LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      ‘Cold beef and rice next,’ the captain announced, as though he were offering a treat. ‘So tell me, Baron, how did you make your fortune? You traded, is that right?’

      ‘I traded, Captain, yes.’

      Lady Grace looked up sharply, frowned, then pretended the conversation did not interest her. The wine decanters rattled in their metal cage. The whole ship creaked, groaned and shuddered whenever a stronger wave exploded at her bows.

      ‘In England,’ Cromwell said pointedly, ‘the aristocracy do not trade. They think it beneath them.’

      ‘English lords have land,’ Pohlmann said, ‘but my family lost its estates a hundred years ago, and when one does not possess land one must work for a living.’

      ‘Doing what, pray?’ Cromwell demanded. His long wet hair lay lank on his shoulders.

      ‘I buy, I sell,’ Pohlmann said, evidently unworried by the captain’s inquisition.

      ‘And successfully, too!’ Captain Cromwell appeared to be making conversation to take his guests’ minds off the ship’s pitching and rolling. ‘So now you take your profits home, and quite right too. So where is home? Bavaria? Prussia? Hesse?’

      ‘Hanover,’ Pohlmann said, ‘but I have been thinking that perhaps I should buy a house in London. Lord William can give me advice, no doubt?’ He smiled across the table at Lord William who, for answer, abruptly stood, clutched a napkin to his mouth and bolted from the cuddy. Spray spattered on the closed panes of the skylight and some dripped through onto the table.

      ‘My husband is a poor sailor,’ Lady Grace said calmly.

      ‘And you, my lady, are not?’ Pohlmann asked.

      ‘I like the sea,’ she said, almost indignantly. ‘I have always liked the sea.’

      Cromwell laughed. ‘They say, my lady, that those who would go to sea for pleasure would visit hell as a pastime.’

      She shrugged, as if what others said made no difference to her. Major Dalton took up the burden of the conversation. ‘Have you ever been seasick, Sharpe?’

      ‘No, sir, I’ve been lucky.’

      ‘Me neither,’ Dalton said. ‘My mother always believed beefsteak was a specific against the condition.’

      ‘Beefsteak, fiddlesticks,’ Cromwell growled. ‘Only rum and oil will serve.’

      ‘Rum and oil?’ Pohlmann asked with a grimace.

      ‘You force a pint of rum down the patient’s throat and follow it with a pint of oil. Any oil will do, even lamp oil, for the patient will void it utterly, but next day he’ll feel lively as a trivet.’ Cromwell turned a jaundiced eye on Lady Grace. ‘Should I send the rum and oil to your cabin, my lady?’

      Lady Grace did not even bother to reply. She gazed at the panelling where a small oil painting of an English country church swayed to the ship’s motion.

      ‘So how long will this storm last?’ Mathilde asked in her accented English.

      ‘Storm?’ Cromwell cried. ‘You think this is a storm? This, ma’am, is nothing but a blow. Nothing but a morsel of wind and rain that will do no harm to man or ship. A storm, ma’am, is violent, violent! This is gentle to what we might meet off the Cape.’

      No one had the stomach for a dessert of suet and currants, so instead Pohlmann suggested a hand of whist in his cabin. ‘I have some fine brandy, Captain,’ he said, ‘and if Major Dalton is willing to play we can make a foursome? I know Sharpe won’t play.’ He indicated himself and Mathilde as the other players, then smiled at Lady Grace. ‘Unless I could persuade you to play, my lady?’

      ‘I don’t,’ she said in a tone suggesting that Pohlmann had invited her to wallow in his vomit. She stood, somehow managing to stay graceful despite the lurching of the ship, and the men immediately pushed their chairs back and stepped aside to let her leave the cabin.

      ‘Stay and finish your wine, Sharpe,’ Pohlmann said, leading his whist players out.

      Sharpe was left alone in the cuddy. He finished his wine, then fetched the decanter from its metal frame on the sideboard, and poured himself another glass. Night had fallen and the frigate, anxious that the convoy should not scatter in the darkness, was firing a gun every ten minutes. Sharpe told himself he would stay for three guns, then make his way into the foetid hold and try to sleep.

      Then the door opened

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