‘I’m having a better time than I ever dared expect when I embarked on the Calliope.’
‘Good,’ Chase said, going to the door, ‘good. And time to turn north.’
Sharpe was busy enough. In the morning he paraded with the marines, and then there was practice, endless practice, for Captain Llewellyn feared his men would become stale if they were not busy. They fired their muskets in all weathers, learning how to shield their locks from the rain. They fired from the decks and from the upperworks, and Sharpe fired with them, using one of the Sea Service muskets which was similar to the weapon he had fired when he was a private, but with a slightly shorter barrel and an old-fashioned flat lock which looked crude, but, as Llewellyn explained, was easier to repair at sea. The weapons were susceptible to salt air and the marines spent hours cleaning and oiling the guns, and more hours practising with bayonets and cutlasses. Llewellyn also insisted that Sharpe try his new toys, the seven-barrel guns, and so Sharpe fired one into the sea from the forecastle and thought his shoulder must be broken, so violent was the kick of the seven half-inch barrels. It took over two minutes to reload, but the marine captain would not see that as a disadvantage. ‘Fire one of those down onto a Frog deck, Sharpe, and we’re making some proper misery!’ Most of all, Llewellyn wanted to board the Revenant and could not wait to launch his red-coated men onto the enemy’s deck. ‘Which is why the men have to stay spry, Sharpe,’ he would say, then he would order groups to race from the forecastle to the quarterdeck, back to the forecastle, then up the forward mast by the larboard ratlines and down by the starboard ones. ‘If the Frogs board us,’ he said, ‘we have to be able to get round the ship quickly. Don’t dawdle, Hawkins! Hurry, man, hurry! You’re a marine, not a slug!’
Sharpe equipped himself with a cutlass that suited him far better than the cavalry sabre he had worn ever since the battle of Assaye. The cutlass was straight-bladed, heavy and crude, but it felt like a weapon that could do serious damage. ‘You don’t fence with them,’ Llewellyn advised him, ‘because it ain’t a weapon for the wrist. It’s a full arm blade. Hack the buggers down! Keep your arms strong, Sharpe, eh? Climb the masts every day, do the cutlass drill, keep strong!’
Sharpe did climb the masts. He found it terrifying, for every small motion on deck was magnified as he went higher. At first he did not try to reach the topmost parts of the rigging, but he became adept at clambering up to the maintop, which was a wide platform built where the lower mast was joined to the upper. The sailors reached the maintop by using the futtock shrouds which led to the platform’s outer edge, but Sharpe always wriggled through the small hatchway beside the mast rather than risk the frightening climb up the futtock shrouds where a man must hang upside down from the tarred ropes. Then, a week after they had turned north, on a day when the sea was frustratingly calm and the wind fitful, Sharpe decided to attempt the futtock shrouds and so show that a soldier could do what any midshipman made look simple. He climbed the lower ratlines which were easy for they leaned like a ladder against the mast, but then he came to the place where the futtock shrouds went out and backwards above his head. He would have to climb upside down, but he was determined to do it and so he reached back with his hands and hauled himself upwards. Then, halfway to the maintop’s platform, his feet slipped off the ratlines and he hung there, suspended fifty feet above the deck, and he felt his fingers, hooked like claws, slipping on the wet ropes and he dared not swing his legs for fear of falling and so he stayed, paralysed by fear, until a topman, swinging down through the web of rigging with the agility of a monkey, grabbed his waistband and hauled him into the maintop. ‘Lord, sir, you don’t want to be going that a way. That be for matelots, not lobsters. Use the lubber’s hole, sir, that’s what it be for, lubbers.’
Sharpe was still too scared to speak. All he could think of was the sensation of his fingers slipping over the rough tarred rope, but at last he managed to gasp a thank you and promised to reward the man with a pound of tobacco from his stores.
‘Almost lost you there, Sharpe!’ Chase said cheerfully when Sharpe regained the quarterdeck.
‘Terrifying,’ Sharpe said, and looked at his hands that were scored deep with tar.
Lady Grace had also seen his near fall. She had not been near Sharpe now for the best part of a week, and her distance worried him. She had exchanged glances with him once or twice, and those swift looks had seemed to be filled with a mute appeal, but there had been no chance to talk with her and she had not risked coming to his cabin in the heart of the night. Now she was standing on the lee side of the quarterdeck, close to her husband who was speaking with Malachi Braithwaite, and she seemed to hesitate before approaching Sharpe, but then, with a visible effort, she made herself cross the deck. Malachi Braithwaite watched her, while her husband frowned at a sheaf of papers.
‘We make slow progress today, Captain Chase,’ she said stiffly.
‘We have a current, milady, which invisibly helps us, but I do wish the wind would pipe up.’ Chase frowned at the sails. ‘Some folk believe whistling encourages the wind, but it never seems to work.’ He whistled two bars of ‘Nancy Dawson’, but the wind stayed light. ‘See?’
Lady Grace stared at Chase, apparently at a loss for words, and the captain suddenly sensed that she was in some distress. ‘Milady?’ he enquired with a concerned frown.
‘You could perhaps show me on a chart where we are, Captain?’ she blurted out.
Chase hesitated, confused by the sudden request. ‘It will be a pleasure, milady,’ he said. ‘The charts are in my day cabin. Will his lordship …’
‘I shall be quite safe in your cabin, Captain,’ Lady Grace said.
‘The ship’s yours, Mister Peel,’ Chase said to the second lieutenant, then led Lady Grace under the break of the poop to the door on the larboard side which led into the dining cabin. Lord William saw them and frowned, making Chase pause. ‘You wish to see the charts, my lord?’ the captain asked.
‘No, no,’ Lord William said, and returned to the papers.
Braithwaite watched Sharpe, and Sharpe knew he must not arouse the secretary’s suspicions, but he did not believe Lady Grace truly wanted to see the charts and so, ignoring Braithwaite’s hostile gaze, he went to his sleeping cabin which lay beyond the starboard door under the poop deck. He knocked on the farther door, which led from the sleeping cabin into the day cabin, but there was no answer and so he let himself into the big stern cabin. ‘Sharpe!’ Chase showed a small flash of irritation for, friendly as he was, his quarters were sacrosanct and he had not responded to the knock on the door.
‘Captain,’ Lady Grace said, laying a hand on his arm, ‘please.’
Chase, who had been unrolling a chart, looked from her to Sharpe and from Sharpe back to Lady Grace again. He let the chart roll up with a snap. ‘I clean forgot to wind the chronometers this morning,’ he said. ‘Would you forgive me?’ He went past Sharpe into the dining cabin, ostentatiously closing the door with a deliberately loud click.
‘Oh God, Richard.’ Lady Grace ran to him and hugged him. ‘Oh, God!’
‘What’s the matter?’
For a few seconds she did not speak, but then realized she had little time if tongues were not to wag about herself and the captain. ‘It’s my husband’s secretary,’ she said.
‘I know all about him.’
‘You do?’ She stared at him wide-eyed.
‘He’s blackmailing you?’ Sharpe guessed.
She nodded. ‘And he watches