SHARPE’S DEVIL. Bernard Cornwell

But at least he was accustomed to hardship, and had no fears about surviving on board the Espiritu Santo. The hard bread, salted meat, dried fish and rancid wine that were the seamen’s rations would have been counted luxuries in Sharpe’s army. The worst part of the life, apart from the damp which permeated every stitch of clothing and bedding, were the Bosun’s mates who, knowing that Sharpe had been a senior army officer, seemed to find a particular pleasure in finding him the dirtiest and most menial jobs on board. Sharpe and Harper mucked out the sheep and pigs that would be slaughtered for fresh meat during the voyage, they scrubbed the poopdeck each morning, they ground the rust off the blades of the boarding pikes that were racked on deck, and each afternoon they collected the latrine buckets from the passenger cabins and scoured them clean. Among the score of passengers aboard the frigate were seven Spanish army officers, two of whom were sailing with their families, and those army officers, knowing Sharpe’s history, stared at him with frank curiosity. It was, Sharpe thought, going to be a long voyage home.

Yet, like most ordeals, it abated swiftly. The humiliated Balin might bear a grudge, but Harper inevitably discovered a score of fellow Irishmen aboard the Espiritu Santo, all of them exiles from British justice, and all of them eager to hear Harper’s news of home, and Sharpe, given temporary and flattering status as an honorary Irishman, felt a good deal safer from the Balin faction. One of the Bosun’s mates was from Donegal and his presence took much of the sting out of Sharpe’s treatment. A week into the voyage and Sharpe was even beginning to enjoy the experience.

The next dawn brought proof that the sea could throw up hardships far worse than anything yet inflicted on Sharpe and Harper. They were scrubbing the poopdeck when the forward lookout hailed the quarterdeck with a cry that a boat was in sight. Ardiles ran on deck and seized the watch officer’s telescope, while the First Lieutenant, Otero, who remembered Sharpe and Harper well from the outward voyage, and who was excruciatingly embarrassed by their change of fortune, climbed to the lookout’s post on the foremast from where he trained his own telescope forward.

“What is she?” Ardiles called.

“A wreck, sir! A dismasted whaler, by the look of her.”

“Goddamn.” Ardiles had been hoping it would prove to be the O’Higgins. “Change course to take a look at her, then call me when we’re closer!” Ardiles muttered the instruction to the officer on watch, then, before taking refuge in his cabin, he glowered at the handful of passengers who had come on deck to see what had caused the sudden alarm.

Among the spectators were two army officers’ wives who were standing at the weather rail to stare at the stricken whaler. Their excited children ran from one side of the deck to the other, playing an involved game of tag. One of the small girls slipped on the wet patch left by Sharpe’s holystone. “Move back! Give the ladies room!” the Bosun ordered Sharpe and Harper. “Just wait forrard! Wait till the passengers have gone below.”

Sharpe and Harper went to the beakhead where, concealed by the forecastle, they could hide from authority and thus stretch their temporary unemployment. They joined a small group of curious men who gazed at the wrecked whaler. She was a small ship, scarcely a third the size of the Espiritu Santo, with an ugly squared-off stern and, even uglier, three splintered stumps where her masts had stood. A spar, perhaps a yardarm, had been erected in place of the foremast, and a small sail lashed to that makeshift mast. Despite the jury rig she seemed to be unmanned, but then, in answer to a hail from the Spanish frigate’s masthead, two survivors appeared on the whaler’s deck and began waving frantically toward the Espiritu Santo. One of the two unfolded a flag that he held aloft to the wind. “She’s an American,” the First Lieutenant shouted down to the forecastle where a midshipman was deputed to carry the news back to the Captain’s cabin.

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