Sharpe’s Prey: The Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ indeed, and quite egregiously muddle-headed. It will all end in tears, Lieutenant, which is why the Foreign Office in its ineffable wisdom has attached me to the Danish expedition. I am deputed to pick up the pieces, so to speak.’

      Sharpe wondered why his lordship wore a beauty patch on his cheek. It was a woman’s affectation, not a man’s, but Sharpe did not like to ask. Instead he watched two gulls squabble over some fish offal in the mud under the quay. ‘You think it won’t work, my lord?’

      Pumphrey gazed at the ships. ‘Shall I just say, Lieutenant, that nothing I have heard suggests that the Danish Crown Prince is venal?’

      ‘Venal?’ Sharpe asked.

      A ghost of a smile showed on his lordship’s face. ‘Nothing I have heard, Sharpe, suggests that the Crown Prince is a man amenable to bribery, and in consequence the Foreign Office is acutely concerned that the whole sorry affair might embarrass Britain.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘Suppose the Crown Prince is offended by the offer of a bribe and announces the attempt to the world?’

      ‘That doesn’t seem so bad,’ Sharpe said dourly.

      ‘It would be clumsy,’ Lord Pumphrey said severely, ‘and clumsiness is the grossest offence against good diplomacy. In truth we are bribing half the crowned heads of Europe, but we have to pretend it is not happening. But there’s worse.’ He glanced behind to make sure no one was overhearing the conversation. ‘Captain Lavisser is known to be indebted. He plays steep at Almack’s. Well, so do many others, but the fact of it is worrying.’

      Sharpe smiled down at the birdlike Pumphrey. ‘He’s up to his ears in debt and you’re sending him off with a chest full of money?’

      ‘The Commander in Chief insists, the Prime Minister concurs and we at the Foreign Office cannot possibly suggest that the Honourable John Lavisser is anything other than scrupulously honest.’ Pumphrey said the last word very sourly, implying the opposite of what he had just stated. ‘We merely must tidy things up, Lieutenant, when the enthusiasm has died down. Nasty thing, enthusiasm. And if things do turn out ill then we would appreciate that no one was to know what happened. We don’t want the Duke and the Prime Minister to look like complete fools, do we?’

      ‘We don’t, my lord?’

      Lord Pumphrey shuddered at Sharpe’s levity. ‘If Lavisser fails, Lieutenant, then I want you to bring him and the money out of Copenhagen to the safety of our army. We do not want the Danish government announcing a failed and clumsy attempt at a bribe.’ He took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘If you need assistance in Copenhagen then this man may provide it.’ He held the paper out to Sharpe, then pulled it back. ‘I have to tell you, Sharpe, that I have worried greatly about revealing this name to you. The man is valuable. I devoutly hope you won’t need his help.’

      ‘What treason are you talking, my lord?’ Baird demanded loudly.

      ‘I was merely remarking on the beauty of the scene, Sir David,’ Lord Pumphrey observed in his high-pitched voice, ‘and noting to Lieutenant Sharpe the delicate tracery of the ships’ rigging. I should like a chance to depict the scene in watercolours.’

      ‘Good God, man, leave that to the proper bloody artists!’ Baird looked appalled. ‘That’s what the idiots are for.’

      Lord Pumphrey pressed the piece of paper into Sharpe’s hand. ‘Guard that name, Lieutenant,’ he said softly. ‘You alone possess it.’

      Meaning, Sharpe thought, that Lavisser had not been trusted with the man’s name. ‘Thank you, my lord,’ he said, but Lord Pumphrey had already walked away for the Cleopatra’s launch had come to the jetty that gave access to the deep-water channel. The chest was being loaded into the launch’s belly and Baird held out a hand to Lavisser. ‘I’ll bid you farewell, God speed and good fortune,’ Baird said. ‘I’ll allow I won’t mind if you fail, but there’s no point in real soldiers dying if a handful of gold can keep them alive.’ He shook Sharpe’s hand. ‘Keep our guardsman alive, Sharpe.’

      ‘I will, sir.’

      The two officers did not speak as they were rowed out to the Cleopatra which, in her haste to use a favourable wind and tide, was already hauling her anchor. Sharpe could hear the chant of the seamen as they tramped round the capstan and see the quivering cable shedding drops of water and lumps of mud as it came from the grey river. The topmen were aloft, ready to drop the high sails. Sharpe and Lavisser scrambled up the ship’s side to be met by the dutiful squeal of bosuns’ whistles and by a harassed lieutenant who hurried them aft to the quarterdeck while the hulking Barker carried the baggage down below and a dozen seamen hauled a line to bring the gold on deck. ‘Captain Samuels begs to be excused while we get under way,’ the Lieutenant said, ‘and requests that you keep to the stern rail, gentlemen, until the sails are set.’

      Lavisser grinned as the Lieutenant hurried away. ‘Meaning that Captain Samuels don’t want us in the way while he makes a muck of getting under sail. And he’s under the eye of the Admiral, no less! Rather like setting the guard at Windsor Castle. I don’t suppose you’ve ever done that, Sharpe? Placed a guard at Windsor?’

      ‘I haven’t, sir,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘You do it perfectly, then some decrepit old fool who last saw action fighting against William the Conqueror informs you that Guardsman Bloggs has an ill-set flint in his musket. And for God’s sake stop calling me “sir”,’ Lavisser said with a smile. ‘You make me feel old, and that’s dreadful unkind of you. So what was on that piece of paper little William gave to you?’

      ‘Little William?’

      ‘Lord Pumps. He was a pallid little worm at Eton and he’s no better now.’

      ‘It’s just his address,’ Sharpe said. ‘He says I should report to him when I get back.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ Lavisser said, though he did not appear offended that Sharpe had lied to him. ‘If my guess is any good then it’s the name of a man in Copenhagen who might help us, a name, I might add, that the suspicious bastards at the Foreign Office refused to give me. Divide and rule, that’s the Foreign Office way. Aren’t you going to tell me the name?’

      ‘If I remember it,’ Sharpe said. ‘I threw the paper overboard.’

      Lavisser laughed at that untruth. ‘Don’t tell me little Pumps told you to keep it secret! He did? Poor little Pumps, he sees conspiracy everywhere. Well, so long as one of us has the name I suppose it don’t matter.’ He looked upwards as the topsails were released. The canvas shook loudly until the seamen sheeted the sails home. Men slid down shrouds and scrambled along spars to loose the mainsails. It was all so very familiar to Sharpe after his long voyage home from India. Captain Samuels, heavy and tall, stood at the white line which marked off the quarterdeck from the rest of the flush-decked frigate. He said nothing, just watched his men.

      ‘How long a voyage is it?’ Sharpe asked Lavisser.

      ‘A week? Ten days? Sometimes much longer. It all depends on Aeolus, our god of the winds. May he blow us swiftly and safely.’

      Sharpe grunted an acknowledgement, then just stared ashore where the herring smokers made a haze over the land. He leaned on the stern rail, suddenly wishing he was anywhere but at sea.

      Lavisser СКАЧАТЬ