that Sharpe should go back, and when the cloaked beggar did not obey he aimed a kick at him. Sharpe grabbed the man’s foot and kept it swinging upwards so that the bodyguard fell on his back and his head struck the bottom step with a sickening thump that went unnoticed in the noisy celebration of the British defeat. Panjit was shouting for quiet, holding his hands aloft. Nana Rao was laughing, his shoulders heaving with merriment, while Sharpe was in the shadow of the bushes at the side of the steps.
The victorious bodyguards pushed the petitioners and beggars away from the bruised and bloodied sailors who, disarmed, could only watch as their dishevelled captain was ignominiously hustled to the bottom of the steps. Panjit shook his head in mock sadness. ‘What am I to do with you, Captain?’
Chase shook his hands free. His fair hair was darkened by blood that trickled down his cheek, but he was still defiant. ‘I suggest,’ he said, ‘that you give me Nana Rao and pray to whatever god you trust that I do not bring you before the magistrates.’
Panjit looked pained. ‘It is you, Captain, who will be in court,’ he said, ‘and how will that look? Captain Chase of His Britannic Majesty’s navy, convicted of forcing his way into a private house and there brawling like a drunkard? I think, Captain Chase, that you and I had better discuss what terms we can agree to avoid that fate.’ Panjit waited, but Chase said nothing. He was beaten. Panjit frowned at the bodyguard who had the captain’s hat and ordered the man to give it back, then smiled. ‘I do not want a scandal any more than you, Captain, but I shall survive any scandal that this sad affair starts, and you will not, so I think you had better make me an offer.’
A loud click interrupted Panjit. It was not a single click, but more like a loud metallic scratching that ended in the solid sound of a pistol being cocked, and Panjit turned to see that a red-coated British officer with black hair and a scarred face was standing beside his cousin, holding a blackened pistol muzzle at Nana Rao’s temple.
The bodyguards glanced at Panjit, saw his uncertainty, and some of them hefted their staves and moved towards the steps, but Sharpe gripped Nana Rao’s hair with his left hand and kicked him in the back of the knees so that the merchant dropped hard down with a cry of hurt surprise. The sudden brutality and Sharpe’s evident readiness to pull the trigger checked the bodyguards. ‘I think you’d better make me an offer,’ Sharpe said to Panjit, ‘because this dead cousin of yours owes me fourteen pounds, seven shillings and threepence ha’penny.’
‘Put the pistol away,’ Panjit said, waving his bodyguards back. He was nervous. Dealing with a courteous naval captain who was an obvious gentleman was one thing, but the red-coated ensign looked wild, and the pistol’s muzzle was grinding into Nana Rao’s skull so that the merchant whimpered with pain. ‘Just put the pistol away,’ Panjit said soothingly.
‘You think I’m daft?’ Sharpe sneered. ‘Besides, the magistrates can’t do anything to me if I shoot your cousin. He’s already dead! You said so yourself. He’s nothing but ashes in the river.’ He twisted Nana Rao’s hair, making the kneeling man gasp. ‘Fourteen pounds,’ Sharpe said, ‘seven shillings and threepence ha’penny.’
‘I’ll pay it!’ Nana Rao gasped.
‘And Captain Chase wants his money too,’ Sharpe said.
‘Two hundred and sixteen guineas,’ Chase said, brushing off his hat, ‘though I think we deserve a little more for having worked the miracle of bringing Nana Rao back to life!’
Panjit was no fool. He looked at Chase’s seamen who were picking up their capstan bars and readying themselves to continue the fight. ‘No magistrates?’ he asked Sharpe.
‘I hate magistrates,’ Sharpe said.
Panjit’s face betrayed a flicker of a smile. ‘If you were to let go of my cousin’s hair,’ he suggested, ‘then I think we can all talk business.’
Sharpe let go of Nana Rao, lowered the flint of the pistol and stepped back. He stood momentarily to attention. ‘Ensign Sharpe, sir,’ he introduced himself to Chase.
‘You are no ensign, Sharpe, but a ministering angel.’ Chase climbed the steps with an outstretched hand. Despite the blood on his face he was a good-looking man with a confidence and friendliness that seemed to come from a contented and good-natured character. ‘You are the deus ex machina, Ensign, as welcome as a whore on a gundeck or a breeze in the horse latitudes.’ He spoke lightly, but there was no doubting the fervency of his thanks and, instead of shaking Sharpe’s hand, he embraced him. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, then stepped back. ‘Hopper!’
‘Sir?’ The huge bosun with the tattooed arms who had been laying enemies left and right before he was overwhelmed stepped forward.
‘Clear the decks, Hopper. Our enemies wish to discuss surrender terms.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘And this is Ensign Sharpe, Hopper, and he is to be treated as a most honoured friend.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Hopper said, grinning.
‘Hopper commands my barge crew,’ Chase explained to Sharpe, ‘and those battered gentlemen are his oarsmen. This night may not go down as one of our greater victories, gentlemen’ – Chase was now addressing his bruised and bleeding men – ‘but a victory it still is, and I thank you.’
The yard was cleared, chairs were fetched from the house, and terms discussed.
It had been a guinea, Sharpe thought, exceedingly well spent.
‘I rather liked the fellows,’ Chase said.
‘Panjit and Nana Rao? They’re rogues,’ Sharpe said. ‘I liked them too.’
‘Took their defeat like gentlemen!’
‘They got off light, sir,’ Sharpe said. ‘Must have made a fortune on that fire.’
‘Oldest trick in the bag,’ Captain Chase said. ‘There used to be a fellow on the Isle of Dogs who claimed thieves had cleaned out his chandlery on the night before some foreign ship sailed, and the victims always fell for it.’ Chase chuckled and Sharpe said nothing. He had known the man Chase spoke of, and had even helped him clear the warehouse one night, but he thought it best to be silent. ‘But you and I are all right, Sharpe, other than a scratch and a bruise,’ Chase went on, ‘and that’s all that matters, eh?’
‘We’re all right, sir,’ Sharpe agreed. The two men, followed by Chase’s barge crew, were walking back through the pungent alleys of Bombay and both were carrying money. Chase had originally contracted with Rao to supply his ship with rum, brandy, wine and tobacco, and now, instead of the two hundred and sixteen guineas he had paid the merchant, he was carrying three hundred, while Sharpe had two hundred rupees, so all in all, Sharpe reckoned, it had been a good evening’s work, especially as Panjit had promised to supply Sharpe with the bed, blankets, bucket, lantern, chest, arrack, tobacco, soap and filter machine, all to be delivered to the Calliope at dawn and at no cost to Sharpe. The two Indians had been eager to placate the Englishmen once they realized that Chase and Sharpe had no intention of telling the rest of the fleeced victims that Nana Rao still lived, and so the merchants had fed their unwanted guests, plied them with arrack, paid the money, sworn eternal friendship and bid them good night. Now Chase and Sharpe groped their way through the dark city.
‘God, this place stinks!’ Chase said.
‘You’ve not been here
