Sharpe's Devil

boat?' The Espiritu Santo had passed a score of boats that had come far out to sea to search for big tunny fish, and Sharpe had concocted the idea that perhaps one of the boats might carry him back to Chile where, in alliance with the rebels, he might yet retrieve Dona Louisa's money, exhume Bias Vivar's body and restore his own pride.

'No,' Ardiles said calmly, 'I won't. I have orders to take you back to Europe, and I am a man who obeys orders. But are you? Whose side will you be on if we meet Cochrane?'

This time Sharpe did not hesitate. 'Cochrane's side,' he paused, 'sir.'

Ardiles was immediately and understandably hostile. 'Then you must take the consequences if there's a fight, mustn't you?' He stalked away.

'What does that mean?' Harper said.

'It means that if we sight Lord Cochrane then he'll send Balin and his cronies to slit our throats.'

Next day there were no more fishing boats, just an empty ocean and a succession of thrashing squalls. Sharpe, under the immense vacancy of sea and sky, felt all hope slide away. He had lost his uniform and sword; things of no value except to himself, but their loss galled him. He had lost Louisa's money. He had been humiliated and there was nothing he could do about it. He had been fleeced, then ignominiously kicked out of a country with only the clothes on his back. He felt heartsick. He was not used to failure.

But at least he was accustomed to hardship, and had no fears about surviving on board the Espiritu Santo. The hard bread, salted meat, dried fish and rancid wine that were the seamen's rations would have been counted luxuries in Sharpe's army. The worst part of the life, apart from the damp which permeated every stitch of clothing and bedding, were the Bosun's mates who, knowing that Sharpe had been a senior army officer, seemed to find a particular pleasure in finding him the dirtiest and most menial jobs on board. Sharpe and Harper mucked out the sheep and pigs that would be slaughtered for fresh meat during the voyage, they scrubbed the poopdeck each morning, they ground the rust off the blades of the boarding pikes that were racked on deck, and each afternoon they collected the latrine buckets from the passenger cabins and scoured them clean. Among the score of passengers aboard the frigate were seven Spanish army officers, two of whom were sailing with their families, and those army officers, knowing Sharpe's history, stared at him with frank curiosity. It was, Sharpe thought, going to be a long voyage home.

Yet, like most ordeals, it abated swiftly. The humiliated Balin might bear a grudge, but Harper inevitably discovered a score of fellow Irishmen aboard the Espiritu Santo, all of them exiles from British justice, and all of them eager to hear Harper's news of home, and Sharpe, given temporary and flattering status as an honorary Irishman, felt a good deal safer from the Balin faction. One of the Bosun's mates was from Donegal and his presence took much of the sting out of Sharpe's treatment. A week into the voyage and Sharpe was even beginning to enjoy the experience.

The next dawn brought proof that the sea could throw up hardships far worse than anything yet inflicted on Sharpe and Harper. They were scrubbing the poopdeck when the forward lookout hailed the quarterdeck with a cry that a boat was in sight. Ardiles ran on deck and seized the watch officer's telescope, while the First Lieutenant, Otero, who remembered Sharpe and Harper well from the outward voyage, and who was excruciatingly embarrassed by their change of fortune, climbed to the lookout's post on the foremast from where he trained his own telescope forward.

'What is she?' Ardiles called.

'A wreck, sir! A dismasted whaler, by the look of her.'

'Goddamn.' Ardiles had been hoping it would prove to be the O'Higgins. 'Change course to take a look at her, then call me when we're closer!' Ardiles muttered the instruction to the officer on watch, then, before taking refuge in his cabin, he glowered at the handful of passengers who had come on deck to see what had caused the sudden alarm.

Among the spectators were two army officers' wives who were standing at the weather rail to stare at the stricken whaler. Their excited children ran from one side of the deck to the other, playing an involved game of tag. One of the small girls slipped on the wet patch left by Sharpe's holystone. 'Move back! Give the ladies room!' the Bosun ordered Sharpe and Harper. “Just wait forrard! Wait till the passengers have gone below.'

Sharpe and Harper went to the beakhead where, concealed by the forecastle, they could hide from authority and thus stretch their temporary unemployment. They joined a small group of curious men who gazed at the wrecked whaler. She was a small ship, scarcely a third the size of the Espiritu Santo, with an ugly squared-off stern and, even uglier, three splintered stumps where her masts had stood. A spar, perhaps a yardarm, had been erected in place of the foremast, and a small sail lashed to that makeshift mast. Despite the jury rig she seemed to be unmanned, but then, in answer to a hail from the Spanish frigate's masthead, two survivors appeared on the whaler's deck and began waving frantically toward the Espiritu Santo. One of the two unfolded a flag that he held aloft to the wind. 'She's an American,' the First Lieutenant shouted down to the forecastle where a midshipman was deputed to carry the news back to the Captain's cabin.

Ardiles, though, was not in his cabin, but had instead come forward. He had avoided the inquisitive passengers by using a lower deck, but now he suddenly appeared out of the low door which led to the beakhead. He nodded affably to the men who were perched on the ship's lavatory bench, then trained his telescope on the whaler.

'She isn't too badly damaged,' Ardiles spoke to himself, but as Sharpe and Harper were the closest men, they grunted an acknowledgment of his words, 'Hardly damaged at all!' Ardiles continued his assessment of the beleaguered American whaler.

'She looks buggered to me, sir,' Sharpe said.

'She's floating upright,' Ardiles pointed out, 'so, as they say in the Cadiz boatyards, her hull must be as watertight as a duck's backside. Mind you, the hulls of whaling ships are as strong as anything afloat.' He paused as he stared through the glass. “They've lost their rudder, by the look of it. They're using a steering oar instead.'

'What could have happened to her, sir?' Harper asked.

'A storm? Perhaps she rolled over? That can snap the sticks out of a boat as quick as you like. And she's lost all her whaleboats, so I suspect her topsides were swept clean when she rolled. That would explain the rudder, too. And I'll warrant she lost a few souls drowned too, God rest them.' Ardiles crossed himself.

Three men were now visible on the whaler's deck. Lieutenant Otero, still high on the foremast, read the whaler's name through his telescope and shouted it down to Captain Ardiles. 'She's called the Mary Starbuck.'

'Probably the owner's wife,' Ardiles guessed. 'I hope the poor man has got insurance, or else Mary Starbuck will be making do with last year's frocks.'

Lieutenant Otero, now that the Espiritu Santo was nearing the hulk, slid down the ratlines to leave tar smeared on his white trousers. 'Do we rig a towing bridle?' he asked Ardiles.

Ardiles shook his head. 'We haven't time to take them in tow. But prepare to heave to. And fetch me a speaking trumpet from the quarterdeck.' Ardiles still stared at the whaler, his fingers drumming on the beakhead's low rail. 'Perhaps, Sharpe, you'll find out what the Americans need? I doubt they want us to rescue them. Their hull isn't broached, and under that jury rig they could sail from here to the Californias.'

The speaking trumpet was brought to the bows. Ten minutes later the frigate heaved to, backing her square sails so that she rolled and wallowed in the great swells. Sharpe, standing beside one of the long-barreled nine- pounder bow guns that were the frigate's pursuit weapons, could clearly read the whaler's name that was painted in gold letters on a black quarterboard across her stern. Beneath that name was written her hailing port, Nantucket. 'Tell them who we are,' Ardiles ordered, 'then ask them what they want.'

Sharpe raised the trumpet to his mouth. 'This is the Spanish frigate Espiritu Santo,' he shouted, 'What do you want?'

'Water, mister!' One of the Americans cupped his hands. 'We lost all our fresh water barrels!'

'Ask what happened.' Ardiles, who spoke reasonable English, had not needed to have the American's request for water translated.

'What happened?' Sharpe shouted.

'She rolled over! We were close to the ice when a berg broke off!'

Sharpe translated as best he could, for the answer made little sense to him, but Ardiles both understood