And all through that night the assault troops filed down the long trenches. Harris was determined that his assault would be overwhelming. He would not tickle the city, he told Baird, but swamp it with men, and so Baird would lead two columns of troops, half of them British and half sepoys, but nearly all of them prime men from the army’s elite flanking companies. The six thousand attackers would either be grenadiers, who were the biggest and strongest men, or else from the light companies who were the quickest and cleverest soldiers, and those picked men would be accompanied by a detachment of Hyderabad’s finest warriors. The attackers would also be accompanied by engineers carrying fascines to fill in any ditches that the defenders might have dug on the breach’s summit and bamboo ladders to scale the edges of the breach. Volunteer gunners would follow the leading troops up onto the ramparts and there turn the Tippoo’s own cannon
against the defenders on the inner wall. Two Forlorn Hopes would go ahead of the columns, each Hope composed solely of volunteers and each led by a sergeant who would be made an officer if he survived. Both the Forlorn Hopes would carry the British colours into the breach, and those colour bearers would be the very first men to climb into the enemy’s guns. Once on the breach the Forlorn Hopes were ordered not to go on into the space between the walls, but to climb the broken stumps of the shoulders either side of the breach’s ramp and from there lead the fight north and south around the whole ring of Seringapatam’s ramparts.
‘God knows,’ Harris said that night at supper, ‘but I can think of nothing left undone. Can you, Baird?’
‘No, sir, I can’t,’ Baird said. ‘Upon my soul, I can’t.’ He was trying to sound cheerful, but it was still a subdued meal, though Harris had done his best to make it festive. His table was spread with a linen cloth and was lit by fine spermaceti candles that burned with a pure white light. The General’s cooks had killed their last chickens to provide a change from the usual half-ration of beef, but none of the officers round the table had much appetite, nor, it seemed, any enthusiasm for conversation. Meer Allum, the commander of the Hyderabad army, did his best to encourage his allies, but only Wellesley seemed capable of responding to his remarks.
Colonel Gent, who as well as being Harris’s chief engineer, had taken on himself the collation of what intelligence came out of the city, poured himself some wine. It was rancid stuff, soured by its long journey from Europe and by the heat of India. ‘There’s a rumour,’ he said heavily when a break in the desultory conversation had stretched for too long, ‘that the heathen bastards have planted a mine.’
‘There are always such rumours,’ Baird said curtly.
‘A bit late to tell us, surely?’ Harris remonstrated mildly.
‘Only heard of it today, sir,’ Gent said defensively. ‘One of their cavalry fellows deserted. He could be making up tales,
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would regard the appointment as a slight, yet in truth Baird’s hatred of all things Indian disqualified him from such a post. Britain needed a friendly Mysore, and Wellesley was a tactful man who harboured no prejudice against natives. ‘Good of you, Wellesley,’ Harris said when the toast had been drunk. ‘Very good of you, I’m sure.’
‘This time tomorrow,’ Meer Allum said in his odd English accent, ‘we shall all dine in the Tippoo’s palace. Drink from his silver and eat from his gold.’
‘I pray that we do,’ Harris said, ‘and I pray we manage it without grievous loss.’ He scratched his old wound beneath his wig.
The officers were still sombre when the meal ended. Harris bade them a good night, then stood for a while outside his tent staring at the moon-glossed walls of the distant city. The limewashed ramparts seemed to glow white, beckoning him, but to what? He went to his bed where he slept badly and, in his waking moments, found himself rehearsing excuses for failure. Baird also stayed awake for a while, but drank a good measure of whisky and, afterwards, in full uniform and with his big claymore propped beside his cot, he slipped in and out of a restless sleep. Wellesley slept well. The men crammed in the trenches hardly slept at all.