Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles (18 page)

‘But you know as much as he, surely?’

‘I do,’ Sharpe agreed, ‘but I doubt he’s fond of telling the story, or of having it told. You might do better to say he fought off a group of the enemy and was rescued by his aides.’

‘But is that true?’

‘There’s truth in it,’ Sharpe said and would say no more. Besides, he could not remember exactly what had happened. He remembered sliding off his horse and slashing the sabre in hay-making cuts; he remembered Sir Arthur being dazed and standing in the shelter of a cannon’s wheel and he remembered killing, but what he remembered clearest of all was the Indian swordsman who had deserved to kill him, for the man had swung his
tulwar
in a scything stroke that had struck the nape of Sharpe’s neck. That stroke should have beheaded Sharpe, but he had been wearing his hair in the soldier’s queue, bound around a leather bag that would normally have been filled with sand, only instead Sharpe had concealed the great ruby from the Tippoo Sultan’s hat in the bag and the big jewel had stopped the
tulwar
cold. The blow had released the ruby and Sharpe remembered how, when the vicious fight was over, Sir Arthur had picked up the stone and held it out to him with a puzzled expression. The general had been too confused to recognize what it was and probably thought it was nothing but a prettily coloured pebble that Sharpe had collected. Goddamn Cromwell had the pretty pebble now.

‘What was Sir Arthur’s horse called?’ Dalton asked.

‘Diomed,’ Sharpe said. ‘He was very fond of that horse.’ He could remember the gush of blood that spilt onto the dry ground when the pike was pulled from Diomed’s chest.

Dalton questioned Sharpe till late afternoon, making notes for his memoir. ‘I have to do something with my retirement, Sharpe. If ever I see Edinburgh again.’

‘Are you not married, sir?’

‘I was. A dear lady. She died.’ The major shook his head, then stared wistfully through the stern window. ‘We had no children,’ he said softly, then frowned as a sudden rush of feet sounded from the quarterdeck. A voice could be heard shouting, and a heartbeat later the
Calliope
yawed to larboard and the sails hammered like guns firing. One by one the sails were sheeted home and the ship, after momentarily wallowing in the swells, was sailing smooth again, only this time she was beating up into the wind on a course as near northerly as the small crew could hold. ‘Something’s excited the Frenchies,’ the major said.

No one knew what had caused the northwards turn, for no other ship was visible from the cabin portholes, though it was possible a lookout high in the rigging had seen some topsails on the southern horizon. The motion of the ship was more uncomfortable now for she was slamming into the waves and heeling over. Then, when the supper was carried to the passengers, the
officier marinier
ordered that no lights were to be shown, and promised that anyone who disobeyed him would be thrust down into the ship’s hold where foetid seawater slopped and rats ruled.

‘So there is another ship,’ Dalton said.

‘But has she seen us?’ Sharpe wondered.

‘Even if she has,’ Dalton said gloomily, ‘what can we do?’

Sharpe prayed it was the
Pucelle
, Captain Chase’s French-built warship that was as quick a sailor as the
Revenant
. ‘There is one thing,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I need Tufnell,’ Sharpe said, and he went down to the officers’ quarters in the great cabin and hammered on the lieutenant’s door and, after a brief conversation, took the lieutenant and Dalton to Ebenezer Fairley’s cabin.

The merchant was robed for bed and had a tasselled nightcap falling over the left side of his face, but he listened to Sharpe, then grinned. ‘Come on in, lad. Mother! You’ll have to get up again. We’ve got some mischief to make.’

The problem was a lack of tools, but Sharpe had his pocket knife, Tufnell had a short dagger and the major produced a dirk and the three men first pulled up the painted canvas carpet in Fairley’s sleeping cabin, then attacked a floorboard.

The board was made of oak over two inches thick. It was old oak, seasoned and hard, but Sharpe could see no alternative except to make a hole in the deck and hope that it was in the right place. The men took it in turns to hack and scratch and carve and cut the wood, while Mrs Fairley produced a kitchen steel from a travelling chest and periodically sharpened the three blades that were slowly, so very slowly, digging through the plank.

They made two cuts, a foot apart, and it took till well past midnight to cut through the board and lift the section out. They worked in the dark, but once the hole was made Fairley lit a lantern that he shielded with one of his wife’s cloaks and the three men peered into the darkness below. At first Sharpe could see nothing. He could hear the grating of the tiller rope, but he could not see it, and then, when Fairley dropped the lantern into the hole, he saw the great hemp rope just a foot or so away. Every few seconds the taut rope would move an inch or more and the creaking sound would echo through the stern.

The rope was fastened to the tiller which was the bar that turned the
Calliope
’s great rudder. From the tiller the rope went to both sides of the ship where it ran through pulleys before returning to the centre of the ship where two more pulleys led the rope up to the ship’s wheel which was really two wheels, one in front of the other, so that as many men as possible could heave on the spokes when the ship was in heavy seas and high winds. The twin wheels were connected by a hefty wooden drum round which the tiller rope was tightly wound so that a turn of the wheel pulled on the rope and transferred the motion to the tiller bar. Cut that rope and the
Calliope
would be rudderless for a while.

‘But when to cut it, eh?’ Fairley asked.

‘Wait for daylight,’ Dalton suggested.

‘It’ll take some cutting,’ Sharpe said, for the rope was near three inches thick. It ran in a space between the main and lower decks and Fairley put the canvas carpet back into place, not only to disguise the hole, but to keep the rats from coming up into his cabin.

‘How long will it take to replace that rope?’ the merchant asked Tufnell.

‘A good crew could do it in an hour.’

‘They’ll have some good seamen,’ the merchant said, ‘so we’d best not waste their efforts now. We’ll see what morning brings.’

That night brought no Lady Grace. Perhaps, Sharpe thought, she had already looked into Pohlmann’s cabin and found Sharpe absent. Or perhaps Lord William was awake and watchful, wondering if a rescue was closing on the night-shrouded
Calliope
, so Sharpe wrapped himself in a blanket and slept until a fist knocked on his door to announce the breakfast burgoo. ‘There’s a ship on the starboard bow, sir,’ the seaman who had brought the cauldron said softly. ‘You can’t see it from here, but she’s there all right. One of ours, too.’

‘Navy?’

‘We reckons she is, sir. So it’s a race to Mauritius now.’

‘How close is she?’

‘Seven, eight miles? Fair ways, sir, and she has to tack to cut us off so it’ll be precious close, sir.’ He lowered his voice even more. ‘The Froggies have taken down their ensign, so we’re flying our old colours, but that won’t help ’em if it’s a warship. She’ll come and look at us anyway. Ensigns don’t mean nothing when there’s prize money to be gained.’

The news had spread through the ship, elating the passengers and alarming the French crew who tried to coax their prize into showing her best speed, but to the passengers in the stern, who could neither see the other ship nor determine what happened on the
Calliope
’s deck, it was a slow and agonizing morning. Lieutenant Tufnell suggested that the two ships must be on converging courses and that the
Calliope
had the advantage of the wind, but it was bitterly frustrating not knowing for sure. They all wanted to cut the tiller rope, but knew that if they severed it too soon the French might have time to make a repair.

No dinner was served at midday and perhaps it was that small hardship which persuaded Sharpe that the rope was best cut. ‘We can’t tell when the best moment is,’ he argued, ‘so let’s give the buggers a headache now.’

No one demurred. Fairley pulled back the carpet and Sharpe thrust his sabre into the hole and sawed the blade back and forth on the rope. The rope kept moving, not by much, but enough to ensure that it was difficult keeping the sabre on the same spot, but Sharpe grunted and sweated as he tried to find the leverage to bring all his strength onto the blade.

‘Shall I try?’ Tufnell asked.

‘I’m managing,’ Sharpe said. He could not see the rope, but he knew he had the blade deep in its fibres now, for the blade was being tugged back and forth with the rudder’s small movements. His right arm was on fire from the wrist to the shoulder, but he kept the blade sawing and suddenly felt the tension vanish as the ravaged hemp unravelled. The rudder squealed on its pintles as Sharpe drew the sabre back through the hole and collapsed in exhaustion against the foot of Fairley’s bed.

The
Calliope
, with no pressure on the rudder to resist her weather-helm, swung ponderously into the wind. There were frantic shouts on deck, the sound of bare feet going to the sheets and then the blessed noise of the sails slatting and banging as they flapped uselessly in the wind.

‘Cover the hole,’ Fairley ordered, ‘quick! Before the buggers see it.’

Sharpe moved his feet so they could drop the carpet into place. The ship jerked as the French used the headsails to bring her round, but without the rudder’s pressure she stubbornly went back into irons, and the sails again hammered at the masts. The helmsman would be spinning the wheel that suddenly had no load, and then there was a rush of feet going down the companionways and Sharpe knew the French were at last exploring the tiller lines.

There was a knock on Fairley’s door and, without waiting to be bidden, Lord William entered the cabin. ‘Does anyone know,’ he asked, ‘what precisely is happening?’

‘We cut the tiller ropes,’ Fairley said, ‘and I’ll thank your lordship to keep quiet about it.’ Lord William blinked at that brusque request, but before he could say anything there was the sound of a distant gun. ‘I reckon that’s the end of it,’ Fairley said happily. ‘Come on, Sharpe, let’s go and see what you wrought.’ He held out a big hand and hauled Sharpe to his feet.

None of the prize crew tried to stop them going on deck, indeed the Frenchmen were already hauling down the
Calliope
’s original ensign which they had hoped would fool their pursuer into thinking that the Indiaman was still under British command.

And now they really were under British command for, coming slowly towards the
Calliope
and furling her sails as she glided ever nearer, was another great bluff-sided warship painted yellow and black. Her beakhead was a riot of gilded wood supporting a figurehead that showed an ecstatic-faced lady graced with a halo, carrying a sword and dressed in silver-painted armour, though her breastplate was curiously truncated to reveal a pinkly naked bosom. ‘The
Pucelle
,’ Sharpe said in delight. Joan of Arc had come to the rescue of the British.

And the
Calliope
, for the second time in five days, was taken.

The first
Pucelle
crewman to board the
Calliope
was Captain Joel Chase himself who scrambled nimbly up the merchantman’s side to the cheers of the liberated passengers. The
officier marinier,
having no sword to surrender, stoically offered Chase a marlin spike instead. Chase grinned, took the spike, then gallantly returned it to the
officier marinier
who resignedly led his men into imprisonment below decks while Chase doffed his hat, shook hands with the passengers on the main deck and tried to answer a dozen questions all at once. Malachi Braithwaite stood apart from the happy passengers, staring morosely at Sharpe on the quarterdeck. The secretary had been sequestered in steerage ever since the French took the ship and he must have been suffering pangs of jealousy at the thought of Sharpe being in the stern with Lady Grace.

‘There’s a happy naval captain,’ Ebenezer Fairley said. He had come to stand beside Sharpe on the quarterdeck and was staring down at the throng of steerage passengers surrounding Chase. ‘He’s just made a fortune in prize money, but mind you he’ll have to fight for it proper now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You think the lawyers won’t want their share?’ Fairley asked sourly. ‘The East India Company will have lawyers saying that the Frogs never took the ship properly so it can’t be a prize, and Chase’s prize agent will have another set of lawyers arguing the opposite and between them they’ll keep the court busy for years and make themselves rich and everyone else poor.’ He sniffed. ‘I suppose I could hire a lawyer or two myself, seeing as how a deal of the cargo is mine, but I won’t bother. Yon captain’s welcome to the prize so far as I’m concerned. I’d rather he got the cash than some blood-sucking lawyer.’ Fairley grimaced. ‘I once had a good idea on how we could mightily improve the prosperity of Britain, Sharpe. My notion was that every man of property could kill one lawyer a year without fear of penalty. Parliament wasn’t interested, but then, Parliament’s full of blood-suckers.’

Captain Chase extricated himself from the main-deck throng and climbed to the quarterdeck where the first person he saw was Sharpe. ‘My dear Sharpe!’ Chase cried, his face lighting up. ‘My dear Sharpe! We are equal now, eh? You rescue me, I rescue you. How are you?’ He clasped Sharpe’s hand in both his, was introduced to Fairley, then glimpsed Lord William Hale. ‘Oh God, I’d forgotten he was on board. How are you, my lord? You’re well? Good, good!’ In fact Lord William had not answered the captain, though he was eager to speak with him privately, but Chase spun away and took Tufnell’s arm and the two seamen embarked on a long discussion about how the
Calliope
had first fallen prey to the
Revenant
. A party of
Calliope
sailors went below to mend the tiller ropes, while some Pucelles, led by Hopper, the big man who commanded Captain Chase’s gig, hoisted a British ensign above the French flag.