Sharpe's Trafalgar Read Online Free PDF Page B

down,” his lordship snapped, disdaining

Sharpe’s assistance.
    Not that Sharpe wanted to help Lord William, but his wife was another matter and it was

for her benefit that Sharpe drew his pistol and cocked the flint. “Row on!” he ordered the

Indian, who answered by spitting overboard.
    “What in God’s name are you doing?” Lord William at last acknowledged Sharpe. “My wife’s

aboard! Have a care with that gun, you fool! Who the devil are you?”
    “We were introduced not an hour ago, my lord,” Sharpe said. “Richard Sharpe is the name.” He

fired and the pistol ball splintered a timber of the boat just on the water line between the

recalcitrant skipper and his passengers. Lady Grace put a hand to her mouth in alarm, but

the ball had harmed no one, merely holed the boat so that the Indian had to stoop to plug the

damage with a thumb. Sharpe began to reload. “Row on, you bastard!” he shouted.
    The Indian glanced behind as if judging the distance to the shore, but Hopper ordered

his crew to back water and the barge slowly moved behind the two boats, cutting them off from

land. Lord William seemed too astonished to speak, but just stared indignantly as Sharpe

rammed a second bullet down the short barrel.
    The Indian did not want another ball cracking into his boat and so he suddenly sat and

shouted at his men who began pulling hard on their oars. Hopper nodded approvingly. “Twixt

wind and water, sir. Captain Chase would be proud of you.”
    “Between wind and water?” Sharpe asked.
    “You holed the bastard on the water line, sir. It’ll sink him if he doesn’t keep it stopped

up.”
    Sharpe gazed at her ladyship who, at last, turned to look at her rescuer. She had huge

eyes, and perhaps they were the feature that made her seem so sad, but Sharpe was still

astonished by her beauty and he could not resist giving her a wink. She looked quickly

away. “She’ll remember my name now,” he said.
    “Is that why you did it?” Hopper asked, then laughed when Sharpe did not answer.
    Lord William’s boat drew up to the Calliope first. The servants, who were in the second

boat, were expected to scramble up the ship’s side as best they could while seamen hauled the

baggage up in nets, but Lord William and his wife stepped from their boat onto a floating

platform from which they climbed a gangway to the ship’s waist. Sharpe, waiting his turn,

could smell bilge water, salt and tar. A stream of dirty water emerged from a hole high up in

the hull. “Pumping his bottoms, sir,” Hopper said.
    “You mean she leaks?”
    “All ships leak, sir. Nature of ships, sir.”
    Another launch had gone alongside the Calliope’s bows and sailors were hoisting nets

filled with struggling goats and crates of protesting hens. “Milk and eggs,” Hopper said

cheerfully, then barked at his crew to lay to their oars so Sharpe could be put alongside. “I

wish you a fast, safe voyage, sir,” the bosun said. “Back to old England, eh?”
    “Back to England,” Sharpe said, and watched as the oars were raised straight up as Hopper

used the last of the barge’s momentum to lay her sweetly alongside the floating platform.

Sharpe gave Hopper a coin, touched his hat to Mister Collier, thanked the boat’s crew and

stepped up onto the platform from where he climbed to the main deck past an open gunport in

which a polished cannon muzzle showed.
    An officer waited just inside the entry port. “Your name?” he asked peremptorily.
    “Richard Sharpe.”
    The officer peered at a list. “Your baggage is already aboard, Mister Sharpe, and this is

for you.” He took a folded sheet of paper from a pocket and gave it to Sharpe. “Rules of the

ship. Read, mark, learn and explicitly obey. Your action station is gun number five.”
    “My what?” Sharpe asked.
    “Every male passenger is expected to help defend the ship, Mister Sharpe. Gun number

five.” The officer waved