Sharpe's Trafalgar (4 page)

“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 blood 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 traveling 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
travelers 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 harbor had somehow approached her delicate
nostrils. She just stared sternward, 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 and 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 fetid 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.

“The money?” Sharpe asked.

“A cargo of indigo, sir, saltpeter, silver bars and silk. Enough to make us all rich a
thousand times over.” He grinned, then left Sharpe to contemplate the tiny space that would be
his home for the next four months.

The rear wall of his cabin was the curving side of the ship. The ceiling was low, and
crossed by heavy black beams in which some hooks rusted. The floor was the deck, thickly
scarred with old nail-holes where previous passengers had hammered down their chests. The
remaining three walls were made of dirty canvas, but it was a heaven compared to the
accommodation he had been given when he had sailed from Britain to India. Then, a private,
he had been content with a hammock and fourteen inches of space in which to swing it.

He squatted in the cabin’s entrance, where a lantern offered some light, and unfolded
the ship’s rules. They were printed, though some additions had been inked in afterward. He
was forbidden to go on the quarterdeck unless invited by the ship’s captain or the
officer of the watch, and to that prohibition someone had added the warning that, even if
he was so invited, he was never to come between the captain and the weather rail. Sharpe
did not even know what the weather rail was. Upon going on deck he was required to touch his
hat to the quarterdeck, even if the captain was not in sight. Gambling was forbidden. The
purser would hold divine service, weather permitting, each Sunday and passengers were
required to attend unless excused by the ship’s surgeon. Breakfast would be supplied at
eight o’clock in the morning, dinner at midday, tea would be served at four o’clock and
supper at eight. All male passengers were required to acquaint themselves with the quarter
bill which allocated their action stations. No unshielded flames were to be lit below
decks and all lanterns must be extinguished by nine o’clock at night. Smoking was forbidden
because of the danger of fire, and passengers who chewed tobacco were to use the
spittoons. Spitting on the deck was strictly forbidden. No passenger was to climb the
rigging without permission of a ship’s officer. Passengers in steerage, like Sharpe,
were prohibited from entering the great cabin or the roundhouse unless invited. There
would be no foul language aboard.