Sharpe's Tiger (30 page)

“How? We can't ask in the streets for him!”

“Then find Mrs. Bickerstaff,” Lawford said urgently. “Find her, Sharpe!” He lowered his voice. “And that's an order.”

“I outrank you,” Sharpe said.

Lawford turned on him furiously. “What did you say?”

“I'm a corporal now, Private.” Sharpe grinned.

“This is not a joke, Sharpe!” Lawford snapped. There was a sudden authority in his voice. “We're not here to enjoy ourselves. We're here to do a job.”

“We've done it bloody well so far,” Sharpe said defensively.

“No, we haven't,” Lawford said firmly. “Because we haven't got the news out, have we? And until we do that, Sharpe, we've achieved nothing. Absolutely nothing. So talk to your woman and tell her what we know and get her to find Shekhar. That's an order, Private Sharpe. So do it!” Lawford abruptly turned and stalked away.

Sharpe felt the comforting weight of the
haideri
in his tunic pocket. He thought about following Lawford, then decided to hell with it. Tonight he could afford the best and life was too short to pass up that sort of chance. He decided he would go back to the brothel. He had liked the place, a
house filled with curtains, rugs and shaded oil lamps where two giggling girls had given Lawford and Sharpe baths before letting them go up the stairs to the bedrooms. A
haideri
would buy a whole night in one of those rooms, perhaps with Lali, the tall girl who had left Lieutenant Lawford exhausted and guilt-ridden.

So he went to spend his gold.

The 33rd marched unhappily back to the encampment. The wounded were carried or limped back and one man cried out every time he put his left foot down, but otherwise the battalion was silent. They had been whipped, and the distant jeers of the Tippoo's men rubbed salt into their wounds. A last few rockets pursued them, their flames streaking wildly askew across the stars.

The Grenadier and Light Companies had taken the casualties. Men were missing and Wellesley knew that some of those missing were dead and he feared that others were prisoners or else still lying wounded among the dark trees. The remaining eight companies of the battalion had marched to support the flank companies, but in the dark they had crossed the aqueduct too far to the south and, while Wellesley had tried to find his beleaguered flank companies, Major Shee had stolidly marched straight through the
tope
and out across the aqueduct on the far side without encountering the enemy or firing a shot. The two sepoy battalions could easily have turned the night's disaster into a victory, but they had received no orders, though one of the battalions, fearing disaster, had fired a panicked volley that had killed their own commanding officer while, a half-mile to their front, the 33rd had floundered about in unsoldierlike chaos.

It was that lack of professionalism that galled Wellesley. He had failed. The northern stretch of the aqueduct had been efficiently captured by other battalions, but the 33rd
had blundered. Wellesley had blundered, and he knew it. General Harris was sympathetic enough when the young Colonel reported his failure; Harris murmured about the uncertainty of night attacks and how everything could be put right in the morning, but Wellesley still felt the failure keenly. He knew only too well that experienced soldiers like Baird despised him, believing that his promotion to second-in-command was due solely to the fact that his elder brother was Governor-General of the British regions in India, and Wellesley's shame had been made worse because Major General Baird had been waiting with Harris when Wellesley arrived to report his failure and the tall Scotsman seemed to smirk as Wellesley confessed to the night's disasters. “Difficult things, night attacks,” Harris said yet again while Baird said nothing and Wellesley smarted under the Scotsman's telling silence.

“We'll clear the
tope
in the morning,” Harris tried to console Wellesley.

“My men will do it,” Wellesley promised quickly.

“No, no. They won't be rested,” Harris said. “Better if we use fresh troops.”

“My fellows will be quite ready.” Baird spoke for the first time. He smiled at Wellesley. “The Scotch Brigade, I mean.”

“I request permission to command the attack, sir,” Wellesey said very stiffly, ignoring Baird. “Whatever troops you use, sir, I'll still be duty officer.”

“I'm sure, I'm sure,” Harris said vaguely, neither granting nor denying Wellesley's request. “You must get some sleep,” he said to the young Colonel, “so let me wish you a restful night.” He waited till Wellesley was gone, then shook his head mutely.

“A whippersnapper,” Baird said loudly enough for the retreating Colonel to hear him, “with his nursery maid's apron strings still trapped in his sword belt.”

“He's very efficient,” Harris said mildly.

“My mother was efficient, God rest her soul,” Baird retorted vigorously, “but you wouldn't want her running a damned battle. I tell you, Harris, if you let him lead the assault on the city you'll be asking for trouble. Give the job to me, man, give it to me. I've got a score to settle with the Tippoo.”

“So you have,” Harris agreed, “so you have.”

“And let me take the damned
tope
in the morning. God, man, I could do it with a corporal's guard!”

“Wellesley will still be officer of the day tomorrow morning, Baird,” Harris said, then pulled off his wig as a sign that he wanted to go to bed. One side of his scalp was curiously flattened where he had been wounded at Bunker Hill. He scratched at the old injury, then yawned. “I'll bid you good night.”

“You know how to spell Wellesley's name for the dispatch, Harris?” Baird asked. “Three L's!”

“Good night,” Harris said firmly.

At dawn the Scotch Brigade and two Indian battalions paraded east of the encampment, while a battery of four twelve-pounder guns unlimbered to their south. As soon as the sun was up the four guns began throwing shells into the
tope
. The missiles left filmy smoke traces in the air from their burning fuses, then plunged into the trees where their explosions were muffled by the thick foliage. One shell fell short and a great gout of water spurted up from the aqueduct. Birds wheeled above the smoking
tope
, squawking their protests at the violence that had once again disturbed their nests.

Major General Baird waited in front of the Scotch Brigade. He itched to take his countrymen forward, but Harris insisted it was Wellesley's privilege. “He's officer of the day till noon,” Harris said.

“He ain't up,” Baird said. “He's sleeping it off. If you wait for him to wake up it'll be past noon anyway. Just let me go, sir.”

“Give him five minutes,” Harris insisted. “I sent an aide to wake him.”

Baird had intercepted the aide to make certain Wellesley did not wake in time, but just before the five minutes expired the young Colonel came racing across the ground on his white horse. He looked disheveled, like a man who had made too hasty a toilet. “My sincerest apologies, sir,” he greeted Harris.

“You're ready, Wellesley?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Then you know what to do,” Harris said curtly.

“Look after my Scots boys!” Baird called to Wellesley, and received, as he expected, no answer.

The Scots colors were unfurled, the drummer boys sounded the advance, the pipers began their fierce music and the brigade marched into the rising sun. The sepoys followed. Rockets streaked up from the
tope
, but the missiles were no more accurate in the morning than they had been at night. The four brass field guns fired shell after shell, only stopping when the Scotsmen reached the aqueduct. Harris and Baird watched as the brigade attacked in a four-deep line that climbed the nearer embankment, dropped out of sight into the aqueduct, briefly reappeared on the farther embankment, then finally disappeared into the trees beyond. For a few moments there was the disciplined sound of musket volleys, then silence. The sepoys followed the Scots, spreading left and right to attack the fringes of the battered woodland. Harris waited, then a galloper came from the northern stretch of the aqueduct, which had been captured during the night, to report that the land between the
tope
and the city was thick with enemy fugitives running back to
Seringapatam. That news was proof that the
tope
was at last taken and that the whole aqueduct was now in allied hands. “Time for breakfast,” Harris said happily. “You'll join me, Baird?”

“I'll hear the butcher's bill first, sir, if you don't mind,” Baird answered, but there was no butcher's bill, for none of the Scots or Indian troops had died. The Tippoo's men had abandoned the
tope
once the artillery shells began to fall among the trees and they left behind only the plundered British dead of the previous night. Lieutenant Fitzgerald was among them, and he was buried with honors. Killed by an enemy bayonet, the report said.

And now, with the approach ground west of the city in Harris's hands, the siege proper could begin.

It did not prove difficult to find Mary. Sharpe merely asked Gudin and, after the night's events in the
tope
, the Colonel was eager to give Sharpe whatever he wanted. The loss of the
tope
the following dawn had in no way diminished the Frenchman's delight at the nighttime victory, nor the optimism inside the city, for no one had seriously expected the
tope
to resist for more than a few minutes and the previous night's victory, with its catch of prisoners and its tales of British defeat, had convinced the Tippoo's forces that they would prove more than a match for the enemy armies.

“Your woman, Sharpe?” Gudin teased. “You become a corporal and all you want is your woman back?”

“I just want to see her, sir.”

“She's in Appah Rao's household. I'll have a word with the General, but first you're to go to the palace at midday.”

“Me, sir?” Sharpe felt an instant pang of alarm, fearing that Hakeswill had betrayed him.

“To get an award, Sharpe,” Gudin reassured him. “But don't worry, I'll be there to steal most of your glory.”

“Yes, sir.” Sharpe grinned. He liked Gudin, and he could not help contrasting the kind and easy-going Frenchman with his own Colonel who always appeared to treat common soldiers as if they were a nuisance that had to he endured. Of course Wellesley was sheltered from his ranks by his officers and sergeants, while Gudin had such a small battalion that in truth he was more like a captain than a colonel. Gudin did have the assistance of a Swiss adjutant and the occasional help of the two French captains when they were not drinking in the city's best brothel, but the battalion had no lieutenants or ensigns, and only three sergeants, which meant that the rank and file had an unprecedented access to their Colonel. Gudin liked it that way for he had little else to occupy him. Officially he was France's adviser to the Tippoo, but the Tippoo rarely sought anyone's advice. Gudin confessed as much as he walked with Sharpe to the palace at midday. “Knows it all, does he, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“He's a good soldier, Sharpe. Very good. What he really wants is a French army, not a French adviser.”

“What does he want a French army for, sir?”

“To beat you British out of India.”

“But then he'd just be stuck with you French instead,” Sharpe pointed out.

“But he likes the French, Sharpe. You find that strange?”

“I find everything in India strange, sir. Haven't had a proper meal since I got here.”

Gudin laughed. “And a proper meal is what?”

“Bit of beef, sir, with some potatoes and a gravy thick enough to choke a rat.”

Gudin shuddered.
“La cuisine anglaise!”

“Sir?”

“Never mind, Sharpe, never mind.”

A half-dozen men waited to be presented to the Tippoo, all of them soldiers who had somehow distinguished themselves
in the defense of the
tope
the previous night. There was also one prisoner, a Hindu soldier who had been seen to run away when the attackers had first crossed the aqueduct. All of them, coward and heroes alike, waited in the courtyard where Sharpe and Lawford had been tested by the Tippoo, though today five of the six tigers had been taken away, leaving only a big old docile male. Gudin crossed to the beast and tickled its chin, then scratched it between the ears. “This one's tame as a cat, Sharpe.”

“I'll let you stroke it, sir. Wild horses wouldn't get me near a beast like that.”

The tiger liked being scratched. It closed its yellow eyes and for a few seconds Sharpe could almost persuade himself the big beast was purring, then it yawned hugely, displaying a massive mouth with old worn teeth, and when it had yawned it stretched out its long forepaws and, from its furry pads, two sets of long, hooked claws emerged. “That's how it kills.” Gudin said, gesturing at the claws as he backed away. “Holds you down with its teeth, then slits your belly open with the claws. Not this one, though. He's just an old soft pet. Flea-bitten too.” Gudin picked a flea off his hand, then turned as a doorway to the courtyard was opened and a procession of palace attendants filed into the sunlight. It was led by two robed men who carried staffs tipped with silver tiger heads. They served as chamberlains, mustering the heroes into line and pushing the coward to one side, and behind them came two extraordinary men.

Sharpe gaped at them. They were both huge; tall and muscled like prizefighters. Their dark skin, naked to their waists, was oiled to a glistening shine, while their long black hair had been twisted round and round their heads and then tied with white ribbons. They had bristling black beards and wide mustaches that had been stiffened into points with wax.
“Jettis”
Gudin whispered to Sharpe.

“Jettis?
What are they, sir?”