Most of the passengers looked puzzled. Major Dalton commented that the baron had been a decent sort of chap, a bit loud-mouthed, but that no one had really remarked on the servant. “He kept himself to himself,” Dalton said.
“He spoke French to me once,” Sharpe said.
“He did?” Chase spun around eagerly.
“Only the once,” Sharpe said, “but he spoke English and German too. Claimed he was Swiss. But I don’t know that he was really a servant at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was wearing a sword, sir, when he left the ship. Not many servants wear swords.”
“Hanoverian servants might,” Fairley said. “Foreign folk, strange ways.”
“So what do we know about the baron?” Chase asked.
“He was a buffoon,” Fairley growled.
“He was decent enough,” Dalton protested, “and he was generous.”
Sharpe could have provided a far more detailed answer, but he was still reluctant to admit that he had deceived the Calliope for so long. “It’s a strange thing, sir,” he said instead to Chase, “and I didn’t really think about it lentil after the baron had left the ship, but he looked just like a fellow called Anthony Pohlmann.”
“Did he, Sharpe?” Dalton asked, surprised.
“Same build,” Sharpe said. “Not that I ever saw Pohlmann except through a telescope.” Which was not true, but Sharpe had to cover his tracks.
“Who,” Chase interrupted, “is Anthony Pohlmann?”
“He’s a Hanoverian soldier, sir, who led the Mahratta armies at Assaye.”
“Sharpe,” Chase said seriously, “are you sure?”
“He looked like him,” Sharpe replied, reddening, “very like.”
“God save me,” Chase said in his Devonian accent, then frowned in thought. Lord William approached him again, but Chase distractedly waved his lordship away and Lord William, already insulted by the captain’s disregard, looked even more offended. “But the main point,” Chase went on, “is that von Dornberg and his servant, if he is a servant, are now on the Revenant. Hopper!”
“Sir?” the bosun called from the main deck.
“I want all Pucelles back on board fast, but you wait with my barge. Mister Horrocks! Here, please!” Horrocks was the Pucelle’s fourth lieutenant who would command the small prize crew, just three men, that Chase would leave aboard the Calliope. The men were not needed to sail the ship, for Tufnell and the Calliope’s own seamen could do that, but they were to stay aboard the Indiaman to register Chase’s claim on the vessel which would now sail to Cape Town where the French prisoners would be given into the care of the British garrison and the ship could be revictualed for its journey back to Britain and the waiting lawyers. Chase gave Horrocks his orders, stressing that he was to accede to Lieutenant Tufnell in all matters of sailing the Calliope, but he also instructed Horrocks to select twenty of the Calliope’s best seamen and press them into the Pucelle. “I don’t like doing it,” he told Sharpe, “but we’re short-handed. Poor fellows won’t be happy, but who knows? Some may even volunteer.” He did not sound hopeful. “What about you, Sharpe? Will you sail with us?”
“Me, sir?”
“As a passenger,” Chase hurriedly explained. “We’re going your way, as it happens, and you’ll reach England far quicker by sailing with me than staying aboard this scow. Of course you want to come. Clouter!” he called to one of his barge crew in the ship’s waist. “You’ll bring Mister Sharpe’s dunnage on deck. Lively now! He’ll show you where it is.”
Sharpe protested. “I should stay here, sir,” he said. “I don’t want to be in your way.”
“Don’t have time to discuss it, Sharpe,” Chase said happily. “Of course you’re coming with me.” The captain at last turned to Lord William Hale who had been growing ever more angry at Chase’s lack of attention. Chase walked away with his lordship as Clouter, the big black man who had fought so hard on the night Sharpe had first met Chase, climbed to the quarterdeck. “Where do we go, sir?” Clouter asked.
“The dunnage will wait for a while,” Sharpe answered. He did not want to leave the Calliope, not while Lady Grace was aboard, but first he would have to invent some pressing excuse to refuse Chase’s invitation. He could think of none offhand, but the thought of abandoning Lady Grace was unbearable. If the worst came to the worst, he decided, he would risk offending Chase by simply refusing to change ships.