“I’m not sure they think so, sir.”
“I shall whisper in some ears, Sharpe, though if I don’t catch the Revenant there’ll be precious few who’ll listen to me.”
“You’ll catch her, sir.”
“I pray so, but she’s a fast beast. Fast and slippery. All French ships are. God knows, the buggers can’t sail them, but they do know how to build ‘em. French ships are like French women, Sharpe. Beautiful and fast, but hopelessly manned. Have some mustard.” Chase pushed the jar across the table, then petted a skinny black kitten as he stared past the palm trees toward the sea. “I do like coffee,” he said, then pointed out to sea. “There’s the Calliope.”
Sharpe looked, but all he could see was a mass of shipping far out in the harbor beyond the shallower water which was busy with scores of bumboats, launches and fishing craft.
“She’s the one drying her topsails,” Chase said, and Sharpe saw that one of the far ships had hung out her topmost sails, but at this distance she looked like the other dozen East Indiamen that would sail home together to protect themselves against the privateers who haunted the Indian Ocean. From the shore they looked like naval ships, for their hulls were banded black and white to suggest that massive broadsides were concealed behind closed gunports, but the ruse would not mislead any privateer. Those ships, their hulls stuffed with the riches of India, were the greatest prizes any corsair or French naval captain could wish to take. If a man wanted to live and die rich then all he needed to do was capture an Indiaman, which is why the great ships sailed in convoy.
“Where’s your ship, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Can’t see her from here,” Chase said. “She’s careened on a mud-bank on the far side of Elephanta Island.”
“Careened?”
“Tipped on her side so we can polish her bum.”
“What’s she called?”
Chase looked abashed. “Pucelle,” he said.
“Pucelle? Sounds French.”
“It is French, Sharpe. It means a virgin.” Chase pretended to be offended as Sharpe laughed. “You’ve heard of la Pucelle d’Orleans?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“The maid of Orleans, Sharpe, was Joan of Arc, and the ship was named for her and I just trust she doesn’t end up like Joan, burned to a crisp.”
“But why would you name a boat for a Frenchwoman, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“We didn’t. The Frogs did. She was a French boat till Nelson took her at the Nile. If you capture a ship, Sharpe, you keep the old name unless it’s really obnoxious. Nelson took the Franklin at the Nile, an eighty-gun thing of great beauty, but the navy will be damned if it has a ship named after a traitorous bloody Yankee so we call her the Canopus now. But my ship kept her name, and she’s a lovely beast. Lovely and fast. Oh my God, no.” He sat up straight, staring toward the road. “Oh, God, no!” These last words were prompted by the sight of an open carriage that had slowed and now stopped just beyond the garden gate. Chase, who had been genial until this moment, suddenly looked bitter.
A man and a woman were seated in the carriage which was driven by an Indian dressed in yellow and black livery. Two native footmen, arrayed in the same livery, now hurried to open the carriage door and unfold the steps, allowing the man, who was dressed in a white linen jacket, to step down to the pavement. A beggar immediately swung on short crutches and calloused stumps toward the carriage, but one of the footmen fended the man off with a sharp kick and the coachman completed the rout with his whip. The white-jacketed man was middle-aged and had a face that reminded Sharpe of Sir Arthur Wellesley. Maybe it was the prominent nose, or perhaps it was the cold and haughty look the man wore. Or perhaps it was just that everything about him, from his carriage to the liveried servants, spoke of privilege.
“Lord William Hale,” Chase said, investing every syllable with dislike.
“Never heard of him.”
“He’s on the Board of Control,” Chase explained, then saw Sharpe’s raised eyebrow. “Six men, Sharpe, who are appointed by the government to make certain that the East India Company doesn’t do anything foolish. Or rather that, if it does, no blame attaches itself to the government.” He looked sourly at Lord William who had paused to speak with the woman in the carriage. “That’s his wife and I’ve just brought the two of them from Calcutta so they could go home on the same convoy as yourself. You should pray they aren’t on the Calliope.”