Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe’s Trafalgar - The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805

‘An overworked secretary,’ Sharpe said.

‘But I will have influence,’ Braithwaite insisted earnestly, ‘and his lordship will have one of the grandest houses in London. His wife will preside over a salon of wit and vast influence.’

‘If she’ll ever talk to anyone,’ Sharpe commented drily. ‘She don’t say a word to me.’

‘Of course she doesn’t,’ Braithwaite said crossly. ‘She is accustomed to nothing but the highest discourse.’ The secretary looked to the quarterdeck, but if he hoped to see Lady Grace he was disappointed. ‘She is an angel, Sharpe,’ he blurted out. ‘One of the best women I have ever had the privilege of meeting. And with a mind to match! I have a degree from Oxford, Mister Sharpe, yet even I cannot match her ladyship’s knowledge of the Georgics.’

Whatever the hell they were, Sharpe thought. ‘She is a rare-looking woman,’ he said mildly, wondering whether that would provoke Braithwaite into another burst of candour.

It did. ‘Rare-looking?’ Braithwaite asked sarcastically. ‘She is a beauty, Mister Sharpe, the very quintessence of feminine virtue, looks and intelligence.’

Sharpe laughed. ‘You’re in love with her, Braithwaite.’

The secretary gave Sharpe a withering look. ‘If you were not a soldier with a reputation for savagery, Sharpe, I should deem that statement impertinent.’

‘I might be the savage,’ Sharpe said, rubbing salt into the secretary’s wounded pride, ‘but I’m the one who had supper with her tonight.’

Though Lady Grace had neither spoken with him that night, nor even appeared to notice his presence in the cuddy where the food was scarcely better than the slop provided in steerage. The richer passengers were served the dead goats that were stewed and served in a vinegar sauce and Captain Cromwell was particularly fond of peas and pork, though the peas were dried to the consistency of bullets and the meat was salted to the texture of ancient leather. There was a suet pudding most nights, then port or brandy, coffee, cigars and whist. Eggs and coffee were served for breakfast, luxuries that never appeared in steerage, but Sharpe was not invited to share breakfast with the privileged folk.

On the nights when he ate in steerage Sharpe would go on deck afterwards and watch the sailors dancing to a four-man orchestra of two violins, a flute and a drummer who beat his hands on the end of a half-barrel. One night there was a sudden and violent down-pour of rain that drummed on the sails. Sharpe stood bare-chested, head back and mouth agape to drink the clean water, but most of the rain which fell on the ship seemed to find its way between decks that became ever more rank. Everything seemed to rot, rust or grow fungus. On Sundays the purser held divine service and the four-man orchestra played while the passengers, the richer standing on the quarterdeck and the less privileged beneath them on the main deck, sang ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun thy daily stage of duty run’. Major Dalton sang gustily, beating time with his hand. Pohlmann seemed amused by the services, while Lord William and his wife, contravening the captain’s orders, did not bother to attend. When the hymn was done the purser read a toneless prayer that Sharpe and those other passengers who were paying attention found alarming. ‘O most glorious and gracious Lord God, who dwellest in heaven, but beholdest all things below; Look down, we beseech thee, and hear us, calling out of the depths of misery and out of the jaws of this death which is ready now to swallow us up. Save, Lord, or else we perish.’

Yet they did not perish and the sea and the miles slipped endlessly by, untouched by any speck of land or hostile sail. At noon the officers solemnly sighted the sun with their sextants, then hurried to Captain Cromwell’s cabin to work out the mathematics, though, in the middle of the third week, a day at last came when the sky was so thick with cloud that no sight could be taken. Captain Cromwell was overheard to remark that the Calliope was in for a blow, and all day he strode about the quarterdeck with a look of grim pleasure. The wind rose slowly but surely, making the passengers stagger on the canted deck and hold onto their hats. Many of those who had overcome their early seasickness now succumbed again, and the spray breaking on the ship’s bluff bows rattled on the sails as it flew down the deck. Late in the afternoon it began to rain so heavily that grey veils hid all but the closest vessels of the convoy.

Sharpe was again invited to be Pohlmann’s guest for supper and, when he went below to change into his least dirty shirt and to pull on his coat that had been neatly mended by a foretop man, he found the steerage slopping with water and vomit. Children cried, a tethered dog yelped. Braithwaite was draped over a gun, heaving dry. Every time the ship dipped to the wind water forced its way through the locked gunports and rippled across the deck, and when she buried her bows into the sea a veritable flood came through the hawseholes and rolled down the sopping planks.

Water cascaded down the companionway as Sharpe climbed back to the remains of the daylight. He staggered across the quarterdeck where six men hung onto the wheel and banged through the poop door where he was thrown across the small hallway before cannoning back into the cuddy where only the captain, Major Dalton, Pohlmann, Mathilde and Lord William and Lady Grace waited. The other three passengers were all either seasick or were eating in their own cabins.

‘You’re the baron’s guest again?’ Cromwell asked pointedly.

‘You surely do not mind Mister Sharpe being my guest?’ Pohlmann enquired hotly.

‘He eats from your purse, Baron, not mine,’ Cromwell growled, then waved Sharpe into his usual chair. ‘For God’s sake, sit, Mister Sharpe.’ He held up a massive hand, then paused as the ship rolled. The bulkheads shifted alarmingly and the cutlery slid across the table. ‘May the good Lord bless these victuals,’ Cromwell said, ‘and make us grateful for their sustenance, in the name of the Lord, amen.’

‘Amen,’ Lady Grace said distantly. Her husband looked pale and gripped the table’s edge as if it might alleviate the boat’s quick motion. Lady Grace, on the other hand, was quite unaffected by the weather. She wore a red dress, cut low, and had a string of pearls around her slim neck. Her dark hair was piled at her crown and held in place with pearl-encrusted pins.

Fiddles had been placed about the table so that the knives, forks, spoons, glasses, plates and cruets would not slide off, but the lurching of the ship made the meal a perilous experience. Cromwell’s steward served a thick soup first. ‘Fresh fish!’ Cromwell boasted. ‘All caught this morning. I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but no one has yet died of an unknown fish on my ship. They’ve died of other things, of course.’ The captain eagerly spooned the bony gruel into his mouth, expertly holding the plate so that the contents did not spill as the ship tilted. ‘Men fall from the upper works, folk die of fever and I’ve even had a passenger kill herself for unrequited love, but I’ve never had one die of fish poison.’

‘Unrequited love?’ Pohlmann asked, amused.

‘It happens, Baron, it happens,’ Cromwell said with relish. ‘It is a well-attested phenomenon that a sea voyage spurs the baser instincts. You will forgive me mentioning the matter, milady,’ he added hastily to Lady Grace, who ignored his coarseness.

Lord William took one taste of the fish soup and turned away, leaving his plate to slop itself empty on the table. Lady Grace managed a few spoonfuls, but then, disliking the taste, pushed the malodorous mess away. The major ate heartily, Pohlmann and Mathilde greedily and Sharpe warily, not wanting to disgrace himself with a display of ill manners in front of Lady Grace. Fish bones were caught in his teeth and he tried to extricate them subtly, for he had seen Lady Grace shudder whenever Pohlmann spat them onto the table.