hit the deck, there was a shudder of light, then the smash of glass and utter darkness. Sharpe twisted aside, half expecting to hear the pistol crack, but Braithwaite had retained enough nerve to hold his fire.
‘You’ve got one shot, Oxford man,’ Sharpe said. ‘One shot, then it’s my turn.’
Silence, except for the clatter of the pumps and the noise of the masts and the scratching of rats’ feet in the bilge.
‘I’m used to this,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’ve crawled in the darkness before, Braithwaite, and killed men. Cut their gizzards. I did it outside Gawilghur on a dark night. Cut two men’s throats, Braithwaite, slit them back to the spine.’ He was crouching behind a cask so that if Braithwaite did fire then the secretary would merely inflict a wound on a barrel of salt beef. Sharpe kept his body behind the cask and reached out with his left hand, scraping his nails on the plank deck. ‘I slit their gizzards, Oxford man.’
‘We can come to an agreement, Sharpe,’ Braithwaite said nervously. He had not moved since the hold went dark. Sharpe knew that, for he would have heard. He reckoned Braithwaite was waiting until he went close and then he would fire. Just like ship-to-ship fighting. Let the bugger get close, then fire.
‘What kind of agreement, Oxford man?’ Sharpe asked, then scratched the deck again, making little noises that would be magnified by the secretary’s fear. He found a shard of broken lantern glass and scraped it on the wood.
‘You and I should be friends, Sharpe,’ Braithwaite said. ‘You and I? We ain’t like them. My father is a parson. He doesn’t make much. Three hundred a year? That may sound like a competence to you, but it’s nothing, Sharpe, nothing. Yet people like William Hale are born to fortunes. They abuse us, Sharpe, they grind us down. They think we’re dirt.’
Sharpe tapped the glass scrap against the lantern’s metal, then scratched it on wood to make a noise like rats’ claws. He reached as far as he could, tapping the glass closer to Braithwaite. Braithwaite would be listening, trying to make sense of the small noises, trying to contain a rising terror.
‘By what justification,’ Braithwaite asked, his voice a tone higher, ‘can mere birth bestow such good fortune on one man and deny it to another? Are we lesser men because our parents were poor? Must we forever tug the forelock because their ancestors were brutes in plate armour who stole a fortune? You and I should combine, Sharpe. I beg you, think on it.’
Sharpe was lying flat on the deck now, reaching towards Braithwaite, grinding the glass on the rough planking, taking the sound ever nearer to the secretary who tried to see something, anything, in the Stygian darkness.
‘I never wrote to Colonel Wallace as I was ordered to,’ Braithwaite said in desperation. ‘That was a favour to you, Sharpe. Can you not apprehend that we’re on the same side?’ He paused, waiting for an answer to come from the pitch darkness, but there was only the small scraping sound on the deck in front of him. ‘Speak, Sharpe!’ Braithwaite pleaded. ‘Or kill Lord William.’ Braithwaite’s voice was almost sobbing with fear now. ‘Her ladyship will thank you, Sharpe. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sharpe? Answer me, Sharpe, for God’s sake, answer me!’
Sharpe tapped the glass fragment on the deck. He could hear Braithwaite’s hoarse breathing. The secretary lunged out a foot, hoping to find Sharpe, but the shoe struck nothing. ‘I beg you, Sharpe, think of me as a friend! I mean you no harm. How could I? When I so admire your achievements? Her ladyship misconstrued my words, nothing else. She is finely strung, Sharpe, and I am your friend, Sharpe, your friend!’
Sharpe tossed the glass scrap so that it rattled among the casks somewhere in the hold’s starboard side. Braithwaite gave a yelp of terror, but held his fire, then sobbed as he heard more small noises. ‘Talk to me, Sharpe. We are not brutes, you and I. We have things in common, we should talk. Talk to me!’
Sharpe gathered a handful of the broken glass, paused, then threw them towards the secretary who, as the small scraps struck him, screamed and thrust the pistol blindly forward and pulled the trigger. The small gun flashed blindingly in the hold and the bullet smacked harmlessly into a timber. Sharpe stood and walked forward, waited for the echo of the shot to die away. ‘One bullet, Oxford man,’ he said, ‘then it was my turn.’
‘No!’ Braithwaite flailed wildly in the dark, but Sharpe kicked him hard, then dropped on him, pinioned his arms and turned the secretary over so that he lay on his belly.
Sharpe sat on the small of Braithwaite’s back. ‘Now tell me, Oxford man,’ he asked softly, ‘just what you wanted of Lady Grace?’
‘I’ve written it all down, Sharpe.’
‘Written what down, Oxford man?’ Sharpe had Braithwaite’s arms held tight.
‘Everything! About you and Lady Grace. I’ve left the letter among Lord William’s papers with instructions to open it if anything should happen to me.’
‘I don’t believe you, Oxford man.’
Braithwaite gave a sudden heave, trying to release his arms. ‘I’m not a fool, Sharpe. You think I wouldn’t take precautions? Of course I’ve left a letter.’ He paused. ‘Just let me go,’ he went on, ‘and we can discuss this.’
‘So if I let you go,’ Sharpe said, still holding tight to Braithwaite’s arms, ‘you’ll fetch the letter back from Lord William?’
‘Of course I will. I promise.’
‘And you’ll apologize to Lady Grace? Tell her you were wrong about your suspicions?’
‘Of course I’ll do that. Willingly! Gladly!’
‘But you weren’t wrong, Oxford man,’ Sharpe said, stooping close to Braithwaite’s head, ‘her and me are lovers. Sweat and nakedness in the dark, Oxford man. I couldn’t have you telling lies to her, saying it never happened, could I? And now you know my secret I’m not sure I can let you go after all.’
‘But there’s a letter, Sharpe!’
‘You lie like a bloody rug, Braithwaite. There’s no letter.’
‘There is!’ Braithwaite cried in despair.
Sharpe was holding the secretary’s arms above his back, pushing them painfully forward, and now he shoved them hard to dislocate both at the shoulders. Braithwaite gave a whimper of pain, then screamed for help as Sharpe gripped one of his ears and turned his head sideways. Sharpe was trying to find a purchase with his right hand on Braithwaite’s face and Braithwaite attempted to bite him, but Sharpe smacked his face, then gripped a handful of hair and ear and twisted the head hard. ‘God knows how they did it,’ Sharpe said, ‘those bloody jettis, but I watched them, so it must be possible.’ He wrenched Braithwaite’s head again and the secretary’s frantic protest was stilled as his throat was constricted. His breath became a harsh gasping, but still he fought back, trying to heave Sharpe from his back, and Sharpe, amazed that the jettis had made this look so easy, clamped his hands on Braithwaite’s head and wrenched it with all his strength. The secretary’s breathing became a scratchy whimper, hardly audible over the cacophony of creaking and clanking in the hold, but he still twitched and so Sharpe took a deep breath, then twisted a second time and was rewarded with a small grating scrunch that he reckoned was the spine twisting out of alignment in Braithwaite’s neck.
The secretary was still now. Sharpe put a finger on Braithwaite’s neck, trying and failing
