Sharpe's Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell Page B

thing pleased Sharpe, but Captain

    Cromwell had not been deflected from his argument and was now frowning at the ensign.

    “You think,” the captain demanded, “that the French can be defeated?”
    “We’re at war with them, sir,” Sharpe retorted, “and you don’t go to war unless you mean

    to win.”
    “You go to war,” Lord William said icily, “because small-minded men can see no

    alternative.”
    “And if every war has a winner,” Cromwell said, “it must by ineluctable logic also have

    a loser. If you want my advice, young man, leave the army before some politician has you

    killed in an ill-considered attack on France. Or, more likely, the French invade Britain

    and kill you along with the rest of the redcoats.”
    The ladies withdrew a short while later and the men drank a glass of port, but the

    atmosphere was stiff and Pohlmann, plainly bored, excused himself from the company and

    gestured that Sharpe should follow him back to the starboard roundhouse cabin where

    Mathilde was now sprawled on a silk-covered sofa. Facing her on a matching sofa was an

    elderly man who was talking animatedly in German when Pohlmann entered, but who

    immediately stood and bowed his head respectfully. Pohlmann seemed surprised to see him

    and gestured the man to the door. “I won’t need you tonight,” he said in English.
    “Very good, my lord,” the man, evidently Pohlmann’s servant, answered in the same

    language, then, with a glance at Sharpe, left the cabin. Pohlmann peremptorily ordered

    Mathilde to take some air on the poop, then, when she had gone, he poured two large brandies

    and gave Sharpe a mischievous grin. “My heart,” he said, clasping a dramatic hand to his

    breast, “almost flopped over and died when I first saw you.”
    “Would it matter if they knew who you were?” Sharpe asked.
    Pohlmann grinned. “How much credit will merchants give Sergeant Anthony Pohlmann, eh?

    But the Baron von Dornberg! Ah! They queue to give the baron credit. They trip over their fat

    feet to pour guineas into my purse.”
    Sharpe looked about the big cabin that was furnished with two sofas, a sideboard, a low

    table, a harp and an enormous teak bed with ivory inlays on the headboard. “But you must

    have done well in India,” Sharpe said.
    “For a former sergeant, you mean?” Pohlmann laughed. “I do have some loot, my dear Sharpe,

    but not as much as I would have liked and nowhere near as much as I lost at Assaye, but I

    cannot complain. If I am careful I shall not need to work again.” He looked at the hem of

    Sharpe’s red coat where the jewels made small lumps in the threadbare cloth. “I see you did

    well in India too, eh?”
    Sharpe was aware that the fraying, thinning cloth of his coat was increasingly an

    unsafe place to hide the diamonds, emeralds and rubies, but he did not want to discuss

    them with Pohlmann so gestured at the harp instead. “You play?”
    “Mein Gott, no! Mathilde plays. Very badly, but I tell her it is wonderful.”
    “She’s your wife?”
    “Am I a numbskull? A blockhead? Would I marry? Ha! No, Sharpe, she was whore to a rajah

    and when he tired of her I took her over. She is from Bavaria and wants babies, so she is a

    double fool, but she will keep my bed warm till I see home and then I shall find something

    younger. So you killed Dodd?”
    “Not me, a friend killed him.”
    “He deserved to die. A very horrid man.” Pohlmann shuddered. “And you? You travel

    alone?”
    “Yes.”
    “In the rat hole, eh?” He looked at the hem of Sharpe’s coat. “You keep your jewels until

    you reach England and travel in steerage. But more important, my cautious friend, will

    you reveal who I am?”
    “No,” Sharpe said with a smile. The last time he had seen Pohlmann the Hanoverian had been

    hiding in a peasant’s hut in the village of Assaye. Sharpe could have arrested him and

    gained credit for capturing the commander of the beaten army, but