Sharpe’s Trafalgar

The ladies withdrew a short while later and the men drank a glass of port, but the atmosphere was stiff and Pohlma

“Very good, my lord,” the man, evidently Pohlma

“Would it matter if they knew who you were?” Sharpe asked.

Pohlma

Sharpe looked about the big cabin that was furnished with two sofas, a sideboard, a low table, a harp and an enormous teak bed with ivory inlays on the headboard. “But you must have done well in India,” Sharpe said.

“For a former sergeant, you mean?” Pohlma

Sharpe was aware that the fraying, thi

“Mein Gott, no! Mathilde plays. Very badly, but I tell her it is wonderful.”

“She’s your wife?”

“Am I a numbskull? A blockhead? Would I marry? Ha! No, Sharpe, she was whore to a rajah and when he tired of her I took her over. She is from Bavaria and wants babies, so she is a double fool, but she will keep my bed warm till I see home and then I shall find something younger. So you killed Dodd?”

“Not me, a friend killed him.”

“He deserved to die. A very horrid man.” Pohlma

“Yes.”

“In the rat hole, eh?” He looked at the hem of Sharpe’s coat. “You keep your jewels until you reach England and travel in steerage. But more important, my cautious friend, will you reveal who I am?”

“No,” Sharpe said with a smile. The last time he had seen Pohlma

“You want Mathilde every other Friday?” Pohlma

“A few invitations to supper, perhaps?”

Pohlma

“No.”

Pohlma

“I like her.”

“Her husband doesn’t,” Pohlma

“Cat and dog,” Sharpe said.

“He barks and she hisses. Still, I wish you joy. The gods alone know what they must make of us. They probably think we are bull and cow. Shall we join Mathilde on deck?” Pohlma

“I’ve got nothing to say to her.”

“So you are not really brave after all,” Pohlma

Lady Grace stood solitary and slim, wrapped in a cloak. A maid attended her, but the girl stood at the side of the deck as though she was nervous of her ladyship. Sharpe was also nervous. He wanted to talk to her, but he knew he would stumble over his words, so instead he stood beside Pohlma

“Were you really promoted from the ranks?” a cold voice asked and Sharpe turned to see that Lady Grace had appeared at his side.

He instinctively touched his forelock. For a moment he felt struck dumb and his tongue seemed stuck to his palate, but then he managed to nod. “Yes, ma’am. Milady.”

She looked into his eyes and was tall enough not to need to look up. Her big eyes were dim in the twilight, but at supper Sharpe had seen they were green. “It must be a difficult circumstance,” she said, still using a distant voice as though she was being reluctantly forced into this conversation.

“Yes, ma’am,” Sharpe said again, and knew he was sounding like a fool. He was tense, a muscle was twitching in his left leg, his mouth was dry and his belly felt sour, the same sensations that a man got when he was waiting for battle. “Before it happened, ma’am,” he blurted out, wanting to say anything other than a monosyllabic response, “I wanted it badly, but afterward? I reckon I shouldn’t have wanted it at all.”

Her face was expressionless. Beautiful, but expressionless. She ignored Pohlma

“Both, ma’am,” Sharpe said. He saw that the smoke from his cigar was a

She half smiled at that. “You must tell me,” she said in a voice which still suggested she was merely making polite conversation, “just how you saved Arthur’s life.” She paused, and Sharpe saw there was a nervous tic in her left eye that caused it to quiver every few seconds. “He’s a cousin,”

she went on, “but quite far removed. None of the family thought he’d amount to anything.”

It had taken Sharpe a second or two to realize that she meant Sir Arthur Wellesley, the cold man who had promoted Sharpe. “He’s the best general I’ve ever seen, ma’am,” Sharpe said.