Sharpe's Trafalgar

by Bernard Cornwell

  Sharpe followed. There were moments in life, he thought, when fate played into his hands. There had been such a moment when he met Sergeant Hakeswill and joined the army, and another on the battlefield at Assaye when a general had been unhorsed, and now Braithwaite was alone in the hold. Sharpe stood by the hatch and watched Braithwaite’s lantern bob as the secretary went slowly down the ladder, and then went aft toward the place where the officers’ dunnage was stored.

  Sharpe dropped down the ladder and carefully pulled the hatch shut behind him. He went stealthily, though any noise his shoes made on the rungs was masked by the creak of the great pine masts which protruded down through all the decks to be rooted in the elmwood keel. The sound of the flexing masts was magnified in the hold, which also reverberated to the squelching clatter of the ship’s six pumps, the sound of the sea and the grating screech of the rudder turning on its pintles.

  This after part of the hold was isolated from the forward part of the ship by a great heap of water butts and vinegar barrels that stretched from the planking above the bilge to the beams of the orlop deck twelve feet above. Those beams were supported by great shafts of oak that, in the dim lantern light, looked like the pillars of an old, smoke-darkened church. Braithwaite threaded his way between the oak pillars, climbing the gentle rise of the ship’s hull toward a stack of shelves at the very back of the hold that shielded a small space in the stern that was known as the lady hole because it provided the safest place on board during a battle. There was nothing valuable kept on the shelves, merely the officers’ unwanted dunnage, but Lord William had brought so much luggage to the Pucelle that some of it had to be stored here, and Sharpe, crouching in the shadow of some casks of pungent salt beef, watched the secretary climb a short ladder to find a leather case which he hauled from the top shelf and carried awkwardly back to the deck. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the case which proved to be crammed with papers. Nothing there, Sharpe thought, for any light-fingered seamen to filch, though he did not doubt that some of them would already have picked the case’s lock in hope of better spoils. Braithwaite leafed through the papers, found what he wanted, relocked the case and carried it back up the ladder where he clumsily pushed it past the wooden bar that kept the shelf’s contents from spilling in a high sea. The secretary was muttering to himself and snatches of his words carried to Sharpe. “I’m an Oxford man, not a slave! It could have waited till we reached England. Get in there, damn you!”

  The case was finally stowed away, Braithwaite came down the ladder, pocketed the sheet of paper, collected his lantern and started back toward the larger ladder that lay alongside the mizzenmast and led to the closed hatch. He did not see Sharpe. He thought he was alone in the hold until a hand suddenly grasped his collar. “Hello, Oxford man,” Sharpe said.

  “Jesus!” Braithwaite swore and shuddered. Sharpe took the lantern from the secretary’s nerveless hand and placed it on top of a cask, then spun Braithwaite around and pushed him hard so that he fell onto the deck.

  “I had an interesting conversation with her ladyship the other day,” Sharpe said. “It seems you’re blackmailing her.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Sharpe, ridiculous.” Braithwaite thrust himself backward until he could go no further, then sat with his back against the water casks where he brushed at the dirt on his trousers and coat.

  “Do they teach blackmail at Oxford?” Sharpe asked. “I thought they only taught you useless things like Latin and Greek, but I’m wrong, am I? They give lectures in blackmail and housebreaking, maybe? Pocket-slitting on the side, perhaps?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know what I’m talking about, Braithwaite,” Sharpe said. He picked up the lantern and walked slowly toward the terrified secretary. “You’re blackmailing Lady Grace. You want her jewels, don’t you, and maybe more? You’d like her in your bed, wouldn’t you? You’d like to go where I’ve been, Braithwaite.”

  Braithwaite’s eyes widened. He was scared, but he was not so witless as to miss the significance of Sharpe’s words. Sharpe had admitted the adultery, and that meant Braithwaite was about to die, for Sharpe could not afford to let him live and tell the tale. “I just came to fetch a memorandum, Sharpe,” the secretary babbled in apparent panic, “that’s all. I came to fetch this paper. Just a memorandum, Sharpe, for Lord William’s report. Let me show you,” and he put a hand in his pocket to fetch the paper and brought out, not a memorandum, but a small pistol. It was the kind of gun designed to be carried in a purse or pocket for use against cutthroats or highwaymen and Braithwaite, his hand shaking, dragged back the flint. “I’ve carried this ever since you threatened me, Sharpe.” His voice was suddenly more confident as he leveled the pistol.

  Sharpe dropped the lantern.

  It hit the deck, there was a shudder of light, then the smash of glass and utter darkness. Sharpe twisted aside, half expecting to hear the pistol crack, but Braithwaite had retained enough nerve to hold his fire.

  “You’ve got one shot, Oxford man,” Sharpe said. “One shot, then it’s my turn.”

  Silence, except for the clatter of the pumps and the noise of the masts and the scratching of rats’ feet in the bilge.

  “I’m used to this,” Sharpe said. “I’ve crawled in the darkness before, Braithwaite, and killed men. Cut their gizzards. I did it outside Gawilghur on a dark night. Cut two men’s throats, Braithwaite, slit them back to the spine.” He was crouching behind a cask so that if Braithwaite did fire then the secretary would merely inflict a wound on a barrel of salt beef. Sharpe kept his body behind the cask and reached out with his left hand, scraping his nails on the plank deck. “I slit their gizzards, Oxford man.”

  “We can come to an agreement, Sharpe,” Braithwaite said nervously. He had not moved since the hold went dark. Sharpe knew that, for he would have heard. He reckoned Braithwaite was waiting until he went close and then he would fire. Just like ship-to-ship fighting. Let the bugger get close, then fire.

  “What kind of agreement, Oxford man?” Sharpe asked, then scratched the deck again, making little noises that would be magnified by the secretary’s fear. He found a shard of broken lantern glass and scraped it on the wood.

  “You and I should be friends, Sharpe,” Braithwaite said. “You and I? We ain’t like them. My father is a parson. He doesn’t make much. Three hundred a year? That may sound like a competence to you, but it’s nothing, Sharpe, nothing. Yet people like William Hale are born to fortunes. They abuse us, Sharpe, they grind us down. They think we’re dirt.”

  Sharpe tapped the glass scrap against the lantern’s metal, then scratched it on wood to make a noise like rats’ claws. He reached as far as he could, tapping the glass closer to Braithwaite. Braithwaite would be listening, trying to make sense of the small noises, trying to contain a rising terror.

  “By what justification,” Braithwaite asked, his voice a tone higher, “can mere birth bestow such good fortune on one man and deny it to another? Are we lesser men because our parents were poor? Must we forever tug the forelock because their ancestors were brutes in plate armor who stole a fortune? You and I should combine, Sharpe. I beg you, think on it.”

  Sharpe was lying flat on the deck now, reaching toward Braithwaite, grinding the glass on the rough planking, taking the sound ever nearer to the secretary who tried to see something, anything, in the stygian darkness.

  “I never wrote to Colonel Wallace as I was ordered to,” Braithwaite said in desperation. “That was a favor to you, Sharpe. Can you not apprehend that we’re on the same side?” He paused, waiting for an answer to come from the pitch darkness, but there was only the small scraping sound on the deck in front of him. “Speak, Sharpe!” Braithwaite pleaded. “Or kill Lord William.” Braithwaite’s voice was almost sobbing with fear now. “Her ladyship will thank you, Sharpe. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sharpe? Answer me, Sharpe, for God’s sake, answer me!”

  Sharpe tapped the glass fragment on
the deck. He could hear Braithwaite’s hoarse breathing. The secretary lunged out a foot, hoping to find Sharpe, but the shoe struck nothing. “I beg you, Sharpe, think of me as a friend! I mean you no harm. How could I? When I so admire your achievements? Her ladyship misconstrued my words, nothing else. She is finely strung, Sharpe, and I am your friend, Sharpe, your friend!”

  Sharpe tossed the glass scrap so that it rattled among the casks somewhere in the hold’s starboard side. Braithwaite gave a yelp of terror, but held his fire, then sobbed as he heard more small noises. “Talk to me, Sharpe. We are not brutes, you and I. We have things in common, we should talk. Talk to me!”

  Sharpe gathered a handful of the broken glass, paused, then threw them toward the secretary who, as the small scraps struck him, screamed and thrust the pistol blindly forward and pulled the trigger. The small gun flashed blindingly in the hold and the bullet smacked harmlessly into a timber. Sharpe stood and walked forward, waited for the echo of the shot to die away. “One bullet, Oxford man,” he said, “then it was my turn.”

  “No!” Braithwaite flailed wildly in the dark, but Sharpe kicked him hard, then dropped on him, pinioned his arms and turned the secretary over so that he lay on his belly.

  Sharpe sat on the small of Braithwaite’s back. “Now tell me, Oxford man,” he asked softly, “just what you wanted of Lady Grace?”

  “I’ve written it all down, Sharpe.”

  “Written what down, Oxford man?” Sharpe had Braithwaite’s arms held tight.

  “Everything! About you and Lady Grace. I’ve left the letter among Lord William’s papers with instructions to open it if anything should happen to me.”

  “I don’t believe you, Oxford man.”

  Braithwaite gave a sudden heave, trying to release his arms. “I’m not a fool, Sharpe. You think I wouldn’t take precautions? Of course I’ve left a letter.” He paused. “Just let me go,” he went on, “and we can discuss this.”

  “So if I let you go,” Sharpe said, still holding tight to Braithwaite’s arms, “you’ll fetch the letter back from Lord William?”

  “Of course I will. I promise.”

  “And you’ll apologize to Lady Grace? Tell her you were wrong about your suspicions?”

  “Of course I’ll do that. Willingly! Gladly!”

  “But you weren’t wrong, Oxford man,” Sharpe said, stooping close to Braithwaite’s head, “her and me are lovers. Sweat and nakedness in the dark, Oxford man. I couldn’t have you telling lies to her, saying it never happened, could I? And now you know my secret I’m not sure I can let you go after all.”

  “But there’s a letter, Sharpe!”

  “You lie like a bloody rug, Braithwaite. There’s no letter.”

  “There is!” Braithwaite cried in despair.

  Sharpe was holding the secretary’s arms above his back, pushing them painfully forward, and now he shoved them hard to dislocate both at the shoulders. Braithwaite gave a whimper of pain, then screamed for help as Sharpe gripped one of his ears and turned his head sideways. Sharpe was trying to find a purchase with his right hand on Braithwaite’s face and Braithwaite attempted to bite him, but Sharpe smacked his face, then gripped a handful of hair and ear and twisted the head hard. “God knows how they did it,” Sharpe said, “those bloody jettis, but I watched them, so it must be possible.” He wrenched Braithwaite’s head again and the secretary’s frantic protest was stilled as his throat was constricted. His breath became a harsh gasping, but still he fought back, trying to heave Sharpe from his back, and Sharpe, amazed that the jettis had made this look so easy, clamped his hands on Braithwaite’s head and wrenched it with all his strength. The secretary’s breathing became a scratchy whimper, hardly audible over the cacophony of creaking and clanking in the hold, but he still twitched and so Sharpe took a deep breath, then twisted a second time and was rewarded with a small grating scrunch that he reckoned was the spine twisting out of alignment in Braithwaite’s neck.

  The secretary was still now. Sharpe put a finger on Braithwaite’s neck, trying and failing to find a pulse. He waited. Still no pulse, no twitches, no breathing, and so Sharpe felt around the deck until he discovered the pistol which he put into his pocket, then he stood and heaved the dead man onto his shoulder and staggered forward, pitched left and right by the motion of the ship, until he blundered into the mizzen ladder. He dropped the body there, climbed the ladder and heaved open the hatch to the astonishment of a seaman who was passing. Sharpe nodded a greeting, closed the hatch on the corpse and on the rats that scrabbled in the dark, then climbed on into the daylight. He chucked the pistol out of his cabin’s scuttle. No one noticed.

  Dinner was salt pork, peas and biscuits. Sharpe ate well.

  Captain Chase assumed that the Revenant, if indeed it was the Revenant that had been glimpsed on the horizon, had seen the Pucelle’s topsails the previous day despite the cloud bank, and so had turned westward in the night. “That’ll slow her down,” he insisted, recovering some of his usual optimism. The wind was fair, for even though the Pucelle had now drawn far enough offshore to lose the advantage of the current, they were in the latitudes where the southeast trades blew. “The wind can only get stronger,” Chase said, “and the barometer’s rising, which is good.”

  Flying fish skittered away from the Pucelle’s hull. The ill feeling that had pervaded the ship all morning dissipated beneath the warm sun and under the captain’s renewed optimism. “We know she’s no faster than us,” Chase said, “and we’re on the inside of the bend from now to Cadiz.”

  “How far is that?” Sharpe asked. He was taking the air on the quarterdeck after sharing dinner with Chase.

  “Another month,” Chase said, “but we ain’t out of trouble yet. We should do well as far as the equator, but after that we could be becalmed.” He drummed his fingers on the rail. “But with God’s help we’ll catch her first.”

  “You haven’t seen my secretary, have you, Chase?” Lord William appeared on deck to interrupt the conversation.

  “Not a sign of him,” Chase said happily.

  “I need him,” Lord William said petulantly. Lord William had persuaded Chase to allow him to use his dining cabin as an office. Chase had been reluctant to yield the room with its lavish table, but had decided it was better to keep Lord William happy rather than have him scowling about the ship in frustration.

  Chase turned to the fifth lieutenant, Holderby. “Did his lordship’s secretary take dinner in the wardroom?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” Holderby said, “haven’t seen the fellow since breakfast.”

  “Have you seen him, Sharpe?” his lordship inquired coldly. He did not like talking to Sharpe, but condescended to ask the question.

  “No, my lord.”

  “I asked him to fetch a memorandum about our original agreement with Holkar. Damn him, I need it!”

  “Perhaps he’s still looking for it,” Chase suggested.

  “Or he’s seasick, my lord?” Sharpe added. “The wind’s freshened.”

  “I’ve looked in his cabin,” Lord William complained, “and he’s not there.”

  “Mister Collier!” Chase summoned the midshipman who was pacing up and down the weather deck. “We have a missing secretary. The tall gloomy fellow who dresses in black. Look below decks for him, will you? Tell him he’s wanted in my dining cabin.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Collier said and dived below to start his search.

  Lady Grace, attended by her maid, strolled onto the deck and stood a studious distance from Sharpe. Lord William turned on her. “Have you seen Braithwaite?”

  “Not since this morning,” Lady Grace said.

  “The wretched man has disappeared.”

  Lady Grace shrugged, suggesting that Braithwaite’s fate was none of her concern, then turned to watch the flying fish skim over the waves.

  “I do hope the bugger hasn’t fallen overboard,” Chase said. “He’s got a long swim if he has.”

  “He had no business being
on deck,” Lord William said in annoyance.

  “I doubt he’s drowned, my lord,” Chase said reassuringly. “If he had fallen then someone would have seen him.”

  “What do you do then?” Sharpe asked.

  “Stop the ship and make a rescue,” Chase said, “if we can. Did I ever tell you about Nelson in the Minerva?”

  “Even if you had,” Sharpe said, “you’d tell me again.”

  Chase laughed. “Back in ‘ninety-seven, Sharpe, Nelson commands the Minerva. Fine frigate! He was being pursued by two Spanish ships of the line and a frigate when some halfwit falls overboard. Tom Hardy was aboard, wonderful man, he captains the Victory now, and Hardy took a boat to rescue the fellow. See the picture, Sharpe? Minerva fleeing for her life, close pursued by three Spaniards and Hardy and his boat crew, with the wet fellow aboard, can’t row hard enough to catch up. So what does Nelson do? He backs his topsails! Can you credit it? Backs his topsails. By God, he said, I won’t lose Hardy. Now the Dons can’t make head nor tail of this. Why’s the fellow stopping? They think he must have reinforcements coming, so the silly buggers haul their own wind. Hardy catches up, gets aboard, and the Minerva takes off like a scalded cat! What a great man Nelson is.”

  Lord William scowled and stared westward. Sharpe gazed up at the mainsail, trying to trace a rope from its beginning, through blocks and tackles, down to the belaying pins beside the gunwales. Hammocks were being aired over the netting racks in which they were stuffed during battle to stop musket bullets. A solitary sea bird, white and long-winged, curved close to the ship then soared away into the blue. Mister Cowper, the purser, was counting the boarding pikes racked around the mainmast’s trunk. He licked a pencil, made a note in a book, shot a scared look at Chase and waddled away. Holderby, who had the deck, ordered a bosun’s mate forrard to ring the ship’s bell. Chase, still thinking about Nelson, smiled.