Sharpe's Tiger (29 page)

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said. “Excuse me, sir,” he added, then he gently moved Gudin's hand up to the dying man's face. Blood had poured out of the man's mouth to soak his powdered hair, but Sharpe recognized him all the same. It was Jed Mallinson who usually paraded in the rearmost rank of Sharpe's file. “I know the uniform and the man, sir,” Sharpe told Gudin. “It's the 33rd, my old battalion. West Riding, Yorkshire.”

“Good.” Gudin snapped the tinderbox shut, extinguishing the small flame. “And you don't mind confusing them?”

“That's why I'm here, sir,” Sharpe said with a suitable bloodthirstiness.

“I think the British army lost a good man in you, Sharpe,” Gudin said, standing and guiding Sharpe deeper into the trees. “If you don't want to stay in India you might think of coming home with me.”

“To France, sir?”

Gudin smiled at Sharpe's surprised tone. “It isn't the devil's country, Sharpe; indeed I suspect it's the most blessed place on God's earth, and in the French army a good man can be very easily raised to officer rank.”

“Me, sir? An officer?” Sharpe laughed. “Like making a mule into a racehorse.”

“You underestimate yourself.” Gudin paused. There were feet trampling to the right, and a sudden blast of musketry off to the left. The musketry attracted an excited rush of the Tippoo's infantry who blundered through the trees. Sergeant Rothière bellowed at them in a mix of French and Kanarese, and his sudden authority calmed the men who gathered around Colonel Gudin. Gudin smiled wolfishly. “Let's see if we can mislead some of your old comrades, Sharpe. Shout at them to come this way.”

“Forward!” Sharpe obediently bellowed into the dark trees. “Forward!” He paused, listening for an answer. “33rd! To me! To me!”

No one responded. “Try a name,” Gudin suggested.

Sharpe invented an officer's name. “Captain Fellows! This way!” He called it a dozen times, but there was no response. “Hakeswill!” he finally shouted. “Sergeant Hakeswill!”

Then, from maybe thirty paces away, the bated voice called back, “Who's that?” The Sergeant sounded suspicious.

“Come here, man!” Sharpe snapped.

Hakeswill ignored the order, but the fact that a man had replied at all cheered Gudin who had quietly formed the stray unit of the Tippoo's infantry into a line that waited to kill whoever came in response to Sharpe's hailing. Chaos reigned ahead. Rockets banged into branches, musket flames flared in the drifting smoke, while bullets thumped into trees or crackled through the thick leaves. A bloodthirsty cheer sounded a long way off, but whether it was Indian or British troops who cheered, Sharpe could not tell.

One thing was plain to Sharpe. The 33rd was in trouble. Poor Jed Mallinson should never have been abandoned to die, and that sad death, along with the scattered sounds of firing, suggested that the Tippoo's men had succeeded in splitting the attacking force and was now picking it off piece by piece. It was now or never, Sharpe reckoned. He had to get away from Gudin and somehow rejoin his battalion. “I need to get closer, sir,” he told the Colonel and, without waiting for Gudin's consent, he ran deeper into the trees. “Sergeant Hakeswill!” he shouted as he ran. “To me, now! Now! Come on, you miserable bastard! Move your bloody self! Come on!” He could hear Gudin following him, so Sharpe fell silent and, suddenly deep in shadow, dodged off to his right.

“Sharpe!” Gudin hissed, but Sharpe was well away from the Colonel now and he reckoned he had done it without looking like a deserter.

“Sergeant Hakeswill!” Sharpe bellowed, then ran on again. There was a danger that by shouting he would keep Gudin on his heels, but it was a greater danger to let the Frenchman think that he was deliberately trying to rejoin the British, for then Lawford might suffer, and so Sharpe ran the risk as he worked his way still farther into the dense trees. “Hakeswill! To me! To me!” He pushed through thick foliage, tripped over a bush, picked himself up, and ran on into a clearing. “Hakeswill!” he shouted.

A rocket crashed into a branch high above Sharpe and slashed straight down into the clearing ahead of him. Once on the ground the missile circled furiously like a mad dog chasing its own tail and the brilliant light of the exhaust lit the trees all around. Sharpe flinched away from the lash of the fiery tail and almost ran straight into Sergeant Hakeswill who had suddenly appeared from the bushes to his left.

“Sharpie!” Hakeswill shouted. “You bastard!” He slashed
wildly at Sharpe with his bloody halberd. Morris, hearing Hakeswill's name shouted, had ordered the Sergeant to find whoever was summoning him and Hakeswill had unwillingly obeyed. Now, suddenly, Hakeswill was alone with Sharpe and the Sergeant slammed the spear forward again. “Traitorous little bastard!” Hakeswill said.

“For Christ's sake, drop it!” Sharpe shouted, retreating before the quick lunges of the spear head.

“Running off to the enemy, Sharpie?” Hakeswill said. “I should take you in, shouldn't I? It'll be another court martial and a firing party this time. But I won't risk that. I'm going to put your gizzards on a skewer, Sharpie, and send you back to your maker. And wearing a frock, too?” The Sergeant stabbed again, and Sharpe leapt back once more, but then the dying rocket fizzed across the clearing and its long bamboo stick tangled Sharpe's legs. He fell backward and Hakeswill gave a shout of triumph as he sprang toward him with the halberd poised ready to lunge downward.

Sharpe felt the rocket's iron tube under his right hand, gripped it and threw it up at Hakeswill's face. The rocket's gunpowder fuel was almost gone, but there was just enough left to spurt one last sudden flame that licked across Hakeswill's blue-eyed face. The Sergeant screamed, dropped the halberd, and clapped his hands to his eyes. To his surprise he discovered he could still see and that his face was not badly burned, but in his panic he had stumbled past Sharpe and so now he turned back and, as he did so, he dragged a pistol out of his belt.

Just then a squad of redcoats burst into the clearing. The burning carcass of the rocket showed that they were men from the 33rd's Grenadier Company who were as lost as every other redcoat on this night of chaos. One of the grenadiers saw Sharpe who, in his tiger-striped tunic, was scrambling
to his feet. The grenadier raised his gun. “Leave the bastard!” Hakeswill screamed. “He's mine!”

Then a volley of musketry flamed from the trees and half of the grenadiers spun around or were hurled backward. Blood hissed in the fiery remnants of the rocket as a company of tiger-striped troops burst out of the trees. Colonel Gudin and Sergeant Rothière led them. Hakeswill turned to run at the sight of the enemy, but one of the Tippoo's men lunged forward with a bayonet-tipped musket and succeeded in driving the Sergeant down to the ground where he first twisted frantically aside, then screamed for mercy. Gudin ran past the fallen Hakeswill. “Well done, Sharpe,” Gudin called. “Well done! Stop that! Stop that!” These last orders were to the Tippoo's men who had enthusiastically begun to bayonet the surviving grenadiers. “We take prisoners!” Gudin roared. “Prisoners!” Rothière knocked a bayonet aside to stop the soldier from slaughtering Hakeswill.

Sharpe was cursing. He had so nearly got clean away! If Hakeswill had not attacked him he might have run another fifty yards through the trees, discarded the tiger-striped tunic, and discovered some of his old friends. Instead he had become a hero to Gudin who believed that Sharpe had lured all the grenadiers into the clearing where the twelve who had survived the enthusiastic attack were now prisoners along with the twitching and cursing Hakeswill.

“You took a terrible risk, Corporal!” Gudin said, coming back to Sharpe and sheathing his sword. “You could have been shot by your old friends. But it worked, eh? And now you are a corporal!”

“Aye, sir. It worked,” Sharpe said, though he took no pleasure in it. It had all gone so disastrously wrong, indeed the whole night had gone disastrously wrong for the British. The Tippoo's men were now clearing the
tope
yard by yard, and chasing British survivors back across the aqueduct. They pursued
the beaten fugitives with jeers, volleys of musket fire, and salvoes of rockets. Thirteen prisoners had been taken, all by Sharpe and Gudin, and those unfortunate men were herded back toward the city while the redcoat dead were looted for weapons and valuables.

“I'll make sure the Tippoo hears of your bravery, Sharpe,” Gudin said as he retrieved his horse. “He's a brave man himself and he admires it in others. I don't doubt he'll want to reward you!”

“Thank you, sir,” Sharpe said, though without enthusiasm.

“You're not wounded, are you?” Gudin asked anxiously, struck by the forlorn tone of Sharpe's voice.

“Burned my hand, sir,” Sharpe said. He had not realized it when he snatched up the rocket tube to fend off Hakeswill, but the metal cylinder had scorched his hand, though not badly. “Nothing much,” he added. “I'll live.”

“Of course you'll live,” Gudin said, then laughed delightedly. “Gave them a beating, didn't we?”

“Trounced ‘em proper, sir.”

“And we'll trounce them again, Sharpe, when they attack the city. They don't know what's waiting for them!”

“What is waiting for them, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“You'll see. You'll see,” Gudin said, then hauled himself up into his saddle. Sergeant Bothière wanted to stay in the
tope
to retrieve British muskets, so the Colonel insisted that Sharpe ride the second horse back to the city with the disconsolate prisoners who were under the guard of a gleeful company of the Tippoo's troops.

Hakeswill looked up at Sharpe and spat. “Bloody traitor!”

“Ignore him,” Gudin said.

“Snake!” Hakeswill hissed. “Piece of no-good shit, that's what you are, Sharpie. Jesus Christ!” This last imprecation was because one of the escorting soldiers had hit the back
of Hakeswill's head with a musket barrel. “Black bastard,” Hakeswill muttered.

“I'd like to kick his bloody teeth in, sir,” Sharpe said to Gudin. “In fact, if you've no objection, sir, I'll take the bastard into the dark and finish him off.”

Gudin sighed. “I do object,” the Colonel said mildly, “because it's rather important we treat prisoners well, Sharpe. I sometimes fear the Tippoo doesn't understand the courtesies of war, but so far I've managed to persuade him that if we treat our prisoners properly then our enemies will treat theirs properly in return.”

“I'd still like to kick the bastard's teeth in, sir.”

“I assure you the Tippoo might do that without any help from you,” Gudin said grimly.

Sharpe and the Colonel spurred ahead of the prisoners to cross the bridge back to the city where they dismounted at the Mysore Gate. Sharpe handed the mare's reins to Gudin who thanked him yet again and tossed him a whole golden
haideri
as a reward. “Go and get drunk, Sharpe,” the Colonel said, “you deserve it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And believe me, I'll tell the Tippoo. He admires bravery!”

Lieutenant Lawford was among the curious crowd who waited just inside the gate. “What happened?” he asked Sharpe.

“I buggered up,” Sharpe said bitterly. “I bloody well buggered it up. Come on, let's spend some money. Get drunk.”

“No, wait.” Lawford had seen the redcoats coming through the flame light of the gate torches and he pulled away from Sharpe to watch as the thirteen prisoners were pushed at bayonet point into the city. The crowd began jeering.

“Come away!” Sharpe insisted and he tugged at Lawford's elbow.

Lawford shook off the tug and stared at the prisoners, unable to hide his chagrin at the sight of British soldiers being herded into captivity. Then he recognized Hakeswill who, at the same instant, stared into the Lieutenant's face, and Sharpe saw Hakeswill's look of utter astonishment. For a second the world seemed to pause in its turning. Lawford appeared unable to move, while Hakeswill was gaping with disbelief and seemed about to shout his recognition. Sharpe was reaching to snatch a musket from one of the Tippoo's infantrymen, but then Hakeswill turned deliberately away and composed his features as though sending a silent message that he would not remark on Lawford's presence. The twelve grenadier prisoners were still a few yards behind and Lawford, suddenly realizing that vet more men of his battalion might recognize him, at last turned away. He pulled Sharpe with him. Sharpe protested. “I want to kill Hakeswill!”

“Come on!” Lawford hurried down an alley. The Lieutenant had gone pale. He stopped beside the arched doorway of a small temple that was surmounted by a carving of a cow resting beneath a parasol. Little flames sputtered inside the sanctuary. “Will he say anything?” Lawford asked.

“That bastard?” Sharpe said. “Anything's possible.”

“Surely not. He wouldn't betray us,” Lawford said, then shuddered. “What happened, for God's sake?”

Sharpe told him of the night's events and how close he had come to making a clean break back to the British lines. “It were bloody Hakeswill that stopped me,” he complained.

“He could have misunderstood you,” Lawford said.

“Not him.”

“But what happens if he does betray us?” Lawford asked.

“Then we join your uncle in the bloody cells,” Sharpe said
gloomily. “You should have let me shoot the bastard back at the gate.”

“Don't be a fool!” Lawford snapped. “You're still in the army, Sharpe. So am I.” He suddenly shook his head. “God Almighty!” he swore. “We need to find Ravi Shekhar.”

“Why?”

“Because if we can't get the news out, then maybe he can!” Lawford said angrily. His anger was at himself. He had been so beguiled by exploring the existence of a common soldier that he had forgotten his duty, and that dereliction now filled him with guilt. “We have to find him, Sharpe!”