Sharpe's Tiger

by Bernard Cornwell

  Sharpe tipped the canteen again. 'And where was Mister Lawford?' he asked bitterly.

  'You heard, son. He was called off to see the General.' Green hesitated. 'But what could he have said anyway?' he added.

  Sharpe leaned his head against the box-built wall. 'He could have said that Morris is a lying bastard and that Hicks will say anything to please him.'

  'No, he couldn't say that, lad, and you know it.' Green filled a clay pipe with tobacco and lit it with his tinderbox. He sat on the ground opposite Sharpe and saw the fear in the younger man's eyes. Sharpe was doing his best to hide it, but it was plainly there and so it should be, for only a fool did not fear two thousand lashes and only a lucky man came away alive. No man had ever actually walked away from such a punishment, but a handful had recovered after a month in the sick tent. 'Your Mary's all right,' Green told Sharpe.

  Sharpe gave a sullen grimace. 'You know what Hakeswill told me? That he was going to sell her as a whore.'

  Green frowned. 'He won't, lad. He won't.'

  'And how will you stop him?' Sharpe asked bitterly.

  'She's being looked after now,' Green reassured him. 'The lads are making sure of that, and the women are all protecting her.'

  'But for how long?' Sharpe asked. He drank more of the rum which seemed to be having no effect that he could sense. He momentarily closed his eyes. He knew he had been given an effective death sentence, but there was always hope. Some men had survived. Their ribs might have been bared to the sun and their skin and flesh be hanging from their backs in bloody ribbons, yet they had lived, but how was he to look after Mary when he was bandaged in a bed? If he was even lucky enough to reach a sickbed instead of a grave. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, not for the punishment he faced, but for Mary. 'How long can they protect her?' he asked gruffly, cursing himself for being so near to weeping.

  'I tell you she'll be all right,' Green insisted.

  'You don't know Hakeswill,' Sharpe said.

  'Oh, but I do, lad, I do,' Green said feelingly, then paused. For a second or two he looked embarrassed, then glanced up at Sharpe. 'The bastard can't touch her if she's married. Married proper, I mean, with the Colonel's blessing.'

  'That's what I thought.'

  Green drew on the pipe. 'If the worst does happen, Sharpie . . .' he said, then stopped in embarrassment again.

  'Aye?' Sharpe prompted him.

  'Not that it will, of course,' Green said hurriedly. 'Billy Nixon survived a couple of thousand tickles, but you probably don't remember him, do you? Little fellow, with a walleye. He survived all right. He was never quite the same afterwards, of course, but you're a tough lad, Sharpie. Tougher than Billy.'

  'But if the worst does happen?' Sharpe reminded the Sergeant.

  'Well,' Green said, colouring, but then at last he summoned the courage to say what he had come to say. 'I mean if it don't offend you, lad, and only if the worst does happen, which of course it won't, and I pray it won't, but if it does then I thought I might ask for Mrs. Bickerstaff's hand myself, if you follow my meaning.'

  Sharpe almost laughed, but then the thought of two thousand lashes choked off even the beginnings of a smile. Two thousand! He had seen men with backs looking like offal after just a hundred lashes and how the hell was he to survive with another nineteen hundred strokes on top of that? Such survival really depended on the battalion surgeon. If Mister Micklewhite thought Sharpe was dying after five or six hundred lashes he might stop the punishment to give his back time to heal before the rest of the lashes were given, but Micklewhite was not known for stopping whippings. The rumour in the battalion was that so long as the man did not scream like a baby and thus disturb the more squeamish of the officers, the surgeon would keep the blows coming, even if they were falling onto a dead man's spine. That was the rumour, and Sharpe could only hope it was not true.

  'Did you hear me, Sharpie?' Sergeant Green interrupted Sharpe's gloomy thoughts.

  'I heard you, Sergeant,' Sharpe said.

  'So would you mind? If I asked her?'

  'Have you asked her already?' Sharpe said accusingly.

  'No!' Green said hastily. 'Wouldn't be right! Not while you're still, well, you know.'

  'Alive,' Sharpe said bitterly.

  'It's only if the worst happens.' Green tried to sound optimistic. 'Which it won't.'

  'You won't need my permission when I'm dead, Sergeant.'

  'No, but if I can tell Mary you wanted her to accept me, then it'd help. Don't you see that? I'll be a good man to her, Sharpie. I was married before, I was, only she died on me, but she never complained about me. No more than any woman ever complains, anyhow.'

  'Hakeswill might stop you marrying her.'

  Green nodded. 'Aye, he might, but I can't see how. Not if we tie the knot quick. I'll ask Major Shee, and he's always fair with me. Ask him tonight, see? But only if the worst happens.'

  'But you need a chaplain,' Sharpe warned the Sergeant. The 33rd's own chaplain had committed suicide on the voyage from Calcutta to Madras and no marriage in the army was considered official unless it had the regimental commander's permission and the blessing of a chaplain.

  'The lads in the Old Dozen tell me they've got a God-walloper,' Green said, gesturing at the soldiers guarding Sharpe, 'and he can do the splicing tomorrow. I'll probably have to slip the bugger a shilling, but Mary's worth a bob.'

  Sharpe shrugged. 'Ask her, Sergeant,' he said, 'ask her.' What else could he say? And if Mary was properly married to Sergeant Green then she would be protected by the army's regulations. 'But see what happens to me first,' Sharpe added.

  'Of course I will, Sharpie. Hope for the best, eh? Never say die.'

  Sharpe drained the canteen. 'There's a couple of things in my pack, Sergeant. A good pistol I took off an Indian officer the other day and a few coins. You'll give them to Mary?'

  'Of course I will,' Green said, carefully hiding the fact that Hakeswill had already plundered Sharpe's pack. 'She'll be all right, Sharpie. Promise you, lad.'

  'And some dark night, Sergeant, give bloody Hakeswill a kicking for me.'

  Green nodded. 'Be a pleasure, Sharpie. Be a pleasure.' He knocked the ashes of his pipe against the ammunition boxes, then stood. 'I'll bring you some more rum, lad. The more the better.'

  The preparations for Sharpe's flogging had all been made. Not that they were many, but it took a few moments to make sure everything was to the Sergeant Major's satisfaction. A tripod had been constructed out of three sergeant's halberds, their spear points uppermost and lashed together so that the whole thing stood two feet higher than a tall man. The three halberd butts were sunk into the dry soil, then a fourth halberd was firmly lashed crosswise on one face of the tripod at the height of a man's armpits.

  Sergeant Hakeswill personally selected two of the 33rd's drummer boys. The drummer boys always administered the floggings, a small element of mercy in a bestial punishment, but Hakeswill made certain that the two biggest and strongest boys were given the task and then he collected the two whips from the Sergeant Major and made the boys practise on a tree trunk. 'Put your body into it, lads,' he told them, 'and keep the arm moving fast after the whip's landed. Like this.' He took one of the whips and slashed it across the bark, then showed them how to keep the lash sliding across the target by following the stroke through. 'I did it often enough when I was a drummer,' he told them, 'and I always did a good job. Best flogger in the battalion, I was. Second to none.' Once he was sure their technique was sufficient for the task he warned them not to tire too quickly, and then, with a pocket knife, he nicked the edges of the leather lashes so that their abrasions would tear at the exposed flesh as they were dragged across Sharpe's back. 'Do it well, lads,' he promised them, 'and there's one of these for each of you.' He showed them one of the Tippoo's gold coins which had been part of the battle's loot. 'I don't want this bastard walking again,' he told them. 'Nor do you neither, for if Sharpie ever finds his feet he'll give you two a rare kicking, so make s
ure you finish the bastard off proper. Whip him bloody then put him underground, like it says in the scriptures.'

  Hakeswill coiled the two whips and hung them on the halberd that was mounted crosswise on the tripod, then went to find the surgeon. Mister Micklewhite was in his tent where he was trying to tie his white silk stock in preparation for the punishment parade. He grunted when he saw Hakeswill. 'You don't need more mercury, do you?' he snarled.

  'No, sir. Cured, sir. Thanks to your worship's skill, sir. Clean as a whistle I am, sir.'

  Micklewhite swore as the knot in the damned stock loosened. He did not like Hakeswill, but like everyone else in the regiment he feared him. There was a wildness in the back of Hakeswill's childlike eyes that spoke of terrible mischief, and, though the Sergeant was always punctilious in his dealings with officers, Micklewhite still felt obscurely threatened. 'So what do you want, Sergeant?'

  'Major Shee asked me to say a word, sir.'

  'Couldn't speak to me himself?'

  'You know the Major, sir. No doubt he's thirsty. A hot day.' Hakeswill's face quivered in a series of tremors. 'It's about the prisoner, sir.'

  'What about him?'

  'Troublemaker, sir. Known for it. A thief, a liar and a cheat.'

  'So he's a redcoat. So?'

  'So Major Shee ain't keen to see him back among the living, sir, if you follow my meaning. Is this what I owe you for the mercury, sir?' Hakeswill held up a gold coin, a haideri, which was worth around two shillings and sixpence. The coin was certainly not payment for the cure of his pox, for that cost had already been deducted from the Sergeant's pay, so Micklewhite knew it was a bribe. Not a great bribe, but half a crown could still go a long way. Micklewhite glanced at it, then nodded. 'Put it on the table, Sergeant.'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  Micklewhite tugged the silk stock tight, then waved Hakeswill off. He pulled on his coat and pocketed the gold coin. The bribe had not been necessary, for Micklewhite's opposition to the coddling of flogging victims was well enough known in the battalion. Micklewhite hated caring for men who had been flogged, for in his experience they almost always died, and if he did stop a punishment then the recovering victim only cluttered up his sick cots. And if, by some miracle, the man was restored to health, it was only so he could be strapped to the triangle to be given the rest of his punishment and that second dose almost always proved fatal and so, all things considered, it was more prudent to let a man die at the first flogging. It saved money on medicine and, in Micklewhite's view, it was kinder too. Micklewhite buttoned his coat and wondered just why Sergeant Hakeswill wanted this particular man dead. Not that Micklewhite really cared, he just wanted the bloody business over and done.

  The 33rd paraded under the afternoon's burning sun. Four companies faced the tripod, while three were arrayed at either side so that the battalion's ten companies formed a hollow oblong with the tripod standing in the one empty long side. The officers sat on their horses in front of their companies while Major Shee, his aides and the adjutant stood their horses just behind the tripod. Mister Micklewhite, his head protected from the sun by a wide straw hat, stood to one side of the triangle. Major Shee, fortified by arrack and satisfied that everything was in proper order, nodded to Bywaters. 'You will begin punishment, Sergeant Major.'

  'Sir!' Bywaters acknowledged, then turned and bellowed for the prisoner to be fetched. The two drummer boys stood nervously with their whips in hand. They alone of the parading soldiers were in shirtsleeves, while everyone else was in full wool uniform. Women and children peered between the company intervals. Mary Bickerstaff was not there. Hakeswill had looked for her, wanting to enjoy her horror, but Mary had stayed away. The women who had come for the spectacle, like their men, were silent and sullen. Sharpe was a popular man, and Hakeswill knew that everyone here was hating him for engineering this flogging, but Obadiah Hakeswill had never been concerned by such enmity. Power did not lie in being liked, but in being feared.

  Sharpe was brought to the triangle. He was bareheaded and already stripped to the waist. The skin of his chest and back were as white as his powdered hair and contrasted oddly with his darkly tanned face. He walked steadily, for though he had the best part of a pint of rum in his belly, the liquor had not seemed to have the slightest effect. He did not look at either Hakeswill or Morris as he walked to the tripod.

  'Arms up, lad,' the Sergeant Major said quietly. 'Stand against the triangle. Feet apart. There's a good lad.'

  Sharpe obediently stepped up to the triangular face of the tripod. Two corporals knelt at his feet and lashed his ankles to the halberds, then stood and pushed his arms over the crosswise halberd. They pulled his hands down and tied them to the uprights, thus forcing his naked back up and outwards. That way he could not sag between the triangle and so hope to exhaust some of the blows on the halberd staffs. The corporals finished their knots, then stepped back.

  The Sergeant Major went to the back of the triangle and brought from his pouch a folded piece of leather that was deeply marked by tooth prints. 'Open your mouth, lad,' he said softly. He smelt the rum on the prisoner's breath and hoped it would help him survive, then he pushed the leather between Sharpe's teeth. The gag served a double purpose. It would stifle any cries the victim might make and would stop him biting off his tongue. 'Be brave, boy,' Bywaters said quietly. 'Don't let the regiment down.'

  Sharpe nodded.

  Bywaters stepped smartly back and came to attention. 'Prisoner ready for punishment, sir!' he called to Major Shee.

  The Major looked to the surgeon. 'Is the prisoner fit for punishment, Mister Micklewhite?'

  Micklewhite did not even give Sharpe a glance. 'Hale and fit, sir.'

  'Then carry on, Sergeant Major.'

  'Right, boys,' the Sergeant Major said, 'do your duty! Lay it on hard now, and keep the strokes high. Above his trousers. Drummer! Begin.'

  A third drummer boy was standing behind the floggers. He lifted his sticks, paused, then brought the first stick down.

  The boy to the right brought his whip hard down on Sharpe's back.

  'One!' Bywaters shouted.

  The whip had left a red mark across Sharpe's shoulder-blades. Sharpe had flinched, but the rope fetters restricted his movement and only those close to the triangle saw the tremor run through his muscles. He stared up at Major Shee who took good care to avoid the baleful gaze.

  'Two!' Bywaters called and the drummer brought down his stick as the second boy planted a red mark crosswise on the first.

  Hakeswill's face twitched uncontrollably, but he was smiling under the rictus. For the drumbeat of death had begun.

  Colonel McCandless stood alone in the centre of the courtyard of the Tippoo's Inner Palace inside Seringapatam. The Scotsman was still in his full uniform: red-coated, tartan-kilted and with his feather-plumed cocked hat on his head. Six tigers were chained to the courtyard's walls and those tigers sometimes strained to reach him, but they were always checked by the heavy chains that quivered tautly whenever one of the muscled beasts sprang towards the Scotsman. McCandless did not move and the tigers, after one or two fruitless lunges, contented themselves with snarling at him. The tigers' keepers, big men armed with long staves, watched from the courtyard entrance. It was those men who might receive the orders to unleash the tigers and McCandless was determined to show them a calm face.

  The courtyard was covered with sand, its lower walls were of dressed stone, but above the stone the palace's second storey was a riot of stuccoed teak that had been painted red, white, green and yellow. That decorated second storey was composed of Moorish arches and McCandless knew just enough Arabic to guess that the writing incised above each arch was a surah from the Koran. There were two entrances to the courtyard. The one behind McCandless, through which he had entered and where the tigers' keepers now stood, was a plain double gateway that led to a tangle of stables and storehouses behind the palace, while in front of him, and evidently leading into the palace's staterooms, was a brief marble
staircase rising to a wide door of black wood that had been decorated with patterns of inlaid ivory. Above that lavish door was a balcony that jutted out from three of the stuccoed arches. A screen of intricately carved wood hid the balcony, but McCandless could see that there were men behind the screen. He suspected the Tippoo was there and, the Scotsman trusted, so was the Frenchman who had first questioned him. Colonel Gudin had struck him as an honest fellow and right now, McCandless hoped, Gudin was pleading to let him live, though McCandless had taken good care not to offer the Frenchman his real name. He feared that the Tippoo would recognize it, and realize just what a prize his cavalry had taken, and so the Scotsman had given his name as Ross instead.

  McCandless was right. Colonel Gudin and the Tippoo were both staring down through the screen. 'This Colonel Ross,' the Tippoo asked, 'he says he was looking for forage?'

  'Yes, sir,' Gudin replied through the interpreter.

  'You believe him?' It was plain from his tone that the Tippoo was sceptical.

  Gudin shrugged. 'Their horses are thin.'

  The Tippoo grunted. He had done his best to deny the advancing enemy any food, but the British had taken to making sudden marches north or south of their approach to enter territory where his horsemen had not yet destroyed the villagers' supplies. Not only that, but they had brought a vast amount of food with them. Yet even so the Tippoo's spies reported that the enemy was going hungry. Their horses and oxen were especially ill-fed, so it was not unlikely that this British officer had been searching for forage. But why would a full colonel be sent on such an errand? The Tippoo could find ho answer to that, and the question fed his suspicions. 'Could he have been spying?'

  'Scouting, maybe,' Gudin said, 'but not spying. Spies do not ride in uniform, Your Majesty.'

  The Tippoo grunted when the answer was translated into Persian. He was a naturally suspicious man, as any ruler should be, but he consoled himself with the observation that whatever this Britisher had been doing, he must have failed. The Tippoo turned to his entourage and saw the tall, dark-faced Appah Rao. 'You think this Colonel Ross was looking for food, General?'