‘I have a handsome man on either of my sides now!’ Mathilde exclaimed in her eccentric English, earning a look of withering condescension from Lord William. Lady Grace, denied a seat beside her husband, stayed standing until Lord William coldly nodded to the chair beside Pohlmann which meant she would be sitting directly opposite Sharpe. In a superb piece of dumb play she glanced at Sharpe, then raised her eyebrows towards her husband, who shrugged as though there was nothing he could do to alleviate the misfortune of being made to sit opposite a mere ensign, and so the Lady Grace sat. Not eight hours before she had been naked in Sharpe’s hanging bed, but now her disdain of him was cruelly obvious. Fazackerly, the barrister, asked permission to sit beside her and she smiled at him graciously as though she was relieved to have a dinner companion who could be relied on to make civilized conversation.
‘Sixty-nine miles,’ Lieutenant Tufnell said, joining the passengers and announcing the results of the noon sight. ‘We’d hoped to do better, much better, but the wind frets.’
‘My wife,’ Lord William said, shaking out his napkin, ‘claims we would make faster progress if we sailed inside Madagascar. Is she right, Lieutenant?’ His voice suggested that he hoped she was not.
‘She is indeed right, my lord,’ Tufnell said, ‘for there is a prodigious current down the African coast, but the Madagascar Straits are liable to be very stormy. Very stormy. And the captain deemed we might do better outside, which we will if the wind stirs itself.’
‘You see, Grace?’ Lord William looked at his wife. ‘The captain evidently knows his business.’
‘I thought we were in a hurry to be first back to London,’ Sharpe observed to Tufnell.
The first lieutenant shrugged. ‘We anticipated stronger winds. Now, shall I carve? Major, perhaps you will pass the coleslaw? Sharpe? That is a chitney in the covered dish, or should I say chatna? Chutney, perhaps? Baron, you might pour some wine? We’re indebted to Major Dalton for the wine and for this very fine tongue.’
The guests murmured their appreciation of Dalton’s generosity, then watched as Tufnell carved. The first lieutenant passed the plates up the table and, as a stronger wave heaved the ship, one of the plates slipped from Major Dalton’s hand to spill its thick slices of pickled tongue onto the linen cloth. ‘Lapsus linguae,’ Fazackerly said gravely, and was rewarded with instant laughter.
‘Very good!’ Lord William said. ‘Very good!’
‘Your lordship is too kind,’ the barrister acknowledged with an inclination of his head.
Lord William leaned back in his chair. ‘You did not laugh, Mister Sharpe,’ he observed silkily. ‘Perhaps you do not approve of puns?’
‘Puns, my lord?’ Sharpe knew he was being made a fool, but did not see any way out except to let it happen.
‘Lapsus linguae,’ Lord William said, ‘means a slip of the tongue.’
‘I’m glad you told me,’ a strong voice came from the far end of the table, ‘because I didn’t know what it meant either. And it’s not much of a joke even when you do know.’ The speaker was Ebenezer Fairley, the wealthy merchant who was returning with his wife after making his fortune in India.
Lord William looked at the nabob, who was a corpulent man of blunt and straightforward views. ‘I doubt, Fairley,’ Lord William said, ‘that Latin is a desideratum in business, but knowledge of it is an attribute of a gentleman, just as French is the language of diplomacy, and we shall need all the gentlemen and diplomacy that we can muster if this new century is to be a time of peace. The aim of civilization is to subdue barbarity’ – he flicked a scornful glance at Sharpe – ‘and cultivate prosperity and progress.’
‘You think a man cannot be a gentleman unless he speaks Latin?’ Ebenezer Fairley asked indignantly. His wife frowned, perhaps feeling that her husband should not be belligerent with an aristocrat.
‘The arts of civilization,’ Lord William said, ‘are the highest achievements and every gentleman should aim high. And officers’ – he did not look at Sharpe, but everyone around the table knew who he meant – ‘should be gentlemen.’
Ebenezer Fairley shook his head in astonishment. ‘You surely wouldn’t deny the King’s commission to men who can’t speak Latin?’
‘Officers should be educated,’ Lord William insisted, ‘properly educated.’
Sharpe was about to say something utterly tactless when a foot descended on his right shoe and pressed hard. He glanced at Lady Grace who was taking no notice of him, but it was her foot nonetheless. ‘I quite agree with you, my dear,’ Lady Grace said in her coldest voice, ‘uneducated officers are a disgrace to the army.’ Her foot slid up Sharpe’s ankle.
Lord William, unaccustomed to his wife’s approval, looked mildly surprised, but rewarded her with a smile. ‘If the army is to be anything other than a rabble,’ he decreed, ‘it must be led by men of breeding, taste and manners.’
Ebenezer Fairley grimaced in disgust. ‘If Napoleon lands his army in Britain, my lord, you won’t care whether our officers talk in Latin, Greek, English or Hottentot, so long as they know their business.’
Lady Grace’s foot pressed harder on Sharpe’s, warning him to be circumspect.
Lord William sneered. ‘Napoleon will not land in Britain, Fairley. The navy will see to that. No, the Emperor of France’ – he invested the title with a superb scorn – ‘will strut and posture for a year or so yet, but he’ll make a mistake sooner or later and then there’ll be another government in France. How many have we had in the last few years? We’ve had a republic, a directorate, a consulate and now an empire! An empire of what? Of cheese? Of garlic? No, Fairley, Bonaparte won’t last. He’s an adventurer. A cutthroat. He’s safe so long as he wins victories, but no mere cutthroat wins for ever. He’ll be defeated one day, and then we shall have serious men in Paris with whom we can do serious business. Men with whom we can make peace. It’ll come soon enough.’
‘I trust your lordship’s right,’ Fairley said dubiously, ‘but for all we know this fellow Napoleon might have crossed the Channel already!’
‘His navy will never put to sea,’ Lord William insisted. ‘Our navy will see to that.’
‘I have a brother in the navy,’ Tufnell said mildly, ‘and he tells me that if the wind blows too strong from the east then the blockade ships run for shelter and the French are free to leave port.’
‘They haven’t sailed in ten years,’ Lord William observed, ‘so I think we can sleep safe in our beds.’ Lady Grace’s foot slid up and down Sharpe’s calf.
‘But if the Emperor doesn’t invade Britain,’ Pohlmann asked, ‘who will defeat France?’
‘My money’s on the Prussians. On the Prussians and Austrians.’ Lord William seemed very certain.
‘Not the British?’ Pohlmann asked.
‘We don’t have a dog in the European rat pit,’ Lord William said. ‘We should save our army’ – he glanced at Sharpe – ‘such as it is, to protect our trade.’
‘You think we’d be wasted fighting the French?’ Sharpe asked. Lady Grace’s foot pressed warningly on his.
Lord William contemplated Sharpe for a moment, then shrugged. ‘The French army would destroy ours in a day,’ he said with a sneer. ‘You might have seen some victories over Indian armies, Sharpe, but that is hardly the same as facing the French.’
The foot pressed harder on Sharpe’s instep.
‘I think we would acquit ourselves nobly,’ Major Dalton averred, ‘and the Indian armies were not to be despised, my lord, not to be despised at all.’
‘Fine