“If he’s alive,” Sharpe said dourly.
“Which he probably ain’t,” Chase agreed, “in which case you think there may be a list of names that can be retrieved?”
“I hope so.”
“And whether there is or isn’t,” Chase said, “you’d still like this fellow Lavisser killed?”
“Yes, sir.”
Chase listened to the gulls screaming overhead. “The trouble, Richard,” he said after a while, “is that none of this is official. Lord Pumphrey took very great care, did he not, to make sure nothing was written down? No signed orders. That way he can’t take the blame if anything goes wrong. It’s dirty work, Richard, dirty work.”
“If the French have got the list of names off Skovgaard, sir, then they’ve got to be stopped.”
Chase appeared not to hear Sharpe. “And what authority does Pumphrey have to issue such orders anyway? He’s not a military man. Anything but, in fact.”
Sharpe had said nothing of Pumphrey’s veiled threat about a murder in Wapping, nor did he think Chase would want to hear of it. “If it wasn’t for Pumphrey, sir,” he said instead, “you wouldn’t be here.”
“I wouldn’t?” Chase sounded dubious.
“It was the newspaper, sir, that told us the Danes’ plan to burn this fleet. I took it to Lord Pumphrey and he arranged the rest.”
“He’s a busy little fellow, isn’t he?” Chase gazed fixedly out of the stern window, though the only thing visible there were the bows of another warship. He thought Sharpe’s argument was weak and suspected there was something unsaid, but he did recognize the importance of safeguarding Skovgaard’s correspondents. He sighed. “I do dislike dirty work,” he said mildly, “and especially when it comes from the Foreign Office. They expect the navy to clean the world for them.”
“I have to do it, sir,” Sharpe said, “with or without your help.”
“Have to?” Chase asked. “Truly?”
Sharpe paused. If he was to stay in Denmark, then what did it matter if he was suspected of a murder in far-off London? But if Skovgaard was dead, would he stay? Or would Astrid return to Britain? It was all too complicated. What was simple was that Skovgaard’s names needed to be salvaged and Lavisser needed to be buried. That was simple enough to understand. “Yes, sir,” he said, “I have to.”
Midshipman Collier knocked on the cabin door, then entered without waiting to be bidden. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but it looks like there’s a pumping party beating the bounds.”
“Then we’d best be moving,” Chase said.
“Pumping party?” Sharpe asked.
“Ships leak, Richard!” Chase said cheerfully, getting to his feet. “Can’t just leave `em floating here. They’ll all end up in the mud. So they’re sending fellows to pump all the bilges. It won’t take them long, but we should still hide.”
“Won’t they find your cut fuses?”
“They’ll notice nothing. We took care. Thank you, Mister Collier. Everyone back to the rat hole!” Chase scooped up the charts and smiled at Sharpe. “Will Hopper and Clouter be enough for you?”
Sharpe hardly believed his ears for a second. “Hopper and Clouter, sir?”
“I’m not sure I approve, Richard, but I do trust your judgment. And those two are my best fellows so they should keep you out of harm’s way. But do bring them back alive, I beg you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“There’s nothing else you need?”
“Quick fuse, sir.”
“Plenty of that!” Chase said brightly.
It was past eight in the morning when Sharpe left. The pumping party was working its way down the row of bigger ships, but none of the Danes noticed the three men drop through the Christian VII’s hawsehole onto the quay. All three were armed. Hopper had another seven-barreled gun, two pistols and a cutlass, while Clouter had a boarding axe and two pistols. They crossed the bridge and no one remarked on them. Just a fortnight before, an armed man received curious glances in Copenhagen, but now a British rifleman and two British seamen could carry enough ordnance to fillet a company and be ignored. Nor was the sight of two pigtailed men, one with a face covered in tattoos and the other black, unusual, for Copenhagen was well used to sailors. It was simply thought they were going to the walls where the remaining Danish guns had opened fire on the British batteries. A few folk wished Sharpe and his companions good morning and received grunts in reply.