Sharpe's Tiger (41 page)

“At the house, Lord.” Kunwar Singh was a soldier, but not in any of the Tippoo's
cushoons
. His loyalty was to his kinsman, Appah Rao, and his duty was to protect Appah Rao and his family.

“Take six men,” the General said, “and make sure they are not dressed in my livery. Then go to the dungeons, find Colonel McCandless, and take him back to my house. He speaks our tongue, so gain his trust by reminding him that you came with me to the temple at Somanathapiira, and tell him that I
am trusting him to keep my family alive.” The General had been staring southwards as he spoke, but he now turned to look into Kunwar Singh's eyes. “If the British do get into the city then McCandless will protect our women.” Appah Rao added this last assurance as though to justify the order he was giving, but Kunwar Singh still hesitated. Singh was a loyal man, but that loyalty was being dangerously stretched for he was being asked to rebel against the Tippoo. He might need to kill the Tippoo's men to free this enemy soldier, and Appall Rao understood his hesitation. “Do this for me, Kunwar Singh,” the General promised, “and I shall restore your family's land.”

“Lord,” Kunwar Singh said, then stepped back, turned and was gone. Appall Rao watched him go, then stared past the city's southwestern corner to where he could see a portion of the enemy trenches. It was past noon and there were still no signs of life from the British lines except for a desultory gunshot once in a while. If the Tippoo won this day, Appall Rao thought, then his anger at McCandless's disappearance would be terrible. In which case, Appah Rao decided, McCandless must die before he could ever be discovered and have the truth beaten out of him. But if the Tippoo lost, then McCandless was Appah Rao's best guarantor of survival. And a Hindu living in a Muslim state was an expert at survival. Appah Rao, despite the risk he was running, knew he had acted for the best. He drew his sword, kissed its blade for luck, then waited for the assault.

It took only a minute for Kunwar Singh to reach the General's house. He ordered six of his best men to discard their tunics which bore Appah Rao's badge and to put on tiger-striped tunics instead. He changed his own coat, then borrowed a gold chain with a jeweled pendant from the General's treasure chest. Such a jewel was a sign of authority in
the city and Kunwar Singh reckoned he might need it. He armed himself with a pistol and a sword, then waited for his picked squad.

Mary came to the courtyard and demanded to know what was happening. There was a strange stillness in the city, and the tempo of the British guns, which had been firing so hard and fast for days, was now muted and the ominous silence had made Mary nervous.

“We think the British are coming,” Kunwar Singh told her, then blurted out that she would be safe tor he had been ordered to free the British Colonel from the dungeons and bring him to the house where McCandless's presence would protect the women. “If the British even get through the wall,” he added dubiously.

“What about my brother?” Mary asked.

Kunwar Singh shrugged. “I have no orders tor him.”

“Then I shall come with you,” Mary declared.

“You can't!” Kunwar Singh insisted. He was often shocked by Mary's defiance, though he also found it appealing.

“You can stop me,” she said, “by shooting me. Or you can let me come. Make up your mind.” She did not wait to hear his answer, but hurried to her quarters where she snatched up the pistol that Appall Rao had given her. Kunwar Singh made no further protest. He was confused by what was happening, and, though he sensed that his master's loyalties were wavering, he still did not know which way they would ultimately fall.

“I can't let your brother come back here,” he warned Man-when she came back to the courtyard.

“We can free him,” Mary insisted, “and after that he can look after himself. He's good at that.”

The streets of the city were oddly deserted. Most of the Tippoo's soldiers were on the ramparts, and anyone who had no business in the coming battle had taken care to lock their
doors and stay hidden. A few men still trundled handcarts of ammunition and rockets toward the walls, but there were no bullock carts and no open shops. A few sacred cows wandered the city with sublime unconcern, but otherwise it was like a place of ghosts and it only took Kunwar Singh's small party five minutes to reach the complex of small courtyards that lay to the north of the Inner Palace. No one questioned Kunwar Singh's right to be in the palace precincts, for he wore the Tippoo's uniform and the jewels hanging about his neck were glittering proof of his authority.

The difficulty, Kunwar Singh had anticipated, would lie in persuading the guards to unlock the gate of the dungeon's outer cage. Once that gate was open the rest should be easy, for his men could swiftly overwhelm the guards and so find the key to McCandless's cell. Kunwar Singh had decided that his best course was simply to pretend to an authority he did not have and claim to bear a summons from the Tippoo himself. Arrogance went far in Mysore and he would give it a try. Otherwise he must order his men to use their muskets to blast the cage doors down and he feared that such a commotion would bring guards running from the nearby Inner Palace.

But when he reached the cells he found there were no guards. The space within the outer cage and around the stone steps was empty. A soldier on the inner wall above the cells saw the small group standing uncertainly beside the dungeon gate and assumed they had come to fetch the guards. “They've already gone!” the man shouted down. “Ordered to the walls. Gone to kill some Englishmen.”

Kunwar Singh acknowledged the man, then rattled the gate, vainly hoping that the padlock would fall off. “You don't want to go inside,” the helpful man called down, “the tiger's on duty.”

Kunwar Singh instinctively stepped back. The soldier
above him lost interest and went back to his post as Kunwar Singh stepped back to the gate and tugged a second time at the huge padlock. “Too big to shoot open,” he said. “That lock will take five or six bullets, at least.”

“We can't get inside?” Mary asked.

“No. Not without attracting the guards.” He gestured toward the palace. The thought of the tiger had made him nervous and he was wondering whether he would do better to wait until the assault started and then, under the cover of its huge noise, try to shoot the padlock away from the gate, then kill the tiger. Or else just give up the errand. The courtyard stank of sewage, and the smell only reinforced Kunwar Singh's presentiments of failure.

Then Mary stepped to the bars. “Richard?” she called. “Richard!”

There was a momentary pause. “Lass?” The answer came at last.

Kunwar Singh's nervousness increased. There were a dozen soldiers on the inner wall immediately above him, and a score of other people were peering through windows or above stable doors. No one was yet taking a suspicious interest in his parry, but it seemed likely that someone of true authority would soon pass by the dungeons. “We should leave,” he hissed to Mary.

“We can't get inside!” Mary called to Sharpe.

“Have you got a gun, lass?” Sharpe called back. Mary could not see him, for the outer cage was far enough back from the dungeon steps to hide the cells.

“Yes.”

“Chuck it down here, lass. Chuck it as close to the bottom of the steps as you can. Make sure the bugger's not cocked.”

Kunwar Singh rattled the gate again. The sound of the clangorous iron prompted a growl from the pit and a moment later the tiger loped up the steps, stared blank-eyed
at Kunwar Singh, then turned and went back to the remnants of a half-carcass of goat. “We can't wait!” Kunwar Singh insisted to Mary.

“Throw us a gun, love!” Sharpe shouted.

Mary groped inside the folds of her sari to find the ivory-inlaid pistol that Appall Rao had given to her. She pushed it through the bars and then, very nervously, she tried to gauge how much effort would be needed to toss the gun into the pit, but not too far from the bottom of the steps. Kunwar Singh hissed at her, but made no move to stop her.

“Here, Richard!” she called, and she tossed the gun underarm. It was a clumsy throw, and the pistol fell short of the steps, but its momentum carried it over the edge and Mary heard the gun clattering down the stone stairs.

Sharpe cursed, for the pistol had lodged three steps up. “Have you got another one?” he shouted.

“Give me your pistol,” Mary said to Kunwar Singh.

“No! We can't get in.” Kunwar Singh was close to panic now and his six men had been infected by his fear. “We can't help them,” he insisted.

“Mary!” Sharpe called.

“I'm sorry, Richard.”

“Not to worry, lass,” Sharpe said, staring at the pistol. He did not doubt he could pick the lock open, but could he reach the gun before the tiger reached him? And even if he did, would one small pistol ball stop eight feet of hungry tiger? “Jesus Christ!” he swore.

“Sharpe!” McCandless chided him.

“I was praying, sir. Because this is a right bugger-up, sir, a right bugger-up.” Sharpe took out the picklock and unfolded one of the shafts. He put his hands through the bars and grabbed hold of the padlock, then explored the big keyhole with the hooked shaft. It was a crude lock that ought to be easy to open, but the mechanism was not properly oiled and
Sharpe feared that the picklock might snap rather than move the levers aside. Lawford and McCandless watched him, while from across the corridor Hakeswill stared with huge blue eyes.

Go on, boy, good boy,” Hakeswill said. “Get us out of here, boy.”

“Shut your ugly face, Obadiah,” Sharpe muttered. He had moved one lever, now only the second remained, but it was much suffer than the first. Sweat was pouring down Sharpe's face. He was working half blind, unable to pull the padlock to an angle where he could see the keyhole. The tiger had paused in its eating to watch him, intrigued by the hands protruding through the bars. Sharpe maneuvered the picklock, felt the hook lodge against the lever, and gently pressed. He pressed harder, and suddenly the hook scraped off the lever's edge and Sharpe swore.

And just as he swore the tiger twisted and sprang. It attacked with appalling speed, a sudden unleashing of coiled muscles that ended with a swipe of one unsheathed paw as it tried to hook a claw into the protruding hands. Sharpe recoiled, dropping the picklock, and cursing as the tiger's slash missed him by inches. “Bastard,” he swore at the beast, then he stooped and reached through the bars for the fallen picklock that lay a foot away. He moved fast, but the tiger was faster, and this time Sharpe got a deep scratch on the back of his hand.

“Sergeant Hakeswill,” Sharpe hissed. “Get the beast over on your side.”

“Nothing I can do!” Hakeswill protested, his face twitching. The tiger was watching Sharpe. It was only two feet away from him, its teeth were bared and its claws unsheathed, and there was a glint in its yellow eyes. “You want to fight a tiger, Sharpie,” Hakeswill said, “that's your business, not mine.

Man doesn't have to fight pussycats, says so in the scriptures.”

“You say that one more time,” McCandless roared in sudden and unexpected fury, “and I'll make sure you never wear stripes again! Do you understand me, man?”

Hakeswill was taken aback by the Colonel's anger. “Sir,” he said weakly.

“So do as Private Sharpe says,” Colonel McCandless ordered. “And do it now.”

Hakeswill beat his hands against the bars. The tiger turned its head and Sharpe immediately snatched the picklock back into the cell and stood again. The tiger leapt at Hakeswill, shaking the bars of his cell with its violence, and Hakeswill backed hurriedly away.

“Keep provoking it, man!” McCandless ordered Hakeswill, and the Sergeant spat at the tiger, then threw a handful of straw toward its face.

Sharpe worked on the lock. He had the hook against the lever again. The tiger, roused to a petulant fury, stood with its paws against the bars of Hakeswill's cell as Sharpe pressed on the lever and at last felt it move. His hands trembled and the hook grated as it slipped across the lever's face, but he steadied himself and pressed harder. He was holding his breath, willing the lever to unlatch. Sweat stung his eyes, then suddenly the lever clicked across and the lock sprang open in his hands.

“That was the easy part,” he said grimly. He folded the picklock and put it back in his pocket. “Mary!” he called. There was no answer. “Mary!” he shouted again, but still there was no reply. Kunwar Singh had pulled his men away from the cells and was now in a deep gateway on the courtyard's far side, trapped between his wish to obey Appah Rao and the apparent impossibility of that obedience.

“What do you need her for?” Colonel McCandless asked.

“I don't even know if the bloody gun's loaded, sir. I never asked her.”

“Assume it is,” McCandless said.

“Easy for you, sir,” Sharpe said respectfully, “being as you ain't the one who's got to go out and kill the beast.”

“I'll do it,” Lawford offered.

Sharpe grinned. “It's either you of me, sir,” he said, “and being honest, sir, who do you think will do the best job?”

“You,” Lawford admitted.

“Which is what I reckoned, sir. But one thing, sir, How do you shoot a tiger? In the head?”

“Between the eves,” McCandless said, “but not too high up. Just below the eyes.”

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said. He had eased the padlock out of its hasp and he could now move the door outwards, though he did it gingerly, unwilling to attract the tiger's attention. He pulled the door shut again and stooped for his red jacket that lay on the straw. “Let's hope the bugger's a stupid pussycat,” he said, then he gently pushed the door open again. The lunges squealed alarmingly. He had the door in his left hand and his red coat was bundled in his right. When the door was open a foot he tossed the coat as hard as he could toward the remains of the goat at the corridor's farther end.