Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles

by Bernard Cornwell

  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 towards 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 towards 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 acknowledgement, 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?’

  ‘I am,’ Collier said in a still unbroken voice. He held a hand to Sharpe. ‘Harry Collier, sir.’ He had no need to call Sharpe ‘sir’, for a midshipman’s rank was the equivalent of an ensign, but Sharpe was much older and, besides, a friend of the captain.

  ‘Mister Collier is in charge,’ Hopper said again, ‘so if he orders us to attack a ship, sir, attack we shall. Obey him to the death, ain’t that right, Mister Collier, sir?’

  ‘If you say so, Mister Hopper.’

  The crew were grinning. ‘Wipe those smirks off your uglies!’ Hopper shouted, then spat a stream of tobacco juice over the gunwale. His two upper front teeth were missing, which made spitting the juice far easier. ‘Yes, sir,’ he went on, looking at Sharpe, ‘I’ve served with Captain Chase since he was a nipper. I was with him when he captured the Bouvines.’

  ‘The Bouvines?’

  ‘A Frog frigate, sir, thirty-two guns, and we was in the Spritely, twenty-eight, and it took us twenty-two minutes first gun to last and there was bloo
d leaking out of her scuppers when we’d finished with her. And one day, Mister Collier, sir’ – he looked sternly down at the small boy whose face was almost entirely hidden by a cocked hat that was much too big for him – ‘you’ll be in charge of one of His Majesty’s ships and it’ll be your duty and privilege to knock a Froggy witless.’

  ‘I hope so, Mister Hopper.’

  The barge was travelling smoothly through water that was filthy with floating rubbish, palm fronds and the bloated corpses of rats, dogs and cats. A score of other boats, some of them heaped with baggage, were also rowing out to the waiting convoy. The luckiest passengers were those whose ships were moored at the Company’s docks, but those docks were not large enough for every merchantman that would leave for home and so most of the travellers were being ferried out to the anchorage. ‘I seen your goods loaded on a native boat, sir,’ Hopper said, ‘and told the bastards there’d be eight kinds of hell to pay if they weren’t delivered shipshape. They do like their games, sir, they do.’ He squinted ahead and laughed. ‘See? One of the buggers is up to no good right now.’

  ‘No good?’ Sharpe asked. All he could see were two small boats that were dead in the water. One of the two boats was piled with leather luggage while the other held three passengers.

  ‘Buggers say it’ll cost a rupee to reach the ship, sir,’ Hopper explained, ‘then they get halfway and triple the price, and if they don’t get it they’ll row back to the quay. Our boys do the same thing when they pick passengers up at Deal to row them out to the Downs.’ He tugged on a rudder line to skirt the two boats.

  Sharpe saw that Lord William Hale, his wife and a young man were the passengers in the leading boat, while two servants and a pile of luggage were crammed into the second. Lord William was speaking angrily with a grinning Indian who seemed unmoved by his lordship’s ire.

  ‘His bloody lordship will just have to pay up,’ Hopper said, ‘or else get rowed ashore.’

  ‘Take us close,’ Sharpe said.

  Hopper glanced at him, then shrugged as if to suggest that it was none of his business if Sharpe wanted to make a fool of himself. ‘Ease oars!’ he shouted and the crew lifted their dripping blades from the water to let the barge glide on until it was within a few feet of the stranded boats. ‘Back water!’ Hopper snapped and the oars dipped again to bring the elegant boat to a stop.

  Sharpe stood. ‘You have trouble, my lord?’

  Lord William frowned at Sharpe, but said nothing, while his wife managed to suggest that an even more noxious stench than the others in the harbour had somehow approached her delicate nostrils. She just stared sternwards, ignoring the Indian crew, her husband and Sharpe. It was the third passenger, the young man who was dressed as soberly as a curate, who stood and explained their trouble. ‘They won’t move,’ he complained.

  ‘Be quiet, Braithwaite, be quiet and sit down,’ his lordship snapped, disdaining Sharpe’s assistance.

  Not that Sharpe wanted to help Lord William, but his wife was another matter and it was for her benefit that Sharpe drew his pistol and cocked the flint. ‘Row on!’ he ordered the Indian, who answered by spitting overboard.

  ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ Lord William at last acknowledged Sharpe. ‘My wife’s aboard! Have a care with that gun, you fool! Who the devil are you?’

  ‘We were introduced not an hour ago, my lord,’ Sharpe said. ‘Richard Sharpe is the name.’ He fired and the pistol ball splintered a timber of the boat just on the water line between the recalcitrant skipper and his passengers. Lady Grace put a hand to her mouth in alarm, but the ball had harmed no one, merely holed the boat so that the Indian had to stoop to plug the damage with a thumb. Sharpe began to reload. ‘Row on, you bastard!’ he shouted.

  The Indian glanced behind as if judging the distance to the shore, but Hopper ordered his crew to back water and the barge slowly moved behind the two boats, cutting them off from land. Lord William seemed too astonished to speak, but just stared indignantly as Sharpe rammed a second bullet down the short barrel.

  The Indian did not want another ball cracking into his boat and so he suddenly sat and shouted at his men who began pulling hard on their oars. Hopper nodded approvingly. ‘Twixt wind and water, sir. Captain Chase would be proud of you.’

  ‘Between wind and water?’ Sharpe asked.

  ‘You holed the bastard on the water line, sir. It’ll sink him if he doesn’t keep it stopped up.’

  Sharpe gazed at her ladyship who, at last, turned to look at her rescuer. She had huge eyes, and perhaps they were the feature that made her seem so sad, but Sharpe was still astonished by her beauty and he could not resist giving her a wink. She looked quickly away. ‘She’ll remember my name now,’ he said.

  ‘Is that why you did it?’ Hopper asked, then laughed when Sharpe did not answer.

  Lord William’s boat drew up to the Calliope first. The servants, who were in the second boat, were expected to scramble up the ship’s side as best they could while seamen hauled the baggage up in nets, but Lord William and his wife stepped from their boat onto a floating platform from which they climbed a gangway to the ship’s waist. Sharpe, waiting his turn, could smell bilge water, salt and tar. A stream of dirty water emerged from a hole high up in the hull. ‘Pumping his bottoms, sir,’ Hopper said.

  ‘You mean she leaks?’

  ‘All ships leak, sir. Nature of ships, sir.’

  Another launch had gone alongside the Calliope’s bows and sailors were hoisting nets filled with struggling goats and crates of protesting hens. ‘Milk and eggs,’ Hopper said cheerfully, then barked at his crew to lay to their oars so Sharpe could be put alongside. ‘I wish you a fast, safe voyage, sir,’ the bosun said. ‘Back to old England, eh?’

  ‘Back to England,’ Sharpe said, and watched as the oars were raised straight up as Hopper used the last of the barge’s momentum to lay her sweetly alongside the floating platform. Sharpe gave Hopper a coin, touched his hat to Mister Collier, thanked the boat’s crew and stepped up onto the platform from where he climbed to the main deck past an open gunport in which a polished cannon muzzle showed.

  An officer waited just inside the entry port. ‘Your name?’ he asked peremptorily.

  ‘Richard Sharpe.’

  The officer peered at a list. ‘Your baggage is already aboard, Mister Sharpe, and this is for you.’ He took a folded sheet of paper from a pocket and gave it to Sharpe. ‘Rules of the ship. Read, mark, learn and explicitly obey. Your action station is gun number five.’

  ‘My what?’ Sharpe asked.

  ‘Every male passenger is expected to help defend the ship, Mister Sharpe. Gun number five.’ The officer waved across the deck which was so heaped with baggage that none of the guns on the farther side could be seen. ‘Mister Binns!’

  A very young officer hurried through the piled baggage. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Show Mister Sharpe to the lower-deck steerage. One of the seven by sixes, Mister Binns, seven by six. Mallet and nails, look lively, now!’

  ‘This way, sir,’ Binns said to Sharpe, darting aft. ‘I’ve got the mallet and nails, sir.’

  ‘The what?’ Sharpe asked.

  ‘Mallet and nails, sir, so you can nail your furniture to the deck. We don’t want it sliding topsy-turvy if we gets rough weather, sir, which we shouldn’t, sir, not till we reach the Madagascar Straits and it can be lumpy there, sir, very lumpy.’ Binns hurried on, vanishing down a dark companionway like a rabbit down its burrow.

  Sharpe followed, but before he reached the companionway he was accosted by Lord William Hale who stepped from behind a pile of boxes. The young man in the sepulchral clothes stood behind his lordship. ‘Your name?’ Hale demanded.

  Sharpe bristled. The sensible course was to knuckle under, for Hale was evidently a formidable man in London, but Sharpe had acquired an acute dislike of his lordship. ‘The same as it was ten minutes ago,’ he answered curtly.

  Lord William looked into Sharpe’s face which was sunburned, hard an
d slashed by the wicked scar. ‘You are impertinent,’ Lord William said, ‘and I do not abide impertinence.’ He glanced at the grubby white facings on Sharpe’s jacket. ‘The 74th? I am acquainted with Colonel Wallace and I shall let him know of your insubordination.’ So far Lord William had not raised his voice which was chilling enough anyway, but now a note of indignation did creep in. ‘You could have killed me with that pistol!’

  ‘Killed you?’ Sharpe asked. ‘No, I couldn’t. I wasn’t aiming at you.’

  ‘You will write to Colonel Wallace now, Braithwaite,’ Lord William said to the young man in the black clothes, ‘and make sure the letter goes ashore before we sail.’

  ‘Of course, my lord. At once, my lord,’ Braithwaite said. He was evidently Lord William’s secretary and he shot Sharpe a look of pitying condescension, suggesting that the ensign had come up against forces far too strong for him.

  Lord William stepped aside, allowing Sharpe to catch up with the young Binns who had been watching the confrontation from the companionway.

  Sharpe was not worried by Lord William’s threat. His lordship could write a thousand letters to Colonel Wallace and much good it would do him for Sharpe was no longer in the 74th. He wore the uniform for he had no other clothes to wear, but once he was back in Britain he would join the 95th with its odd new uniform of a green jacket. He did not like the idea of wearing green. He had always worn red.

  Binns waited at the foot of the companionway. ‘Lower deck, sir,’ he said, then pushed through a canvas screen into a dark, humid and foul-smelling space. ‘This is steerage, sir.’

  ‘Why’s it called steerage?’

  ‘They used to steer the boats from here, sir, in the old days, before there was wheels. Gangs of men hauling on ropes, sir, must have been hell.’ It still looked hellish. A few lanterns guttered, struggling against the gloom in which a score of sailors were nailing up canvas screens to divide the foetid space into a maze of small rooms. ‘One seven by six,’ Binns shouted, and a sailor gestured to the starboard side where the screens were already in place. ‘Take your pick, sir,’ Binns said, ‘as you’re one of the first gentlemen aboard, but if you wants my advice I’d be as near aft as you can go, and it’s best not to share with a gun, sir.’ He gestured at an eighteen-pounder cannon that half filled one cabin. The weapon was lashed to the deck and pointed at a closed gunport. Binns ushered Sharpe into the empty cubicle next door where he dropped a linen bag on the floor. ‘That’s a mallet and nails, sir, and as soon as your dunnage is delivered you can secure everything shipshape.’ He tied back one side of the canvas box, thus allowing a little dim lantern light to seep into the cabin, then tapped the deck with his foot. ‘All the money’s down below, sir,’ he said cheerfully.