pounds of gunpowder inside. Once your men are trapped between the two walls the Tippoo plans to blow the mine.’ Appah Rao shrugged. ‘Hundreds of pounds of powder, McCandless, just waiting for you. And when that attack has failed you will have no time to make another before the monsoon comes, and when the rains do come the river will rise and the roads will turn to mud and you will be forced to retreat, and every foot of your way back to Madras will be dogged by the Tippoo’s cavalry. That is how he plans to beat you.’
‘So we must attack anywhere but in the west?’
‘Anywhere but from the west,’ Appah Rao said. ‘The new inner wall’ – he demonstrated on the map with the tip of his knife – ‘extends all the way round the north. These other walls’ – he tapped the southern and eastern ramparts – ‘look stronger, but don’t be deceived. The west wall is a trap, and if you fall into it, it will be your death.’ He moved the weights off the corners of the map and let it roll itself up. Then he unshielded McCandless’s lantern and held one end of the scroll in the candle flame. The paper blazed, lighting the intricate carvings of the shrine. The three men watched as the paper burned to ash. ‘Anywhere but from the west,’ Appah Rao said, then, after a moment’s hesitation, he lifted the bag of gold coins from beside the lantern. ‘All this will go to my Rajah,’ he said. ‘I shall keep none.’
‘I never expected you to,’ McCandless said. ‘You have my thanks, General.’
‘I don’t want your thanks. I want my Rajah back. That is why I came. And if you disappoint me, then you English will have a new enemy.’
‘I’m a Scot.’
‘But you would still be my enemy,’ Appah Rao said, then turned away, but paused and looked back from the inner shrine’s threshold. ‘Tell your General that his men should be gentle with the people of the city.’
‘I will tell General Harris.’
‘Then I shall look to see you in Seringapatam,’ Appah Rao said heavily.
‘Me and thousands of others,’ McCandless said.
‘Thousands!’ Appah Rao’s tone mocked the claim. ‘You may have thousands, Colonel, but the Tippoo has tigers.’ He turned and walked to the temple’s outer gateway, followed by Kunwar Singh.
McCandless burned the copy of Bonaparte’s letter, waited another half-hour and then, as silently as he had come to the temple, he left it. He would join his escort, sleep a few hours, then ride with his precious secret to the waiting army.
Few men of the 33rd slept that night for the excitement of fighting and beating the Tippoo’s vaunted troops had filled them with a nervous energy. Some spent their loot on arrack, and those fell asleep soon enough, but the others stayed around their fires and relived the day’s brief excitement. For most of the troops it had been their first battle, and on its slim evidence they built a picture of war and their own valour.
Mary Bickerstaff sat with Sharpe and listened patiently to the tales. She was accustomed to soldiers’ stories and shrewd enough to know which men exaggerated their prowess and which pretended not to have been nauseated by the horrors of the dead and wounded. Sharpe, after he returned from Captain Morris’s tent with the news that the Captain would ask Major Shee’s permission for them to marry, was silent and Mary sensed he was not really listening to the tales, not even when he pretended to be amused or amazed. ‘What is it?’ she asked him after a long while.
‘Nothing, lass.’
‘Are you worried about Captain Morris?’
‘If he says no, we just ask Major Shee,’ Sharpe said with a confidence he did not entirely feel. Morris was a bastard, but Shee was a drunk, and in truth there was little to choose between them. Sharpe had an idea that Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Wellesley, the 33rd’s real commanding officer, was a man who might be reasonable, but Wellesley had been temporarily appointed as one of the army’s two deputy commanders and had thus shrugged off all regimental business. ‘We’ll get our permission,’ he told Mary.
‘So what’s worrying you?’
‘I told you. Nothing.’
‘You’re miles away, Richard.’
He hesitated. ‘Wish I was.’
Mary tightened the grip of her hand on his fingers, then lowered her voice to something scarce above a whisper. ‘Are you thinking of running, Richard Sharpe?’
He leaned away from the fire, trying to make a small private space where they could talk without being overheard. ‘Got to be a better life than this, love,’ he said.
‘Don’t do it!’ Mary said fiercely, but laying a hand on his cheek as she spoke. Some of the men on the other side of the fire saw the tender gesture and greeted it with a chorus of jeers and whistles. Mary ignored them. ‘They’ll catch you, Richard,’ she insisted, ‘catch you and shoot you.’
‘Not if we run far enough.’
‘We?’ she asked cautiously.
‘I’d want you, lass.’
Mary took hold of one of his hands and squeezed it. ‘Listen,’ she hissed. ‘Work to become a sergeant! Once you’re a sergeant, you’re made. You could even become an officer! Don’t laugh, Richard! Mister Lambert in Calcutta, he was a sergeant once, and he was a private before that. They made him up to ensign.’
Sharpe smiled and traced a finger down her cheek. ‘You’re mad, Mary. I love you, but you’re mad. I couldn’t be an officer! You have to know how to read!’
‘I can teach you,’ Mary said.
Sharpe glanced at her with some surprise. He had never known she could read and the knowledge made him somewhat nervous of her. ‘I wouldn’t want to be an officer anyway,’ he said scathingly. ‘Stuck-up bastards, all of them.’
‘But you can be a sergeant,’ Mary insisted, ‘and a good one. But don’t run, love. Whatever you do, don’t run.’
‘Is that the lovebirds?’ Sergeant Hakeswill’s mocking voice cut through their conversation. ‘Ah, it’s sweet, isn’t it? Good to see a couple in love. Restores a man’s faith in human nature, it does.’
Sharpe and Mary sat up and disentangled their fingers as the Sergeant stalked through the ring of men beside the fire. ‘I want you, Sharpie,’ Hakeswill said when he reached their side. ‘Got a message for you, I have.’ He touched his hat to Mary. ‘Not you, Ma’am,’ he said as she stood to accompany Sharpe. ‘This is men’s business, Mrs Bickerstaff. Soldiers’ business. No business for bibbis. Come on, Sharpie! Ain’t got all night! Look lively now!’ He strode away, thumping the ground with the butt of his halberd as he threaded his way between the fires. ‘Got news for you, Sharpie,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘good news, lad, good news.’
‘I can marry?’ Sharpe asked eagerly.
Hakeswill threw a sly glance over his shoulder as he led Sharpe towards the picketed lines of officers’ horses. ‘Now why would a lad like you want to marry? Why throw all your spunk away on one bibbi, eh? And that one used goods, too? Another man’s leavings, that’s all Mary Bickerstaff is. You should spread it about, boy. Enjoy yourself when you’re still young.’ Hakeswill pushed his way between the horses to reach the dark space between the two picketed lines where he turned and faced Sharpe. ‘Good news, Sharpe. You can’t marry. Permission is refused. You want to know why, boy?’
Sharpe felt his hopes crumbling. At that moment he hated Hakeswill more than ever, but his pride forced him not to show that hate, nor his disappointment. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘I’ll tell you why, Sharpie,’ Hakeswill said. ‘And stand still, boy! When a sergeant condescends to talk to you, you stand still! ’Tenshun! That’s better, lad. Bit of respect, like what is proper to show to a sergeant.’ His face twitched as he grinned. ‘You want to know why, boy? Because I don’t want you to marry her, Sharpie, that is why. I don’t want little Mrs Bickerstaff married to anyone. Not to you, not to me, not even to the King of England himself, God bless him.’ He was circling Sharpe as he talked. ‘And do you know why, boy?’ He stopped in front of Sharpe and pushed his face up towards the younger man. ‘Because that Mrs Bickerstaff is a bibbi, Sharpie, with possibilities. Possibibbibilities!’ He giggled at his joke. ‘Got a future, she has.’ He grinned again, and the grin was suddenly twisted as his face shuddered with its distorting rictus. ‘You familiar with Naig? Nasty Naig? Answer me, boy!’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ Sharpe said.
‘Fat bugger, Sharpie, he is. Fat and rich. Rides a helephant, he does, and he’s got a dozen green tents. One of the army’s followers, Sharpie, and rich as a rich man can be. Richer than you’ll ever be, Sharpie, and you know why? ’Cos Nasty Naig provides the officers with their women, that’s why. And I’m not talking about those rancid slags the other heathens hires out to you nasty common soldiers, I’m talking about the desirable women, Sharpie. Desirable.’ He lingered on the word. ‘Nasty’s got a whole herd of expensive whores, Sharpie, he does, all riding in those closed wagons with the coloured curtains. Full of officers’ meat, those wagons are, fat ones, skinny ones, dark ones, light ones, dirty ones, clean ones, tall ones, short ones, all sorts of ones, and all of ’em are prettier than you could ever dream of, but there ain’t one of them as pretty as little Mrs Bickerstaff, and there ain’t one who looks as white as pretty little Mary does, and if there’s one thing an English officer abroad wants once in a while, Sharpie, it’s a spot of the white meat. That’s the itch Morris has got, Sharpie, got it bad, but he ain’t no different from the others. They get bored with the dark meat, Sharpie. And the Indian officers! Naig tells me they’ll pay a month’s wages for a white. You following me, Sharpie? You and me marching in step, are we?’
Sharpe said nothing. It had taken all his self discipline not to hit the Sergeant, and Hakeswill knew it and mocked him for it. ‘Go on, Sharpie! Hit me!’ Hakeswill taunted him, and when Sharpe did not move, the Sergeant laughed. ‘You ain’t got the guts, have you?’
‘I’ll find a place and time,’ Sharpe said angrily.
‘Place and time! Listen to him!’ Hakeswill chuckled, then began pacing around Sharpe once again. ‘We’ve made a deal, Nasty and me. Like brothers, we are, me and him, just like brothers. We understand each other, see, and Nasty’s right keen on your little Mary. Profit there, you see, boy. And I’ll get a cut of it.’
‘Mary stays with me, Sarge,’ Sharpe said stubbornly, ‘married or not.’
‘Oh, Sharpie, dear me. You don’t understand, do you? You didn’t hear me, boy, did you? Nasty and me, we’ve made a bargain. Drunk to it, we did, and not in arrack, neither, but in proper gentlemen’s brandy. I give him little Mrs Bickerstaff and he gives me half the money she earns. He’ll cheat me, of course he’ll cheat me, but she’ll make so much that it won’t signify. She won’t have a choice, Sharpie. She’ll get snatched on the march and given to one of Nasty’s men. One of the ugly buggers. She’ll be raped wicked for a week, whipped every night, and at the end of it, Sharpie, she’ll do whatever she’s told. That’s the way the business works, Sharpie, says so in the scriptures, and how are you going to stop it? Answer me that, boy. Are you going to pay me more than Nasty will?’ Hakeswill stopped in front of Sharpe where he waited for an answer and, when none came, he shook his head derisively. ‘You’re a boy playing in men’s games, Sharpie, and you’re going to lose unless you’re a man. Are you man enough to fight me here? Put me down? Claim I was kicked by a horse in the night? You can try, Sharpie, but you’re not man enough, are you?’
‘Hit you, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said, ‘and be put on a flogging charge? I’m not daft.’
Hakeswill made an elaborate charade of looking right and left. ‘Ain’t no one here but you and me, Sharpie. Nice and private!’
Sharpe resisted the urge to lash out at his persecutor. ‘I’m not daft,’ he said again, stubbornly remaining at attention.
‘But you are, boy. Daft as a bucket. Don’t you understand? I’m offering you the soldier’s way out! Forget the bloody officers, you daft boy. You and me, Sharpie, we’re soldiers, and soldiers settle their arguments by fighting. Says so in the scriptures, don’t it? So beat me now, lad, beat me here and now, beat me in a square fight and I warrant you can keep Mrs Bickerstaff all to your little self.’ He paused, grinning up into Sharpe’s face. ‘That’s a promise, Sharpie. Fight me now, fair and honest, and our argument’s over. But you’re not man enough, are you? You’re just a boy.’
‘I’m not falling for your tricks, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said.
‘There ain’t no trick, boy,’ Hakeswill said hoarsely. He stepped two paces away from Sharpe, reversed his halberd and thrust its steel point hard into the turf. ‘I can beat you, Sharpie, that’s what I’m reckoning. I’ve been around a bit. Know how to fight. You might be taller than me, and you might be stronger, but you ain’t as quick as me and you ain’t half as dirty. I’m going to pound the bloody guts out of you, and when I’ve finished with you I’ll take little Mary down to Nasty’s tents and earn my money. But not if you beat me, boy. You beat me, and on a soldier’s honour, I’ll persuade Captain Morris to let you marry. You’ve got my word on it, boy. A soldier’s honour.’ He waited for an answer. ‘You ain’t a soldier,’ he said scornfully when Sharpe still kept quiet. ‘You ain’t got the guts!’ He stepped up to Sharpe and slapped him hard across the face. ‘Nothing but a lily, ain’t you? Lieutenant Lawford’s lily-boy. Maybe that’s why you ain’t got the guts to fight for your Mary!’
The last insult provoked Sharpe to hit Hakeswill. He did it hard and fast. He slammed a low blow into Hakeswill’s belly that folded the Sergeant over, then cut his other hand hard up into the Sergeant’s face to split open Hakeswill’s nose and jerk his head back up. Sharpe brought up his knee, missed the Sergeant’s crotch, but his left hand had hold of Hakeswill’s clubbed hair now and he was just feeling with his right fingers for the squealing Sergeant’s eyeballs when a voice was suddenly shouting close behind him.
‘Guard!’ the voice called. ‘Guard!’
‘Jesus!’ Sharpe let go of his enemy, turned and saw Captain Morris standing just beyond the picketed horses. Ensign Hicks was with him.
Hakeswill had sunk onto the ground, but now hauled himself upright on the staff of his halberd. ‘Assaulted me, sir, he did!’ The Sergeant could scarcely speak for the pain in his belly. ‘He went mad, sir! Just mad, sir!’
‘Don’t worry, Sergeant, Hicks and I both saw it,’ Morris said. ‘Came to check on the horses, ain’t that right, Hicks?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hicks said. He was a small young man, very officious, who would never contradict a superior. If Morris claimed the clouds were made of cheese Hicks would just stand to attention, twitch his nose, and swear blind he could smell Cheddar. ‘Plain case of assault, sir,’ the Ensign said. ‘Unprovoked assault.’
‘Guard!’ Morris shouted. ‘Here! Now!’
Blood was pouring down Hakeswill’s face, but the Sergeant managed a grin. ‘Got you, Sharpie,’ he said softly, ‘got you. Flogging offence, that.’
‘You bastard,’ Sharpe said softly, and wondered if he should run. He wondered if he would stand any chance of making it safely away if he just sprinted into the dark, but Ensign Hicks had drawn his pistol and the sound of the hammer being cocked stilled Sharpe’s tiny impulse to flee.
A panting Sergeant Green arrived with four men of the guard and Morris pushed the horses aside to let them through. ‘Arrest Private Sharpe, Sergeant,’ he told Green. ‘Close arrest. He struck Sergeant Hakeswill, and Hicks and I witnessed the assault. Ensign Hicks will do the paperwork.’
‘Gladly, sir,’ Hicks agreed. The Ensign was slurring his words, betraying that he had been drinking.
Morris looked at Sharpe. ‘It’s a court martial offence, Sharpe,’ the Captain said, then he turned back to Green who had not moved to obey his orders. ‘Do it!’
‘Sir!’ Green said, stepping forward. ‘Come on, Sharpie.’
‘I didn’t do nothing, Sergeant,’ Sharpe protested.
‘Come on, lad. It’ll sort itself out,’ Green said quietly, then he took Sharpe’s elbow and led him away. Hicks went with them, happy to please Morris by writing up the charge.
Morris waited until the prisoner and his escort had gone, then grinned at Hakeswill. ‘The boy was faster than you thought, Sergeant.’
‘He’s a devil, that one, sir, a devil. Broke my nose, he did.’ Hakeswill gingerly tried to straighten the cartilage and the bleeding nose made a horrible crunching noise. ‘But his woman’s ours.’
‘Tonight?’ Morris could not keep the eagerness from his voice.
‘Not tonight, sir,’ Hakeswill said in a tone that suggested the Captain had made a foolish suggestion. ‘There’ll be enough trouble in the company with Sharpe arrested, sir, and if we go after his bibbi tonight there’ll be a rare brawl. Half the bastards are full of arrack. No, sir. Wait till the bastard’s flogged to death. Wait for that, sir, and then they’ll all be meek as lambs. Meek as lambs. Flogging does that to men. Quietens them down something proper, a good whipping does. All be done in a couple of days, sir.’
Morris flinched as Hakeswill tried to straighten his nose again. ‘You’d better see Mister Micklewhite, Hakeswill.’
‘No, sir. Don’t believe in doctors, sir, except for the pox. I’ll strap it up, sir, and soon be right as rain. Besides, watching Sharpie flogged will be treatment enough. I reckon we done him, sir. You won’t have long to wait, sir, not long at all.’
Morris found Hakeswill’s intimate tone unseemly, and stepped stiffly back. ‘Then I’ll wish you a good night, Sergeant.’
‘Thank you kindly, sir, and the same to you, sir. And sweet dreams too, sir.’ Hakeswill laughed. ‘Just as sweet as sweet can ever be, sir.’
For Sharpie was done.
CHAPTER THREE
Colonel McCandless woke as the dawn touched the world’s rim with a streak of fire. The crimson light glowed bright on the lower edge of a long cloud that lay on the eastern horizon like the smoke rill left by a musket volley. It was the only cloud in the sky. He rolled his plaid and tied it onto his saddle’s cantle, then rinsed his mouth with water. His horse, picketed close by, had been saddled all night in case some enemy discovered McCandless and his escort. That escort, six picked men of the 4th Native Cavalry, had needed no orders to be about the day. They grinned a greeting at McCandless, stowed their meagre bedding, then made a breakfast out of warm canteen water and a dry cake of ground lentils and rice. McCandless shared the cavalrymen’s meal. He liked a cup of tea in the mornings, but he dared not light a fire for the smoke might attract the pestilential patrols of the Tippoo’s Light Cavalry. ‘It will be a hot day, sahib,’ the Havildar remarked to McCandless.
‘They’re all hot,’ McCandless answered. ‘Haven’t had a cold day since I came here.’ He thought for a second, then worked out that it must be Thursday the twenty-eighth of March. It would be cold in Scotland today and, for an indulgent moment, he thought of Lochaber and imagined the snow lying deep in Glen Scaddle and the ice edging the loch’s foreshore, and though he could see the image clearly enough, he could not really imagine what the cold would feel like. He had been away from home too long and now he wondered if he could ever live in Scotland again. He certainly would not live in England, not in Hampshire where his sister lived with her petulant English husband. Harriet kept pressing him to retire to Hampshire, saying that they had no relatives left in Scotland and that her husband had a wee cottage that would suit McCandless’s declining years to perfection, but the Colonel had no taste for a soft, plump, English landscape, nor, indeed, for his soft plump sister’s company. Harriet’s son, McCandless’s nephew William Lawford, was a decent enough young fellow even if he had forgotten his Scottish ancestry, but young William was now in the army, here in Mysore indeed, which meant that the only relative McCandless liked was close at hand and that circumstance merely strengthened McCandless’s distaste for retiring to Hampshire. But to Scotland? He often dreamed of going back, though whenever the opportunity arose for him to take the Company’s pension and sail to his native land, he always found some unfinished business that kept him in India. Next year, he promised himself, the year of our Lord 1800, would be a good year to go home, though in truth he had promised himself the same thing every year for the last decade.
The seven men unpicketed the horses and hauled themselves into their worn saddles. The Indian escort was armed with lances, sabres and pistols, while McCandless carried a claymore, a horse pistol and a carbine that was holstered on his saddle. He glanced once towards the rising sun to check his direction, then led his men northwards. He said nothing, but he needed to give these men no orders. They knew well enough to keep a keen lookout in this dangerous land.
For this was the kingdom of Mysore, high on the southern Indian plateau, and as far as the horsemen could see the land was under the rule of the Tippoo Sultan. Indeed this was the Tippoo’s heartland, a fertile plain rich with villages, fields and water cisterns; only now, as the British army advanced and the Tippoo’s retreated, the country was being blighted. McCandless could see six pillars of smoke showing where the Tippoo’s cavalry had burned granaries to make sure that the hated British could not find food. The cisterns would all have been poisoned, the livestock driven westwards and every storehouse emptied, thus forcing the armies of Britain and Hyderabad to carry all their own supplies on the cumbersome bullock carts. McCandless guessed that yesterday’s brief and unequal battle had been an attempt by the Tippoo to draw the escorting troops away from the precious baggage onto his infantry, after which he would have released his fearsome horsemen onto the wagons of grain and rice and salt, but the British had not taken the bait which meant that General Harris’s ponderous advance would continue. Say another week until they arrived at Seringapatam? Then they would face two months of short rations and searing weather before the monsoon broke, but McCandless reckoned that two months was plenty enough time to do the job, especially as the British would soon know how to avoid the Tippoo’s trap at the western walls.
He threaded his horse through a grove of cork trees, glad of the shade cast by the deep-green leaves. He paused at the grove’s edge to watch the land ahead, which dropped gently into a valley where a score of people were working in rice paddies. The valley, McCandless supposed, lay far enough from the line of the British advance to have been spared the destruction of its stores and water supply. A small village lay to the west of the rice paddies, and McCandless could see another dozen people working in the small gardens around the houses, and he knew that he and his men would be spotted as soon as they left the cover of the cork grove, but he doubted that any of the villagers would investigate seven strange horsemen. The folk of Mysore, like villagers throughout all the Indian states, avoided mysterious soldiers in the hope that the soldiers would avoid them. At the far side of the rice paddies were plantations of mango and date palms, and beyond them a bare hill crest. McCandless watched that empty crest for a few minutes and then, satisfied that no enemy was nearby, he spurred his mare forward.
The people working the rice immediately fled towards their homes and McCandless swerved eastwards to show them he meant no harm, then kicked the mare into a trot. He rode beside a grove of carefully tended mulberry trees, part of the Tippoo’s scheme to make silk weaving into a major industry of Mysore, then he spurred into a canter as he approached the bed of the valley. His escort’s curb and scabbard chains jingled behind him as the horses pounded down the slope, splashed through the shrunken stream that trickled from the paddies, then began the gentle climb to the date palm grove.
It was then that McCandless saw the flash of light in the mango trees.
He instinctively dragged his horse around to face the rising sun and pricked back his spurs. He looked behind as he rode, hoping that the flash of light was nothing but some errant reflection, but then he saw horsemen spurring from the trees. They carried lances and all of them were dressed in the tiger-striped tunic. There were a dozen men at least, but the Scotsman had no time to count them properly for he was plunging his spurs back to race his mare diagonally up the slope towards the crest.
One of the pursuing horsemen fired a shot that echoed through the valley. The bullet went wide. McCandless doubted it had been supposed to hit anything, but was rather intended as a signal to alert other horsemen who must be in the area. For a second or two the Scotsman debated turning and charging directly at his pursuers, but he rejected the idea. The odds were marginally too great and his news far too important to be gambled on a skirmish. Flight was his only option. He pulled the carbine from its saddle holster, cocked it, then clapped his heels hard onto the mare’s flank. Once over the crest he reckoned there was a good chance he could outrun his pursuers.
Goats scattered from his path as he spurred the mare over the ridge’s skyline. One glance behind satisfied McCandless that he had gained a long enough lead to let him turn north without being headed off, and so he twitched the rein and let the mare run. A long stretch of open, tree-dotted country lay ahead and beyond were thick stands of timber in which he and his escort could lose themselves. ‘Run, girl!’ he called to the mare, then looked behind to make certain his escort was closed up and safe. Sweat dripped down his face, his scabbarded claymore thumped up and down on his hip, but the strong mare was running like the wind now, her speed blowing the kilt back up around his hips. This was not the first time McCandless had raced away from enemies. He had once run for a whole day, dawn to twilight, to escape a Mahratta band and the mare had never once lost her footing. In all India, and that meant all the world, McCandless had no friend better than this mare. ‘Run, girl!’ he called to her again, then looked behind once more and it was then that the Havildar shouted a warning. McCandless turned to see more horsemen coming from the trees to the north.
There must have been fifty or sixty horsemen racing towards the Scotsman and, even as he swerved the mare eastwards, he realized that his original dozen pursuers must have been the scouts for this larger party of cavalry and that by running north he had been galloping towards the enemy rather than away from them. Now he rode towards the rising sun again, but there was no cover to the east and these new pursuers were already dangerously close. He angled back to the south, hoping he might find some shelter in the valley beyond the crest, but then a wild volley of shots sounded from his pursuers.
One bullet struck the mare. It was a fortunate shot, fired at the gallop, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred such a shot would have flown yards wide, but this ball struck the mare’s haunch and McCandless felt her falter. He slapped her rump with the stock of his carbine and she tried to respond, but the bullet had driven close to the mare’s spine and the pain was growing and she stumbled, neighed, yet still she tried to run again. Then one of her back legs simply stopped working and the horse slewed round in a cloud of dust. McCandless kicked his feet out of the stirrups as his escort galloped past. The Havildar was already hauling on his reins, wheeling his horse to rescue McCandless, but the Scotsman knew it was too late. He sprawled on the ground, hurled free of the falling mare, and shouted at the Havildar. ‘Go, man!’ he called. ‘Go!’ But the escort had sworn to protect the Colonel and, instead of fleeing, the Havildar led his men towards the rapidly approaching enemy.
‘You fools!’ McCandless shouted after them. Brave fools, but fools. He was bruised, but otherwise unhurt, though his mare was dying. She was whinnying and somehow she had managed to raise the front part of her body on her forelegs and seemed puzzled that her back legs would not work. She whinnied again, and McCandless knew she would never again run like the wind and so he did the friend’s duty. He went to her head, pulled it down by the reins, kissed her nose and then put a bullet into her skull just above her eyes. She reared back, white-eyed and with blood spraying, then she slumped down. Her forelegs kicked a few times and after that she was still. The flies came to settle on her wounds.
The Havildar’s small group rode full tilt into the enemy’s pursuit. That enemy had been scattered by their gallop and the Havildar’s men were closed up and so the first few seconds were an easy victory. Two lances found Mysore bellies, two sabres drew more blood, but then the main body of the enemy crashed into the fight. The Havildar himself had ridden clean through the leading ranks, leaving his lance behind, and he now looked back to see his men fighting desperately among a milling group of enemy horsemen. He drew his sabre and turned back to help when he heard McCandless shouting. ‘Go, man, go! Go!’ McCandless yelled, pointing north. The Havildar could not take back the vital news McCandless had gained from Appah Rao, but it was still important to let the army know that the Colonel had been captured. McCandless was not a vain man, but he knew his own value, and he had left some careful instructions that might retrieve some of the damage of his capture. Those instructions offered a chance for the army to rescue McCandless, and that dangerous expedient was now the Scotsman’s only hope of passing on Appah Rao’s message. ‘Go!’ McCandless roared as loudly as he could.
The Havildar was caught between his duty to his men and his duty to obey McCandless’s orders. He hesitated, and two of the pursuers swerved aside to pounce on him. That made up his mind. He clapped his spurs back, charged the pursuers, touched the rein at the last moment and swung his sabre as he went past the two men. The blade sliced across the nape of the nearer man’s neck and then the Havildar curved away northwards, galloping free while the rest of the enemy gathered about the survivors for the kill.
McCandless threw down his pistol and carbine, drew his heavy claymore and walked towards the mêlée. He never reached it, for an enemy officer detached himself from the clash of sabres and turned his horse to meet the Scotsman. The Mysorean officer sheathed his sabre, then mutely held out his right hand for McCandless’s blade. Behind him the sabres and lances worked briefly, then the small fight was over and McCandless knew that his escort, all but the Havildar, was dead. He looked at the horseman above him. ‘This sword,’ he said bitterly, ‘belonged to my father and to his father.’ He spoke in English. ‘This sword,’ McCandless said, ‘was carried for Charles Stuart at Culloden.’
The officer said nothing, just held his hand out, his eyes steady on McCandless. The Scotsman slowly reversed his blade, then held the hilt upwards. The Mysorean officer took it and seemed surprised by the claymore’s weight. ‘What were you doing here?’ the officer asked in Kanarese.
‘Do you speak English?’ McCandless asked in that tongue, determined to hide his knowledge of India’s languages.
The officer shrugged. He looked at the old claymore then slid it into his sash. His men, their horses white with sweat, gathered excitedly to stare at the captured heathen. They saw an old man and some wondered if they had captured the enemy’s General, but the captive seemed to speak no language any of them knew and so his identity would have to wait. He was given one of his dead escort’s horses and then, as the sun climbed towards its daily furnace heat, McCandless was taken west towards the Tippoo’s stronghold.
While behind him the vultures circled and at last, sure that nothing lived where the dust and flies had settled on the newly made corpses, flew down for their feast.
It took two days to convene the court martial. The army could not spare the time in its march for the business to be done immediately and so Captain Morris had to wait until the great ponderous horde was given a half-day’s rest to allow the straggling herds to catch up with the main armies. Only then was there time to assemble the officers and have Private Sharpe brought into Major Shee’s tent which had one of its sides brailed up to make more space. Captain Morris laid the charge and Sergeant Hakeswill and Ensign Hicks gave evidence.
Major John Shee was irritable. The Major was irritable at the best of times, but the need to stay at least apparently sober had only shortened his already short Irish temper. He did not, in truth, enjoy commanding the 33rd. Major Shee suspected, when he was sober enough to suspect anything, that he did the job badly and that suspicion had given rise to a haunting fear of mutiny, and mutiny, to Major Shee’s befuddled mind, was signalled by any sign of disrespect for established authority. Private Sharpe was plainly a man who brimmed over with such disrespect and the offence with which he was charged was plain and the remedy just as obvious, but the court proceedings were delayed because Lieutenant Lawford, who should have spoken for Sharpe, was not present. ‘Then where the devil is he?’ Shee demanded.
Captain Fillmore, commander of the fourth company, spoke for Lawford. ‘He was summoned to General Harris’s tent, sir.’
Shee frowned at Fillmore. ‘He knew he was supposed to be here?’
‘Indeed, sir. But the General insisted.’
‘And we’re just supposed to twiddle our thumbs while he takes tea with the General?’ Shee demanded.
Captain Fillmore glanced through the tent’s open side as if he hoped to see Lawford hurrying towards the court martial, but there were only sentries to be seen. ‘Lieutenant Lawford did ask me to assure the court, sir, that Private Sharpe is a most reliable man,’ Fillmore said, fearing that he was not doing a very good job of defending the unfortunate prisoner. ‘The Lieutenant would have spoken most forcibly for the prisoner’s character, sir, and begged the court to grant him the benefit of any doubt.’
‘Doubt?’ Shee snapped. ‘What doubt is there? He struck a sergeant, he was seen doing it by two officers, and you think there’s doubt? It’s an open-and-shut case! That’s what it is, open and shut!’
Fillmore shrugged. ‘Ensign Fitzgerald would also like to say something.’
Shee glared at Fitzgerald. ‘Not much to say, Ensign, I trust?’
‘Whatever it might take, sir, to prevent a miscarriage of justice.’ Fitzgerald, young and confident, stood and smiled at his commanding officer and fellow Irishman. ‘I doubt we’ve a better soldier in the regiment, sir, and I suspect Private Sharpe was given provocation.’
‘Captain Morris says not,’ Shee insisted, ‘and so does Ensign Hicks.’
‘I cannot contradict the Captain, sir,’ Fitzgerald said blandly, ‘but I was drinking with Timothy Hicks earlier that evening, sir, and if his eyes weren’t crossed by midnight then he must possess a belly like a Flanders cauldron.’
Shee looked dangerously belligerent. ‘Are you accusing a fellow officer of being under the influence of liquor?’
Fitzgerald reckoned that most of the 33rd’s mess was ever under the influence of arrack, rum or brandy, but he also knew better than to say as much. ‘I’m just agreeing with Captain Fillmore, sir, that we should give Private Sharpe the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Doubt?’ Shee spat. ‘There is no doubt! Open and shut!’ He gestured at Sharpe who stood hatless in front of his escort. Flies crawled on Sharpe’s face, but he was not allowed to brush them away. Shee seemed to shudder at the thought of Sharpe’s villainy. ‘He struck a sergeant in full view of two officers, and you think there’s doubt about what happened?’
‘I do, sir,’ Fitzgerald declared forcibly. ‘Indeed I do.’
Sergeant Hakeswill’s face twitched. He watched Fitzgerald with loathing. Major Shee stared at Fitzgerald for a few seconds, then shook his head as though questioning the Ensign’s sanity.
Captain Fillmore tried one last time. Fillmore doubted the evidence of Morris and Hicks, and he had never trusted Hakeswill, but he knew Shee could never be persuaded to take the word of a private against that of two officers and a sergeant. ‘Might I beg the court,’ Fillmore said respectfully, ‘to suspend judgment until Lieutenant Lawford can speak for the prisoner?’
‘What can Lawford say, in the name of God?’ Shee demanded. There was a flask of arrack waiting in his baggage and he wanted to get these proceedings over and done. He had a brief, muttered conversation with his two fellow judges, both of them field officers from other regiments, then glared at the prisoner. ‘You’re a damned villain, Sharpe, and the army has no need of villains. If you can’t respect authority, then don’t expect authority to respect you. Two thousand lashes.’ He ignored the shudder of astonishment and horror that some of the onlookers gave and looked instead at the Sergeant Major. ‘How soon can it be done?’
‘This afternoon’s as good a time as any, sir,’ Bywaters answered stolidly. He had expected a flogging verdict, though not as severe as this, and he had already made the necessary arrangements.
Shee nodded. ‘Parade the battalion in two hours. These proceedings are over.’ He gave Sharpe one foul glance, then pushed his chair back. He would need some arrack, Shee thought, if he was to sit his horse in the sun through two thousand lashes. Maybe he should have only given one thousand, for a thousand lashes were as liable to kill as two, but it was too late now, the verdict was given, and Shee’s only hope of respite from the dreadful heat was his hope that the prisoner would die long before the awful punishment was finished.
Sharpe was kept under guard. His sentinels were not men from his own battalion, but six men from the King’s 12th who did not know him and who could therefore be trusted not to connive in his escape. They kept him in a makeshift pen behind Shee’s tent and no one spoke to Sharpe there until Sergeant Green arrived. ‘I’m sorry about this, Sharpie,’ Green said, stepping over the ammunition boxes that formed the crude walls of the pen.
Sharpe was sitting with his back against the boxes. He shrugged. ‘I’ve been whipped before, Sergeant.’
‘Not in the army, lad, not in the army. Here.’ Green held out a canteen. ‘It’s rum.’
Sharpe uncorked the canteen and drank a good slug of the liquor. ‘I didn’t do nothing anyway,’ he said sullenly.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Green said, ‘but the more you drink the less you’ll feel. Finish it, lad.’
‘Tomkins says you don’t feel a damn thing after the first thirty,’ Sharpe said.
‘I hope he’s right, lad, I hope he’s right, but you drink that rum anyway.’ Green took off his shako and wiped the sweat from his bald head with a scrap of rag.
Sharpe tipped the canteen again. ‘And where was Mister Lawford?’ he asked bitterly.
‘You heard, son. He was called off to see the General.’ Green hesitated. ‘But what could he have said anyway?’ he added.
Sharpe leaned his head against the box-built wall. ‘He could have said that Morris is a lying bastard and that Hicks will say anything to please him.’
‘No, he couldn’t say that, lad, and you know it.’ Green filled a clay pipe with tobacco and lit it with his tinderbox. He sat on the ground opposite Sharpe and saw the fear in the younger man’s eyes. Sharpe was doing his best to hide it, but it was plainly there and so it should be, for only a fool did not fear two thousand lashes and only a lucky man came away alive. No man had ever actually walked away from such a punishment, but a handful had recovered after a month in the sick tent. ‘Your Mary’s all right,’ Green told Sharpe.
Sharpe gave a sullen grimace. ‘You know what Hakeswill told me? That he was going to sell her as a whore.’
Green frowned. ‘He won’t, lad. He won’t.’
‘And how will you stop him?’ Sharpe asked bitterly.
‘She’s being looked after now,’ Green reassured him. ‘The lads are making sure of that, and the women are all protecting her.’
‘But for how long?’ Sharpe asked. He drank more of the rum which seemed to be having no effect that he could sense. He momentarily closed his eyes. He knew he had been given an effective death sentence, but there was always hope. Some men had survived. Their ribs might have been bared to the sun and their skin and flesh be hanging from their backs in bloody ribbons, yet they had lived, but how was he to look after Mary when he was bandaged in a bed? If he was even lucky enough to reach a sick bed instead of a grave. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, not for the punishment he faced, but for Mary. ‘How long can they protect her?’ he asked gruffly, cursing himself for being so near to weeping.
‘I tell you she’ll be all right,’ Green insisted.
‘You don’t know Hakeswill,’ Sharpe said.
‘Oh, but I do, lad, I do,’ Green said feelingly, then paused. For a second or two he looked embarrassed, then glanced up at Sharpe. ‘The bastard can’t touch her if she’s married. Married proper, I mean, with the Colonel’s blessing.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Green drew on the pipe. ‘If the worst does happen, Sharpie …’ he said, then stopped in embarrassment again.
‘Aye?’ Sharpe prompted him.
‘Not that it will, of course,’ Green said hurriedly. ‘Billy Nixon survived a couple of thousand tickles, but you probably don’t remember him, do you? Little fellow, with a wall eye. He survived all right. He was never quite the same afterwards, of course, but you’re a tough lad, Sharpie. Tougher than Billy.’
‘But if the worst does happen?’ Sharpe reminded the Sergeant.
‘Well,’ Green said, colouring, but then at last he summoned the courage to say what he had come to say. ‘I mean if it don’t offend you, lad, and only if the worst does happen, which of course it won’t, and I pray it won’t, but if it does then I thought I might ask for Mrs Bickerstaff’s hand myself, if you follow my meaning.’
Sharpe almost laughed, but then the thought of two thousand lashes choked off even the beginnings of a smile. Two thousand! He had seen men with backs looking like offal after just a hundred lashes and how the hell was he to survive with another nineteen hundred strokes on top of that? Such survival really depended on the battalion surgeon. If Mister Micklewhite thought Sharpe was dying after five or six hundred lashes he might stop the punishment to give his back time to heal before the rest of the lashes were given, but Micklewhite was not known for stopping whippings. The rumour in the battalion was that so long as the man did not scream like a baby and thus disturb the more squeamish of the officers, the surgeon would keep the blows coming, even if they were falling onto a dead man’s spine. That was the rumour, and Sharpe could only hope it was not true.
‘Did you hear me, Sharpie?’ Sergeant Green interrupted Sharpe’s gloomy thoughts.
‘I heard you, Sergeant,’ Sharpe said.
‘So would you mind? If I asked her?’
‘Have you asked her already?’ Sharpe said accusingly.
‘No!’ Green said hastily. ‘Wouldn’t be right! Not while you’re still, well, you know.’
‘Alive,’ Sharpe said bitterly.
‘It’s only if the worst happens.’ Green tried to sound optimistic. ‘Which it won’t.’
‘You won’t need my permission when I’m dead, Sergeant.’
‘No, but if I can tell Mary you wanted her to accept me, then it’ll help. Don’t you see that? I’ll be a good man to her, Sharpie. I was married before, I was, only she died on me, but she never complained about me. No more than any woman ever complains, anyhow.’
‘Hakeswill might stop you marrying her.’
Green nodded. ‘Aye, he might, but I can’t see how. Not if we tie the knot quick. I’ll ask Major Shee, and he’s always fair with me. Ask him tonight, see? But only if the worst happens.’
‘But you need a chaplain,’ Sharpe warned the Sergeant. The 33rd’s own chaplain had committed suicide on the voyage from Calcutta to Madras and no marriage in the army was considered official unless it had the regimental commander’s permission and the blessing of a chaplain.
‘The lads in the Old Dozen tell me they’ve got a Godwalloper,’ Green said, gesturing at the soldiers guarding Sharpe, ‘and he can do the splicing tomorrow. I’ll probably have to slip the bugger a shilling, but Mary’s worth a bob.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘Ask her, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘ask her.’ What else could he say? And if Mary was properly married to Sergeant Green then she would be protected by the army’s regulations. ‘But see what happens to me first,’ Sharpe added.
‘Of course I will, Sharpie. Hope for the best, eh? Never say die.’
Sharpe drained the canteen. ‘There’s a couple of things in my pack, Sergeant. A good pistol I took off an Indian officer the other day and a few coins. You’ll give them to Mary?’
‘Of course I will,’ Green said, carefully hiding the fact that Hakeswill had already plundered Sharpe’s pack. ‘She’ll be all right, Sharpie. Promise you, lad.’
‘And some dark night, Sergeant, give bloody Hakeswill a kicking for me.’
Green nodded. ‘Be a pleasure, Sharpie. Be a pleasure.’ He knocked the ashes of his pipe against the ammunition boxes, then stood. ‘I’ll bring you some more rum, lad. The more the better.’
The preparations for Sharpe’s flogging had all been made. Not that they were many, but it took a few moments to make sure everything was to the Sergeant Major’s satisfaction. A tripod had been constructed out of three sergeant’s halberds, their spear points uppermost and lashed together so that the whole thing stood two feet higher than a tall man. The three halberd butts were sunk into the dry soil, then a fourth halberd was firmly lashed crosswise on one face of the tripod at the height of a man’s armpits.
Sergeant Hakeswill personally selected two of the 33rd’s drummer boys. The drummer boys always administered the floggings, a small element of mercy in a bestial punishment, but Hakeswill made certain that the two biggest and strongest boys were given the task and then he collected the two whips from the Sergeant Major and made the boys practise on a tree trunk. ‘Put your body into it, lads,’ he told them, ‘and keep the arm moving fast after the whip’s landed. Like this.’ He took one of the whips and slashed it across the bark, then showed them how to keep the lash sliding across the target by following the stroke through. ‘I did it often enough when I was a drummer,’ he told them, ‘and I always did a good job. Best flogger in the battalion, I was. Second to none.’ Once he was sure their technique was sufficient for the task he warned them not to tire too quickly, and then, with a pocket knife, he nicked the edges of the leather lashes so that their abrasions would tear at the exposed flesh as they were dragged across Sharpe’s back. ‘Do it well, lads,’ he promised them, ‘and there’s one of these for each of you.’ He showed them one of the Tippoo’s gold coins which had been part of the battle’s loot. ‘I don’t want this bastard walking again,’ he told them. ‘Nor do you neither, for if Sharpie ever finds his feet he’ll give you two a rare kicking, so make sure you finish the bastard off proper. Whip him bloody then put him underground, like it says in the scriptures.’
Hakeswill coiled the two whips and hung them on the halberd that was mounted crosswise on the tripod, then went to find the surgeon. Mister Micklewhite was in his tent where he was trying to tie his white silk stock in preparation for the punishment parade. He grunted when he saw Hakeswill. ‘You don’t need more mercury, do you?’ he snarled.
‘No, sir. Cured, sir. Thanks to your worship’s skill, sir. Clean as a whistle I am, sir.’
Micklewhite swore as the knot in the damned stock loosened. He did not like Hakeswill, but like everyone else in the regiment he feared him. There was a wildness in the back of Hakeswill’s childlike eyes that spoke of terrible mischief, and, though the Sergeant was always punctilious in his dealings with officers, Micklewhite still felt obscurely threatened. ‘So what do you want, Sergeant?’
‘Major Shee asked me to say a word, sir.’
‘Couldn’t speak to me himself?’
‘You know the Major, sir. No doubt he’s thirsty. A hot day.’ Hakeswill’s face quivered in a series of tremors. ‘It’s about the prisoner, sir.’
‘What about him?’
‘Troublemaker, sir. Known for it. A thief, a liar and a cheat.’
‘So he’s a redcoat. So?’
‘So Major Shee ain’t keen to see him back among the living, sir, if you follow my meaning. Is this what I owe you for the mercury, sir?’ Hakeswill held up a gold coin, a haideri, which was worth around two shillings and sixpence. The coin was certainly not payment for the cure of his pox, for that cost had already been deducted from the Sergeant’s pay, so Micklewhite knew it was a bribe. Not a great bribe, but half a crown could still go a long way. Micklewhite glanced at it, then nodded. ‘Put it on the table, Sergeant.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Micklewhite tugged the silk stock tight, then waved Hakeswill off. He pulled on his coat and pocketed the gold coin. The bribe had not been necessary, for Micklewhite’s opposition to the coddling of flogging victims was well enough known in the battalion. Micklewhite hated caring for men who had been flogged, for in his experience they almost always died, and if he did stop a punishment then the recovering victim only cluttered up his sick cots. And if, by some miracle, the man was restored to health, it was only so he could be strapped to the triangle to be given the rest of his punishment and that second dose almost always proved fatal and so, all things considered, it was more prudent to let a man die at the first flogging. It saved money on medicine and, in Micklewhite’s view, it was kinder too. Micklewhite buttoned his coat and wondered just why Sergeant Hakeswill wanted this particular man dead. Not that Micklewhite really cared, he just wanted the bloody business over and done.
The 33rd paraded under the afternoon’s burning sun. Four companies faced the tripod, while three were arrayed at either side so that the battalion’s ten companies formed a hollow oblong with the tripod standing in the one empty long side. The officers sat on their horses in front of their companies while Major Shee, his aides and the adjutant stood their horses just behind the tripod. Mister Micklewhite, his head protected from the sun by a wide straw hat, stood to one side of the triangle. Major Shee, fortified by arrack and satisfied that everything was in proper order, nodded to Bywaters. ‘You will begin punishment, Sergeant Major.’
‘Sir!’ Bywaters acknowledged, then turned and bellowed for the prisoner to be fetched. The two drummer boys stood nervously with their whips in hand. They alone of the parading soldiers were in shirtsleeves, while everyone else was in full wool uniform. Women and children peered between the company intervals. Mary Bickerstaff was not there. Hakeswill had looked for her, wanting to enjoy her horror, but Mary had stayed away. The women who had come for the spectacle, like their men, were silent and sullen. Sharpe was a popular man, and Hakeswill knew that everyone here was hating him for engineering this flogging, but Obadiah Hakeswill had never been concerned by such enmity. Power did not lie in being liked, but in being feared.
Sharpe was brought to the triangle. He was bareheaded and already stripped to the waist. The skin of his chest and back were as white as his powdered hair and contrasted oddly with his darkly tanned face. He walked steadily, for though he had the best part of a pint of rum in his belly, the liquor had not seemed to have the slightest effect. He did not look at either Hakeswill or Morris as he walked to the tripod.
‘Arms up, lad,’ the Sergeant Major said quietly. ‘Stand against the triangle. Feet apart. There’s a good lad.’
Sharpe obediently stepped up to the triangular face of the tripod. Two corporals knelt at his feet and lashed his ankles to the halberds, then stood and pushed his arms over the crosswise halberd. They pulled his hands down and tied them to the uprights, thus forcing his naked back up and outwards. That way he could not sag between the triangle and so hope to exhaust some of the blows on the halberd staffs. The corporals finished their knots, then stepped back.
The Sergeant Major went to the back of the triangle and brought from his pouch a folded piece of leather that was deeply marked by tooth prints. ‘Open your mouth, lad,’ he said softly. He smelt the rum on the prisoner’s breath and hoped it would help him survive, then he pushed the leather between Sharpe’s teeth. The gag served a double purpose. It would stifle any cries the victim might make and would stop him biting off his tongue. ‘Be brave, boy,’ Bywaters said quietly. ‘Don’t let the regiment down.’
Sharpe nodded.
Bywaters stepped smartly back and came to attention. ‘Prisoner ready for punishment, sir!’ he called to Major Shee.
The Major looked to the surgeon. ‘Is the prisoner fit for punishment, Mister Micklewhite?’
Micklewhite did not even give Sharpe a glance. ‘Hale and fit, sir.’
‘Then carry on, Sergeant Major.’
‘Right, boys,’ the Sergeant Major said, ‘do your duty! Lay it on hard now, and keep the strokes high. Above his trousers. Drummer! Begin.’
A third drummer boy was standing behind the floggers. He lifted his sticks, paused, then brought the first stick down.
The boy to the right brought his whip hard down on Sharpe’s back.
‘One!’ Bywaters shouted.
The whip had left a red mark across Sharpe’s shoulder blades. Sharpe had flinched, but the rope fetters restricted his movement and only those close to the triangle saw the tremor run through his muscles. He stared up at Major Shee who took good care to avoid the baleful gaze.
‘Two!’ Bywaters called and the drummer brought down his stick as the second boy planted a red mark crosswise on the first.
Hakeswill’s face twitched uncontrollably, but he was smiling under the rictus. For the drumbeat of death had begun.
Colonel McCandless stood alone in the centre of the courtyard of the Tippoo’s Inner Palace inside Seringapatam. The Scotsman was still in his full uniform: red-coated, tartan-kilted and with his feather-plumed cocked hat on his head. Six tigers were chained to the courtyard’s walls and those tigers sometimes strained to reach him, but they were always checked by the heavy chains that quivered tautly whenever one of the muscled beasts sprang towards the Scotsman. McCandless did not move and the tigers, after one or two fruitless lunges, contented themselves with snarling at him. The tigers’ keepers, big men armed with long staves, watched from the courtyard entrance. It was those men who might receive the orders to unleash the tigers and McCandless was determined to show them a calm face.
The courtyard was covered with sand, its lower walls were of dressed stone, but above the stone the palace’s second storey was a riot of stuccoed teak that had been painted red, white, green and yellow. That decorated second storey was composed of Moorish arches and McCandless knew just enough Arabic to guess that the writing incised above each arch was a surah from the Koran. There were two entrances to the courtyard. The one behind McCandless, through which he had entered and where the tigers’ keepers now stood, was a plain double gateway that led to a tangle of stables and storehouses behind the palace, while in front of him, and evidently leading into the palace’s staterooms, was a brief marble staircase rising to a wide door of black wood that had been decorated with patterns of inlaid ivory. Above that lavish door was a balcony that jutted out from three of the stuccoed arches. A screen of intricately carved wood hid the balcony, but McCandless could see that there were men behind the screen. He suspected the Tippoo was there and, the Scotsman trusted, so was the Frenchman who had first questioned him. Colonel Gudin had struck him as an honest fellow and right now, McCandless hoped, Gudin was pleading to let him live, though McCandless had taken good care not to offer the Frenchman his real name. He feared that the Tippoo would recognize it, and realize just what a prize his cavalry had taken, and so the Scotsman had given his name as Ross instead.
McCandless was right. Colonel Gudin and the Tippoo were both staring down through the screen. ‘This Colonel Ross,’ the Tippoo asked, ‘he says he was looking for forage?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Gudin replied through the interpreter.
‘You believe him?’ It was plain from his tone that the Tippoo was sceptical.
Gudin shrugged. ‘Their horses are thin.’
The Tippoo grunted. He had done his best to deny the advancing enemy any food, but the British had taken to making sudden marches north or south of their approach to enter territory where his horsemen had not yet destroyed the villagers’ supplies. Not only that, but they had brought a vast amount of food with them. Yet even so the Tippoo’s spies reported that the enemy was going hungry. Their horses and oxen were especially ill fed, so it was not unlikely that this British officer had been searching for forage. But why would a full colonel be sent on such an errand? The Tippoo could find no answer to that, and the question fed his suspicions. ‘Could he have been spying?’
‘Scouting, maybe,’ Gudin said, ‘but not spying. Spies do not ride in uniform, Your Majesty.’
The Tippoo grunted when the answer was translated into Persian. He was a naturally suspicious man, as any ruler should be, but he consoled himself with the observation that whatever this Britisher had been doing, he must have failed. The Tippoo turned to his entourage and saw the tall, dark-faced Appah Rao. ‘You think this Colonel Ross was looking for food, General?’
Appah Rao knew exactly who Colonel Ross truly was, and what McCandless had been looking for, and worse, Rao now knew that his own treachery was in dire danger of being discovered which meant that this was no time to look weak in front of the Tippoo. But nor was Appah Rao ready to betray McCandless. That was partly because of an old friendship, and partly because Appah Rao half suspected he might have a better future if he was allied to the British. ‘We know they’re short of food,’ he said, ‘and that man looks thin enough.’
‘So you don’t consider him a spy?’
‘Spy or not,’ Appah Rao said coldly, ‘he is your enemy.’
The Tippoo shrugged at the evasive answer. His good sense suggested that the prisoner was not a spy, for why would he wear his uniform? But even if he was, that did not worry the Tippoo overmuch. He expected Seringapatam was full of spies, just as he had two score of his own men marching with the British, but most spies, in the Tippoo’s experience, were useless. They passed on rumours, they inflated guesses and they muddled far more than they ever made plain.
‘Kill him,’ one of the Tippoo’s Muslim generals suggested.
‘I shall think about it,’ the Tippoo said, and turned back through one of the balcony’s inner archways into a gorgeous room of marble pillars and painted walls. The room was dominated by his throne, which was a canopied platform eight feet wide, five foot deep and held four feet above the tiled floor by a model of a snarling tiger that supported the platform’s centre and was flanked on each side by four carved tiger legs. Two silver gilt ladders gave access to the throne’s platform which was made of ebony wood on which a sheet of gold, thick as a prayer mat, had been fixed with silver nails. The edge of the platform was carved with quotations from the Koran, the Arabic letters picked out in gold, while above each of the throne’s eight legs was a finial in the form of a tiger’s head. The tiger heads were each the size of a pineapple, cast from solid gold and studded with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. The central tiger, whose long lean body supported the middle of the throne, was made of wood covered with gold, while its head was entirely of gold. The tiger’s mouth was open, revealing teeth cut from rock crystal between which a gold tongue was hinged so that it could be moved up and down. The canopy above the golden platform was supported by a curved pole which, like the canopy itself, had been covered with sheet gold. The fringes of the canopy were made of strung pearls, and at its topmost point was a golden model of the fabulous hummah, the royal bird that rose from fire. The hummah, like the tiger finials, was studded with jewels; its back was one solid glorious emerald and its peacock-like tail a dazzle of precious stones arrayed so thickly that the underlying gold was scarcely visible.
The Tippoo did not spare the gorgeous throne a glance. He had ordered the throne made, but had then sworn an oath that he would never climb its silver steps nor sit on the cushions of its golden platform until he had at last driven the British from southern India. Only then would he take his royal place beneath the pearl-strung canopy and until that bright day the tiger throne would stay empty. The Tippoo had made his oath, and the oath meant that he would either sit on the tiger throne or else he would die, and the Tippoo’s dreams had given him no presentiment of death. Instead he expected to expand Mysore’s frontiers and to drive the infidel British into the sea where they belonged, for they had no business here. They had their own land, and if that far country was not good enough for them, then let them all drown.
So the British must go, and if their destruction meant an alliance with the French, then that was a small price to pay for the Tippoo’s ambitions. He envisaged his empire spreading throughout southern India, then northwards into the Mahratta territories which were all ruled by weak kings or child kings or by tired kings and in their place the Tippoo would offer what his dynasty had already given to Mysore: a firm and tolerant government. The Tippoo was a Muslim, and a devout one, but he knew the surest way to lose his throne was to upset his Hindu subjects and so he took good care to show their temples reverence. He did not entirely trust the Hindu aristocracy, and he had done what he could to weaken that elite over the years, but he wished only prosperity on his other Hindu subjects for if they were prosperous then they would not care what god was worshipped in the new mosque that the Tippoo had built in the city. In time, he prayed, every person in Mysore would kneel to Allah, but until that happy day he would take care not to stir the Hindus into rebellion. He needed them. He needed them to fight for him against the infidel British. He needed them to cut down the red-coated enemy before the walls of Seringapatam.
For it was here, on his island capital, that the Tippoo expected to defeat the British and their allies from Hyderabad. Here, in front of his tiger-muzzled guns, the redcoats would be beaten down like rice under a flail. He hoped they could be lured into the slaughteryard he was preparing on the western bastions, but even if they did not take the bait and came at the southern or eastern walls, he was still ready for them. He had thousands of cannon and thousands of rockets and thousands of men ready to fight. He would turn their infidel army into blood and he would destroy the army of Hyderabad and then he would hunt down the Nizam of Hyderabad, a fellow Muslim, and torture him to a slow and deserved death which the Tippoo would watch from his canopied golden throne.
He walked past the throne to stare at his favourite tiger. This one was a lifesize model, made by a French craftsman, that showed a full-grown beast crouching above the carved figure of a British redcoat. There was a handle in the tiger’s flank and when it was turned the tiger’s paw mauled at the redcoat’s face and reeds hidden within the tiger’s body made a growling sound and a pathetic noise that imitated the cries of a man dying. A flap opened in the tiger’s flank to reveal a keyboard on which an organ, concealed in the tiger’s belly, could be played, but the Tippoo rarely bothered with the instrument, preferring to operate the separate bellows that made the tiger growl and the victim cry out. He turned the handle now, delighting in the thin, reedy sound of the dying man. In a few days’ time, he thought, he would stun the very heavens with the genuine cries of dying redcoats.
The Tippoo finally let the tiger organ fall silent. ‘I suspect the man is a spy,’ he said suddenly.
‘Then kill him,’ Appah Rao said.
‘A failed spy,’ the Tippoo said. ‘You say he is a Scot?’ he asked Gudin.
‘Indeed, Your Majesty.’
‘Not English, then?’
‘No, sire.’
The Tippoo shrugged at the distinction. ‘Whatever his tribe, he is an old man, but is that reason to show him mercy?’
The question was directed at Colonel Gudin who, once it was translated, stiffened. ‘He was captured in uniform, Your Majesty, so he does not deserve death.’ Gudin would have liked to add that it would be uncivilized even to contemplate killing such a prisoner, but he knew the Tippoo hated being patronized and so he kept silent.
‘He is here, is he not?’ the Tippoo demanded. ‘Does that not deserve death? This is not his land, these are not his people, and the bread and water he consumes are not his.’
‘Kill him, Your Majesty,’ Gudin warned, ‘and the British will show no mercy on any prisoners they take.’
‘I am full of mercy,’ the Tippoo said, and mostly that was true. There was a time for being ruthless and a time for showing mercy, and maybe this Scotsman would be a useful pawn if there was a need to hold a hostage. Besides, the Tippoo’s dream the night before had promised well, and this morning’s auguries had been similarly hopeful, so today he could afford to show mercy. ‘Put him in the cells for now,’ the Tippoo said. Somewhere in the palace a French-made clock chimed the hour, reminding the Tippoo that it was time for his prayers. He dismissed his entourage, then went to the simple chamber where, facing west towards Mecca, he made his daily obeisances.
Outside, cheated of their prey, the tigers slunk back to the courtyard’s shadows. One beast yawned, another slept. There would be other days and other men to eat. That was what the six tigers lived for, the days when their master was not merciful.
While up in the Inner Palace, with his back to the canopied throne of gold, Colonel Jean Gudin turned the tiger’s handle. The tiger growled, the claws raked back and forth across the wooden, blood-painted flesh, and the redcoat cried aloud.
Sharpe had not meant to cry out. Before the punishment had begun he had been determined to show no weakness and he had even been angry with himself that he had flinched as the first blow fell, but that sudden pain had been so acute that he had involuntarily shuddered. Since then he had closed his eyes and bitten down on the leather, but in his head a silent scream shrilled as the lashes landed one after the other.
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Bernard Cornwell
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Richard Sharpe avoids the tyrannical Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill and endeavours to rescue a British officer from under the nose of the Tippoo of Mysore.But in fleeing Hakeswill, Sharpe enters the exotic and dangerous world of the Tippoo. An adventure that will require all of his wits just to stay alive, let alone save the British army from catastrophe.Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.