“There, you see? The Mars? She was there.”
“Which one is she, Papa?”
“The black-and-yellow one.”
“They’re all black and yellow, Papa. Like wasps.”
Sharpe stared at the ships, half listening to the girls tease their father and trying not to think of Grace teasing him, when a precise and high-pitched voice spoke behind him. “Are yon content, Lieutenant?”
Sharpe turned to see it was Lord Pumphrey, the young and taciturn civilian who had spoken so little during the journey. “My lord?”
“I first heard you were involved in this nonsense very late last night,” Pumphrey said softly, “and I confess your qualities were quite unknown to me. I apologize for that, but I am not very familiar with the army list. My father once thought I should be a soldier, but he concluded I was both too clever and too delicate.” He smiled at Sharpe who did not smile back. Lord Pumphrey sighed. “So I took the liberty of waking one or two acquaintances to discover something about you and they informed me that you are a most resourceful man.”
“Am I, my lord?” Sharpe wondered who on earth he and Lord Pumphrey knew in common.
“I too have resources,” Pumphrey went on. “I work for the Foreign Office, though, for the moment, I am reduced to serving as a civilian aide to Sir David. It quite opens one’s eyes, seeing how the military operate. So, Lieutenant, are you content?”
Sharpe shrugged. “It all seems a bit abrupt, my lord, if that’s what you mean.”
“Distressingly abrupt!” Pumphrey agreed. He was so thin and frail that it looked as though a puff of wind would blow him off the quay and dump him in the filth below, but that apparent weakness was belied by his eyes which were very intelligent. He took out a snuff box, snapped open its lid and offered some to Sharpe. “You don’t use it? I find it calming, and we rather need calm heads at present. This alarming excursion, Lieutenant, is being encouraged by the Duke of York. We at the Foreign Office, who might be expected to know rather more about Denmark than His Royal Highness, profoundly disapprove of the whole scheme, but the Duke, alas, has gained the support of the Prime Minister. Mister Canning wants the fleet and would rather avoid a campaign that will inevitably make Denmark into our enemy. He suggests, too, that a successful bribe will spare the Treasury the expense of such a campaign. These are cogent arguments, Lieutenant, do you not think?”
“If you say so, my lord.”
“Cogent indeed, and quite egregiously mudle-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 offense 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 Honorable 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 watercolors.”
“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.”
The two officers did not speak as they were rowed out to the Cleopatra which, in her haste to use a favorable 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 gray river. The top-men 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
