I am left in peace to practise my trade, perhaps.’
‘What about my cash?’ Lord William demanded. He had joined his wife on deck.
‘The French,’ Cromwell decreed, ‘do not make war on private individuals. The ship and its cargo might be lost, but they will respect private property. If I have time, my lord, I will unlock my cabin. But for now, gentlemen, perhaps you will all let me sail this ship without yapping at me?’
Sharpe glanced at Lady Grace, but she ignored him and he looked back at the French warship. Fairley thumped the rail in his frustration. ‘That bloody Frenchman will make a tidy profit,’ the merchant said bitterly. ‘This hull and cargo must be worth sixty thousand pound. Sixty thousand! Maybe more.’
Twenty for the French, Sharpe thought, twenty for Pohlmann and twenty for Cromwell, a captain who fervently believed the war was lost and that the French would win. A captain who had declared that a man must make his fortune before the French took over the world. And twenty thousand pounds was a real fortune, a sum on which a man could live for ever. ‘They’ve still got to catch us,’ Sharpe tried to reassure Fairley, ‘and they’ll have to get the ship and its cargo back to France. That won’t be easy.’
Fairley shook his head. ‘Doesn’t work like that, Mister Sharpe. They’ll take us to Mauritius and sell the cargo there. There are plenty of neutrals ready to buy this cargo. And like as not they’ll sell the ship too. Next thing you know she’ll be called the George Washington and be sailing out of Boston.’ He spat across the rail. The tiller ropes creaked as Cromwell demanded yet another correction.
‘What about us?’ Sharpe asked.
‘They’ll send us home,’ Fairley said, ‘eventually. Don’t know about you or the major, seeing as you’re in uniform. They might put you in prison.’
‘They’ll parole us, Sharpe,’ Dalton reassured the younger man, ‘and we’ll live at liberty in Port Louis. I hear it’s a pleasant kind of place. And a good-looking young fellow like you will find a surfeit of bored young ladies.’
The Revenant, for it could be no other ship, fired again. Sharpe saw a monstrous billow of white smoke appear high on her bows and a few seconds later the sound of the cannon came rumbling across the water. A fountain of white spray showed a half-mile short of the Calliope.
‘Closer,’ Dalton grunted.
‘We should fire back,’ Fairley growled.
‘She’s too big for us,’ Dalton said sadly.
The two ships were on converging courses and the Calliope was still ahead, but Cromwell’s frequent course corrections were slowing her. ‘A few shots into her rigging might slow her down,’ Fairley suggested.
‘We’ll soon be showing her our stern,’ Dalton said. ‘No guns will bear.’
‘Then move a gun,’ Fairley said angrily. ‘Good God, there must be something we can do!’
The Revenant fired again and this time the ball bounced across the waves like a stone skipping across a pond and finally sank a quarter-mile short of the Calliope. ‘The gun’s getting warmer,’ Dalton said. ‘Another minute or two and she’ll be thumping us.’
Lady Grace abruptly walked across the deck to stand between Dalton and Sharpe. ‘Major’ – she spoke very loudly, so that her husband would know she talked to the respectable Dalton and not to Sharpe – ‘you think he will catch us?’
‘I pray not, ma’am,’ Dalton said, removing his cocked hat. ‘I pray not.’
‘We won’t fight?’ she asked.
‘We cannot,’ Dalton said.
She was wearing wide skirts that, because of her closeness to Sharpe, crushed up against his trousers and he felt her fingers tap his leg. He surreptitiously dropped his hand and she clutched it fiercely, unseen by anyone. ‘But the French will treat us well?’ she asked Dalton.
‘I am sure they will, my lady,’ the major said, ‘and there are a score of gentlemen aboard this ship ready to protect you.’
Grace dropped her voice to scarce above a whisper and, at the same time, gripped Sharpe’s fingers so hard that it hurt. ‘Look after me, Richard,’ she murmured, then turned and walked back to her husband.
Major Dalton followed her, evidently eager to add more reassurance, and Ebenezer Fairley offered Sharpe a crooked grin. ‘So that’s how it is, eh?’
‘What is?’ Sharpe asked, not looking at the merchant.
‘My family always had good ears. Good ears and good eyes. You and her, eh?’
‘Mister Fairley …’ Sharpe began to protest.
‘Don’t be daft, lad. I’m not going to say a word. But you’re a sly one, aren’t you? And so’s she. Good for you, lad, and good for her too. So she ain’t as bad as I thought, eh?’ He frowned suddenly as Cromwell demanded another tweak of the wheel. ‘Cromwell!’ Fairley turned angrily on the captain. ‘Stop fiddling with the rudder, man!’
‘I’ll thank you to go below, Mister Fairley,’ Cromwell said calmly. ‘This is my quarterdeck.’
‘A fair piece of the cargo is mine!’
‘If you do not go below, Fairley, I shall have the bosun escort you.’
‘Damn your insolence,’ Fairley growled, but obediently left the deck.
The Revenant fired again and this time the round shot sank within a few yards of the Calliope’s counter and close enough to spray the gilded stern with water. Cromwell had seen the fountain of water show above his taffrail and its proximity made up his mind. ‘Haul down the colours, Mister Tufnell.’
‘But, sir …’
‘Haul down the colours!’ Cromwell bellowed angrily at Tufnell. ‘Point her upwind,’ he added to the helmsman. The ensign came flapping down from the mizzen gaff and, at the same time, the Calliope turned her bows right round into the wind so that all the great sails hammered against the masts and rigging like demented wings. ‘Furl sails!’ Cromwell shouted. ‘Lively now!’
The wheel turned to and fro by itself, responding to the surges of water that beat against the rudder. Cromwell glowered at his passengers on the quarterdeck. ‘I apologize,’ he snarled, sounding anything other than apologetic.
‘My cash,’ Lord William demanded.
‘Is safe!’ Cromwell snapped. ‘And I have work to do before the Frenchies arrive.’ He stalked off the deck.
It took a few minutes for the Revenant to catch up with the Calliope, but then the French warship hove to off the starboard quarter and lowered a boat. The rail of the French ship was thick with men who stared at their rich prize. All French seamen dreamed of a fat Indiaman loaded with valuables, but Sharpe doubted that any Frenchman had ever gained a prize as easily as this. This ship had been given to the French. He could not prove it, but he was certain of it, and he turned to stare at Pohlmann who, catching his eye, offered a rueful shrug.
