“Why?”
There was a murmur of voices from the quarterdeck and a sudden glow of light as the
compass in the lantern-lit binnacle was unshielded. Lady Grace stepped away from Sharpe
and he from her, and both instinctively turned to stare at the sea. The binnacle light
vanished. Lady Grace said nothing for a while and Sharpe wondered if she was regretting
what had happened, but then she spoke softly. “You’re like a weed, Richard. You can grow
anywhere. A big, strong weed and you’ve probably got thorns and stinging leaves. But I was
like a rose in a garden: trained and cut back and pampered, but not allowed to grow
anywhere except where the gardener wanted me.” She shrugged. “I’m not seeking your pity,
Richard. You should never waste pity on the privileged. I’m just talking to find out why I’m
here with you.”
“Why are you?”
“Because I’m lonely,” she answered firmly, “and unhappy and because you intrigue
me.” She reached out and touched a very gentle finger to the scar on his right cheek. “You’re
a horribly good-looking man, Richard Sharpe, but if I met you in a London street I’d be
very frightened of your face.”
“Bad and dangerous,” Sharpe said, “that’s me.”
“And I’m here,” Lady Grace went on, “because there is a joy in doing things we know we
should not do. What Captain Cromwell calls our baser instincts, I suppose, and I suppose it
will end in tears, but that does not preclude the joy.” She frowned at him. “You look very
cruel sometimes. Are you cruel?”
“No,” Sharpe said. “Perhaps to the King’s enemies. Perhaps to my enemies, but only if
they’re as strong as I am. I’m a soldier, not a bully.”
She touched the scar again. “Richard Sharpe, my fearless soldier.”
“I was terrified of you,” Sharpe admitted. “From the moment I saw you.”
“Terrified?” She seemed genuinely puzzled. “I thought you despised me. You looked at
me so grimly.”
“I never said I didn’t despise you,” Sharpe said in mock seriousness, “but from the
moment I saw you I wanted to be with you.”
She laughed. “You can be with me here,” she said, “but only on fine nights. I come here
when I can’t sleep. William sleeps in the stern cabin,” she explained, “and I sleep on the
sofa in the day cabin. My maid uses a truckle bed there.”
“You don’t sleep with him?” Sharpe dared to ask.
“I have to go to bed with him,” she admitted, “but he takes laudanum every night
because he insists he cannot sleep. He takes too much and he sleeps like a hog, so when he’s
asleep I go to the day cabin.” She shuddered. “And the drug makes him costive, which makes
him even more bad-tempered.”
“I have a cabin,” Sharpe said.
She looked at him, unsmiling, and Sharpe feared he had offended her, but then she
smiled. “To yourself?”
He nodded. “You’ll like it. It’s seven foot by six with walls of damp wood and clammy
canvas.”
“And you swing in your lonely hammock there?” she asked, still smiling.
“Hammock be blowed,” Sharpe said, “I’ve a proper hanging cot with a damp mattress.”
She sighed. “And not six months ago a man offered me a palace with walls of carved ivory, a
garden of fountains, and a pavilion with a bed of gold. He was a prince, and I must say he
was very delicate about it.”
“And were you?” Sharpe asked, suddenly jealous of the man. “Were you delicate?”
“I froze him.”
“You’re good at that.”
“And in the morning,” she said, “I will have to be good at it again.”
“Yes, my lady, you will.”
She smiled, acknowledging that he understood the necessary deception. “But it won’t
be light,” she said, “for another three hours.”
“Four, more like.”
“And I’ve been wanting to explore the ship,” she said. “All I ever see is the
roundhouse, the cuddy and the poop deck.”
He took her hand. “It’ll be pitch black below.”
“I think that would probably help,” she said gravely. She took her hand from his. “You go
first,” she said, “and I’ll follow. I’ll meet you on the main deck.”
And so he waited below the break of the quarterdeck and she did follow and he led her
below and there they forgot their suspicions of Pohlmann and Cromwell.
Who, most probably, Sharpe thought when the dawn came and he lay astonished and alone
again in his bed, had been playing backgammon. He closed his eyes, amazed at his happiness
and praying that this voyage could last forever.
Two mornings later a sail was sighted, the first since the Calliope had left the
convoy. It was dawn and the sky above unseen Madagascar was still dark when a topman saw
the first sunlight reflect from a distant sail off the starboard bow. Captain Cromwell,
summoned from his cabin by Lieutenant Tufnell, appeared agitated. He was wearing a
flannel nightgown and his long hair was twisted into a bun at the nape of his neck. He
stared at the strange ship’s sails through an ancient telescope. “It ain’t a native ship,”
Sharpe heard him say. “They’re proper topsails. Christian canvas, that.” Cromwell ordered
the main-deck guns to be unlashed. Powder was brought up from the magazines while Cromwell
changed into his usual uniform. Tufnell went to the mainmast crosstrees equipped with a
telescope. He stared for a long time, then shouted that he thought the distant vessel was a
whaler. Cromwell seemed relieved, but left the powder charges on deck just in case the
strange ship proved to be a privateer.
It was the best part of an hour before the distant ship could be seen from the Calliope’s
deck and its presence brought the passengers on deck to stare at the stranger. Like the
glimpse of land, this was a break in the journey’s tedium and Sharpe gazed with the rest,
though he had an advantage over most of the passengers, for he possessed a telescope. The
instrument was a marvel, a beautiful spyglass made by Matthew Berge of London and
inscribed with the date of the battle of Assaye. Sir Arthur Wellesley had given the
telescope to Sharpe, with his thanks engraved above the date, though he had been his usual
distant and diffident self as he handed the glass over. “I would not have you think I was
unmindful of the service you did me,” the general had said awkwardly.
“I was just glad to be there, sir,” Sharpe had answered just as awkwardly.
Sir Arthur had forced himself to say something more. “Remember, Mister Sharpe, that an
officer’s eyes are more valuable than his sword.”
“I’ll remember that, sir,” Sharpe said, reflecting that the general would have been
dead without Sharpe’s saber. Still, he supposed the advice was good. “And thank you, sir,”
Sharpe had said and remembered being obscurely disappointed with the telescope. He had
reckoned that a good sword would have been a better reward for saving the general’s
life.
Sir Arthur had frowned, but Campbell, one of his aides, had tried to be friendly. “So
you’re off to join the Rifles, Sharpe?”
“I am, sir.”
Sir Arthur had cut the conversation short. “You’ll be happy there, I’m sure. Thank you,
Mister Sharpe. Good day to you.”
And thus Sharpe had become the ungrateful possessor of a telescope that would have
been the envy of richer men. He trained it now on the strange ship, which, to his untutored
eye, looked a good deal smaller than the Calliope. She was certainly no warship, but
appeared to be a small merchantman.
“She’s a Jonathon!” Tufnell called from aloft, and Sharpe edged the glass leftward and saw
a faded ensign flying at the far ship’s stern. The flag looked very like the
red-and-white-striped banner of the East India Company, but then the wind lifted it and
he saw the stars in its upper quadrant and realized she was an American.
Major Dalton had come down to the main deck and now stood beside Sharpe who politely
offered the Scotsman the use of the telescope. The major stared at the American ship.
“She’s carrying powder and shot to Mauritius,” he said.
“How do you know, sir?”
“Because that’s what they do. No French merchantman dare sail in these waters, so the
damned Americans supply Mauritius with weaponry. And they have the nerve to call
themselves neutral! Still, I’ve no doubt they turn a fine profit, which is all that matters
to them. This is a very fine glass, Sharpe!”
“It was a gift, Major.”
“A handsome one.” Dalton handed the glass back and frowned. “You look tired, Sharpe.”
“Not been sleeping that well, Major.”
“I pray you’re not sickening. The Lady Grace is also looking very peaky. I do hope
there isn’t ship fever on board. I recall a brigantine coming into Leith when I was a
child and there can’t have been more than three men alive on her, and they were near death’s
door. They couldn’t land, of course, poor things. They had to anchor off and let the sickness
run its course, which left them all dead.”
The American, confident that the Calliope presented no threat, sailed close to the
great Indiaman and the two ships inspected each other as they passed in mid ocean. The
American ship was half the Calliope’s length and her main deck was crammed with the
longboats that her crew used to stalk and kill whales. “Doubtless she’ll drop her cargo on
Mauritius,” Major Dalton observed, “then head for the Southern Ocean. A hard life,
Sharpe.”
The American crew returned the Calliope’s waves, then she was past and the folk on board
the Indiaman could read the whaler’s name and hailing port, which were painted in blue and
gold on handsome stern boards. “The Jonah Coffin out of Nantucket,” Dalton said. “What
extraordinary names they do pick!”
“Like Peculiar Cromwell?”
“There is that!” Dalton laughed. “But I can’t imagine our captain painting his name on
his boat’s stern, can you? By the way, Sharpe, I’ve donated a pickled tongue for
dinner.”
“Generous of you, sir.”
“And I owe you a recompense for all the help you’ve been to me,” Dalton said, referring
to his long conversations with Sharpe about the war against the Mahrattas which the major
planned to write about in his retirement, “so why don’t you join us at noon? The captain’s
agreed to let us eat on the quarterdeck!” Dalton sounded excited, as if dining in the
open air would prove a special treat.
“I don’t want to intrude, Major.”
“No intrusion, no intrusion! You shall be my guest. I’ve also donated some wine and
you can help drink it. Red coat, I fear, Sharpe. Dinner might be a mere cold collation, but
Peculiar rightly insists there are no shirtsleeves on the quarterdeck.”
Sharpe had an hour before the dinner was to be served and he went below to brush the red
coat and, to his astonishment, found Malachi Braithwaite seated on his traveling chest.
The secretary was becoming ever more morose as the voyage continued and now looked up
at Sharpe with resentful eyes.
“Lost your own quarters, Braithwaite?” Sharpe asked brusquely.
“I wanted to see you, Sharpe.” The secretary seemed nervous, unable to meet Sharpe’s
eyes.
“You could have found me on deck,” Sharpe said and waited, but Braithwaite said nothing,
just watched as Sharpe draped the red coat over the edge of the hanging cot and began to
brush it vigorously. “Well?” Sharpe asked.
Braithwaite still hesitated. His right hand was fiddling with a loose thread hanging
from the sleeve of his faded black coat, but he finally summoned the courage to look at
Sharpe, opened his mouth to speak, then lost his courage and closed it again. Sharpe scrubbed
at a patch of dirt and finally the secretary found his voice. “You entertain a woman at
nights,” he blurted out accusingly.
Sharpe laughed. “What if I do? Didn’t they teach you about women at Oxford?”
“A particular woman,” Braithwaite said in a tone so filled with resentment that he
sounded like a spitting serpent.
Sharpe put the brush on top of his barrel of arrack and turned on the secretary. “If
you’ve got something to say, Braithwaite, then bloody say it.”
The secretary reddened. The fingers of his right hand were now drumming on the edge of
the chest, but he forced himself to continue the confrontation. “I know what you’re
doing, Sharpe.”
“You don’t know a bloody thing, Braithwaite.”
“And if I inform his lordship, as I should, then you can be assured that you will have no
career in His Majesty’s army.” It had taken almost all Braithwaite’s courage to voice the
threat, but he was encouraged by a rancor that was eating him like a tapeworm. “You’ll
have no career, Sharpe, none!”
Sharpe’s face betrayed no emotion as he stared at the secretary, but he was privately
appalled that Braithwaite had discovered his secret. Lady Grace had been in this squalid
cabin for two nights running, coming long after dark and leaving well before dawn, and
Sharpe had thought no one had noticed. They had both believed they were being discreet, but
Braithwaite had seen and now he was bitter with envy. Sharpe picked up the brush. “Is that
all you’ve got to say?”
“And I’ll ruin her too,” Braithwaite hissed, then started violently back as Sharpe
threw down the brush and turned on him. “And I know you deposited valuables with the
captain!” the secretary went on hurriedly, holding up both hands as if to ward off a
blow.
Sharpe hesitated. “How do you know that?”
“Everyone knows. It’s a ship, Sharpe. People talk.”
Sharpe looked into the secretary’s shifty eyes. “Go on,” he said softly.
“My silence can be purchased,” Braithwaite said defiantly.
Sharpe nodded as though he were considering the bargain. “I’ll tell you how I’ll buy
your silence, Braithwaite, a silence, by the way, about nothing because I don’t know what
you’re talking about. I reckon Oxford addled your brain, but let’s suppose, just for a
minute, that I think I know what you’re suggesting. Shall we agree to that?”
Braithwaite nodded cautiously.
“And a ship is a very small place, Braithwaite,” Sharpe said, seating himself beside the
gangly secretary, “and you can’t escape me on board this ship. And that means that if you
open your sordid mouth to tell anyone anything, if you say even one bloody word, then I’ll
kill you.”
“You don’t understand ...”
“I do understand,” Sharpe interrupted, “so shut your mouth. In India, Braithwaite,
there are men called jettis who kill by wringing their victims’ necks like chickens.”
Sharpe put his hands on Braithwaite’s head and began to twist it. “They twist it all the
bloody way round, Braithwaite.”
“No!” the secretary gasped. He fumbled at Sharpe’s hands with his own, but he lacked the
strength to free himself.
“They twist it till their victim’s eyes are staring out over his arse and his neck gives
way with a crack.”
“No!” Braithwaite could barely speak, for his neck was being twisted hard around.
“It’s not really a crack,” Sharpe went on in a conversational tone, “more a kind of
grating creak, and I’ve often wondered if I could do it myself. It’s not that I’m afraid of
killing, Braithwaite. I wouldn’t have you think that. I’ve killed men with guns, with swords,
with knives and with my bare hands. I’ve killed more men, Braithwaite, than you can imagine
in your worst nightmare, but I’ve never wrung a man’s neck till it creaked. But I’ll start
with you. If you do anything to hurt me, or anything to hurt any lady I know, then I’ll
twist your head like a cork in a bloody bottle, and it’ll hurt. My God, it’ll hurt.” Sharpe
gave the secretary’s neck a sudden jerk. “It’ll hurt more than you know, and I promise you
that it will happen if you say so much as one single bloody word. You’ll be dead,
Braithwaite, and I won’t give a rat’s droppings about doing it. It’ll be a real pleasure.”
He gave the secretary’s neck a last twist, then let go.
Braithwaite gasped for breath, massaging his throat. He gave Sharpe a scared glance, then
tried to stand, but Sharpe hauled him back onto the chest. “You’re going to make me a
promise, Braithwaite,” Sharpe said.
“Anything!” All the fight had gone from the man now.
“You’ll say nothing to anybody. And I’ll know if you do, I’ll know, and I’ll find you,
Braithwaite. I’ll find you and I’ll wring your scrawny neck like a chicken.”
“I won’t say a word!”
“Because your accusations are false, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” Braithwaite nodded eagerly. “Yes, they are.”
“You’re having dreams, Braithwaite.”
“I am, I am.”
“Then go. And remember I’m a killer, Braithwaite. When you were at Oxford learning to
be a bloody fool I was learning how to kill folk. And I learned well.”
Braithwaite fled and Sharpe stayed seated. Damn, he thought, damn and damn and damn again.
He reckoned he had frightened the secretary into silence, but Sharpe was still scared.
For if Braithwaite had found out, who else might discover their secret? Not that it
mattered for Sharpe, but it mattered mightily to Lady Grace. She had a reputation to
lose. “You’re playing with fire, you bloody fool,” he told himself, then retrieved his brush
and finished cleaning his coat.
Pohlmann seemed surprised that Sharpe should be a guest at dinner, but he greeted him
effusively and shouted at the steward to fetch another chair onto the quarterdeck. A
trestle table had been placed forward of the Calliope’s big wheel, spread with white linen
and set with silverware. “I was going to invite you myself,” Pohlmann told Sharpe, “but in
the excitement of seeing the Jonathon I quite forgot.”
There was no precedence at this table, for Captain Cromwell was not dining with his
passengers, but Lord William made sure he took the table’s head, then cordially invited
the baron to sit beside him. “As you know, my dear baron, I am compiling a report on the
future policy of His Majesty’s government toward India and I would value your opinion
on the remaining Mahratta states.”
“I’m not sure I can tell you much,” Pohlmann said, “for I hardly knew the Mahrattas, but
of course I shall oblige you as best I can.” Then, to Lord William’s evident irritation,
Mathilde took the chair on his left and called for Sharpe to sit next to her.
“I’m the major’s guest, my lady.” Sharpe explained his reluctance to sit beside
Mathilde, but Dalton shook his head and insisted Sharpe take the offered chair.
“I have a handsome man on either of my sides now!” Mathilde exclaimed in her eccentric
English, earning a look of withering condescension from Lord William. Lady Grace,
denied a seat beside her husband, stayed standing until Lord William coldly nodded to
the chair beside Pohlmann which meant she would be sitting directly opposite Sharpe. In a
superb piece of dumb play she glanced at Sharpe, then raised her eyebrows toward her
husband, who shrugged as though there was nothing he could do to alleviate the
misfortune of being made to sit opposite a mere ensign, and so the Lady Grace sat. Not
eight hours before she had been naked in Sharpe’s hanging bed, but now her disdain of him
was cruelly obvious. Fazackerly, the barrister, asked permission to sit beside her
and she smiled at him graciously as though she was relieved to have a dinner companion
who could be relied on to make civilized conversation.