The major turned to Cromwell. “Mister Sharpe is a very considerable soldier, Captain. Sir Arthur told me that if you find yourself in a bad fight then you can ask for no one better at your side.”
The news that General Wellesley had said any such thing pleased Sharpe, but Captain Cromwell had not been deflected from his argument and was now frowning at the ensign. “You think,” the captain demanded, “that the French can be defeated?”
“We’re at war with them, sir,” Sharpe retorted, “and you don’t go to war unless you mean to win.”
“You go to war,” Lord William said icily, “because small-minded men can see no alternative.”
“And if every war has a winner,” Cromwell said, “it must by ineluctable logic also have a loser. If you want my advice, young man, leave the army before some politician has you killed in an ill-considered attack on France. Or, more likely, the French invade Britain and kill you along with the rest of the redcoats.”
The ladies withdrew a short while later and the men drank a glass of port, but the atmosphere was stiff and Pohlmann, plainly bored, excused himself from the company and gestured that Sharpe should follow him back to the starboard roundhouse cabin where Mathilde was now sprawled on a silk-covered sofa. Facing her on a matching sofa was an elderly man who was talking animatedly in German when Pohlmann entered, but who immediately stood and bowed his head respectfully. Pohlmann seemed surprised to see him and gestured the man to the door. “I won’t need you tonight,” he said in English.
“Very good, my lord,” the man, evidently Pohlmann’s servant, answered in the same language, then, with a glance at Sharpe, left the cabin. Pohlmann peremptorily ordered Mathilde to take some air on the poop, then, when she had gone, he poured two large brandies and gave Sharpe a mischievous grin. “My heart,” he said, clasping a dramatic hand to his breast, “almost flopped over and died when I first saw you.”
“Would it matter if they knew who you were?” Sharpe asked.
Pohlmann grinned. “How much credit will merchants give Sergeant Anthony Pohlmann, eh? But the Baron von Dornberg! Ah! They queue to give the baron credit. They trip over their fat feet to pour guineas into my purse.”
Sharpe looked about the big cabin that was furnished with two sofas, a sideboard, a low table, a harp and an enormous teak bed with ivory inlays on the headboard. “But you must have done well in India,” Sharpe said.
“For a former sergeant, you mean?” Pohlmann laughed. “I do have some loot, my dear Sharpe, but not as much as I would have liked and nowhere near as much as I lost at Assaye, but I cannot complain. If I am careful I shall not need to work again.” He looked at the hem of Sharpe’s red coat where the jewels made small lumps in the threadbare cloth. “I see you did well in India too, eh?”
Sharpe was aware that the fraying, thinning cloth of his coat was increasingly an unsafe place to hide the diamonds, emeralds and rubies, but he did not want to discuss them with Pohlmann so gestured at the harp instead. “You play?”
“Mein Gott, no! Mathilde plays. Very badly, but I tell her it is wonderful.”
“She’s your wife?”
“Am I a numbskull? A blockhead? Would I marry? Ha! No, Sharpe, she was whore to a rajah and when he tired of her I took her over. She is from Bavaria and wants babies, so she is a double fool, but she will keep my bed warm till I see home and then I shall find something younger. So you killed Dodd?”
“Not me, a friend killed him.”
“He deserved to die. A very horrid man.” Pohlmann shuddered. “And you? You travel alone?”
“Yes.”
“In the rat hole, eh?” He looked at the hem of Sharpe’s coat. “You keep your jewels until you reach England and travel in steerage. But more important, my cautious friend, will you reveal who I am?”
“No,” Sharpe said with a smile. The last time he had seen Pohlmann the Hanoverian had been hiding in a peasant’s hut in the village of Assaye. Sharpe could have arrested him and gained credit for capturing the commander of the beaten army, but he had always liked Pohlmann and so he had looked the other way and let the big man escape. “But I reckon my silence is worth something, though,” Sharpe added.
“You want Mathilde every other Friday?” Pohlmann, assured that his secret was safe with Sharpe, could not hide his relief.
“A few invitations to supper, perhaps?”
Pohlmann was surprised by the modesty of the demand. “You so like Captain Cromwell’s company?”
“No.”
Pohlmann laughed. “Lady Grace,” he said softly. “I saw you, Sharpe, with your tongue lolling like a dog. You like them thin, do you?”
“I like her.”
“Her husband doesn’t,” Pohlmann said. “We hear them through the partition.” He jerked his thumb at the wall which divided the big roundhouse. The bulkhead was made from thin wooden paneling which could be struck down into the hold if only one passenger traveled in the lavish quarters. “The captain’s steward tells me their cabin is twice as big as this one and divided into two. He has one part and she the other. They are like, what do you say? Dog and cat?”
“Cat and dog,” Sharpe said.
“He barks and she hisses. Still, I wish you joy. The gods alone know what they must make of us. They probably think we are bull and cow. Shall we join Mathilde on deck?” Pohlmann took two cigars from the sideboard. “The captain says we should not smoke on board. We must chew tobacco instead, but he can roger himself.” He lit the cigars, handed one to Sharpe and then led him out onto the quarterdeck and up the stairs to the poop deck. Mathilde was standing at the rail, staring down at a seaman who was lighting the lamp in the binnacle, the only light which was allowed on the ship after dark, while Lady Grace was at the taffrail, standing beneath the huge stern lantern that would not be lit on this voyage so long as there was a danger of the Revenant or another French ship seeing the convoy. “Go and talk to her.” Pohlmann leered, digging an elbow into Sharpe’s ribs.
“I’ve got nothing to say to her.”
“So you are not really brave after all,” Pohlmann said. “I dare say you wouldn’t think twice about charging a line of guns like those I had at Assaye, but a beautiful woman makes you shiver, yes?”
Lady Grace stood solitary and slim, wrapped in a cloak. A maid attended her, but the girl stood at the side of the deck as though she was nervous of her ladyship. Sharpe was also nervous. He wanted to talk to her, but he knew he would stumble over his words, so instead he stood beside Pohlmann and stared forrard past the great bulk of the sails to where the rest of the convoy was just visible in the gathering night. Far forrard, on the fo’c’sle, a violin was being played and a group of sailors danced the hornpipe.
“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?”