Colonel Arthur Wellesley – later 1st Duke of Wellington.Mary Bickerstaff – a widowed half-Indian army wife, now attached to Sharpe.William Lawford – Sharpe's lieutenant who aids him in freeing Colonel McCandless.Sharpe throws Hakeswill to the Sultan's tigers, but the recently fed animals ignore Hakeswill, and Sharpe's enemy survives to plague him in later adventures. As the Sultan tries to flee the city, Sharpe finds him in a dark tunnel, kills him, and steals his rich jewels. Mary helps Sharpe to escape, and Sharpe blows up the mine before the main British army can enter the trap. Sharpe and Lawford are imprisoned as the British army prepares to assault the booby-trapped wall of the city. Hakeswill has been captured in battle and the Sultan orders him made a human sacrifice for victory, but Hakeswill secures the Sultan's mercy in exchange for revealing Sharpe's and Lawford's identity as spies. Joining the Sultan's army, they discover that the Sultan has set a trap for the invading British by mining the weakest (and thus most inviting) portion of Seringapatam's walls.īefore Sharpe and Lawford can discover a way to transmit a warning to the British, they are betrayed by Sergeant Hakeswill.
Although Lawford is nominally in command, Sharpe quickly dominates the lieutenant by force of personality and, without authorization, brings Mary on the mission. Lawford and Sharpe pose as deserters to rescue Colonel Hector McCandless, chief of the British East India Company's intelligence service. But Sharpe is rescued by Lieutenant William Lawford after 202 lashes are inflicted, in order to effect a rescue mission behind the Sultan's lines. His sadistic company sergeant, Obadiah Hakeswill, deliberately provokes Sharpe into attacking him, and engineers the virtual death sentence of 2,000 lashes for the private.
Sharpe is contemplating desertion with his paramour, widow Mary Bickerstaff. The story opens with Richard Sharpe serving as a private with the British army, then invading Mysore and advancing on the Tippoo Sultan's capital city of Seringapatam. It takes place in Mysore, India and tells of Sharpe's adventures and triumphs against the Tipu Sultan during the Siege of Seringapatam. The first (chronologically) of the Richard Sharpe series, and of the Sharpe India trilogy, by the English author Bernard Cornwell. This is Cornwell's device to find prequel material for his hero. Sharpe's Tiger is Bernard Cornwell's return to the Richard Sharpe series of novels, set during his early years in India.
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