Sharpe's Tiger

by Bernard Cornwell

  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 towards the fight, then shake his head, and immediately an aide broke away from the group and ran towards the tunnel where Sharpe waited. The Tippoo gave one last glance westwards, 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 flung backwards. 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 towards 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 towards the Water Gate. The bodyguard retreated from the new attackers, unmasking the tunnel's entrance, and Sharpe ran towards 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 levelled 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 towards the enemy. 'What regiment?' he called to Sharpe.

  'Havercakes. You?'

  'The Old Dozen.' The man fired, and immediately sidled back 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 Suffolk 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 backwards into one of the foetid 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 towards 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 towards the rest of his comrades who had been advancing towards 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 towards 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 behind him. He fired his last musket, then reloaded with a practised, 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 he 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 me 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 jewelled 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 towards the tunnel. His left arm was numb, as though it had been hit by a giant hammer, and 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 backwards 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 shit-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 jewelled 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 gun smoke 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.'

  Sharpe fired. The bullet went higher than he intended. He had thought to put it through the Tippoo's heart, but instead it struck the King in the temple. For a second the Tippoo wavered. His head had been whipped back by the bullet's force and blood was soaking into his cloth-padded helmet, but he forced his head forward and stared into Sharpe's eyes. The sword fell from his nerveless hand, he seemed to smile a last time, then he just slumped down.

  The booming echo of the musket shot still battered Sharpe's ears so he was not aware that he was talking as he crouched beside the Tippoo. 'It's your ruby I want,' Sharpe said, 'that bloody great ruby. I wanted it from the very first moment I saw you. Colonel McCandless told me, he did, that it's wealth that makes the world turn and I want my share.' The Tippoo still lived, but he could not move. His expressionless eyes stared up at Sharpe, who thought the Tippoo was dead, but then the dying man blinked. 'Still here, are you?' Sharpe said. He patted the Tippoo's bloodied cheek. 'You're a brave fat bastard, I will say that for you.' He wrenched the huge ruby off the blood-spattered feather plume, then stripped the dying man of every jewel he could find. He took the pearls from the Tippoo's neck, twisted off an armlet bright with gems, tugged off the diamond rings and unlatched the silver-hung necklace of emeralds. He pulled on the Tippoo's sash to see if the dagger with the great diamond called the Moonstone in its hilt was there, but the sash held nothing except the sword scabbard. Sharpe took that, but left the tiger-hilted sword. He lifted the blade from a puddle of sewage and placed it in the Tippoo's hand. 'You can keep your sword,' he told the dying man, 'for you fought proper. Like a proper soldier.' He stood up and then, awkwardly, because of his burden of jewels and because he was suddenly conscious of the dying King's gaze, he saluted the Tippoo. 'Take your blade to paradise,' he said, 'and tell them you were killed by another proper soldier.'

  The Tippoo's eyes closed and he thought of the prayer that he had copied into his notebook that very morning. 'I am full of sin,' the Tippoo had written in his beautiful Arabic script, 'and Thou, Allah, art a sea of mercy. Where Thy mercy is, where is my sin?' That was a comfort. There was no pain now, not even in his leg, and that was a comfort too, but still he could not move. It was like one of the dreams he copied each morning into his dream-book and he wondered at how peaceful everything suddenly seemed, as peaceful as though he was floating on a gilded barge down a warm river beneath a blessed sun. This must be the way to paradise, he thought, and he welcomed it. Paradise.

  Sharpe felt a pang of sorrow for the dying man. He might have been a murderous enemy, but he was a brave one. The Tippoo had fallen with his right arm trapped beneath his body, and though Sharpe suspected there was another jewelled armlet on that hidden sleeve, he did not try to retrieve it. The Tippoo deserved to die in peace and, besides, Sharpe was rich enough already, for his pockets now held a king's ransom while a leather scabbard sewn with sapphires was hidden under his shabby coat, and so he picked up one of his empty muskets and splashed through the tunnel's bloody puddles towards the pile of dead that lay in the smoky sunlight. A sergeant of the 12th, startled by Sharpe's sudden appearance from the tunnel, snatched up his bayonet, then saw Sharpe's filthy red jacket and let the weapon fall. 'Anyone alive in there?' the Sergeant asked.

  'Just a fat little fellow dying,' Sharpe said as he climbed over the barrier of the dead.

  'Did he have any loot?'

  'Nothing,' Sharpe said, 'nothing worth the trouble. Place is full of shit, too.'

  The Sergeant frowned at Sharpe's unkempt dress and unpowdered hair. 'What regiment are you?'

  'Not yours,' Sharpe said curtly, and walked away through the crowds of celebrating redcoats and sepoys. Not all were celebrating. Some were massacring trapped enemies. The fight had been brief but nasty, and now the winners took a bloody revenge. On the far side of the inner wall Colonel Wellesley had brought his men into the streets and they now surrounded the palace to preserve it from plunder. The smaller streets were not so fortunate, and the first screams sounded as the sepoys and redcoats found their hungry way into the unprotected alleys. The Tippoo's men, those that still lived and had escaped their pursuers, fled eastwards while the Tippoo, left alone in the tunnel, lay dying.

  Sergeant Richard Sharpe slung the musket and walked around the base of the inner wall, seeking a passage into the city. He had only a few moments of freedom left before the army took him back into its iron grip, but he had won his victory and he had pockets full of stones to prove it. He went to find a drink.

  Next day it rained. It was not the monsoon, though it could have been, for the rain fell with a ferocity that matched the fury of the previous day's assault. The pelting warm rain washed the blood off the city's walls and scoured the hot season's filth out of its streets. The Cauvery swelled to fill its banks, rising so high that no man could have crossed the river in front of the breach. If the Tippoo's prayers had been answered and the British had waited one more day, then the floods would have defeated them.

  But there was no Tippoo in Seringapatam, only the Rajah, who had been restored to his palace where he was surrounded by red-coated guards. The palace, which had been protected f
rom the ravages of the assaulting troops, was now being stripped bare by the victorious officers. Rain drummed on the green-tiled roof and ran into the gutters and puddled in the courtyards as the red-coated officers sawed up the great tiger throne on which the Tippoo had never sat. They turned the handles of the tiger organ and laughed as the mechanical claw savaged the redcoat's face. They tugged down silk hangings, they prised gems out of furniture and marvelled at the simple, bare, white-painted room which had been the Tippoo's bedchamber. The six tigers, roaring because they had not been fed and because the rain fell so hard, were shot.

  The Tippoo's father, the great Hyder Ali, lay in a mausoleum east of the city and, when the rainstorm had stopped, and while the garden around the mausoleum was still steaming in the sudden sultry sunlight, the Tippoo was carried to rest beside his father. British troops lined the route and reversed their arms as the cortege passed. Muffled drums beat a slow tattoo as the Tippoo was borne on his sad last journey by his own defeated soldiers.

  Sharpe, with three bright white stripes newly sewn onto his faded red sleeve, waited close beside the domed mausoleum. 'I do wonder who killed him.' Colonel McCandless, restored to a clean uniform and with his hair neatly cut, had come to stand beside Sharpe.

  'Some lucky bastard, sir.'

  'A rich one by now, no doubt,' the Colonel said.

  'Good for him, sir,' Sharpe said, 'whoever he is.'

  'He'd only waste the plunder,' McCandless said severely. 'He'll fritter it on women and drink.'

  'Don't sound like a waste to me, sir.'

  McCandless grimaced at the Sergeant's levity. 'That ruby alone was worth ten years of a general's salary. Ten years!'

  'A shame it's vanished, sir,' Sharpe said guilelessly.

  'Isn't it, Sharpe?' McCandless agreed. 'But I hear you were at the Water Gate?'