Sharpe's Trafalgar (18 page)

“Your quarters?” Sharpe asked in astonishment.

“Sleeping cabin,” Chase said, “through that door there. Good Lord above, Sharpe, I’ve got
this damn great room!” He gestured about the lavish day cabin with its elegant furniture,
framed portraits and curtained windows. “My steward can hang my cot in here, and yours can
go in the small cabin.”

“I can’t take your cabin!” Sharpe protested.

“Of course you can! It’s a damned poky little hole, anyway, just right for an
insignificant ensign. Besides, Sharpe, I’m a fellow who likes some company and as
captain I can’t go to the wardroom without an invitation and the officers don’t invite
me much. Can’t blame them. They want to relax, so I end up in lonely state. So you can
entertain me instead. D’you play chess? No? I shall teach you. And you’ll take supper with
me tonight? Of course you will.” Chase, who had taken off his uniform coat, stretched out in
a chair. “Do you really think the baron might have been Pohlmann?”

“He was,” Sharpe said flatly.

Chase raised an eyebrow. “So sure?”

“I recognized him, sir,” Sharpe admitted, “but I didn’t tell any of the Calliope’s
officers. I didn’t think it was important.”

Chase shook his head, more in amusement than disapproval. “It wouldn’t have done any good
if you had told them. And Peculiar would probably have killed you if you had, and as for the
others, how were they to know what was happening? I only hope to God I do!” He
straightened to find a piece of paper on the larger table. “We, that is His Britannic
Majesty’s navy, are looking for a gentleman named Vaillard. Michel Vaillard. He’s a bad
lad, our Vaillard, and it seems he is trying to return to Europe. And how better to
travel than disguised as a servant? No one looks at servants, do they?”

“Why are you searching for him, sir?”

“It seems, Sharpe, that he has been negotiating with the last of the Mahrattas who are
terrified that the British will take over what’s left of their territory, so Vaillard has
concluded a treaty with one of their leaders, Holkar?” He looked at the paper. “Yes,
Holkar, and Vaillard is taking the treaty back to Paris. Holkar agrees to talk peace with the
British, and in the meantime Monsieur Vaillard, presumably with the help of your friend
Pohlmann, arranges to supply Holkar with French advisers, French cannon and French
muskets. This is a copy of the treaty.” He flicked the paper over to Sharpe who saw that it
was in French, though someone had helpfully written a translation between the lines.
Holkar, the ablest of the Mahratta war leaders and a man who had evaded the army of Sir
Arthur Wellesley, but who was now being pressed by other British forces, had undertaken
to open peace negotiations and, under their cover, raise an enormous army which would be
equipped by his allies, the French. The treaty even listed those princes in British
territory who could be relied on to rebel if such an army attacked out of the north.

“They’ve been clever, Vaillard and Pohlmann,” Chase said. “Used British ships to go home!
Quickest way, you see. They suborned your fellow, Cromwell, and must have sent a message to
Mauritius arranging a rendezvous.”

“How did we get a copy of their treaty?” Sharpe asked.

“Spies?” Chase guessed. “Everything became vigorous after you left Bombay. The
admiral sent a sloop to the Red Sea in case Vaillard decided to go overland and he sent
the Porcupine to overhaul the convoy and told me to keep my eyes skinned as well, because
stopping that damned Vaillard is our most important job. Now we know where the bloody man
is, or we think we do, so I’ll have to pursue him. They’re going back to Europe and we are
too. It’s back home for us, Sharpe, and you’re going to see just how fast a French-built
warship can sail. The trouble is that the Revenant’s just as quick and she’s the best part of
a week in front of us.”

“And if you catch her?”

“We beat her to smithereens, of course,” Chase said happily, “and make certain Monsieur
Vaillard and Herr Pohlmann go to the fishes.”

“And Captain Cromwell with them,” Sharpe said vengefully.

“I think I’d rather take him alive,” Chase said, “and hang him from the yardarm. Nothing
cheers up a jack tar’s spirit so much as seeing a captain swinging on a generous length
of Bridport hemp.”

Sharpe looked through the stern window to see the Calliope was just a smudge of sails on
the horizon. He felt like a cask thrown into a fast river, being swept away to some
unknown destination on a journey over which he had no control, but he was glad it was
happening, for he was still with Lady Grace. The very thought of her sparked a warm feeling
in his breast, though he knew it was a madness, an utter madness, but he could not escape
it. He did not even want to escape it.

“Here’s Mister Harold Collier,” Chase said, responding to a knock on the door that
brought into the cabin the diminutive midshipman who had commanded the boat that had
carried Sharpe out to the Calliope so long ago in Bombay Harbor. Now Mister Collier was
ordered to show Sharpe the Pucelle.

The boy was touchingly proud of his ship while Sharpe was awed by it. It was a vast thing,
much bigger than the Calliope, and young Harry Collier rattled off its statistics as he
took Sharpe through the lavish dining cabin where another eighteen-pounder squatted.
“She’s 178 feet long, sir, not counting her bowsprit, of course, and 48 in the beam, sir, and
175 feet to the main truck which is the very top of the mainmast, sir, and mind your head,
sir. She was French-built out of two thousand oak trees and she weighs close to two thousand
tons, sir—mind your head—and she’s got seventy-four guns, sir, not counting the
carronades, of course, and we’ve six of them, all thirty-two-pounders, and there’s six
hundred and seventeen men aboard, sir, not counting the marines.”

“How many of those?”

“Sixty-six, sir. This way, sir. Mind your head, sir.”

Collier led Sharpe onto the quarterdeck where eight long guns lay behind their closed
ports. “Eighteen-pounders, sir,” Collier squeaked, “the babies on the ship. Just six a
side, sir, including the four in the stern quarters.” He slithered down a perilously
steep companionway to the main deck. “This is the weather deck, sir. Thirty-two guns,
sir, all twenty-four-pounders.” The center of the main deck, or weather deck, was open to
the sky, but the forward and aft sections of the deck were planked over where the
forecastle and quarterdeck were built. Collier led Sharpe forward, weaving nimbly
between the huge guns and the mess tables rigged between them, ducking under hammocks
where men of the off-duty watch slept, then swerving around the anchor capstan and down
another ladder into the stygian darkness of the lower deck, which held the ship’s
biggest guns, each throwing a ball of thirty-two pounds. “Thirty of these big guns, sir,”
he said proudly, “mind your head, sir, fifteen a side, and we’re lucky to have so many.
There’s a shortage of these big guns, they tell us, and some ships are even driven to put
eighteen-pounders on their lower deck, but not Captain Chase, he wouldn’t abide that. I
told you to mind your head, sir.”

Sharpe rubbed the bruise on his forehead and tried to work out the weight of shot that the
Pucelle could fire, but Collier was ahead of him. “We can throw 972 pounds of metal with
each broadside, sir, and we’ve got two sides,” he added helpfully, “as you may have
noticed. And we’ve got the six carronades, sir, and they can throw thirty-two pounds apiece
plus a cask of musket balls as well, which will make a Frenchman weep, sir. Or so I’m told,
sir. Mind your head, sir.” Which meant, Sharpe thought, that this one ship could throw more
round shot in a single broadside than all the combined batteries of the army’s artillery
at the battle of Assaye. It was a floating bastion, a crushing killer of the high seas,
and this was not even the largest warship afloat. Some ships, Sharpe knew, carried over a
hundred guns, and again Collier had the answers, trained in them because, like all
midshipmen, he was preparing for his lieutenant’s examination. “The navy’s got eight
first rates, sir, that’s ships with a hundred or more guns—watch that low beam, sir—fourteen
second rates, which carry about ninety or more cannon, and a hundred and thirty of these
third rates.”

“You call this a third rate?” Sharpe asked, astonished.

“Down here, sir, watch your head, sir.” Collier vanished into another companionway,
sliding down the ladder’s uprights, and Sharpe followed more slowly, using the rungs, to
find himself in a dark, dank, low-ceilinged deck that stank foully and was dimly lit by a
scatter of glass-shielded lanterns. “This is the orlop deck, sir. Mind your head. It’s
called the cockpit as well, sir. Watch that beam, sir. We’re just about under water here,
sir, and the surgeon has his rooms down there, beyond the magazines, and we all prays, sir,
we never end under his knife. This way, sir. Mind your head.” He showed Sharpe the cable
tiers where the anchor ropes were flaked down, the two leather-curtained magazines that
were guarded by red-coated marines, the spirit store, the surgeon’s lair where the walls
were painted red so that the blood did not show, the dispensary, and the midshipmen’s
cabins that were scarce bigger than dog kennels, then he took Sharpe down a final ladder
into the massive hold where the ship’s stores were piled in vast heaps of casks. Only the
bilge lay beneath and a mournful sucking, interrupted by a clatter, told Sharpe that men
were even now pumping it dry. “We hardly ever stop the six pumps,” the midshipman said,
“because as tight as you build ‘em, sir, the sea do get in.” He kicked at a rat, missed, then
scrambled back up the ladder. He showed Sharpe the galley beneath the forecastle,
introduced him to master-at-arms, cooks, bosuns, gunner’s mates, the carpenter, then
offered to take Sharpe up the mainmast.

“I’ll not bother today,” Sharpe said.

Collier took him to the wardroom where he was named to a half-dozen officers, then back
to the quarterdeck and aft, past the great double wheel, to a door that led directly into
Captain Chase’s sleeping cabin. It was, as the captain had said, a small room, but it was
paneled with varnished wood, had a canvas carpet on the floor and a scuttle to let in the
daylight. Sharpe’s sea chest took up one wall, and Collier now helped him rig the hanging
cot. “If you’re killed, sir,” the boy said earnestly, “then this will be your coffin.”

“Better than the one the army would give me,” Sharpe said, throwing his blankets into
the cot. “Where’s the first lieutenant’s cabin?” he asked.

“Forrard of this one, sir.” Collier indicated the forward bulkhead. “Just beyond
there, sir.”

“And the second lieutenant’s?” Sharpe asked, knowing that was where Lady Grace would be
sleeping.

“Weather deck, sir. Aft. By the wardroom,” Collier said. “There’s a hook for your lantern
there, sir, and you’ll find the captain’s quarter gallery is aft through that door, sir, and
on the starboard side.”

“Quarter gallery?” Sharpe asked.

“Latrine, sir. Drops direct into the sea, sir. Very hygienic. Captain Chase says
you’re to share it, sir, and his steward will look after you, you being his guest.”

“You like Chase?” Sharpe asked, struck by the warmth in the midshipman’s voice.

“Everyone likes the captain, sir, everyone,” Collier said. “This is a happy ship,
sir, which is more than I can say for many, and permit me to remind you that captain’s
supper is at the end of the first dogwatch. That’s four bells, sir, seeing as how the
dogwatches are only two hours apiece.”

“What is it now?”

“Just past two bells, sir.”

“So how long till four bells?”

Collier’s small face showed astonishment that anyone should need to ask such a
question. “An hour, sir, of course.”

“Of course,” Sharpe said.

Chase had invited six other guests to join him for supper. He could hardly avoid
asking Lord William Hale and his wife, but he confided in Sharpe that Haskell, the first
lieutenant, was a terrible snob who had flattered Lord William all the way from Calcutta
to Bombay. “So he can damn well do it again now,” Chase said, glancing at his first
lieutenant, a tall, good-looking man, who was bending close to Lord William and evidently
drinking in every word. “And this is Llewellyn Llewellyn,” Chase said, drawing Sharpe
toward a red-faced man in a scarlet uniform coat. “A man who does nothing by halves and is
the captain of our marines, which means that if the Frogs board us I’m relying on Llewellyn
Llewellyn and his rogues to throw them overboard. Is your name really Llewellyn
Llewellyn?”

“We are descended from the lineage of ancient kings,” Captain Llewellyn said proudly,
“unlike the Chase family, which, unless I am very much mistaken, were mere servants of
the hunt.”

“We hunted the bloody Welsh out,” Chase said, smiling. It was plain that the two were old
friends who took a delight in mutual insult. “This is my particular friend, Llewellyn,
Richard Sharpe.”

The marine captain shook Sharpe’s hand energetically and expressed the hope that the
ensign would join him and his men for some musketry training. “Maybe you can teach us
something?” the captain suggested.

“I doubt it, Captain.”

“I could use your help,” Llewellyn said enthusiastically. “I’ve a lieutenant, of
course, but the lad’s only sixteen. Doesn’t even shave! Not sure he can wipe his own bum.
It’s good to have another redcoat aboard, Sharpe. It raises the tone of the ship.”

Chase laughed, then drew Sharpe on to meet the last guest, the ship’s surgeon, who was a
plump man called Pickering. Malachi Braithwaite had been talking to the surgeon and he
looked uncomfortable as Sharpe was introduced. Pickering, whose face was a mass of
broken blood vessels, shook Sharpe’s hand. “I trust we never meet professionally,
Ensign, for there ain’t a great deal I can do except carve you up and mutter a prayer. I do
the latter very prettily, if that’s a consolation. I say, she does look better.” The
surgeon had turned to look at Lady Grace who was in a low-cut dress of very pale blue with
an embroidered collar and hem. There were diamonds at her throat and more diamonds in her
black hair which was pinned so high that it brushed the beams of Chase’s cabin whenever she
moved. “I hardly saw her when she was aboard before,” Pickering said, “but she seems a good
deal more lively now. Even so, she’s unwelcome.”