“She’s the one drying her topsails,” Chase said, and Sharpe saw that one of the far ships had hung out her topmost sails, but at this distance she looked like the other dozen East Indiamen that would sail home together to protect themselves against the privateers who haunted the Indian Ocean. From the shore they looked like naval ships, for their hulls were banded black and white to suggest that massive broadsides were concealed behind closed gunports, but the ruse would not mislead any privateer. Those ships, their hulls stuffed with the riches of India, were the greatest prizes any corsair or French naval captain could wish to take. If a man wanted to live and die rich then all he needed to do was capture an Indiaman, which is why the great ships sailed in convoy.

“Where’s your ship, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“Can’t see her from here,” Chase said. “She’s careened on a mud-bank on the far side of Elephanta Island.”

“Careened?”

“Tipped on her side so we can polish her bum.”

“What’s she called?”

Chase looked abashed. “Pucelle,” he said.

“Pucelle? Sounds French.”

“It is French, Sharpe. It means a virgin.” Chase pretended to be offended as Sharpe laughed. “You’ve heard of la Pucelle d’Orleans?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“The maid of Orleans, Sharpe, was Joan of Arc, and the ship was named for her and I just trust she doesn’t end up like Joan, burned to a crisp.”

“But why would you name a boat for a Frenchwoman, sir?” Sharpe asked.

“We didn’t. The Frogs did. She was a French boat till Nelson took her at the Nile. If you capture a ship, Sharpe, you keep the old name unless it’s really obnoxious. Nelson took the Franklin at the Nile, an eighty-gun thing of great beauty, but the navy will be damned if it has a ship named after a traitorous bloody Yankee so we call her the Canopus now. But my ship kept her name, and she’s a lovely beast. Lovely and fast. Oh my God, no.” He sat up straight, staring toward the road. “Oh, God, no!” These last words were prompted by the sight of an open carriage that had slowed and now stopped just beyond the garden gate. Chase, who had been genial until this moment, suddenly looked bitter.