Sharpe's Tiger

by Bernard Cornwell

  The twelve dead men were hidden in a makeshift grave.

  The troops marched back to their encampment while the Tippoo, being carried to the Inner Palace beneath the tiger-striped canopy of his palanquin, reflected that the sacrifice of the twelve prisoners had not been in vain for it had revealed the presence of enemies. Allah be thanked, he reflected, for his luck had surely turned.

  'You think Mrs. Bickerstaff has gone over to the enemy?' Lawford asked Sharpe for the third or fourth time.

  'She's gone to his bed,' Sharpe said bleakly, 'but I reckon she'll still help us.' Sharpe had washed both his and Lawford's tunics and now he patted the cloth to see if it had dried. Looking after kit in this army, he reflected, was a deal easier than in the British. There was no pipeclay here to be caked onto crossbelts and musket slings, no blackball to be used on boots and no grease and powder to be slathered on the hair. He decided the tunics were dry enough and tossed one to the Lieutenant, then pulled his own over his head, carefully freeing the gold medallion so that it hung on his chest. His tunic also boasted a red cord on his left shoulder, the Tippoo's insignia of a corporal. Lawford seemed to resent Sharpe bearing these marks of rank that were denied to him.

  'Suppose she betrays us?' Lawford asked.

  'Then we're in trouble,' Sharpe said brutally. 'But she won't. Mary's a good lass.'

  Lawford shrugged. 'She jilted you.'

  'Easy come, easy go,' Sharpe said, then belted the tunic. Like most of the Tippoo's soldiers he now went bare-legged beneath the knee-length garment, though Lawford insisted on keeping his old British trousers. Both men wore their old shakos, though George III's badge had been replaced by a tin tiger with an upraised paw. 'Listen,' Sharpe said to a still-worried Lawford, 'I've done what you asked, and the lass says she'll find this Ravi whatever his name is, and all we have to do now is wait. And if we get a chance to run, we run like buggery. You reckon that musket's ready for inspection?'

  'It's clean,' Lawford said defensively, hefting his big French firelock.

  'Christ, you'd be on a charge for that musket back in the proper army. Give it here.'

  Sergeant Rothiere's daily inspection was not for another half-hour, and after that the two men would be free until mid-afternoon when it would be the turn of Gudin's battalion to stand guard over the Mysore Gate. That guard duty ended at midnight, but Sharpe knew there would be no chance of an escape, for the Mysore Gate did not offer an exit from the Tippoo's territory, but rather led into the city's surrounding encampment which, in turn, had a strong perimeter guard. The previous night Sharpe had experimented to see whether his red cord and gold medallion would be authority enough for him to wander through the encampment, maybe allowing him to find a shadowed and quiet stretch of its earthworks over which he could scramble in the dark, but he had been intercepted within twenty yards of the gate and politely but firmly ushered back. The Tippoo, it seemed, was taking no chances.

  'I already had Wazzy clean that,' Lawford said, nodding at the musket in Sharpe's hands. Wazir was one of the small boys who hung around the barracks to earn pice for washing and cleaning equipment. 'I paid him,' Lawford said indignantly.

  'If you want a job done properly,' Sharpe said, 'you do it yourself. Hell!' He swore because he had pinched his finger on the musket's mainspring which he had uncovered by unscrewing the lock plate. 'Look at that rust!' He managed to unseat the mainspring without losing the trigger mechanism, then began to file the rust off the spring's edge. 'Bloody rubbish, these French muskets,' he grumbled. 'Nothing like a proper Birmingham bundook.'

  'Do you clean your own musket like that?' Lawford asked, impressed that Sharpe had unscrewed the lock plate.

  ''Course I do! Not that Hakeswill ever cares. He only looks at the outside.' Sharpe grinned. 'You remember that day you saved my skin with the flint? Hakeswill had changed it for a bit of stone, but I caught it before he could do any damage. He's a fly bastard, that one.'

  'He changed it?' Lawford seemed shocked.

  'Bloody snake, that Obadiah. How much did you pay Wazzy?'

  'An anna.'

  'He robbed you. You want to pass me that oil bottle?'

  Lawford obliged, then settled back against the stone water trough in which Sharpe had washed the tunics. He felt strangely content, despite the apparent failure of his mission. There was a pleasure in sharing this intimacy with Sharpe, indeed it felt oddly like a privilege. Many young officers were frightened of the men they commanded, fearing their scorn, and they concealed their apprehension with a display of careless arrogance. Lawford doubted he could ever do that now, for he no longer felt any fear of the crude, hard men who formed the ranks of Britain's army. Sharpe had cured him of that by teaching him that the crudity was unthinking and the hardness a disguise for conscientiousness. Not that every man was conscientious, any more than all Britain's soldiers were crude, but too many officers assumed they were all brutes and treated them as such. Now Lawford watched as Sharpe's capable fingers forced the cleaned mainspring back into its cavity, using his picklock as a lever.

  'Lieutenant?' a voice called respectfully across the yard. 'Lieutenant Lawford?'

  'Sir?' Lawford responded without thinking, turning towards the voice and rising to his feet. Then he realized what he had done and blanched.

  Sharpe swore.

  Colonel Gudin walked slowly across the yard, rubbing his long face as he approached the two Englishmen. 'Lieutenant William Lawford,' he enquired gently, 'of His Majesty's 33rd Regiment of Foot?'

  Lawford said nothing.

  Gudin shrugged. 'Officers are supposedly men of honour, Lieutenant. Are you going to continue to lie?'

  'No, sir,' Lawford said.

  Gudin sighed. 'So are you a commissioned officer or not?'

  'I am, sir.' Lawford sounded ashamed, though whether it was because he had been accused of dishonourable behaviour or because he had betrayed his true rank, Sharpe could not tell.

  'And you, Corporal Sharpe?' Gudin asked sadly.

  'I ain't an officer, Colonel.'

  'No,' Gudin said, 'I did not think you were. But are you a true deserter?'

  'Of course I am, sir!' Sharpe lied.

  Gudin smiled at Sharpe's confident tone. 'And you, Lieutenant,' he asked Lawford, 'are you truly a deserter?' Lawford made no reply and Gudin sighed. 'Answer me on your honour, Lieutenant, if you would be so kind.'

  'No, sir,' Lawford admitted. 'Nor is Private Sharpe, sir.'

  Gudin nodded. 'That is what the Sergeant said.'

  'The Sergeant, sir?' Lawford asked.

  Gudin grimaced. 'I fear the Tippoo executed the prisoners taken the other night. He spared just one, because that man told him of you.'

  'The bastard!' Sharpe said, throwing the musket down in disgust. Bloody Hakeswill! He swore again, far more viciously.

  'Sir?' Lawford said to Gudin, ignoring Sharpe's anger.

  'Lieutenant?' Gudin responded courteously.

  'We were captured by the Tippoo's men while wearing our red coats, sir. That means we should be protected as legitimate prisoners of war.'

  Gudin shook his head. 'It means nothing of the sort, Lieutenant, for you lied about your rank and your intentions.' He sounded disapproving. 'But I shall still plead for your lives.' Gudin sat on the water trough's edge and flapped a hand at a persistent fly. 'Will you tell me why you came here?'

  'No, sir,' Lawford said.

  'I suppose not, but I warn you that the Tippoo will want to know.' Gudin smiled at Sharpe. 'I had come to the conclusion, Sharpe, that you are one of the best soldiers I have ever had the pleasure to command. But only one thing worried me about you, and that was why a good soldier would desert from his allegiance, even if he had been flogged, but now I see you are a better man than I thought.' He frowned because Sharpe, while this elegant compliment was being paid, had lifted the back of his tunic and seemed to be scratching his bottom.

  'Sorry, sir,' Sharpe said, noticing the Colonel's distaste and dropping his tunic's hem.
<
br />   'I'm sorry to be losing you, Sharpe,' Gudin went on. 'I'm afraid there is an escort waiting for you outside the barracks. You're to be taken to the palace.' Gudin paused, but must have decided there was nothing he could add that might ameliorate the implied threat of his words. Instead he turned and snapped his fingers to bring a disapproving Sergeant Rothiere into the courtyard. Rothiere carried their red coats and Sharpe's white trousers. 'They may help a little,' Gudin said, though without any real hope in his voice. The Colonel watched as they discarded their newly cleaned tunics and pulled on their red coats. 'About your woman,' he said to Sharpe, then hesitated.

  'She had nothing to do with this, sir,' Sharpe said hurriedly as he pulled on the trousers. He buttoned his old jacket and the red coat felt strangely confining after the looser tunic. 'On my honour, sir. And besides,' he added, 'she gave me the push.'

  'Twice unlucky, Sharpe. Bad in a soldier, that.' Gudin smiled and reached out a hand. 'Your muskets, gentlemen, if you please.'

  Sharpe handed over both guns. 'Sir?'

  'Private Sharpe?'

  Sharpe reddened and became awkward. 'It was an honour to serve you, sir. I mean that. I wish we had more like you in our army.'

  'Thank you, Sharpe,' Gudin gravely acknowledged the compliment. 'Of course,' he added, 'if you tell me now that your experiences here have changed your loyalties and that you would truly like to continue serving the Tippoo, then you might be spared whatever is in store for you. I think I could persuade His Majesty of your change of heart, but you'd need to tell me why you came here in the first place.'

  Lawford stiffened as this offer was made to Sharpe. Sharpe hesitated, then shook his head. 'No, sir,' he said. 'I reckon I'm a proper redcoat.'

  Gudin had expected the reply. 'Good for you, Sharpe. And by the way, Private, you might as well hang the medallion around your neck. They'll find it anyway.'

  'Yes, sir.' Sharpe retrieved the gold from his trouser pocket where he had optimistically concealed it, and looped the chain over his head.

  Gudin stood and gestured towards the barracks room. 'This way, gentlemen.'

  That was the end of the pleasantries.

  And Sharpe suspected it would be the last pleasantry for a very long time.

  For now they were the Tippoo's prisoners.

  Appah Rao had Mary fetched to a room off the courtyard of his house. Kunwar Singh was waiting there, but Mary was frightened and dared not look at Kunwar Singh for fear of seeing a hint of bad news on his handsome face. Mary had no particular reason to expect bad news, but she was ever wary, and something about Appah Rao's stiff demeanour told her that her presentiments were justified. 'Your companions,' Appah Rao told her when the servant had closed the door behind her, 'have been arrested. Lieutenant Lawford and Private Sharpe, the one you say is your brother.'

  'My half-brother, sir,' Mary whispered.

  'If you say so,' Appah Rao conceded. Kunwar Singh spoke a little English, though not enough to follow the conversation, which was why Appah Rao had chosen to question Mary in that language even though his mastery of it was uncertain. Appah Rao doubted whether Sharpe and Mary were related, but he liked the girl nevertheless and he approved of her as Kunwar Singh's bride. The gods alone knew what the future would bring to Mysore, but it was likely that the British would be involved, and if Kunwar Singh had a wife who spoke English there would be an advantage for him. Besides, Appah Rao's wife Lakshmi was convinced that the girl was a good modest creature and that her past, like the past of Kunwar Singh's family, was best forgotten. 'Why did they come here?' the General asked.

  'I don't know, sir.'

  Appah Rao took a pistol from his belt and began loading it. Both Mary and Kunwar Singh watched with alarm as the General carefully measured powder from a silver horn into the pistol's chased barrel. 'Aruna,' he said, using the name Mary had taken from her mother, 'let me tell you what will happen to Lieutenant Lawford and Private Sharpe.' He paused to tap the horn's spout against the pistol's muzzle to shake loose the last specks of powder. 'The Tippoo will have them questioned and doubtless the questioning will be painful. In the end, Aruna, they will confess. All men do. Maybe they will live, maybe not, I cannot tell.' He looked up at her, then pushed a scrap of wadding into the pistol. 'The Tippoo,' he went on as he selected a bullet from the pistol's wooden case, 'will want to know two things. First, why they came here, and, second, whether they were told to make contact with any person inside the city. Do you understand me?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  The General placed the bullet in the barrel, then pulled out the pistol's short ramrod. 'They're going to tell him, Aruna. However brave they are, they will talk in the end. Of course'—he paused as he rammed the bullet hard down—'the Tippoo might remember your existence. And if he does, Aruna, then he will send for you and you will be questioned too, but not so gently as I am questioning you now.'

  'No, sir,' Mary whispered.

  Appah Rao slotted the short ramrod back in its hoops. He primed the gun, but did not cock it. 'I want no harm to come to you, Aruna, so tell me why the two men came to Seringapatam.'

  Mary stared at the pistol in the General's hand. It was a beautiful weapon with a butt inlaid with ivory and a barrel chased with silver whorls. Then she looked up into the General's eyes and saw that he had no intention of shooting her. She did not see threat in those eyes, just fear, and it was that fear which decided her to tell the truth. 'They came, sir,' she said, 'because they had to reach a man called McCandless.'

  It was the answer Rao had feared. 'And did they?'

  'No, sir.'

  'So what did they find out?' Rao asked, laying the pistol down on the table. 'What did they find out?' he asked in a harder voice.

  'Private Sharpe told me that the British shouldn't attack in the west, sir,' Mary said, forgetting to describe Sharpe as her brother. 'That's all he said, honestly, sir.'

  'All?' Rao asked. 'Surely not. Why would he tell you that? Did he think you could get the news out of the city?'

  Mary stared down at the pistol. 'I was to find a man, sir,' she said at last.

  'Who?'

  She looked up at the General, fear in her eyes. 'A merchant, sir, called Ravi Shekhar.'

  'Anyone else?'

  'No, sir! Truly.'

  Rao believed her, and felt a wash of relief. His greatest fear was that Sharpe and Lawford might have been given his own name, for although Colonel McCandless had promised to keep Rao's treachery a secret Rao could not be certain that the promise had been kept. McCandless himself had not been questioned under torture, for the Tippoo seemed convinced that the elderly Colonel 'Ross' had indeed been foraging when he had been captured, but Rao still felt the threat of discovery moving insidiously closer. Lawford and Sharpe could not identify Rao himself as a traitor, but they very well might identify McCandless and then the Tippoo's jettis would turn their attentions to the elderly Scotsman, and how long would he endure their merciless treatment? The General wondered if he should make a dash from the city to the British lines, but rejected the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. Such an escape might secure Appah Rao's own safety, but it would sacrifice his large family and all the faithful servants who were in his employment. No, he decided, this dangerous game must be seen to its finish. He pushed the pistol closer to Mary. 'Take it,' he ordered her.

  Mary looked astonished. 'The pistol, sir?'

  'Take it! Now listen, girl. Ravi Shekhar is dead and his body was fed to the tigers. It's possible the Tippoo will forget you even existed, but if he remembers then you might need that pistol.' Appah Rao wondered if he could smuggle the girl clean out of the city. It was a tempting thought, but every civilian was stopped at the gates and had to produce a pass stamped by the Tippoo himself, and very few received that pass. A soldier might succeed in escaping the city, but not a civilian. Appah Rao gazed into Mary's dark eyes. 'I am told that placing it in your mouth and pointing it slightly upwards is the most effective.' Mary shuddered and the General nodded to
Kunwar Singh. 'I give her to your care,' he said.

  Kunwar Singh bowed his head.

  Mary went back to the women's quarters while Appah Rao made an offering at his household shrine. He lingered there, thinking how he envied the certainty of men like the Tippoo or Colonel McCandless. Neither man seemed to have any doubts, but rather believed that destiny was whatever they themselves made of it. They were not subject to other men's wills and Appah Rao would have liked such certainty for himself. He would have liked to live in a Mysore ruled by its ancient Hindu house, and a Mysore in which no other nations intruded: no British, no French, no Mahrattas and no Muslims, but instead he found himself caught between two armies and somehow he had to keep his wife, his children, his servants and himself alive. He closed his eyes, touched his hands to his forehead, and bowed to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god who guarded Appah Rao's household. 'Just keep us alive,' he prayed to the god, 'just keep us alive.'

  The Tippoo himself came to the courtyard where the tigers had been restored to their long chains. Four infantrymen guarded the two Englishmen. The Tippoo did not come in state, with chamberlains and courtiers, but was accompanied by only one officer and two jettis who watched impassively as the Tippoo strode to Sharpe and tugged the medallion from around his neck. He pulled so hard that the chain cut into the back of Sharpe's neck before it snapped. Then the Tippoo spat into Sharpe's face and turned away.

  The officer was a suave young Muslim who spoke good English. 'His Majesty,' he said when the Tippoo turned back to face the prisoners, 'wishes to know why you came to the city.'

  Lawford stiffened. 'I am an officer in His Britannic Majesty's . . .' he began, but the Indian cut him off with a gesture.

  'Quiet!' the officer said wearily. 'You are nothing except what we make you. So why are you here?'

  'Why do you think?' Sharpe said.

  The officer looked at him. 'I think,' he said judiciously, 'that you came here to spy.'