Sharpe 3-Book Collection 1: Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph, Sharpe's Fortress

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Gladly, sir,” Hicks agreed. The Ensign was slurring his words, betraying that he had been drinking.

  Morris looked at Sharpe. “It’s a court martial offence, Sharpe,” the Captain said, then he turned back to Green who had not moved to obey his orders. “Do it!”

  “Sir!” Green said, stepping forward. “Come on, Sharpie.”

  “I didn’t do nothing, Sergeant,” Sharpe protested.

  “Come on, lad. It’ll sort itself out,” Green said quietly, then he took Sharpe’s elbow and led him away. Hicks went with them, happy to please Morris by writing up the charge.

  Morris waited until the prisoner and his escort had gone, then grinned at Hakeswill. “The boy was faster than you thought, Sergeant.”

  “He’s a devil, that one, sir, a devil. Broke my nose, he did.” Hakeswill gingerly tried to straighten the cartilage and the bleeding nose made a horrible crunching noise. “But his woman’s ours.”

  “Tonight?” Morris could not keep the eagerness from his voice.

  “Not tonight, sir,” Hakeswill said in a tone that suggested the Captain had made a foolish suggestion. “There’ll be enough trouble in the company with Sharpe arrested, sir, and if we go after his bibbi tonight there’ll be a rare brawl. Half the bastards are full of arrack. No, sir. Wait till the bastard’s flogged to death. Wait for that, sir, and then they’ll all be meek as lambs. Meek as lambs. Flogging does that to men. Quietens them down something proper, a good whipping does. All be done in a couple of days, sir.”

  Morris flinched as Hakeswill tried to straighten his nose again. “You’d better see Mister Micklewhite, Hakeswill.”

  “No, sir. Don’t believe in doctors, sir, except for the pox. I’ll strap it up, sir, and soon be right as rain. Besides, watching Sharpie flogged will be treatment enough. I reckon we done him, sir. You won’t have long to wait, sir, not long at all.”

  Morris found Hakeswill’s intimate tone unseemly, and stepped stiffly back. “Then I’ll wish you a good night, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you kindly, sir, and the same to you, sir. And sweet dreams too, sir.” Hakeswill laughed. “Just as sweet as sweet can ever be, sir.”

  For Sharpie was done.

  CHAPTER 3

  Colonel McCandless woke as the dawn touched the world’s rim with a streak of fire. The crimson light glowed bright on the lower edge of a long cloud that lay on the eastern horizon like the smoke rill left by a musket volley. It was the only cloud in the sky. He rolled his plaid and tied it onto his saddle’s cantle, then rinsed his mouth with water. His horse, picketed close by, had been saddled all night in case some enemy discovered McCandless and his escort. That escort, six picked men of the 4th Native Cavalry, had needed no orders to be about the day. They grinned a greeting at McCandless, stowed their meager bedding, then made a breakfast out of warm canteen water and a dry cake of ground lentils and rice. McCandless shared the cavalrymen’s meal. He liked a cup of tea in the mornings, but he dared not light a fire for the smoke might attract the pestilential patrols of the Tippoo’s Light Cavalry. “It will be a hot day, sahib,” die Havildar remarked to McCandless.

  “They’re all hot,” McCandless answered. “Haven’t had a cold day since I came here.” He thought for a second, then worked out that it must be Thursday the twenty-eighth of March. It would be cold in Scotland today and, for an indulgent moment, he thought of Lochaber and imagined the snow lying deep in Glen Scaddle and the ice edging the loch’s foreshore, and though he could see the image clearly enough, he could not really imagine what the cold would feel like. He had been away from home too long and now he wondered if he could ever live in Scotland again. He certainly would not live in England, not in Hampshire where his sister lived with her petulant English husband. Harriet kept pressing him to retire to Hampshire, saying that they had no relatives left in Scotland and that her husband had a wee cottage that would suit McCandless’s declining years to perfection, but the Colonel had no taste for a soft, plump, English landscape, nor, indeed, for his soft, plump sister’s company. Harriet’s son, McCandless’s nephew William Lawford, was a decent enough young fellow even if he had forgotten his Scottish ancestry, but young William was now in the army, here in Mysore indeed, which meant that the only relative McCandless liked was close at hand and that circumstance merely strengthened McCandless’s distaste for retiring to Hampshire. But to Scotland? He often dreamed of going back, though whenever the opportunity arose for him to take the Company’s pension and sail to his native land, he always found some unfinished business that kept him in India. Next year, he promised himself, the year of our Lord 1800, would be a good year to go home, though in truth he had promised himself the same thing every year for the last decade.

  The seven men unpicketed the horses and hauled themselves into their worn saddles. The Indian escort was armed with lances, sabres, and pistols, while McCandless carried a claymore, a horse pistol, and a carbine that was holstered on his saddle. He glanced once toward the rising sun to check his direction, then led his men northward. He said nothing, but he needed to give these men no orders. They knew well enough to keep a keen lookout in this dangerous land.

  For this was the kingdom of Mysore, high on the southern Indian plateau, and as far as the horsemen could see the land was under the rule of the Tippoo Sultan. Indeed this was the Tippoo’s heartland, a fertile plain rich with villages, fields, and water cisterns; only now, as the British army advanced and the Tippoo’s retreated, the country was being blighted. McCandless could see six pillars of smoke showing where the Tippoo’s cavalry had burned granaries to make sure that the hated British could not find food. The cisterns would all have been poisoned, the livestock driven westward, and every storehouse emptied, thus forcing the armies of Britain and Hyderabad to carry all their own supplies on the cumbersome bullock carts. McCandless guessed that yesterday’s brief and unequal battle had been an attempt by the Tippoo to draw the escorting troops away from the precious baggage onto his infantry, after which he would have released his fearsome horsemen onto the wagons of grain and rice and salt, but the British had not taken the bait which meant that General Harris’s ponderous advance would continue. Say another week until they arrived at Seringapatam? Then they would face two months of short rations and searing weather before the monsoon broke, but McCandless reckoned that two months was plenty enough time to do the job, especially as the British would soon know how to avoid the Tippoo’s trap at the western walls.

  He threaded his horse through a grove of cork trees, glad of the shade cast by the deep-green leaves. He paused at the grove’s edge to watch the land ahead, which dropped gently into a valley where a score of people were working in rice paddies. The valley, McCandless supposed, lay far enough from the line of the British advance to have been spared the destruction of its stores and water supply. A small village lay to the west of the rice paddies, and McCandless could see another dozen people working in the small gardens around the houses, and he knew that he and his men would be spotted as soon as they left the cover of the cork grove, but he doubted that any of the villagers would investigate seven strange horsemen. The folk of Mysore, like villagers throughout all the Indian states, avoided mysterious soldiers in the hope that the soldiers would avoid them. At the far side of the rice paddies were plantations of mango and date palms, and beyond them a bare hill crest. McCandless watched that empty crest for a few minutes and then, satisfied that no enemy was nearby, he spurred his mare forward.

  The people working the rice immediately fled toward their homes and McCandless swerved eastward to show them he meant no harm, then kicked the mare into a trot. He rode beside a grove of carefully tended mulberry trees, part of the Tippoo’s scheme to make silk-weaving into a major industry of Mysore, then he spurred into a canter as he approached the bed of the valley. His escort’s curb and scabbard chains jingled behind him as the horses pounded down the slope, splashed through the shrunken stream that trickled from the paddies, then began the gentle climb to the
date palm grove.

  It was then that McCandless saw the flash of light in the mango trees.

  He instinctively dragged his horse around to face the rising sun and pricked back his spurs. He looked behind as he rode, hoping that the flash of light was nothing but some errant reflection, but then he saw horsemen spurring from the trees. They carried lances and all of them were dressed in the tiger-striped tunic. There were a dozen men at least, but the Scotsman had no time to count them properly for he was plunging his spurs back to race his mare diagonally up the slope toward the crest.

  One of the pursuing horsemen fired a shot that echoed through the valley. The bullet went wide. McCandless doubted it had been supposed to hit anything, but was rather intended as a signal to alert other horsemen who must be in the area. For a second or two the Scotsman debated turning and charging directly at his pursuers, but he rejected the idea. The odds were marginally too great and his news far too important to be gambled on a skirmish. Flight was his only option. He pulled the carbine from its saddle holster, cocked it, then clapped his heels hard onto the mare’s flank. Once over the crest he reckoned there was a good chance he could outrun his pursuers.

  Goats scattered from his path as he spurred the mare over the ridge’s skyline. One glance behind satisfied McCandless that he had gained a long enough lead to let him turn north without being headed off, and so he twitched the rein and let the mare run. A long stretch of open, tree-dotted country lay ahead and beyond were thick stands of timber in which he and his escort could lose themselves. “Run, girl!” he called to the mare, then looked behind to make certain his escort was closed up and safe. Sweat dripped down his face, his scabbarded claymore thumped up and down on his hip, but the strong mare was running like the wind now, her speed blowing the kilt back up around his hips. This was not the first time McCandless had raced away from enemies. He had once run for a whole day, dawn to twilight, to escape a Mahratta band and the mare had never once lost her footing. In all India, and that meant all the world, McCandless had no friend better than this mare. “Run, girl!” he called to her again, then looked behind once more and it was then that the Havildar shouted a warning. McCandless turned to see more horsemen coming from the trees to the north.

  There must have been fifty or sixty horsemen racing toward the Scotsman and, even as he swerved the mare eastward, he realized that his original dozen pursuers must have been the scouts for this larger party of cavalry and that by running north he had been galloping toward the enemy rather than away from them. Now he rode toward the rising sun again, but there was no cover to the east and these new pursuers were already dangerously close. He angled back to the south, hoping he might find some shelter in the valley beyond the crest, but then a wild volley of shots sounded from his pursuers.

  One bullet struck the mare. It was a fortunate shot, fired at the gallop, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred such a shot would have flown yards wide, but this ball struck the mare’s haunch and McCandless felt her falter. He slapped her rump with the stock of his carbine and she tried to respond, but the bullet had driven close to the mare’s spine and the pain was growing and she stumbled, neighed, yet still she tried to run again. Then one of her back legs simply stopped working and the horse slewed around in a cloud of dust. McCandless kicked his feet out of the stirrups as his escort galloped past. The Havildar was already hauling on his reins, wheeling his horse to rescue McCandless, but the Scotsman knew it was too late. He sprawled on the ground, hurled free of the falling mare, and shouted at the Havildar. “Go, man!” he called. “Go!” But the escort had sworn to protect the Colonel and, instead of fleeing, the Havildar led his men toward the rapidly approaching enemy.

  “You fools!” McCandless shouted after them. Brave fools, but fools. He was bruised, but otherwise unhurt, though his mare was dying. She was whinnying and somehow she had managed to raise the front part of her body on her forelegs and seemed puzzled that her back legs would not work. She whinnied again, and McCandless knew she would never again run like the wind and so he did the friend’s duty. He went to her head, pulled it down by the reins, kissed her nose, and then put a bullet into her skull just above her eyes. She reared back, white-eyed and with blood spraying, then she slumped down. Her forelegs kicked a few times and after that she was still. The flies came to settle on her wounds.

  The Havildar’s small group rode full tilt into the enemy’s pursuit. That enemy had been scattered by their gallop and the Havildar’s men were closed up and so the first few seconds were an easy victory. Two lances found Mysore bellies, two sabres drew more blood, but then the main body of the enemy crashed into the fight. The Havildar himself had ridden clean through the leading ranks, leaving his lance behind, and he now looked back to see his men fighting desperately among a milling group of enemy horsemen. He drew his sabre and turned back to help when he heard McCandless shouting. “Go, man, go! Go!” McCandless yelled, pointing north. The Havildar could not take back the vital news McCandless had gained from Appah Rao, but it was still important to let the army know that the Colonel had been captured. McCandless was not a vain man, but he knew his own value, and he had left some careful instructions that might retrieve some of the damage of his capture. Those instructions offered a chance for the army to rescue McCandless, and that dangerous expedient was now the Scotsman’s only hope of passing on Appah Rao’s message. “Go!” McCandless roared as loudly as he could.

  The Havildar was caught between his duty to his men and his duty to obey McCandless’s orders. He hesitated, and two of the pursuers swerved aside to pounce on him. That made up his mind. He clapped his spurs back, charged the pursuers, touched the rein at the last moment and swung his sabre as he went past the two men. The blade sliced across the nape of the nearer man’s neck and then the Havildar curved away northwards, galloping free while the rest of the enemy gathered about the survivors for the kill.

  McCandless threw down his pistol and carbine, drew his heavy claymore, and walked toward the mêlée. He never reached it, for an enemy officer detached himself from the clash of sabres and turned his horse to meet the Scotsman. The Mysorean officer sheathed his sabre, then mutely held out his right hand for McCandless’s blade. Behind him the sabres and lances worked briefly, then the small fight was over and McCandless knew that his escort, all but the Havildar, was dead. He looked at the horseman above him. “This sword,” he said bitterly, “belonged to my father and to his father.” He spoke in English. “This sword,” McCandless said, “was carried for Charles Stuart at Culloden.”

  The officer said nothing, just held his hand out, his eyes steady on McCandless. The Scotsman slowly reversed his blade, then held the hilt upwards. The Mysorean officer took it and seemed surprised by the claymore’s weight. “What were you doing here?” the officer asked in Kanarese.

  “Do you speak English?” McCandless asked in that tongue, determined to hide his knowledge of India’s languages.

  The officer shrugged. He looked at the old claymore then slid it into his sash. His men, their horses white with sweat, gathered excitedly to stare at the captured heathen. They saw an old man and some wondered if they had captured the enemy’s General, but the captive seemed to speak no language any of them knew and so his identity would have to wait. He was given one of his dead escort’s horses and then, as the sun climbed toward its daily furnace heat, McCandless was taken west toward the Tippoo’s stronghold.

  While behind him the vultures circled and at last, sure that nothing lived where the dust and flies had settled on the newly-made corpses, flew down for their feast.

  It took two days to convene the court martial. The army could not spare the time in its march for the business to be done immediately and so Captain Morris had to wait until the great ponderous horde was given a half-day’s rest to allow the straggling herds to catch up with the main armies. Only then was there time to assemble the officers and have Private Sharpe brought into Major Shee’s tent which had one of its sides brailed up to make m
ore space. Captain Morris laid the charge and Sergeant Hakeswill and Ensign Hicks gave evidence.

  Major John Shee was irritable. The Major was irritable at the best of times, but the need to stay at least apparently sober had only shortened his already short Irish temper. He did not, in truth, enjoy commanding the 33rd. Major Shee suspected, when he was sober enough to suspect anything, that he did the job badly and that suspicion had given rise to a haunting fear of mutiny, and mutiny, to Major Shee’s befuddled mind, was signaled by any sign of disrespect for established authority. Private Sharpe was plainly a man who brimmed over with such disrespect and the offence with which he was charged was plain and the remedy just as obvious, but the court proceedings were delayed because Lieutenant Lawford, who should have spoken for Sharpe, was not present. “Then where the devil is he?” Shee demanded.

  Captain Fillmore, commander of the fourth company, spoke for Lawford. “He was summoned to General Harris’s tent, sir.”

  Shee frowned at Fillmore. “He knew he was supposed to be here?”

  “Indeed, sir. But the General insisted.”

  “And we’re just supposed to twiddle our thumbs while he takes tea with the General?” Shee demanded.

  Captain Fillmore glanced through the tent’s open side as if he hoped to see Lawford hurrying toward the court martial, but there were only sentries to be seen. “Lieutenant Lawford did ask me to assure the court, sir, that Private Sharpe is a most reliable man,” Fillmore said, fearing that he was not doing a very good job of defending the unfortunate prisoner. “The Lieutenant would have spoken most forcibly for the prisoner’s character, sir, and begged the court to grant him the benefit of any doubt.”

  “Doubt?” Shee snapped. “What doubt is there? He struck a sergeant, he was seen doing it by two officers, and you think there’s doubt? It’s an open-and-shut case! That’s what it is, open and shut!”