“I doubt he’ll want to.”
“I find most men prefer living to dying,” Lord Pumphrey said, then stepped back to look at his painting. He shook his head in disappointment, tossed the brush down, emptied the water tumbler and closed the box of paints, evidently abandoning his efforts. “It will be sad to lose Skovgaard’s services, but doubtless another man can be found to receive messages. Do you think that’s your launch? Then might I wish you joy of the hunt in Copenhagen?” Pumphrey offered Sharpe a hand.
“Is there a reward for a successful hunt, my lord?” Sharpe asked.
“The gold is not enough?” Pumphrey inquired. “Then perhaps your reward will be the joy of catching your prey.”
“I’m tired of being a quartermaster, my lord.”
“Ah! You look for advancement!” Pumphrey smiled. “Let me see what I can offer you, Sharpe, though you may not like it.”
“Like it?” Sharpe asked, puzzled.
“After you left Harwich, Sharpe,” Lord Pumphrey said with evident enjoyment, “and before we ourselves embarked on a most uncomfortable vessel, a strange report came from London. A distressing murder in Wapping, of all places. Nothing strange in that, of course, except that a dozen witnesses swear that the criminal was an army officer. What do you make of that, Sharpe?” He waited for an answer, but Sharpe said nothing. Pumphrey shrugged. “Look after my trivial errand, Sharpe, and I shall make certain you remain an army officer, even a despised quartermaster. As for staying a quartermaster, well, I’m sure that in the proper time your own merits will elevate you far above that station and I anticipate observing your career with pride, knowing that I preserved it at a time of crisis. And, I promise you, I shall do my trivial best to advance your interests.” He looked up at the sky. “It clouds over very nicely. Forgive me if I don’t wave you farewell. I shall catch my death of cold if I stay here.”
“My lord-” Sharpe began.
Pumphrey silenced him by holding up a hand. Then he folded his easel and picked up the paint box. “The man in Wapping was decapitated, they say, quite decapitated! Do give my regards to John Lavisser, won’t you?” He walked away.
Bastard, Sharpe thought, bastard. He liked him, though. Then he turned and walked to the boat. Midshipman Collier was in charge. He had grown since Trafalgar, and was now a young man who smiled with genuine pleasure to see Sharpe. “We knew we was in for some dirty work when we heard you were coming. You remember Hopper?”
“Hopper is unforgettable,” Sharpe said, grinning at the bosun of the crew who tugged his forelock. “And Clouter!” Sharpe spotted the huge black man whose right hand was now a mangled claw of two fingers, a legacy of Trafalgar. “How are you, Clouter?”
“Right as rain, sir.”
“Shall we go?” Collier asked. Sharpe was watching Lord Pumphrey pick his fastidious way across the dunes. Be sure your sin will find you out, Sharpe thought.
So now he must go back into the city and commit murder.
And find the gold. And look for Astrid. And that last task seemed the most important.
CHAPTER 9
The launch, instead of taking Sharpe to the Pucelle, carried him only as far as the Vesuvius, a bomb ship anchored much closer to the harbor mouth. Captain Chase was waiting aboard to the evident apprehension of the Vesuvius’s commander, a mere lieutenant, who was in awe of having a genuine post captain aboard his vessel. Sharpe and Collier, being officers, were formally whistled aboard at the bomb ship’s waist while the launch’s crew scrambled over the bows. “I thought we’d spend the day here,” Chase explained. “I’m sending my crew into the city with you, Sharpe, and it’s much less far to pull from here than from the Pucelle. I brought dinner with me.”
“And weapons, sir?”
“Hopper has your arsenal.”
Sharpe still had the rifle he had borrowed at Koge, but he had asked Chase for more weapons and Hopper had brought them from the Pucelle. There was a heavy cutlass, two pistols and one of the massive seven-barreled guns that Sharpe had used at Trafalgar. It was a naval weapon of stunning ferocity and limited usefulness. The seven barrels, each of a half-inch diameter, were clustered so they could be fired together, but the gun, which had been designed to fire down from the rigging onto an enemy deck, took an age to reload. Nevertheless, used once and used right, it was devastating. Sharpe hung the squat, heavy gun next to the rifle on his shoulder and strapped the cutlass round his waist. “Good to have a proper clade again. So you’re coming into the city, Hopper?”