Sharpe 01 - Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780006490357
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1998-07-29T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

'Sharpe! Sharpe!' It was Colonel Gudin who, at nightfall, burst'into the barracks room. 'Come, quick! As you are, hurry!'

'What about me, sir?' Lawford asked. The Lieutenant had been idly reading his Bible as he lay on his cot.

'Come on, Sharpe!' Gudin did not wait to answer Lawford, but just ran across the barracks' courtyard and out into the street which separated the European soldiers' quarters from the Hindu temple. 'Quick, Sharpe!' the Frenchman called back as he hurried past a pile of mud bricks that were stacked at the street corner. Sharpe, dressed in tiger-striped tunic and boots, but with no hat, crossbelt, pouches or musket, ran after the Colonel. He leapt over a half-naked man who was sitting cross-legged beside the temple wall, shoved a cow out of his way, then turned the corner and hurried after Gudin towards the Mysore Gate. Lawford had paused to tug on his boots and by the time he reached the street beside the temple, Sharpe had already vanished.

'Can you ride a horse?' Gudin shouted at Sharpe when the two men reached the gate.

'I did a couple of times,' Sharpe said, not bothering to explain that the beasts had been unsaddled draught horses that had ambled docilely around the inn yard.

'Get on that one!' Gudin said, pointing to a small excited mare that was being held by an Indian infantryman along with Gudin's own horse. 'She belongs to Captain Romet, so

for God's sake take care,' Gudin shouted as he swung himself up into the saddle. Captain Romet was one of Gudin's two deputies, but as both the junior French officers spent most of their lives in the city's most expensive brothel, Sharpe had yet to meet either of them. He climbed gingerly onto the mare's back, then kicked back his heels and clung desperately to the horse's mane as she followed Gudin's gelding into the gateway. 'The British are attacking a wood just north of Sultanpetah,' the Colonel explained as he pushed his horse through the crowded archway.

Sharpe could hear the distant fight. Muskets snapped and shells exploded dully to flicker red bursts of light far to the city's west. It was very nearly night in the city. The first house lamps had long been lit and flaming torches smoked in the archway of the Mysore Gate through which a stream of men was hurrying. Some were infantry, others carried rockets. Gudin bellowed at them for passage, used his gelding to force the slower rocketmen aside, and then, once through the gate, he sawed on his reins to turn westwards.

Sharpe followed, more intent on staying on the mare than watching the excitement that seethed around him. A narrow bridge led across the South Cauvery just outside the gate and Gudin shouted at its guards to clear the roadway. Rocketmen shrank back against the balustrades as Sharpe and Gudin hurried between the bridge's small forts and then over the shallow, shrunken river. Once on the far bank they galloped hard across a stretch of muddy grass, then splashed through anodier small branch of the river.

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