Sharpe's Trafalgar (3 page)

They took their breakfast in the shade of a wide verandah that looked out on a small
garden, a road and the sea. Chase was gracious, generous and apparently oblivious of the
vast gulf that existed between a mere ensign, the lowest of the army’s commissioned ranks,
and a post captain who was officially the equivalent of an army colonel, though on board his
own ship such a man outranked the very powers of heaven. Sharpe had been conscious of that
wide gulf at first, but it had gradually dawned on him that Joel Chase was genuinely
good-natured and Sharpe had warmed to the naval officer whose gratitude was unstinting and
heartfelt. “Do you realize that bugger Panjit really could have had me in front of the
magistrates?” Chase inquired. “Dear God, Sharpe, that would have been a pickle! And Nana Rao
would have vanished, and who’d have believed me if I said the dead had come back to life? Do
have more ham, please. It would have meant an inquiry at the very least, and almost certainly
a court martial. I’d have been damned lucky to have survived with my command intact. But how
was I to know he had a private army?”

“We came out of it all right, sir.”

“Thanks to you, Sharpe, thanks to you.” Chase shuddered. “My father always said I’d be dead
before I was thirty, and I’ve beaten that by five years, but one day I’ll jump into trouble
and there’ll be no ensign to pull me out.” He patted the bag which held the money he had
taken from Nana Rao and Panjit. “And between you and me, Sharpe, this cash is a windfall. A
windfall! D’you think we could grow mangoes in England?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I shall try. Plant a couple in a warm spot of the garden and who knows?” Chase poured
coffee and stretched out his long legs. He was curious why Sharpe, a man in his late
twenties, should only be an ensign, but he made the inquiry with an exquisite tact and once
he discovered that Sharpe had been promoted from the ranks he was genuine in his
admiration. “I once had a captain who’d come up through the hawse-hole,” he told Sharpe,
“and he was damned good! Knew his business. Understood what went on in the dark places where
most captains dare not look. I reckon the army’s lucky in you, Sharpe.”

“I’m not sure they think so, sir.”

“I shall whisper in some ears, Sharpe, though if I don’t catch the Revenant there’ll be
precious few who’ll listen to me.”

“You’ll catch her, sir.”

“I pray so, but she’s a fast beast. Fast and slippery. All French ships are. God knows, the
buggers can’t sail them, but they do know how to build ‘em. French ships are like French women,
Sharpe. Beautiful and fast, but hopelessly manned. Have some mustard.” Chase pushed the jar
across the table, then petted a skinny black kitten as he stared past the palm trees toward
the sea. “I do like coffee,” he said, then pointed out to sea. “There’s the Calliope.”

Sharpe looked, but all he could see was a mass of shipping far out in the harbor beyond the
shallower water which was busy with scores of bumboats, launches and fishing craft.

“She’s the one drying her topsails,” Chase said, and Sharpe saw that one of the far ships
had hung out her topmost sails, but at this distance she looked like the other dozen East
Indiamen that would sail home together to protect themselves against the privateers who
haunted the Indian Ocean. From the shore they looked like naval ships, for their hulls were
banded black and white to suggest that massive broadsides were concealed behind closed
gunports, but the ruse would not mislead any privateer. Those ships, their hulls stuffed with
the riches of India, were the greatest prizes any corsair or French naval captain could wish
to take. If a man wanted to live and die rich then all he needed to do was capture an
Indiaman, which is why the great ships sailed in convoy.

“Where’s your ship, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“Can’t see her from here,” Chase said. “She’s careened on a mud-bank on the far side of
Elephanta Island.”

“Careened?”

“Tipped on her side so we can polish her bum.”

“What’s she called?”

Chase looked abashed. “Pucelle,” he said.

“Pucelle? Sounds French.”

“It is French, Sharpe. It means a virgin.” Chase pretended to be offended as Sharpe
laughed. “You’ve heard of la Pucelle d’Orleans?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“The maid of Orleans, Sharpe, was Joan of Arc, and the ship was named for her and I just
trust she doesn’t end up like Joan, burned to a crisp.”

“But why would you name a boat for a Frenchwoman, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“We didn’t. The Frogs did. She was a French boat till Nelson took her at the Nile. If you
capture a ship, Sharpe, you keep the old name unless it’s really obnoxious. Nelson took
the Franklin at the Nile, an eighty-gun thing of great beauty, but the navy will be damned if
it has a ship named after a traitorous bloody Yankee so we call her the Canopus now. But my
ship kept her name, and she’s a lovely beast. Lovely and fast. Oh my God, no.” He sat up
straight, staring toward the road. “Oh, God, no!” These last words were prompted by the sight
of an open carriage that had slowed and now stopped just beyond the garden gate. Chase, who
had been genial until this moment, suddenly looked bitter.

A man and a woman were seated in the carriage which was driven by an Indian dressed in
yellow and black livery. Two native footmen, arrayed in the same livery, now hurried to
open the carriage door and unfold the steps, allowing the man, who was dressed in a white
linen jacket, to step down to the pavement. A beggar immediately swung on short crutches
and calloused stumps toward the carriage, but one of the footmen fended the man off with a
sharp kick and the coachman completed the rout with his whip. The white-jacketed man was
middle-aged and had a face that reminded Sharpe of Sir Arthur Wellesley. Maybe it was the
prominent nose, or perhaps it was the cold and haughty look the man wore. Or perhaps it was
just that everything about him, from his carriage to the liveried servants, spoke of
privilege.

“Lord William Hale,” Chase said, investing every syllable with dislike.

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s on the Board of Control,” Chase explained, then saw Sharpe’s raised eyebrow. “Six
men, Sharpe, who are appointed by the government to make certain that the East India
Company doesn’t do anything foolish. Or rather that, if it does, no blame attaches itself
to the government.” He looked sourly at Lord William who had paused to speak with the woman in
the carriage. “That’s his wife and I’ve just brought the two of them from Calcutta so they
could go home on the same convoy as yourself. You should pray they aren’t on the
Calliope.”

Lord William was gray-haired and Sharpe assumed his wife would also be middle-aged, but
when she lowered her white parasol Sharpe had a clear view of her ladyship and the breath was
checked in his throat. She was much younger than Lord William, and her pale, slender face had a
haunting beauty, almost a sadness, that struck Sharpe with the force of a bullet. He stared
at her, entranced by her.

Chase smiled at Sharpe’s smitten expression. “She was born Grace de Laverre Gould, third
daughter of the Earl of Selby. She’s twenty years younger than her husband, but just as
cold.”

Sharpe could not take his eyes from her ladyship, for she was truly beautiful;
breathtakingly, achingly, untouchably beautiful. Her face was pale as ivory,
sharp-shadowed as she leaned toward her husband, and framed by heavy loops of black hair that
were pinned to appear artless, but which even Sharpe could tell must have taken her maid an
age to arrange. She did not smile, but just gazed solemnly into her husband’s face. “She
looks sad rather than cold,” Sharpe said.

Chase mocked the wistfulness in Sharpe’s voice. “What does she have to be sad about? Her
beauty is her fortune, Sharpe, and her husband is as rich as he is ambitious as he is
clever. She’s on her way to being wife of the Prime Minister so long as Lord William doesn’t
put a foot wrong and, believe me, he steps as lightly as a cat.”

Lord William concluded the conversation with his wife, then gestured for a footman to
open Chase’s gate. “You might have taken a house with a carriage drive,” he admonished the
naval captain as he strode up the short path. “It’s devilish annoying being pestered by
beggars every time one makes a call.”

“Alas, my lord, we sailors are so inept on land. I cannot entice your wife to take some
coffee?”

“Her ladyship is not well.” Lord William ran up the verandah steps, gave Sharpe a
careless glance, then held a hand toward Chase as if expecting to be given something. He
must have noted the blood that was still crusted in Chase’s fair hair, but he made no mention
of it. “Well, Chase, can you settle?”

Chase reluctantly found the big leather bag which held the coins he had taken from Nana
Rao and counted out a substantial portion that he gave to Lord William. His lordship
shuddered at the thought of handling the grubby currency, but forced himself to take the
money and pour it into his coat’s tail pockets. “Your note,” he said, and handed Chase a
scrap of paper. “You haven’t received new orders, I suppose?”

“Alas no, my lord. We are still ordered to find the Revenant.”

“I was hoping you’d be going home instead. It is crucial I reach London quickly.” He
frowned, then, without another word, turned away.

“You did not give me a chance, my lord,” Chase said, “to introduce my particular friend,
Mister Sharpe.”

Lord William bestowed a second brief look at Sharpe and his lordship saw nothing to
contradict his first opinion that the ensign was penniless and powerless, for he merely
looked, calculated and glanced away without offering any acknowledgment, but in that
brief meeting of eyes Sharpe had received an impression of force, confidence and
arrogance. Lord William was a man who had more than his share of power, he wanted more and he
would not waste time on those who had nothing to give him.

“Mister Sharpe served under Sir Arthur Wellesley,” Chase said.

“As did many thousands of others, I believe,” Lord William said carelessly, then frowned.
“There is a service you can do me, Chase.”

“I am, of course, entirely at your lordship’s convenience,” Chase said politely.

“You have a barge and a crew?”

“All captains do,” Chase said.

“We must reach the Calliope. You could take us there?”

“Alas, my lord, I have promised Mr. Sharpe the barge,” Chase said, “but I am sure he will
gladly share it with you. He too is bound for the Calliope.”

“I’d be happy to help,” Sharpe said.

Lord William’s expression suggested that Sharpe’s help was the last thing he would ever
require. “We shall let our present arrangements stand,” he told Chase and, wasting no more
time, stalked away.

Chase laughed softly. “Share a boat with you, Sharpe? He’d rather sprout wings and fly.”

“I wouldn’t mind sharing a boat with her,” Sharpe said, staring at the Lady Grace who was
gazing fixedly ahead as a score of beggars whimpered a safe distance from the coachman’s
stinging whip.

“My dear Sharpe,” Chase said, watching the carriage draw away, “you will be sharing that
lady’s company for at least four months and I doubt you will even see her. Lord William claims
she suffers from delicate nerves and is averse to company. I had her on board the Pucelle
for near a month and might have seen her twice. She sticks to her cabin, or else walks the poop
at night when no one can accost her, and I will wager you a month of your wages to a year of
mine that she will not even know your name by the time you reach England.”

Sharpe smiled. “I don’t wager.”

“Good for you,” Chase said. “Like a fool I played too much whist in the last month. I promised
my wife I wouldn’t plunge heavily, and God punished me for it. Dear me, what a fool I am! I
played almost every night between Calcutta and here and lost a hundred and seventy
guineas to that rich bastard. My own fault,” he admitted ruefully, “and I won’t succumb
again.” He reached out to touch the wood of the table top as if he did not trust his own
resolve. “But cash is always short, isn’t it? I’ll just have to capture the Revenant and earn
myself some decent prize money.”

“You’ll manage that,” Sharpe said comfortingly.

Chase smiled. “I do hope so. I fervently hope so, but once in a while, Sharpe, the damned
Frogs throw up a real seaman and the Revenant is in the hands of Capitaine Louis Montmorin.
He’s good, his men are good and his ship is good.”

“But you’re British,” Sharpe said, “so you must be better.”

“Amen to that,” Chase said, “amen.” He wrote his English address on a scrap of paper, then
insisted on walking Sharpe to the fort where the ensign collected his pack, after which
the two men went past the still smoking ruins of Nana Rao’s warehouse to the quay where
Chase’s barge waited. The naval captain shook Sharpe’s hand. “I remain entirely in your
debt, Sharpe.”

“You’re making too much of it, sir.”

Chase shook his head. “I was a fool last night, and if it hadn’t been for you I’d be looking
an even greater fool this morning. I am beholden to you, Sharpe, and shall not forget it.
We’ll meet again, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope so, sir,” Sharpe said, then went down the greasy steps. It was time to go home.

The crew of Captain Chase’s barge were still bruised and bloodied, but in good spirits
after their night’s adventure. Hopper, the bosun who had fought so stoutly, helped Sharpe
down into the barge which was painted dazzling white with a red stripe around its gunwales to
match the red bands painted on the white-shafted oars. “You had breakfast, sir?” Hopper
asked.

“Captain Chase looked after me.”

“He’s a good man,” Hopper said warmly. “None better.”

“You’ve known him long?” Sharpe asked.

“Since he was as old as Mister Collier,” the bosun said, jerking his head at a small boy,
perhaps twelve years old, who sat beside him in the stern. Mister Collier was a midshipman
and, once Sharpe had been safely delivered to the Calliope, he had the responsibility of
fetching the liquor for Captain Chase’s private stores. “Mister Collier,” the bosun went
on, “is in charge of this boat, ain’t that so, sir?”