“I wouldn’t know, my lord.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Did you recognize Pohlmann, Sharpe?”
The question took Sharpe utterly by surprise. “No,” he blurted with too much indignation.
“Yet you must have seen him”—Lord William paused to sort through the papers—”at Assaye.” He found the name which, Sharpe suspected, he had never forgotten.
“Only through a telescope, my lord.”
“Only through a telescope.” Lord William repeated the words slowly. “Yet Chase assures me you were very certain in your identification of him. Why else would this man-of-war be racing through the Atlantic?”
“It just seemed obvious, my lord,” Sharpe said lamely.
“The workings of your mind are a constant mystery to me, Sharpe,” Lord William said, writing as he spoke. “I shall, of course, moderate your opinions by talking to more senior men when I reach London, but your jejune thoughts will make a first draft possible. Perhaps I shall talk to my wife’s distant cousin, Sir Arthur.” The pen scratched steadily. “Do you know where my wife is this afternoon, Mister Sharpe?”
“No, my lord,” Sharpe said, and was about to ask how he could be expected to know, but bit his tongue in case he heard the wrong answer.
“She has a habit of vanishing,” Lord William said, his gray eyes now steady on Sharpe.
Sharpe said nothing. He felt like a mouse under a cat’s gaze.
Lord William turned to look at the bulkhead which divided the dining cabin from Sharpe’s cabin. He could have been gazing at the picture of Chase’s old frigate, the Spritely, which hung there. “Thank you, Sharpe,” he said, looking back at last. “Close the door firmly, will you? The latch is imperfectly aligned with its socket.”
Sharpe left. He was sweating. Did Lord William know? Had Braithwaite really written a letter? Jesus, he thought, Jesus. Playing with fire. “Well?” Captain Chase had come to stand beside him, an amused expression on his face.
“He wanted to know about the Mahrattas, sir.”
“Don’t we all?” Chase inquired sweetly. He looked up at the sails, leaned to see the compass, smiled. “The ship’s orchestra is giving a concert tonight on the forecastle,” he said, “and we’re all invited to attend after supper. Do you sing, Sharpe?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Lieutenant Peel sings. It’s a pleasure to hear him. Captain Llewellyn should sing, being Welsh, but doesn’t, and the lower deck larboard gun crews make a splendid choir, though I shall have to order them not to sing the ditty about the admiral’s wife for fear of offending Lady Grace, yet even so it should be a wonderful evening.”
Grace had left his cabin. Sharpe closed the door, shut his eyes and felt the sweat trickle beneath his shirt. Playing with fire.
Two mornings later there was an island visible far off to the south and west. The Revenant must have passed quite close to the island in the night, but at dawn she was well to its north. Cloud hung above the small scrap of gray which was all Sharpe could see of the island’s summit through his telescope. “It’s called St. Helena,” Chase told him, “and belongs to the East India Company. If we weren’t otherwise engaged, Sharpe, we’d make a stop there for water and vegetables.”
Sharpe gazed at the ragged scrap of land isolated in an immensity of ocean. “Who lives there?”
“Some miserable Company officials, a handful of morose families, and a few wretched black slaves. Clouter was a slave there. You should ask him about it.”
“You freed him?”
“He freed himself. Swam out to us one night, climbed the anchor cable and hid away till we were at sea. I’ve no doubt the East India Company would like him back, but they can whistle in the wind for him. He’s far too good a seaman.”
There were a score of black seamen like Clouter aboard, another score of lascars, and a scattering of Americans, Dutchmen, Swedes, Danes and even two Frenchmen. “Why would a man be called Clouter?” Sharpe asked.
“Because he clouted someone so hard that the man didn’t wake up for a week,” Chase said, amused, then took the speaking trumpet from the rail and hailed Clouter who was among the men lounging on the forecastle. “Would you like me to put in to St. Helena, Clouter? You can visit your old friends.”