the poop deck in the dark?
And then, Sharpe wondered, what? A library with a fireplace? Grace happy with books, and he with what? And, as he asked himself those questions, he would sheer away from their answers, for they involved a murder that Sharpe feared. A man could kill a secretary and pass it off as a fall from a ladder, but a peer of England was not so easily destroyed. Nor had Sharpe any right to kill Lord William. He probably would, he thought, if the chance came, but he knew it would be wrong and he dimly apprehended that such a wrong would leave a scar on his future. He often surprised himself by realizing he had a conscience. Sharpe knew plenty of men, dozens, who would kill for the price of a pot of ale, yet he was not among them. There had to be a reason, and selfishness was not enough. Even love was not enough.
Provoke Lord William to a duel? He thought about that, but he suspected Lord William would never stoop to fight a mere ensign. Lord William’s weapons were more subtle; memoranda to the Horse Guards, letters to senior officers, quiet words in the right ears and at their end Sharpe would be nothing. So forget it, Sharpe told himself, let the dream go, and he tried to lose himself in the work of the ship. He and Llewellyn were holding a competition among the marines to see who could fire the most musket shots in three minutes and the men were improving, though none could yet match Sharpe. He practised them, encouraged them, swore at them, and morning after morning they filled the ship’s forecastle deck with powder smoke until Sharpe reckoned the marines were as good as any redcoat company. He practised with the cutlass, fighting Llewellyn up and down the weather deck, slashing and hacking, parrying and slicing until the sweat ran down his face and chest. Some of the marines practised with boarding pikes which were eight-foot ash staffs tipped with slender steel spikes that Llewellyn claimed were marvellously effective for clearing narrow passageways on enemy ships. The Welshman also encouraged the use of boarding axes which had vicious blades on short handles. ‘They’re clumsy,’ Llewellyn admitted, ‘but, by God, they put the fear of Christ into the Froggies. A man don’t fight long with one of those buried in his skull, Sharpe, I can tell you. It cools his ardour, it does.’
They crossed the equator and, because everyone aboard had crossed it before, there was no need to put them through the ordeal of being dressed in women’s clothes, shaved with a cutlass and dipped in sea water. Nevertheless one of the seamen dressed himself as Neptune and went round the ship with a makeshift trident and demanded tribute from men and officers alike. Chase ordered a double rum ration, hung out a larger studdingsail that the sailmaker had stitched, and watched the Revenant on the northwestern horizon.
Then the calms came. For a week the two ships made scarce forty miles, but just lay on a glassy sea in which their reflections were almost mirror perfect. The sails hung and the powder smoke belched by gun practice made a cloud about each ship that did not shift so that, from a distance, the Revenant looked like a patch of fog rigged with masts and sails. Lieutenant Haskell tried to time the Frenchman’s volleys by watching the cloud twitch in his telescope. ‘Only one shot every three minutes and twenty seconds,’ he finally concluded.
‘They’re not trying their hardest,’ Chase said. ‘Montmorin’s not going to let me know how well his men are trained. You may be assured they’re a good deal faster than that.’
‘How fast are we?’ Sharpe asked Llewellyn.
The Welshman shrugged. ‘On a good, day, Sharpe? Three broadsides in five minutes. Not that we ever fire a broadside proper. Fire all the guns together, Sharpe, and the bloody ship would fall to bits! But we fire in a ripple, see? One gun after the other. Pretty to watch, it is, and after that the guns fire as they’re loaded. The faster crews will easily do three shots in five minutes, but the bigger guns are slower. But our lads are good. There aren’t many Frenchmen who can do three shots in five minutes.’
Some days Chase tried to tow the ship closer to the Revenant, but the Frenchman was also using his boats to tow and so the foes kept their stations. One day a freak breeze carried the Revenant almost beyond the horizon, leaving the Pucelle stranded, but next day it was the British ship’s turn to be wafted northwards while the Revenant lay becalmed. The Pucelle ghosted along, drawing nearer and nearer to the enemy, the ripples of her passage scarcely disturbing the glasslike sea, and foot by foot, yard by yard, cable by cable, she gained on the Revenant despite the best efforts of the French oarsmen who were out ahead in their ship’s longboats. Still the Pucelle closed the gap until at last Captain Chase had the tompion pulled from the barrel of his forward larboard twenty-four-pounder. The gun was already loaded, for all the guns were left charged, and the gunner took off the lead touch-hole cover and screwed a flintlock into place. The captain had gone to the forward end of the weather deck, where the Pucelle’s goats were penned, and crouched beside the open gunport. ‘We’ll load with chain after the first shot,’ he decided.
Chain shot looked at first glance like ordinary round shot, but the ball was split into two halves and when it left the gun the halves separated. They were joined by a short length of chain and the two hemispheres whirled through the air, the chain between them, to slice and tear at the enemy’s rigging. ‘Long range for chain shot,’ the gunner told Chase.
‘We’ll get closer,’ Chase said. He was hoping to disable the Revenant’s sails, then close and finish her with solid shot. ‘We’ll get closer,’ he said again, stooping to the gun and staring at the enemy that was now almost within range. The gilding on her stern reflected the sunlight, the tricolour hung limp from the mizzen gaff and her rail was crowded with men who must have been wondering why the wind was fickle enough to favour the British. Sharpe was staring through a telescope, hoping for a glimpse of Peculiar Cromwell’s long hair and blue coat, or of Pohlmann and his servant, but he could not make out the individuals who stood watching the Pucelle glide closer. He could see the ship’s name on her stern, see the water being pumped from her bilges and the copper, now pale green, at her water line.
Then the longboats towing the Revenant were suddenly called back. Chase grunted. ‘They probably plan to tow her head round,’ he suggested, ‘to show us her broadside. Drummer!’
A marine boy stepped forward. ‘Sir?’
‘Beat to quarters,’ Chase said, then held up a hand. ‘No, belay that! Belay!’
The wind was not so fickle after all, and the Revenant’s boats had not been recalled to turn the ship, but rather because Montmorin had seen the flickering cat’s-paws of wind ruffling the water at his stern. Now her sails lifted, stretched and tightened and the Frenchman was suddenly sliding ahead, just out of cannon range. ‘Damn,’ Chase said mildly, ‘damn and blast his French luck.’ The flintlock was dismounted, the tompion hammered into the muzzle, the gunport closed and the twenty-four-pounder secured.
Next day the Revenant pulled ahead again, the beneficiary of an unfair breeze, and by the end of the week of calms the two ships were again almost an horizon apart, though now the French ship was directly ahead of the Pucelle. ‘Far enough,’ Chase said bitterly, ‘to see her safe into harbour.’
The next few days saw contrary currents and hard winds from the northeast so that both ships beat up as close as they could. Chase called it sailing on a bowline and the Pucelle proved the better sailor and slowly, so slowly, she began to make up the lost ground. The ship smacked hard into the waves, shattering the seas across the decks and sails. Rain squalls sometimes blotted the Revenant from the Pucelle’s view, but she always reappeared and, through his telescope, Sharpe could see her pitching like the Pucelle. Once, gazing at the black and yellow warship, he saw strips of canvas flutter at her bow and she seemed to slew towards him for a few seconds, but in another few heartbeats the Frenchman had hoisted a new sail to replace the one that had blown out. ‘Worn canvas,’ the first lieutenant commented. ‘Reckon that’s why we’re faster on the wind. His foresails are threadbare.’
‘Or his stays aren’t tight enough,’ Chase muttered, watching as the Revenant resumed her previous course. ‘But he made that sail change quickly,’ he acknowledged ruefully.
‘He probably had the new sail bent on ready, sir,’ Haskell suggested.
‘Like