Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 1: Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, Sharpe’s Fortress - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 16

Sharpe was near to exhausted despair by the time he reached the city. The lancers had driven the three fugitives westwards at an unrelenting pace, but had offered none of them a saddle, and so the three had walked and by the time he stumbled through the ford that took them south across the Cauvery to the island on which Seringapatam was built Sharpe’s back burned like a sheet of fire. The city itself still lay a mile to the west, but the whole island had been ringed with new earthworks inside which thousands of refugees were gathered. The refugees had brought their livestock, obedient to the Tippoo’s orders that all food stocks should be denied to the slowly advancing British army. A half-mile from the city wall a second earthwork had been thrown up to protect a sprawling encampment of thatched, mud-brick barracks in which thousands of the Tippoo’s infantry and cavalry lived. None of the troops was idle. Some were drilling, others were heightening the mud wall around the encampment and still more were firing their muskets at targets of straw men propped against the city’s stone wall. The straw men were all dressed in makeshift red coats and Lawford watched aghast as the muskets knocked the targets over or else exploded great chunks from their straw-stuffed torsos. The soldiers’ families lived inside the encampment and the women and children flocked to see the two white men pass. They assumed Sharpe and Lawford were prisoners and some jeered as they went by and others laughed when Sharpe staggered in pain.

‘Keep going, Sharpe,’ Lawford said encouragingly.

‘Call me Dick, for Christ’s sake,’ Sharpe snapped.

‘Keep going, Dick,’ Lawford managed to say, albeit angrily for having been reproved by the Private.

‘Not far now,’ Mary said in Sharpe’s ear. She was helping Sharpe walk, though at times, when the jeering became raucous, she clung to Sharpe for support. Ahead of them were the city walls and Lawford, seeing them, wondered how anyone could hope to blast through such massive works. The great ramparts were limewashed so that they seemed to shine in the sun, and Lawford could see cannon muzzles showing in every embrasure. Cavaliers, jutting out like small square bastions, had been built everywhere along the face of the wall so that yet more guns could be brought to bear on any attacker. Above the walls, on which the Tippoo’s flags stirred in the small warm wind, the twin white minarets of the city’s mosque towered in the sunlight. Beyond the minarets Lawford could see the intricate tower of a Hindu temple, its stone layers elaborately carved and gorgeously painted, while just north of the temple there shone the gleaming green tiles of what Lawford supposed was the Tippoo’s palace. The city was all much bigger and grander than Lawford had expected, while the white-painted wall was higher and stronger than he had ever feared. He had expected a mud wall, but as he drew closer to the ramparts he could see that these eastern walls were made from massive stone blocks that would need to be chipped away by the siege guns if a breach were ever to be made. In places, where the wall had been damaged by previous sieges, there were patches where the stone had been repaired by brickwork, but nowhere did the wall look weak. It was true that the city had not had time to build itself a modern European type of defence with star-shaped walls and outlying forts and awkward bastions and confusing ravelins, but even so the place looked dauntingly strong, and even now vast ant-like gangs of labourers, some of them naked in the heat, were carrying baskets of deep-red earth on their backs and piling the soil to heighten the glacis that lay directly in front of the lime-washed walls. The growing earthen glacis, that was separated from the walls by a ditch that could be flooded with river water, was designed to deflect the besiegers’ shots up and over the ramparts. Lawford consoled himself that Lord Cornwallis had managed to smash into this formidable city seven years before, but the heightening of the glacis demonstrated that the Tippoo had learned from that defeat and suggested that General Harris would not find it nearly so easy.

The lancers ducked their spired helmets as they clattered through the tunnel of the city’s Bangalore Gate and so led the fugitives into the stinking tangle of crowded streets. The spears forged the lancers’ path, driving civilians aside and forcing wagons and handcarts into hasty retreats up any convenient alley. Even the sacred cows that wandered freely inside the city were forced aside, though the lancers did it gently, not wanting to offend the sensibilities of the Hindus. They passed the mosque, then turned down a street lined with shops, their open fronts thickly hung with cloth, silk, silver jewellery, vegetables, shoes and hides. In one alley Lawford caught a glimpse of bloodsoaked men butchering two camels and the sight almost made him gag. A naked child hurled a bloody camel’s tail at the two white men, and soon a horde of tattered, chanting children were dodging through the lancers’ horses to mock the prisoners and pelt them with animal dung. Sharpe cursed them, Lawford hunched low as he walked, and the children only ran away when two European soldiers, both dressed in blue jackets, chased them away. ‘Prisonniers?’ one of the two men called cheerfully.

‘Non, monsieur,’ Lawford answered in his best schoolboy French. ‘Nous sommes déserteurs.’

‘C’est bon!’ The man tossed Lawford a mango. ‘La femme aussi?’

‘La femme est notre prisonniére.’ Lawford tried a little wit and was rewarded with a laugh and a farewell shout of bonne chance.

‘You speak French?’ Sharpe asked.

‘A little,’ Lawford claimed modestly. ‘Really only a little.’

‘Bloody amazing,’ Sharpe said and Lawford was obscurely pleased that he had at last succeeded in impressing his companion. ‘But not many private soldiers speak Frog,’ Sharpe dashed Lawford’s pleasure, ‘so don’t show yourself as being too good at it. Stick to bloody English.’

‘I didn’t think of that,’ Lawford said ruefully. He looked at the mango as though he had never seen such a piece of fruit before, and it was plain that his hunger was tempting him to bite into the sweet flesh, but then his manners prevailed and he gallantly insisted that Mary eat the fruit instead.

The lancers turned into a delicately sculpted archway where two sentries stood guard. Once inside the archway the cavalrymen slid down from their saddles and, lances in hand, led their horses down a narrow passage between two high brick walls. Sharpe, Mary and Lawford were more or less abandoned just inside the gateway where the two sentries ignored them, but did chase away the more curious townsfolk who had gathered to stare at the Europeans. Sharpe sat on a mounting block and tried to ignore the pain in his back. Then the lancer officer returned and shouted at them to follow him. He led them through another arch, then under an arcade where flowers twined round pillars, and so to a guardroom. The officer said something to Mary, then locked the door. ‘He says we’re to wait,’ Mary said. She still had the mango, and though the lancers had stripped Sharpe and Lawford of their coats and packs and had searched the two men for coins and hidden weapons, they had not searched Mary and she took a small folding penknife from an inside pocket of her skirt and cut the fruit into three portions. Lawford ate his share, then wiped juice from his chin. ‘Did you ever get that picklock, Sharpe?’ he asked, saw Sharpe’s furious glare, and coloured. ‘Dick,’ he corrected himself.

‘Had it all along,’ Sharpe said. ‘Mary’s got it. And she’s got the guinea.’ He grinned despite his pain.

‘You mean you lied to General Baird?’ Lawford asked sternly.

‘’Course I bloody lied!’ Sharpe snarled. ‘What kind of a fool admits to having a picklock?’

For a moment Lawford looked as though he would reprove Sharpe for dishonesty, but the Lieutenant controlled the urge. He merely shook his head in mute disapproval, then sat with his back against the bare brick wall. The floor was made of small green tiles on which Sharpe lay on his belly. In minutes he was asleep. Mary sat beside him, sometimes stroking his hair and Lawford found himself embarrassed by her display of affection. He felt he ought to talk with Mary, but found he had nothing to say and so decided it was better not to speak in case he woke Sharpe. He waited. Somewhere deep in the palace a fountain splashed. Once there was a great clatter of hooves as cavalrymen led their horses out from the inner stables, but most of the time it was quiet in the room. It was also blessedly cool.

Sharpe woke after dark. He groaned as the pains in his back registered and Mary hushed him. ‘What time is it, love?’ Sharpe asked her.

‘Late.’

‘Jesus,’ Sharpe said as a stab of agony tore down his spine. He sat up, whimpering with the effort, and tried to prop himself against the wall. A wan moonlight came through the small barred window and Mary, in its dim light, could see the bloodstains spreading through the bandages and onto Sharpe’s shirt. ‘Have they forgotten us?’ Sharpe asked.

‘No,’ Mary said. ‘They brought us some water while you were asleep. Here.’ She lifted the jug towards him. ‘And they gave us a bucket.’ She gestured across the dim cell. ‘For …’ she faltered.

‘I can smell what the bucket’s for,’ Sharpe said. He took the jug and drank. Lawford was slumped against the far wall and there was a small open book face down on the floor beside the sleeping Lieutenant. Sharpe grimaced. ‘Glad the bugger’s brought something useful,’ he said to Mary.

‘You mean this?’ Lawford said, indicating the book. He had not been asleep after all.

Sharpe wished he had not used the insult, but did not know how to retrieve it. ‘What is it?’ he asked instead.

‘A Bible.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Sharpe said.

‘You don’t approve?’ Lawford asked icily.

‘I had a bellyful of the good book when I was in the foundlings’ home,’ Sharpe said. ‘If they weren’t reading it to us they were hitting us round the head with it, and it wasn’t some little book like that one, but a bloody great big thick thing. Could have stunned an ox, that Bible.’

‘Did they teach you to read it?’ Lawford asked.

‘We weren’t reckoned good enough to read. Good enough to pick hemp, we were, but not read. No, they just read it to us at breakfast. It was the same every morning: cold porridge, tin of water and an earful of Abraham and Isaac.’

‘So you can’t read?’ Lawford asked.

‘Of course I can’t read!’ Sharpe laughed scornfully. ‘What the bloody hell’s the use of reading?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Dick,’ Lawford said patiently. ‘Only a fool takes pride in pretending that a skill he doesn’t possess is worthless.’ For a second Lawford was tempted to launch himself on a panegyric of reading; how it would open a new world to Sharpe, a world of drama and story and information and poetry and timeless wisdom, then he thought better of it. ‘You want your sergeant’s stripes, don’t you?’ he asked instead.

‘A man doesn’t have to read to be a sergeant,’ Sharpe said stubbornly.

‘No, but it helps, and you’ll be a better sergeant if you can read. Otherwise the company clerks tell you what the reports say, and what the lists say, and what the punishment book says, and the quartermasters will rob you blind. But if you can read then you’ll know when they’re lying to you.’

There was a long silence. Somewhere in the palace a sentry’s footsteps echoed off stone, then came a sound so familiar that it almost made Lawford weep for homesickness. It was a clock striking the hour. Twelve o’clock. Midnight. ‘Is it hard?’ Sharpe finally asked.

‘Learning to read?’ Lawford said. ‘Not really.’

‘Then you and Mary had better teach me, Bill, hadn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Lawford said. ‘Yes. We had.’

They were taken out of the guardroom in the morning. Four tiger-striped soldiers fetched them and pushed them down the arcade, then into a narrow corridor that seemed to run beside the kitchens, and afterwards through a shadowed tangle of stables and storerooms that led to a double gate which opened into a large courtyard where the bright sun made them blink. Then Sharpe’s eyes adjusted to the brilliant daylight and he saw what waited for them in the courtyard, and he swore. There were six tigers, all of them huge beasts with yellow eyes and dirty teeth. The animals stared at the three newcomers, then one of the tigers rose, arched its back, shook himself, and slowly padded towards them. ‘Jesus Christ!’ Sharpe said, but just then the tiger’s chain lifted from the dusty ground, stretched taut, and the tiger, cheated of its breakfast, growled and went back to the shadows. Another beast scratched itself, a third yawned. ‘Look at the size of the bastards!’ Sharpe said.

‘Just big pussy cats,’ Lawford said with an insouciance he did not entirely feel.

‘Then you go and scratch their chins,’ Sharpe said, ‘and see if they purr. Bugger off, you.’ This was to another curious beast that was straining towards him from the end of its chain. ‘Need a big mouse to feed one of those bastards.’

‘The tigers can’t reach you.’ A voice spoke in English from behind them. ‘Unless their keepers release them from their chains. Good morning.’ Sharpe turned. A tall, middle-aged officer with a black moustache had come into the courtyard. He was a European and wore the blue uniform of France. ‘I am Colonel Gudin,’ the officer said, ‘and you are?’

For a moment none of them spoke, then Lawford straightened to attention. ‘William Lawford, sir.’

‘His name’s Bill,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’m called Dick, and this is my woman.’ He put an arm round Mary’s shoulder.

Gudin grimaced as he looked at Mary’s swollen black eye and her filthy skirts. ‘You have a name’ – he paused – ‘Mademoiselle?’ He finally decided that was the most appropriate way to address Mary.

‘Mary, sir.’ She made a small curtsey and Gudin returned the courtesy with an inclination of his head. ‘And your name?’ he asked Sharpe.

‘Sharpe, sir. Dick Sharpe.’

‘And you are deserters?’ the Colonel asked with a measure of distaste.

‘Yes, sir,’ Lawford said.

‘I am never certain that deserters are to be trusted,’ Gudin said mildly. He was accompanied by a burly French sergeant who kept giving the tigers nervous glances. ‘If a man can betray one flag,’ Gudin observed, ‘why not another?’

‘A man might have good reason to betray his flag, sir,’ Sharpe said defiantly.

‘And your reason, Sharpe?’

Sharpe turned round so that the blood on his back was visible. He let Gudin stare at the stains, then turned back. ‘Is that good enough, sir?’

Gudin shuddered. ‘I never understand why the British flog their soldiers. It is barbarism.’ He waved irritably at the flies which buzzed about his face. ‘Sheer barbarism.’

‘You don’t flog in the French army, sir?’

‘Of course not,’ Gudin said scornfully. He put a hand on Sharpe’s shoulder and turned him around again. ‘When was this done to you?’

‘Couple of days ago, sir.’

‘Have you changed the bandages?’

‘No, sir. Wetted them, though.’

‘You’ll still be dead in a week unless we do something,’ Gudin said, then turned and spoke to the sergeant who walked briskly out of the courtyard. Gudin turned Sharpe around again. ‘So what had you done to deserve such barbarism, Private Sharpe?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Beyond nothing,’ Gudin said tiredly, as though he had heard every excuse imaginable.

‘I hit a sergeant, sir.’

‘And you?’ Gudin challenged Lawford. ‘Why did you run?’

‘They were going to flog me, sir.’ Lawford was nervous telling the lie, and the nervousness intrigued Gudin.

‘For doing nothing?’ Gudin asked with amusement.

‘For stealing a watch, sir.’ Lawford reddened as he spoke. ‘Which I did steal,’ he added, but most unconvincingly. He had made no effort to hide the accent that betrayed his education, though whether Gudin’s ear was sufficiently attuned to English to detect the nuance was another matter.

The Frenchman was certainly intrigued by Lawford. ‘What did you say your name was?’ the Colonel asked.

‘Lawford, sir.’

Gudin gave Lawford a long scrutiny. The Frenchman was tall and thin, with a lugubrious and tired face, but his eyes, Sharpe decided, were shrewd and kind. Gudin, Sharpe reckoned, was a gentleman, a proper type of officer. Like Lawford, really, and maybe that was the trouble. Maybe Gudin had already seen through Lawford’s disguise. ‘You do not seem to me, Private Lawford, to be a typical British soldier,’ Gudin said, thus fulfilling Sharpe’s fears. ‘In France, now, you would be nothing strange for we must insist that every young man serve his country, but in Britain, am I not right, you only accept the dregs of the streets? Men from the gutter?’

‘Men like me,’ Sharpe said.

‘Quiet,’ Gudin reproved Sharpe with a sudden authority. ‘I did not speak to you.’ The Frenchman took one of Lawford’s hands and mutely inspected the soft uncalloused fingers. ‘How is it that you are in the army, Lawford?’

‘Father went bankrupt, sir,’ Lawford said, conjuring the worst disaster that he could ever imagine.

‘But the son of a bankrupt father can take employment, can he not?’ Gudin looked again at the soft fingers, then released Lawford’s hand. ‘And any job, surely, is better than the life of a British soldier?’

‘I got drunk, sir,’ Lawford said miserably, ‘and I met a recruiting sergeant.’ The Lieutenant’s misery was not at the imagined memory, but at the difficulty he was having in telling the lie, but his demeanour impressed Gudin. ‘It was in a pub, sir, in Sheffield,’ Lawford went on. ‘The Hawse in the Lake, sir. In Sheffield, sir. In Pond Lane, sir, on market day.’ His voice tailed away as he suddenly realized he did not know which day of the week the market was held.

‘In Sheffield?’ Gudin asked. ‘Is that not where they make iron? And – what is the word? – cutlery! You don’t look like a cutler, Lawford.’

‘I was a lawyer’s apprentice, sir.’ Lawford was blushing violently. He knew he had mixed up the name of the pub, though it was doubtful that Colonel Gudin would ever know the difference, but the Lieutenant was certain his lies were as transparent as a pane of glass.

‘And your job in the army?’ Gudin asked.

‘Company clerk, sir.’

Gudin smiled. ‘No ink on your breeches, Lawford! In our army the clerks spatter ink everywhere.’

For a moment it seemed as though Lawford was about to abandon his lie and, in his misery, confess the whole truth to the Frenchman, but then the Lieutenant had a sudden inspiration. ‘I wear an apron, sir, when I’m writing. I don’t want to be punished for a dirty uniform, sir.’

Gudin laughed. In truth he had never doubted Lawford’s story, mistaking the Lieutenant’s embarrassment for shame at his family’s bankruptcy. If anything, the Frenchman felt sorry for the tall, fair-haired and fastidious young man who should plainly never have become a soldier, and that, to Gudin, was enough to explain Lawford’s nervousness. ‘You’re a clerk, eh? So does that mean you see paperwork?’

‘A lot, sir.’

‘So do you know how many guns the British are bringing here?’ Gudin asked. ‘How much ammunition?’

Lawford shook his head in consternation. For a few seconds he was speechless, then managed to say that he never saw that sort of paperwork. ‘It’s just company papers I see, sir. Punishment books, that sort of thing.’

‘Bloody thousands,’ Sharpe interjected. ‘Beg pardon for speaking, sir.’

‘Thousands of what?’ Gudin asked.

‘Bullocks, sir. Six eighteen-pounder shot strapped on apiece, sir, and some of the buggers have got eight. But it’s thousands of round shot.’

‘Two thousand? Three?’ Gudin asked.

‘More than that, sir. I ain’t seen a herd the size of it, not even when the Scots drive the beeves down from Scotland to London.’

Gudin shrugged. He very much doubted whether these two could tell him anything useful, certainly nothing that the Tippoo’s scouts and spies had not already discovered, but the questions had to be asked. Now, waving flies from his face, he told the two deserters what they might expect. ‘His Majesty the Tippoo Sultan will decide your fate, and if he is merciful he will want you to serve in his forces. I assume you are willing?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sharpe said eagerly. ‘It’s why we came, sir.’

‘Good,’ Gudin said. ‘The Tippoo might want you in one of his own cushoons. That’s the word they use for a regiment here, a cushoon. They’re all good soldiers and well trained, and you’ll be made welcome, but there is one disadvantage. You will both have to be circumcised.’

Lawford went pale, while Sharpe just shrugged. ‘Is that bad, sir?’

‘You know what circumcision is, Private?’

‘Something the army does to you, sir? Like swear you in?’

Gudin smiled. ‘Not quite, Sharpe. The Tippoo is a Muslim and he likes his foreign volunteers to join his religion. It means one of his holy men will cut your foreskin off. It’s quite quick, just like slicing the top from a soft-boiled egg, really.’

‘My prick?’ Sharpe was as aghast as Lawford now.

‘It’s over in seconds,’ Gudin reassured them, ‘though the bleeding can last for a while and you cannot, how shall I say … ?’ He glanced at Mary, then back to Sharpe. ‘You can’t let the egg become hard boiled for a few weeks.’

‘Bloody hell, sir!’ Sharpe said. ‘For religion? They do that?’

‘We Christians sprinkle babies with water,’ Gudin said, ‘and the Muslims chop off foreskins.’ The Frenchman paused, then smiled. ‘However, I cannot think that a man with a bleeding prick will make a good soldier, and your armies will be here in a few days, so I will suggest to His Majesty that the two of you serve with my men. We are few, but none of us are Muslims, and all of our soft-boiled eggs retain their full shells.’

‘Quite right too, sir,’ Sharpe said enthusiastically. ‘And it’ll be an honour to serve you, sir,’ he added.

‘In a French battalion?’ Gudin teased him.

‘If you don’t flog, sir, and you don’t carve up pricks, then it’ll be more than an honour.’

‘If the Tippoo allows it,’ Gudin warned them, ‘which he may not. But I think he might. I have other Britishers in the battalion, and some Germans and Swiss. I’m sure you will be happy there.’ He looked at Mary. ‘But what of you, Mademoiselle?’

Mary touched Sharpe’s elbow. ‘I came with Richard, sir.’

Gudin inspected her black eye. ‘How did that happen, Mademoiselle?’

‘I fell, sir,’ Mary said.

Gudin’s face flickered with a smile. ‘Or did Private Sharpe hit you? So that you would not appear attractive?’

‘I fell over, sir.’

Gudin nodded. ‘You hit hard, Private Sharpe.’

‘No point else, sir.’

‘That is true,’ Gudin said, then shrugged. ‘My men have their women. If His Majesty allows it I don’t see why the two of you should not stay together.’ He turned as his sergeant reappeared, bringing with him an elderly Indian who carried a cloth-covered basket. ‘This is Doctor Venkatesh,’ Gudin said, greeting the doctor with a bow, ‘and he is quite as good as any physician I ever found in Paris. I imagine, Sharpe, that removing those filthy bandages will hurt?’

‘Not as much as circumscribing, sir.’

Gudin laughed. ‘All the same, I think you had better sit down.’

Removing the bandages hurt like buggery. Mister Micklewhite, the surgeon, had put a salve on the lashes, but no army surgeon ever wasted too much precious ointment on a common soldier, and Micklewhite had not used enough salve to stop the bandages from crusting to the wounds and so the cloth had become one clotted mass of linen and dried blood that tore the scabs away from the wounds as the Indian peeled the bandages away. Doctor Venkatesh was indeed skilful and gentle and his voice was ever soothing in Sharpe’s ear as he delicately prised the horrid mess away from the torn flesh, but even so Sharpe could not forbear from whimpering as the bandages were lifted. The tigers, smelling fresh blood, lunged at their chains so that the courtyard was filled with the clank and snap of stretching links.

The Indian doctor plainly disapproved of both the injury and the treatment. He tutted and muttered and shook his head as the carnage was revealed. Then, when he had picked the last filthy scrap of bandage away with a pair of ivory tweezers, he poured an unguent over Sharpe’s back and the cool liquid was wonderfully soothing. Sharpe sighed with relief, then suddenly the doctor sprang away from him, stood, clasped his hands and bowed low.

Sharpe twisted round to see that a group of Indians had come into the courtyard. At their head was a shortish plump man, maybe fifty years old, with a round face and a neatly trimmed black moustache. He was dressed in a white silk tunic above white silk leggings and black leather boots, but the simple clothes glittered with jewels. He wore rubies on his turban, diamond-studded bangles on his arms, and pearls were sewn onto his blue silk sash from which there hung a sapphire-studded scabbard in which rested a sword with a golden hilt fashioned into the face of a snarling tiger. Doctor Venkatesh backed hurriedly away, still bowing, while Gudin stood respectfully at attention. ‘The Tippoo!’ Gudin warned Sharpe and Lawford in a whisper, and Sharpe struggled to his feet and, like the Frenchman, stood to attention.

The Tippoo stopped a half-dozen paces short of Sharpe and Lawford. He stared at them for a few seconds, then spoke softly to his interpreter. ‘Turn round,’ the interpreter ordered Sharpe.

Sharpe obediently turned, showing his back to the Tippoo, who, fascinated by the open wounds, stepped close so he could inspect the damage. Sharpe could feel the Tippoo’s breath on the back of his neck, he could smell the man’s subtle perfume, and then he felt a spider soft touch as the Tippoo fingered a strip of hanging skin.

Then a sudden pain like the blow of a red-hot poker slammed through Sharpe. He almost cried aloud, but instead he stiffened and flinched. The Tippoo had thrust the tiger hilt of his sword against the deepest wound to see Sharpe’s reaction. He ordered Sharpe to turn around and peered up to see whether there were any tears showing. Tears were pricking at Sharpe’s eyes, but none spilt onto his cheeks.

The Tippoo nodded approval and stepped back. ‘So tell me about them,’ he ordered Gudin.

‘Ordinary deserters,’ Gudin said in French to the interpreter. ‘That one’ – he indicated Sharpe – ‘is a tough soldier who’d probably be a credit to any army. The other one’s just a clerk.’

Lawford tried not to show his disapproval of the judgement. The Tippoo glanced at him, saw nothing to interest him, and looked at Mary instead. ‘The woman?’ he asked Gudin.

‘She’s with the tall one,’ Gudin said, again indicating Sharpe, then waited as the interpreter turned his answer into Persian.

The Tippoo gave Mary a brief inspection. She was slouching, trying to accentuate her drab, bruised and dirty appearance, but when she saw his pensive gaze she became flustered and tried to make a curtsey. The Tippoo seemed amused by the gesture, then looked back to Gudin. ‘So what do they know of the British plans?’ he asked, gesturing at Lawford and Sharpe.

‘Nothing.’

‘They say they know nothing,’ the Tippoo corrected Gudin. ‘And they’re not spies?’

Gudin shrugged. ‘How can one tell? But I think not.’

‘I think we can tell,’ the Tippoo said. ‘And I think we can discover what kind of soldiers they are too.’ He turned and rapped some orders to an aide, who bowed, then ran out of the courtyard.

The aide returned with a pair of hunting muskets. The long-barrelled weapons were like no guns Sharpe had ever seen, for their stocks were crusted with jewels and inlaid with a delicate ivory filigree. The jewelled butts had an extravagant flair at their shoulder pieces and the two guns’ trigger guards were rimmed with small rubies. The dogheads that held the flints had been fashioned into tiger heads with diamonds for the tigers’ eyes. The Tippoo took the guns, made sure their flints were properly seated within the tiger jaws, then tossed one gun to Lawford and the other to Sharpe. The aide then placed a pot filled with black powder on the ground and beside it a pair of musket balls that Sharpe could have sworn were made of silver. ‘Load the guns,’ the interpreter said.

A British soldier, like any other, learned to load with a paper cartridge, but there was no mystery about using naked powder and ball. Plainly the Tippoo wished to see how proficient the two men were and, while Lawford hesitated, Sharpe stooped to the pot and took out a handful of powder. He straightened up and let the black powder trickle down the gun’s chased barrel. The powder was extraordinarily fine and a fair bit blew away on the small wind, but he had enough to spare and, once the charge was safe inside the barrel, he stooped again, picked up the bullet, shoved it into the muzzle and scraped the ramrod out of its three golden hoops. He twirled the ramrod, let it slide through his hand onto the bullet and then slammed the missile hard down onto the powder charge. The Tippoo had provided no wadding, but Sharpe guessed it did not matter. He pulled the ramrod out, reversed it and let it fall into the precious loops beneath the long barrel. Then he stooped again, took a pinch of powder, primed the gun, closed the frizzen and stood to attention with the gun’s jewelled butt grounded beside him. ‘Sir!’ he said, signifying he was done.

Lawford was still trying to trickle powder into the muzzle. The Lieutenant was just as proficient at loading a gun as Sharpe, but being an officer he was never required to do it quickly, for that was the one indispensable skill of a private soldier. Lawford only loaded guns while hunting, but in the army he had a servant who loaded his pistols and never in his life had he needed to be quick with a gun and now he demonstrated a lamentable slowness. ‘He was a clerk, sir,’ Sharpe explained to Gudin. He paused to lick the powder residue off his fingers. ‘He never needed to fight, like.’

The interpreter translated the words for the Tippoo who waited patiently as Lawford finished loading the musket. The Tippoo, like his entourage, was amused at the Englishman’s slowness, but Sharpe’s explanation that Lawford had been a clerk seemed to convince them. Lawford at last finished and, very self-consciously, stood to attention.

‘You can evidently load,’ the Tippoo said to Sharpe, ‘but can you shoot?’

‘Aye, sir,’ Sharpe answered the interpreter.

The Tippoo pointed over Sharpe’s shoulder. ‘Then shoot him.’

Sharpe and Lawford both turned to see an elderly British officer being escorted through the courtyard’s gate. The man was weak and pale, and he stumbled as the bright sunlight struck his eyes. He cuffed with a manacled hand at his face, then looked up and recognized Lawford. For a second an expression of disbelief crossed his face, then he managed to hide whatever emotion he was feeling. The officer was white-haired and dressed in a kilt and red jacket, both garments stained with dust and damp, and Sharpe, horrified to see a British officer so dishevelled and humiliated, presumed this had to be Colonel McCandless.

‘You can’t shoot …’ Lawford began.

‘Shut up, Bill,’ Sharpe said and brought the musket up to his shoulder and swung its muzzle to face the horrified Scots officer.

‘Wait!’ Gudin shouted, then spoke urgently to the Tippoo. The Tippoo laughed away Gudin’s protest. Instead he had his interpreter ask Sharpe what he thought about British officers.

‘Scum, sir,’ Sharpe said loudly enough for Colonel McCandless to hear. ‘Goddamn bloody scum, sir. Think they’re better than us because the bastards can read and were born with a bit of money, but there ain’t one I couldn’t beat in a fight.’

‘You are willing to shoot that one?’ the interpreter asked.

‘I’d pay for the chance,’ Sharpe said vengefully. Lawford hissed at him, but Sharpe ignored the warning. ‘Pay for it,’ he said again.

‘His Majesty would like you to do it very close,’ the interpreter said. ‘He wants you to blow the man’s head off.’

‘It’ll be a bloody pleasure,’ Sharpe said enthusiastically. He cocked the gun as he walked towards the man he presumed he had been sent to save. He stared at McCandless as he approached and there was nothing but brute pleasure on Sharpe’s hard face. ‘Stuck-up Scotch bastard,’ Sharpe spat at him. He looked at the two guards who still flanked the Colonel. ‘Move out the way, you stupid sods, else you’ll be smothered in the bastard’s blood.’ The two men stared blankly at him, but neither moved and Sharpe guessed that neither man spoke any English. Doctor Venkatesh, who had been trying to hide in the gateway’s shadows, shook his head in horror at what was about to happen.

Sharpe raised the musket so that its muzzle was no more than six inches from McCandless’s face. ‘Any message for General Harris?’ he asked softly.

McCandless again hid his reaction, other than sparing one glance at Lawford. Then he looked back to Sharpe and spat at him. ‘Attack anywhere but from the west,’ the Scotsman said quietly, and then, much louder, ‘May God forgive you.’

‘Bugger God,’ Sharpe said, then pulled the trigger. The flint fell, it snapped its spark on the frizzen and nothing else happened. McCandless’s face jerked back as the flint sparked, then an expression of pure relief crossed his face. Sharpe hesitated a second, then drove the gun’s muzzle into the Colonel’s belly. The blow looked hard, but he checked it at the last moment. McCandless still doubled over, gasping, and Sharpe raised the jewelled butt to bring it hard down on the officer’s grey head.

‘Stop!’ Gudin shouted.

Sharpe paused and turned. ‘I thought you wanted the bugger dead.’

The Tippoo laughed. ‘We need him alive for a while. But you passed your test.’ He turned and spoke to Gudin, and Gudin answered vigorously. It seemed to Sharpe that they were discussing his fate, and he prayed he would be spared a painful initiation into one of the Tippoo’s cushoons. Another Indian officer, a tall man in a silk tunic decorated with the Tippoo’s tiger stripes, was talking to Mary while Sharpe still stood above the crouching McCandless.

‘Did Harris send you?’ McCandless asked softly.

‘Yes,’ Sharpe hissed, not looking at the Colonel. Mary was shaking her head. She glanced at Sharpe, then looked back to the tall Indian.

‘Beware the west,’ McCandless whispered. ‘Nothing else.’ The Scotsman groaned, pretending to be in much more pain than he was. He retched dryly, tried to stand and instead toppled over. ‘You’re a traitor,’ he said loudly enough for Gudin to hear him, ‘and you’ll die a traitor’s death.’

Sharpe spat on McCandless. ‘Come here, Sharpe!’ Gudin, disapproval plain in his voice, ordered him.

Sharpe marched back to Lawford’s side where one of the Tippoo’s attendants took back the two muskets. The Tippoo gestured at McCandless’s guards, evidently signifying that the Scotsman was to be returned to his cell. The Tippoo then gave Sharpe an approving nod before turning and leading his entourage out of the courtyard. The tall Indian in the silk tiger stripes beckoned to Mary.

‘I’m to go with him, love,’ she explained to Sharpe.

‘I thought you were staying with me!’ Sharpe protested.

‘I’m to earn my keep,’ she said. ‘I’m to teach his little sons English. And sweep and wash, of course,’ she added bitterly.

Colonel Gudin intervened. ‘She will join you later,’ he told Sharpe. ‘But for now you are both, how do you say it? On test?’

‘Probation, sir?’ Lawford offered.

‘Exactly,’ Gudin said. ‘And soldiers on probation are not permitted wives. Don’t worry, Sharpe. I’m sure your woman will be safe in General Rao’s house. Now go, Mademoiselle.’

Mary stood on tiptoe and kissed Sharpe’s cheek. ‘I’ll be all right, love,’ she whispered, ‘and so will you.’

‘Look after yourself, lass,’ Sharpe said, and watched her follow the tall Indian officer out of the courtyard.

Gudin gestured towards the archway. ‘We must let Doctor Venkatesh finish your back, Sharpe, then give you both new uniforms and muskets. Welcome to the Tippoo Sultan’s army, gentlemen. You earn a haideri each every day.’

‘Good money!’ Sharpe said, impressed. A haideri was worth half a crown, far above the miserable tuppence a day he received in the British army.

‘But doubtless in arrears,’ Lawford said sarcastically. He was still angry at Sharpe for having tried to shoot McCandless, and the musket’s misfire had not placated him.

‘The pay is always in arrears,’ Gudin admitted cheerfully, ‘but in what army is the pay ever on time? Officially you earn a haideri a day, though you will rarely receive it, but I can promise you other consolations. Now come.’ He summoned Doctor Venkatesh who retrieved his basket and followed Gudin out of the palace.

Thus Sharpe went to meet his new comrades and readied himself to face a new enemy. His own side.

General David Baird did not feel guilty about Sharpe and Lawford, for they were soldiers and were paid to take risks, but he did feel responsible for them. The fact that neither the British nor Indian cavalry patrols had discovered the two men suggested that they might well have reached Seringapatam, but the more Baird thought about their mission the less sanguine he was about its successful completion. It had seemed a good idea when he had first thought of it, but two days’ reflection had diluted that initial hope with a score of reservations. He had always suspected that even with the help of Ravi Shekhar their chances of rescuing McCandless were woefully small, but at the very least he had hoped they might learn McCandless’s news and succeed in bringing it out of the city, but now he feared that neither man would even survive. At best, he thought, the two men could only hope to escape execution by joining the Tippoo’s forces, which would mean that both Sharpe and Lawford would be in enemy uniform when the British assaulted the city. There was little Baird could do about that, but he could prevent a dreadful miscarriage of justice following the city’s fall, and so that night, when the two armies’ great encampment was established just a few days’ march from their goal, Baird sought out the lines of the 33rd.

Major Shee seemed alarmed at the General’s sudden appearance, but Baird soothed the Major and explained he had a little business with the Light Company. ‘Nothing to trouble you, Major. Just an administrative matter. A triviality.’

‘I’ll take you to Captain Morris, sir,’ Shee said, then clapped on his hat and led the General down the line of officers’ tents. ‘It’s the end one, sir,’ he said nervously. ‘Do you need me at all?’

‘I wouldn’t waste your time, Shee, on trifles, but I’m obliged for your help, though.’

Baird found a shirt-sleeved Captain Morris frowning at his paperwork in the company of an oddly malevolent-looking sergeant who, at the General’s unannounced arrival, sprang to quivering attention. Morris hastily placed his cocked hat over a tin mug that Baird suspected was full of arrack. ‘Captain Morris?’ the General asked.

‘Sir!’ Morris upset his chair as he stood up, then he plucked his red coat off the floor where it had fallen with the chair.

Baird waved to show that Morris need not worry about donning a coat. ‘There’s no need for formality, Captain. Leave your coat off, man, leave it off. It’s desperately hot, isn’t it?’

‘Unbearable, sir,’ Morris said nervously.

‘I’m Baird,’ Baird introduced himself. ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure?’

‘No, sir.’ Morris was too nervous to introduce himself properly.

‘Sit you down, man,’ Baird said, trying to put the Captain at his ease. ‘Sit you down. May I?’ Baird gestured at Morris’s cot, asking permission to use it as a chair. ‘Thank you kindly,’ Baird said, then he sat, took off his plumed hat and fanned his face with its brim. ‘I think I’ve forgotten what cold weather is like. Do you think it still snows anywhere? My God, but it saps a man, this heat. Saps him. Do relax, Sergeant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Sergeant Hakeswill’s stiff posture unbent a fraction.

Baird smiled at Morris. ‘You lost two men this week, Captain, did you not?’

‘Two men?’ Morris frowned. That bastard Sharpe had run, taking his bibbi with him, but who else? ‘Oh!’ Morris said. ‘You mean Lieutenant Lawford, sir?’

‘The very fellow. A lucky fellow too, eh? Carrying the despatch to Madras. It’s quite an honour for him.’ Baird shook his head ruefully. ‘Myself, I’m not so certain that little scrap the other day was worth a despatch, but General Harris insisted and your Colonel chose Lawford.’ Baird was using the excuse the army had invented to explain Lawford’s disappearance. The excuse had provoked some resentment in the 33rd for Lawford was one of the most junior of the battalion’s lieutenants and most men who carried despatches could expect a promotion as a reward for the task which, in turn, was usually only given to men who had distinguished themselves in battle. It seemed to Morris, as to every other officer in the battalion, that Lawford had neither distinguished himself nor deserved promotion, but Morris could hardly admit as much to Baird.

‘Very glad for him,’ Morris managed to say.

‘Found a replacement, have you?’ Baird asked.

‘Ensign Fitzgerald, sir,’ Morris said. ‘Lieutenant Fitzgerald now, sir, by brevet, of course.’ Morris managed to sound disapproving. He would have much preferred Ensign Hicks to have received the temporary promotion, but Hicks did not have the hundred and fifty pounds needed to purchase up from ensign to lieutenant, whereas Fitzgerald did, and if Lawford’s reward for carrying the despatches was a promotion to captain then Fitzgerald must replace him. In Morris’s opinion the newly breveted Lieutenant was altogether too easy with the men, but a money draft was a money draft, and Fitzgerald was the monied candidate and so had been given the temporary rank.

‘And the other fellow you lost?’ Baird asked, trying hard to sound casual. ‘The private? In the book, is he?’

‘He’s in the book all right, sir.’ The Sergeant answered for Morris. ‘Hakeswill, sir,’ he introduced himself. ‘Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, sir, man and boy in the army, sir, and at your command, sir.’

‘What was the rogue’s name?’ Baird asked Morris.

‘Sharpe, sir.’ Hakeswill again answered. ‘Richard Sharpe, sir, and as filthy horrible a little piece of work as ever I did see, sir, in all my born days, sir.’

‘The book?’ Baird asked Morris, ignoring Hakeswill’s judgement.

Morris frantically searched the mess on his desk for the Punishment Book, at the back of which were kept the army’s official forms for deserters. Hakeswill eventually found it, and, with a crisp gesture, handed it to the General. ‘Sir!’

Baird leafed through the front pages, finally discovering the entry for Sharpe’s court martial. ‘Two thousand strokes!’ the Scotsman said in horror. ‘It must have been a grave offence?’

‘Struck a sergeant, sir!’ Hakeswill announced.

‘You, perhaps?’ Baird asked drily, noting the Sergeant’s swollen and bruised nose.

‘Without any provocation, sir,’ Hakeswill said earnestly. ‘As God is my judge, sir, I never treated young Dick Sharpe with anything but kindness. Like one of my own children he was, sir, if I had any children, which I don’t, at least not so as I knows of. He was a very lucky man, sir, to be let off at two hundred lashes, and you see how he rewards us?’ Hakeswill sniffed indignantly.

Baird did not respond, but just turned to the last page of the book where he found the name Richard Sharpe filled in at the top of the printed form, and beneath it Sharpe’s age which was given as twenty-two years and six months, though Captain Morris, if indeed it had been Morris who had filled in the form, had placed a question mark beside the age. Sharpe’s height was reported at six feet, only four inches less than Baird himself who was one of the tallest men in the army. ‘Make or Form’ was the next question, to which Morris had answered ‘well built’, and there followed a list of headings: Head, Face, Eyes, Eyebrows, Nose, Mouth, Neck, Hair, Shoulders, Arms, Hands, Thighs, Legs, and Feet. Morris had filled them all in, thus offering a comprehensive description of the missing man. ‘Where Born?’ was answered simply by ‘London’, while besides ‘Former Trade or Occupation’ was written ‘Thief’. The form then gave the date and place of desertion and offered a description of the clothes the deserter had been wearing when last seen. The final item on the form was ‘General Remarks’, beside which Morris had written ‘Back scarred from flogging. A dangerous man.’ Baird shook his head. ‘A formidable description, Captain,’ the General said.

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘It’s been distributed?’

‘Tomorrow, sir.’ Morris blushed. The form should have been copied out four times. One copy went to the General commanding the army, who would have it copied again and distributed to every unit under his command. A second copy would go to Madras in case Sharpe ran there. A third copy went to the War Office in London to be copied again and given to all recruiting officers in case the man succeeded in reaching Britain and tried to rejoin the army, while the last copy was supposedly sent to the man’s home parish to alert his neighbours to his treachery and the local constables to his crime. In Sharpe’s case, there was no home parish, but once Morris caught up with his paperwork and the company clerk had made the necessary copies, Sharpe’s description would be broadcast throughout the army. If Sharpe was then found in Seringapatam, which Baird suspected he would be, he was supposed to be arrested, but it was far more likely that he would be killed. Most soldiers resented deserters, not because of their crime, but because they had dared to do what so many others never had the courage to try, and no officer would punish a man for killing a deserter.

Baird put the open book onto Morris’s table. ‘I want you to add a note under “General Remarks’,’ Baird told the Captain.

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Just say that it is vital that Private Sharpe be taken alive. And that if he is captured he must be brought either to me or to General Harris.’

Morris gaped at Baird. ‘You, sir?’

‘Baird, B-A-I-R-D. Major General.’

‘Yes, sir, but …’ Morris had been about to ask what possible business a major general had with a deserter, then realized that such a question would never fetch a civil answer, so he just dipped a quill in ink and hurriedly added the words Baird had requested. ‘You think we might see Sharpe again, sir?’ he asked.

‘I do hope so, Captain.’ Baird stood. ‘I even pray as much. Now may I thank you for your hospitality?’

‘Yes, sir, of course, sir.’ Morris half stood as the General left, then dropped back onto his chair and stared at the words he had just written. ‘What in God’s name is all that about?’ he asked when Baird was safely out of earshot.

Hakeswill sniffed. ‘No good, sir, I’ll warrant that.’

Morris uncovered the arrack and took a sip. ‘First the bastard is summoned to Harris’s tent, then he runs, and now Baird says we’ll see him again and wants him kept alive! Why?’

‘He’s up to no good, sir,’ Hakeswill said. ‘He took his woman and vanished, sir. Ain’t no general who can condone that behaviour, sir. It’s unforgivable, sir. The army’s going to the dogs, sir.’

‘I can’t disobey Baird,’ Morris muttered.

‘But you don’t wants Sharpie back here either, sir,’ Hakeswill said fervently. ‘A soldier who’s a general’s pet? He’ll be given a sergeant’s stripes next!’ The thought of such an affront struck Hakeswill momentarily speechless. His face quivered with indignation, then, with a visible effort, he controlled himself. ‘Who knows, sir,’ he suggested slyly, ‘but the little bastard might be reporting on you and me, sir, like the traitor what he is. We don’t need snakes in our bosoms, sir. We don’t want to disturb the happy mood of the company, not by harbouring a general’s pet, sir.’

‘General’s pet?’ Morris repeated softly. The Captain was a venal man and, though no worse than many, he nevertheless dreaded official scrutiny, but he was far too lazy to correct the malfeasances half concealed in the closely penned columns of the pay books. Worse, Morris feared that Sharpe could somehow reveal his complicity in the false charge that had resulted in Sharpe’s flogging, and though it seemed impossible for a mere private to carry that much weight in the army, so it seemed equally impossible that a major general should make a special errand to discuss that private. There was something very odd going on, and Morris disliked strange threats. He merely asked for the quiet life, and he wanted Sharpe out of it. ‘But I can’t leave those words off the form,’ he complained to Hakeswill, gesturing at the new addition on Sharpe’s page.

‘Don’t need to, sir. With respect, sir. Ain’t no form being distributed here, sir, not in the 33rd, sir. Don’t need a form, do we? We knows what the bugger looks like, we does, so they won’t give us no form, sir. They never do, sir. So I’ll let it be known that if anyone sees Sharpie they’re to oblige the army by putting a goolie in his back.’ Hakeswill saw Morris’s nervousness. ‘Won’t be no fuss, sir, not if the bugger’s in Seringapatam and we’re pulling the bloody place to pieces. Kill him quick, sir, and that’s more than he deserves. He’s up to no good, sir, I can feel it in my waters, and a bugger up to no good is a bugger better off dead. Says so in the scriptures, sir.’

‘I’m sure it does, Sergeant, I’m sure it does,’ Morris said, then closed the Punishment Book. ‘You must do whatever you think is best, Sergeant. I know I can trust you.’

‘You do me honour, sir,’ Hakeswill said with feigned emotion. ‘You do me honour. And I’ll have the bastard for you, sir, have him proper dead.’

In Seringapatam.

‘What in God’s name did you think you were doing, Sharpe?’ Lawford demanded furiously. The Lieutenant was much too angry to go along with the pretence of being a private, and, besides, the two men were now alone for the first time that day. Alone, but not unguarded, for though they were standing sentry in one of the south wall cavaliers there were a dozen men of Gudin’s battalion within sight, including the burly Sergeant, called Rothière, who watched the two newcomers from the next cavalier along. ‘By God, Private,’ Lawford hissed, ‘I’ll have you flogged for that display when we’re back! We’re here to rescue Colonel McCandless, not to kill him! Are you mad?’

Sharpe stared south across the landscape, saying nothing. To his right the shallow river flowed between shelving green banks. Once the monsoon came the river would swell and spread and drown the wide flat rocks that dotted its bed. He was feeling more comfortable now, for Doctor Venkatesh had placed some salve on his back which had taken away a lot of the pain. The doctor had then put on new bandages and warned Sharpe that they must not be dampened, but ought to be changed each day until the wounds healed.

Colonel Gudin had then taken the two Englishmen to a barracks room close by the city’s south-western corner. Every man in the barracks was a European, most of them French, but with a scattering of Swiss, Germans and two Britishers. They all wore the blue coats of French infantry, but there were none to spare for the two new men, and so Sergeant Rothière had issued Sharpe and Lawford with tiger tunics like those the Tippoo’s men wore. The tunics did not open down the front like a European coat, but had to be pulled over the head. ‘Where you boys from?’ an English voice asked Sharpe as he pulled down the dyed cotton tunic.

‘33rd,’ Sharpe had said.

‘The Havercakes?’ the man said. ‘Thought they were up north, in Calcutta?’

‘Brought down to Madras last year,’ Sharpe said. He gingerly sat on his cot, an Indian bed made from ropes stretched between a simple wooden frame. It proved surprisingly comfortable. ‘And you?’ he asked the Englishman.

‘Royal bleeding Artillery, mate, both of us. Ran three months back. Name’s Johnny Blake and that’s Henry Hickson.’

‘I’m Dick Sharpe and that’s Bill Lawford,’ Sharpe said, introducing the Lieutenant who looked desperately awkward in his knee-length tunic of purple and white stripes. Over the tunic he wore two crossbelts and an ordinary belt from which hung a bayonet and a cartridge pouch. They had been issued with heavy French muskets and warned they would have to do their share of sentry duty with the rest of the small battalion.

‘Used to be a lot more of us,’ Blake told Sharpe, ‘but men die here like flies. Fever mostly.’

‘But it ain’t bad here,’ Henry Hickson offered. ‘Food’s all right. Plenty of bibbis and Gudin’s a real decent officer. Better than any we ever had.’

‘Right bastards we had,’ Blake agreed.

‘Aren’t they all?’ Sharpe had said.

‘And the pay’s good, when you get it. Five months overdue now, but maybe we’ll get it when we beat the stuffing out of the British.’ Blake laughed at the suggestion.

Blake and Hickson were not required to stand guard, but instead manned one of the big tiger-mouthed guns that crouched behind a nearby embrasure. Sharpe and Lawford stood their watch alone and it was that privacy which had encouraged Lawford into his furious attack. ‘Have you got nothing to say for yourself, Private?’ he challenged Sharpe who still stared serenely over the green landscape through which the river curled south about the city’s island. ‘Well?’ Lawford snapped.

Sharpe looked at him. ‘You loaded the musket, didn’t you, Bill?’

‘Of course!’

‘You ever felt gunpowder that smooth and fine?’ Sharpe gazed into the Lieutenant’s face.

‘It could have been gunpowder dust!’ Lawford insisted angrily.

‘That shiny?’ Sharpe said derisively. ‘Gunpowder dust is full of rat shit and sawdust! And did you really think, Bill’ – he pronounced the name sarcastically – ‘that the bleeding Tippoo would let us have loaded guns before he was sure he could trust us? And with him standing not six feet away? And did you bother to taste the powder? I did, and it weren’t salty at all. That weren’t gunpowder, Lieutenant, that were either ink powder or black pigment, but whatever it was it was never going to spark.’

Lawford gaped at Sharpe. ‘So you knew all along the gun wouldn’t fire?’

‘Of course I bloody knew! I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger else. You mean you didn’t realize that weren’t powder?’

Lawford turned away. Once again he had been made to look like a fool and he blushed at the realization. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He was crestfallen, and again he felt a galling sense of inadequacy compared to this common soldier.

Sharpe stared at a patrol of the Tippoo’s lancers who were riding back towards the city. Three of them were wounded and were being supported in their saddles by their comrades, which suggested the British were not so very far away now. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said very softly, and deliberately using the word ‘sir’ to mollify Lawford, ‘but I’m not trying to be insolent. I’m just trying to keep you and me alive.’

‘I know. I’m sorry too. I should have known it wasn’t powder.’

‘It was confusing, weren’t it?’ Sharpe said, trying to console his companion. ‘What with the Tippoo being there. Fat little bugger, ain’t he? But you’re doing all right, sir.’ Sharpe spoke feelingly, knowing that the young Lieutenant desperately needed encouragement. ‘And you were clever as hell, sir, saying you wore an apron. I should have splashed some ink on your uniform, shouldn’t I? But I never thought of it, but you got us out of that one.’

‘I was thinking of Private Brookfield,’ Lawford said, not without some pride at the memory of his inspired lie. ‘You know Brookfield?’

‘The clerk of Mister Stanbridge’s company, sir? Fellow who wears spectacles? Does he wear a pinny?’

‘He says it keeps the ink off him.’

‘He always was an old woman,’ Sharpe said scornfully, ‘but you did well. And I’ll tell you something else. We have to get out of here soon because I know why we came now. We don’t have to find your merchant fellow, we just have to get out. Unless you think we ought to rescue your uncle, but if you don’t, then we can just run, because I know why we came now.’

Lawford gaped at him. ‘You know?’

‘The Colonel spoke to me, sir, while we was going through that pantomime back there in the palace. He says we’re to tell General Harris to avoid the west wall. Nothing else, just that.’

Lawford stared at Sharpe, then glanced across the angle of the city walls towards the western defences, but nothing he could see there looked strange or suspicious. ‘You’d better stop calling me “sir”,’ he said. ‘Are you sure about what he said?’

‘He said it twice. Avoid the west wall.’

A bellow from the next cavalier made them turn. Rothière was pointing south, suggesting that the two Englishmen watch that direction as they were supposed to instead of gaping like yokels towards the west. Sharpe obediently stared southwards, though there was nothing to be seen there except some women carrying loads on their heads and a thin naked boy herding some scrawny cattle along the river bank. His duty now, Sharpe thought, was to escape this place and get back to the British army, but how in God’s name was he ever to do that? If he were to jump off the wall now, Sharpe reckoned, he would stand a half-chance of breaking a leg, and even if he survived the jump he would only land in the glacis ditch, and if he managed to cross the glacis he would merely reach the military encampment that was built hard around the city’s southern and eastern walls, and if he was lucky enough to escape the hundreds of soldiers who would converge on him, he would still need to cross the river, and meanwhile every gun on the encampment wall would be hammering at his heels, and once he had crossed the river, if he ever did, the Tippoo’s lancers would be waiting on the far bank. The sheer impossibility of escaping the city made him smile. ‘God knows how we ever get out of here,’ he said to Lawford.

‘Maybe at night?’ Lawford suggested vaguely.

‘If they ever let us stand guard at night,’ Sharpe said dubiously, then thought of Mary. Could he leave her in the city?

‘So what do we do?’ Lawford asked.

‘What we always do in the army,’ Sharpe said stoically. ‘Hurry up and do nothing. Wait for the opportunity. It’ll come, it’ll come. And in the meantime, maybe we can find out just what the devils are doing in the west of the city, eh?’

Lawford shuddered. ‘I’m glad I brought you, Sharpe.’

‘You are?’ Sharpe grinned at that compliment. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ll be glad. When you take me back home to the army.’ And suddenly, after weeks of thinking about desertion, Sharpe realized that what he had just said was true. He did want to go back to the army, and that knowledge surprised him. The army had bored Richard Sharpe, then done its best to break his spirits. It had even flogged him, but now, standing on Seringapatam’s battlements, he missed the army.

For at heart, as Richard Sharpe had just discovered for himself, he was a soldier.