Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3. Bernard Cornwell
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‘No,’ Sharpe protested, ‘no.’
‘Shh,’ she whispered, and covered his mouth with hers.
By dawn she was gone. The view from the stern window was unchanged. No British warship was in pursuit, there was just the endless Indian Ocean stretching away to a hazed horizon. The wind was fresher so that the ship rolled and thumped, dislodging the chess pieces that Major Dalton had arrayed on the stern seat in a plan of the battle of Assaye. ‘You must tell me,’ the major said, ‘what happened when Sir Arthur was unhorsed.’
‘I think you must ask him, Major.’
‘But you know as much as he, surely?’
‘I do,’ Sharpe agreed, ‘but I doubt he’s fond of telling the story, or of having it told. You might do better to say he fought off a group of the enemy and was rescued by his aides.’
‘But is that true?’
‘There’s truth in it,’ Sharpe said and would say no more. Besides, he could not remember exactly what had happened. He remembered sliding off his horse and slashing the sabre in hay-making cuts; he remembered Sir Arthur being dazed and standing in the shelter of a cannon’s wheel and he remembered killing, but what he remembered clearest of all was the Indian swordsman who had deserved to kill him, for the man had swung his tulwar in a scything stroke that had struck the nape of Sharpe’s neck. That stroke should have beheaded Sharpe, but he had been wearing his hair in the soldier’s queue, bound around a leather bag that would normally have been filled with sand, only instead Sharpe had concealed the great ruby from the Tippoo Sultan’s hat in the bag and the big jewel had stopped the tulwar cold. The blow had released the ruby and Sharpe remembered how, when the vicious fight was over, Sir Arthur had picked up the stone and held it out to him with a puzzled expression. The general had been too confused to recognize what it was and probably thought it was nothing but a prettily coloured pebble that Sharpe had collected. Goddamn Cromwell had the pretty pebble now.
‘What was Sir Arthur’s horse called?’ Dalton asked.
‘Diomed,’ Sharpe said. ‘He was very fond of that horse.’ He could remember the gush of blood that spilt onto the dry ground when the pike was pulled from Diomed’s chest.
Dalton questioned Sharpe till late afternoon, making notes for his memoir. ‘I have to do something with my retirement, Sharpe. If ever I see Edinburgh again.’
‘Are you not married, sir?’
‘I was. A dear lady. She died.’ The major shook his head, then stared wistfully through the stern window. ‘We had no children,’ he said softly, then frowned as a sudden rush of feet sounded from the quarterdeck. A voice could be heard shouting, and a heartbeat later the Calliope yawed to larboard and the sails hammered like guns firing. One by one the sails were sheeted home and the ship, after momentarily wallowing in the swells, was sailing smooth again, only this time she was beating up into the wind on a course as near northerly as the small crew could hold. ‘Something’s excited the Frenchies,’ the major said.
No one knew what had caused the northwards turn, for no other ship was visible from the cabin portholes, though it was possible a lookout high in the rigging had seen some topsails on the southern horizon. The motion of the ship was more uncomfortable now for she was slamming into the waves and heeling over. Then, when the supper was carried to the passengers, the officier marinier ordered that no lights were to be shown, and promised that anyone who disobeyed him would be thrust down into the ship’s hold where foetid seawater slopped and rats ruled.
‘So there is another ship,’ Dalton said.
‘But has she seen us?’ Sharpe wondered.
‘Even if she has,’ Dalton said gloomily, ‘what can we do?’
Sharpe prayed it was the Pucelle, Captain Chase’s French-built warship that was as quick a sailor as the Revenant. ‘There is one thing,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I need Tufnell,’ Sharpe said, and he went down to the officers’ quarters in the great cabin and hammered on the lieutenant’s door and, after a brief conversation, took the lieutenant and Dalton to Ebenezer Fairley’s cabin.
The merchant was robed for bed and had a tasselled nightcap falling over the left side of his face, but he listened to Sharpe, then grinned. ‘Come on in, lad. Mother! You’ll have to get up again. We’ve got some mischief to make.’
The problem was a lack of tools, but Sharpe had his pocket knife, Tufnell had a short dagger and the major produced a dirk and the three men first pulled up the painted canvas carpet in Fairley’s sleeping cabin, then attacked a floorboard.
The board was made of oak over two inches thick. It was old oak, seasoned and hard, but Sharpe could see no alternative except to make a hole in the deck and hope that it was in the right place. The men took it in turns to hack and scratch and carve and cut the wood, while Mrs Fairley produced a kitchen steel from a travelling chest and periodically sharpened the three blades that were slowly, so very slowly, digging through the plank.
They made two cuts, a foot apart, and it took till well past midnight to cut through the board and lift the section out. They worked in the dark, but once the hole was made Fairley lit a lantern that he shielded with one of his wife’s cloaks and the three men peered into the darkness below. At first Sharpe could see nothing. He could hear the grating of the tiller rope, but he could not see it, and then, when Fairley dropped the lantern into the hole, he saw the great hemp rope just a foot or so away. Every few seconds the taut rope would move an inch or more and the creaking sound would echo through the stern.
The rope was fastened to the tiller which was the bar that turned the Calliope’s great rudder. From the tiller the rope went to both sides of the ship where it ran through pulleys before returning to the centre of the ship where two more pulleys led the rope up to the ship’s wheel which was really two wheels, one in front of the other, so that as many men as possible could heave on the spokes when the ship was in heavy seas and high winds. The twin wheels were connected by a hefty wooden drum round which the tiller rope was tightly wound so that a turn of the wheel pulled on the rope and transferred the motion to the tiller bar. Cut that rope and the Calliope would be rudderless for a while.
‘But when to cut it, eh?’ Fairley asked.
‘Wait for daylight,’ Dalton suggested.
‘It’ll take some cutting,’ Sharpe said, for the rope was near three inches thick. It ran in a space between the main and lower decks and Fairley put the canvas carpet back into place, not only to disguise the hole, but to keep the rats from coming up into his cabin.
‘How long will it take to replace that rope?’ the merchant asked Tufnell.
‘A good crew could do it in an hour.’
‘They’ll have some good seamen,’ the merchant said, ‘so we’d best not waste their efforts now. We’ll see what morning brings.’
That night brought no Lady Grace. Perhaps, Sharpe thought, she had already looked into Pohlmann’s cabin and found Sharpe absent. Or perhaps Lord William was awake and watchful, wondering if a rescue was closing on the night-shrouded Calliope, so Sharpe wrapped himself in a blanket and slept until a fist knocked on his door to announce the breakfast burgoo. ‘There’s a ship on the starboard bow, sir,’ the seaman who had brought the cauldron said softly. ‘You can’t see it from here, but she’s there all right. One of ours, too.’
‘Navy?’
‘We reckons she is, sir. So it’s a race to Mauritius now.’
‘How close is she?’
‘Seven, eight miles? Fair ways, sir, and she has to tack to cut us off so it’ll be precious close, sir.’ He lowered his voice even more. ‘The Froggies have taken down their ensign, so we’re flying our old colours, but that won’t help ’em if it’s a