Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe’s Trafalgar, Sharpe’s Prey, Sharpe’s Rifles - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 16

The first Pucelle crewman to board the Calliope was Captain Joel Chase himself who scrambled nimbly up the merchantman’s side to the cheers of the liberated passengers. The officier marinier, having no sword to surrender, stoically offered Chase a marlin spike instead. Chase grinned, took the spike, then gallantly returned it to the officier marinier who resignedly led his men into imprisonment below decks while Chase doffed his hat, shook hands with the passengers on the main deck and tried to answer a dozen questions all at once. Malachi Braithwaite stood apart from the happy passengers, staring morosely at Sharpe on the quarterdeck. The secretary had been sequestered in steerage ever since the French took the ship and he must have been suffering pangs of jealousy at the thought of Sharpe being in the stern with Lady Grace.

‘There’s a happy naval captain,’ Ebenezer Fairley said. He had come to stand beside Sharpe on the quarterdeck and was staring down at the throng of steerage passengers surrounding Chase. ‘He’s just made a fortune in prize money, but mind you he’ll have to fight for it proper now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You think the lawyers won’t want their share?’ Fairley asked sourly. ‘The East India Company will have lawyers saying that the Frogs never took the ship properly so it can’t be a prize, and Chase’s prize agent will have another set of lawyers arguing the opposite and between them they’ll keep the court busy for years and make themselves rich and everyone else poor.’ He sniffed. ‘I suppose I could hire a lawyer or two myself, seeing as how a deal of the cargo is mine, but I won’t bother. Yon captain’s welcome to the prize so far as I’m concerned. I’d rather he got the cash than some blood-sucking lawyer.’ Fairley grimaced. ‘I once had a good idea on how we could mightily improve the prosperity of Britain, Sharpe. My notion was that every man of property could kill one lawyer a year without fear of penalty. Parliament wasn’t interested, but then, Parliament’s full of blood-suckers.’

Captain Chase extricated himself from the main-deck throng and climbed to the quarterdeck where the first person he saw was Sharpe. ‘My dear Sharpe!’ Chase cried, his face lighting up. ‘My dear Sharpe! We are equal now, eh? You rescue me, I rescue you. How are you?’ He clasped Sharpe’s hand in both his, was introduced to Fairley, then glimpsed Lord William Hale. ‘Oh God, I’d forgotten he was on board. How are you, my lord? You’re well? Good, good!’ In fact Lord William had not answered the captain, though he was eager to speak with him privately, but Chase spun away and took Tufnell’s arm and the two seamen embarked on a long discussion about how the Calliope had first fallen prey to the Revenant. A party of Calliope sailors went below to mend the tiller ropes, while some Pucelles, led by Hopper, the big man who commanded Captain Chase’s gig, hoisted a British ensign above the French flag.

Lord William, visibly irritated at being ignored by Chase, was waiting to catch the captain’s attention, but something Tufnell said caused Chase to ignore his lordship and turn back to the other passengers. ‘I want to know everything you can tell me,’ Chase said urgently, ‘about the man posing as the Baron von Dornberg’s servant.’

Most of the passengers looked puzzled. Major Dalton commented that the baron had been a decent sort of chap, a bit loud-mouthed, but that no one had really remarked on the servant. ‘He kept himself to himself,’ Dalton said.

‘He spoke French to me once,’ Sharpe said.

‘He did?’ Chase spun round eagerly.

‘Only the once,’ Sharpe said, ‘but he spoke English and German too. Claimed he was Swiss. But I don’t know that he was really a servant at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was wearing a sword, sir, when he left the ship. Not many servants wear swords.’

‘Hanoverian servants might,’ Fairley said. ‘Foreign folk, strange ways.’

‘So what do we know about the baron?’ Chase asked.

‘He was a buffoon,’ Fairley growled.

‘He was decent enough,’ Dalton protested, ‘and he was generous.’

Sharpe could have provided a far more detailed answer, but he was still reluctant to admit that he had deceived the Calliope for so long. ‘It’s a strange thing, sir,’ he said instead to Chase, ‘and I didn’t really think about it until after the baron had left the ship, but he looked just like a fellow called Anthony Pohlmann.’

‘Did he, Sharpe?’ Dalton asked, surprised.

‘Same build,’ Sharpe said. ‘Not that I ever saw Pohlmann except through a telescope.’ Which was not true, but Sharpe had to cover his tracks.

‘Who,’ Chase interrupted, ‘is Anthony Pohlmann?’

‘He’s a Hanoverian soldier, sir, who led the Mahratta armies at Assaye.’

‘Sharpe,’ Chase said seriously, ‘are you sure?’

‘He looked like him,’ Sharpe replied, reddening, ‘very like.’

‘God save me,’ Chase said in his Devonian accent, then frowned in thought. Lord William approached him again, but Chase distractedly waved his lordship away and Lord William, already insulted by the captain’s disregard, looked even more offended. ‘But the main point,’ Chase went on, ‘is that von Dornberg and his servant, if he is a servant, are now on the Revenant. Hopper!’

‘Sir?’ the bosun called from the main deck.

‘I want all Pucelles back on board fast, but you wait with my barge. Mister Horrocks! Here, please!’ Horrocks was the Pucelle’s fourth lieutenant who would command the small prize crew, just three men, that Chase would leave aboard the Calliope. The men were not needed to sail the ship, for Tufnell and the Calliope’s own seamen could do that, but they were to stay aboard the Indiaman to register Chase’s claim on the vessel which would now sail to Cape Town where the French prisoners would be given into the care of the British garrison and the ship could be revictualled for its journey back to Britain and the waiting lawyers. Chase gave Horrocks his orders, stressing that he was to accede to Lieutenant Tufnell in all matters of sailing the Calliope, but he also instructed Horrocks to select twenty of the Calliope’s best seamen and press them into the Pucelle. ‘I don’t like doing it,’ he told Sharpe, ‘but we’re short-handed. Poor fellows won’t be happy, but who knows? Some may even volunteer.’ He did not sound hopeful. ‘What about you, Sharpe? Will you sail with us?’

‘Me, sir?’

‘As a passenger,’ Chase hurriedly explained. ‘We’re going your way, as it happens, and you’ll reach England far quicker by sailing with me than staying aboard this scow. Of course you want to come. Clouter!’ he called to one of his barge crew in the ship’s waist. ‘You’ll bring Mister Sharpe’s dunnage on deck. Lively now! He’ll show you where it is.’

Sharpe protested. ‘I should stay here, sir,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be in your way.’

‘Don’t have time to discuss it, Sharpe,’ Chase said happily. ‘Of course you’re coming with me.’ The captain at last turned to Lord William Hale who had been growing ever more angry at Chase’s lack of attention. Chase walked away with his lordship as Clouter, the big black man who had fought so hard on the night Sharpe had first met Chase, climbed to the quarterdeck. ‘Where do we go, sir?’ Clouter asked.

‘The dunnage will wait for a while,’ Sharpe answered. He did not want to leave the Calliope, not while Lady Grace was aboard, but first he would have to invent some pressing excuse to refuse Chase’s invitation. He could think of none offhand, but the thought of abandoning Lady Grace was unbearable. If the worst came to the worst, he decided, he would risk offending Chase by simply refusing to change ships.

Chase was now pacing up and down beneath the poop, listening to Lord William who was doing most of the talking. Chase was nodding, but eventually the captain seemed to shrug resignedly, then turned abruptly to rejoin Sharpe. ‘Damn,’ he said bitterly, ‘damn and double damn. You still standing here, Clouter? Go and fetch Mister Sharpe’s dunnage! Nothing too heavy. No pianofortes or four poster beds.’

‘I told him to wait,’ Sharpe said.

Chase frowned. ‘You’re not going to argue with me, are you, Sharpe? I have quite enough troubles. His bloody lordship claims he needs to reach Britain swiftly and I couldn’t deny that we’re on our way into the Atlantic.’

‘The Atlantic?’ Sharpe asked, astonished.

‘Of course! I told you I was going your way. And besides, that’s where the Revenant is gone. I’ll swear on it. I’m even risking my reputation on it. And Lord William tells me he is carrying government despatches, but is he? I don’t know. I think he just wants to be on a larger and safer ship, but I can’t refuse him. I’d like to, but I can’t. Damn his eyes. You’re not listening to this, are you, Clouter? These are words for your superiors and betters. Damn! So now I’m hoisted with bloody Lord William Hale and his bloody wife, their bloody servants and his bloody secretary. Damn!’

‘Clouter,’ Sharpe said energetically, ‘lower-deck steerage, larboard side. Hurry!’ He almost sang as he jumped down the stairs. Grace was going with him!

Sharpe hid his elation as he made his farewells. He was sorry to part from Ebenezer Fairley and from Major Dalton, both of whom pressed invitations on him to visit their homes. Mrs Fairley clasped Sharpe to her considerable bosom and insisted he took a bottle of brandy and another of rum with him. ‘To keep you warm, dear,’ she said, ‘and to stop Ebenezer from guzzling them.’

A longboat from the Pucelle carried the pressed men away from the Calliope. They were mostly the youngest seamen and they went to replace those of Chase’s crew who had succumbed to disease during the Pucelle’s long cruise. They looked morose, for they were exchanging good wages for poor. ‘But we’ll cheer them up,’ Chase said airily. ‘There’s nothing like a dose of victory to cheer a tar.’

Lord William had insisted that his expensive furniture be taken to the Pucelle, but Chase exploded in anger, saying that his lordship could either travel without furniture or not travel at all, and his lordship had icily given way, though he did convince Chase that his collection of official papers must go with him. Those were all brought from his cabin and taken to the Pucelle, then Lord William and his wife left the Calliope without making any farewells. Lady Grace looked utterly distraught as she left. She had been weeping and was now making a huge effort to appear dignified, but she could not help giving Sharpe a despairing glance as she was lowered by a rope and tackle into Chase’s barge. Malachi Braithwaite clambered down the Calliope’s side after her and gave Sharpe a venomously triumphant look as if to suggest that he would now enjoy Lady Grace’s company while Sharpe was marooned on the Calliope. Lady Grace gripped the gunwale of the barge with a white-knuckled hand, then the wind snatched at her hat, lifting its brim, and as she caught the hat she saw Sharpe swing out of the entry port and begin to clamber down the ship’s side and, for a heartbeat, an expression of pure joy showed on her face. Braithwaite, seeing Sharpe come down the ladder, gaped in astonishment and looked as though he wanted to protest, but his mouth just opened and closed like a gaffed fish. ‘Make space, Braithwaite,’ Sharpe said, ‘I’m keeping you company.’

‘Goodbye, Sharpe! Write to me!’ Dalton called.

‘Good luck, lad!’ Fairley boomed.

Chase descended the ladder last and took his place in the sternsheets. ‘All together now!’ Hopper shouted and the oarsmen dug in their red and white blades and the barge slid away from the Calliope.

The stench of the Pucelle reached across the water. It was the smell of a huge crew crammed into a wooden ship, the stink of unwashed bodies, of body waste, of tobacco, tar, salt and rot, but the ship herself loomed high and mighty, a great sheer wall of gunports, crammed with men, powder and shot.

‘Goodbye!’ Dalton called a last time.

And Sharpe joined the hunter, seeking revenge, going home.

‘I hate having women on board,’ Chase said savagely. ‘It’s bad luck, you know that? Women and rabbits, both bring bad luck.’ He touched the polished table in his day cabin to avert the ill fortune. ‘Not that there aren’t women on board already,’ he admitted. ‘There’s at least six Portsmouth whores down below who I’m not supposed to know about, and I suspect one of the gunners has his wife hidden away, but that ain’t the same as having her ladyship and her maid out on the open deck feeding the crew’s filthy fantasies.’

Sharpe said nothing. The elegant cabin stretched the whole width of the ship and was lit by a wide stern window through which he could see the far-off Calliope already hull down on the horizon. The windows were curtained in flowered chintz which matched the cushions spread along the window seat, and the deck was carpeted with canvas painted in a black and white chequerboard pattern. There were two tables, a sideboard, a deep leather armchair, a couch and a revolving bookcase, though the air of genteel domesticity was somewhat spoiled by the presence of two eighteen-pounder cannons that pointed towards red-painted gunports. Forward of the day cabin, and on the ship’s starboard side, were Chase’s sleeping quarters, while forward on the larboard side was a dining cabin that could seat a dozen in comfort. ‘And I’ll be damned if I’ll move out for Lord goddamn bloody Hale,’ Chase grumbled, ‘though he plainly expects me to. He can go back to the first lieutenant’s quarters and his damned wife can go into the second lieutenant’s cabin, which is how they sailed from Calcutta. Lord knows why they sleep apart, but they do. I shouldn’t have told you that.’

‘I didn’t hear it,’ Sharpe said.

‘The bloody secretary can go in Horrocks’s cabin,’ Chase decided. Horrocks was the lieutenant who had been made prize master of the Calliope. ‘And the first lieutenant can have the master’s cabin. He died three days ago. No one knows why. He tired of life, or life tired of him. God alone knows where the second will go. He’ll turf out the third, I suppose, who’ll kick out someone else, and so on down to the ship’s cat that will get chucked overboard, poor thing. God, I hate having passengers, especially women! You’ll have my quarters.’

‘Your quarters?’ Sharpe asked in astonishment.

‘Sleeping cabin,’ Chase said, ‘through that door there. Good Lord above, Sharpe, I’ve got this damn great room!’ He gestured about the lavish day cabin with its elegant furniture, framed portraits and curtained windows. ‘My steward can hang my cot in here, and yours can go in the small cabin.’

‘I can’t take your cabin!’ Sharpe protested.

‘Of course you can! It’s a damned poky little hole, anyway, just right for an insignificant ensign. Besides, Sharpe, I’m a fellow who likes some company and as captain I can’t go to the wardroom without an invitation and the officers don’t invite me much. Can’t blame them. They want to relax, so I end up in lonely state. So you can entertain me instead. D’you play chess? No? I shall teach you. And you’ll take supper with me tonight? Of course you will.’ Chase, who had taken off his uniform coat, stretched out in a chair. ‘Do you really think the baron might have been Pohlmann?’

‘He was,’ Sharpe said flatly.

Chase raised an eyebrow. ‘So sure?’

‘I recognized him, sir,’ Sharpe admitted, ‘but I didn’t tell any of the Calliope’s officers. I didn’t think it was important.’

Chase shook his head, more in amusement than disapproval. ‘It wouldn’t have done any good if you had told them. And Peculiar would probably have killed you if you had, and as for the others, how were they to know what was happening? I only hope to God I do!’ He straightened to find a piece of paper on the larger table. ‘We, that is His Britannic Majesty’s navy, are looking for a gentleman named Vaillard. Michel Vaillard. He’s a bad lad, our Vaillard, and it seems he is trying to return to Europe. And how better to travel than disguised as a servant? No one looks at servants, do they?’

‘Why are you searching for him, sir?’

‘It seems, Sharpe, that he has been negotiating with the last of the Mahrattas who are terrified that the British will take over what’s left of their territory, so Vaillard has concluded a treaty with one of their leaders, Holkar?’ He looked at the paper. ‘Yes, Holkar, and Vaillard is taking the treaty back to Paris. Holkar agrees to talk peace with the British, and in the meantime Monsieur Vaillard, presumably with the help of your friend Pohlmann, arranges to supply Holkar with French advisers, French cannon and French muskets. This is a copy of the treaty.’ He flicked the paper over to Sharpe who saw that it was in French, though someone had helpfully written a translation between the lines. Holkar, the ablest of the Mahratta war leaders and a man who had evaded the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley, but who was now being pressed by other British forces, had undertaken to open peace negotiations and, under their cover, raise an enormous army which would be equipped by his allies, the French. The treaty even listed those princes in British territory who could be relied on to rebel if such an army attacked out of the north.

‘They’ve been clever, Vaillard and Pohlmann,’ Chase said. ‘Used British ships to go home! Quickest way, you see. They suborned your fellow, Cromwell, and must have sent a message to Mauritius arranging a rendezvous.’

‘How did we get a copy of their treaty?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Spies?’ Chase guessed. ‘Everything became vigorous after you left Bombay. The admiral sent a sloop to the Red Sea in case Vaillard decided to go overland and he sent the Porcupine to overhaul the convoy and told me to keep my eyes skinned as well, because stopping that damned Vaillard is our most important job. Now we know where the bloody man is, or we think we do, so I’ll have to pursue him. They’re going back to Europe and we are too. It’s back home for us, Sharpe, and you’re going to see just how fast a French-built warship can sail. The trouble is that the Revenant’s just as quick and she’s the best part of a week in front of us.’

‘And if you catch her?’

‘We beat her to smithereens, of course,’ Chase said happily, ‘and make certain Monsieur Vaillard and Herr Pohlmann go to the fishes.’

‘And Captain Cromwell with them,’ Sharpe said vengefully.

‘I think I’d rather take him alive,’ Chase said, ‘and hang him from the yardarm. Nothing cheers up a jack tar’s spirit so much as seeing a captain swinging on a generous length of Bridport hemp.’

Sharpe looked through the stern window to see the Calliope was just a smudge of sails on the horizon. He felt like a cask thrown into a fast river, being swept away to some unknown destination on a journey over which he had no control, but he was glad it was happening, for he was still with Lady Grace. The very thought of her sparked a warm feeling in his breast, though he knew it was a madness, an utter madness, but he could not escape it. He did not even want to escape it.

‘Here’s Mister Harold Collier,’ Chase said, responding to a knock on the door that brought into the cabin the diminutive midshipman who had commanded the boat that had carried Sharpe out to the Calliope so long ago in Bombay Harbour. Now Mister Collier was ordered to show Sharpe the Pucelle.

The boy was touchingly proud of his ship while Sharpe was awed by it. It was a vast thing, much bigger than the Calliope, and young Harry Collier rattled off its statistics as he took Sharpe through the lavish dining cabin where another eighteen-pounder squatted. ‘She’s 178 feet long, sir, not counting her bowsprit, of course, and 48 in the beam, sir, and 175 feet to the main truck which is the very top of the mainmast, sir, and mind your head, sir. She was French-built out of two thousand oak trees and she weighs close to two thousand tons, sir – mind your head – and she’s got seventy-four guns, sir, not counting the carronades, of course, and we’ve six of them, all thirty-two-pounders, and there’s six hundred and seventeen men aboard, sir, not counting the marines.’

‘How many of those?’

‘Sixty-six, sir. This way, sir. Mind your head, sir.’

Collier led Sharpe onto the quarterdeck where eight long guns lay behind their closed ports. ‘Eighteen-pounders, sir,’ Collier squeaked, ‘the babies on the ship. Just six a side, sir, including the four in the stern quarters.’ He slithered down a perilously steep companionway to the main deck. ‘This is the weather deck, sir. Thirty-two guns, sir, all twenty-four-pounders.’ The centre of the main deck, or weather deck, was open to the sky, but the forward and aft sections of the deck were planked over where the forecastle and quarter-deck were built. Collier led Sharpe forward, weaving nimbly between the huge guns and the mess tables rigged between them, ducking under hammocks where men of the off-duty watch slept, then swerving around the anchor capstan and down another ladder into the stygian darkness of the lower deck, which held the ship’s biggest guns, each throwing a ball of thirty-two pounds. ‘Thirty of these big guns, sir,’ he said proudly, ‘mind your head, sir, fifteen a side, and we’re lucky to have so many. There’s a shortage of these big guns, they tell us, and some ships are even driven to put eighteen-pounders on their lower deck, but not Captain Chase, he wouldn’t abide that. I told you to mind your head, sir.’

Sharpe rubbed the bruise on his forehead and tried to work out the weight of shot that the Pucelle could fire, but Collier was ahead of him. ‘We can throw 972 pounds of metal with each broadside, sir, and we’ve got two sides,’ he added helpfully, ‘as you may have noticed. And we’ve got the six carronades, sir, and they can throw thirty-two pounds apiece plus a cask of musket balls as well, which will make a Frenchman weep, sir. Or so I’m told, sir. Mind your head, sir.’ Which meant, Sharpe thought, that this one ship could throw more round shot in a single broadside than all the combined batteries of the army’s artillery at the battle of Assaye. It was a floating bastion, a crushing killer of the high seas, and this was not even the largest warship afloat. Some ships, Sharpe knew, carried over a hundred guns, and again Collier had the answers, trained in them because, like all midshipmen, he was preparing for his lieutenant’s examination. ‘The navy’s got eight first rates, sir, that’s ships with a hundred or more guns – watch that low beam, sir – fourteen second rates, which carry about ninety or more cannon, and a hundred and thirty of these third rates.’

‘You call this a third rate?’ Sharpe asked, astonished.

‘Down here, sir, watch your head, sir.’ Collier vanished into another companionway, sliding down the ladder’s uprights, and Sharpe followed more slowly, using the rungs, to find himself in a dark, dank, low-ceilinged deck that stank foully and was dimly lit by a scatter of glass-shielded lanterns. ‘This is the orlop deck, sir. Mind your head. It’s called the cockpit as well, sir. Watch that beam, sir. We’re just about under water here, sir, and the surgeon has his rooms down there, beyond the magazines, and we all prays, sir, we never end under his knife. This way, sir. Mind your head.’ He showed Sharpe the cable tiers where the anchor ropes were flaked down, the two leather-curtained magazines that were guarded by red-coated marines, the spirit store, the surgeon’s lair where the walls were painted red so that the blood did not show, the dispensary, and the midshipmen’s cabins that were scarce bigger than dog kennels, then he took Sharpe down a final ladder into the massive hold where the ship’s stores were piled in vast heaps of casks. Only the bilge lay beneath and a mournful sucking, interrupted by a clatter, told Sharpe that men were even now pumping it dry. ‘We hardly ever stop the six pumps,’ the midshipman said, ‘because as tight as you build ’em, sir, the sea do get in.’ He kicked at a rat, missed, then scrambled back up the ladder. He showed Sharpe the galley beneath the forecastle, introduced him to master-at-arms, cooks, bosuns, gunner’s mates, the carpenter, then offered to take Sharpe up the mainmast.

‘I’ll not bother today,’ Sharpe said.

Collier took him to the wardroom where he was named to a half-dozen officers, then back to the quarterdeck and aft, past the great double wheel, to a door that led directly into Captain Chase’s sleeping cabin. It was, as the captain had said, a small room, but it was panelled with varnished wood, had a canvas carpet on the floor and a scuttle to let in the daylight. Sharpe’s sea chest took up one wall, and Collier now helped him rig the hanging cot. ‘If you’re killed, sir,’ the boy said earnestly, ‘then this will be your coffin.’

‘Better than the one the army would give me,’ Sharpe said, throwing his blankets into the cot. ‘Where’s the first lieutenant’s cabin?’ he asked.

‘Forrard of this one, sir.’ Collier indicated the forward bulkhead. ‘Just beyond there, sir.’

‘And the second lieutenant’s?’ Sharpe asked, knowing that was where Lady Grace would be sleeping.

‘Weather deck, sir. Aft. By the wardroom,’ Collier said. ‘There’s a hook for your lantern there, sir, and you’ll find the captain’s quarter gallery is aft through that door, sir, and on the starboard side.’

‘Quarter gallery?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Latrine, sir. Drops direct into the sea, sir. Very hygienic. Captain Chase says you’re to share it, sir, and his steward will look after you, you being his guest.’

‘You like Chase?’ Sharpe asked, struck by the warmth in the midshipman’s voice.

‘Everyone likes the captain, sir, everyone,’ Collier said. ‘This is a happy ship, sir, which is more than I can say for many, and permit me to remind you that captain’s supper is at the end of the first dogwatch. That’s four bells, sir, seeing as how the dogwatches are only two hours apiece.’

‘What is it now?’

‘Just past two bells, sir.’

‘So how long till four bells?’

Collier’s small face showed astonishment that anyone should need to ask such a question. ‘An hour, sir, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Sharpe said.

Chase had invited six other guests to join him for supper. He could hardly avoid asking Lord William Hale and his wife, but he confided in Sharpe that Haskell, the first lieutenant, was a terrible snob who had flattered Lord William all the way from Calcutta to Bombay. ‘So he can damn well do it again now,’ Chase said, glancing at his first lieutenant, a tall, good-looking man, who was bending close to Lord William and evidently drinking in every word. ‘And this is Llewellyn Llewellyn,’ Chase said, drawing Sharpe towards a red-faced man in a scarlet uniform coat. ‘A man who does nothing by halves and is the captain of our marines, which means that if the Frogs board us I’m relying on Llewellyn Llewellyn and his rogues to throw them overboard. Is your name really Llewellyn Llewellyn?’

‘We are descended from the lineage of ancient kings,’ Captain Llewellyn said proudly, ‘unlike the Chase family, which, unless I am very much mistaken, were mere servants of the hunt.’

‘We hunted the bloody Welsh out,’ Chase said, smiling. It was plain that the two were old friends who took a delight in mutual insult. ‘This is my particular friend, Llewellyn, Richard Sharpe.’

The marine captain shook Sharpe’s hand energetically and expressed the hope that the ensign would join him and his men for some musketry training. ‘Maybe you can teach us something?’ the captain suggested.

‘I doubt it, Captain.’

‘I could use your help,’ Llewellyn said enthusiastically. ‘I’ve a lieutenant, of course, but the lad’s only sixteen. Doesn’t even shave! Not sure he can wipe his own bum. It’s good to have another redcoat aboard, Sharpe. It raises the tone of the ship.’

Chase laughed, then drew Sharpe on to meet the last guest, the ship’s surgeon, who was a plump man called Pickering. Malachi Braithwaite had been talking to the surgeon and he looked uncomfortable as Sharpe was introduced. Pickering, whose face was a mass of broken blood vessels, shook Sharpe’s hand. ‘I trust we never meet professionally, Ensign, for there ain’t a great deal I can do except carve you up and mutter a prayer. I do the latter very prettily, if that’s a consolation. I say, she does look better.’ The surgeon had turned to look at Lady Grace who was in a low-cut dress of very pale blue with an embroidered collar and hem. There were diamonds at her throat and more diamonds in her black hair which was pinned so high that it brushed the beams of Chase’s cabin whenever she moved. ‘I hardly saw her when she was aboard before,’ Pickering said, ‘but she seems a good deal more lively now. Even so, she’s unwelcome.’

‘Unwelcome?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Monstrous ill luck to have women on board, monstrous ill luck.’ Pickering reached up and superstitiously touched a beam. ‘But I must say she’s decorative. There’ll be some odious things being said in the fo’c’sle tonight, I can tell you. Ah well, we must survive what the good Lord sends us, even if it is a woman. Our captain tells us you are a celebrated soldier, Sharpe!’

‘He does?’ Sharpe asked. Braithwaite had stepped back, signifying he wanted no part in the conversation.

‘First into the breach and all that sort of stuff,’ Pickering said. ‘As for me, my dear fellow, as soon as the guns begin to sound I scamper down to the cockpit where no French shot can reach me. You know what the trick of a long life is, Sharpe? Stay out of range. There! Good medical advice, and free!’

The food at Captain Chase’s table was a great deal better than that which Peculiar Cromwell had supplied. They began with sliced smoked fish, served with lemon and real bread, then ate a roast of mutton which Sharpe suspected was goat, but which nevertheless tasted wonderful in its vinegar sauce, and finished with a concoction of oranges, brandy and syrup. Lord William and Lady Grace sat either side of Chase, while the first lieutenant sat next to her ladyship and tried to persuade her to drink more wine than she wished. The red wine was called blackstrap and was sour, while the insipid white was called Miss Taylor, a name that puzzled Sharpe until he saw the label on one of the bottles: Mistela. Sharpe was at the far end of the table where Captain Llewellyn questioned him closely about the actions he had seen in India. The Welshman was intrigued by the news that Sharpe was going to join the 95th Rifles. ‘The concept of a rifled barrel might work on land,’ Llewellyn said, ‘but it’ll never serve at sea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Accuracy’s no good on a ship! The things are always heaving up and down to spoil your aim. No, the thing to do is to pour a lot of fire onto the enemy’s deck and pray not all of it is wasted. Which reminds me, we’ve got some new toys aboard. Seven-barrel guns! Monstrous things! They spit out seven half-inch balls at once. You must try one.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘I’d like to see some seven-barrel guns in the fighting tops,’ Llewellyn said eagerly. ‘They could do some real damage, Sharpe, real damage!’

Chase had overheard Llewellyn’s last remark, for he intervened from the table’s far end. ‘Nelson won’t allow muskets in the fighting tops, Llewellyn. He says they set the sails on fire.’

‘The man is wrong,’ Llewellyn said, offended, ‘just plain wrong.’

‘You know Lord Nelson?’ Lady Grace asked the captain.

‘I served under him briefly, milady,’ Chase said enthusiastically, ‘too briefly. I had a frigate then, but, alas, I never saw action under his lordship’s command.’

‘I pray God we see no action now,’ Lord William said piously.

‘Amen,’ Braithwaite said, breaking his silence. He had spent most of the meal gazing dumbly at Lady Grace and flinching whenever Sharpe spoke.

‘By God I hope we do see action!’ Chase retorted. ‘We have to stop our German friend and his so-called servant!’

‘Do you think you can catch the Revenant?’ Lady Grace asked.

‘I hope so, milady, but it’ll be touch and go. He’s a good seaman, Montmorin, and the Revenant’s a quick ship, but her bottom will be a deal more fouled than ours.’

‘It looked clean to me,’ Sharpe said.

‘Clean?’ Chase sounded alarmed.

‘No green copper at the water line, sir. All bright.’

‘Wretched man,’ Chase said, meaning Montmorin. ‘He’s scrubbed his hull, hasn’t he? Which will make him harder to catch. And I made a wager with Mister Haskell that we’d meet with him on my birthday.’

‘And when is that?’ Lady Grace asked.

‘October 21st, ma’am, and by my reckoning we should be somewhere off Portugal by then.’

‘She won’t be off Portugal,’ the first lieutenant suggested, ‘for she won’t be sailing direct to France. She’ll put into Cadiz, sir, and my guess is we’ll catch her during the second week in October, somewhere off Africa.’

‘Ten guineas rides on the result,’ Chase said, ‘and I know I have forsworn gambling, but I shall happily pay you so long as we do catch her. Then we’ll have a rare fight, milady, but let me assure you that you will be safe below the water line.’

Lady Grace smiled. ‘I am to miss all the entertainment aboard, Captain?’

That brought laughter. Sharpe had never seen her ladyship so relaxed in company. The candles glinted off her diamond earrings and necklace, from the jewels on her fingers and from her bright eyes. Her vivacity was captivating the whole table, all except for her husband who wore a slight frown as though he feared his wife had drunk too much of the blackstrap or the Miss Taylor. Sharpe was assailed with the jealous thought that perhaps she was responding to the handsome and genial Chase, but just as he felt that envy she glanced down the table and briefly caught his eye. Braithwaite saw it and stared down at his plate.

‘I have never entirely understood,’ Lord William said, breaking the moment’s mood, ‘why you fellows insist on taking your ships up close to the enemy and battering their hulls. Easier, surely, to stand off and destroy their rigging from a distance?’

‘That’s the French way, my lord,’ Chase said. ‘Bar shot, chain shot and round shot, fired on the uproll and intended to take out our sticks. But once they’ve dismasted us, once we’re lying like a log in the water, they still have to take us.’

‘But if they have masts and sails and you do not,’ Lord William pointed out, ‘why can they not just pour their broadsides into your stern?’

‘You assume, my lord, that while our notional Frenchman is trying to unmast us, we are doing nothing.’ Chase smiled to soften his words. ‘A ship of the line, my lord, is nothing more than a floating artillery battery. Destroy the sails and you still have a gun battery, but dismount the cannons, splinter its decks and kill the gunners and you have denied the ship its very purpose of existence. The French try to give us a long-range haircut, while we get up close and mangle their vitals.’ He turned to Lady Grace. ‘This must be tiresome, milady, men talking of battle.’

‘I have become used to it these past weeks,’ Grace said. ‘There was a Scottish major on the Calliope who was ever trying to persuade Mister Sharpe to tell us such tales.’ She turned to Sharpe. ‘You never did tell us, Mister Sharpe, what happened when you saved my cousin’s life.’

‘My wife has become excessively interested in one of her remoter cousins,’ Lord William interrupted, ‘ever since he gained some small notoriety in India. Extraordinary how a dull fellow like Wellesley can rise in the army, isn’t it?’

‘You saved Wellesley’s life, Sharpe?’ Chase asked, ignoring his lordship’s sarcasm.

‘I don’t know about that, sir. I probably just kept him from being captured.’

‘Is that how you got that scar?’ Llewellyn asked.

‘That was at Gawilghur, sir.’ Sharpe wished the conversation would veer away to another subject and he tried desperately to think of something to say which might steer it in a new direction, but his mind was floundering.

‘So what happened?’ Chase demanded.

‘He was unhorsed, sir,’ Sharpe said, reddening, ‘in the enemy ranks.’

‘He was not by himself, surely?’ Lord William asked.

‘He was, sir. Except for me, of course.’

‘Careless of him,’ Lord William suggested.

‘And how many enemy?’ Chase asked.

‘A good few, sir.’

‘And you fought them off?’

Sharpe nodded. ‘Didn’t have much choice really, sir.’

‘Stay out of range!’ the surgeon boomed. ‘That’s my advice! Stay out of range!’

Lord William complimented Captain Chase on the concoction of oranges and Chase boasted of his cook and steward, and that started a general discussion on the problem of reliable servants that only ended when Sharpe, as the junior officer present, was asked to give the loyal toast.

‘To King George,’ Sharpe said, ‘God bless him.’

‘And damn his enemies,’ Chase added, tossing back the glass, ‘especially Monsieur Vaillard.’

Lady Grace pushed her chair back. Captain Chase tried to stop her retiring, saying that she was most welcome to breathe the cigar smoke that was about to fill the cabin, but she insisted on leaving and so the whole table stood.

‘You will not object, Captain, if I walk on your deck for a while?’ Lady Grace asked.

‘I should be delighted to have it so honoured, milady.’

Brandy and cigars were produced, but the company did not stay long. Lord William suggested a hand of whist, but Chase had lost too much on his first voyage with his lordship and explained he had decided to give up playing cards altogether. Lieutenant Haskell promised a lively game in the wardroom, and Lord William and the others followed him down to the weather deck and then aft. Chase bade his visitors a good night, then invited Sharpe into the day cabin at the stern. ‘One last brandy, Sharpe.’

‘I don’t want to keep you up, sir.’

‘I’ll turf you out when I’m tired. Here.’ He gave Sharpe a glass, then led the way into the more comfortable day cabin. ‘Lord, but that William Hale is a bore,’ he said, ‘though I confess I was surprised by his wife. Never seen her so lively! Last time she was aboard I thought she was going to wilt and die.’

‘Maybe it was the wine tonight?’ Sharpe suggested.

‘Maybe, but I hear tales.’

‘Tales?’ Sharpe asked warily.

‘That you not only rescued her cousin, but that you rescued her? To the detriment of one French lieutenant who now sleeps with his ancestors?’

Sharpe nodded, but said nothing.

Chase smiled. ‘She seems the better for the experience. And that secretary of his is a gloomy bird, isn’t he? Scarce a damn word all night and he’s an Oxford man!’ To Sharpe’s relief Chase left the subject of Lady Grace and instead enquired whether Sharpe would consider putting himself under Captain Llewellyn’s command and so become an honorary marine. ‘If we do catch the Revenant,’ Chase said, ‘we’ll be trying to capture her. We might hammer her into submission’ – he put out a hand and surreptitiously touched the table – ‘but we still might have to board her. We’ll need fighting men if that happens, so can I count on your help? Good! I’ll tell Llewellyn that you’re now his man. He’s a thoroughly first-rate fellow, despite being a marine and a Welshman, and I doubt he’ll pester you over-much. Now, I must go on deck and make certain they’re not steering in circles. You’ll come?’

‘I will, sir.’

So Sharpe was now an honorary marine.

The Pucelle used every sail that Chase could cram onto her masts. He even rigged extra hawsers to stay the masts so that yet more canvas could be carried aloft and hung from spars that jutted out from the yards. There were studdingsails and skyscrapers, staysails, royals, spritsails and topsails, a cloud of canvas that drove the warship westwards. Chase called it hanging out his laundry, and Sharpe saw how the crew responded to their captain’s enthusiasm. They were as eager as Chase to prove the Pucelle the fastest sailor on the sea.

And so they flew westwards until, deep in a dark night, the sea became lumpy and the ship rolled like a drunk and Sharpe was woken by the rush of feet on the deck. The cot, in which he was alone, swung wildly and he fell hard when he rolled out of it. He did not bother to dress, but just put on a boat cloak that Chase had lent him, then let himself out of the door onto the quarterdeck where he could see almost nothing, for clouds were obscuring the moon, yet he could hear orders being bellowed and hear the voices of men high in the rigging above him. Sharpe still did not understand how men could work in the dark, a hundred feet above a pitching deck, clinging to thin lines and hearing the wind’s shriek in their ears. It was a bravery, he reckoned, as great as any that was needed on a battlefield.

‘Is that you, Sharpe?’ Chase’s voice called.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It’s the Agulhas Current,’ Chase said happily, ‘sweeping us round the tip of Africa! We’re shortening sail. It’ll be rough for a day or two!’

Daylight revealed broken seas being whipped ragged white by the wind. The Pucelle pitched into the steep waves, sometimes shattering them into clouds of drenching spray that rose above the foresail and rained down in streams from the canvas, yet still Chase pushed his ship and drove her and talked to her. He still gave suppers in his quarters, for he enjoyed company in the evening, but any shift of wind would drive him from the table onto the quarterdeck. He watched each cast of the log eagerly and jotted down the ship’s speed, and rejoiced when, as the African coast curved westwards, he was able to hoist his full laundry again and feel the long hull respond to the wind’s force.

‘I think we’ll catch her,’ he told Sharpe one day.

‘She can’t be going this fast,’ Sharpe guessed.

‘Oh, she probably is! But my guess is that Montmorin won’t have dared go too close to land. He’ll have been forced far to the south in case he was spotted by our ships out of Cape Town. So we’re cutting the corner on him! Who knows, we may be only a score or so of miles behind him?’

The Pucelle was seeing other ships now. Most were small native trading vessels, but they also passed two British merchantmen, an American whaler and a Royal Navy sloop with which there was a brisk exchange of signals. Connors, the third lieutenant who had the responsibility of looking after the ship’s signals, ordered a man to haul a string of brightly coloured flags up into the rigging, then put a telescope to his eye and called out the sloop’s answering message. ‘She’s the Hirondelle, sir, out of Cape Town.’

‘Ask if she’s seen any other ships of the line.’

The flags were found, sorted and hoisted, and the answer came back no. Chase then sent a long message telling the Hirondelle’s captain that the Pucelle was pursuing the Revenant into the Atlantic. In time that news would reach the admiral in Bombay who must already have been wondering what had happened to his precious seventy-four.

Land was spotted the next day, but it was distant and obscured by a squall of rain that rattled on the sails and bounced from the decks which were scrubbed clean every morning by grinding sand into the timber beneath blocks of stone the size of bibles. Holy-stoning, the men called it. Still the Pucelle drove on with every last scrap of canvas hoisted, sailing as though the devil himself was on her tail. The wind stayed strong, but for long days it brought stinging rain so that everything below deck became damp and greasy. Then, on another day of driving rain and gusting wind, they passed Cape Town, though Sharpe could see nothing of the place except a misty glimpse of a great flat-topped mountain half shrouded in cloud.

Captain Chase ordered new charts spread on the big table in his day cabin. ‘I have a choice now,’ he told Sharpe. ‘Either I head west into the Atlantic, or ride the current up the African coast until we find the southeast trades.’

The choice seemed obvious to Sharpe: ride the current, but he was no sailor. ‘I take a risk,’ Chase explained, ‘if I stay inshore. I get the land breezes and I have the current, but I also risk fog and I might get a westerly gale. Then we’re on a lee shore.’

‘And a lee shore means?’ Sharpe asked.

‘We’re dead,’ Chase said shortly, and let the chart roll itself up with a snap. ‘Which is why the Sailing Directions insist we go west,’ he added, ‘but if we do then we risk being becalmed.’

‘Where do you think the Revenant is?’

‘She’s out west. She’s avoiding land. At least I hope she is.’ Chase stared out of the stern window at the white-fretted wake. He looked tired now, and older, because his natural ebullience had been drained from him by days and nights of broken sleep and unbroken worry. ‘Maybe she stayed inshore?’ he mused. ‘She could have hoisted false colours. But the Hirondelle didn’t see her. Mind you, in these damned squalls a fleet could go within a couple of miles of us and we wouldn’t see a thing.’ He pulled on his tarpaulin coat, ready to go back on deck. ‘Up the coast, I think.’ He spoke to himself. ‘Up the coast and God help us if there’s a blow out of the west.’ He picked up his hat. ‘God help us anyway if we don’t find the Revenant. Their lord-ships of the Admiralty don’t look mercifully on captains who abandon their station to chase wild geese halfway round the world. And God help us if we do find it and that fellow really is a Swiss servant and not Vaillard after all! And the first lieutenant’s right. He won’t be sailing to France, but making for Cadiz. It’s closer. Much closer.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Sharpe, I’m not very good company for you.’

‘I’m having a better time than I ever dared expect when I embarked on the Calliope.’

‘Good,’ Chase said, going to the door, ‘good. And time to turn north.’

Sharpe was busy enough. In the morning he paraded with the marines, and then there was practice, endless practice, for Captain Llewellyn feared his men would become stale if they were not busy. They fired their muskets in all weathers, learning how to shield their locks from the rain. They fired from the decks and from the upperworks, and Sharpe fired with them, using one of the Sea Service muskets which was similar to the weapon he had fired when he was a private, but with a slightly shorter barrel and an old-fashioned flat lock which looked crude, but, as Llewellyn explained, was easier to repair at sea. The weapons were susceptible to salt air and the marines spent hours cleaning and oiling the guns, and more hours practising with bayonets and cutlasses. Llewellyn also insisted that Sharpe try his new toys, the seven-barrel guns, and so Sharpe fired one into the sea from the forecastle and thought his shoulder must be broken, so violent was the kick of the seven half-inch barrels. It took over two minutes to reload, but the marine captain would not see that as a disadvantage. ‘Fire one of those down onto a Frog deck, Sharpe, and we’re making some proper misery!’ Most of all, Llewellyn wanted to board the Revenant and could not wait to launch his red-coated men onto the enemy’s deck. ‘Which is why the men have to stay spry, Sharpe,’ he would say, then he would order groups to race from the forecastle to the quarterdeck, back to the forecastle, then up the forward mast by the larboard ratlines and down by the starboard ones. ‘If the Frogs board us,’ he said, ‘we have to be able to get round the ship quickly. Don’t dawdle, Hawkins! Hurry, man, hurry! You’re a marine, not a slug!’

Sharpe equipped himself with a cutlass that suited him far better than the cavalry sabre he had worn ever since the battle of Assaye. The cutlass was straight-bladed, heavy and crude, but it felt like a weapon that could do serious damage. ‘You don’t fence with them,’ Llewellyn advised him, ‘because it ain’t a weapon for the wrist. It’s a full arm blade. Hack the buggers down! Keep your arms strong, Sharpe, eh? Climb the masts every day, do the cutlass drill, keep strong!’

Sharpe did climb the masts. He found it terrifying, for every small motion on deck was magnified as he went higher. At first he did not try to reach the topmost parts of the rigging, but he became adept at clambering up to the maintop, which was a wide platform built where the lower mast was joined to the upper. The sailors reached the maintop by using the futtock shrouds which led to the platform’s outer edge, but Sharpe always wriggled through the small hatchway beside the mast rather than risk the frightening climb up the futtock shrouds where a man must hang upside down from the tarred ropes. Then, a week after they had turned north, on a day when the sea was frustratingly calm and the wind fitful, Sharpe decided to attempt the futtock shrouds and so show that a soldier could do what any midshipman made look simple. He climbed the lower ratlines which were easy for they leaned like a ladder against the mast, but then he came to the place where the futtock shrouds went out and backwards above his head. He would have to climb upside down, but he was determined to do it and so he reached back with his hands and hauled himself upwards. Then, halfway to the maintop’s platform, his feet slipped off the ratlines and he hung there, suspended fifty feet above the deck, and he felt his fingers, hooked like claws, slipping on the wet ropes and he dared not swing his legs for fear of falling and so he stayed, paralysed by fear, until a topman, swinging down through the web of rigging with the agility of a monkey, grabbed his waistband and hauled him into the maintop. ‘Lord, sir, you don’t want to be going that a way. That be for matelots, not lobsters. Use the lubber’s hole, sir, that’s what it be for, lubbers.’

Sharpe was still too scared to speak. All he could think of was the sensation of his fingers slipping over the rough tarred rope, but at last he managed to gasp a thank you and promised to reward the man with a pound of tobacco from his stores.

‘Almost lost you there, Sharpe!’ Chase said cheerfully when Sharpe regained the quarterdeck.

‘Terrifying,’ Sharpe said, and looked at his hands that were scored deep with tar.

Lady Grace had also seen his near fall. She had not been near Sharpe now for the best part of a week, and her distance worried him. She had exchanged glances with him once or twice, and those swift looks had seemed to be filled with a mute appeal, but there had been no chance to talk with her and she had not risked coming to his cabin in the heart of the night. Now she was standing on the lee side of the quarterdeck, close to her husband who was speaking with Malachi Braithwaite, and she seemed to hesitate before approaching Sharpe, but then, with a visible effort, she made herself cross the deck. Malachi Braithwaite watched her, while her husband frowned at a sheaf of papers.

‘We make slow progress today, Captain Chase,’ she said stiffly.

‘We have a current, milady, which invisibly helps us, but I do wish the wind would pipe up.’ Chase frowned at the sails. ‘Some folk believe whistling encourages the wind, but it never seems to work.’ He whistled two bars of ‘Nancy Dawson’, but the wind stayed light. ‘See?’

Lady Grace stared at Chase, apparently at a loss for words, and the captain suddenly sensed that she was in some distress. ‘Milady?’ he enquired with a concerned frown.

‘You could perhaps show me on a chart where we are, Captain?’ she blurted out.

Chase hesitated, confused by the sudden request. ‘It will be a pleasure, milady,’ he said. ‘The charts are in my day cabin. Will his lordship …’

‘I shall be quite safe in your cabin, Captain,’ Lady Grace said.

‘The ship’s yours, Mister Peel,’ Chase said to the second lieutenant, then led Lady Grace under the break of the poop to the door on the larboard side which led into the dining cabin. Lord William saw them and frowned, making Chase pause. ‘You wish to see the charts, my lord?’ the captain asked.

‘No, no,’ Lord William said, and returned to the papers.

Braithwaite watched Sharpe, and Sharpe knew he must not arouse the secretary’s suspicions, but he did not believe Lady Grace truly wanted to see the charts and so, ignoring Braithwaite’s hostile gaze, he went to his sleeping cabin which lay beyond the starboard door under the poop deck. He knocked on the farther door, which led from the sleeping cabin into the day cabin, but there was no answer and so he let himself into the big stern cabin. ‘Sharpe!’ Chase showed a small flash of irritation for, friendly as he was, his quarters were sacrosanct and he had not responded to the knock on the door.

‘Captain,’ Lady Grace said, laying a hand on his arm, ‘please.’

Chase, who had been unrolling a chart, looked from her to Sharpe and from Sharpe back to Lady Grace again. He let the chart roll up with a snap. ‘I clean forgot to wind the chronometers this morning,’ he said. ‘Would you forgive me?’ He went past Sharpe into the dining cabin, ostentatiously closing the door with a deliberately loud click.

‘Oh God, Richard.’ Lady Grace ran to him and hugged him. ‘Oh, God!’

‘What’s the matter?’

For a few seconds she did not speak, but then realized she had little time if tongues were not to wag about herself and the captain. ‘It’s my husband’s secretary,’ she said.

‘I know all about him.’

‘You do?’ She stared at him wide-eyed.

‘He’s blackmailing you?’ Sharpe guessed.

She nodded. ‘And he watches me.’

Sharpe kissed her. ‘Leave him to me. Now go, before anyone starts a rumour.’

She kissed him fiercely, then went back onto the deck scarce two minutes after she had left it. Sharpe waited until Chase, who had wound his chronometers at dawn as he always did, came back to the day cabin. Chase rubbed his face tiredly, then looked at Sharpe. ‘Well, I never,’ he said, then sat in his deep armchair. ‘It’s called playing with fire, Sharpe.’

‘I know, sir.’ Sharpe was blushing.

‘Not that I blame you,’ Chase said. ‘Good Lord, don’t think that! I was a dog myself until I met Florence. A dear woman! A good marriage tends a man to steadiness, Sharpe.’

‘Is that advice, sir?’

‘No,’ Chase smiled, ‘it’s a boast.’ He paused, thinking now of his ship rather than of Sharpe and Lady Grace. ‘This thing isn’t going to explode, is it?’

‘No,’ Sharpe said.

‘It’s just that ships are oddly fragile, Sharpe. You can have the people content and working hard, but it doesn’t take much to start dissent and rancour.’

‘It won’t explode, sir.’

‘Of course not. You said so. Well! Dear me! You do surprise me. Or maybe you don’t. She’s a beauty, I’ll say that, and he’s a very cold fish. I think, if I wasn’t so securely married, I’d be envious of you. Positively envious.’

‘We’re just acquaintances,’ Sharpe said.

‘Of course you are, my dear fellow, of course you are!’ Chase smiled. ‘But her husband might be affronted by a mere’ – he paused – ‘acquaintanceship?’

‘I think that’s safe to say, sir.’

‘Then make sure nothing happens to him, for he’s my responsibility.’ Chase spoke those words in a harsh voice, then smiled. ‘Other than that, Richard, enjoy yourself. But quietly, I beg you, quietly.’ Chase said the last few words in a whisper, then stood and went back to the quarterdeck.

Sharpe waited a half-hour before leaving the stern quarters, doing his best to allay any suspicions that Braithwaite must inevitably have, but the secretary had left the quarterdeck by the time Sharpe reappeared, and that perhaps was a good thing for Sharpe was in a cold fury.

And Malachi Braithwaite had made himself an enemy.