“My money’s on the Prussians. On the Prussians and Austrians.” Lord William seemed very certain.

“Not the British?” Pohlmann asked.

“We don’t have a dog in the European rat pit,” Lord William said. “We should save our army”—he glanced at Sharpe—”such as it is, to protect our trade.”

“You think we’d be wasted fighting the French?” Sharpe asked. Lady Grace’s foot pressed warningly on his.

Lord William contemplated Sharpe for a moment, then shrugged. “The French army would destroy ours in a day,” he said with a sneer. “You might have seen some victories over Indian armies, Sharpe, but that is hardly the same as facing the French.”

The foot pressed harder on Sharpe’s instep.

“I think we would acquit ourselves nobly,” Major Dalton averred, “and the Indian armies were not to be despised, my lord, not to be despised at all.”

“Fine troops!” Pohlmann said warmly, then hastily added, “Or so I’m told.”

“It isn’t the quality of the troops,” Lord William said, nettled, “but their leadership. Good Lord! Even Arthur Wellesley beat the Indians! He’s a distant cousin of yours, ain’t he, my dear?” He did not wait for his wife to answer. “And he was never very bright. A dunce at school.”

“You were at school with him, my lord?” Sharpe asked, interested.

“Eton,” Lord William said curtly. “And my younger brother was there with Wellesley who was no damn good at Latin. He left early, I believe. Wasn’t up to the place.”

“He learned to cut throats, though,” Sharpe said.

“Didn’t he just!” the major agreed eagerly. “You were at Argaum, Sharpe. Did you see him muster those sepoys? Line broken, enemy raining shot like hail, cavalry lurking on the flank and there’s your cousin, ma’am, cool as you like, bringing the fellows back into line.”

“Arthur is a very distant cousin,” Grace said, smiling at Dalton, “though I am glad of your good opinion of him, Major.”

“And of Sharpe’s good opinion, I hope?” Dalton said.

Lady Grace shuddered as if to suggest that it would demean her even to consider an opinion of Sharpe’s, and at the same time she kicked him on the shin so that he almost grinned. Lord William regarded Sharpe coldly. “You only like Wellesley, Sharpe, because he made you an officer. Which is properly loyal of you, but scarcely discriminating.”

“He also had me flogged, my lord.”

That brought silence to the table. Lady Grace alone knew Sharpe had been flogged, for she had drawn her long white fingers across the scars on his back, but the rest of the table stared at him as though he were some strange creature just dragged up on one of the seamen’s fishing lines. “You were flogged?” Dalton asked in astonishment.

“Two hundred lashes,” Sharpe said.

“I’m sure you deserved it,” Lord William said, amused.

“As it happens, my lord, I didn’t.”

“Oh come, come.” Lord William frowned. “Every man says that. Ain’t that right, Fazackerly? Have you ever known a guilty man accept responsibility for his crime?”

“Never, my lord.”

“It must have hurt dreadfully,” Lieutenant Tufhell said sympathetically.

“That,” Lord William said, “is the point of it. You can’t win battles without discipline, and you can’t have discipline without the lash.”

“The French don’t use the lash,” Sharpe said mildly, staring up at the big mainsail and the tangle of canvas and rigging that rose higher still, “and you tell me, my lord, that they would destroy us in a day.”

“That is a question of numbers, Sharpe, numbers. Officers should also know how to count.”

“I can manage up to two hundred,” Sharpe said, and was rewarded with another kick.

They finished the meal with dried fruit, then the men drank brandy, and Sharpe slept for much of the afternoon in a hammock slung under the spare spars that ran lengthwise above the main deck and on which the ship’s boats were stored during the voyage. He dreamed of battle. He was running away, pursued by a giant Indian with a spear. He woke drenched in sweat and immediately looked for the sun, for he knew he could not meet Grace until it was dark. Well dark. Until the ship was sleeping and only the night watch was on deck, but Braithwaite, he knew, would be watching and listening in that dark. What the hell was he to do about Braithwaite? He dared not tell Lady Grace about the man’s allegations, for they would terrify her.

He ate in steerage, then paced the main deck as darkness fell. And still he must wait until Lord William had finished playing whist or backgammon and had finally taken his drops of laudanum and gone to bed. The ship’s bell rang the night past and Sharpe waited in the black shadows between the vast mainmast and the bulkhead which supported the front end of the quarterdeck. It was where he waited for Lady Grace, for she could come there unseen by any of the crew on the quarterdeck. She used the stairs that went from the roundhouse down to the great cabin, then through a door which led to the main-deck steerage. She crept between the canvas screens and so out through another door on to the open deck. Then, taking her hand, Sharpe would lead her down into the warm stink of the lower-deck steerage and to his narrow cot where, with a greed that astonished them both, they would cling to each other as though they drowned. The very thought of her made Sharpe dizzy. He was besotted by her, drunk with her, insane for her.

He waited. The rigging creaked. The great mast shifted imperceptibly with gusts of wind. He could hear an officer pacing the quarterdeck, hear the slap of hands on the wheel spokes and the grating of the rudder ropes. The ensign flapped at the stern, the sea ran down the ship’s flanks and still Sharpe waited. He stared up at the stars visible through the sails and thought they looked like the bivouac fires of a great army encamped across the sky.

He closed his eyes, wishing she would come and wishing that the voyage could last forever. He wished they could be lovers on a ship sailing in an endless night beneath a spread of stars, for once the Calliope reached England she would go away from him. She would go to her husband’s house in Lincolnshire and Sharpe would go to Kent to join a regiment he had never seen.

Then the door opened and she was there, crouching beside him in her vast boat cloak. “Come to the poop deck,” she whispered.

He wanted to ask why, but he bit the question back for there had been an urgency in her voice and he reckoned that if it was important to her then it was important to him too, and so he let her take his hand and lead him back into the main-deck steerage. These berths cost the same as the lower deck, but they were much drier and airier. It was pitch black, for no lights were allowed after nine o’clock except in the roundhouse day cabins where deadlights could be fixed across the small portholes. Lady Grace twined her fingers in his as they groped and felt their way to the door leading to the great cabin, then up the stairs. “As I left my cabin,” she whispered to him at the top of the stairs, “I saw Pohlmann go into the cuddy.”

She led him to the door which opened onto the back of the quarterdeck and they stepped out, risking the eyes of the helmsman and the duty officer, but if they were seen no one remarked it. They climbed to the poop deck and Lady Grace gestured at the skylight above the cuddy cabin from which, in contravention of Captain Cromwell’s orders, a faint light gleamed.

Creeping softly as children who have stayed up long after their bedtime, Sharpe and Lady Grace went close to the skylight. Four of its ten panes were propped open and Sharpe could hear the murmur of men’s voices. Lady Grace peeped over the edge, then drew back. “They’re there,” she mouthed in his ear.

Sharpe looked through one of the dirty panes and saw three men’s heads bent over the long table. One was Cromwell, the second Pohlmann and Sharpe did not recognize the third. They seemed to be examining a chart, then Pohlmann straightened up and Sharpe ducked back. The smell of cigar smoke came through the open panes.