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 King's 12th 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 12th's Light Company.
The Tippoo saw the enemy revive. They were like a beast that had been wounded, but not killed, and the beast had life in it yet. Too much life, and the Tippoo understood that his night's troublesome dreams had been right after all. The turbid oil pot had told the truth. This day the city would fall, and with it his throne and his palace and his seraglio with its six hundred women, but the disaster did not mean the dynasty was dead. There were great forts in Mysore's northern hills and if he could reach one of those fastnesses then he could still fight on against these devils in red who were stealing his capital.
The Tippoo retreated fast and his bodyguard went with him. They left other men to defend the outer wall while they ran past the Sultan Battery to the ramp which led down to the Water Gate and there, at the foot of the ramp, the palace chamberlains had thought to have His Majesty's palanquin ready with its bearers. One of the chamberlains, oblivious of the bullets hissing through the sky, bowed low to the Tippoo and invited His Majesty to take his proper place on the plump silk cushions beneath the palanquin's tiger-striped canopy. The Tippoo turned and glanced up at the walls to see what progress the attackers were making. There was fighting on both walls now, and the city was plainly doomed, but the defenders were still resisting stubbornly. The Tippoo felt a pang at deserting them, but swore he would avenge them yet. He rejected the palanquin. It was a slow vehicle in which to make a retreat, while inside the city, just on the other side of the inner wall, he had stables filled with fine horses. He would choose his swiftest horse, snatch up some gold to pay those men who stayed loyal, then flee through the city's unthreatened Bangalore Gate and from there turn north towards his great hill fortresses.
Above the Tippoo the city's last defenders retreated slowly. The city was falling to the redcoats under a pall of smoke, and God had willed it, but God might yet permit the Tippoo to fight another day and so, rifle in hand, he headed for the inner Water Gate.
The palanquin was carried by eight men, two to each of its four long gilded handles. When Sharpe first saw it, the clumsy vehicle was being hurried away from the palace by two robed chamberlains who lashed at the bearers with their tiger-headed staves. For a second Sharpe thought the Tippoo must be inside the palanquin, but then he saw that the side curtains were looped back and that the cushions inside were empty. He followed.
He could sense a panic inside the city now. It had been quiet until a few moments ago, crouching like a beast not wanting to be noticed, but now the city somehow sensed that its doom had come. Beggars huddled together for protection, a woman cried in a shuttered house and the stray dogs yelped piteously. Small groups of the Tippoo's soldiers were fleeing in the streets, their bare feet pattering on the dried mud as they ran towards the Bangalore Gate where no enemy threatened. The sound of battle was still intense, but the defence was fraying fast.
The chamberlains led the palanquin towards the Water Gate of the inner wall. The gate lay close to the malodorous lake of sewage that so soured the air and some of the sewage, denied proper drains by the hastily constructed inner wall, had leaked into the Water Gate which was a brick-lined tunnel, fifty feet long, piercing the inner wall. An officer stood guard at its inner doors, but, as the palanquin approached, he unbarred the big teak gates and dragged them open. He shouted something as Sharpe followed the clumsy vehicle into the low tunnel, but Sharpe just shouted Colonel Gudin's name back and the officer was too confused to challenge him again. Instead, once the palanquin and the European soldier had gone through the tunnel, he closed the doors then glanced nervously up to where a mist of smoke betrayed the attackers' progress on the wall above him.