Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe's Trafalgar, Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Rifles (20 page)

‘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 Harbour. 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 centre 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 panelled 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 towards 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.’

‘Unwelcome?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Monstrous ill luck to have women on board, monstrous ill luck.’ Pickering reached up and superstitiously touched a beam. ‘But I must say she’s decorative. There’ll be some odious things being said in the fo’c’sle tonight, I can tell you. Ah well, we must survive what the good Lord sends us, even if it is a woman. Our captain tells us you are a celebrated soldier, Sharpe!’

‘He does?’ Sharpe asked. Braithwaite had stepped back, signifying he wanted no part in the conversation.

‘First into the breach and all that sort of stuff,’ Pickering said. ‘As for me, my dear fellow, as soon as the guns begin to sound I scamper down to the cockpit where no French shot can reach me. You know what the trick of a long life is, Sharpe? Stay out of range. There! Good medical advice, and free!’

The food at Captain Chase’s table was a great deal better than that which Peculiar Cromwell had supplied. They began with sliced smoked fish, served with lemon and real bread, then ate a roast of mutton which Sharpe suspected was goat, but which nevertheless tasted wonderful in its vinegar sauce, and finished with a concoction of oranges, brandy and syrup. Lord William and Lady Grace sat either side of Chase, while the first lieutenant sat next to her ladyship and tried to persuade her to drink more wine than she wished. The red wine was called blackstrap and was sour, while the insipid white was called Miss Taylor, a name that puzzled Sharpe until he saw the label on one of the bottles: Mistela. Sharpe was at the far end of the table where Captain Llewellyn questioned him closely about the actions he had seen in India. The Welshman was intrigued by the news that Sharpe was going to join the 95th Rifles. ‘The concept of a rifled barrel might work on land,’ Llewellyn said, ‘but it’ll never serve at sea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Accuracy’s no good on a ship! The things are always heaving up and down to spoil your aim. No, the thing to do is to pour a lot of fire onto the enemy’s deck and pray not all of it is wasted. Which reminds me, we’ve got some new toys aboard. Seven-barrel guns! Monstrous things! They spit out seven half-inch balls at once. You must try one.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘I’d like to see some seven-barrel guns in the fighting tops,’ Llewellyn said eagerly. ‘They could do some real damage, Sharpe, real damage!’

Chase had overheard Llewellyn’s last remark, for he intervened from the table’s far end. ‘Nelson won’t allow muskets in the fighting tops, Llewellyn. He says they set the sails on fire.’

‘The man is wrong,’ Llewellyn said, offended, ‘just plain wrong.’

‘You know Lord Nelson?’ Lady Grace asked the captain.

‘I served under him briefly, milady,’ Chase said enthusiastically, ‘too briefly. I had a frigate then, but, alas, I never saw action under his lordship’s command.’

‘I pray God we see no action now,’ Lord William said piously.