Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe’s Trafalgar, Sharpe’s Prey, Sharpe’s Rifles - Bernard Cornwell

Скачать книгу

guns banged from the weather deck in salute of Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount and Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe, Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Hilborough, Knight of the most Honourable Order of the Bath and Vice Admiral of the White. ‘I tell you, Sharpe,’ Chase said, still with tears on his cheeks, ‘I would sail down the throat of hell for that man.’

      The Victory had been signalling to the Mars, which, in turn, was passing the messages on down the chain of frigates to the Euryalus, which lay closest to the enemy, but now the flagship’s signal came down and a new ripple of bright flags ran up her mizzen. The Pucelle’s guns still fired the salute, the shots screaming out to fall in the empty ocean to starboard.

      ‘Our numeral, sir!’ Lieutenant Connors called to Captain Chase. ‘He makes us welcome, sir, and says we are to paint our mast hoops yellow. Yellow?’ He sounded puzzled. ‘Yellow, sir, it does say yellow, and we are to take station astern of the Conqueror.’

      ‘Acknowledge,’ Chase said, and turned to stare at the Conqueror, a seventy-four which was sailing some distance ahead of a three-decker, the Britannia. ‘She’s a slow ship,’ Chase muttered of the Britannia, then he waited for the last of the seventeen guns to sound before seizing the speaking trumpet. ‘Ready to tack!’

      He had some tricky seamanship ahead, and it would have to be done under the eyes of a fleet that prized seamanship almost as much as it valued victory. The Pucelle was on the starboard tack and needed to go about so that she could join the column of ships which sailed north on the larboard tack, yet as she turned into the wind she would inevitably lose speed and, if Chase judged it wrong, he would end up becalmed and shamed in the wind-shadow of the Conqueror. He had to turn his ship, let her gather speed and slide her smoothly into place and if he did it too fast he could run aboard the Conqueror and too slow and he would be left wallowing motionless under the Britannia’s scornful gaze. ‘Now, quartermaster, now,’ he said, and the seven men hauled on the great wheel while the lieutenants bellowed at the sail handlers to release the sheets. ‘Israel Pellew has the Conqueror,’ Chase remarked to Sharpe, ‘and he’s a fine fellow and a wonderful seaman. Wonderful seaman! From Cornwall, you see? They seem to be born with salt in their veins, those Cornish fellows. Come on, my sweet, come on!’ He was talking to the Pucelle which had turned her bluff bows into the wind and for a second it seemed she would hang there helplessly, but then Sharpe saw the bowsprit moving against the cavalcade of British ships, and men were running across the deck, seizing new sheets and hauling them home. The sails flapped like demented things, then tightened in the wind and the ship leaned, gathered speed and headed docilely into the open space behind the Conqueror. It had been done beautifully.

      ‘Well done, quartermaster,’ Chase said, pretending he had felt no qualms during the manoeuvre. ‘Well done, Pucelles! Mister Holderby! Muster a work party and break out some yellow paint!’

      ‘Why yellow?’ Sharpe asked.

      ‘Every other ship has yellow hoops,’ Chase said, gesturing back down the long line, ‘while ours are like the French hoops, black.’ Only the upper masts were made from single pine trunks while the lower were formed from clusters of long timbers that were bound and seized by the iron hoops. ‘In battle,’ Chase said, ‘maybe that’s all anyone will note of us. And they’ll see black hoops and think we’re a Frog ship and pour two or three decks of good British gunnery into our vitals. Can’t have that, Sharpe! Not for a few slaps of paint!’ He turned like a dancer, unable to contain his elation, for his ship was in the line of battle, the enemy was at sea and Horatio Nelson was his leader.

      CHAPTER NINE

      The British fleet tacked after dark, the signal passed on from ship to ship by lanterns hung in the rigging. Now, instead of sailing northwards, the fleet headed south, staying parallel to the enemy ships, but out of their sight. The wind had dropped, but a long swell ran from the western darkness to lift and drop the ponderous hulls. It was a long night. Sharpe went on deck once and saw the stern lanterns of the Conqueror reflecting from the seas ahead, then he gazed eastwards as a brilliant flame showed briefly on the horizon. Lieutenant Peel, bundled against the cold, reckoned it was one of the frigates setting off a firework to confuse the enemy. ‘Keeping them awake, Sharpe, keeping them worried.’ Peel slapped his gloved hands together and stamped his feet on the deck.

      ‘Why are they sailing south?’ Sharpe asked. He was shaking. He had forgotten just how the cold could bite.

      ‘The good Lord alone knows,’ Peel said cheerfully, ‘and He ain’t telling me. They aren’t going to cover an invasion force in the Channel, that’s for certain. They’re probably heading for the Mediterranean which means they’ll keep on south until they’re clear of the shallows off Cape Trafalgar, then they can run east towards the Straits. Does your chess improve?’

      ‘No,’ Sharpe said, ‘too many rules.’ He wondered whether Lady Grace would risk coming to his cabin, but he doubted it, for the night-shrouded ship was unnaturally busy as men readied themselves for the morning. A seaman brought him a cup of Scotch coffee and he drank the bitter liquid, then chewed on the sweetened bread crumbs that gave the coffee its flavour.

      ‘This will be my first battle,’ Peel admitted suddenly.

      ‘My first at sea,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘It makes you think,’ Peel said wistfully.

      ‘It’s better once it starts,’ Sharpe suggested. ‘It’s the waiting that’s hard.’

      Peel laughed softly. ‘Some clever bugger once remarked that nothing concentrates the mind so much as the prospect of being hanged in the morning.’

      ‘I doubt he knew,’ Sharpe said. ‘And besides, we’re the hangmen tomorrow.’

      ‘So we are, so we are,’ Peel said, though he could not hide the fears that gnawed at him. ‘Of course nothing might happen,’ he said. ‘The buggers might give us the slip.’ He went to look at the compass, leaving Sharpe to stare into the darkness. Sharpe stayed on deck until he could abide the cold no longer, then went and shivered in his confining cot that felt so horribly like a coffin.

      He woke just before dawn. The sails were flapping and he put his head out of his cabin door and asked Chase’s steward what was happening. ‘We’re wearing ship, sir. Going north again, sir. There’s coffee coming, sir. Proper coffee. I saved a handful of beans because the captain does like his coffee. I’ll bring you shaving water, sir.’

      Once he had shaved, Sharpe pulled on his clothes, draped his borrowed cloak about his shoulders and went on deck to find that the fleet had indeed turned back to the north. Lieutenant Haskell now had the watch and he reckoned that Nelson had been running southwards to keep out of the enemy’s sight so that they would not use the excuse of his presence to return to Cadiz, but as the first grey light seeped along the eastern horizon the admiral had turned his fleet in an attempt to get between the enemy and the Spanish port.

      The wind was still light so that the line of great ships lumbered northwards at less than a man’s walking pace. The sky brightened, burnishing the long swells with shifting bands of silver and scarlet. Euryalus, the frigate which had dogged the enemy fleet ever since it had left harbour, was now back with the fleet, while to the east, almost in line with the burning sky where the sun rose, was a streak of dirty cloud showing against the horizon. That streak was the topsails of the enemy, blurred by distance.

      ‘Good God.’ Captain Chase had emerged on deck and spotted the far sails. He looked tired, as though he had slept badly, but he was dressed for battle, doing honour to the enemy by wearing his finest uniform which was normally stored deep in a sea chest. The gold on the twin epaulettes gleamed. His tasselled hat had been brushed till it shone. His white stockings were of silk, his coat was neither faded by the sun nor whitened by salt, while his sword scabbard had been polished, as had the

Скачать книгу