of the hold that shielded a small space in the stern that was known as the lady hole because it provided the safest place on board during a battle. There was nothing valuable kept on the shelves, merely the officers’ unwanted dunnage, but Lord William had brought so much luggage to the Pucelle that some of it had to be stored here, and Sharpe, crouching in the shadow of some casks of pungent salt beef, watched the secretary climb a short ladder to find a leather case which he hauled from the top shelf and carried awkwardly back to the deck. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the case which proved to be crammed with papers. Nothing there, Sharpe thought, for any light-fingered seamen to filch, though he did not doubt that some of them would already have picked the case’s lock in hope of better spoils. Braithwaite leafed through the papers, found what he wanted, relocked the case and carried it back up the ladder where he clumsily pushed it past the wooden bar that kept the shelf’s contents from spilling in a high sea. The secretary was muttering to himself and snatches of his words carried to Sharpe. ‘I’m an Oxford man, not a slave! It could have waited till we reached England. Get in there, damn you!’
The case was finally stowed away, Braithwaite came down the ladder, pocketed the sheet of paper, collected his lantern and started back towards the larger ladder that lay alongside the mizzenmast and led to the closed hatch. He did not see Sharpe. He thought he was alone in the hold until a hand suddenly grasped his collar. ‘Hello, Oxford man,’ Sharpe said.
‘Jesus!’ Braithwaite swore and shuddered. Sharpe took the lantern from the secretary’s nerveless hand and placed it on top of a cask, then spun Braithwaite round and pushed him hard so that he fell onto the deck.
‘I had an interesting conversation with her ladyship the other day,’ Sharpe said. ‘It seems you’re blackmailing her.’
‘You’re being ridiculous, Sharpe, ridiculous.’ Braithwaite thrust himself backwards until he could go no further, then sat with his back against the water casks where he brushed at the dirt on his trousers and coat.
‘Do they teach blackmail at Oxford?’ Sharpe asked. ‘I thought they only taught you useless things like Latin and Greek, but I’m wrong, am I? They give lectures in blackmail and housebreaking, maybe? Pocket-slitting on the side, perhaps?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You know what I’m talking about, Braithwaite.’ Sharpe said. He picked up the lantern and walked slowly towards the terrified secretary. ‘You’re blackmailing Lady Grace. You want her jewels, don’t you, and maybe more? You’d like her in your bed, wouldn’t you? You’d like to go where I’ve been, Braithwaite.’
Braithwaite’s eyes widened. He was scared, but he was not so witless as to miss the significance of Sharpe’s words. Sharpe had admitted the adultery, and that meant Braithwaite was about to die, for Sharpe could not afford to let him live and tell the tale. ‘I just came to fetch a memorandum, Sharpe,’ the secretary babbled in apparent panic, ‘that’s all. I came to fetch this paper. Just a memorandum, Sharpe, for Lord William’s report. Let me show you,’ and he put a hand in his pocket to fetch the paper and brought out, not a memorandum, but a small pistol. It was the kind of gun designed to be carried in a purse or pocket for use against cutthroats or highwaymen and Braithwaite, his hand shaking, dragged back the flint. ‘I’ve carried this ever since you threatened me, Sharpe.’ His voice was suddenly more confident as he levelled the pistol.
Sharpe dropped the lantern.
It 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