“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.