“You haven’t seen my secretary, have you, Chase?” Lord William appeared on deck to interrupt the conversation.

“Not a sign of him,” Chase said happily.

“I need him,” Lord William said petulantly. Lord William had persuaded Chase to allow him to use his dining cabin as an office. Chase had been reluctant to yield the room with its lavish table, but had decided it was better to keep Lord William happy rather than have him scowling about the ship in frustration.

Chase turned to the fifth lieutenant, Holderby. “Did his lordship’s secretary take dinner in the wardroom?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Holderby said, “haven’t seen the fellow since breakfast.”

“Have you seen him, Sharpe?” his lordship inquired coldly. He did not like talking to Sharpe, but condescended to ask the question.

“No, my lord.”

“I asked him to fetch a memorandum about our original agreement with Holkar. Damn him, I need it!”

“Perhaps he’s still looking for it,” Chase suggested.

“Or he’s seasick, my lord?” Sharpe added. “The wind’s freshened.”

“I’ve looked in his cabin,” Lord William complained, “and he’s not there.”

“Mister Collier!” Chase summoned the midshipman who was pacing up and down the weather deck. “We have a missing secretary. The tall gloomy fellow who dresses in black. Look below decks for him, will you? Tell him he’s wanted in my dining cabin.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Collier said and dived below to start his search.

Lady Grace, attended by her maid, strolled onto the deck and stood a studious distance from Sharpe. Lord William turned on her. “Have you seen Braithwaite?”

“Not since this morning,” Lady Grace said.

“The wretched man has disappeared.”

Lady Grace shrugged, suggesting that Braithwaite’s fate was none of her concern, then turned to watch the flying fish skim over the waves.

“I do hope the bugger hasn’t fallen overboard,” Chase said. “He’s got a long swim if he has.”

“He had no business being on deck,” Lord William said in annoyance.

“I doubt he’s drowned, my lord,” Chase said reassuringly. “If he had fallen then someone would have seen him.”

“What do you do then?” Sharpe asked.

“Stop the ship and make a rescue,” Chase said, “if we can. Did I ever tell you about Nelson in the Minerva?”

“Even if you had,” Sharpe said, “you’d tell me again.”

Chase laughed. “Back in ‘ninety-seven, Sharpe, Nelson commands the Minerva. Fine frigate! He was being pursued by two Spanish ships of the line and a frigate when some halfwit falls overboard. Tom Hardy was aboard, wonderful man, he captains the Victory now, and Hardy took a boat to rescue the fellow. See the picture, Sharpe? Minerva fleeing for her life, close pursued by three Spaniards and Hardy and his boat crew, with the wet fellow aboard, can’t row hard enough to catch up. So what does Nelson do? He backs his topsails! Can you credit it? Backs his topsails. By God, he said, I won’t lose Hardy. Now the Dons can’t make head nor tail of this. Why’s the fellow stopping? They think he must have reinforcements coming, so the silly buggers haul their own wind. Hardy catches up, gets aboard, and the Minerva takes off like a scalded cat! What a great man Nelson is.”

Lord William scowled and stared westward. Sharpe gazed up at the mainsail, trying to trace a rope from its beginning, through blocks and tackles, down to the belaying pins beside the gunwales. Hammocks were being aired over the netting racks in which they were stuffed during battle to stop musket bullets. A solitary sea bird, white and long-winged, curved close to the ship then soared away into the blue. Mister Cowper, the purser, was counting the boarding pikes racked around the mainmast’s trunk. He licked a pencil, made a note in a book, shot a scared look at Chase and waddled away. Holderby, who had the deck, ordered a bosun’s mate forrard to ring the ship’s bell. Chase, still thinking about Nelson, smiled.

“Captain! Sir! Captain!” It was Harry Collier, erupting into sight on the weather deck from beneath the quarterdeck.

“Calm down, Mister Collier,” Chase said. “The ship isn’t on fire, is it?”

“No, sir. It’s Mister Braithwaite, sir, he’s dead, sir!” Everyone on the quarterdeck stared down at the small boy.

“Go on, Mister Collier,” Chase said. “He can’t have just died! Men don’t just die. Well, the master did, but he was old. Braithwaite was young. Did he fall? Was he strangled? Did he kill himself? Enlighten me.”

164 I

“He fell in the hold, sir, looks like he broke his neck. Off the ladder, sir.”

“Careless,” Chase said, and turned away.

Lord William frowned, did not know what to say, so turned on his heel and stalked back toward the dining cabin, then thought better of it and hurried back to the railing. “Midshipman?”

“Sir?” Collier hauled off his cocked hat. “My lord?”

“Was there a piece of paper in his hand?”

“I didn’t see, sir.”

“Then pray look, Mister Collier, pray look,” Lord William said, “and bring it to my cabin if you find such a thing.” He walked away again. Lady Grace looked at Sharpe who met her eye, kept his expression neutral, then turned to gaze up the mainmast.

The body was brought onto the deck. It was plain that poor Braithwaite had slipped off the ladder and fallen, breaking his neck in the process, but it was strange, the surgeon commented with a frown, that the secretary had dislocated both his arms.

“Caught them in the ladder’s rungs?” Sharpe suggested.

“That could be so, that could be so,” Pickering allowed. He did not seem convinced, but nor was he minded to probe the mystery. “But at least it was a quick end.”

“One hopes so,” Sharpe said piously.

“Probably struck his head on a barrel.” Pickering twisted the corpse’s head, looking for a mark, but finding none. He stood up, dusting his hands. “Happens once every voyage,” he said cheerfully, “sometimes more. We have practical jokers, Mister Sharpe, who like to grease the rungs with soap. Usually when they believe the purser might be using a ladder. It usually ends with a broken leg and much hilarity, but our Mister Braithwaite was less fortunate.” He wrenched the dislocated arms back into place. “Ugly sort of bugger, wasn’t he?”

Braithwaite’s body was stripped and then placed in his sleeping cot and the sailmaker sewed a stretch of old, frayed sailcloth as a lid for the makeshift coffin. The final stitch, as was customary, was threaded through the corpse’s nose to make certain he was truly dead. Three eighteen-pounder cannon balls had been placed in the coffin that was laid on a plank beside the starboard entry port.

Chase read the service for the dead. The Pucelle’s officers, hats off, stood respectfully about the makeshift coffin which had been covered with a British flag. Lord William and Lady Grace stood beside the entry port. “We therefore commit his body to the deep,” Chase read solemnly, “to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body that it might be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.” Chase closed the prayer book and looked at Lord William who nodded his thanks, then spoke a few well-chosen words that described Braithwaite’s excellent moral character, his assiduity as a confidential secretary and Lord William’s fervent hopes that Almighty God would receive the secretary’s soul into a life of eternal bliss. “His loss,” Lord William finished, “is a sad, sad blow.”

“So it is,” Chase said, then nodded at the two seamen who crouched beside the plank and they obediently lifted it so that the coffin slid out from beneath the flag. Sharpe heard the edge of the cot strike against the sill of the entry port, then there was a splash.