“Lost it?”
“Gone to buggery, ain’t it?” The man laughed. “And not by accident if I knows a thing about it.”
“And what do you know about it, Jem?” a younger man asked.
“More’n you know, and more’n you’ll ever learn.”
“Why no accident?” Sharpe asked.
Jem ducked his head to spit tobacco juice. “The captain’s been at the wheel since midnight, sir, so he has, and he’s been steering us hard south’ards. Had us on deck in dark of night, hauling the sails about. We be running due south now, sir, instead of sou’west.”
“The wind changed,” a man observed.
“Wind don’t change here!” Jem said scornfully. “Not at this time of year! Wind here be steady as a rock out of the nor’east. Nine days in ten, sir, out the nor’east. You don’t need to steer a ship out of Bombay, sir. You clear the Balasore Roads, hang your big rags up the sticks, and this wind’ll blow you to Madagascar straight as a ball down a tavern alley, sir.”
“So why has he turned south?” Sharpe asked.
“Because we’re a fast ship, sir, and it was grating Peculiar’s nerves to be tied to them slow old tubs of the convoy. You watch him, sir, he’ll have us hanging our shirts in the rigging to catch the wind and we’ll fly home like a seagull.” He winked. “First ship home gets the best prices for the cargo, see, sir?”
The cook ladled the burgoo into Sharpe’s cauldron and Jem opened the forecastle door for Sharpe who almost collided with Pohlmann’s servant, the elderly man who had been so relaxed on his master’s sofa on the first night Sharpe had visited the cabin.
“Pardonnez-moi,” the servant said instinctively, stepping hastily back so that Sharpe did not spill the burgoo down his gray clothes.
Sharpe looked at him. “Are you French?”
“I’m Swiss, sir,” the man said respectfully, then stood aside, though he still looked at Sharpe, who thought the man’s eyes were not like a servant’s eyes. They were like Lord William’s eyes, confident, clever and knowing. “Good morning, sir,” the servant said respectfully, offering a slight bow, and Sharpe stepped past him and carried the steaming burgoo down the rain-slicked main deck toward the aft companionway.
Cromwell chose that moment to appear at the quarterdeck rail and, just as Jem had forecast, he wanted every stitch of sail aloft. He bellowed at the topmen to start climbing, then took a speaking trumpet from the rail and hailed the first lieutenant who was making his way forward. “Fly the jib boom spritsail, Mister Tufnell. Lively now! Mister Sharpe, you’ll oblige me by getting dressed. This is an Indiaman, not some sluttish Tyne collier.”
Sharpe went below to eat breakfast and when he came back to the deck, properly dressed, Cromwell had gone to the poop from where he was watching north for fear that the Company frigate might appear to order him back to the convoy, but neither Cromwell, nor the men aloft, saw any sign of the other ships. It appeared that Cromwell had escaped the convoy and could now let Calliope show her speed. And show it she did, for every sail that had been handed at nightfall was now back on the yards, stretching to the wet wind, and the Calliope seemed to churn the sea to cream as she raced southward.
The wind moderated during the day and the clouds scudded themselves ragged so that by nightfall the sky was again clear and the sea was blue green instead of gray. There was an air of ebullience on board, as though by freeing itself of the convoy the Calliope had brightened everyone’s life. There was the sound of laughter in steerage, and cheers when Tufnell rigged wind scoops to air out the fetid decks. Passengers joined the seamen in dances below the forecastle as the sun sank in a blaze of orange and gold.
Pohlmann brought Sharpe a cigar before supper. “I won’t invite you to eat with us tonight,” he said. “Joshua Fazackerly is donating the wine, which means he will feel entitled to bore us all with his legal recollections. It will likely prove a tedious meal.” He paused, blowing a plume of smoke toward the mainsail. “You know why I liked the Mahrattas? There were no lawyers among them.”