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

‘Bloody hell, sir!’ Sharpe said. ‘For religion? They do that?’

‘We Christians sprinkle babies with water,’ Gudin said, ‘and the Muslims chop off foreskins.’ The Frenchman paused, then smiled. ‘However, I cannot think that a man with a bleeding prick will make a good soldier, and your armies will be here in a few days, so I will suggest to His Majesty that the two of you serve with my men. We are few, but none of us are Muslims, and all of our soft-boiled eggs retain their full shells.’

‘Quite right too, sir,’ Sharpe said enthusiastically. ‘And it’ll be an honour to serve you, sir,’ he added.

‘In a French battalion?’ Gudin teased him.

‘If you don’t flog, sir, and you don’t carve up pricks, then it’ll be more than an honour.’

‘If the Tippoo allows it,’ Gudin warned them, ‘which he may not. But I think he might. I have other Britishers in the battalion, and some Germans and Swiss.’I’m sure you will be happy there.’ He looked at Mary. ‘But what of you, Mademoiselle?’

Mary touched Sharpe’s elbow. ‘I came with Richard, sir.’

Gudin inspected her black eye. ‘How did that happen, Mademoiselle?’

‘I fell, sir,’ Mary said.

Gudin’s face flickered with a smile. ‘Or did Private Sharpe hit you? So that you would not appear attractive?’

‘I fell over, sir.’

Gudin nodded. ‘You hit hard, Private Sharpe.’

‘No point else, sir.’

‘That is true,’ Gudin said, then shrugged. ‘My men have their women. If His Majesty allows it I don’t see why the two of you should not stay together.’ He turned as his sergeant reappeared, bringing with him an elderly Indian who carried a cloth-covered basket. ‘This is Doctor Venkatesh,’ Gudin said, greeting the doctor with a bow, ‘and he is quite as good as any physician I ever found in Paris. I imagine, Sharpe, that removing those filthy bandages will hurt?’

‘Not as much as circumcising, sir.’

Gudin laughed. ‘All the same, I think you had better sit down.’

Removing the bandages hurt like buggery. Mister Micklewhite, the surgeon, had put a salve on the lashes, but no army surgeon ever wasted too much precious ointment on a common soldier, and Micklewhite had not used enough salve to stop the bandages from crusting to the wounds and so the cloth had become one clotted mass of linen and dried blood that tore the scabs away from the wounds as the Indian peeled

the bandages away. Doctor Venkatesh was indeed skilful and gentle and his voice was ever soothing in Sharpe’s ear as he delicately prised the horrid mess away from the torn flesh, but even so Sharpe could not forbear from whimpering as the bandages were lifted. The tigers, smelling fresh blood, lunged at their chains so that the courtyard was filled with the clank and snap of stretching links.

The Indian doctor plainly disapproved of both the injury and the treatment. He tutted and muttered and shook his head as the carnage was revealed. Then, when he had picked the last filthy scrap of bandage away with a pair of ivory tweezers, he poured an unguent over Sharpe’s back and the cool liquid was wonderfully soothing. Sharpe sighed with relief, then suddenly the doctor sprang away from him, stood, clasped his hands and bowed low.

Sharpe twisted round to see that a group of Indians had come into the courtyard. At their head was a shortish plump man, maybe fifty years old, with a round face and a neatly trimmed black moustache. He was dressed in a white silk tunic above white silk leggings and black leather boots, but the simple clothes glittered with jewels. He wore rubies on his turban, diamond-studded bangles on his arms, and pearls were sewn onto his blue silk sash from which there hung a sapphire-studded scabbard in which rested a sword with a golden hilt fashioned into the face of a snarling tiger. Doctor Venkatesh backed hurriedly away, still bowing, while Gudin stood respectfully at attention. ‘The Tippoo!’ Gudin warned Sharpe and Lawford in a whisper, and Sharpe struggled to his feet and, like the Frenchman, stood to attention.

The Tippoo stopped a half-dozen paces short of Sharpe and Lawford. He stared at them for a few seconds, then spoke softly to his interpreter. ‘Turn round,’ the interpreter ordered Sharpe.

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