Sharpe’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805. Bernard Cornwell

mouth, then looked at Sharpe. ‘You think the war is lost, Sharpe?’

      ‘Me, sir?’ Sharpe was startled at being addressed.

      ‘You, Sharpe, yes, you,’ Pohlmann said. ‘Do you think the war is lost?’

      Sharpe hesitated, wondering whether the wisest course was to say something harmless and let the conversation go on again without him, but he had been offended by Cromwell’s defeatism. ‘It certainly isn’t over, my lord,’ he said to Pohlmann.

      Cromwell recognized the challenge. ‘What do you mean by that, sir, eh? Explain yourself.’

      ‘A fight ain’t lost till it’s finished, sir,’ Sharpe said, ‘and this one ain’t done.’

      ‘An ensign speaks,’ Lord William murmured scornfully.

      ‘You think a rat has a chance against a terrier?’ Cromwell demanded, just as scornfully.

      Pohlmann held up a hand to stop Sharpe from responding. ‘I think Ensign Sharpe knows a good deal about fighting, Captain,’ the German said. ‘When I first met him he was a sergeant, and now he is a commissioned officer.’ He paused, letting that statement cause its stir of surprise. ‘What does it take for a sergeant to become an officer in the British army?’

      ‘Damned luck,’ Lord William said laconically.

      ‘It takes an act of outstanding bravery,’ Major Dalton observed quietly. He raised his wine glass to Sharpe. ‘Honoured to make your acquaintance, Sharpe. I didn’t place the name when we were introduced, but I recall you now. I’m honoured.’

      Pohlmann, enjoying his mischief, toasted Sharpe with a sip of wine. ‘So what was your act of outstanding bravery, Mister Sharpe?’

      Sharpe reddened. Lady Grace was staring at him, the first notice she had taken of him since the company had sat to dinner.

      ‘Well, Sharpe?’ Captain Cromwell insisted.

      Sharpe was tongue-tied, but was rescued by Dalton. ‘He saved Sir Arthur Wellesley’s life,’ the major said quietly.

      ‘How? Where?’ Pohlmann demanded.

      Sharpe caught the German’s eye. ‘At a place called Assaye, sir.’

      ‘Assaye?’ Pohlmann said, frowning slightly. It had been at Assaye that his army and his ambitions had been wrecked by Wellesley. ‘Never heard of it,’ he said lightly, leaning back in his chair.

      ‘And you were first over the wall at Gawilghur, Sharpe,’ the major said. ‘Isn’t that right?’

      ‘Me and Captain Campbell were first across, sir. But it were lightly defended.’

      ‘Is that where you fetched the scar, Sharpe?’ the major enquired, and the whole table gazed at Sharpe. He looked uncomfortable, but there was no denying the power of his face, nor the suggestion of violence that was contained in the scar. ‘It wasn’t a bullet, was it?’ the major insisted. ‘No bullet makes that kind of scar.’

      ‘It were a sword, sir,’ Sharpe answered. ‘Man called Dodd.’ He looked at Pohlmann as he spoke and Pohlmann, who had once commanded and heartily disliked the renegade Dodd, half smiled.

      ‘And does Mister Dodd still live?’ the German asked.

      ‘He’s dead, sir,’ Sharpe said flatly.

      ‘Good.’ Pohlmann raised his glass to Sharpe.

      The major turned to Cromwell. ‘Mister Sharpe is a very considerable soldier, Captain. Sir Arthur told me that if you find yourself in a bad fight then you can ask for no one better at your side.’

      The news that General Wellesley had said any such 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 he had always liked Pohlmann and so he had looked the other way and let the big man escape. ‘But I reckon my silence is worth something, though,’ Sharpe added.

      ‘You want Mathilde every other Friday?’ Pohlmann, assured that his secret was safe with Sharpe, could not hide his relief.

      ‘A