Sharpe's Trafalgar

     “A hundred and fifteen rupees,” Ensign Richard Sharpe said,
counting the money onto the table.

Nana Rao hissed in disapproval, rattled some beads along the wire bars of his abacus and
shook his head. “A hundred and thirty-eight rupees, sahib.”

“One hundred and bloody fifteen!” Sharpe insisted. “It were fourteen pounds, seven
shillings and threepence ha’penny.”

Nana Rao examined his customer, gauging whether to continue the argument. He saw a
young officer, a mere ensign of no importance, but this lowly Englishman had a very hard
face, a scar on his right cheek and showed no apprehension of the two hulking bodyguards who
protected Nana Rao and his warehouse. “A hundred and fifteen, as you say,” the merchant
conceded, scooping the coins into a large black cash box. He offered Sharpe an apologetic
shrug. “I get older, sahib, and find I cannot count!”

“You can count, all right,” Sharpe said, “but you reckon I can’t.”

“But you will be very happy with your purchases,” Nana Rao said, for Sharpe had just
become the possessor of a hanging bed, two blankets, a teak traveling chest, a lantern and
a box of candles, a hogshead of arrack, a wooden bucket, a box of soap, another of
tobacco, and a brass and elm-wood filtering machine which he had been assured would
render water from the filthiest barrels stored in the bottom-most part of a ship’s hold
into the sweetest and most palatable liquid.

Nana Rao had demonstrated the filtering machine which he claimed had been brought out
from London as part of the baggage of a director of the East India Company who had
insisted on only the finest equipment. “You put the water here, see?” The merchant had
poured a pint or so of turbid water into the brass upper chamber. “And then you allow the
water to settle, Mister Sharpe. In five minutes it will be as clear as glass. You observe?”
He lifted the upper container to show water dripping from the packed muslin layers of the
filter. “I have myself cleaned the filter, Mister Sharpe, and I will warrant the item’s
efficiency. It would be a miserable pity to die of mud blockage in the bowel because you
would not buy this thing.”

So Sharpe had bought it. He had refused to purchase a chair, bookcase, sofa or washstand,
all pieces of furniture that had been used by passengers outward bound from London to
Bombay, but he had paid for the filtering machine and all the other goods because
otherwise his voyage home would be excruciatingly uncomfortable. Passengers on the
great merchantmen of the East India Company were expected to supply their own
furniture. “Unless you would be liking to sleep on the deck, sahib? Very hard! Very hard!”
Nana Rao had laughed. He was a plump and seemingly friendly man with a large black mustache
and a quick smile. His business was to purchase the furniture of incoming passengers
which he then sold to those folk who were going home. “You will leave the goods here,” he told
Sharpe, “and on the day of your embarkation my cousin will deliver them to your ship. Which
ship is that?”

“The Calliope,” Sharpe said.

“Ah! The Calliope! Captain Cromwell. Alas, the Calliope is anchored in the roads, so the
goods will need to be carried out by boat, but my cousin charges very little for such a
service, Mister Sharpe, very little, and when you are happily arrived in London you can
sell the items for much profit!”

Which might or, more probably, might not have been true, but was irrelevant because that
same night, just two days before Sharpe was to embark, Nana Rao’s godown was burned to the
ground and all the goods: the beds, bookcases, lanterns, water filters, blankets, boxes,
tables and chairs, the arrack, soap, tobacco, brandy and wine were supposedly consumed
with the warehouse. In the morning there was nothing but ashes, smoke and a group of
shrieking mourners who wailed that the kindly Nana Rao had died in the conflagration.
Happily another godown, not three hundred yards from Nana Rao’s ruined business, was well
supplied with all the necessities for the voyage, and that second warehouse did a fine
trade as disgruntled passengers replaced their vanished goods at prices that were almost
double those that Nana Rao had charged.

Richard Sharpe did not buy anything from the second warehouse. He had been in Bombay for
five months, much of that time spent sweating and shivering in the castle hospital, but
when the fever had passed, and while he was waiting for the annual convoy to arrive from
Britain with the ship that would carry him home, he had explored the city, from the wealthy
houses in the Malabar hills to the pestilential alleys by the waterfront. He had found
companionship in the alleyways and it was one of those acquaintances who, in return for a
golden guinea, gave Sharpe a scrap of information which the ensign reckoned was worth far
more than a guinea. It was, indeed, worth a hundred and fifteen rupees which was why, at
nightfall, Sharpe was in another alley on the eastern outskirts of the city. He wore his
uniform, though over it he had donned a swathing cloak made of cheap sacking which was thickly
impregnated with mud and filth. He limped and shuffled, his body bent over with a hand
outstretched as though he were begging. He muttered to himself and twitched, and sometimes
turned and snarled at some innocent soul for no apparent reason. He went utterly
unnoticed.

He found the house he wanted and squatted by its wall. A score of beggars, some horribly
maimed, were gathered by the gate along with almost a hundred petitioners who waited for
the house’s owner, a wealthy merchant, to return from his place of business. The merchant
came after nightfall, riding in a curtained palanquin that was carried by eight men, while
another dozen men whacked the beggars out of the way with long staves, but, once the
merchant’s palanquin was safe inside the courtyard, the gates were left open so that the
petitioners and beggars could follow. The beggars, Sharpe among them, were pushed to one
side of the yard while the petitioners gathered at the foot of the broad steps that climbed
to the house door. Lanterns hung from the coconut palms that arched over the yard, while from
inside the big house yellow candlelight glimmered behind filigree shutters. Sharpe pushed
as close to the house as he could, staying in the shadow of the palm trunks. Under the greasy
cloak he had his cavalry saber and a loaded pistol, though he hoped he would need neither
weapon.

The merchant was called Panjit and he kept the petitioners and beggars waiting until
he had eaten his evening meal, but then the house door was thrown open and Panjit,
resplendent in a long robe of embroidered yellow silk, appeared on the top step. The
petitioners called aloud while the beggars shuffled forward until they were driven back
by the staves of the bodyguards. The merchant smiled then rang a small handbell to attract
the attention of a brightly painted god who sat in a niche of the courtyard wall. Panjit
bowed to the god, and then, in answer to Sharpe’s prayers, a second man, this one dressed in a
red silk robe, emerged from the house door.

That second man was Nana Rao. He had a wide smile, and no wonder, for he was quite
untouched by fire and, as Sharpe’s guinea had discovered, he was also first cousin of Panjit
who was the merchant who had profited so greatly by owning the second warehouse that had
replaced the goods supposedly destroyed in Nana Rao’s calamitous fire. It had been a slick
deception, enabling the cousins to sell the same goods twice, and tonight, replete with their
swollen profits, they were choosing which men would be given the lucrative job of rowing
the passengers and their belongings out to the great ships that lay in the anchorage. The
chosen men would be required to pay for the privilege, thus enriching Panjit and Nana Rao
even more, and the two cousins, aware of their good fortune, planned to propitiate the gods
by distributing some petty coins to the beggars. Sharpe was reckoning that he could reach
Nana Rao in the guise of a supplicant, then throw off the filthy cloak and shame the man into
returning his money. The competent-looking bodyguards at the foot of the steps
suggested that his skimpy plan might prove more complicated than he envisaged, but Sharpe
guessed Nana Rao would not want his deception revealed and so would probably be happy to pay
him off.

Sharpe was close to the house now. He had noticed that the empty palanquin had been
carried down a narrow and dark passage that led alongside the building, evidently giving
access to a courtyard at the rear of the house, and he was considering going down the
passage and coming back through the building to approach Nana Rao from the rear, but any of
the beggars who ventured near the passage were beaten back by the bodyguards. The
petitioners were being allowed onto the steps in small groups, but the beggars were
expected to wait until the main business of the evening was over.

Sharpe suspected it would be a long night, but he was content to wait with his cloak hood
pulled over his face. He squatted against the wall, watching for an opportunity to dash
into the passageway beside the house, but then a servant who had been guarding the outer
gate pushed through the crowd and spoke in Panjit’s ear. For an instant the merchant looked
alarmed and a silence fell over the courtyard, but then he whispered to Nana Rao who just
shrugged. Panjit clapped his hands and shouted at the bodyguards who energetically drove
the petitioners back to form an open passage between the gate and the steps. Someone was
plainly coming to the house and Nana Rao, nervous of their appearance, stepped into the
black shadow at the back of the porch.

The way was clear now for Sharpe to go down the passage beside the house, but curiosity
held him in place. There was a commotion in the alley, sounding like the jeers and scramble
that always accompanied a band of constables marching through the lesser streets of
London, then the outer gate was pushed fully open and Sharpe could only stare in
astonishment.

A group of British sailors stood in the gate, led by a naval captain, a post captain no
less, who was immaculate in cocked hat, blue frock coat, silk breeches and stockings,
silver-buckled shoes and slim sword. The lantern light reflected from the heavy gold
bullion of his twin epaulettes. He took off his hat, revealing thick blond hair, smiled and
bowed. “Do I have the honor,” he asked, “of coming to the house of Panjit Lashti?”

Panjit nodded cautiously. “This is the house,” he said in English.

The naval captain put on his cocked hat. “I have come,” he announced in a friendly voice
that had a distinct Devonshire accent, “for Nana Rao.”

“He is not here,” Panjit answered.

The captain glanced at the red-robed figure in the porch shadows. “His ghost will do very
well.”

“I have answered you,” Panjit said, defiance now making his voice angry. “He is not
here. He is dead.”

The captain smiled. “My name is Chase,” he said courteously, “Captain Joel Chase of His
Britannic Majesty’s navy, and I would be obliged if Nana Rao would come with me.”

“His body was burned,” Panjit declared fiercely, “and his ashes have gone to the river.
Why do you not seek him there?”

“He’s no more dead than you or I,” Chase said, then waved his men forward. He had brought a
dozen seamen, all identically dressed in white duck trousers, red and white hooped shirts and
straw hats stiffened with pitch and circled with red and white ribbons. They wore long
pigtails and carried thick staves which Sharpe guessed were capstan bars. Their leader was a
huge man whose bare forearms were thick with tattoos, while beside him was a Negro, every
bit as tall, who carried his capstan bar as though it were a hazel wand. “Nana Rao”—Chase
abandoned the pretense that the merchant was dead—”you owe me a deal of money and I have come
to collect it.”

“What is your authority to be here?” Panjit demanded. The crowd, most of whom did not
understand English, watched the sailors nervously, but Panjit’s bodyguards, who
outnumbered Chase’s men and were just as well armed, seemed eager to be loosed on the
seamen.

“My authority,” Chase said grandly, “is my empty purse.” He smiled. “You surely do not
wish me to use force?”

“Use force, Captain Chase,” Panjit answered just as grandly, “and I shall have you in
front of a magistrate by dawn.”

“I shall happily appear in court,” Chase said, “so long as Nana Rao is beside me.”

Panjit shook his hands as if he was shooing Chase and his men away from his courtyard. “You
will leave, Captain. You will leave my house now.”

“I think not,” Chase said.

“Go! Or I will summon authority!” Panjit insisted.

Chase turned to the huge tattooed man. “Nana Rao’s the bugger with the mustache and the red
silk robe, Bosun. Get him.”

The British seamen charged forward, relishing the chance of a scrap, but Panjit’s
bodyguards were no less eager and the two groups met in the courtyard’s center with a
sickening crash of staves, skulls and fists. The seamen had the best of it at first, for they
had charged with a ferocity that drove the bodyguards back to the foot of the steps, but
Panjit’s men were both more numerous and more accustomed to fighting with the long clubs.
They rallied at the steps, then used their staves like spears to tangle the sailors’ legs and,
one by one, the pigtailed men were tripped and beaten down. The bosun and the Negro were the
last to fall. They tried to protect their captain who was using his fists handily, but the
British sailors had woefully underestimated the opposition and were doomed.