It crumpled slowly, jetting a cloud of dust into the air, a cloud so thick that at first no man could see the extent of the damage, but as the small wind cleared the smoke away from the guns and the dust from the wall they could see that a breach had been made. The limewashed wall now had a gap twenty yards wide, and the gap was filled with a mound of rubble up which a man could climb so long as he was unencumbered by anything other than a musket, a bayonet and his cartridge box. That made the breach practicable.
Yet still the guns fired. Now the gunners were trying to flatten the slope of the breach and some of their shots ricocheted up to the inner wall and for a time Gudin feared that the British were planning to blast a passage clean through that new inner rampart, but then the gunners lowered their aim to keep their balls hammering at the newly made breach or else to gnaw at the shoulders of the outer wall's gap.
A half-mile away from Gudin, in the British lines, General Harris and General Baird stared at the breach through their telescopes. Now, for the first time, they could inspect a short stretch of the new inner wall. 'It isn't as high as I feared, Harris commented.
'Let's pray it's unfinished, Baird growled.
'But still I think it's better to ignore it, Harris decreed. 'Capture the outer wall first.
Baird turned to stare at some clouds that lay heavy and low on the western horizon. He feared the clouds presaged rain. 'We could go tonight, sir, he suggested. Baird was remembering the forty-four months he had endured in the Tippoo's dungeons, some of them spent chained to the wall of his cell, and he wanted revenge. He was also eager to get the bloody business of storming the city done.
Harris collapsed his glass. 'Tomorrow, he said firmly, and scratched beneath the edge of his wig. 'We risk more by rushing things. We'll do it properly, and we'll do it tomorrow.
That night a handful of British officers crept out from the leading trenches with small white cotton flags attached to bamboo poles. The sky was laced with a tracery of thin clouds that intermittently hid the waning moon, and in the cloud shadows the officers explored the South Cauvery to find the river's treacherous deep pools. They marked the shallows with their flags and so pointed the path towards the breach.
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,
*** MISSING PAGE??? ***
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.
Bugles greeted the dawn. The storm clouds had thickened in the west, but there was no rain, and the rising sun soon burned the small wispy clouds from above the city. The assaulting troops crouched in the trenches where they could not be seen from Seringapatam's walls. The small white flags fluttered in the river. The siege guns kept firing, some attempting to open the breach wider, but most just trying to discourage the defenders from making any attempt to repair the breach or place obstacles on its forward slope. The undamaged ramparts gleamed white in the sun, while the breach appeared as a red-brown scar in the long city wall.
The Tippoo had spent the night in a small sentry shelter on the north walls. He woke early for he expected an attack at dawn and he had ordered that all his soldiers should be ready on the walls, but no assault came and, as the sun climbed higher, he allowed some of the defenders back to their barracks to rest while he himself went to the Inner Palace. He sensed a nervous expectancy in the crowded streets, and he himself was a troubled man for during his restless night he had dreamed of monkeys, and monkeys were ever a bad omen, and the Tippoo's mood was not helped when his diviners reported that the oil in their pots had been clouded. Today, it seemed, was an inauspicious day, but luck, as the Tippoo knew, was malleable and he attempted to change the day's ill- starred beginning by giving gifts. He summoned a Hindu priest and presented the man with an elephant, a sack of oilseed and a purse of gold. To the Brahmins who accompanied the priest he gave a bullock, a nanny goat, two buffalo, a black hat, a black coat and one of his precious pots of divining oil. Then he washed his hands and donned a cloth-padded war helmet that had been dipped in a sacred fountain to make its wearer invulnerable. On his right arm, his sword arm, he wore a silver amulet inscribed with verses from the Koran. A servant pinned the great red ruby onto the helmet's plume, the Tippoo slung the gold-hilted sword at his waist, then went back to the western walls.
Nothing had changed. Beyond the gently flowing South Cauvery the sun baked the ground where the British guns still fired. Their massive round shots churned up the rubble ramp, but no redcoats stirred from their trenches and the only signs that an assault might be imminent were the small pennants stuck in the river bed.
'They want another day to widen the breach, an officer opined.
Colonel Gudin shook his head. 'They'll come today, he insisted.
The Tippoo grunted. He was standing just north of the breach from where he watched the enemy trenches through a spyglass. Some of the British round shot struck dangerously close to where he stood, and his aides tried to persuade him to move to a safer place, but even when a stone shard thrown up by a cannonball flicked at his white linen tunic, he would not move. 'They would have come at dawn, he finally said, 'if they were coming today.
'They want us to think that, Gudin protested, 'to lull us. But they will come today. They won't give us another
