Appah Rao’s cushoons defended the south-western corner of the city and Appah Rao watched appalled as the hugely tall Scotsman hacked his way towards him. He watched the torrent of redcoats swarming behind the giant, and he heard their shouts and he watched their victims fall off the ramparts. The brigade that defended that stretch of wall was being killed man by man, and those that lived were giving way and some were running ratiier than face the horror, and Appah Rao’s men were next for the slaughter.
But to die for what? he wondered. The city was gone and the Tippoo’s dynasty was doomed. Appah Rao knew his men were watching him, waiting for the order that would hurl them into battle, but instead the General turned to his second-in-command. ‘When were the men last paid?’ he asked.
The officer frowned, puzzled by the question, but at last managed an answer. ‘Three months at least, sahib. Four, I think.’
‘Tell them there will be a pay parade this afternoon.’
‘Sahib?’ The second-in-command gaped up at Appah Rao.
The General raised his voice so that as many of his men as possible could hear him. ‘The pay is overdue, so this afternoon we shall have a pay parade in the encampment. Men shouldn’t fight without pay.’ He ostentatiously sheathed his sword and walked calmly down from the ramparts. Here, at the Mysore Gate, there was no ditch between the inner and outer walls, and Rao airily strode through the inner gate. For a second his men watched him, then first in ones and twos, and afterwards in a rush, they followed. One instant the wall was crammed with men, the next it was emptying so that Baird, cutting his furious way through the last of the west
wall’s guards, suddenly saw that the city was his. He howled again, this time in victory. His butcher’s sword was red with blood, his right sleeve soaked with it. A redcoat, perhaps forgetting that the Scotsman was a general, slapped his back and Baird hugged the man for pure joy.
The Tippoo still fought and still thought he could win, but on the northern wall, just twenty yards beyond the north-west bastion, a single cross-wall joined the inner and outer ramparts. The cross-wall served as a buttress for the old outer wall, and at one time it had been intended to thicken the buttressing cross-wall, then make the space it contained into an even larger bastion, but the work had never been done and now the wall, its coping just eight inches across, offered itself as a perilously narrow bridge to the redcoats and sepoys who were trapped by the Tippoo’s fire. If they could cross that bridge they could assault the inner wall and scour its defenders from the deadly parapet. One man tried to cross and was shot down. He wailed as he fell into the ditch. A moment later another man dashed across and reached halfway before a musket ball shattered his lower leg. He dropped his own musket and fell onto the wall’s coping, cursing as he tried to keep his balance, then a second shot tipped him over the side. For a second or two he managed to cling to the top of the wall, shuddering as pain shook his body, then he too dropped.
The Tippoo’s men on the outer wall cheered and edged forward to drive the enemy away from the buttressing cross-wall, but a rush of sepoys checked their progress. A new musket duel broke out, Indian against Indian, a torrent of fire in which the Tippoo somehow survived like a charmed being. The sepoys fired volley after volley, came forward, died, and more men came to take their places.
The Light Company of the Ring’s iath regiment followed the sepoys. Captain Goodall, their commander, eyed the narrow buttress. It led directly to the inner wall which was heavy
with defenders, but it was also a bridge to victory. ‘Death or glory!’ Goodall shouted the cliche, but it was a truism too at that moment, and then he stepped out onto the narrow coping and fired his pistol into the lingering powder smoke that obscured the far end of the wall. ‘Come on!’ he called, then ran along the top of the wall, miraculously keeping his footing. He jumped onto the inner wall’s parapet and slashed down with his sword. A man fired up at him, but Goodall’s Sergeant, coming hard behind, had unceremoniously shoved his Captain out of the way and Goodall fell down onto the inner wall’s firestep and the bullet missed him. The Sergeant was next across the parapet, then a line of screaming men followed as Goodall fought his way eastwards. The fire from the inner wall, which had been gutting the attackers, began to falter, and suddenly a rush of redcoats, who had been crouching for shelter from the inner wall’s musketry, ran eastwards along the outer wall towards the Tippoo. Others crossed the makeshift bridge to reinforce the lath’s Light Company.
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