Others of the Tippoo’s finest troops were posted on the outer wall above the edges of the breach. Their job was
to defend the shoulders of the breach, for the Tippoo was determined to funnel the attackers into the space between the walls where his mine could destroy them. Let the British come, the Tippoo prayed, but let them be shepherded across the breach and into the killing ground.
The Tippoo had decided to lead the fight on the wall north of the breach. Colonel Gudin’s battalion would fight south of the breach, but Gudin himself had responsibility for blowing the great mine. It was ready now, a hoard of powder crammed into the old gate passage and shored up by stones and timber so that the blast of the explosion would be forced northwards between the walls. Gudin would watch the killing space from his place on the inner rampart, then signal to Sergeant Rothiere to light the fuse. Rothiere and the fuse were guarded by two of Gudin’s steadiest men and by six of the Tippoo’s jettis.
The Tippoo assured himself that all had been done that could be done. The city was ready and, in honour of the slaughter of infidels, the Tippoo had arrayed himself in jewels, then consigned his soul and his kingdom into Allah’s keeping. Now he could only wait as the late-morning sun climbed higher and yet higher to become a burning whiteness in the Indian sky where the vultures circled on their wide ragged wings.
The British guns fired on. In the mosque some men prayed, but all of them were old men, for any man young enough to fight was waiting on the walls. The Hindus prayed to their gods while the women of the city made themselves ragged and dirty so that, should the city fall, they would not attract the enemy’s attention.
Midday came. The city baked in the heat. It seemed strangely silent, for the fire of the siege guns was desultory now. The sound of each shot echoed dully from the walls and each strike would start a trickle of stone and a small cloud of dust and afterwards there would be silence again.
On the walls a horde of men crouched behind their firesteps, while in the trenches across the river an opposing horde waited for the order that would send them against an expectant city.
The Tippoo had a prayer mat brought to the walls and there, facing towards the enemy, he knelt and bowed in prayer. He prayed that Colonel Gudin was wrong and that his enemies would give him one more day, and then, as in a waking dream, a message came to him. He had given gifts, and gifts of charity were blessed, but he had not made sacrifice. He had been saving his sacrifice for the celebration of victory, but perhaps victory would not come unless he made his offerings now. Luck was malleable, and death was a great changer of fortune. He made a last obeisance, touching his forehead to the mat’s weave, then climbed to his feet. ‘Send for three jettis,’ he ordered an aide, ‘and tell them to bring me the British prisoners.’
‘All of them, Your Majesty?’ the aide asked.
‘Not the Sergeant,’ the Tippoo said. ‘Not the one who twitches. The others. Tell the jettis to bring them here.’ For his victory needed one last sacrifice of blood before the Cauvery was made dark with it.
CHAPTER 10
Appah Rao was an able man, otherwise he would not have been promoted to the command of one of the Tippoo’s brigades, but he was also a discreet man. Discretion had kept Rao alive and discretion had enabled him to preserve his loyalty to the unthroned Rajah of the house of Wodeyar while still serving the Tippoo.
Now, ordered to take his men to the walls of Seringapatam and there fight to preserve the Muslim dynasty of the Tippoo, Appah Rao at last questioned his discretion. He obeyed the Tippoo, of course, and his cushoons filed dutifully enough onto the city ramparts, but Appah Rao, standing beneath one of the sun banners above the Mysore Gate, asked himself what he wanted of this world. He possessed family, high rank, wealth and ability, yet he still bowed his head to a foreign monarch and some of the flags above his men’s heads were inscribed in Arabic to celebrate a god who was no god of Appah Rao’s. His own monarch lived in poverty, ever under the threat of execution, and it was possible, more than possible, Rao allowed, that victory this day would raise the Tippoo so high that he would no longer need the small advantage of the Rajah’s existence. The Rajah was paraded like a doll on Hindu holy days to placate the Tippoo’s Hindu subjects, but if Mysore had no enemies in southern India, why should the Hindus of Mysore need to be placated? The Rajah and all his family would be secretly strangled and their corpses, like the bodies of the twelve murdered British prisoners, would