Sharpe's Tiger (47 page)

The palanquin was carried by eight men, two to each of its four long gilded handles. When Sharpe first saw it, the clumsy vehicle was being hurried away from the palace by two robed chamberlains who lashed at the bearers with their tiger-headed staves. For a second Sharpe thought the Tippoo must be inside the palanquin, but then he saw that the side curtains were looped back and that the cushions inside were empty. He followed.

He could sense a panic inside the city now. It had been quiet until a few moments ago, crouching like a beast not wanting to be noticed, but now the city somehow sensed that its doom had come. Beggars huddled together for protection, a woman cried in a shuttered house, and the stray dogs yelped piteously. Small groups of the Tippoo's soldiers were fleeing in the streets, their bare feet pattering on the dried mud as they ran toward the Bangalore Gate where no enemy threatened. The sound of battle was still intense, but the defense was fraying fast.

The chamberlains led the palanquin toward the Water Gate of the inner wall. The gate lay close to the malodorous lake of sewage that so soured the air and some of the sewage, denied proper drains by the hastily constructed inner wall, had leaked into the Water Gate which was a brick-lined tunnel, fifty feet long, piercing the inner wall. An officer stood
guard at its inner doors, but, as the palanquin approached, he unbarred the big teak gates and dragged them open. He shouted something as Sharpe followed the clumsy vehicle into the low tunnel, but Sharpe just shouted Colonel Gudin's name back and the officer was too confused to challenge him again. Instead, once the palanquin and the European soldier had gone through the tunnel, he closed the doors then glanced nervously up to where a mist of smoke betrayed the attackers' progress on the wall above him.

Sharpe paused inside the tunnel while the palanquin went on ahead. The tunnel's floor had sunk in places and the leaking sewage had gathered in those deep spots. The place stank like an uncleaned barracks latrine. The palanquin's bearers stumbled as they splashed through the pools, then the vehicle went into the sunlight beyond. Sharpe could see soldiers out there in the space between the walls. The soldiers wore tiger stripes and were watching anxiously westward. He had followed the palanquin instinctively, but now found himself in a bad place. The tunnel's thick teak doors were shut behind him, the air was foul and choking, and there was an enemy in front of him. He crouched beside the damp wall, trying to decide what he should do. He had four muskets, all but one loaded, but his spare cartridges were in the pocket of his red coat which, because it was still knotted around his neck, was hard to reach. He stood, propped the muskets against the curved wall, pulled the jacket right side out, and then shoved his arms into the tiger-torn sleeves. He was a redcoat again. He loaded the one empty musket, then crept toward the mouth of the tunnel.

And saw the Tippoo.

He saw the small gaudy man come running down the ramp from the outer walls. The Tippoo, surrounded by his bodyguard and aides, stopped beside the palanquin. Sharpe saw the Tippoo look back toward the fight, then shake his
head, and immediately an aide broke away from the group and ran toward the tunnel where Sharpe waited. The Tippoo gave one last glance westward, then followed.

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe cursed. The whole damned lot were coming for him, and he backed down the tunnel, cocked one of his muskets, and dropped to one knee.

The aide ran into the tunnel, shouting for the gate to be opened. Then he saw Sharpe in the gloom and his shout died away. He dragged a pistol from a green sash at his waist, but too late. Sharpe fired. The spark of the powder in the pan was unnaturally bright in the tunnel, and the noise of the musket was magnified to a deafening crash, but through the sudden smoke Sharpe saw the aide Hung backward. Sharpe seized a second loaded musket and just at that instant the door opened behind him. He turned, snarling, and the officer guarding the gate saw the red coat and, without thinking, just slammed the heavy, nail-studded teak doors shut again. Sharpe heard the locking bar being dropped into place.

The Tippoo's bodyguard ran toward the tunnel. Sharpe fired his second musket. He knew he could not fight them all, so now his best chance of surviving was to deter them from coming into the tunnel itself. Then, blessedly, a roar of musketry announced that he had help and, with the third musket in his hand, he edged forward through the dense smoke to see that the Tippoo's bodyguard had been distracted by a new enemy. Some British troops had found steps down to the space between the walls, and those troops were now attacking toward the Water Gate. The bodyguard retreated from the new attackers, unmasking the tunnel's entrance, and Sharpe ran toward the daylight. He crouched just inside the tunnel and saw that the Tippoo had been caught in the open. On one side was the palanquin, with its dubious chance of a lumbering escape, and on the other was the threatened Water Gate which led through the inner wall
to his horses. His bodyguard was firing and reloading, firing and reloading, while the Tippoo seemed frozen with indecision.

A cheer sounded to Sharpe's left. More muskets fired, then suddenly there were two redcoats taking cover in the inner tunnel. One saw Sharpe and whirled round with a leveled musket. “Whoa!” Sharpe shouted. “I'm on your bloody side!”

The man, wild-eyed and with his right cheek pitted by powder burns from the lock of his musket, turned back toward the enemy. “What regiment?” he called to Sharpe.

“Havercakes. You?”

“The Old Dozen.” The man fired, and immediately sidled hack to begin reloading the musket. “It stinks in here,” he said, ramming a fresh bullet down his barrel. More redcoats were occupying the Sultan Battery in the outer wall. They had no British flag to show their conquest of the huge bastion and so they ran a red jacket up the flagpole. The jacket had pale yellow facings, showing that it came from the King's 12th, a Kentish regiment. “That's ours!” the man beside Sharpe exulted, then seemed to gurgle. His eyes opened wide with astonishment, he gave Sharpe a puzzled, almost reproachful look, then slowly toppled backward into one of the fetid puddles. Blood seeped onto his pale yellow facings. Up on the outer wall a mass of tiger-striped men charged to recapture the Sultan Battery and their courage gave new heart to the defenders between the walls who gave a cheer and fired a ragged volley at the redcoats edging toward the Water Gate.

The dying redcoat shuddered. His companion fired, then swore. “Bastards!” He hesitated for a half-second, then broke out of the tunnel's shadow and sprinted back to the west, back toward the rest of his comrades who had been advancing toward the tunnel. The Tippoo had made up his
mind. He would ignore the palanquin and try to reach his horse, and so he had ordered his bodyguard to clear the tunnel's entrance. That bodyguard now charged, screaming, and Sharpe, knowing that he was trapped, splashed back into the inner Water Gate's lingering smoke. He stopped halfway, turned, and blasted the musket toward the mouth of the tunnel where he could see the leading men of the Tippoo's bodyguard silhouetted against the daylight. A man screamed. Sharpe had one loaded musket left.

Musket balls thumped into the teak doors beside him. He fired his last musket, then reloaded with a practiced, but desperate, haste. He was waiting for men to appear in the dense smoke of the tunnel, but none came. Sharpe knew he was going to die here, but be was bloodily determined that he would die in company. Let the bastards come. He was frightened, and in his fear he was crooning a mad tuneless song without words, but his fear did not stop him from loading a second musket. Still no one came to kill him and so he snatched up a third musket and bit the top off another cartridge.

The bodyguard had still not come into the tunnel. Sharpe, in his fear, had not heard the sound of battle growing at the end of the tunnel, but now, crouching and listening, he became aware of the shouts and volleys. The men of the 12th were pouring musket fire into the Tippoo's bodyguard and those men were staying close to their monarch and returning the fire. Redcoats attacked from the west and more fired from the Sultan Battery. The attempt to recapture the battery had failed, and a mix of sepoys and redcoats were now forcing their way along the outer northern wall. The ferocity of their fire had forced the Tippoo's bodyguard to crouch close about their monarch, and Sharpe had been given precious seconds in which to load his muskets. He had three charged guns now. Three bullets, and he wanted one of them
for the heathen bastard who had poured salt on his back, the bastard who wore a great ruby in his hat. He again crept forward through the smoke, willing the Tippoo to come into the tunnel.

But the Tippoo was once again fighting off the encroaching infidels. Allah had given him this last chance to kill redcoats, and so he was taking the jeweled hunting rifles from his aides and calmly shooting at the men who had so nearly captured the inner Water Gate. His aides were shouting at him to flee through the tunnel and find a horse, but the Tippoo had been granted this final moment of battle and it seemed to him that he could not miss with any of his shots, and with each redcoat thrown back he felt a fierce joy. Then a new rush of sepoys and redcoats burst along the outer wall and those men came swarming down the ramp by the outer Water Gate to add their muskets to those threatening the Tippoo's shrinking bodyguard.

And as those new enemies appeared, the Tippoo's charmed luck turned. One bullet struck his thigh and another punched his left arm to leave a splash of blood bright on the white linen sleeve. He staggered, but kept his balance. It seemed that not a man of his bodyguard was left unwounded, but a score of them still lived and could walk. In a moment, though, the enemy must triumph and the Tippoo knew it was time to bid his city farewell. “We go,” he told his relieved aides, and limped toward the tunnel. His left arm was numb, as though it had been hit by a giant hammer, but there was a horrid pain in his left leg.

A shot crashed out of the Water Gate's smoky gloom and the man leading the Tippoo's escape was snatched backward from the tunnel entrance with blood misting up from his shattered skull. Against the bright sunlight that glowed at the end of the tunnel the fine droplets of blood looked like powdered rubies. The man fell, screamed, and thrashed. The
Tippoo, stunned by the suddenness of the bodyguard's unexpected death, paused, and behind him a terrible roar sounded as the assaulting redcoats closed in on the mouth of the tunnel. The bodyguard turned back to face their attackers with fixed bayonets.

“Go, Your Majesty!” A wounded aide thrust a rifle into the Tippoo's hands, then dared to push his monarch into the tunnel. The Tippoo allowed himself to be pushed into the shadows, but stopped close to the mouth of the tunnel and from there he stared into the vaporous darkness. Was an enemy there? He could not see because of the smoke. Behind him were the harsh sounds of volleys and curses as his bodyguard died, and as they died their bodies were making a terrible barricade that protected the Tippoo, but what waited in front of him? He peered, reluctant to go forward into the slut-stinking gloom, but then the aide snatched at the Tippoo's elbow and dragged him deeper into the darkness. The few surviving bodyguards were defending the tunnel with bayonets, stabbing at the crazed redcoats who tried to scramble across the bloody pile of corpses.

“Open the gate!” the aide shouted, then he saw the shadow within the shadow at the end of the tunnel and he dropped to one knee and took aim with his jeweled rifle. He fired, and the golden tiger-mask doghead snapped forward onto the frizzen. Sharpe threw himself to one side just as the gun fired, heard the bullet snick the wall and ricochet into the teak door, then he saw the aide pull a long pistol from his sash. Sharpe fired first, the boom of his musket echoing in the tunnel like doom's thunder. The ball hurled the aide back into a deep pool, and suddenly there was only the Tippoo and Sharpe left.

Sharpe stood and grinned at the Tippoo. “Bastard,” he said, seeing the glint of light reflected from the ruby in his enemy's helmet. “Bastard,” he said again. He had one loaded
musket left. The Tippoo was holding a rifle. Sharpe stepped forward.

The Tippoo recognized the hard, bloody face in the gloom. He smiled. Fate was most strange, he thought. Why-had he not killed this man when he had the chance? Behind him his bodyguard was dying and the victorious redcoats were plundering their bodies, while in front of him was freedom and life, except for one man to whom the Tippoo had shown mercy. Just one man.

“Bastard,” Sharpe said again. He wanted to be close when he killed the Tippoo, close enough to make certain of the man's death.

Behind the Tippoo the bright daylight was dulled by the swirling gunsmoke where dying men gasped and victorious men looted. “Mercy is God's prerogative, not man's,” the Tippoo said in Persian, “and I should never have been merciful to you.” He aimed the rifle at Sharpe and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. In the panic of the last seconds the aide had handed the Tippoo an unloaded rifle and the flint had sparked on an empty pan. The Tippoo smiled, tossed the gun aside, and unsheathed his tiger-hilted sword. There was blood on his arm, and more on his chintz trousers, but he showed no fear, he even seemed to relish the moment. “How I do hate your cursed race,” he said calmly, giving the sword a cut through the smoky air.

Sharpe did not understand the Tippoo any more than the Tippoo understood Sharpe. “You're a fat little bastard,” Sharpe said, “and you took away my medal. I wanted that. It's the only medal I've ever got.”

The Tippoo just smiled. His helmet had been dipped in the fountain of life, but it had not worked. The magic had failed and only Allah was left. He waited for the snarling redcoat to shoot, then a shout sounded in the mouth of the
tunnel and the Tippoo turned, hoping that one last bodyguard would come to save him.

But no bodyguard appeared and the Tippoo turned back to face Sharpe. “I dreamed of death last night,” he said in Persian as he limped forward and raised the curved blade to strike at the redcoat. “I dreamed of monkeys, and monkeys mean death. I should have killed you.”