Sharpe watched fascinated as an officer turned one of the long weapons on the flat top of the parapet so that its tin cone pointed directly towards the nearest group of horsemen. The rocket-man waited beside his officer, swinging a length of slow match to keep its burning end bright and hot. The officer fussed with the rocket's alignment, then, satisfied at last, he stepped back and nodded to the rocket-man who grinned and touched his slow match to the twist of paper at the rocket's base.
The fuse paper, Sharpe guessed, had been soaked in water diluted with gunpowder, then dried, because it immediately caught the glowing fire which ate its way swiftly up the fuse as the rocket-man stepped hurriedly away. The glowing trail vanished into the iron cylinder, there was silence for a second, then the rocket twitched as a bright flame abruptly choked and spat from the tube's base. The twitch of the igniting powder charge threw the heavy rocket out of its careful alignment, but there was no chance to correct the weapon's aim for a jet of flame was spitting fiercely enough from the cylinder to scorch the rocket's quivering bamboo stick, and then, very suddenly, the bright flame roared into a furnace-like intensity with a noise like a huge waterfall, only instead of water it was spewing sparks and smoke, as the rocket began to move. It trembled for an instant, scraped an inch or two across the parapet, then abruptly accelerated away into the air, leaving a thick cloud of smoke and a scorch mark on the parapet's coping. For a few seconds it seemed as if the rocket was having trouble staying aloft, for the long scorched tail wobbled as the fiery tube fought against gravity and as the smoke trail stitched a crazy whorl above the ditch at the foot of the wall, but then at last it gained momentum and raced away across the glacis, the encampment and the river. It spewed a tail of sparks, fire and smoke as it flew, then, as the powder charge began to be exhausted, the rocket fell earthwards. Beneath the missile the group of horsemen had collapsed their spyglasses and were fleeing in every direction as the fire-tailed demon came shrieking out of the sky. The rocket struck the ground, bounced, tumbled, then exploded with a small crack of noise and a burst of flame and white smoke. None of the horsemen had been touched, but their panic delighted the Tippoo's men on the bastions who gave the rocket-men a cheer. Sharpe cheered with them. Farther up the wall a cannon fired at a second group of horsemen. The smoke of the gun billowed out across the encampment beneath the walls and the heavy round shot screamed across the river to disembowel a horse a half-mile away, but no one cheered the gunners. Guns were not so spectacular as rockets.
'He's got thousands of those bloody things,' Sharpe told Lawford, indicating a pile of the rockets.
'They really aren't very accurate,' Lawford said with pedantic disapproval.
'But fire enough at once and you wouldn't know if you were in this world or the next. I wouldn't fancy being on the wrong end of a dozen of those things.'
Behind them, from one of the tall white minarets of the city's new mosque, the muezzin was chanting the summons for the evening prayer and the Muslim rocket-men hastened to unroll their small prayer mats and face westwards towards Mecca. Sharpe and Lawford also faced west, not out of any respect for the Tippoo's religion, but because the vanguard of British and Indian cavalry was scouting the flat land beyond the South Cauvery which was plainly visible from the summit of the Mysore Gate. The main body of the two armies was making camp well to the south of the city, but the horsemen had ridden ahead to reconnoitre the western country in preparation for the next day's short march. Sharpe could even see officers pacing out and marking where the lascars would pitch the armies' tents. It seemed that General Harris had decided to attack from the west, the one direction that McCandless had warned against.
'Poor bloody fools,' Sharpe said, though neither he nor Lawford yet knew what was dangerous about the western defences. Nor had they been given the slightest chance to escape from the city. They were never unwatched, they were never allowed to stand guard at night, and Sharpe knew that even the smallest attempt to break away from the city would lead to immediate death, yet they were not otherwise treated badly. They had been accepted well enough by their new comrades, but Sharpe could detect a reserve and he supposed that until he and Lawford proved their reliability there would always be an undercurrent of suspicion. 'It ain't that they don't trust you,' Henry Hickson had explained on their first night, 'but till they've actually seen you bang a few bails off at your old mates, they won't really know whether you're stout.' Hickson was sewing up the frayed edge of his leather thumbstall which protected his hand when a cannon was swabbed out. The gunner had to stop the touchhole so that the rammer could not drive a jet of fresh air down the barrel and so ignite any scraps of remaining powder, and Hickson's old and blackened thumbstall betrayed how long he had been an artilleryman. 'Had this in America,' Hickson said, flourishing the ancient scrap of leather. 'Stitched for me by a little girl in Charleston. Lovely little thing she was.'
'How long have you been in the artillery?' Lawford had asked the grey-haired Hickson.
'Bleeding lifetime, Bill. Joined in '76.' Hickson laughed. 'King and country! Go and save the colonies, eh? And all I did was march up and down like a little lost lamb and only ever fired a dozen shots. I should have stayed there, shouldn't I, when they kicked us out, but, like a fool, I didn't. Went to Gibraltar, polished cannon for a couple of years, then got posted out here.'
'So why did you run?' Lawford asked.
'Money, of course. The Tippoo might be a black heathen bastard, but he pays well for gunners. When he pays at all, of course, which isn't precisely frequent, but all the same he ain't done bad by me. And if I'd stayed in the gunners I wouldn't have met Suni, would I?' He had jerked his calloused thumb towards his Indian woman who was cooking the evening meal with the wives of the other soldiers.
'Don't you ever worry that you'll be recaptured?' Lawford asked him.
'Of course I bloody worry! All the bleeding time!' Hickson held the thumbstall close to his right eye to judge the neatness of his stitching. 'Christ, Bill, I don't want to be stood up against a bleeding post with a dozen bastards staring down their musket barrels at me. I want to die in Suni's bed.' He grinned. 'You do ask the most stupid questions, Bill, but what do you expect of a bleeding clerk! All that reading and writing, mate, it doesn't do a man any bleeding good.' He had shaken his head in despair of Lawford ever seeing sense. Like all of Gudin's soldiers, Hickson was more suspicious of Lawford than of Sharpe. They all understood Sharpe for he was one of them and good at his trade, but Lawford was patently uncomfortable. They put it down to his having come from a comfortable home that had fallen on hard times, and while they were sympathetic to that misfortune they nevertheless expected him to make the best of it. Others in Gudin's small battalion despised Lawford for his clumsiness with weapons, but Sharpe was his friend and so far no man had been willing to risk Sharpe's displeasure by needling Lawford.
Sharpe and Lawford watched the invading armies make their camp well out of cannon range to the south of the city. A few Mysorean cavalrymen still circled the armies, watching for a chance to snap up a fugitive, but most of the Tippoo's men were now back on the city's island. There was an excited buzz in the city, almost a relief that the enemy was in sight and the waiting at last was over. There was also a feeling of confidence, for although the enemy horde looked vast, the Tippoo had formidable defences and plenty of men. Sharpe could detect no lack of enthusiasm among the Hindu troops. Lawford had told him there was bad blood between them and the Muslims, but on that evening, as the Tippoo's men hung more defiant banners above their lime-washed walls, the city seemed united in its defiance.
Sergeant Rothiere shouted at Sharpe and Lawford from the inner wall of the Mysore Gate, pointing to the big bastion at the city's south-western corner. 'Colonel Gudin wants us,' Lawford translated for Sharpe.
'Vite!' Rothiere bellowed.
'Now,' Lawford said nervously.
The two men threaded their way through the spectators who crowded the parapets until they found Colonel Gudin in a c
avalier that jutted south from the huge square bastion. 'How's your back?' the Frenchman greeted Sharpe.
'Mending wonderfully, sir.'
Gudin smiled, pleased at the news. 'It's Indian medicine, Sharpe. If I ever go back to France I've a mind to take a native doctor with me. Much better than ours. All a French doctor would do is bleed you dry, then console your widow.' The Colonel turned and gestured south across the river. 'Your old friends,' he said, indicating where the British and Indian cavalry were exploring the land between the army's encampment and the city. Most were staying well out of range of Seringapatam's cannon, but a few braver souls were galloping closer to the city, either to tempt the Tippoo's cavalry to come out and dare single combat, or else to provoke the gunners on the city wall. One especially flamboyant group was shouting towards the city, and even waving, as though inviting cannon fire, and every now and then a cannon would boom or a rocket scream across the river, though somehow the jeering cavalrymen always remained untouched. 'They're distracting us,' Gudin explained, 'drawing attention away from some others. There, see? Some bushes. Beside the cistern.' He was pointing across the river. 'There are some scouts there. On foot. They are trying to see what defences we have close to the river. You see them? Look in the bushes under the two palm trees.'
Sharpe stared, but could see nothing. 'You want us to go and get them, sir?' he offered.
'I want you to shoot them,' Gudin said.
The bushes under the twin palms were nearly quarter of a mile away. 'Long bloody range for a musket, sir,' Sharpe said dubiously.
'Try this, then,' Gudin said and held out a gun. It must have been one of the Tippoo's own weapons, for its stock was decorated with ivory, its tiger-head lock was chased with gold and its barrel engraved with Arabic writing.
Sharpe took and hefted the gun. 'Might be pretty, sir,' he said, 'but no amount of fancy work on the outside will make it more accurate than that plain old thing.' He patted his heavy French musket.
'You're wrong,' Gudin said. 'That's a rifle.'
'A rifle!' Sharpe had heard of such weapons, but he had never handled one, and now he peered inside the muzzle and saw that the barrel was indeed cut in a pattern of spiralling grooves. He had heard that the grooves spun the bullet which somehow made a rifle far more accurate than a shot from a smoothbore musket. Why that should be the case he had not the slightest idea, but every man he had ever spoken to about rifles had sworn it was true. 'Still,' he said dubiously, 'near a quarter-mile? Long ways for a bullet, sir, even if it is spinning.'
'That rifle can kill at four hundred paces, Sharpe,' Gudin said confidently. 'It's loaded, by the way,' the Colonel added, and Sharpe, who had been peering down the muzzle again, jerked back. Gudin laughed. 'Loaded with the best powder and with its bullet wrapped in oiled leather. I want to see how good a shot you are.'
'No, you don't, sir,' Sharpe said, 'you want to see if I'm willing to kill my own countrymen.'
'That too, of course,' Gudin agreed placidly, and laughed at having had his small ploy discovered. 'At that range you should aim about six or seven feet above your target. I have another rifle for you, Lawford, but I don't suppose we can expect a clerk to be as accurate as a skirmisher like Sharpe?'
'I'll do my best, sir,' Lawford said and took the second rifle from Gudin. Lawford might be clumsy at loading a gun, but he was a practised shot in the hunting field and had been firing rifled fowling pieces since he was eight years old.
'Some men find it hard to shoot at their old comrades,' Gudin told Lawford mildly, 'and I want to make sure you're not among them.'
'Let's hope the bastards are officers,' Sharpe said, 'begging your presence, sir.'
'There they are!' Gudin said, and, sure enough, just beside the cistern beneath the two palm trees across the river, were a pair of red coats. The men were examining the city walls through telescopes. Their horses were picketed behind them.
Sharpe knelt in a gun embrasure. He instinctively felt that the range was much too long for any firearm, but he had heard about the miracle of rifles and he was curious to see if the rumours were true. 'You take the one on the left, Bill,' he said, 'and fire just after me.' He glanced at Gudin and saw that the Colonel had moved a few feet down the cavalier to watch the effect of the shots from a place where the rifles' smoke would not obscure his glass. 'And aim well, Bill,' Sharpe said in a low voice. 'They're probably only bloody cavalrymen, so who cares if we plug them with a pair of bloody goolies.' He crouched behind the rifle and aligned its well-defined sights that were so much more impressive than the rudimentary stub that served a musket as a foresight. A man could stand fifty feet in front of a well-aimed musket and still stand a better than even chance of walking away unscathed, but the delicacy of the rifle's sights seemed to confirm what everyone had told Sharpe. This was a long-range killer.
He settled himself firmly, keeping the sights lined on the distant man, then gently raised the barrel so that the rifle's muzzle obscured his target but would give the ball the needed trajectory. There was no wind to speak of, so he had no need to offset his aim. He had never fired a rifle, but it was just common sense really. Nor was he unduly worried about killing one of his own side. It was a sad necessity, something that needed to be done if he was to earn Gudin's trust and thus the freedom that might let him escape from the city. He took a breath, half let it out, then pulled the trigger. The gun banged into his shoulder, its recoil much harder than an ordinary musket's blow. Lawford fired a half-second later, the smoke of his gun joining the dense cloud pumped out by Sharpe's rifle.
'The clerk wins!' Gudin exclaimed in astonishment. He lowered his spyglass. 'Yours went six inches past the man's head, Sharpe, but I think you killed your man, Lawford. Well done! Well done indeed!'
Lawford reddened, but said nothing. He looked very troubled and Gudin put his evident confusion down to a natural shyness. 'Is that the first man you've ever killed?' he asked gently.
'Yes, sir,' Lawford said, truthfully enough.
'You deserve to be better than a clerk. Well done. Well done both of you.' He took the rifles from them and laughed at Sharpe's rueful expression. 'You expected to do better, Sharpe?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You will. Six inches off at that distance is very good shooting. Very good indeed.' Gudin turned to watch as the uninjured redcoat dragged his companion back towards the horses. 'I think, maybe,' Gudin went on, 'that you have a natural talent, Lawford. I congratulate you.' The Colonel fished in his pouch and brought out a handful of coins. 'An advance on your arrears of pay. Well done! Off you go, now!'
Sharpe glanced behind him, hoping to see what devilment the western walls held, but he could see nothing strange there and so he turned and followed Lawford down the ramp. Lawford was shaking. 'I didn't mean to kill him!' the Lieutenant said when he was out of Gudin's earshot.
'I did,' Sharpe muttered.
'God, what have I done? I was aiming left!'
'Don't be a bloody fool,' Sharpe said, 'what you've done is earned our freedom. You did bloody well.' He dragged Lawford into a tavern. The Tippoo might be a Muslim, and the Muslims might preach an extraordinary hatred of alcohol, but most of the city was Hindu and the Tippoo was sensible enough to keep the taverns open. This one, close to Gudin's barracks, was a big room, open to the street, with a dozen tables where old men played chess and young men boasted of the slaughter they would inflict on the besiegers. The tavern-keeper, a big woman with hard eyes, sold a variety of strange drinks: wine and arrack mostly, but she also kept a weird-tasting beer. Sharpe could still hardly speak a word of the local language, but he pointed to the arrack barrel and held up two fingers. Now that he and Lawford were dressed in the tiger-striped tunics and carried muskets they attracted little attention in the city and no hostility. 'Here.' He put the arrack in front of Lawford. 'Drink that.'
Lawford drank it in one go. 'That was the first man I've killed,' he said, blinking from the harshness of the liquor.
'Worry you?'
&
nbsp; 'Of course it does! He was British!'
'Can't skin a cat without making a bloody mess,' Sharpe said comfortingly.
'Jesus!' Lawford said angrily.
Sharpe poured half his liquor into Lawford's glass, then beckoned to one of the serving girls who circled the tables refilling glasses. 'You had to do it,' he said.
'If I'd have missed like you,' Lawford said ruefully, 'Gudin would have been just as impressed. That was a fine shot of yours.'
'I was aiming to kill the bugger.'
'You were?' Lawford was shocked.
'Jesus Christ, Bill! We have to convince these buggers!' Sharpe smiled as the girl poured more liquor, then he tipped a handful of small brass coins into a wooden bowl on the table. Another bowl held a strange spice which the other drinkers nibbled between sips, but Sharpe found the stuff too pungent. Once the girl was gone he looked at the troubled Lieutenant. 'Did you think this was going to be easy?'