LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I just feel the cold, sir,’ Sharpe lied.

      ‘Cold?’ Cromwell sneered. He put his right foot on a crack between the deck planks and, when he lifted the shoe, a string of melting tar adhered to his sole. ‘You are not cold, Mister Sharpe, you are sweating. Sweating! So come with me, Mister Sharpe.’ The captain turned and led Sharpe up to the quarterdeck. The passengers watching the gunnery made way for the two men and Sharpe was suddenly conscious of Lady Grace’s perfume, then he followed Cromwell down the companionway into the great cabin where the captain had his quarters. Cromwell unlocked his door, pushed it open and gestured that Sharpe should go inside. ‘My home,’ the captain grunted.

      Sharpe had expected that the captain would have one of the stern cabins with their big wide windows, but it was more profitable to sell such accommodation to passengers and Cromwell was content with a smaller cabin on the larboard side. It was still a comfortable home. A bunk bed was built into a wall of bookshelves while a table, hinged to the bulkhead, was smothered in unrolled charts that were weighted down with three lanterns and a pair of long-barrelled pistols. The daylight streamed in through an opened porthole, above which the sea’s reflection rippled on the white painted ceiling. Cromwell unlocked a small cupboard to reveal a barometer and, beside it, what appeared to be a fat pocket watch hanging from a hook. ‘Three hundred and twenty-nine guineas,’ Cromwell told Sharpe, tapping the timepiece.

      ‘I’ve never owned a watch,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘It is not a watch, Mister Sharpe,’ Cromwell said in disgust, ‘but a chronometer. A marvel of science. Between here and Britain I doubt it will lose more than two seconds. It is that machine, Mister Sharpe, that tells us where we are.’ He blew a fleck of dust from the chronometer’s face, tapped the barometer, then carefully closed and locked the cupboard. ‘I keep my treasures safe, Mister Sharpe. You, on the other hand, flaunt yours.’

      Sharpe said nothing, and the captain waved at the cabin’s only chair. ‘Sit down, Mister Sharpe. Do you wonder about my name?’

      Sharpe sat uneasily. ‘Your name?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s unusual, sir.’

      ‘It is peculiar,’ Peculiar Cromwell said, then gave a harsh laugh that betrayed no amusement. ‘My people, Mister Sharpe, were fervent Christians and they named me from the Bible. “The Lord has chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself,” the book of Deuteronomy, chapter fourteen, verse two. It is not easy, Mister Sharpe, living with such a name. It invites ridicule. In its time that name has made me a laughing stock!’ He said these last words with extraordinary force, as though resenting all the folk who had ever mocked him, but Sharpe, perched on the edge of the chair, could not imagine anyone mocking the harsh-voiced, heavy-faced Peculiar Cromwell.

      Cromwell sat on his bunk bed, placed his elbows on the charts and fixed his eyes on Sharpe. ‘I was put aside for God, Mister Sharpe, and it makes for a lonely life. I was denied a proper education. Other men go to Oxford or Cambridge, they are immersed in knowledge, but I was sent to sea for my parents believed I would be beyond earthly temptation if I was far from any shore. But I taught myself, Mister Sharpe. I learned from books’ – he waved at the shelves – ‘and discovered that I am well named. I am peculiar, Mister Sharpe, in my opinions, apprehensions and conclusions.’ He shook his head sadly, rippling his long hair which rested on the shoulders of his heavy blue coat. ‘All around me I espy educated men, rational men, conventional men and, above all, sociable men, but I have discovered that no such creature ever did a great thing. It is among the lonely, Mister Sharpe, that true greatness occurs.’ He scowled, as though that burden was almost too heavy to bear. ‘You too, I think, are a peculiar man,’ Cromwell went on. ‘You have been plucked by destiny from your natural place among the dregs of society and have been translated into an officer. And that’ – he leaned forward and jabbed a finger at Sharpe – ‘must make for loneliness.’

      ‘I have never lacked friends,’ Sharpe said, evading the embarrassing conversation.

      ‘You trust yourself, Mister Sharpe,’ Cromwell boomed, ignoring Sharpe’s words, ‘as I have learned to trust myself in the knowledge that no one else can be trusted. We have been set aside, you and I, as lonely men doomed to watch the traffic of those who are not peculiar. But today, Mister Sharpe, I am going to insist that you put your mistrust aside. I shall demand that you trust me.’

      ‘In what, sir?’

      Cromwell paused as the tiller ropes creaked and groaned beneath him, then glanced up at a telltale compass fixed above the bunk. ‘A ship is a small world, Mister Sharpe,’ he said, ‘and I am appointed the ruler of that world. Upon this vessel I am lord of all, and the power of life and death is granted to me, but I do not crave such power. What I crave, Mister Sharpe, is order. Order!’ He slapped a hand on the charts. ‘And I will not abide thievery on my ship!’

      Sharpe sat up in indignation. ‘Thievery! Are you …’

      ‘No!’ Cromwell interrupted him. ‘Of course I am not accusing you. But there will be thievery, Mister Sharpe, if you continue to flaunt your wealth.’

      Sharpe smiled. ‘I’m an ensign, sir, lowest of the low. You said yourself I’d been plucked out of my place, and you know there’s no money down there. I’m not wealthy.’

      ‘Then what, Mister Sharpe, is sewn into the seams of your garment?’ Cromwell asked.

      Sharpe said nothing. A king’s ransom was sewn into the hems of his coat, the tops of his boots and the waistband of his trousers, and the jewels in his coat were showing because of the frailty of the red-dyed cloth.

      ‘Sailors are keen-eyed fellows, Mister Sharpe,’ Cromwell growled. He looked irritated when the gun fired from the main deck, as though the sound had interrupted his thinking. ‘Sailors have to be keen-eyed,’ he continued, ‘and mine are clever enough to know that a soldier hides his plunder on his person, and they’re keen-eyed enough to note that Mister Sharpe does not take off his coat, and one night, Mister Sharpe, when you go forrard to the heads, or when you take the air on the deck, a keen-eyed sailor will come at you from behind. A belaying pin? A strike at your skull? A splash in the night? Who would miss you?’ He smiled, revealing long yellow teeth, then touched the hilt of one of the pistols on the table. ‘If I were to shoot you now, strip your body and then push you through the scuttle, who would dare contradict my story that you had attacked me?’

      Sharpe said nothing.

      Cromwell’s hand stayed on the pistol. ‘You have a chest in your cabin?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘But you don’t trust my sailors. You know they will break through its lock in a matter of seconds.’

      ‘They would too,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘But they will not dare break into my chest!’ Cromwell declared, gesturing beneath the table where a vast iron-bound teak chest stood. ‘I want you to yield me your treasure now, Mister Sharpe, and I will sign for it and I will store it, and when we reach our destination you will be given it back. It is a normal procedure.’ He at last removed his hand from the gun and reached onto the bookshelf, taking down a small box that was filled with papers. ‘I have some money belonging to Lord William Hale in that chest, see?’ He handed one of the papers to Sharpe who saw that it acknowledged receipt of one hundred and seventy guineas in native specie. The paper had been signed by Peculiar Cromwell and, on Lord William’s behalf, by Malachi Braithwaite, MA Oxon. ‘I have possessions of Major Dalton,’ Cromwell said, producing another piece of paper, ‘and jewels belonging to the Baron von Dornberg.’ He showed Sharpe that receipt. ‘And more jewels belonging to Mister Fazackerly.’ Fazackerly was the barrister. ‘This’ – Cromwell kicked the chest – ‘is the safest place on the ship, and if one of my passengers is carrying valuables then I want those valuables out of temptation’s way. Do I make myself plain, Mister Sharpe?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘But you are thinking that you do not trust me?’

      ‘No, sir,’ Sharpe said, who was thinking just that.

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