Sharpe's Trafalgar (6 page)

“There are the Austrians,” Major Dalton suggested, “the Russians?”

“The Austrians, sir!” Cromwell scoffed. “No sooner do the Austrians field an army than
it is destroyed! The Russians? Would you trust the Russians to free Europe when they
cannot liberate themselves? Have you been to Russia, sir?”

“No,” Major Dalton admitted.

“A land of slaves,” Cromwell said derisively.

Lord William Hale might have been expected to contribute to this conversation for, as
one of the six members of the East India Company’s Board of Control, he must have been
familiar with the thinking of the British government, but he was content to listen with
a faintly amused smile, though he did raise an eyebrow at Cromwell’s assertion that the
Russians were a nation of slaves.

“The French, sir,” Cromwell went on hotly, “face a rabble of enemies on their eastern
frontiers, but none on their west. They can therefore concentrate their armies, sure in the
knowledge that no British army will ever touch their shore.”

“Never?” the merchant, a solid man called Ebenezer Fairley, asked
sarcastically.

Cromwell swung his heavy gaze on this new opponent. He contemplated Fairley for a
while, then shook his head. “The British, Fairley, do not like armies. They keep a small army.
A small army can never defeat Napoleon. Ergo, Napoleon is safe. Ergo, the war is lost. Good
God, man, they might already have invaded Britain!”

“I pray not,” Major Dalton said fervently.

“Their army was ready,” Cromwell boomed with a strange relish in this talk of British
defeat, “and all they needed was for their navy to command the channel.”

“Which it cannot do,” the barrister intervened quietly.

“And even if they did not invade this year,” Cromwell went on, ignoring the lawyer, “then
in time they will succeed in building a navy fit to defeat ours, and when that day comes
Britain will have to seek peace. Britain will revert to its natural posture, and its
natural posture is to be a small and insignificant island poised off a great
continent.”

Lady Grace spoke for the first time. Sharpe had been pleased and surprised to see her at
supper, for Captain Chase had suggested that she eschewed company, but she seemed
content to be in the cuddy though so far she had taken as little part in the
conversation as her husband. “So we are doomed to defeat, Captain?” she suggested.

“No, ma’am,” Cromwell answered, softening his pugnacity now that he addressed a
titled passenger. “We are doomed to a realistic settlement of peace just as soon as the
jackanapes politicians recognize what is plain in front of their faces.”

“Which is?” Fairley demanded.

“That the French are more powerful than us, of course!” Cromwell growled. “And until we
make peace the prudent man makes money, for we shall need money in a world run by the
French. That is why India is important. We should suck the place dry before the French take
it from us.” Cromwell snapped his fingers to instruct the stewards to remove the plates
which had held a ragout of salted beef. Sharpe had eaten clumsily, finding the thick
silverware unwieldy, and wishing he had dared take out his folding pocket knife which he
used at meals when his betters were not present.

Mathilde, the Baroness von Dornberg, smiled gratefully as the captain replenished her
wine glass. The baroness, who was almost certainly nothing of the sort, sat on Captain
Cromwell’s left while opposite her was Lady Grace Hale. Pohlmann, resplendent in a
lace-fringed silk coat, sat next to Lady Grace while Lord William was to the left of
Mathilde. Sharpe, as the least important person present, was at the lower end of the
table.

The cuddy was an elegant room paneled with wood that had been painted pea-green and
gold, while a brass chandelier, bereft of candles, hung from a beam alongside the wide
skylight. If the room had not been gently rocking, sometimes shifting a wine glass on the
table, Sharpe might have thought himself ashore.

He had said nothing all evening, content to gaze at Lady Grace who, white-faced and
aloof, had ignored him since the moment he had been named to her. She had politely offered
him a gloved hand, given him an expressionless glance, then turned away. Her husband had
frowned at Sharpe’s presence, then imitated his wife by pretending the ensign did not
exist.

A dessert of oranges and burned sugar was served. Pohlmann eagerly spooned the rich
sauce into his mouth, then looked at Sharpe. “You think the war is lost, Sharpe?”

“Me, sir?” Sharpe was startled at being addressed.

“You, Sharpe, yes, you,” Pohlmann said. “Do you think the war is lost?”

Sharpe hesitated, wondering whether the wisest course was to say something harmless
and let the conversation go on again without him, but he had been offended by Cromwell’s
defeatism. “It certainly isn’t over, my lord,” he said to Pohlmann.

Cromwell recognized the challenge. “What do you mean by that, sir, eh? Explain
yourself.”

“A fight ain’t lost till it’s finished, sir,” Sharpe said, “and this one ain’t done.”

“An ensign speaks,” Lord William murmured scornfully.

“You think a rat has a chance against a terrier?” Cromwell demanded, just as
scornfully.

Pohlmann held up a hand to stop Sharpe from responding. “I think Ensign Sharpe knows a
good deal about fighting, Captain,” the German said. “When I first met him he was a
sergeant, and now he is a commissioned officer.” He paused, letting that statement cause
its stir of surprise. “What does it take for a sergeant to become an officer in the British
army?”

“Damned luck,” Lord William said laconically.

“It takes an act of outstanding bravery,” Major Dalton observed quietly. He raised
his wine glass to Sharpe. “Honored to make your acquaintance, Sharpe. I didn’t place the
name when we were introduced, but I recall you now. I’m honored.”

Pohlmann, enjoying his mischief, toasted Sharpe with a sip of wine. “So what was your
act of outstanding bravery, Mister Sharpe?”

Sharpe reddened. Lady Grace was staring at him, the first notice she had taken of him
since the company had sat to dinner.

“Well, Sharpe?” Captain Cromwell insisted.

Sharpe was tongue-tied, but was rescued by Dalton. “He saved Sir Arthur Wellesley’s
life,” the major said quietly.

“How? Where?” Pohlmann demanded.

Sharpe caught the German’s eye. “At a place called Assaye, sir.”

“Assaye?” Pohlmann said, frowning slightly. It had been at Assaye that his army and his
ambitions had been wrecked by Wellesley. “Never heard of it,” he said lightly, leaning
back in his chair.

“And you were first over the wall at Gawilghur, Sharpe,” the major said. “Isn’t that
right?”

“Me and Captain Campbell were first across, sir. But it were lightly defended.”

“Is that where you fetched the scar, Sharpe?” the major inquired, and the whole table
gazed at Sharpe. He looked uncomfortable, but there was no denying the power of his face,
nor the suggestion of violence that was contained in the scar. “It wasn’t a bullet, was
it?” the major insisted. “No bullet makes that kind of scar.”

“It were a sword, sir,” Sharpe answered. “Man called Dodd.” He looked at Pohlmann as he
spoke and Pohlmann, who had once commanded and heartily disliked the renegade Dodd, half
smiled.

“And does Mister Dodd still live?” the German asked.

“He’s dead, sir,” Sharpe said flatly.

“Good.” Pohlmann raised his glass to Sharpe.

The major turned to Cromwell. “Mister Sharpe is a very considerable soldier, Captain.
Sir Arthur told me that if you find yourself in a bad fight then you can ask for no one
better at your side.”

The news that General Wellesley had said any such thing pleased Sharpe, but Captain
Cromwell had not been deflected from his argument and was now frowning at the ensign.
“You think,” the captain demanded, “that the French can be defeated?”

“We’re at war with them, sir,” Sharpe retorted, “and you don’t go to war unless you mean
to win.”

“You go to war,” Lord William said icily, “because small-minded men can see no
alternative.”

“And if every war has a winner,” Cromwell said, “it must by ineluctable logic also have
a loser. If you want my advice, young man, leave the army before some politician has you
killed in an ill-considered attack on France. Or, more likely, the French invade Britain
and kill you along with the rest of the redcoats.”

The ladies withdrew a short while later and the men drank a glass of port, but the
atmosphere was stiff and Pohlmann, plainly bored, excused himself from the company and
gestured that Sharpe should follow him back to the starboard roundhouse cabin where
Mathilde was now sprawled on a silk-covered sofa. Facing her on a matching sofa was an
elderly man who was talking animatedly in German when Pohlmann entered, but who
immediately stood and bowed his head respectfully. Pohlmann seemed surprised to see him
and gestured the man to the door. “I won’t need you tonight,” he said in English.

“Very good, my lord,” the man, evidently Pohlmann’s servant, answered in the same
language, then, with a glance at Sharpe, left the cabin. Pohlmann peremptorily ordered
Mathilde to take some air on the poop, then, when she had gone, he poured two large brandies
and gave Sharpe a mischievous grin. “My heart,” he said, clasping a dramatic hand to his
breast, “almost flopped over and died when I first saw you.”

“Would it matter if they knew who you were?” Sharpe asked.

Pohlmann grinned. “How much credit will merchants give Sergeant Anthony Pohlmann, eh?
But the Baron von Dornberg! Ah! They queue to give the baron credit. They trip over their fat
feet to pour guineas into my purse.”

Sharpe looked about the big cabin that was furnished with two sofas, a sideboard, a low
table, a harp and an enormous teak bed with ivory inlays on the headboard. “But you must
have done well in India,” Sharpe said.

“For a former sergeant, you mean?” Pohlmann laughed. “I do have some loot, my dear Sharpe,
but not as much as I would have liked and nowhere near as much as I lost at Assaye, but I
cannot complain. If I am careful I shall not need to work again.” He looked at the hem of
Sharpe’s red coat where the jewels made small lumps in the threadbare cloth. “I see you did
well in India too, eh?”

Sharpe was aware that the fraying, thinning cloth of his coat was increasingly an
unsafe place to hide the diamonds, emeralds and rubies, but he did not want to discuss
them with Pohlmann so gestured at the harp instead. “You play?”

“Mein Gott, no! Mathilde plays. Very badly, but I tell her it is wonderful.”

“She’s your wife?”

“Am I a numbskull? A blockhead? Would I marry? Ha! No, Sharpe, she was whore to a rajah
and when he tired of her I took her over. She is from Bavaria and wants babies, so she is a
double fool, but she will keep my bed warm till I see home and then I shall find something
younger. So you killed Dodd?”

“Not me, a friend killed him.”

“He deserved to die. A very horrid man.” Pohlmann shuddered. “And you? You travel
alone?”

“Yes.”

“In the rat hole, eh?” He looked at the hem of Sharpe’s coat. “You keep your jewels until
you reach England and travel in steerage. But more important, my cautious friend, will
you reveal who I am?”

“No,” Sharpe said with a smile. The last time he had seen Pohlmann the Hanoverian had been
hiding in a peasant’s hut in the village of Assaye. Sharpe could have arrested him and
gained credit for capturing the commander of the beaten army, but he had always liked
Pohlmann and so he had looked the other way and let the big man escape. “But I reckon my
silence is worth something, though,” Sharpe added.

“You want Mathilde every other Friday?” Pohlmann, assured that his secret was safe with
Sharpe, could not hide his relief.

“A few invitations to supper, perhaps?”

Pohlmann was surprised by the modesty of the demand. “You so like Captain Cromwell’s
company?”

“No.”

Pohlmann laughed. “Lady Grace,” he said softly. “I saw you, Sharpe, with your tongue
lolling like a dog. You like them thin, do you?”

“I like her.”

“Her husband doesn’t,” Pohlmann said. “We hear them through the partition.” He jerked his
thumb at the wall which divided the big roundhouse. The bulkhead was made from thin wooden
paneling which could be struck down into the hold if only one passenger traveled in the
lavish quarters. “The captain’s steward tells me their cabin is twice as big as this one
and divided into two. He has one part and she the other. They are like, what do you say?
Dog and cat?”

“Cat and dog,” Sharpe said.

“He barks and she hisses. Still, I wish you joy. The gods alone know what they must make of
us. They probably think we are bull and cow. Shall we join Mathilde on deck?” Pohlmann took
two cigars from the sideboard. “The captain says we should not smoke on board. We must chew
tobacco instead, but he can roger himself.” He lit the cigars, handed one to Sharpe and
then led him out onto the quarterdeck and up the stairs to the poop deck. Mathilde was
standing at the rail, staring down at a seaman who was lighting the lamp in the binnacle,
the only light which was allowed on the ship after dark, while Lady Grace was at the
taffrail, standing beneath the huge stern lantern that would not be lit on this voyage so
long as there was a danger of the Revenant or another French ship seeing the convoy. “Go
and talk to her.” Pohlmann leered, digging an elbow into Sharpe’s ribs.

“I’ve got nothing to say to her.”

“So you are not really brave after all,” Pohlmann said. “I dare say you wouldn’t think
twice about charging a line of guns like those I had at Assaye, but a beautiful woman
makes you shiver, yes?”

Lady Grace stood solitary and slim, wrapped in a cloak. A maid attended her, but the
girl stood at the side of the deck as though she was nervous of her ladyship. Sharpe was
also nervous. He wanted to talk to her, but he knew he would stumble over his words, so
instead he stood beside Pohlmann and stared forrard past the great bulk of the sails to
where the rest of the convoy was just visible in the gathering night. Far forrard, on the
fo’c’sle, a violin was being played and a group of sailors danced the hornpipe.