“Were you really promoted from the ranks?” a cold voice asked and Sharpe turned to see
that Lady Grace had appeared at his side.
He instinctively touched his forelock. For a moment he felt struck dumb and his tongue
seemed stuck to his palate, but then he managed to nod. “Yes, ma’am. Milady.”
She looked into his eyes and was tall enough not to need to look up. Her big eyes were dim
in the twilight, but at supper Sharpe had seen they were green. “It must be a difficult
circumstance,” she said, still using a distant voice as though she was being
reluctantly forced into this conversation.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sharpe said again, and knew he was sounding like a fool. He was tense, a
muscle was twitching in his left leg, his mouth was dry and his belly felt sour, the same
sensations that a man got when he was waiting for battle. “Before it happened, ma’am,” he
blurted out, wanting to say anything other than a monosyllabic response, “I wanted it
badly, but afterward? I reckon I shouldn’t have wanted it at all.”
Her face was expressionless. Beautiful, but expressionless. She ignored Pohlmann
and Mathilde, but just stared down at the quarterdeck before looking back to Sharpe. “Who
makes it most difficult,” she asked, “the men or the officers?”
“Both, ma’am,” Sharpe said. He saw that the smoke from his cigar was annoying her and so
he tossed it overboard. “The men don’t think you’re a proper officer, and the other
officers ... well, it’s like a working dog ending up on the hearth rug. The lap dogs don’t
like it.”
She half smiled at that. “You must tell me,” she said in a voice which still suggested she
was merely making polite conversation, “just how you saved Arthur’s life.” She paused,
and Sharpe saw there was a nervous tic in her left eye that caused it to quiver every few
seconds. “He’s a cousin,”
she went on, “but quite far removed. None of the family thought he’d amount to
anything.”
It had taken Sharpe a second or two to realize that she meant Sir Arthur Wellesley, the
cold man who had promoted Sharpe. “He’s the best general I’ve ever seen, ma’am,” Sharpe
said.
“And you would know?” she asked skeptically.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sharpe said firmly, “I would know.”
“So how did you save his life?” she insisted.
Sharpe hesitated. The aroma of her perfume was heady. He was about to say something
vague of battle, confusion and blurred memory, but just then Lord William appeared on the
quarterdeck and, without a word, Lady Grace turned to the poop stairs. Sharpe watched her
go, conscious of his heart thumping against his ribs. He was still trembling. He had been
dizzied by her.
Pohlmann was laughing softly. “She likes you, Sharpe.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“She is panting for you,” Pohlmann said.
“My dear Sharpe! My dear Sharpe!” It was the Scotsman, Major Dalton, climbing from the
quarterdeck. “There you are! You vanished! I would speak with you, Sharpe, if you can be
kind enough to spare me a few moments. Like you, Sharpe, I was at Assaye, but I’m still
utterly confused as to what happened there. We must talk, indeed we must. My dear baron,
baroness”—he took off his hat and bowed—”my compliments, and perhaps you will forgive two
soldiers reminiscing?”
“I will forgive you, Major,” Pohlmann said expansively, “but I will also leave you,
for I know nothing of soldiering, nothing! Your conversation would be one long mystery
to me. Come, my Liebchen, come.”
So Sharpe talked of battle, and the ship trembled to the sea, and the tropical darkness
fell.
“Number four gun!” Lieutenant Tufnell, the Calliope’s first officer, shouted.
“Fire!”
The eighteen-pounder leaped back, jerking to a halt as its breeching rope took the vast
strain of the weapon’s recoil. Scraps of paint flew from the taut hemp, for Captain Cromwell
was insistent that the gun tackles, like every other piece of equipment on deck, were
painted white. It was for that reason that only one gun was being fired, for Cromwell did
not want to disturb the other thirty-one cannons that had polished barrels and freshly
painted tackle, so each gun crew, half made up of the ship’s crew and half of passengers,
was taking it in turn to fire number four gun. The eighteen-pounder, its muzzle blackened
by powder, hissed as the barrel was sponged out. A great cloud of smoke drifted in the wind
to keep the ship company.
“Shot fell short, sir!” Binns, the young officer, piped from the poop where, equipped with
a telescope, he watched the fall of shot. The Chatham Castle, another ship of the convoy,
was periodically loosing empty casks in its wake to serve as targets for the Calliope’s
gun.
It was the turn of number five gun’s crew to fire. The seaman in charge was a wizened man
with long gray hair that he wore tied in a great bun into which he had stuck a marlin spike.
“You”—he pointed at Malachi Braithwaite who, to his great displeasure, was expected to
serve on a gun crew despite being private secretary to a peer—”shove two of them black
bags down the gun when I gives the word. Him”—he pointed at a lascar seaman—”rams it and
you”—he peered at Braithwaite again—”puts the shot in and the blackie rams that as well and
none of you landlubbers gets in his way, and you”—he looked at Sharpe—”aims the piece.”
“I thought that was your job,” Sharpe said.
“I’m half blind, sir.” The seaman offered Sharpe a toothless grin then turned on the
other three passengers. “The rest of you,” he said, “helps the other blackies haul the gun
forrard on those two lines there, and once you’ve done that you stand out the bleeding way
and cover your ears. If it comes to a fight the best thing you can do is fall to your knees
and pray to the Almighty that we surrender. You’ll fire the gun, sir?” he asked Sharpe. “And
you knows as to stand to one side unless you want to be buried at sea. Bag of reeds here, sir,
lanyard there, sir, and it’s best to fire on the uproll if you don’t want to make us look
like lubberly fools. You ain’t going to hit nothing, sir, because no one ever does. We
only practice because the Company says we must, but we ain’t never fired a gun in anger
and I hopes and prays we never will.”
The cannon was equipped with a flintlock, just like a musket, which fired the powder
packed inside a hollow reed which was inserted in the touch-hole and so carried the flame
down to the main charge. Once the gun was loaded all Sharpe had to do was aim it, stand aside,
and jerk the lanyard which triggered the lock. Braithwaite and the lascar put the powder
and shot into the barrel, the lascar rammed it down, Sharpe pushed a sharpened wire through
the touch-hole to pierce the canvas powder bag, then slid the reed into place. The other
crew members clumsily hauled the gun until its barrel protruded through the main deck’s
gunwale. There were handspikes available, great club-like wooden levers that could be used
to turn the gun left or right, but none of the crews used them. They were not seriously
trying to aim the gun, merely going through the obligatory motions of practice so that
the logbook could confirm that the Company regulations had been fulfilled.
“There’s your target!” Captain Cromwell called and Sharpe, standing on the gun carriage,
saw an impossibly small cask bobbing on the distant waves. He had no idea what the range
was, and all he could do was wait until the cask floated into line then pause until a wave
rolled the ship upward when he skipped smartly aside and jerked the lanyard. The flintlock
snapped forward and a small jet of fire whipped up from the touch-hole, then the gun
hammered back on its small wheels and its smoke billowed halfway up the mainsail as the
powder flame licked and curled in the pungent white cloud. The big breeching rope quivered,
scattering more flecks of paint, and Mister Binns called excitedly from the poop, “A hit,
sir, a hit! A hit! Plumb, sir! A hit!”
“We heard you the first time, Mister Binns,” Cromwell growled.
“But it’s a hit, sir!” Binns protested, thinking that no one believed him.
“Up to the main cap!” Cromwell snapped at Binns. “I told you to be quiet. If you cannot
learn to curb your tongue, boy, then go and shriek at the clouds. Up!” He pointed to the very
top of the mainmast. “And you will stay there until I can abide your malodorous presence
again.”
Mathilde was applauding enthusiastically from the quarterdeck. Lady Grace was
also there and Sharpe had been acutely aware of her presence as he aimed the gun. “That was
bleeding luck,” the old seaman said.
“Pure luck,” Sharpe agreed.
“And you’ve cost the captain ten guineas,” the old man chuckled.
“I have?”
“He has a wager with Mister Tufnell that no one would ever hit the target.”
“I thought gambling was forbidden on board.”
“There’s lots that’s forbidden, sir, but that don’t mean it don’t happen.”
Sharpe’s ears were ringing from the terrible sound of the gun as he stepped away from the
smoking weapon. Tufnell, the first lieutenant, insisted on shaking his hand and refused
to countenance Sharpe’s insistence that the shot had been pure luck, then Tufnell stepped
aside for Captain Cromwell had come down from the quarterdeck and was advancing on Sharpe.
“Have you fired a cannon before?” the captain inquired fiercely.
“No, sir.”
Cromwell peered up into the rigging, then looked for his first officer. “Mister
Tufnell!”
“Sir?”
“A broken horse! There, on the main topsail!” Cromwell pointed. Sharpe followed the
captain’s finger and saw that one of the footropes that the topmen would stand on when they
were furling the sail had parted. “I will not command a ragged ship, Mister Tufnell,”
Cromwell snarled. “This ain’t a Thames hay barge, Mister Tufnell, but an Indiaman! Have it
spliced, man, have it spliced!”
Tufnell sent two seamen aloft to mend the broken line, while Cromwell paused to glower at
the next crew firing the gun. The cannon recoiled, the smoke blossomed, and the ball
skipped across the waves a good hundred yards from the bobbing cask.
“A miss!” Binns shouted from the top of the mainmast.
“I have an eye for an irregularity,” Cromwell said in his harsh, low voice, “as I’ve no
doubt you do, Mister Sharpe. You see a hundred men on parade and doubtless your eye goes to
the one sloven with a dirty musket. Am I right?”
“I hope so, sir.”
“A broken horse can kill a man. It can tumble him to the deck, putting misery into a
mother’s heart. Her son put his foot down and there was nothing beneath him but void. Do you
want your mother to have a broken heart, Mister Sharpe?”
Sharpe decided this was no time to explain that he had long been orphaned. “No,
sir.”
Cromwell glared around the main deck which was crowded with the men who formed the gun
crews. “What is it that you notice about these men, Mister Sharpe?”
“Notice, sir?”
“They are in shirtsleeves, Mister Sharpe. All except you and me are in shirtsleeves. I
keep my coat on, Sharpe, because I am captain of this ship and it is meet and right that a
captain should appear formally dressed before his crew. But why, I ask myself, does
Mister Sharpe keep on his wool jacket on a hot day? Do you believe you are captain of this
scow?”
“I just feel the cold, sir,” Sharpe lied.
“Cold?” Cromwell sneered. He put his right foot on a crack between the deck planks and,
when he lifted the shoe, a string of melting tar adhered to his sole. “You are not cold,
Mister Sharpe, you are sweating. Sweating! So come with me, Mister Sharpe.” The captain
turned and led Sharpe up to the quarterdeck. The passengers watching the gunnery made way
for the two men and Sharpe was suddenly conscious of Lady Grace’s perfume, then he
followed Cromwell down the companion-way into the great cabin where the captain had his
quarters. Cromwell unlocked his door, pushed it open and gestured that Sharpe should go
inside. “My home,” the captain grunted.
Sharpe had expected that the captain would have one of the stern cabins with their big
wide windows, but it was more profitable to sell such accommodation to passengers and
Cromwell was content with a smaller cabin on the larboard side. It was still a
comfortable home. A bunk bed was built into a wall of bookshelves while a table, hinged to
the bulkhead, was smothered in unrolled charts that were weighted down with three lanterns
and a pair of long-barreled pistols. The daylight streamed in through an opened porthole,
above which the sea’s reflection rippled on the white painted ceiling. Cromwell unlocked
a small cupboard to reveal a barometer and, beside it, what appeared to be a fat pocket
watch hanging from a hook. “Three hundred and twenty-nine guineas,” Cromwell told Sharpe,
tapping the timepiece.
“I’ve never owned a watch,” Sharpe said.
“It is not a watch, Mister Sharpe,” Cromwell said in disgust, “but a chronometer. A
marvel of science. Between here and Britain I doubt it will lose more than two seconds. It
is that machine, Mister Sharpe, that tells us where we are.” He blew a fleck of dust from the
chronometer’s face, tapped the barometer, then carefully closed and locked the cupboard.
“I keep my treasures safe, Mister Sharpe. You, on the other hand, flaunt yours.”
Sharpe said nothing, and the captain waved at the cabin’s only chair. “Sit down, Mister
Sharpe. Do you wonder about my name?”
Sharpe sat uneasily. “Your name?” He shrugged. “It’s unusual, sir.”
“It is peculiar,” Peculiar Cromwell said, then gave a harsh laugh that betrayed no
amusement. “My people, Mister Sharpe, were fervent Christians and they named me from the
Bible. ‘The Lord has chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself,’ the book of
Deuteronomy, chapter fourteen, verse two. It is not easy, Mister Sharpe, living with such
a name. It invites ridicule. In its time that name has made me a laughing stock!” He said
these last words with extraordinary force, as though resenting all the folk who had ever
mocked him, but Sharpe, perched on the edge of the chair, could not imagine anyone mocking
the harsh-voiced, heavy-faced Peculiar Cromwell.