'Is there food in the city, sir?' one of the volunteers asked.
'Plenty, boys, plenty.' Baird, like the rest of the army, was on half-rations.
'And some bibbi, sir?' another man asked.
Baird rolled his eyes. 'Running over with it, lads, and all of them just panting for you. The place is fair crammed with bibbi. Even enough for us old generals.'
They laughed. General Harris had given strict orders that the inhabitants were not to be molested, but Baird knew that the terrible savagery of an assault on a breach almost demanded that the men's appetites be satisfied afterwards. He did not care. So far as Major General David Baird was concerned the boys could play to their loins' content so long as they first won.
He edged his way through the crush of men to a point midway between the two Forlorn Hopes. The watch still ticked, but again the minute hand seemed scarcely to have moved since he last looked at the face. Baird closed the lid, pushed the watch into his fob, then peered again at the city. The undamaged parts of the wall glowed white in the sun. It was, with its towers and shining roofs and tall palms, a beautiful place, yet it was there that Baird had spent close to four years as a prisoner of the Tippoo. He hated the place as he hated its ruler. Revenge had been a long time coming, but it was here now.
He drew his claymore, a brutal Scottish blade that had none of the finesse of more modern swords, yet Baird, at six feet four inches tall, had little need of finesse. He would carry his butcher's blade into a breach of blood to pay back the Tippoo for forty-four months of hell.
In the batteries behind Baird the gunners blew on their linstocks to keep the fire burning. General Harris pulled out his watch. Colonel Arthur Wellesley, who would lead the second wave of attackers through the breach, adjusted his cravat, and thought of his responsibilities. The bulk of his men were from the Regiment de Meuron, a Swiss battalion that had once fought for the Dutch, but which had put itself under the command of the East India Company when the British had captured Ceylon. The men were mostly Swiss, but with a leavening from the German states, and they were a sober, steady battalion that Wellesley planned to lead to the Inner Palace to protect its contents and its harem from the ravages of the attackers. Seringapatam might fall, and the Tippoo might die, but the important thing was to gain Mysore's friendship and Wellesley was determined to make certain that no unnecessary atrocities soured its citizens' new allegiance. He adjusted the silver-gilt gorget about his neck, drew his sword an inch or two, then let it fall back into its scabbard before momentarily closing his eyes to say a prayer beseeching God's protection on his men.
The Forlorn Hopes, their muskets loaded and tipped with steel, crouched in the trenches. The officers' watches ticked on, the river ran gentle across its stones and the silent city waited.
'Coat off,' Sharpe said to Lawford, instinctively lapsing back into the relationship that had existed between them when they had served in Gudin's battalion. 'No point in showing a red coat till we have to,' Sharpe explained, turning his own coat inside out. He did not put it back on, but knotted its sleeves about his neck so that the claw-torn jacket hung down against his scarred and naked back. The two men were crouched in a byre off the alley that led from the courtyard. Colonel McCandless had gone, led away to Appah Rao's house, and Sharpe and Lawford were alone. 'I don't even have a gun,' the Lieutenant said nervously.
'Soon remedy that,' Sharpe said confidently. 'Come on now.'
Sharpe led, plunging into the intricate maze of small streets that surrounded the palace. A white man's face was not so unusual as to attract attention in Seringapatam, for there were plenty of Europeans serving the Tippoo, but even so Sharpe did not fancy his chances in a red coat. He did not fancy his chances much at all, but he would be damned before he abandoned his fellow soldiers to the Tippoo's mine.
He hurried past a shuttered goldsmith's shop and half glimpsed, deep in its shadowed entrance, an armed man who was standing guard on the property. 'Stay here,' he told Lawford, then slung the musket on his shoulder and doubled back. He pushed a wandering cow out of his way and ducked into the goldsmith's entrance. 'How are you feeling today?' he said pleasantly to the man who, speaking no English, just frowned in confusion. He was still frowning when Sharpe's left fist buried itself in his belly. He grunted, but then the right fist smacked him on the bridge of his nose and he was in no state to resist as Sharpe stripped him of musket and cartridge box. For good measure Sharpe gave the man a tap on the skull with the butt-end of the musket, then went back to the street. 'One musket, sir, filthy as hell, but she'll fire. Cartridges too.'
Lawford opened the musket's pan to check that it was loaded. 'Just what do you plan to do, Sharpe?' the Lieutenant asked.
'Don't know, sir. Won't know till we get there.'
'You're going to the mine?'
'Aye, sir.'
'There'll be guards.'
'Like as not.'
'And only two of us.'
'I can count, sir.' Sharpe grinned. 'It's reading I find hard. But my letters are coming on, aren't they?'
'You're reading well,' Lawford said. Probably, the Lieutenant thought, as well as most seven-year-olds, but it had still been gratifying to see the pleasure Sharpe took from the process, even if his only reading matter was a crumpled page of the Revelation full of mysterious beasts with wings that covered their eyes. 'I'll get you some more interesting books when we're out of here,' Lawford promised.
'I'd like that, sir,' Sharpe said, then ran across a street junction. The fear of an imminent assault had served to empty the streets of their usual crowds, but the alleys were clogged with parked carts. Stray dogs barked as the two men hurried southwards, but there were few people to remark their presence. 'There, sir, there's our bloody answer,' Sharpe said. He had run from a street into a small square, and now jerked back into the shadows. Lawford peered about the corner to see that the small open space was filled with handcarts, and that the handcarts were piled with rockets. 'Waiting to take them up to the wall, I dare say,' Sharpe said. 'Got so many up there already they have to store the rest down here. What we do, sir, is take one cart, go down that next street and have a private Guy Fawkes day.'
'There are guards.'
'Of course there are.'
'I mean on the rocket carts, Sharpe.'
'They're nothing,' Sharpe said scornfully. 'If those fellows were any good they'd be up on the walls. Can't be nothing but maimed men and grandfathers. Rubbish. All we have to do is shout at the buggers. Are you ready?'
Lawford looked into his companion's face. 'You're enjoying this, aren't you, Sharpe?'
'Aye, sir. Aren't you?'
'I'm scared as hell,' Lawford admitted.
Sharpe smiled. 'You won't be when we're through, sir. We're going to be all right. You just behave as though you owned the bloody place. You officers are supposed to be good at that, aren't you? So I'll grab a cart and you shout at the rubbish. Tell them Gudin sent us. Come on, sir, time's wasting. Just walk out there as though we owned the place.'
Sharpe brazenly walked into the sunlight, his musket slung on his shoulder, and Lawford followed him. 'You won't tell anyone that I confessed to being scared?' the Lieutenant asked.
'Of course not, sir. You think I'm not scared myself? Jesus, I almost fouled my breeches when that bloody tiger jumped at me. I've never seen a thing move so bloody fast. But I wasn't going to show I was scared in front of bloody Hakeswill. Hey, you! Are you in charge?' Sharpe shouted imperiously at a man who squatted beside one of the carts. 'Move your bloody self, I want the cart.'
The man sprang aside as Sharpe jerked up the handles. There must have been fifty rockets in the cart, more than enough for Sharpe's purpose. Two other men shouted protests at Sharpe, but Lawford waved them down. 'Colonel Gudin sent us. Understand?' Lawford said. 'Colonel Gudin. He sent us.' The Lieutenant followed Sharpe down the street leading south from the square. 'Those two men are coming after us,' he said nervously.
'Shout at the buggers, sir. You
're an officer!'
'Back!' Lawford shouted. 'To your duties! Go on! Now! Do as I say, damn your eyes! Go!' He paused, then gave a delighted chuckle. 'Good God, Sharpe, it worked.'
'Works with us, sir, should work with them,' Sharpe said. He turned a corner and saw the towering sculptures of the big Hindu temple. He recognized where he was now and he knew the alley leading to the mine was only a few yards away. It would be filled with guards, but Sharpe now had a whole arsenal of his own.
'We can't do anything if there isn't an attack,' Lawford said.
'I know that, sir.'
'So what do we do if there isn't an assault?'
'Hide, sir.'
'Where, for God's sake?'
'Lali will take us in, sir. You remember Lali, don't you, sir?'
Lawford blushed at the memory of his introduction to Seringapatam's brothels. 'You really believe she'll hide us?'
'She thinks you're sweet, sir.' Sharpe grinned. 'I've seen her a couple of times since that first night, sir, and she always asks after you. I reckon you made a conquest there, sir.'
'Good God, Sharpe, you won't tell anyone?'
'Me, sir?' Sharpe pretended to be shocked. 'Not a word, sir.'
Then, very suddenly, and far off, muffled by distance so that it was thin and wavering, a trumpet sounded.
And every gun in creation seemed to fire at once.
Baird clambered up the trench wall, climbed over the sandbags and turned to face his men. 'Now, my brave fellows,' he shouted in his broad Scottish accent, waving his sword towards the city, 'follow me and prove yourselves worthy of the name British soldiers!'
The Forlorn Hopes were already on their way. The moment Baird had climbed out of the trench the seventy-six men of the two Hopes had scrambled over the lip and began running. They splashed through the Little Cauvery, then sprinted towards the larger river. The air about them churned with noise. Every siege gun had fired at almost the same instant and the breach was a boiling mass of dust, while the huge sound of the guns was echoing back from the walls. The banners of Britain streamed as the leading men ran into the South Cauvery. The first bullets plucked at the water, throwing up small fountains, but the Forlorn Hopes did not notice the firing. They were screaming their challenge and racing each other to be first up the breach.
'Fire!' the Tippoo shouted, and the walls of the city were rimmed with flame and smoke as a thousand muskets poured lead down into the South Cauvery and out towards the trenches. Rockets hissed off the walls, their trails twisting madly as they tangled in the hot air. The trumpet was still sounding. The musketry of the defenders was unending as men simply dropped their empty guns, snatched up loaded ones and fired into the smoke cloud that edged the city. The sound of their guns was like a giant fire crackling, the river was foaming with bullets and a handful of redcoats and sepoys were jerking and thrashing as they drowned or bled to death.
'Come on!' Sergeant Graham roared as he stumbled over the remains of the mud wall that had penned in the water behind the glacis. A foot of muddy water still lay in the old ditch, but Graham ran through it as though he had wings. A bullet plucked at the flag in his left hand. 'Come on, you bastards!' he shouted. He was on the lower slope of the breach now, and his whole world was nothing but noise and smoke and whipsawing bullets. It was a tiny place, that world, a hell of dust and fire above a rubble slope. He could see no enemy, for those above him were hidden by their own musket smoke, but then the defenders on the inner wall, who could stare straight down the throat of the breach in the outer wall, saw the redcoats clambering up the ramp and opened fire. A man behind Graham collapsed backwards with blood gurgling from his throat. Another pitched forward with a shattered knee.
Graham reached the breach's summit. His real goal was the wall to his left, but the summit of the breach felt like triumph enough and he rammed the flagstaff deep into the stones and dust. 'Lieutenant Graham now!' he shouted exultingly, and a bullet immediately snatched him off the summit and hurled him back towards his men.
It was just then that the Tippoo's own volunteers struck. Sixty men swarmed up from behind the wall with sabres and muskets to meet the two Forlorn Hopes on the crest of the rubble breach. These were the Tippoo's best men, his tigers, the warriors of Allah who had been promised a favoured place in paradise, and they screamed with exultation as they attacked. They fired a musket volley as they climbed, then threw down the empty guns to attack the redcoats with bright curved swords. Musket barrels parried swords, bayonets lunged and were cut aside. Men swore and killed, swore and died. Some men fought with hands and boots, they gouged and bit each other as they grappled hand to hand on the dusty summit. One Bengali sepoy snatched up a fallen sword and carved a way to the foot of the wall where it climbed up from the breach to the northern ramparts. A Mysorean volunteer sliced at him, the sepoy instinctively parried, then cut down through the man's brass helmet so violently that the blade was buried and trapped in his enemy's skull. The Bengali left it there and, so fevered by battle that he did not realize he was weaponless, tried to scale the broken wall's flank to attack the defenders waiting on the firestep above. A musket shot from the top of the wall hurled him backwards and he slid, dying and bleeding, to lodge against the wounded Graham.
Baird was still west of the river. His job was not to die with the Forlorn Hopes, but to lead the main attack up the path they had cleared. That main attack now formed itself into two columns of platoons.
'Forward!' Baird shouted, and led the twin columns towards the river. The ground ahead was being pitted by bullets as if an invisible hail fell. Behind him the drummer boys were sounding the advance while the engineers, laden with their fascines and ladders, walked alongside the platoons. Rockets screamed above Baird, their trails stitching ropes of smoke above the river. Men struggled hand to hand in the breach and the walls of the city spat flame through the churning rill of smoke.
Hell had come to Seringapatam and Baird hurried towards it.
'Jesus Christ!' Sharpe swore, for he could hear the sudden sound of battle swelling just beyond the western walls. Men were dying there. Men were storming a breach and the Tippoo's mine waited for them, its tons of powder cunningly crammed into a stone tunnel and poised to annihilate a whole brigade.
He stopped at a corner of the alley which led to the ancient gateway that had been filled with the explosives. He peered round the corner and saw Sergeant Rothiere and two Frenchmen from Gudin's battalion. All three were standing beside a barrel, staring up at the inner ramparts, and around the Europeans was a guard of a half-dozen jettis, all armed with muskets and swords. He ducked back and blew the priming out of his musket's pan. 'Only nine or ten of the bastards,' he told Lawford, 'so let's give them a headache.'
The rockets were stacked nose-first on the cart so that their long bamboo tails stuck out towards the cart's handles. Sharpe went to the front of the cart, seized the thin boards that were painted with gods and elephants, and wrenched them off. They came away easily, their nails pulling out of the cart's sides. He beat off the last slivers of wood so that now there was no obstacle in front of the lethal cargo, then he turned the cart so that the rockets' tin cones were pointing towards the alley, though he took care to make sure that the cart and its contents were still hidden from the men waiting beside the mine's fuse.
Lawford said nothing, but just watched as Sharpe tore the fuse paper from one of the rockets. He twisted the paper into a spill, then pushed it into the musket's empty lock, cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. The powder-impregnated paper immediately caught the spark and started burning.
Sharpe dropped the musket and began lighting the fuses of the topmost row of rockets. The paper in his hand burned fiercely, but he managed to light eight of the weapons before he was forced to tear off another fuse and use it to light more. It was difficult to reach between the rocket's bamboo sticks, but he lit another ten while the first few fuses were fizzing and smoking. Lawford, seeing what Sharpe was doing, had taken the single page of th
e Bible from his pocket and twisted it into a spill that he used to light still more of the missiles. Then the first rocket to be lit suddenly coughed and spat out a gout of smoke and Sharpe immediately snatched up the cart's handles and shoved it around the corner so that the missiles were pointing straight down the alley. He crouched beside it, sheltered from the men in the alley by the corner of the building, and pulled his musket towards him. He used the musket to raise the cart's handles so that the vehicle's bed, and the rockets it contained, were horizontal.
The first rocket shuddered, then streaked away. The second went an instant later, then two more, and suddenly the whole cart was shaking and jerking as the rockets seethed away. A musket bullet hit the cart, another flicked dust from the corner of the building, but then there were no more shots, just shouts of terror as the missiles screamed between the alley's close walls. Some of the rockets had solid shot in their nose cones, others had small charges of black powder, and those now began to explode. A man screamed. More rockets exploded, the sound of their blasts cramming the alley with noise while the missiles' fierce trails filled the small street with smoke and flame. Sharpe waited till the last lit rocket flamed off the cart. 'Now's the hard bit,' he warned Lawford. He replaced the priming in his musket with a pinch from a fresh cartridge, then seized the handcart and pushed it in front of him down the alley. At least thirty of the rockets had fired, and the alley was now an inferno of boiling smoke amongst which a handful of live rockets still ricocheted or spun crazily while the carcasses of the spent weapons burned bright in the gloom. Sharpe charged into that chaos, hoping that the half-loaded cart would serve as a shield if any man still lived in the alley.
Lawford charged with him. At least four men were still on their feet, while another had found shelter in a deep doorway, but they were all dazed by the violence of the rockets and half blinded by the thick smoke. Sharpe gave the cart a huge push to send it clattering towards them. One of the jettis saw the cart, dodged aside and charged at Sharpe with a drawn sabre, but Lawford shot him with his musket, taking the huge man in the throat as quickly and cleanly as if he had been a pheasant rising from a brake. The cart struck two of the standing men and sent them reeling. Sharpe stamped on the head of one and kicked the other in the crotch. He slammed the butt of the musket onto the back of a Frenchman's skull, then drove the weapon's muzzle deep into a jetti's belly and, as the man folded, he rammed the barrel into his face. The jetti screamed and staggered away, his hands clutched tight to one eye. Lawford had seized a fallen sword and sliced it savagely across another jetti's neck and was so inspired and elated by battle that he did not even feel any revulsion when the man's blood gushed out to hiss in the burning remnants of a rocket. Sergeant Rothiere was on the ground with one of his legs broken by the strike of a rocket, but he cocked his musket and aimed the gun at Lawford, then the Sergeant heard Sharpe behind him and tried to swing the musket round. Sharpe was too close and too fast. He felled Rothiere with a huge swing of his gun. He felt the butt break the Sergeant's skull. The gun was still loaded, so he reversed it and snarled a challenge as he peered through the choking smoke. He could see no danger now, just wounded men, dead men and flickering rocket cases. The mine's trail, a snaking length of quick fuse, had somehow escaped the fire of the rockets and lay discarded beside the toppled barrel in which Rothiere had been keeping a lit linstock. Sharpe moved towards the barrel, then heard the click of a gun being cocked.
Sharpe's Tiger Page 32
