“You will not object, Captain, if I walk on your deck for a while?” Lady Grace asked.
“I should be delighted to have it so honored, milady.”
Brandy and cigars were produced, but the company did not stay long. Lord William suggested a hand of whist, but Chase had lost oo much on his first voyage with his lordship and explained he had decided to give up playing cards altogether. Lieutenant Haskell promised a lively game in the wardroom, and Lord William and the others followed him down to the weather deck and then aft. Chase bade his visitors a good night, then invited Sharpe into the day cabin at the stern. “One last brandy, Sharpe.”
“I don’t want to keep you up, sir.”
“I’ll turf you out when I’m tired. Here.” He gave Sharpe a glass, then led the way into the more comfortable day cabin. “Lord, but that William Hale is a bore,” he said, “though I confess I was surprised by his wife. Never seen her so lively! Last time she was aboard I thought she was going to wilt and die.”
“Maybe it was the wine tonight?” Sharpe suggested.
“Maybe, but I hear tales.”
“Tales?” Sharpe asked warily.
“That you not only rescued her cousin, but that you rescued her? To the detriment of one French lieutenant who now sleeps with his ancestors?”
Sharpe nodded, but said nothing.
Chase smiled. “She seems the better for the experience. And that secretary of his is a gloomy bird, isn’t he? Scarce a damn word all night and he’s an Oxford man!” To Sharpe’s relief Chase left the subject of Lady Grace and instead inquired whether Sharpe would consider putting himself under Captain Llewellyn’s command and so become an honorary marine. “If we do catch the Revenant,” Chase said, “we’ll be trying to capture her. We might hammer her into submission”—he put out a hand and surreptitiously touched the table—”but we still might have to board her. We’ll need fighting men if that happens, so can I count on your help? Good! I’ll tell Llewellyn that you’re now his man. He’s a thoroughly first-rate fellow, despite being a marine and a Welshman, and I doubt he’ll pester you overmuch. Now, I must go on deck and make certain they’re not steering in circles. You’ll come?”
“I will, sir.”
So Sharpe was now an honorary marine.
The Pucelle used every sail that Chase could cram onto her masts. He even rigged extra hawsers to stay the masts so that yet more canvas could be carried aloft and hung from spars that jutted out from the yards. There were studdingsails and skyscrapers, staysails, royals, spritsails and topsails, a cloud of canvas that drove the warship westward. Chase called it hanging out his laundry, and Sharpe saw how the crew responded to their captain’s enthusiasm. They were as eager as Chase to prove the Pucelle the fastest sailor on the sea.
And so they flew westward until, deep in a dark night, the sea became lumpy and the ship rolled like a drunk and Sharpe was woken by the rush of feet on the deck. The cot, in which he was alone, swung wildly and he fell hard when he rolled out of it. He did not bother to dress, but just put on a boat cloak that Chase had lent him, then let himself out of the door onto the quarterdeck where he could see almost nothing, for clouds were obscuring the moon, yet he could hear orders being bellowed and hear the voices of men high in the rigging above him. Sharpe still did not understand how men could work in the dark, a hundred feet above a pitching deck, clinging to thin lines and hearing the wind’s shriek in their ears. It was a bravery, he reckoned, as great as any that was needed on a battlefield.
“Is that you, Sharpe?” Chase’s voice called.
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s the Agulhas Current,” Chase said happily, “sweeping us around the tip of Africa! We’re shortening sail. It’ll be rough for a day or two!”
Daylight revealed broken seas being whipped ragged white by the wind. The Pucelle pitched into the steep waves, sometimes shattering them into clouds of drenching spray that rose above the foresail and rained down in streams from the canvas, yet still Chase pushed his ship and drove her and talked to her. He still gave suppers in his quarters, for he enjoyed company in the evening, but any shift of wind would drive him from the table onto the quarterdeck. He watched each cast of the log eagerly and jotted down the ship’s speed, and rejoiced when, as the African coast curved westward, he was able to hoist his full laundry again and feel the long hull respond to the wind’s force.