Sharpe's Trafalgar (19 page)

“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 honored, milady.”

Brandy and cigars were produced, but the company did not stay long. Lord William
suggested a hand of whist, but Chase had lost oo 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 inquired 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
overmuch. 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 westward. 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 westward 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 around 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 westward, 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 colored 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.