Cornwell, Bernard 01 Sharpe’s Tiger-Serigapatam-Apr-May 1799

Cornwell, Bernard 01 Sharpe’s Tiger-Serigapatam-Apr-May 1799

SHARPE’S TIGER

By Bernard Cornwell

The Sharpe novels

(in chronological order)

SHARPE’S TIGER

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam (1799)

SHARPE’S TRIUMPH

Richard Sharpe and the Batde of Assaye, (1803)

SHARPE’S RIFLES

Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia (1809)

SHARPE’S EAGLE

Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign (1809)

SHARPE’S GOLD

Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida (1810)

SHARPE’S BATTLE

Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de Ofioro (1811)

SHARPE’S COMPANY

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz (1812)

SHARPE’S SWORD

Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign (1812)

SHARPE’S ENEMY

Richard Sharpe and the Defence of Portugal (1812)

SHARPE’S HONOUR

Richard Sharpe and the Vitoria Campaign (1813)

SHARPE’S REGIMENT

Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of France (1813)

SHARPE’S SIEGE

Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign (1814)

SHARPE’S REVENGE

Richard Sharpe and the Peace of 1814

SHARPE’S WATERLOO

Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign (1815)

SHARPE’S DEVIL

Richard Sharpe and the Emperor (1820-21)

The Starbuck Chronicles

REBEL

COPPERHEAD

BATTLE FLAG

THE BLOODY GROUND

HarperCollinsPublishers

BERNARD CORNWELL

Sharpe’s Tiger

Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

ISBN 649035 2

Map by Ken Lewis

Set in Postscript Monotype Baskerville by

Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd,

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Caledonian International Book Manufacturing Ltd, Glasgow

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out orotherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including thiscondition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Sharpe’s Tiger is for

Muir Sutherland and Malcolm Craddock, with many thanks

CHAPTER 1

It was funny, Richard Sharpe thought, that there were no vultures in England. None that he had seen, anyway. Ugly things they were. Rats with wings.

He thought about vultures a lot, and he had a lot of time to think because he was a soldier, a private, and so the army insisted on doing a lot of his thinking for him. The army decided when he woke up, when he slept, when he ate, when he marched, and when he was to sit about doing nothing and that was what he did most of the time – nothing. Hurry up and do nothing, that was the army’s way of doing things, and he was fed up with it. He was bored and thinking of running.

Him and Mary. Run away. Desert. He was thinking about it now, and it was an odd thing to worry about right now because the army was about to give Richard Sharpe his first proper battle. He had been in one fight, but that was five years ago and it had been a messy, confused business in fog, and no one had known why the 33rd Regiment was in Flanders or what they were supposed to be doing there, and in the end they had done nothing except fire some shots at the mist-shrouded French and the whole thing had been over almost before young Richard Sharpe had known it had begun. He had seen a couple of men killed. He remembered Sergeant Hawthorne’s death best because the Sergeant had been hit by a musket ball that drove a rib clean out of his red coat. There was hardly a drop of blood to be seen, just

the white rib sticking out of the faded red cloth. ‘You could hang your hat on that,’ Hawthorne had said in a tone of wonder, then he had sobbed, and after that he had choked up blood and collapsed. Sharpe had gone on loading and firing, and then, just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, the battalion had marched away and sailed back to England. Some batde.

Now he was in India. He did not know why he was invading Mysore and hor did he particularly care. King George III wanted Richard Sharpe to be in India, so in India Richard Sharpe was, but Richard Sharpe had now become bored with the King’s service. He was young and he reckoned life had more to offer than hurrying up and doing nothing. There was money to be made. He was not sure how to make money, except by thieving, but he did know that he was bored and that he could do better than stay on the bottom of the dungheap. That was where he was, he kept telling himself, the bottom of a dungheap and everyone knew what was piled on top of a dungheap. Better to run, he told himself. All that was needed to get ahead in the world was a bit of sense and the ability to kick a bastard faster than the bastard could kick you, and Richard Sharpe reckoned he had those talents right enough.