Chase looked utterly bereft, like a man defeated instead of a captain with a rich prize. “The admiral’s dead, Sharpe,” Chase said. “He’s dead.”
“Nelson?” Sharpe asked. “Nelson?”
“Dead!” Chase said. “Oh, good God, why?”
Sharpe just felt an emptiness inside. The whole crew looked stricken, as if a friend, not a commander, had died. Nelson was dead. Some did not believe it, but the commander-in-chief’s flag flying above the Royal Sovereign confirmed that Collingwood now commanded the victorious fleet. And if Collingwood commanded then Nelson was dead. Chase wept for him, cuffing away his tears only when the last body was thrown overboard.
There was no ceremony for that final corpse, but then no one who had died that day had received any ceremony. The corpse was brought to the quarterdeck and, in the deepening dusk, thrown into the sea. It seemed cold suddenly. The wind had a cutting edge and Sharpe shivered. Chase watched the body float away on the waves, then shook his head in puzzlement. “He must have decided to join the fight,” Chase said. “Can you credit it?”
“Every man was expected to do his duty, sir,” Sharpe said stolidly.
“So they were, and so they did, but no one expected him to fight or to fetch a bullet in the head. Poor fellow. He was braver than I ever thought. Does his wife know?”
“I shall tell her, sir.”
“Would you?” Chase asked. “Yes, of course you will. No one better, but I’m grateful to you, Richard, grateful.” He turned to watch the fleet, its stern lanterns already lit, struggling under half sail in the rising wind. Only the Victory was dark, with not a single light showing. “Oh, poor Nelson,” Chase lamented, “poor England.”
Sharpe, as soon as he was back aboard the Pucelle, had gone down to the cockpit which was as fetid and bloody as the one on the Revenant. Pickering had been sawing at a man’s thigh bone, sweat dripping from his face into the mangled flesh. The patient, a leather pad between his teeth, was twitching as the blunt saw grated on bone. Two seamen held him down, and neither they nor the surgeon had noticed Sharpe go through to the gunroom where he lifted the lady-hole hatch to see blood spattered on its underside. Lord William lay sprawled in the narrow space, his skull gaping bloodily where the pistol bullet had exited. Grace had been huddled with her arms about her knees, shaking, and she half screamed as the hatch was opened, then she shuddered with relief when she saw it was Sharpe. “Richard? It is you?” She was crying again. “They’re going to hang me, Richard. They’re going to hang me, but I had to shoot him. He was going to kill me. I had to shoot him.”
Sharpe had dropped down into the lady hole. “They ain’t going to hang you, my lady,” he said. “He died on deck. That’s what everyone will think. He died on deck.”
“I had to do it!” she wailed.
“The Frogs did it.” Sharpe took the pistol from her and shoved it into a pocket, then he put his hands under Lord William’s armpits and heaved him up, trying to push the corpse through the hatch, but the body was awkward in the narrow space.
“They’ll hang me,” Grace cried.
Sharpe let the corpse drop, then turned and crouched beside her. “No one will hang you. No one will know. If they find him down here, I’ll say I shot him, but with a little luck I can get him up on deck and everyone will think the Frogs did it.”
She put her arms around his neck. “You’re safe. Oh, God, you’re safe. What happened?”
“We won,” Sharpe said. “We won.” He kissed her, then held her tight for an instant before he went back to struggle with the corpse. If Lord William was found here, no one would believe he had been killed by the enemy and Chase would be honor bound to hold an inquiry into the death, so the body had to be taken up above the orlop deck, but the hatch was narrow and Sharpe could not get the corpse through, but then a hand reached down and took hold of Lord William’s bloody collar and heaved him effortlessly upward.