Sharpe laughed. ‘What if I do? Didn’t they teach you about women at Oxford?’
‘A particular woman,’ Braithwaite said in a tone so filled with resentment that he sounded like a spitting serpent.
Sharpe put the brush on top of his barrel of arrack and turned on the secretary. ‘If you’ve got something to say, Braithwaite, then bloody say it.’
The secretary reddened. The fingers of his right hand were now drumming on the edge of the chest, but he forced himself to continue the confrontation. ‘I know what you’re doing, Sharpe.’
‘You don’t know a bloody thing, Braithwaite.’
‘And if I inform his lordship, as I should, then you can be assured that you will have no career in His Majesty’s army.’ It had taken almost all Braithwaite’s courage to voice the threat, but he was encouraged by a rancour that was eating him like a tapeworm. ‘You’ll have no career, Sharpe, none!’
Sharpe’s face betrayed no emotion as he stared at the secretary, but he was privately appalled that Braithwaite had discovered his secret. Lady Grace had been in this squalid cabin for two nights running, coming long after dark and leaving well before dawn, and Sharpe had thought no one had noticed. They had both believed they were being discreet, but Braithwaite had seen and now he was bitter with envy. Sharpe picked up the brush. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’
‘And I’ll ruin her too,’ Braithwaite hissed, then started violently back as Sharpe threw down the brush and turned on him. ‘And I know you deposited valuables with the captain!’ the secretary went on hurriedly, holding up both hands as if to ward off a blow.
Sharpe hesitated. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Everyone knows. It’s a ship, Sharpe. People talk.’
Sharpe looked into the secretary’s shifty eyes. ‘Go on,’ he said softly.
‘My silence can be purchased,’ Braithwaite said defiantly.
Sharpe nodded as though he were considering the bargain. ‘I’ll tell you how I’ll buy your silence, Braithwaite, a silence, by the way, about nothing because I don’t know what you’re talking about. I reckon Oxford addled your brain, but let’s suppose, just for a minute, that I think I know what you’re suggesting. Shall we agree to that?’
Braithwaite nodded cautiously.
‘And a ship is a very small place, Braithwaite,’ Sharpe said, seating himself beside the gangly secretary, ‘and you can’t escape me on board this ship. And that means that if you open your sordid mouth to tell anyone anything, if you say even one bloody word, then I’ll kill you.’
‘You don’t understand . . .’
‘I do understand,’ Sharpe interrupted, ‘so shut your mouth. In India, Braithwaite, there are men called jettis who kill by wringing their victims’ necks like chickens.’ Sharpe put his hands on Braithwaite’s head and began to twist it. ‘They twist it all the bloody way round, Braithwaite.’
‘No!’ the secretary gasped. He fumbled at Sharpe’s hands with his own, but he lacked the strength to free himself.
‘They twist it till their victim’s eyes are staring out over his arse and his neck gives way with a crack.’
‘No!’ Braithwaite could barely speak, for his neck was being twisted hard round.
‘It’s not really a crack,’ Sharpe went on in a conversational tone, ‘more a kind of grating creak, and I’ve often wondered if I could do it myself. It’s not that I’m afraid of killing, Braithwaite. I wouldn’t have you think that. I’ve killed men with guns, with swords, with knives and with my bare hands. I’ve killed more men, Braithwaite, than you can imagine in your worst nightmare, but I’ve never wrung a man’s neck till it creaked. But I’ll start with you. If you do anything to hurt me, or anything to hurt any lady I know, then I’ll twist your head like a cork in a bloody bottle, and it’ll hurt. My God, it’ll hurt.’ Sharpe gave the secretary’s neck a sudden jerk. ‘It’ll hurt more than you know, and I promise you that it will happen if you say so much as one single bloody word. You’ll be dead, Braithwaite, and I won’t give a rat’s droppings about doing it. It’ll be a real pleasure.’ He gave the secretary’s neck a last twist, then let go.
Braithwaite gasped for breath, massaging his throat. He gave Sharpe a scared glance, then tried to stand, but Sharpe hauled him back onto the chest. ‘You’re going to make me a promise, Braithwaite,’ Sharpe said.
‘Anything!’ All the fight had gone from the man now.
‘You’ll say nothing to anybody. And I’ll know if you do, I’ll know, and I’ll find you, Braithwaite. I’ll find you and I’ll wring your scrawny neck like a chicken.’
‘I won’t say a word!’
‘Because your accusations are false, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’ Braithwaite nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, they are.’
‘You’re having dreams, Braithwaite.’
‘I am, I am.’
‘Then go. And remember I’m a killer, Braithwaite. When you were at Oxford learning to be a bloody fool I was learning how to kill folk. And I learned well.’
Braithwaite fled and Sharpe stayed seated. Damn, he thought, damn and damn and damn again. He reckoned he had frightened the secretary into silence, but Sharpe was still scared. For if Braithwaite had found out, who else might discover their secret? Not that it mattered for Sharpe, but it mattered mightily to Lady Grace. She had a reputation to lose. ‘You’re playing with fire, you bloody fool,’ he told himself, then retrieved his brush and finished cleaning his coat.
Pohlmann seemed surprised that Sharpe should be a guest at dinner, but he greeted him effusively and shouted at the steward to fetch another chair onto the quarterdeck. A trestle table had been placed forward of the Calliope’s big wheel, spread with white linen and set with silverware. ‘I was going to invite you myself,’ Pohlmann told Sharpe, ‘but in the excitement of seeing the Jonathon I quite forgot.’
There was no precedence at this table, for Captain Cromwell was not dining with his passengers, but Lord William made sure he took the table’s head, then cordially invited the baron to sit beside him. ‘As you know, my dear baron, I am compiling a report on the future policy of His Majesty’s government towards India and I would value your opinion on the remaining Mahratta states.’
‘I’m not sure I can tell you much,’ Pohlmann said, ‘for I hardly knew the Mahrattas, but of course I shall oblige you as best I can.’ Then, to Lord William’s evident irritation, Mathilde took the chair on his left and called for Sharpe to sit next to her.
‘I’m the major’s guest, my lady.’ Sharpe explained his reluctance to sit beside Mathilde, but Dalton shook his head and insisted Sharpe take the offered chair.
‘I have a handsome man on either of my sides now!’ Mathilde exclaimed in her eccentric English, earning a look of withering condescension from Lord William. Lady Grace, denied a seat beside her husband, stayed standing until Lord William coldly nodded to the chair beside Pohlmann which meant she would be sitting directly opposite Sharpe. In a superb piece of dumb play she glanced at Sharpe, then raised her eyebrows towards her husband, who shrugged as though there was nothing he could do to alleviate the misfortune of being made to sit opposite a mere ensign, and so the Lady Grace sat. Not eight hours before she had been naked in Sharpe’s hanging bed, but now her disdain of him was cruelly obvious. Fazackerly, the barrister, asked permission to sit beside her and she smiled at him graciously as though she was relieved to have a dinner companion who could be relied on to make civilized conversation.
‘Sixty-nine miles,’ Lieutenant Tufnell said, joining the passengers and announcing the results of the noon sight. ‘We’d hoped to do better, much better, but the wind frets.’
‘My wife,’ Lord William said, shaking out his napkin, ‘claims we would make faster progress if we sailed inside Madagascar. Is she right, Lieutenant?’ His voice suggested that he hoped she was not.
‘She is indeed right, my lord,’ Tufnell said, ‘for there is a prodigious current down the African coast, but the Madagascar Straits are liable to
be very stormy. Very stormy. And the captain deemed we might do better outside, which we will if the wind stirs itself.’
‘You see, Grace?’ Lord William looked at his wife. ‘The captain evidently knows his business.’
‘I thought we were in a hurry to be first back to London,’ Sharpe observed to Tufnell.
The first lieutenant shrugged. ‘We anticipated stronger winds. Now, shall I carve? Major, perhaps you will pass the coleslaw? Sharpe? That is a chitney in the covered dish, or should I say chatna? Chutney, perhaps? Baron, you might pour some wine? We’re indebted to Major Dalton for the wine and for this very fine tongue.’
The guests murmured their appreciation of Dalton’s generosity, then watched as Tufnell carved. The first lieutenant passed the plates up the table and, as a stronger wave heaved the ship, one of the plates slipped from Major Dalton’s hand to spill its thick slices of pickled tongue onto the linen cloth. ‘Lapsus linguae,’ Fazackerly said gravely, and was rewarded with instant laughter.
‘Very good!’ Lord William said. ‘Very good!’
‘Your lordship is too kind,’ the barrister acknowledged with an inclination of his head.
Lord William leaned back in his chair. ‘You did not laugh, Mister Sharpe,’ he observed silkily. ‘Perhaps you do not approve of puns?’
‘Puns, my lord?’ Sharpe knew he was being made a fool, but did not see any way out except to let it happen.
‘Lapsus linguae,’ Lord William said, ‘means a slip of the tongue.’
‘I’m glad you told me,’ a strong voice came from the far end of the table, ‘because I didn’t know what it meant either. And it’s not much of a joke even when you do know.’ The speaker was Ebenezer Fairley, the wealthy merchant who was returning with his wife after making his fortune in India.
Lord William looked at the nabob, who was a corpulent man of blunt and straightforward views. ‘I doubt, Fairley,’ Lord William said, ‘that Latin is a desideratum in business, but knowledge of it is an attribute of a gentleman, just as French is the language of diplomacy, and we shall need all the gentlemen and diplomacy that we can muster if this new century is to be a time of peace. The aim of civilization is to subdue barbarity’ – he flicked a scornful glance at Sharpe – ‘and cultivate prosperity and progress.’
‘You think a man cannot be a gentleman unless he speaks Latin?’ Ebenezer Fairley asked indignantly. His wife frowned, perhaps feeling that her husband should not be belligerent with an aristocrat.
‘The arts of civilization,’ Lord William said, ‘are the highest achievements and every gentleman should aim high. And officers’ – he did not look at Sharpe, but everyone around the table knew who he meant –‘should be gentlemen.’
Ebenezer Fairley shook his head in astonishment. ‘You surely wouldn’t deny the King’s commission to men who can’t speak Latin?’
‘Officers should be educated,’ Lord William insisted, ‘properly educated.’
Sharpe was about to say something utterly tactless when a foot descended on his right shoe and pressed hard. He glanced at Lady Grace who was taking no notice of him, but it was her foot nonetheless. ‘I quite agree with you, my dear,’ Lady Grace said in her coldest voice, ‘uneducated officers are a disgrace to the army.’ Her foot slid up Sharpe’s ankle.
Lord William, unaccustomed to his wife’s approval, looked mildly surprised, but rewarded her with a smile. ‘If the army is to be anything other than a rabble,’ he decreed, ‘it must be led by men of breeding, taste and manners.’
Ebenezer Fairley grimaced in disgust. ‘If Napoleon lands his army in Britain, my lord, you won’t care whether our officers talk in Latin, Greek, English or Hottentot, so long as they know their business.’
Lady Grace’s foot pressed harder on Sharpe’s, warning him to be circumspect.
Lord William sneered. ‘Napoleon will not land in Britain, Fairley. The navy will see to that. No, the Emperor of France’ – he invested the title with a superb scorn – ‘will strut and posture for a year or so yet, but he’ll make a mistake sooner or later and then there’ll be another government in France. How many have we had in the last few years? We’ve had a republic, a directorate, a consulate and now an empire! An empire of what? Of cheese? Of garlic? No, Fairley, Bonaparte won’t last. He’s an adventurer. A cutthroat. He’s safe so long as he wins victories, but no mere cutthroat wins for ever. He’ll be defeated one day, and then we shall have serious men in Paris with whom we can do serious business. Men with whom we can make peace. It’ll come soon enough.’
‘I trust your lordship’s right,’ Fairley said dubiously, ‘but for all we know this fellow Napoleon might have crossed the Channel already!’
‘His navy will never put to sea,’ Lord William insisted. ‘Our navy will see to that.’
‘I have a brother in the navy,’ Tufnell said mildly, ‘and he tells me that if the wind blows too strong from the east then the blockade ships run for shelter and the French are free to leave port.’
‘They haven’t sailed in ten years,’ Lord William observed, ‘so I think we can sleep safe in our beds.’ Lady Grace’s foot slid up and down Sharpe’s calf.
‘But if the Emperor doesn’t invade Britain,’ Pohlmann asked, ‘who will defeat France?’
‘My money’s on the Prussians. On the Prussians and Austrians.’ Lord William seemed very certain.
‘Not the British?’ Pohlmann asked.
‘We don’t have a dog in the European rat pit,’ Lord William said. ‘We should save our army’ – he glanced at Sharpe – ‘such as it is, to protect our trade.’
‘You think we’d be wasted fighting the French?’ Sharpe asked. Lady Grace’s foot pressed warningly on his.
Lord William contemplated Sharpe for a moment, then shrugged. ‘The French army would destroy ours in a day,’ he said with a sneer. ‘You might have seen some victories over Indian armies, Sharpe, but that is hardly the same as facing the French.’
The foot pressed harder on Sharpe’s instep.
‘I think we would acquit ourselves nobly,’ Major Dalton averred, ‘and the Indian armies were not to be despised, my lord, not to be despised at all.’
‘Fine troops!’ Pohlmann said warmly, then hastily added, ‘Or so I’m told.’
‘It isn’t the quality of the troops,’ Lord William said, nettled, ‘but their leadership. Good Lord! Even Arthur Wellesley beat the Indians! He’s a distant cousin of yours, ain’t he, my dear?’ He did not wait for his wife to answer. ‘And he was never very bright. A dunce at school.’
‘You were at school with him, my lord?’ Sharpe asked, interested.
‘Eton,’ Lord William said curtly. ‘And my younger brother was there with Wellesley who was no damn good at Latin. He left early, I believe. Wasn’t up to the place.’
‘He learned to cut throats, though,’ Sharpe said.
‘Didn’t he just!’ the major agreed eagerly. ‘You were at Argaum, Sharpe. Did you see him muster those sepoys? Line broken, enemy raining shot like hail, cavalry lurking on the flank and there’s your cousin, ma’am, cool as you like, bringing the fellows back into line.’
‘Arthur is a very distant cousin,’ Grace said, smiling at Dalton, ‘though I am glad of your good opinion of him, Major.’
‘And of Sharpe’s good opinion, I hope?’ Dalton said.
Lady Grace shuddered as if to suggest that it would demean her even to consider an opinion of Sharpe’s, and at the same time she kicked him on the shin so that he almost grinned. Lord William regarded Sharpe coldly. ‘You only like Wellesley, Sharpe, because he made you an officer. Which is properly loyal of you, but scarcely discriminating.’
‘He also had me flogged, my lord.’
That brought silence to the table. Lady Grace alone knew Sharpe had been flogged, for she had drawn her long white fingers across the scars on his back, but the rest of the table stared at him as though he were some strange creature just dragged up on one of the seamen’s fishing lines. ‘You were flogged?’
Dalton asked in astonishment.
‘Two hundred lashes,’ Sharpe said.
‘I’m sure you deserved it,’ Lord William said, amused.
‘As it happens, my lord, I didn’t.’
‘Oh come, come.’ Lord William frowned. ‘Every man says that. Ain’t that right, Fazackerly? Have you ever known a guilty man accept responsibility for his crime?’
‘Never, my lord.’
‘It must have hurt dreadfully,’ Lieutenant Tufnell said sympathetically.
‘That,’ Lord William said, ‘is the point of it. You can’t win battles without discipline, and you can’t have discipline without the lash.’
‘The French don’t use the lash,’ Sharpe said mildly, staring up at the big mainsail and the tangle of canvas and rigging that rose higher still, ‘and you tell me, my lord, that they would destroy us in a day.’
‘That is a question of numbers, Sharpe, numbers. Officers should also know how to count.’
‘I can manage up to two hundred,’ Sharpe said, and was rewarded with another kick.
They finished the meal with dried fruit, then the men drank brandy, and Sharpe slept for much of the afternoon in a hammock slung under the spare spars that ran lengthwise above the main deck and on which the ship’s boats were stored during the voyage. He dreamed of battle. He was running away, pursued by a giant Indian with a spear. He woke drenched in sweat and immediately looked for the sun, for he knew he could not meet Grace until it was dark. Well dark. Until the ship was sleeping and only the night watch was on deck, but Braithwaite, he knew, would be watching and listening in that dark. What the hell was he to do about Braithwaite? He dared not tell Lady Grace about the man’s allegations, for they would terrify her.
He ate in steerage, then paced the main deck as darkness fell. And still he must wait until Lord William had finished playing whist or backgammon and had finally taken his drops of laudanum and gone to bed. The ship’s bell rang the night past and Sharpe waited in the black shadows between the vast mainmast and the bulkhead which supported the front end of the quarterdeck. It was where he waited for Lady Grace, for she could come there unseen by any of the crew on the quarterdeck. She used the stairs that went from the roundhouse down to the great cabin, then through a door which led to the main-deck steerage. She crept between the canvas screens and so out through another door on to the open deck. Then, taking her hand, Sharpe would lead her down into the warm stink of the lower-deck steerage and to his narrow cot where, with a greed that astonished them both, they would cling to each other as though they drowned. The very thought of her made Sharpe dizzy. He was besotted by her, drunk with her, insane for her.
Bernard Cornwell Box Set: Sharpe's Triumph , Sharpe's Tiger , Sharpe's Fortress Page 10