He waited. The rigging creaked. The great mast shifted imperceptibly with gusts of wind. He could hear an officer pacing the quarterdeck, hear the slap of hands on the wheel spokes and the grating of the rudder ropes. The ensign flapped at the stern, the sea ran down the ship’s flanks and still Sharpe waited. He stared up at the stars visible through the sails and thought they looked like the bivouac fires of a great army encamped across the sky.
He closed his eyes, wishing she would come and wishing that the voyage could last for ever. He wished they could be lovers on a ship sailing in an endless night beneath a spread of stars, for once the Calliope reached England she would go away from him. She would go to her husband’s house in Lincolnshire and Sharpe would go to Kent to join a regiment he had never seen.
Then the door opened and she was there, crouching beside him in her vast boat cloak. ‘Come to the poop deck,’ she whispered.
He wanted to ask why, but he bit the question back for there had been an urgency in her voice and he reckoned that if it was important to her then it was important to him too, and so he let her take his hand and lead him back into the main-deck steerage. These berths cost the same as the lower deck, but they were much drier and airier. It was pitch black, for no lights were allowed after nine o’clock except in the roundhouse day cabins where deadlights could be fixed across the small portholes. Lady Grace twined her fingers in his as they groped and felt their way to the door leading to the great cabin, then up the stairs. ‘As I left my cabin,’ she whispered to him at the top of the stairs, ‘I saw Pohlmann go into the cuddy.’
She led him to the door which opened onto the back of the quarterdeck and they stepped out, risking the eyes of the helmsman and the duty officer, but if they were seen no one remarked it. They climbed to the poop deck and Lady Grace gestured at the skylight above the cuddy cabin from which, in contravention of Captain Cromwell’s orders, a faint light gleamed.
Creeping softly as children who have stayed up long after their bedtime, Sharpe and Lady Grace went close to the skylight. Four of its ten panes were propped open and Sharpe could hear the murmur of men’s voices. Lady Grace peeped over the edge, then drew back. ‘They’re there,’ she mouthed in his ear.
Sharpe looked through one of the dirty panes and saw three men’s heads bent over the long table. One was Cromwell, the second Pohlmann and Sharpe did not recognize the third. They seemed to be examining a chart, then Pohlmann straightened up and Sharpe ducked back. The smell of cigar smoke came through the open panes.
‘Morgen früh,’ said a voice, only it was not Pohlmann who spoke in German, but another man. Sharpe risked leaning forward again and saw it was Pohlmann’s servant, the man who spoke French and claimed to be Swiss.
‘Morgen früh,’ Pohlmann repeated.
‘These things ain’t certain, Baron,’ Cromwell said.
‘You have done well this far, my friend, so I am sure all will go well tomorrow,’ Pohlmann answered and Sharpe heard the clink of glasses, then he and Grace shrank back because a hand came into sight to close the open panes. The dim light was extinguished and a moment later Sharpe heard Cromwell’s growling voice talking to the helmsman on the quarterdeck.
‘We can’t go down now,’ Grace whispered in his ear.
They went to the dark corner between the signal cannon and the taffrail and there, crouched in the shadows, they kissed, and only then did Sharpe ask if she had heard the German words.
‘They mean “tomorrow morning”,’ Grace said.
‘And the man who said them first,’ Sharpe said, ‘is supposed to be Pohlmann’s servant. What’s a servant doing drinking with his master? I’ve heard him speak French, too, but he claims to be Swiss.’
‘The Swiss, dearest,’ Lady Grace said, ‘speak German and French.’
‘They do?’ Sharpe asked. ‘I thought they talked Swiss.’ She laughed. Sharpe was sitting with his back against the gunwale and she was straddling his lap, her knees either side of his chest. ‘I don’t know,’ he went on, ‘maybe they were just saying that we turn west tomorrow? We’ve been sailing south for days, we have to go west soon.’
‘Not too soon,’ she said. ‘I would like this voyage to last for ever.’ She leaned forward and kissed his nose. ‘I thought you were going to be appallingly rude to William at dinner.’
‘I held my tongue, didn’t I?’ he asked. ‘But only because my shin’s black and blue.’ He touched a finger to her face, marvelling at the delicacy of her looks. ‘I know he’s your husband, my love, but he’s stuffed to his muzzle with rubbish. Wanting officers to speak Latin! What use is Latin?’
Lady Grace shrugged. ‘If the enemy is coming to kill you, Richard, who do you want defending you? A properly educated gentleman who can construe Ovid, or some barbarian cutthroat with a back like a washboard?’
Sharpe pretended to think. ‘If you put it like that, of course, then I’ll take the Ovid fellow.’ She laughed, and it seemed to Sharpe that this was a woman born to happiness, not misery. ‘I missed you,’ he said.
‘I missed you,’ she answered.
He put his hands under the big black cloak to find that she was naked under her nightgown and then they forgot the next morning, forgot Cromwell, forgot Pohlmann and forgot the mysterious servant, for the Calliope was shrouded in the night, sailing beneath a slivered moon as it carried its star-crossed lovers to nowhere.
Captain Peculiar Cromwell was on the quarterdeck all next morning, pacing from larboard to starboard, glowering at the binnacle, pacing again, and his restlessness infected the ship so that the passengers became nervous and constantly glanced at the captain as if expecting him to lose his temper. Speculation flew round the main deck until it was finally agreed that Cromwell was expecting a storm, but the captain made no preparations. No sail was shortened or lashings inspected.
Ebenezer Fairley, the nabob who had responded so angrily to Lord William’s assertions about Latin, came down to the main deck in search of Sharpe. ‘I was hoping, Mister Sharpe, that you were not upset by those fools at dinner yesterday,’ he boomed.
‘By Lord William? No.’
‘Man’s a halfwit,’ Fairley said savagely, ‘saying we should speak Latin! What’s the use of Latin? Or of Greek? He makes me ashamed to be an Englishman.’
‘I took no offence, Mister Fairley.’
‘And his wife’s no better! Treats you like dirt, don’t she? And she won’t even speak to my wife.’
‘She’s a beauty, though,’ Sharpe said wistfully.
‘A beauty?’ Fairley sounded disgusted. ‘Well, aye, I suppose if you like getting splinters every time you touch her.’ He sniffed. ‘But what have either of them ever done except learn Latin? Have they ever planted a field of wheat? Set up a factory? Dug a canal? They were born, Sharpe, that’s all that ever happened to them, they were born.’ He shuddered. ‘I tell you, Sharpe, I’m not a radical man, not me! But there are times when I wouldn’t mind seeing a guillotine outside Parliament. I could find business for it, I tell you.’ Fairley, a tall and heavy-faced man, glanced up at Cromwell. ‘Peculiar’s in an itchy mood.’
‘Folk say there’s a storm coming.’
‘God save the ship, then,’ Fairley said, ‘because I’m carrying three thousand pounds of cargo in this bottom, but we should be safe. I chose the Calliope, Mister Sharpe, because she has a reputation. A good one. Fast and seaworthy, she is, and Peculiar’s a good seaman for all his scowls. This hold, Mister Sharpe, is fair stuffed with valuables because the ship’s got a good name. You can’t beat a good name in business. Did they really flog you?’
‘They did, sir.’
‘And you became an officer?’ Fairley shook his head in rueful admiration. ‘I’ve made a fortune in my time, Sharpe, a rare fortune, and you don’t make a fortune without knowing men. If you want to work for me just say the word. I might be going home to rest my backside, but I’ve still got a business to run and I need good men I can trust. I do business in India, in China and wherever in E
urope the damned French let me, and I need capable men. I can only promise you two things, Sharpe, that I’ll work you like a dog and pay you like a prince.’
‘Work for you, sir?’ Sharpe was astonished.
‘You don’t speak Latin, do you? There’s an advantage. And you don’t know trade either, but you can learn that a damned sight easier than you can learn Latin.’
‘I like being a soldier.’
‘Aye, I can see that. And Dalton tells me you’re good at it. But one day, Sharpe, some halfwit like William Hale will make peace with the French because he’s too damned scared of defeat and on that day the army will spit you out like a biscuit weevil.’ He felt inside a waistcoat pocket stretched tight across a paunch that remained undiminished by the ship’s execrable food. ‘Here.’ He passed Sharpe a slip of pasteboard. ‘It’s what my wife calls a carte de visite. Call on me when you want a job.’ The card gave Fairley’s address, Pallisser Hall. ‘I grew up near that house,’ Fairley said, ‘and my father used to clean out its gutters with his bare hands. Now it’s mine. I bought his lordship out.’ He smiled, pleased with himself. ‘There’s no storm coming. Peculiar’s got fleas in his trousers, that’s all. And so he should.’
‘He should?’
‘I’m not happy that we lost the convoy, Sharpe. I don’t approve, but on board ship it’s Peculiar’s word that counts, not mine. You don’t buy a dog and bark yourself, Sharpe.’ He fished a pocket watch out and clicked open its lid. ‘Almost dinner time. The remnants of that tongue, no doubt.’
Midday came and still nothing explained Cromwell’s nervousness. Pohlmann appeared on deck, but went nowhere near the captain, and a few minutes later Lady Grace, attended by her maid, took the air before going to the cuddy for dinner. The wind was lighter than it had been for days, making the Calliope rock in the swell, and some pale-faced passengers were clinging to the lee rail. Lieutenant Tufnell was reassuring. There was no storm coming, he said, for the glass in the captain’s cabin was staying high. ‘The wind’ll be back,’ he told the passengers on the main deck.
‘Are we turning west today?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Tomorrow, probably,’ Tufnell said, ‘southwest, anyway. I rather think our gamble hasn’t paid off and that we should have gone through the Straits. Still, we’re a quick sailor and we should make up the time in the Atlantic.’
‘Sail ho!’ a lookout called from the mainmast. ‘Sail on the larboard bow!’
Cromwell snatched up a speaking trumpet. ‘What kind of sail?’
‘Topsail, sir, can’t see more.’
Tufnell frowned. ‘A topsail means a European ship. Perhaps another Jonathon?’ He looked up at Cromwell. ‘You want to wear ship, sir?’
‘We shall stand on, Mister Tufnell, we stand on.’
‘Wear ship?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Turn away from whoever it is,’ Tufnell said. ‘It don’t matter if it’s a Jonathon, but we don’t want to be playing games with a Frenchie.’
‘The Revenant?’ Sharpe suggested.
‘Don’t even say the name,’ Tufnell answered grimly, reaching out to touch the wooden rail to avert the ill fortune of Sharpe’s suggestion. ‘But if we wore now we could outrun her. She’s coming upwind, whoever she is.’
The lookout shouted again. ‘She’s a French ship, sir.’
‘How do you know?’ Cromwell called back.
‘Cut of her sails, sir.’
Tufnell looked pained. ‘Sir?’ he appealed to Cromwell.
‘The Pucelle is a French-made ship, Mister Tufnell,’ Cromwell snapped. ‘Most likely it’s the Pucelle. We stand on.’
‘Powder on deck, sir?’ Tufnell asked.
Cromwell hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Probably another whaler, Mister Tufnell, probably another whaler. Let us not become unduly excited.’
Sharpe forgot his dinner and climbed to the foredeck where he trained his telescope on the approaching ship. It was still hull down, but he could see two layers of sails above the skyline and make out the flattened shape of the foresails as they fought to gain a purchase on the wind. He lent the glass to the sailors who crowded the foredeck and none liked what they saw. ‘That ain’t the Pucelle,’ one grunted. ‘She’s got a dirty streak on her fore topsail.’
‘Could have washed the sail,’ another suggested. ‘Captain Chase ain’t a man to let dirt stay on a sail.’
‘Well, if it ain’t the Pucelle,’ the first man said, ‘it’s the Revenant, and we shouldn’t be standing on. Shouldn’t be standing on. Don’t make sense.’
Tufnell had gone to the maintop with his own telescope. ‘French warship, sir!’ he called down to the quarterdeck. ‘Black hoops on the mast!’
‘The Pucelle has black hoops,’ Cromwell shouted back. ‘Can you see her flag?’
‘No, sir.’
Cromwell stood irresolute for a moment, then gave an order to the helmsman so that the Calliope clumsily turned towards the west. Sailors ran to man the sheets, trimming the great sails to the wind’s new angle.
‘She’s turning with us, sir!’ Tufnell shouted.
The Calliope was going faster now and her bluff bows were thumping into the waves, and each thump sent a tremor through her tons of oak timbers. The passengers were silent. Sharpe stared through the telescope and saw that the far ship’s hull was above the horizon now and it was painted black and yellow like a wasp.
‘French colours, sir!’ Tufnell shouted.
‘Peculiar left it too bloody late,’ a seaman near Sharpe said. ‘Bloody man thinks he can walk on water.’
Sharpe turned and stared across the main deck at Peculiar Cromwell. Maybe, he thought, the captain had been expecting this. Morgen früh, Sharpe thought, morgen früh, only the rendezvous had come a few minutes late, but then he dismissed the idea. Surely Cromwell had not expected this? But then Sharpe saw Pohlmann gazing forrard with a glass and he remembered that Pohlmann had once commanded French officers. Had he stayed in touch with the French after Assaye? Was he allied with the French? No, Sharpe thought, no. It seemed unthinkable, but then Lady Grace came to the quarterdeck rail and she stared straight at Sharpe, looked pointedly at Cromwell, then back to Sharpe and he knew she was thinking the same unthinkable thought. ‘Are we going to fight?’ a passenger asked.
A seaman laughed. ‘Can’t fight a French seventy-four! And she’ll have big guns, not like our eighteen-pounders.’
‘Can we outrun her?’ Sharpe asked.
‘If we’re lucky.’ The man spat overboard.
Cromwell kept giving the helmsman orders, demanding a point closer to the wind or three points off the wind, and to Sharpe it seemed that the captain was trying to coax the last reserves of speed from the Calliope, but the sailors on the foredeck were disgusted. ‘Just slows us down,’ one of them explained. ‘Every time you turn the rudder it slows you. He should leave well alone.’ He looked at Sharpe. ‘I should hide that glass, sir. Some Frenchie would like that, and yon ship has the legs of us.’
Sharpe ran below. He would have to fetch his jewels from Cromwell’s cabin, but there were other things he also wanted to save and so he stuffed the precious telescope inside his shirt and tied his red officer’s sash across it, then he pulled on his red coat, buckled his sword belt and pushed the pistol into his trouser pocket. Other passengers were trying to hide their more valuable possessions, the children were crying, and then, far away, muffled by distance and the ship’s hull, Sharpe heard a gun.
He climbed back to the main deck and asked Cromwell’s permission to be on the quarterdeck. Cromwell nodded, then looked with amusement at Sharpe’s sabre. ‘Expecting a fight, Mister Sharpe?’
‘Can I retrieve my valuables from your cabin, Captain?’ Sharpe asked.
Cromwell scowled. ‘All in good time, Sharpe, all in good time. I’m busy now and will thank you to let me try and save the ship.’
Sharpe went to the rail. The French ship still looked a long way off, but now Sharpe could see the seas breaking white at the enemy’
s stem and a shredding puff of smoke drifting just ahead of its bows. ‘They fired’ – Major Dalton, his heavy claymore at his waist, joined Sharpe at the rail – ‘but the ball fell a long mile short. Tufnell says they weren’t trying to hit us, they just want us to heave to.’
Ebenezer Fairley came to Sharpe’s other side. ‘We should have stayed with the convoy,’ he spat in disgust.
‘A ship like that,’ Dalton said, gazing at the French warship’s massive flank which was thick with gunports, ‘could have chewed up the whole convoy.’
‘We’d have sacrificed the Company frigate,’ Fairley said. ‘That’s what the frigate is for.’ He drummed nervous fingers on the rail. ‘She’s a fast sailor.’
‘So are we,’ Major Dalton said.
‘She’s bigger,’ Fairley said brusquely, ‘and bigger ships sail faster than small ones.’ He turned. ‘Captain!’
‘I am busy, Fairley, busy.’ Cromwell did not look at the merchant.
‘Can you outrun her?’
‘If I am left in peace to practise my trade, perhaps.’
‘What about my cash?’ Lord William demanded. He had joined his wife on deck.
‘The French,’ Cromwell decreed, ‘do not make war on private individuals. The ship and its cargo might be lost, but they will respect private property. If I have time, my lord, I will unlock my cabin. But for now, gentlemen, perhaps you will all let me sail this ship without yapping at me?’
Sharpe glanced at Lady Grace, but she ignored him and he looked back at the French warship. Fairley thumped the rail in his frustration. ‘That bloody Frenchman will make a tidy profit,’ the merchant said bitterly. ‘This hull and cargo must be worth sixty thousand pound. Sixty thousand! Maybe more.’
Bernard Cornwell Box Set: Sharpe's Triumph , Sharpe's Tiger , Sharpe's Fortress Page 11