Sharpe's Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

dark-skinned man in a fishing

    canoe paddled out of the ship’s way, then gaped up at the great black and white wall that

    roared past him. The temple was fading now, lost in the glare of the sun, but Sharpe stared

    at the tower’s black outline and wished again that he was not leaving. He had liked India,

    finding it a playground for warriors, princes, rogues and adventurers. He had found

    wealth there, been commissioned there, fought in its hills and on its ancient battlements.

    He was leaving friends and lovers there, and more than one enemy in his grave, but for what?

    For Britain? Where no one waited for him and no adventurers rode from the hills and no

    tyrants lurked behind red battlements.
    One of the wealthy passengers came down the steep steps from the quarterdeck with a

    woman on his arm. Like most of the Calliope’s passengers he was a civilian and was

    elegantly dressed in a long dark-green coat, white breeches and an old-fashioned

    tricorne. The woman on his arm was plump, dressed in gauzy white, fair-haired, and

    laughing. The two spoke a foreign language, one Sharpe did not know. German? Dutch?

    Swedish? Everything the foreign couple saw, from the lashed guns to the crates of hens to

    the first seasick passengers leaning over the rail, amused them. The man was explaining

    the ship to his companion. “Boom!” he cried, pointing to one of the guns, and the woman

    laughed, then staggered as a gust of wind made the big ship lurch. She whooped in mock alarm

    and clung to the man’s elbow as they staggered on forrard.
    “Know who that is?” It was Braithwaite, Lord William Male’s secretary, who had sidled

    alongside Sharpe.
    “No.” Sharpe was brusque, instinctively disliking anyone connected with Lord

    William.
    “That was the Baron von Dornberg,” Braithwaite said, evidently expecting Sharpe to be

    impressed. The secretary watched the baron help his lady up to the forecastle where

    another gust of wind threatened to snatch her wide-brimmed hat.
    “Never heard of him,” Sharpe said churlishly.
    “He’s a nabob.” Braithwaite spoke the word in awe, meaning that the baron was a man who

    had made himself fabulously rich in India and was now carrying his wealth back to

    Europe. Such a career was a gamble. A man either died in India or became wealthy. Most

    died. “Are you carrying goods?” Braithwaite asked Sharpe.
    “Goods?” Sharpe asked, wondering why the secretary was making such an effort to be

    pleasant to him.
    “To sell,” Braithwaite said impatiently, as though Sharpe was being deliberately

    obtuse. “I’ve got peacock feathers,” he went on, “five crates! The plumes fetch a rare price

    in London. Milliners buy them. I’m Malachi Braithwaite, by the way.” He held out his hand.

    “Lord William’s confidential secretary.”
    Sharpe reluctantly shook the offered hand.
    “I never did send that letter,” Braithwaite said, smiling meaningfully. “I told him I

    did, but I didn’t.” Braithwaite leaned close to make these confidences. He was a few inches

    taller than Sharpe, but much thinner, and had a lugubrious face with quick eyes that never

    seemed to look at Sharpe for long before darting sideways, almost as though Braithwaite

    expected to be attacked at any second. “His lordship will merely assume your colonel

    never received the letter.”
    “Why didn’t you send it?” Sharpe asked.
    Braithwaite looked offended at Sharpe’s curt tone. “We’re to be shipmates,” he

    explained earnestly, “for how long? Three, four months? And I don’t travel in the stern like

    his lordship, but have to sleep in the steerage, and lower steerage at that! Not even

    main-deck steerage.” He plainly resented that humiliation. The secretary was dressed

    as a gentleman, with a fashionable high stock and an elaborately tied cravat, but the

    cloth of his black coat was shiny, the cuffs were frayed and the collar of his shirt was

    darned. “Why