Sharpe's Trafalgar (9 page)

Sharpe was again invited to be Pohlmann’s guest for supper and, when he went below to
change into his least dirty shirt and to pull on his coat that had been neatly mended by a
foretop man, he found the steerage slopping with water and vomit. Children cried, a
tethered dog yelped. Braithwaite was draped over a gun, heaving dry. Every time the ship
dipped to the wind water forced its way through the locked gunports and rippled across the
deck, and when she buried her bows into the sea a veritable flood came through the
hawseholes and rolled down the sopping planks.

Water cascaded down the companionway as Sharpe climbed back to the remains of the
daylight. He staggered across the quarterdeck where six men hung onto the wheel and banged
through the poop door where he was thrown across the small hallway before cannoning back
into the cuddy where only the captain, Major Dalton, Pohlmann, Mathilde and Lord William
and Lady Grace waited. The other three passengers were all either seasick or were
eating in their own cabins.

“You’re the baron’s guest again?” Cromwell asked pointedly.

“You surely do not mind Mister Sharpe being my guest?” Pohlmann inquired hotly.

“He eats from your purse, Baron, not mine,” Cromwell growled, then waved Sharpe into his
usual chair. “For God’s sake, sit, Mister Sharpe.” He held up a massive hand, then paused as
the ship rolled. The bulkheads shifted alarmingly and the cutlery slid across the table.
“May the good Lord bless these victuals,” Cromwell said, “and make us grateful for their
sustenance, in the name of the Lord, amen.”

“Amen,” Lady Grace said distantly. Her husband looked pale and gripped the table’s edge
as if it might alleviate the boat’s quick motion. Lady Grace, on the other hand, was
quite unaffected by the weather. She wore a red dress, cut low, and had a string of pearls
around her slim neck. Her dark hair was piled at her crown and held in place with
pearl-encrusted pins.

Fiddles had been placed about the table so that the knives, forks, spoons, glasses,
plates and cruets would not slide off, but the lurching of the ship made the meal a perilous
experience. Cromwell’s steward served a thick soup first. “Fresh fish!” Cromwell boasted.
“All caught this morning. I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but no one has yet died
of an unknown fish on my ship. They’ve died of other things, of course.” The captain
eagerly spooned the bony gruel into his mouth, expertly holding the plate so that the
contents did not spill as the ship tilted. “Men fall from the upper works, folk die of fever
and I’ve even had a passenger kill herself for unrequited love, but I’ve never had one
die offish poison.”

“Unrequited love?” Pohlmann asked, amused.

“It happens, Baron, it happens,” Cromwell said with relish. “It is a well-attested
phenomenon that a sea voyage spurs the baser instincts. You will forgive me mentioning
the matter, milady,” he added hastily to Lady Grace, who ignored his coarseness.

Lord William took one taste of the fish soup and turned away, leaving his plate to slop
itself empty on the table. Lady Grace managed a few spoonfuls, but then, disliking the
taste, pushed the malodorous mess away. The major ate heartily, Pohlmann and Mathilde
greedily and Sharpe warily, not wanting to disgrace himself with a display of ill
manners in front of Lady Grace. Fish bones were caught in his teeth and he tried to
extricate them subtly, for he had seen Lady Grace shudder whenever Pohlmann spat them
onto the table.

“Cold beef and rice next,” the captain announced, as though he were offering a treat.
“So tell me, Baron, how did you make your fortune? You traded, is that right?”

“I traded, Captain, yes.”

Lady Grace looked up sharply, frowned, then pretended the conversation did not
interest her. The wine decanters rattled in their metal cage. The whole ship creaked,
groaned and shuddered whenever a stronger wave exploded at her bows.

“In England,” Cromwell said pointedly, “the aristocracy do not trade. They think it
beneath them.”

“English lords have land,” Pohlmann said, “but my family lost its estates a hundred
years ago, and when one does not possess land one must work for a living.”

“Doing what, pray?” Cromwell demanded. His long wet hair lay lank on his shoulders.

“I buy, I sell,” Pohlmann said, evidently unworried by the captain’s
inquisition.

“And successfully, too!” Captain Cromwell appeared to be making conversation to
take his guests’ minds off the ship’s pitching and rolling. “So now you take your profits
home, and quite right too. So where is home? Bavaria? Prussia? Hesse?”

“Hanover,” Pohlmann said, “but I have been thinking that perhaps I should buy a house in
London. Lord William can give me advice, no doubt?” He smiled across the table at Lord
William who, for answer, abruptly stood, clutched a napkin to his mouth and bolted from the
cuddy. Spray spattered on the closed panes of the skylight and some dripped through onto
the table.

“My husband is a poor sailor,” Lady Grace said calmly.

“And you, my lady, are not?” Pohlmann asked.

“I like the sea,” she said, almost indignantly. “I have always liked the sea.”

Cromwell laughed. “They say, my lady, that those who would go to sea for pleasure would
visit hell as a pastime.”

She shrugged, as if what others said made no difference to her. Major Dalton took up
the burden of the conversation. “Have you ever been seasick, Sharpe?”

“No, sir, I’ve been lucky.”

“Me neither,” Dalton said. “My mother always believed beefsteak was a specific
against the condition.”

“Beefsteak, fiddlesticks,” Cromwell growled. “Only rum and oil will serve.”

“Rum and oil?” Pohlmann asked with a grimace.

“You force a pint of rum down the patient’s throat and follow it with a pint of oil. Any
oil will do, even lamp oil, for the patient will void it utterly, but next day he’ll feel
lively as a trivet.” Cromwell turned a jaundiced eye on Lady Grace. “Should I send the rum
and oil to your cabin, my lady?”

Lady Grace did not even bother to reply. She gazed at the paneling where a small oil
painting of an English country church swayed to the ship’s motion.

“So how long will this storm last?” Mathilde asked in her accented English.

“Storm?” Cromwell cried. “You think this is a storm? This, ma’am, is nothing but a blow.
Nothing but a morsel of wind and rain that will do no harm to man or ship. A storm, ma’am, is
violent, violent! This is gentle to what we might meet off the Cape.”

No one had the stomach for a dessert of suet and currants, so instead Pohlmann
suggested a hand of whist in his cabin. “I have some fine brandy, Captain,” he said, “and
if Major Dalton is willing to play we can make a foursome? I know Sharpe won’t play.” He
indicated himself and Mathilde as the other players, then smiled at Lady Grace. “Unless
I could persuade you to play, my lady?”

“I don’t,” she said in a tone suggesting that Pohlmann had invited her to wallow in his
vomit. She stood, somehow managing to stay graceful despite the lurching of the ship,
and the men immediately pushed their chairs back and stepped aside to let her leave the
cabin.

“Stay and finish your wine, Sharpe,” Pohlmann said, leading his whist players out.

Sharpe was left alone in the cuddy. He finished his wine, then fetched the decanter from
its metal frame on the sideboard, and poured himself another glass. Night had fallen and
the frigate, anxious that the convoy should not scatter in the darkness, was firing a gun
every ten minutes. Sharpe told himself he would stay for three guns, then make his way into
the fetid hold and try to sleep.

Then the door opened and Lady Grace came back into the cuddy.

She had a scarf about her neck, hiding the pearls and the smooth white skin of her
shoulders. She gave Sharpe an unfriendly glance and ignored his awkward greeting. Sharpe
expected her to leave straightaway, assuming she had merely come to fetch something she
had left in the cuddy, but to his surprise she sat in Cromwell’s chair and frowned at him.
“Sit down, Mister Sharpe.”

“Some wine, my lady?”

“Sit down,” she said firmly.

Sharpe sat at the opposite end of the table. The empty brass chandelier swung from the
beam, reflecting flashes of the candlelight that came from the two shielded lanterns on
the bulkheads. The nickering flames accentuated the high bones of Lady Grace’s face.
“How well do you know the Baron von Dornberg?” she asked abruptly.

Sharpe blinked, surprised by the question. “Not well, my lady.”

“You met him in India?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where?” she demanded peremptorily. “How?”

Sharpe frowned. He had promised not to give away Pohlmann’s identity, so he would need to
treat Lady Grace’s insistence tactfully. “I served with a Company exploring officer
for a while, ma’am,” he said, “and he frequently rode behind enemy lines. That’s when I met
P-the baron.” He thought for a second or two. “I maybe met him four times, perhaps
five?”

“Which enemy?”

“The Mahrattas, ma’am.”

“So he was a friend to the Mahrattas?”

“I imagine so, ma’am.”

She stared at him as if she was weighing the truth of his words. “He seems very attached
to you, Mister Sharpe.”

Sharpe almost swore as the wine glass slid away from him and fell over the fiddle. The
glass smashed on the floor, splashing wine across the canvas rug. “I did him a service,
ma’am, the last time we met. It was after a fight.”

“He was on the other side?” she interrupted him.

“He was with the other side, ma’am,” Sharpe said carefully, disguising the truth that
Pohlmann had been the general commanding the other side. “And he was caught up in the
rout. I could have captured him, I suppose, but he didn’t seem to pose any harm, so I let him
go. He’s grateful for that, I’m sure.”

“Thank you,” she said, and seemed about to stand.

“Why, ma’am?” Sharpe asked, hoping she would stay.

She relaxed warily, then stared at him for a long time, evidently considering whether
to answer, then let go of the table and shrugged. “You heard the captain’s conversation
with the baron tonight?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They appear as strangers to each other?”

“Indeed they do,” Sharpe agreed, “and Cromwell told me as much himself.”

“Yet almost every night, Mister Sharpe, they meet and talk. Just the two of them. They
come in here after midnight and sit across the table from each other and talk. And
sometimes the baron’s manservant is here with them.” She paused. “I frequently find it hard
to sleep and if the night is fine I will go on deck. I hear them through the skylight. I don’t
eavesdrop,” she said acidly, “but I hear their voices.”

“So they know each other a great deal better than they pretend?” Sharpe said.

“So it would seem,” she answered.

“Odd, ma’am,” Sharpe said.

She shrugged as if to suggest that Sharpe’s opinion was of no interest to her. “Perhaps
they merely play backgammon,” she said distantly.

She again looked as though she would leave and Sharpe hurried to keep the conversation
going. “The baron did tell me he might go to live in France, ma’am.”

“Not London?”

“France or Hanover, he said.”

“But you can hardly expect him to confide in you,” she said scornfully, “on the basis
of your very slight acquaintance.” She stood.

Sharpe pushed back his chair and hurried to open the door. She nodded thanks for his
courtesy, but a sudden wave heaved the Calliope and made Lady Grace stagger and Sharpe
instinctively put a hand out to check her and the hand encircled her waist and took her
weight so that she was leaning against him with her face just inches from his. He felt a
terrible desire to kiss her and he knew she would not object for, though the ship
steadied, she did not step away. Sharpe could feel her slender waist beneath the soft
material of her dress. His mind was swimming because her eyes, so large and serious,
were on his, and once again, as he had the very first time he glimpsed her, he sensed a
melancholy in her face, but then the quarterdeck door banged open and Cromwell’s steward
swore as he carried a tray toward the cuddy. Lady Grace twisted from Sharpe’s arm and,
without a word, went through the door.

“Raining buckets, it is,” the steward said. “A bloody fish would drown on deck, I tell
you.”

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said, “bloody hell.” He picked the decanter up by the neck, tipped it
to his mouth and drained it.

The wind and rain stayed high throughout the night. Cromwell had shortened sail at
nightfall and those few passengers who braved the deck at dawn found the Calliope plunging
beneath low dark clouds from which black squalls hissed across a white-capped sea. Sharpe,
lacking a greatcoat, and unwilling to soak his coat or shirt, went on deck bare-chested.
He turned toward the quarterdeck and respectfully bowed his head in acknowledgment of
the unseen captain, then half ran and half walked toward the forecastle where the
breakfast burgoo waited to be fetched. He found a group of sailors at the galley, one of
them the gray-haired commander of number five gun, who greeted Sharpe with a
tobacco-stained grin. “We’ve lost the convoy, sir.”

“Lost it?”

“Gone to buggery, ain’t it?” The man laughed. “And not by accident if I knows a thing
about it.”

“And what do you know about it, Jem?” a younger man asked.

“More’n you know, and more’n you’ll ever learn.”

“Why no accident?” Sharpe asked.

Jem ducked his head to spit tobacco juice. “The captain’s been at the wheel since
midnight, sir, so he has, and he’s been steering us hard south’ards. Had us on deck in dark
of night, hauling the sails about. We be running due south now, sir, instead of
sou’west.”

“The wind changed,” a man observed.

“Wind don’t change here!” Jem said scornfully. “Not at this time of year! Wind here be
steady as a rock out of the nor’east. Nine days in ten, sir, out the nor’east. You don’t need
to steer a ship out of Bombay, sir. You clear the Balasore Roads, hang your big rags up the
sticks, and this wind’ll blow you to Madagascar straight as a ball down a tavern alley,
sir.”