The servants, who were in the second boat, were expected to scramble up the ship’s side as best they could while seamen hauled the baggage up in nets, but Lord William and his wife stepped from their boat onto a floating platform from which they climbed a gangway to the ship’s waist. Sharpe, waiting his turn, could smell bilge water, salt and tar. A stream of dirty water emerged from a hole high up in the hull. “Pumping his bottoms, sir,” Hopper said.

“You mean she leaks?”

“All ships leak, sir. Nature of ships, sir.”

Another launch had gone alongside the Calliope’s bows and sailors were hoisting nets filled with struggling goats and crates of protesting hens. “Milk and eggs,” Hopper said cheerfully, then barked at his crew to lay to their oars so Sharpe could be put alongside. “I wish you a fast, safe voyage, sir,” the bosun said. “Back to old England, eh?”

“Back to England,” Sharpe said, and watched as the oars were raised straight up as Hopper used the last of the barge’s momentum to lay her sweetly alongside the floating platform. Sharpe gave Hopper a coin, touched his hat to Mister Collier, thanked the boat’s crew and stepped up onto the platform from where he climbed to the main deck past an open gunport in which a polished cannon muzzle showed.

An officer waited just inside the entry port. “Your name?” he asked peremptorily.

“Richard Sharpe.”

The officer peered at a list. “Your baggage is already aboard, Mister Sharpe, and this is for you.” He took a folded sheet of paper from a pocket and gave it to Sharpe. “Rules of the ship. Read, mark, learn and explicitly obey. Your action station is gun number five.”

“My what?” Sharpe asked.

“Every male passenger is expected to help defend the ship, Mister Sharpe. Gun number five.” The officer waved across the deck which was so heaped with baggage that none of the guns on the farther side could be seen. “Mister Binns!”