The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib

by G. A. Henty

"He will not be of much use as an interpreter," he said, "for as the country in which you are going to operate formed, until lately, a part of the Mahratta dominions, Mahratti will be principally spoken. He will, therefore, go simply as an officer of my staff, attached for the present to your command. He has asked me to allow him to take with him twenty men, belonging to the troop of his uncle, the Rajah of Tripataly. His object, in doing so, is that he will be able to traverse the country independently, and can either rejoin me here, or go to one of the other columns operating against the hill forts, if it should seem to him expedient to do so. Should you desire to make a reconnaissance at any time, while he is with you, you will find him useful as an escort, and will not be obliged to ask Purseram Bhow for a party of his cavalry."

Dick was sorry to leave his uncle, whose tent he had now shared for the last ten months. He found himself, however, very comfortable with the Bombay troops, being made a member of the mess, consisting of the officer in command and the four officers of his staff. Wishing to have some duties with which to occupy himself, he volunteered to act as an aide-de-camp; and although the work was little more than nominal, it gave him some employment. When not otherwise engaged, he generally rode with Surajah, whom his uncle had appointed to command the twenty troopers.

In the year that had elapsed since his arrival in India, Dick had grown considerably, and broadened out greatly, and was now a powerful young fellow of over seventeen. He had, since the troop joined the army of Lord Cornwallis, exchanged his civilian dress for the undress uniform of an officer, which he had purchased at the sale of the effects of a young lieutenant on the general's staff, who had died just as the army arrived before Bangalore. It was, indeed, necessary that he should do this, riding about, as he did, either on the staff of the general, or with the officers of the quartermasters' department. There would be no difficulty in renewing his uniform, for hardship, fever, and war had carried off a large number of officers, as well as men; and the effects were always sold by auction, on the day following the funeral.

Many hill fortresses were captured by the Mahrattis, but few offered any resistance; as their commanders knew well that there was no chance of their being relieved, while the men were, in most cases, delighted at the prospect of an escape from their enforced service, and of freedom to return to their homes. In a few of these forts, English captives were found. Some had been there for years, their very existence being apparently forgotten by the tyrant. Some had been fairly treated by the Mysore governor, and where this was the case, the latter was furnished by the British officers with papers, testifying to the kindness with which they had treated the prisoners, and recommending them to the officers of any of the allied forces they might encounter on their way home, or when established there.

Upon the other hand, some of the prisoners were found to have been all but starved, and treated with great brutality. In two cases, where the captives said that some of their companions had died from the effects of the ill treatment they had received, the governors were tried by court martial and shot, while some of the others they sentenced to be severely flogged.

Every captive released was closely scrutinised by Dick, and eagerly questioned. From one of them, he obtained news that his father had certainly been alive four years previously, for they had been in prison together, in a hill fort near Bangalore.

"I was a civilian and he a sailor," he said, "consequently neither of us were of any use in drilling Tippoo's battalions, and had been sent up there. Your father was well, then. The governor was a good fellow, and we had nothing much to complain of. Mr. Holland was a favourite of his, for, being a sailor, he was handy at all sorts of things. He could mend a piece of broken furniture, repair the lock of a musket, and make himself generally useful. He left there before I did, as the governor was transferred to some other fort--I never heard where it was--and he took your father with him. I don't know whether he had Tippoo's orders to do so, or whether he took him simply because he liked him.

"At any rate, he was the only prisoner who went with him. The rest of us remained there till a few months back, when the fort was abandoned. It was just after the capture of Bangalore, and the place could have offered no resistance, if a body of troops had been sent against it. At any rate, an order arrived one morning, and a few hours afterwards the place was entirely abandoned, and we and the garrison marched here."

"My father was quite well?"

"Quite well. He used to talk to me, at times, of trying to make his escape. Being a sailor, I have no doubt that he could have got down from the precipice on which the fort stood; but he knew that, if he did so, we should all suffer for it, and probably be all put to death, as soon as Tippoo heard that one of us had escaped--for that was always done, in order to deter prisoners from trying to get away."