Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe’s Trafalgar, Sharpe’s Prey, Sharpe’s Rifles - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 18

The happy days followed.

The far ship was indeed the Revenant. Chase had never seen the French warship at close quarters and, try as he might, he could not bring the Pucelle near enough to see her name, but some of the seamen pressed from the Calliope recognized the cut of the Frenchman’s spanker sail. Sharpe stared through his glass and could see nothing strange about that vast sail which hung at the stern of the enemy ship, but the seamen were certain it had been ill-repaired and, as a consequence, hung unevenly. Now the Frenchman raced the Pucelle homewards. The ships were almost twins and neither could gain an advantage on the other without the help of weather and the god of winds sent them an equal share.

The Revenant was to the west and the two ships sailed northwest to clear the great bulge of Africa and Chase reckoned that would grant the Pucelle an advantage once they were north of the equator for then the Frenchman must come eastwards to make his landfall. At night Chase worried he would lose his prey, but morning after morning she was there, ever on the same bearing, sometimes hull down, sometimes nearer, and none of Chase’s seamanship could close the gap any more than Montmorin’s skills could open it. If Chase edged westwards to try and narrow the distance between them then the French ship would inch ahead and Chase would revert to his previous course and curse the lost ground. He prayed constantly that Montmorin would turn eastwards to offer battle, but Montmorin resisted the temptation. He would take his ship to France, or at least to a harbour belonging to France’s ally, Spain, and the men he carried would spur the French into another attempt to make India a British graveyard.

‘He’ll still have to get through our blockade,’ Chase said after supper one evening, then shrugged and tempered his optimism. ‘Though that shouldn’t be difficult.’

‘Why not?’ Sharpe asked.

‘It ain’t a close blockade off Cadiz,’ Chase explained. ‘The big ships stay well out to sea, beyond the horizon. There’ll only be a couple of frigates inshore and Montmorin will brush those aside. No, we have to catch him.’ The captain frowned. ‘You can’t move a pawn sideways, Sharpe!’

‘You can’t?’ They spoke during the first watch which, perversely, ran from eight in the evening until midnight, a time when Chase craved company, and Sharpe had become accustomed to sharing brandy with the captain who was teaching him to play chess. Lord William and Lady Grace were frequent guests, and Lady Grace enjoyed playing the game and was evidently good at it, for she always made Chase frown and fidget as he stared at the board. Lord William preferred to read after supper, though he did once deign to play against Chase and checkmated him inside fifteen minutes. Holderby, the fifth lieutenant, was a keen player, and when he was invited for supper he liked helping Sharpe play against Chase. Sharpe and Lady Grace scrupulously ignored each other during those evenings.

The trade winds blew them northwards, the sun shone, and Sharpe would ever remember those weeks as bliss. With Braithwaite dead, and Lord William Hale immersed in the report he was writing for the British government, Sharpe and Lady Grace were free. They used circumspection, for they had no choice, yet Sharpe still suspected the ship’s crew knew of their meetings. He dared not use her cabin, for fear that Lord William might demand entrance, but she would go to his, gliding across the darkened quarterdeck in a black cloak and usually waiting for the brief commotion as the watch changed until she slipped through Sharpe’s unlocked door which lay close enough to the first lieutenant’s quarters, where Lord William slept, for folk to assume it was there she went, but even so it was hard to remain unseen by the helmsmen. Johnny Hopper, the bosun of Chase’s crew, grinned at Sharpe knowingly, and Sharpe had to pretend not to notice, though he also reckoned the secret was safe with the crew for they liked him and universally disliked the contemptuous Lord William. Sharpe and Grace told each other that they were being discreet, but night after night and even sometimes by day they risked discovery. It was reckless, but neither could resist. Sharpe was delirious with love, and he loved her all the more because she made light of the vast gulf that separated them. She lay with him one afternoon, when a scrap of sunlight spearing through a chink in the scuttle’s deadlight was scribing an oval shape on the opposite bulkhead, and she mentally added up the number of rooms in her Lincolnshire house. ‘Thirty-six,’ she decided, ‘though that doesn’t include the front hall or the servants’ quarters.’

‘We never counted them at home either,’ Sharpe said, and grunted when she dug his ribs with an elbow. They lay on blankets spread on the floor, for the hanging cot was too narrow. ‘So how many servants have you got?’ he asked.

‘In the country? Twenty-three, I think, but that’s just in the house. And in London? Fourteen, and then there are the coachmen and stable boys. I’ve no idea how many of those there are. Six or seven perhaps?’

‘I lose count of mine, too,’ Sharpe said, then flinched. ‘That hurt!’

‘Shh!’ she whispered. ‘Chase will hear. Did you ever have a servant?’

‘A little Arab boy,’ Sharpe said, ‘who wanted to come to England with me. But he died.’ He lay silent, marvelling at the touch of her skin on his. ‘What does your maid think you’re doing?’

‘Lying down in the dark with orders not to be disturbed. I say the sun gives me a headache.’

He smiled. ‘So what will you do when it rains?’

‘I’ll say the rain gives me a headache, of course. Not that Mary cares. She’s in love with Chase’s steward, so she’s glad I don’t need her. She haunts his pantry.’ Grace ran a finger down Sharpe’s belly. ‘Maybe they’ll run away to sea together?’

Sometimes it seemed to Sharpe that he and Grace had run away to sea, and they played a game where they pretended the Pucelle was their private ship and its crew their servants and that they would forever be sailing forgiving seas under sunny skies. They never spoke of what waited at journey’s end, for then Grace must go back to her lavish world and Sharpe to his place, and he did not know whether he would ever see her again. ‘We are like children, you and I,’ Grace said more than once, a note of wonder in her voice, ‘irresponsible, careless children.’

In the mornings Sharpe exercised with the marines, in the afternoons he slept, and in the evening he ate his supper with Chase, then waited impatiently until Lord William was in his laudanum-induced sleep and Grace could come to his door. They would talk, sleep, make love, talk again. ‘I haven’t had a bath since Bombay,’ she said one night with a shudder.

‘Nor have I.’

‘But I’m used to having baths,’ she said.

‘You smell good to me.’

‘I stink,’ she said. ‘I stink, and the whole ship stinks. And I miss walking. I love to walk in the country. If I had my way I would never see London again.’

‘You’d like the army,’ Sharpe said. ‘We’re always going for long walks.’

She lay silent for a while, then stroked his hair. ‘I dream sometimes of William’s death,’ she said softly. ‘Not when I’m asleep, but when I’m awake. That’s dreadful.’

‘It’s human,’ Sharpe said. ‘I think of it too.’

‘I wish he’d fall overboard,’ she said. ‘Or slip down a ladder. He won’t though.’ Not without help, Sharpe thought, and he pushed that idea away. Killing Braithwaite was one thing – the private secretary had been a blackmailer – but Lord William had done nothing except be haughty and married to a woman Sharpe loved. Yet Sharpe did think of killing him, though how it could be done he did not know. Lord William was hardly likely to descend into the hold and he was never on deck in the dark of the night when a man might be pushed over the side. ‘If he died,’ Grace said quietly, ‘I’d be wealthy. I would sell the London house and live in the country. I’d make a great library with a fireplace, walk the dogs, and you could live with me. I’d be Mrs Richard Sharpe.’

For a moment Sharpe thought he had misheard her, then he smiled. ‘You’d miss society,’ he said.

‘I hate society,’ she said vehemently. ‘Vapid conversation, stupid people, endless rivalry. I shall be a recluse, Richard, with books from the floor to the ceiling.’

‘And what will I do?’

‘Make love to me,’ she said, ‘and glower at the neighbours.’

‘I reckon I could manage that,’ Sharpe said, knowing it was a dream, except that all it would take was one man’s death to make the dream come true. ‘Is there a gunport in your husband’s cabin?’ he asked, knowing he should not ask the question.

‘Yes, why?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, but he had been wondering whether he could go into the cabin at night and overpower Lord William and heave him through the gunport, but then he dismissed the idea. Lord William’s cabin, like Sharpe’s, was under the poop and close to the ship’s wheel, and Sharpe doubted he could commit murder and dispose of the body without alerting the officer on watch. Even the creak of the opening gun-port would be too loud.

‘He’s never ill,’ Grace said on another afternoon when she had risked coming to Sharpe’s cabin. ‘He’s never ill.’

Sharpe knew what she was thinking and he was thinking it himself, but he doubted Lord William would have the decency to die of some convenient disease. ‘Perhaps he’ll be killed in the fight with the Revenant,’ Sharpe said.

Grace smiled. ‘He’ll be down below, my love, safe beneath the water line.’

‘He’s a man!’ Sharpe said, surprised. ‘He’ll have to fight.’

‘He’s a politician, my dear, and he assassinates, he does not fight. He will tell me his life is too precious to be risked, and he will really believe it! Though when we reach England he will modestly claim to have played a part in the Revenant’s defeat and I, like a loyal wife, will sit there and smile while the company admires him. He is a politician.’

Footsteps sounded outside the cabin, in the space behind the wheel and under the overhang of the poop. Sharpe listened apprehensively, expecting the steps to go away as they usually did, but this time they came right to his door. Grace clutched his hand, then shuddered as a knock sounded. Sharpe did not respond, then the bolted door shook as someone tried to force it open. ‘Who is it?’ Sharpe called, pretending to have been asleep.

‘Midshipman Collier, sir.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You’re wanted in the captain’s quarters, sir.’

‘Tell him I’ll be there in a minute, Harry,’ Sharpe said. His heart was racing.

‘You should go,’ Grace whispered.

Sharpe dressed, buckled his sword belt, leaned over to kiss her, then slipped out of the door. Chase was standing by the larboard shrouds, gazing at the dot on the horizon that was the Revenant. ‘You wanted me, sir?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Not me, Sharpe, not me,’ Chase said. ‘It’s Lord William who wants you.’

‘Lord William?’ Sharpe could not keep the surprise from his voice.

Chase raised an eyebrow as if to suggest that Sharpe had brought this trouble on himself, then jerked his head towards his dining cabin. Sharpe felt a rising panic, subdued it by telling himself Braithwaite had not left a damning letter, straightened his red coat, then went to the dining cabin’s door beneath the poop.

Lord William’s voice invited him to come in, Sharpe obeyed and was negligently waved towards a chair. Lord William was alone in the room, sitting at the long table which was covered with books and papers. He was writing, and the scratch of his pen seemed ominous. He wrote for a long time, ignoring Sharpe. The skylight above the table was open and the wind rustled the papers on the table. Sharpe stared at his lordship’s grey hair, not one out of place.

‘I am writing a report,’ Lord William broke the silence, making Sharpe jump with guilty surprise, ‘about the political situation in India.’ He dipped the nib in an inkwell, drained it carefully, then wrote another sentence before placing the pen on a small silver stand. His cold eyes were pouchy and glassy, probably from the laudanum that he took each night, but they were still filled with their usual distaste for Sharpe. ‘I would not normally turn to a junior officer for assistance, but I have small choice under the present circumstances. I would like your opinion, Sharpe, on the fighting abilities of the Mahrattas.’

Sharpe felt a pang of relief. The Mahrattas! Ever since entering the cabin he had been thinking of Braithwaite and his claim to have written a damned letter, but all Lord William wanted was an opinion on the Mahrattas! ‘Brave men, my lord,’ Sharpe said.

Lord William shuddered. ‘I suppose I deserve a vulgar opinion, since I requested it of you,’ he said tartly, then steepled his fingers and looked at Sharpe over his well-manicured nails. ‘It is evident to me, Sharpe, that we must eventually take over the administration of the whole Indian continent. In time that will also become evident to the government. The major obstacles to that ambition are the remaining Mahratta states, particularly those governed by Holkar. Let me be specific. Can those states prevent us from annexing their territory?’

‘No, my lord.’

‘Be explicit, please.’ Lord William had drawn a clean sheet of paper towards him and had the pen poised.

Sharpe took a deep breath. ‘They are brave men, my lord,’ he said, risking an irritated glance, ‘but that ain’t enough. They don’t understand how to fight in our way. They think the secret is artillery, so what they do, sir, is line up all their guns in a great row and put the infantry behind them.’

‘We don’t do that?’ Lord William asked, sounding surprised.

‘We put the guns at the sides of the infantry, sir. That way, if the other infantry attacks, we can rake them with crossfire. Kill more men that way, my lord.’

‘And you,’ Lord William said acidly as his pen raced over the paper, ‘are an expert on killing. Go on, Sharpe.’

‘By putting their guns in front, sir, they give their own infantry the idea that they’re protected. And when the guns fall, sir, which they always do, the infantry lose heart. Besides, sir, our lads fire muskets a good deal faster than theirs, so once we’re past the guns it’s really just a matter of killing them.’ Sharpe watched the pen scratch, waited until his lordship dipped it into the inkwell again. ‘We like to get close, my lord. They shoot volleys at a distance, and that’s no good. You have to march up close, very close, till you can smell them, then start firing.’

‘You’re saying their infantry lack the discipline of ours?’

‘They lack the training, sir.’ He thought about it. ‘And no, they’re not as disciplined.’

‘And doubtless,’ Lord William said pointedly, ‘they do not use the lash. But what if their infantry was properly led? By Europeans?’

‘It can be good then, sir. Our sepoys are as good, but the Mahrattas don’t take well to discipline. They’re raiders. Pirates. They hire infantry from other states, and a man never fights so well when he’s not fighting for his own. And it takes time, my lord. If you gave me a company of Mahrattas I’d want a whole year to get them ready. I could do it, but they wouldn’t like it. They’d rather be horsemen, my lord. Irregular cavalry.’

‘So you do not think we need take Monsieur Vaillard’s errand to Paris too seriously?’

‘I wouldn’t know, my lord.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. Did you recognize Pohlmann, Sharpe?’

The question took Sharpe utterly by surprise. ‘No,’ he blurted with too much indignation.

‘Yet you must have seen him’ – Lord William paused to sort through the papers – ‘at Assaye.’ He found the name which, Sharpe suspected, he had never forgotten.

‘Only through a telescope, my lord.’

‘Only through a telescope.’ Lord William repeated the words slowly. ‘Yet Chase assures me you were very certain in your identification of him. Why else would this man-of-war be racing through the Atlantic?’

‘It just seemed obvious, my lord,’ Sharpe said lamely.

‘The workings of your mind are a constant mystery to me, Sharpe,’ Lord William said, writing as he spoke. ‘I shall, of course, moderate your opinions by talking to more senior men when I reach London, but your jejune thoughts will make a first draft possible. Perhaps I shall talk to my wife’s distant cousin, Sir Arthur.’ The pen scratched steadily. ‘Do you know where my wife is this afternoon, Mister Sharpe?’

‘No, my lord,’ Sharpe said, and was about to ask how he could be expected to know, but bit his tongue in case he heard the wrong answer.

‘She has a habit of vanishing,’ Lord William said, his grey eyes now steady on Sharpe.

Sharpe said nothing. He felt like a mouse under a cat’s gaze.

Lord William turned to look at the bulkhead which divided the dining cabin from Sharpe’s cabin. He could have been gazing at the picture of Chase’s old frigate, the Spritely, which hung there. ‘Thank you, Sharpe,’ he said, looking back at last. ‘Close the door firmly, will you? The latch is imperfectly aligned with its socket.’

Sharpe left. He was sweating. Did Lord William know? Had Braithwaite really written a letter? Jesus, he thought, Jesus. Playing with fire. ‘Well?’ Captain Chase had come to stand beside him, an amused expression on his face.

‘He wanted to know about the Mahrattas, sir.’

‘Don’t we all?’ Chase enquired sweetly. He looked up at the sails, leaned to see the compass, smiled. ‘The ship’s orchestra is giving a concert tonight on the forecastle,’ he said, ‘and we’re all invited to attend after supper. Do you sing, Sharpe?’

‘Not really, sir.’

‘Lieutenant Peel sings. It’s a pleasure to hear him. Captain Llewellyn should sing, being Welsh, but doesn’t, and the lower-deck larboard gun crews make a splendid choir, though I shall have to order them not to sing the ditty about the admiral’s wife for fear of offending Lady Grace, yet even so it should be a wonderful evening.’

Grace had left his cabin. Sharpe closed the door, shut his eyes and felt the sweat trickle beneath his shirt. Playing with fire.

Two mornings later there was an island visible far off to the south and west. The Revenant must have passed quite close to the island in the night, but at dawn she was well to its north. Cloud hung above the small scrap of grey which was all Sharpe could see of the island’s summit through his telescope. ‘It’s called St Helena,’ Chase told him, ‘and belongs to the East India Company. If we weren’t otherwise engaged, Sharpe, we’d make a stop there for water and vegetables.’

Sharpe gazed at the ragged scrap of land isolated in an immensity of ocean. ‘Who lives there?’

‘Some miserable Company officials, a handful of morose families, and a few wretched black slaves. Clouter was a slave there. You should ask him about it.’

‘You freed him?’

‘He freed himself. Swam out to us one night, climbed the anchor cable and hid away till we were at sea. I’ve no doubt the East India Company would like him back, but they can whistle in the wind for him. He’s far too good a seaman.’

There were a score of black seamen like Clouter aboard, another score of lascars, and a scattering of Americans, Dutchmen, Swedes, Danes and even two Frenchmen. ‘Why would a man be called Clouter?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Because he clouted someone so hard that the man didn’t wake up for a week,’ Chase said, amused, then took the speaking trumpet from the rail and hailed Clouter who was among the men lounging on the forecastle. ‘Would you like me to put in to St Helena, Clouter? You can visit your old friends.’

Clouter mimed cutting his throat and Chase laughed. It was small gestures like that, Sharpe reckoned, that made the Pucelle a happy ship. Chase was easy in command and that ease did not diminish his authority, but simply made the men work harder. They were proud of their ship, proud of their captain and Sharpe did not doubt they would fight for him like fiends, but Capitaine Louis Montmorin had the same reputation and when the two ships met it would doubtless prove a grim and bloody business. Sharpe watched Chase for he reckoned he had still a lot to learn about the subtle business of leading men. He saw that the captain did not secure his authority by recourse to punishment, but rather by expecting high standards and rewarding them. He also hid his doubts. Chase could not be certain that Pohlmann’s servant really was Michel Vaillard, and he did not know for sure that he could catch the Revenant even if the Frenchman was aboard, and if he failed then the lords of the Admiralty would take a dim view of his initiative in taking the Pucelle so far from her proper station. Sharpe knew Chase worried about those things, yet the crew never received a hint of their captain’s doubts. To them he was certain, decisive and confident, and so they trusted him. Sharpe noted it and resolved to imitate it, and then he wondered whether he really would stay in the army. Perhaps Lord William would die? Perhaps Lord William would have a sleepless night and stroll the poop deck in the dark?

And then, Sharpe wondered, what? A library with a fireplace? Grace happy with books, and he with what? And, as he asked himself those questions, he would sheer away from their answers, for they involved a murder that Sharpe feared. A man could kill a secretary and pass it off as a fall from a ladder, but a peer of England was not so easily destroyed. Nor had Sharpe any right to kill Lord William. He probably would, he thought, if the chance came, but he knew it would be wrong and he dimly apprehended that such a wrong would leave a scar on his future. He often surprised himself by realizing he had a conscience. Sharpe knew plenty of men, dozens, who would kill for the price of a pot of ale, yet he was not among them. There had to be a reason, and selfishness was not enough. Even love was not enough.

Provoke Lord William to a duel? He thought about that, but he suspected Lord William would never stoop to fight a mere ensign. Lord William’s weapons were more subtle; memoranda to the Horse Guards, letters to senior officers, quiet words in the right ears and at their end Sharpe would be nothing. So forget it, Sharpe told himself, let the dream go, and he tried to lose himself in the work of the ship. He and Llewellyn were holding a competition among the marines to see who could fire the most musket shots in three minutes and the men were improving, though none could yet match Sharpe. He practised them, encouraged them, swore at them, and morning after morning they filled the ship’s forecastle deck with powder smoke until Sharpe reckoned the marines were as good as any redcoat company. He practised with the cutlass, fighting Llewellyn up and down the weather deck, slashing and hacking, parrying and slicing until the sweat ran down his face and chest. Some of the marines practised with boarding pikes which were eight-foot ash staffs tipped with slender steel spikes that Llewellyn claimed were marvellously effective for clearing narrow passageways on enemy ships. The Welshman also encouraged the use of boarding axes which had vicious blades on short handles. ‘They’re clumsy,’ Llewellyn admitted, ‘but, by God, they put the fear of Christ into the Froggies. A man don’t fight long with one of those buried in his skull, Sharpe, I can tell you. It cools his ardour, it does.’

They crossed the equator and, because everyone aboard had crossed it before, there was no need to put them through the ordeal of being dressed in women’s clothes, shaved with a cutlass and dipped in sea water. Nevertheless one of the seamen dressed himself as Neptune and went round the ship with a makeshift trident and demanded tribute from men and officers alike. Chase ordered a double rum ration, hung out a larger studdingsail that the sailmaker had stitched, and watched the Revenant on the northwestern horizon.

Then the calms came. For a week the two ships made scarce forty miles, but just lay on a glassy sea in which their reflections were almost mirror perfect. The sails hung and the powder smoke belched by gun practice made a cloud about each ship that did not shift so that, from a distance, the Revenant looked like a patch of fog rigged with masts and sails. Lieutenant Haskell tried to time the Frenchman’s volleys by watching the cloud twitch in his telescope. ‘Only one shot every three minutes and twenty seconds,’ he finally concluded.

‘They’re not trying their hardest,’ Chase said. ‘Montmorin’s not going to let me know how well his men are trained. You may be assured they’re a good deal faster than that.’

‘How fast are we?’ Sharpe asked Llewellyn.

The Welshman shrugged. ‘On a good, day, Sharpe? Three broadsides in five minutes. Not that we ever fire a broadside proper. Fire all the guns together, Sharpe, and the bloody ship would fall to bits! But we fire in a ripple, see? One gun after the other. Pretty to watch, it is, and after that the guns fire as they’re loaded. The faster crews will easily do three shots in five minutes, but the bigger guns are slower. But our lads are good. There aren’t many Frenchmen who can do three shots in five minutes.’

Some days Chase tried to tow the ship closer to the Revenant, but the Frenchman was also using his boats to tow and so the foes kept their stations. One day a freak breeze carried the Revenant almost beyond the horizon, leaving the Pucelle stranded, but next day it was the British ship’s turn to be wafted northwards while the Revenant lay becalmed. The Pucelle ghosted along, drawing nearer and nearer to the enemy, the ripples of her passage scarcely disturbing the glasslike sea, and foot by foot, yard by yard, cable by cable, she gained on the Revenant despite the best efforts of the French oarsmen who were out ahead in their ship’s longboats. Still the Pucelle closed the gap until at last Captain Chase had the tompion pulled from the barrel of his forward larboard twenty-four-pounder. The gun was already loaded, for all the guns were left charged, and the gunner took off the lead touch-hole cover and screwed a flintlock into place. The captain had gone to the forward end of the weather deck, where the Pucelle’s goats were penned, and crouched beside the open gunport. ‘We’ll load with chain after the first shot,’ he decided.

Chain shot looked at first glance like ordinary round shot, but the ball was split into two halves and when it left the gun the halves separated. They were joined by a short length of chain and the two hemispheres whirled through the air, the chain between them, to slice and tear at the enemy’s rigging. ‘Long range for chain shot,’ the gunner told Chase.

‘We’ll get closer,’ Chase said. He was hoping to disable the Revenant’s sails, then close and finish her with solid shot. ‘We’ll get closer,’ he said again, stooping to the gun and staring at the enemy that was now almost within range. The gilding on her stern reflected the sunlight, the tricolour hung limp from the mizzen gaff and her rail was crowded with men who must have been wondering why the wind was fickle enough to favour the British. Sharpe was staring through a telescope, hoping for a glimpse of Peculiar Cromwell’s long hair and blue coat, or of Pohlmann and his servant, but he could not make out the individuals who stood watching the Pucelle glide closer. He could see the ship’s name on her stern, see the water being pumped from her bilges and the copper, now pale green, at her water line.

Then the longboats towing the Revenant were suddenly called back. Chase grunted. ‘They probably plan to tow her head round,’ he suggested, ‘to show us her broadside. Drummer!’

A marine boy stepped forward. ‘Sir?’

‘Beat to quarters,’ Chase said, then held up a hand. ‘No, belay that! Belay!’

The wind was not so fickle after all, and the Revenant’s boats had not been recalled to turn the ship, but rather because Montmorin had seen the flickering cat’s-paws of wind ruffling the water at his stern. Now her sails lifted, stretched and tightened and the Frenchman was suddenly sliding ahead, just out of cannon range. ‘Damn,’ Chase said mildly, ‘damn and blast his French luck.’ The flintlock was dismounted, the tompion hammered into the muzzle, the gunport closed and the twenty-four-pounder secured.

Next day the Revenant pulled ahead again, the beneficiary of an unfair breeze, and by the end of the week of calms the two ships were again almost an horizon apart, though now the French ship was directly ahead of the Pucelle. ‘Far enough,’ Chase said bitterly, ‘to see her safe into harbour.’

The next few days saw contrary currents and hard winds from the northeast so that both ships beat up as close as they could. Chase called it sailing on a bowline and the Pucelle proved the better sailor and slowly, so slowly, she began to make up the lost ground. The ship smacked hard into the waves, shattering the seas across the decks and sails. Rain squalls sometimes blotted the Revenant from the Pucelle’s view, but she always reappeared and, through his telescope, Sharpe could see her pitching like the Pucelle. Once, gazing at the black and yellow warship, he saw strips of canvas flutter at her bow and she seemed to slew towards him for a few seconds, but in another few heartbeats the Frenchman had hoisted a new sail to replace the one that had blown out. ‘Worn canvas,’ the first lieutenant commented. ‘Reckon that’s why we’re faster on the wind. His foresails are threadbare.’

‘Or his stays aren’t tight enough,’ Chase muttered, watching as the Revenant resumed her previous course. ‘But he made that sail change quickly,’ he acknowledged ruefully.

‘He probably had the new sail bent on ready, sir,’ Haskell suggested.

‘Like as not,’ Chase agreed. ‘He’s good, our Louis, ain’t he?’

‘Probably got English blood,’ Haskell said in all seriousness.

They passed the Cape Verde Islands which were mere blurs on a rain-smudged horizon and, a week later, in another rainstorm, they glimpsed the Canaries. There was plenty of local shipping about, but the sight of two warships sent them all scurrying for shelter.

There was just one more week, maybe a day less, to Cadiz. ‘She’ll make port on my birthday,’ Chase said, staring through his glass, then he collapsed the telescope and turned away to hide his bitterness for, unless a miracle intervened, he knew he faced utter failure. He had one week to catch the Frenchman, but the wind had backed and for the next few days the Revenant kept her lead so that the sun-faded tricolour at her stern was a constant taunt to her pursuers.

‘What will Chase do if we don’t catch her?’ Grace asked Sharpe that night.

‘Sail on to England,’ he said. Plymouth, probably, and he imagined landing on a wet autumn afternoon on a stone quay where he would be forced to watch Lady Grace going away in a hired four-wheeler.

‘I shall write to you,’ she said, reading his thoughts, ‘if I know where.’

‘Shorncliffe, in Kent. The barracks.’ He could not hide his misery. The stupid dreams of a ridiculous love were fading into a grim reality, just as Chase’s hopes of catching the Revenant were fading.

Grace lay beside him, gazing up at the deck, listening to the hiss of rain falling on the deadlight of the cabin’s scuttle. She was dressed, for it was almost time for her to slip out of his door and go down to her own cabin, yet she clung to him and Sharpe saw the old sadness in her eyes. ‘There is something,’ she said softly, ‘that I was not going to tell you.’

‘Not going to tell me?’ he asked. ‘Which means you will tell me.’

‘I was not going to tell you,’ she said, ‘because there is nothing to be done about it.’

He guessed what she was going to say, but let her say it.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said and sounded forlorn.

He squeezed her hand, said nothing. He had known what she was going to say, but was now surprised by it.

‘Are you angry?’ she asked nervously.

‘I’m happy,’ he said, and laid a hand on her flat belly. It was true. He was filled with joy, even though he knew that joy had no future.

‘The child is yours,’ she said.

‘You know that?’

‘I know that. Maybe it’s the laudanum, but …’ She stopped and shrugged. ‘It’s yours. But William will think it’s his.’

‘Not if he can’t …’

‘He will think what I tell him!’ she interrupted fiercely, then began to cry and put her head on Sharpe’s shoulder. ‘It is yours, Richard, and I would give the world for the child to know you.’

But they would be home soon, and she would go away and Sharpe would never see the child for he and Grace were illicit lovers and there was no future for them. None. They were doomed.

And next morning everything changed.

It was a chill, wet day. The wind was north of northwest, so that the Pucelle sailed hard on her bowline. Rain squalls swept across the sea, seethed on the deck and dripped from the sails. The water was green and grey, streaked by foam and whipped by the wind. The officers on the quarterdeck looked unfamiliar for they were in thick oiled coats, and Sharpe, feeling the cold for the first time since he had gone to India, shivered. The ship bucked and shuddered, fighting sea and wind, and sometimes heeled far over as a gusting squall strained the sails. Seven men manned the double wheel and it needed all their combined strength to hold the heavy ship up into the wind’s teeth. ‘A touch of autumn in the air,’ Captain Chase greeted Sharpe. Chase’s cocked hat was covered with canvas and tied beneath his chin. ‘Did you have breakfast?’

‘I did, sir.’ It was not much of a breakfast for supplies were getting low on the Pucelle and the officers, like the men, subsisted on short rations of beef, ship’s biscuit and Scotch coffee which was a vile concoction of burnt bread dissolved in hot water and sweetened with sugar.

‘We’re gaining on him,’ Chase said, nodding towards the distant Revenant which was evidently having as hard a time as the Pucelle, for she was shattering the seas with her bluff bow and smothering her hull in spray as she pushed as near northwards as her helmsman could manage. The Pucelle closed the gap relentlessly, as she always did when the ships were hard on the wind, but just after the second bell of the forenoon watch the breeze went into the south-south-west and the Revenant was no longer struggling into the wind, but could sail with her canvas spread to the treacherous wind’s kindness and so keep her lead. Then, just a half-hour later, she unexpectedly turned to the east which meant she was heading towards the Straits of Gibraltar instead of Cadiz.

‘Starboard, starboard!’ Chase called to the helmsman.

Haskell ran up to the quarterdeck as the seven men spun the Pucelle’s wheel. Sail handlers ran about the deck, loosing sheets. The sails flapped, spattering rainwater across the deck. ‘Has she blown out her foresails again?’ Haskell shouted over the noise of the beating canvas.

‘No,’ Chase said. The Frenchman was travelling faster and easier now, sliding across the waves to leave a track of ragged white water at her stern. ‘He’s making for Toulon!’ Chase decided, but no sooner had he spoken than the Revenant turned back onto her old course and the Pucelle’s watch, who had just loosened her sheets, had to haul them tight again.

‘Follow him!’ Chase called to the quartermaster and pulled out his glass again, unhooded the lens and stared at the Frenchman. ‘What the devil is he doing? Is he taunting us? Knows he’s safe and wants to mock us? Blast him!’

The answer came ten minutes later when a lookout called that a sail was in sight. Twenty minutes more and there were two sails out on the northern horizon and the closer of the two had been identified as a British frigate. ‘Can’t be the blockading squadron,’ Chase said, puzzled, ‘because we’re too far south.’ A moment later the second ship came into clearer view and she too was a Royal Navy frigate.

The Revenant had plainly changed course to avoid the two ships, fearing from her first glimpse of their topsails that they might be British ships of the line, but then, realizing that she was faced by two mere frigates, she had decided to fight her way through to Cadiz. ‘She’ll have no trouble brushing them aside,’ Chase said gloomily. ‘Their only hope of stopping her is by laying themselves right across her course.’

Signals were suddenly flying in the breeze. Sharpe could not even see the distant frigates, but Hopper, the bosun of Chase’s crew, could not only see them, but could identify the nearer ship. ‘She’s the Euryalus, sir!’

‘Henry Blackwood, by God,’ Chase said. ‘He’s a good man.’

Tom Connors, the signal lieutenant, was halfway up the mizzen ratlines where he gazed through a glass at the Euryalus which was flying a string of bright flags from her mizzen yard. ‘The fleet’s out, sir!’ Connors called excitedly, then amended his report. ‘Euryalus wants us to identify ourselves, sir. But she also says the French and Spanish fleets are out.’

‘My God! Bless me!’ Chase, his face suddenly stripped of all its tiredness and disappointment, turned to Sharpe. ‘The fleet’s out!’ He sounded disbelieving and exultant at the same time. ‘You’re certain, Tom?’ he asked Connors, who was now running up to the flag lockers on the poop. ‘Of course you’re sure. They’re out!’ Chase could not resist dancing two or three celebratory steps that were made clumsy by his heavy tarpaulin coat. ‘The Frogs and Dons, they’re out! By God, they’re out!’

Haskell, normally so stern, looked delighted. The news was racing round the ship, bringing off-duty men up to the deck. Even Cowper, the purser, who normally stayed mole-like in the lower depths of the ship, came to the quarterdeck, hurriedly saluted Chase, then gazed northwards as though expecting to see the enemy fleet on the horizon. Pickering, the surgeon, who normally did not stir from his cot till past midday, lumbered on deck, glanced at the far frigates, then muttered that he was going out of range and went back below. Sharpe did not quite understand the excitement and surprise that had quickened the crew, indeed it seemed to him that the news was grim. Lieutenant Peel slapped Sharpe’s back in his joy, then saw the confusion on the soldier’s face. ‘You don’t share our delight, Sharpe?’

‘Isn’t it bad news, sir, if the fleet’s out?’

‘Bad news? Good Lord above, no! They won’t be out without our permission, Sharpe. We keep ’em bottled up with a close blockade, so if they’re out it means we let ’em out, and that means our own fleet’s somewhere close by. Monsieur Crapaud and Señor Don are dancing to our tune now, Sharpe. Our tune! And it’ll be a hot one.’

It seemed Peel was right, for when the Pucelle hoisted a string of flags that identified her and described her mission, there was a long wait while that message was passed on by the British frigates to other ships that evidently lay beyond the horizon, and if there were other ships across that grey skyline then it could only mean that the British fleet was also out. All the fleets were out. The battleships of Europe were out, and Chase’s quarterdeck rejoiced. The Revenant sailed on, ignored by the two frigates which had bigger fish to fry than one lone French seventy-four. The Pucelle still dutifully pursued her, but then another flurry of colour broke out among the sails of the Euryalus and everyone on the quarterdeck stared at the signal lieutenant, who in turn gazed through a glass at the frigate. ‘Hurry!’ Chase said under his breath.

‘Vice Admiral Nelson’s compliments, sir,’ Lieutenant Connors said, scarce able to conceal his excitement, ‘and we’re to bear north northwest to join his fleet.’

‘Nelson!’ Chase said the name with awe. ‘Nelson! By God, Nelson!’

The officers actually cheered. Sharpe stared at them in astonishment. For over two months they had pursued the Revenant, using every ounce of seamanship to close on her, yet now, ordered to abandon the chase, they cheered? The enemy ship was just to sail away?

‘We’re a gift from heaven, Sharpe,’ Chase explained. ‘A ship of the line? Of course Nelson wants us. We add guns! We’re in for a battle, by God, we are too! Nelson against the Frogs and the Dons, this is heaven!’

‘And the Revenant?’ Sharpe asked.

‘If we don’t catch her,’ Chase asked airily, ‘what does it matter?’

‘It might matter in India.’

‘That’ll be the army’s problem,’ Chase said dismissively. ‘Don’t you understand, Sharpe? The enemy fleet’s out! We’re going to pound them to splinters! No one can blame us for abandoning a chase to join battle. Besides, it’s Nelson’s decision, not mine. Nelson, by God! Now we’re in good company!’ He danced another brief and clumsy hornpipe before picking up his speaking trumpet to call out the orders that would turn the Pucelle towards the British fleet that lay beyond the horizon, but before he could even draw breath a shout came from the main crosstrees that another fleet was visible on the northern horizon.

‘Stand on,’ Chase ordered the quartermaster at the wheel, then ran for the main shrouds, followed by a half-dozen officers. Sharpe went more slowly. He climbed the rain-soaked ratlines, negotiated the lubber’s hole and trained his telescope north, but he could see nothing except a wind-broken sea and a mass of clouds on the horizon.

‘The enemy.’ Captain Llewellyn of the marines had arrived beside Sharpe on the maintop’s grating. He breathed the words. ‘My God, it’s the enemy.’

‘And the Revenant will join them!’ Chase said. ‘That’s my guess. They’ll be as glad of Montmorin’s company as Nelson is of ours.’ He turned and grinned at Sharpe. ‘You see? We may not have lost her after all!’

The enemy? Sharpe could still see nothing but clouds and sea, but then he realized that what he had mistaken for a streak of dirty white cloud on the horizon was in fact a mass of topsails. A fleet of ships was on that horizon and sailing straight towards his glass so that their sails coalesced into a blur. God alone knew how many ships were there, but Chase had said that the combined navies of France and Spain had put out to sea. ‘I see thirty,’ Lieutenant Haskell said uncertainly, ‘maybe more.’

‘And they’re coming south,’ Chase said, puzzled. ‘I thought the rascals were supposed to be going north to cover the invasion?’

‘It’s French navigators,’ Lieutenant Peel, the rotund man who had sung so beautifully at the concert, said. ‘They think Britain’s off Africa.’

‘They can sail to China so long as we catch them,’ Chase said, then collapsed his telescope and disappeared down the futtock shrouds. Sharpe stayed in the maintop until a squall of rain blotted the far fleet from view.

The Pucelle turned westwards, but the fickle wind turned with her so that she had to beat her way out into the Atlantic, thumping the cold waves to spatter spray down the holy-stoned decks. The enemy fleet was soon lost to sight, but Chase’s course took the Pucelle past two more frigates which formed the fragile chain connecting Nelson’s fleet with the enemy. The frigates were the scouts, the cavalry, and, having found the enemy, they stayed with her and sent messages back down the long windy links of their chain. Connors watched the bright coloured flags and passed on their news. The enemy, he reported, was still sailing south and the Euryalus had counted thirty-three ships of the line and five frigates, but two hours later the total was increased by one ship of the line because the Revenant, as Chase had foreseen, had been ordered to join the enemy’s fleet.

‘Thirty-four prizes!’ Chase said exultantly. ‘My God, we’ll hammer them!’

The last link in the chain was not a single-decked frigate, but a ship of the line which, to Sharpe’s amazement, was identified even before her hull showed above the horizon. ‘It’s the Mars,’ Lieutenant Haskell said, peering through his glass. ‘I’d know that mizzen topsail anywhere.’

‘The Mars?’ Chase’s spirits were flying high to the heavens now. ‘Georgie Duff, eh! He and I were midshipmen together, Sharpe. He’s a Scotsman,’ he added as though that were relevant. ‘Big fellow, he is, big enough to be a prize fighter! I remember his appetite! Never had enough to eat, poor fellow.’

A string of flags appeared at the Mars’s mizzen. ‘Our number, sir,’ Connors reported, then waited a few seconds. ‘What brings you home in such a hurry?’

‘Give Captain Duff my compliments,’ Chase said happily, ‘and tell him I knew he’d need some help.’ The signal lieutenant dragged flags from their lockers, a midshipman bent them on to the halliard and a seaman hauled them up.

‘Captain Duff assures you, sir, that he will not permit us to come to any harm,’ Connors reported after a moment.

‘Oh, he’s a good fellow!’ Chase said, delighted with the insult. ‘A good fellow.’

An hour later another cloud of sail appeared, only this one was on the western horizon and it grew from a blurred smear into the massed sails of a fleet. Twenty-six ships of the line, not counting the Mars or the Pucelle, were sailing northwards and Chase took his ship towards the head of the line while his officers crowded at the quarterdeck’s lee rail and gazed at the far ships. Lord William and Lady Grace, both bundled in heavy cloaks, had come on deck to see the British fleet.

‘There’s the Tonnant!’ Chase exulted. ‘See her? A lovely ship, just lovely! An eighty-four. She was captured at the Nile. God, I remember seeing her come into Gibraltar afterwards, all her topmasts gone and blood crusted at her scuppers, but don’t she look wonderful now? Who has her?’

‘Charles Tyler,’ Haskell said.

‘What a good fellow he is, to be sure! And is that the Swiftsure?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘My God, she was at the Nile too. Ben Hallowell had her then. Dear Ben. She’s under Willy Rutherford now,’ he said to Sharpe, as though Sharpe would know the name, ‘and he’s a good fellow, a capital fellow! Look at that copper on the Royal Sovereign! New, eh? She’ll be sailing quick as you like.’ He was pointing to one of the bigger warships, a great brute with three gundecks and Sharpe, peering through his glass, could see the bright gleam of her newly coppered hull whenever she leaned to the wind. The other ships, when they tilted to the breeze, showed a band of copper turned green by the sea, but the Royal Sovereign’s lower hull shone like gold. ‘She’s Admiral Collingwood’s flagship,’ Chase told Sharpe, ‘and he’s a good fellow. Not as nice as his dog, but a good fellow.’

To Chase they were all good fellows. There was Billy Hargood who was sailing the Belleisle, a seventy-four that had been captured from the French, and Jimmy Morris of the Colossus and Bob Moorsom of the Revenge. ‘Now there’s a fellow who knows how to train a ship,’ Chase said warmly. ‘Wait till you see her in battle, Sharpe! She can fire broadsides faster than anyone.’

‘The Dreadnought’s faster,’ Peel suggested.

‘The Revenge is much quicker!’ Haskell said, irritated by the second lieutenant’s comment.

‘The Dreadnought’s quick, no doubt of it, she’s quick.’ Chase tried to mediate between his senior lieutenants. He pointed out the Dreadnought to Sharpe, who saw another three-decker. ‘Her guns are quick,’ Chase said, ‘but she’s painful slow on the wind. John Conn has her, doesn’t he?’

‘He does, sir,’ Peel said.

‘What a good fellow he is! I wouldn’t like to bet a farthing on which of them is swifter with their guns. Conn or Moorsom. Pity the enemy ships that draw them as dancing partners, eh? Look! The Orion, she was at the Nile. Edward Codrington has her now. What a good fellow he is! And his wife Jane’s a lovely woman. Look! Is that the Prince? It is. Sails like a haystack!’ He was pointing to another three-decker that thumped her way northwards. ‘Dick Grindall. What a first-rate fellow he is.’

Behind the Prince was another seventy-four that, even to Sharpe’s untutored eye, looked just like the Revenant or the Pucelle. ‘Is she French?’ he asked, pointing.

‘She is, she is,’ Chase said. ‘The Spartiate, and she’s bewitched, Sharpe.’

‘Bewitched?’

‘Sails faster at night than she does by day.’

‘That’s because she’s built of stolen timbers,’ Lieutenant Holderby opined.

‘Sir Francis Laforey has her,’ Chase said, ‘and he’s a capital fellow. Look, there’s a minnow! Which is she?’

‘The Africa,’ Peel answered.

‘Only sixty-four guns,’ Chase said, ‘but she’s under the command of Harry Digby and there isn’t a finer fellow in the fleet!’

‘Or a richer,’ Haskell put in drily, then explained to Sharpe that Captain Henry Digby had been monstrous fortunate in the matter of prize money.

‘An example to us all,’ Chase said piously. ‘Is that the Defiance? By God, it is! She was badly cut about at Copenhagen, wasn’t she? Who’s her captain now?’

‘Philip Durham,’ Peel said, then silently mouthed Chase’s next four words.

‘What a fine fellow!’ Chase explained. ‘And look, the Saucy!’

‘The Saucy?’ Sharpe asked.

‘The Temeraire.’ Chase dignified the vast three-decker with her proper name. ‘Ninety-eight guns. Who has her now?’

‘Eliab Harvey,’ Haskell answered.

‘So he does, so he does. Odd sort of name, eh? Eliab? I’ve never met him, but I’m sure he’s a prime fellow, prime! And look! The Achille! Dick King has her, and what a splendid fellow he is. And look, Sharpe, the Billy Ruffian! All’s well if the Billy Ruffian is here!’

‘The Billy Ruffian?’ Sharpe asked, puzzled by the name that was evidently attached to a two-decker seventy-four that otherwise looked quite unremarkable.

‘The Bellerophon, Sharpe. She was Howe’s flagship at the Glorious First of June and she was at the Nile, by God! Poor Henry Darby was killed there, God rest his soul. He was an Irishman and a capital soul, just capital! John Cooke has her now, and he’s as stout a fellow as ever came from Essex.’

‘He came into money,’ Haskell said, ‘and moved to Wiltshire.’

‘Did he now? Good for him!’ Chase said, then trained his glass on the Bellerophon again. ‘She’s a quick ship,’ he said enviously, though his Pucelle was just as fast. ‘A lovely ship. Medway-built. When was she launched?’

‘’Eighty-six,’ Haskell answered.

‘And she cost £30,232 14s and 3d,’ Midshipman Collier interjected, then looked ashamed for his interruption. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said to Chase.

‘Don’t be sorry, lad. Are you sure? Of course you’re sure, your father’s a surveyor in the Sheerness dockyard, ain’t he? So what was the threepence spent on?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

‘A ha’penny nail, probably,’ Lord William said acidly. ‘The peculation in His Majesty’s dockyards is nothing short of scandalous.’

‘What is scandalous,’ Chase retorted, stung to the protest, ‘is that the government permits ill-founded ships to be given to good men!’ He swung away from Lord William, frowning, but his good spirits were restored by the sight of the British fleet’s black and yellow hulls.

Sharpe just gazed at the fleet in awe, doubting he would ever see a sight like this again. This was the majesty of Britain, her deep-sea fleet, a procession of majestic gun batteries, vast, ponderous and terrible. They moved as slowly as fully laden harvest waggons, their bluff bows subduing the seas and the beauty of their black and yellow flanks hiding the guns in their dark bellies. Their sterns were gilded and their figureheads a riot of shields, tridents, naked breasts and defiance. Their sails, yellow, cream and white, made a cloud bank, and their names were a roll call of triumphs: Conqueror and Agamemnon, Dreadnought and Revenge, Leviathan and Thunderer, Mars, Ajax and Colossus. These were the ships that had cowed the Danes, broken the Dutch, decimated the French and chased the Spanish from the seas. These ships ruled the waves, but now one last enemy fleet challenged them and they sailed to give it battle.

Sharpe watched Lady Grace standing tall beside the mizzen shrouds. Her eyes were bright, there was colour in her cheeks and awe on her face as she stared at the stately line of ships. She looked happy, he thought, happy and beautiful, then Sharpe saw that Lord William also watched her, a sardonic expression on his face, then he turned to gaze at Sharpe who hastily looked back to the British fleet.

Most of the ships were two-deckers. Sixteen of those, like the Pucelle, carried seventy-four guns, while three, like the Africa, only had sixty-four guns apiece. One two-decker, the captured French Tonnant, carried eighty-four guns, while the other seven ships of the fleet were the towering triple-deckers with ninety-eight or a hundred guns. Those ships were the brute killers of the deep, the slab-sided gun batteries that could hurl a slaughterous weight of metal, but Chase, without showing any alarm at the prospect, told Sharpe there was a famous Spanish four-decker, the largest ship in the world, that carried over a hundred and thirty guns. ‘Let’s hope she’s with their fleet,’ he said, ‘and that we can lay alongside her. Think of the prize money!’

‘Think of the slaughter,’ Lady Grace said quietly.

‘It hardly bears contemplation, milady,’ Chase said dutifully, ‘hardly bears it at all, but I warrant we shall do our duty.’ He put his telescope to his eye. ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, staring at the leading British ship, a three-decker with ornate giltwork climbing and wreathing her massive stern. ‘And there’s the best fellow of them all. Mister Haskell! A seventeen-gun salute, if you please.’

The leading ship was the Victory, one of the three hundred-gun ships in the British fleet and also Nelson’s flagship, and Chase, gazing at the Victory, had tears in his eyes. ‘What I wouldn’t do for that man,’ he exclaimed. ‘I never fought for him myself and thought I’d never have the chance.’ Chase cuffed at his eyes as the first of the Pucelle’s guns banged from the weather deck in salute of Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount and Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe, Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Hilborough, Knight of the most Honourable Order of the Bath and Vice Admiral of the White. ‘I tell you, Sharpe,’ Chase said, still with tears on his cheeks, ‘I would sail down the throat of hell for that man.’

The Victory had been signalling to the Mars, which, in turn, was passing the messages on down the chain of frigates to the Euryalus, which lay closest to the enemy, but now the flagship’s signal came down and a new ripple of bright flags ran up her mizzen. The Pucelle’s guns still fired the salute, the shots screaming out to fall in the empty ocean to starboard.

‘Our numeral, sir!’ Lieutenant Connors called to Captain Chase. ‘He makes us welcome, sir, and says we are to paint our mast hoops yellow. Yellow?’ He sounded puzzled. ‘Yellow, sir, it does say yellow, and we are to take station astern of the Conqueror.’

‘Acknowledge,’ Chase said, and turned to stare at the Conqueror, a seventy-four which was sailing some distance ahead of a three-decker, the Britannia. ‘She’s a slow ship,’ Chase muttered of the Britannia, then he waited for the last of the seventeen guns to sound before seizing the speaking trumpet. ‘Ready to tack!’

He had some tricky seamanship ahead, and it would have to be done under the eyes of a fleet that prized seamanship almost as much as it valued victory. The Pucelle was on the starboard tack and needed to go about so that she could join the column of ships which sailed north on the larboard tack, yet as she turned into the wind she would inevitably lose speed and, if Chase judged it wrong, he would end up becalmed and shamed in the wind-shadow of the Conqueror. He had to turn his ship, let her gather speed and slide her smoothly into place and if he did it too fast he could run aboard the Conqueror and too slow and he would be left wallowing motionless under the Britannia’s scornful gaze. ‘Now, quartermaster, now,’ he said, and the seven men hauled on the great wheel while the lieutenants bellowed at the sail handlers to release the sheets. ‘Israel Pellew has the Conqueror,’ Chase remarked to Sharpe, ‘and he’s a fine fellow and a wonderful seaman. Wonderful seaman! From Cornwall, you see? They seem to be born with salt in their veins, those Cornish fellows. Come on, my sweet, come on!’ He was talking to the Pucelle which had turned her bluff bows into the wind and for a second it seemed she would hang there helplessly, but then Sharpe saw the bowsprit moving against the cavalcade of British ships, and men were running across the deck, seizing new sheets and hauling them home. The sails flapped like demented things, then tightened in the wind and the ship leaned, gathered speed and headed docilely into the open space behind the Conqueror. It had been done beautifully.

‘Well done, quartermaster,’ Chase said, pretending he had felt no qualms during the manoeuvre. ‘Well done, Pucelles! Mister Holderby! Muster a work party and break out some yellow paint!’

‘Why yellow?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Every other ship has yellow hoops,’ Chase said, gesturing back down the long line, ‘while ours are like the French hoops, black.’ Only the upper masts were made from single pine trunks while the lower were formed from clusters of long timbers that were bound and seized by the iron hoops. ‘In battle,’ Chase said, ‘maybe that’s all anyone will note of us. And they’ll see black hoops and think we’re a Frog ship and pour two or three decks of good British gunnery into our vitals. Can’t have that, Sharpe! Not for a few slaps of paint!’ He turned like a dancer, unable to contain his elation, for his ship was in the line of battle, the enemy was at sea and Horatio Nelson was his leader.