Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles (17 page)

Sharpe heard the door between Lord William’s two cabins open and close. There was a click as the locking hook was dropped into its eye. A Frenchman’s voice sounded again, this time from the stern cabin that shared the wide window with Sharpe’s makeshift quarters. Lady Grace answered him in French, apparently protesting, then she screamed.

Sharpe stood. He expected to hear Lord William intervene, but there was silence, then Grace gave a second scream which was abruptly stifled and Sharpe hurled himself at the partition. He could have gone into the corridor and back into the next-door cabin, but breaking down the panelled partition was the quickest way to reach Grace and so he hammered it with his shoulder and the thin wood splintered and Sharpe tore his way through, bellowing as though he went into battle.

Which he did, for Lieutenant Bursay was on the bed where he was holding down Lady Grace. The tall lieutenant had torn her dress open at the neck and was now trying to rip it further while, at the same time, keeping one hand over her mouth. He turned to see Sharpe, but he was much too slow, for Sharpe was already on the lieutenant’s broad back with his left hand tangled in Bursay’s greasy hair. He hauled the Frenchman’s head back and chopped the side of his right hand onto the lieutenant’s neck. He hit him once, twice, then Bursay heaved Sharpe off and twisted to swing a huge fist. Someone hammered on the cabin door, but Bursay had locked it.

Bursay had taken off his coat and sword belt, but he seized the cutlass handle, dragged the blade free and slashed at Sharpe. Lady Grace was hunched at the head of the bed, clutching the remnants of her dress to her neck. There were pearls scattered on the bed. Bursay had evidently come to plunder Lord William’s possessions and found Grace the most delectable.

Sharpe threw himself back through the ruins of the bulkhead. His own sabre was on the bed and he dragged it from the scabbard and swung the blade as the big Frenchman clambered through the splintered panels. Bursay parried the stroke, then, as the sound of the blades still echoed in the cabin, he charged at Sharpe.

Sharpe tried to spear the sabre into Bursay’s belly, but the lieutenant contemptuously swatted the steel away and punched the hilt of the cutlass into Sharpe’s head. The blow made Sharpe reel, scattering his vision with sparks and darkness as he fell backwards. He rolled desperately to his right as the cutlass chopped down into the deck, then he swung the sabre in a wild, backhanded and clumsy stroke that did no damage, but served to make Bursay step back. Sharpe scrambled to his feet, his head still ringing, and heard the locked door between Lord William’s two cabins being broken down. Bursay grinned. He was so tall that he had to stoop beneath the deck beams, but he was confident, for he had hurt Sharpe, who was staggering slightly. The cutlass hilt had drawn blood which trickled from Sharpe’s forehead down his cheek. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, knowing that this brute of a man was just as savage and quick as he was himself. The lieutenant ducked under a beam and lunged at Sharpe, who parried, then Bursay snarled and charged, the cutlass sweeping like a reaping hook, and Sharpe threw himself back against the cabin’s forward bulkhead and the Frenchman knew he had won, except that Sharpe bounced back from the wall, his sabre held like a spear, and stretched forward so that the curved tip ripped into Bursay’s throat. Sharpe swerved to his left to avoid the cutlass’s heavy riposte and it seemed to him that his thrust had not done any real damage, for he had felt no resistance to the blade, but Bursay was wavering and blood was pouring down his coat. The Frenchman’s right arm fell so that the cutlass tip struck the deck. He stared at Sharpe with an expression of puzzlement and put his left hand to his neck where the blood was pulsing dark and then, with a lurch, he fell to his knees and made a gurgling sound. A marine kicked through the shattered bulkhead and stared wide-eyed at the big lieutenant, who was looking up at Sharpe in faint surprise. Then, as if pole-axed, Bursay fell hard forward and a wash of blood spilt across the deck and vanished between the cracks.

The marine raised his musket, but just then an authoritative voice snapped in French and the man lowered the gun. Major Dalton thrust the marine aside and saw Bursay’s body which was still twitching. ‘You did this?’ the major asked, kneeling and lifting the lieutenant’s head, then dropping it swiftly as more blood welled from the wound in the neck.

‘What else was I to do with him?’ Sharpe asked belligerently. He wiped the sabre’s tip on the hem of his coat, then pushed past the marine and peered through the broken bulkhead to see that Lady Grace was still crouched on the bed, her hands at her throat, shaking. ‘It’s all right, my lady,’ he said, ‘it’s over.’

She stared at him. Dalton spoke in French to the marine, evidently ordering the man to report to the quarterdeck, then Lord William peered round the shattered partition, saw the corpse and looked up at Sharpe’s bloodied face. ‘What . . .’ he began, but then was bereft of words. There was a graze on Lord William’s cheek where he had been struck by Bursay. The Frenchman was unmoving now. Lady Grace was still sobbing, gasping huge breaths, then whimpering.

Sharpe tossed his sabre onto Pohlmann’s bed, and stepped past Lord William. ‘It’s all right, my lady,’ he said again, ‘he’s dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘He’s dead.’

A silk embroidered dressing gown, presumably Lord William’s, was hung over the foot of the bed and Sharpe tossed it to Lady Grace. She draped it about her shoulders, then began shaking again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nothing for you to be sorry about, my lady,’ Sharpe said.

‘You will leave this cabin, Sharpe,’ Lord William said coldly. He was shaking slightly and a trickle of blood traced his jawbone.

Lady Grace turned on her husband. ‘You did nothing!’ she spat at him. ‘You did nothing!’

‘You’re hysterical, Grace, hysterical. The man hit me!’ he protested to anyone who would listen. ‘I tried to stop him, he hit me!’

‘You did nothing!’ Lady Grace said again.

Lord William summoned Lady Grace’s maid who, like him, had been under the marine’s guard in the day cabin. ‘Calm her down, for Christ’s sake,’ he told the girl, then jerked his head to indicate that Sharpe should leave the bedroom.

Sharpe stepped back through the ruined bulkhead to discover that most of the great cabin’s passengers had come upstairs and were now staring at Bursay’s corpse. Ebenezer Fairley shook his head in wonder. ‘When you do a job, lad,’ the merchant said, ‘you do it proper. Can’t be a drop of blood left in him! Most of it’s dripped down onto our bed.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sharpe said.

‘Not the first blood I’ve seen, lad. And worse things happen at sea, they tell me.’

‘You should all leave!’ Lord William had come into Pohlmann’s quarters. ‘Just leave!’ he snapped pettishly.

‘This ain’t your room,’ Fairley growled, ‘and if you were a half a man, my lord, neither Sharpe nor this corpse would be here.’

Lord William gaped at Fairley, but just then Lady Grace, her hair ragged, stepped over the splinters of the partition. Her husband tried to push her back, but she shook him off and stared down at the corpse, then up at Sharpe. ‘Thank you, Mister Sharpe,’ she said.

‘Glad I could be of service, my lady,’ Sharpe replied, then turned and braced himself as Major Dalton led a Frenchman into the crowded cabin. ‘This is the new captain of the ship,’ Dalton said. ‘He’s an
officier marinier
, which I think is the equivalent of our petty officer.’

The Frenchman was an older man, balding, with a face weathered and browned by long service at sea. He had no uniform, for he was not a wardroom officer, but evidently a senior seaman who seemed quite unmoved by Bursay’s death. It was plain that the marine had already explained the circumstance for he asked no questions, but simply made a clumsy and embarrassed bow to Lady Grace and muttered an apology.

Lady Grace acknowledged the apology in a voice still shaking from fear. ‘
Merci, monsieur
.’

The
officier marinier
spoke to Dalton who translated for Sharpe’s benefit. ‘He regrets Bursay’s actions, Sharpe. He says the man was an animal. He was a petty officer till a month ago, when Montmorin promoted him. He told him he was on his honour to behave like a gentleman, but Bursay had no honour.’

‘I’m forgiven?’ Sharpe asked, amused.

‘You defended a lady, Sharpe,’ Dalton said, frowning at Sharpe’s light tone. ‘How can any reasonable man object?’

The Frenchman made arrangements for a sheet of canvas to be nailed over the broken partition and for the lieutenant’s body to be taken away. He also insisted that the lanterns be removed from the window.

Sharpe stood the lanterns on the empty sideboard. ‘I’ll sleep in here,’ he announced, ‘just in case any other bloody Frenchman gets lonely.’ Lord William opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. The corpse was taken away and a piece of frayed sailcloth nailed over the partition. Then Sharpe slept in Pohlmann’s bed as the ship sailed on, taking him to captivity.

The next two days were tedious. The wind was light so the ship rolled and made slow progress, so slow that Tufnell guessed it would take nearer six days to reach Mauritius, and that was good, for it meant there was more time for a British warship to see the great captured Indiaman wallowing in the long swells. None of the passengers could go on deck and the heat in the cabins was stifling. Sharpe passed the time as best he could. Major Dalton lent him a book called
Tristram Shandy
, but Sharpe could make neither head nor tail of it. Just lying and staring at the ceiling was more rewarding. The barrister tried to teach Sharpe backgammon, but Sharpe was not interested in gambling and so Fazackerly went off to find more willing prey. Lieutenant Tufnell showed him how to tie some knots, and that passed some hours between the meals which were all burgoo enlivened with dried peas. Mrs Fairley embroidered a shawl, her husband growled and paced and fretted, Major Dalton attempted to compile an accurate account of the battle at Assaye which needed Sharpe’s constant advice, the ship sailed slowly on and Sharpe did not see Lady Grace during the daytime.

She came to his cabin on the second night, arriving while he was asleep and waking him by putting a hand on his mouth so he did not cry out. ‘The maid’s asleep,’ she whispered, and in the silence that followed Sharpe could hear Lord William’s drug-induced snores beyond the makeshift canvas screen.

She lay beside Sharpe, one leg across his, and did not speak for a long time. ‘When he came in,’ she finally whispered, ‘he said he wanted my jewels. That was all. My jewels. Then he told me he was going to cut William’s throat if I didn’t do what he wanted.’

‘It’s all right,’ Sharpe tried to soothe her.

She shook her head abruptly. ‘And then he told me that he hated all aristos. That was what he said, “aristos”, and said we should all be guillotined. He said he was going to kill us both and claim that William had attacked him and that I had died of a fever.’

‘He’s the one feeding the fishes now,’ Sharpe said. He had heard a splash the previous morning and knew it was Bursay’s body being launched into eternity.

‘You don’t hate aristos, do you?’ Grace asked after a long pause.

‘I’ve only met you, your husband and Sir Arthur. Is he an aristo?’

She nodded. ‘His father’s the Earl of Mornington.’

‘So I like two out of three,’ Sharpe said. ‘That’s not bad.’

‘You like Arthur?’

Sharpe shrugged. ‘I don’t know that I like him, but I’d like him to like me. I admire him.’

‘But you don’t like William?’

‘Do you?’

She paused. ‘No. My father made me marry him. He’s rich, very rich, and my family isn’t. He was reckoned a good match, a very good match. I liked him once, but not now. Not now.’

‘He hates me,’ Sharpe said.

‘He’s frightened of you.’

Sharpe smiled. ‘He’s a lord, though, isn’t he? And I’m nothing.’

‘You’re here, though,’ Grace said, kissing him on the cheek, ‘and he isn’t.’ She kissed him again. ‘And if he found me here I would be ruined. My name would be a disgrace. I would never see society again. I might never see anyone again.’

Sharpe thought of Malachi Braithwaite and was grateful that the secretary was mewed up in the steerage where he could not add to his suspicions of Sharpe and Lady Grace. ‘You mean your husband would kill you?’ Sharpe asked her.

‘He’d like to. He might.’ She thought about it. ‘But he’d probably have me declared mad. It isn’t difficult. He’d hire expensive doctors who’d call me an hysterical lunatic and a judge would order me locked away. I’d spend the rest of my short life shut in a wing of the Lincolnshire house being spoon-fed medicines. Only the medicines would be mildly poisonous so that, mercifully, I wouldn’t live long.’

Sharpe turned to look at her, though it was so dark that he could see little but the blur of her face. ‘He could really do that?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘but I stay safe by behaving very correctly, and by pretending that William doesn’t take whores and mistresses. And, of course, he wants an heir. He was overjoyed when our son was born, but has hated me ever since he died. Which doesn’t stop him trying to give me another.’ She paused. ‘So my best hope of staying alive is to give him a son and to behave like an angel, and I swore I would do both, but then I saw you and I thought why not lose my wits?’

‘I’ll look after you,’ Sharpe promised.

‘Once we’re off this boat,’ she said quietly, ‘I doubt we’ll ever meet again.’

‘No,’ Sharpe protested, ‘no.’

‘Shh,’ she whispered, and covered his mouth with hers.

By dawn she was gone. The view from the stern window was unchanged. No British warship was in pursuit, there was just the endless Indian Ocean stretching away to a hazed horizon. The wind was fresher so that the ship rolled and thumped, dislodging the chess pieces that Major Dalton had arrayed on the stern seat in a plan of the battle of Assaye. ‘You must tell me,’ the major said, ‘what happened when Sir Arthur was unhorsed.’

‘I think you must ask him, Major.’