The Surgeon's Mate

by Patrick O'Brian

  To get there he would have to work round the point. The only way of doing so was to run south, skirting the inner reef towards the rock they called the Thatcher, close in by the southern arm of the bay, and then to go about, make a short board towards the outer reef, and so round Gripes Point into safety, there to lie until the gale blew itself out and a falling tide enabled them to run clear—there was not the least possibility of weathering the outer reef, of running through the gap, at present, with the wind dead on shore. He hoped to God they would be able to go about well before the Thatcher, while there was room to wear, for there was no question of tacking right down there, where the thrust of the sea, unbroken by the outer reef, was so very much greater. But he could decide on the point of turn only when he was much nearer; in the meantime there was the question of rocks and shoals in their path. 'Do any of you gentlemen know this bay?' he asked the quarterdeck. They looked at one another: a general blankness. But before any could reply they were soaked with flying water; the fort had opened fire and the first shot pitched no more than six feet wide of the starboard mainchains.

  'Cut the cable,' said Jack. 'Port your helm.'

  The ship gathered sternway, turning as she went; the backed jib filled, followed by the hard-braced topsails; and after an infinitesimal pause of no motion she began to surge forward, faster and faster still, through a fresh downpour from the offing. Jack set her down the channel between the inner reef and the outer, and in spite of the shot falling all round them he reduced sail. 'Cast quick, cast quick,' he called to the leadsman: he must not run plump on to a rock or a minor reef. A ricochet from the fort knocked the ensign-staff away and skipped through the mizzen topsail.

  'Colours to a whip in the leeward shrouds, Mr Hyde,' he said, without looking astern. 'How I hate being fired at from the shore,' he muttered. But at least this fire was not as accurate as some he had known from French batteries; for the short time it lasted the rain-storm almost entirely hid the Ariel, and the artillerymen pointed their pieces at random.

  On, cautiously on. He was beginning to recover the whole feel of the bay: on the starboard beam there was a rock where they used to catch gurnards, and on the bow the cluster of islets where they took crayfish at low tide—a white mass of breakers now. Presently they would pass the gap in the inner reef that the fishermen used: the spring tide would be flowing in at a furious rate.

  He hauled up a point to anticipate its thrust; and as the leadsman's voice rose to a scream, 'Mark three, mark three,' the Ariel struck in the trough of a wave, a long deep grinding crash that made her check and stagger in her pace, trembling from stem to stern. Then she was off, running smoothly, and the leadsman cried 'Mark five, mark five, deep six, and a half six'; a long dark piece of her false keel showed in the wild water to larboard, turning and rearing as it ran through the gap to the distant shore. Grimmond hurried below.

  'Cast quick, cast quick,' said Jack again. 'Cast well ahead.'

  'Aye aye sir,' said the leadsman, and he whirled his long heavy plummet in an even wider circle before shooting it out.

  They were out of the battery's range, and presently they would be out of the shelter of the outer reef. Its southern extremity was the point he must reach in order to wear round and run into the shelter, the safety of Douarnenez Bay, once he had reached that southern end there would be no difficulty, but of course he could only reach it close-hauled on the larboard tack and as they ran it became more and more evident that the beginning of the turn must lie far along, right down by the Thatcher itself. Nothing short of the Thatcher would bring them out. That meant there would be no room to wear, nothing remotely like it: scarcely even room to club-haul her, a perilous manoeuvre at the best of times, and here he would have to judge it to the yard. With such a wind and sea, and among such rocks, there would be no correcting any error. And the Thatcher was no great way off.

  'All's well below, sir,' said the master, coming from the hold. 'A couple of foot in the forepeak, no more.'

  Jack nodded. That was very far from well in such a dry ship at ordinary times, but now it did not signify. 'Mr Hyde,' he said, 'I am going to club-haul the ship when we reach that tall black and white rock. Let the sheet-anchor be cleared away: men with axes to stand by.' Then raising his voice to a hoarse shout that carried over the gale, 'Ariels: we are going about, club-hauled, when we reach the height of the Thatcher. Let every man obey the word of command on the instant and with God's help we weather the point and ride snug in Douarnenez Bay. A mistake and we drive on the rock. Do nothing until you are told, but then do it like lightning.' The men nodded, looking very grave but quite confident; he saw with pleasure that not one of them had got at the spirit-room.

  Now the ship was far out of the shelter of the offshore reef and she took the full force of the sea and the gale: at this pace—and he had to bear sail—the Thatcher was five minutes away, four minutes away, the white water towering up its sheer side in solemn, thunderous, long-spaced fountains.

  'What does he mean by club-haul?' asked Jagiello, clinging to the rail by Stephen's side.

  'He means to drop the anchor, stop the ship's motion with its head to the wind, cut the rope, and go off in the other direction, a short way out to sea and so round the cape.'

  'The rock is very close.'

  'The leadsman says there is a proper depth: hear him.'

  'Luff,' cried Jack, his eyes fixed on the Thatcher and the drifting kelp. 'Up staysail sheets.' And after an unbearable five seconds, 'Let go the anchor.'

  All at once her bowsprit was pointing straight into the roaring gale, though the heavy seas tried to force her head to leeward. 'Up maintack . . . haul of all. Cut.'

  The axe flashed down on the cable. She was almost round, in the balance. Already she had a prodigious sternway, moving straight for the Thatcher. 'Fetch a cast aft, far aft,' cried Jack to the leadsman, leaning out over the quarter-rail to judge the last possible moment, the greatest possible impetus for the full starboard helm that would bring her right round. The leadsman turned, swung with all his might: the leadline caught the bellying ensign-whip, the lead shot inboard, struck Jack down on the deck.

  On his hands and knees, through the crash of the blow and the roar of the sea he heard Hyde's voice at an infinite distance shout 'Larboard all—I mean starboard,' then an all-embracing thunder as the Ariel struck the Thatcher full on, beating her rudder and staving in much of her stern.

  He was on his feet—a momentary glimpse of Hyde's appalled deathly face—and he saw the ship broadside on to the sea. 'Brail up, clew up mizzen and main: foresail sheets aft,' he cried.

  Grinding and grinding again over rock, the good Ariel brought her head right before the wind and he drove her over the narrowest part of the inner reef with what steering the foresail alone would provide. He was still at a great distance, very far removed, but all his mind that was clear felt with the ship and after the seventh great shattering strike he knew her back was broken amidships. Yet with spring-tide near its height she did not hold fast, but drove on and on through breakers that reared up to her tops.

  In the calmer water beyond the reef she still swam, she still steered; but it could not last long. 'Guns overboard,' he said. With their weight gone she would stay afloat long enough for him to run her ashore. A few minutes later, with the wind and the sea and the tide heaving her in towards the mouth of the river he told the officers to fetch their commissions and see to their affairs: then he beckoned Stephen and they went below: the water was already shin-deep in the cabin. 'The Colonel must shift into a Marine's uniform and pass for a private,' he said. 'Do you agree?' Stephen nodded. Jack said, 'I will give the order,' and he gathered up the lead-covered signal-book, his dispatches and private papers, and his sword, told the steward to pack what he could, and went back on deck. He threw the signal-book, his dispatches and his sword overboard, spoke to the Marine officer about the Colonel, and returned to steering the poor heavy wreck to the shore.

  For some reason he was perfectly
confident that she would not go to pieces, but would bring them to land; and she behaved beautifully to the last. A final heave on the starboard sheet brought her wallowing up against the jetty at the height of the tide, with the water gurgling at her hatches. All they had to do was to step over the rail to the waiting company of soldiers and the small silent crowd.

  Chapter Ten

  In these twenty years of war quite a number of Royal Navy ships had been wrecked on the coast of Brittany, and some indeed had been taken; the authorities at Brest were used to the situation, and without undue triumph they installed the Ariel's officers in a disused nunnery, her men in the lower parts of the castle, deeply lined with straw.

  Men so exposed to the caprices of the elements might be expected to develop a philosophical attitude, and before this Stephen had seen his shipmates accept the unkinder strokes of fate with a fine equanimity; but even so he was surprised to see how quickly they recovered their spirits on this occasion and put a good face on adversity. It is true that since their ship had not been taken they had not been pillaged; what little they had been able to save they still possessed, and this softened the blow, since they were able to round out the sparse French rations with better food and wine than ever the Ariel had afforded them. On the other hand, once they found they were not to be robbed or starved they complained bitterly about the quality of the tea; and on Jack's first visit to the men it was represented to him that this here French bread, full of holes, could not nourish a man: if a man ate holes he must necessarily blow himself out with air like a bladder, it stood to reason. They did not much care for the oatmeal either, probably harvested green and parched in the ear: nor the soup.

  Among the young men in the nunnery cheerfulness returned with the sun that shone on Brest from a clear calm sky within twenty-four hours of their miserable journey from Trégonnec, and with it their naval sense of fun. The commissary charged with drawing up a correct official list, which included among other things their grandmothers' maiden names, dates and places of birth, received some strange answers, delivered in sober, lugubrious tones, so strange that the port-admiral summoned Captain Aubrey. 'I refuse to believe, sir,' he said, 'that all your officers but one are descended from Queen Anne.'

  'I am sorry to tell you, sir, that Queen Anne is dead,' said Jack. 'Common decency, therefore, forbids me to make any comment.'

  'It is my opinion,' said the Admiral, 'that they have replied with a culpable levity. Such parents as the Emperor of Morocco, Creeping Jenny, Guy of Warwick, Sir Julius Caesar . . . You may say that the commissary is only a mere civilian, which is profoundly true; but even so I must ask you to invite them to treat him with a proper respect. He is a servant of the Emperor!'

  Jack did not seem very deeply impressed and in fact the Admiral's voice lacked full conviction. He looked at his captive for a moment and went on, 'But now I come to a far more serious matter. One of your Marines, Ludwig Himmelfahrt, has escaped. His clothes have been found in the privy.'

  'Oh, a sad shatterbrained old fellow, sir: a supernumerary. We only took him aboard to play the fife when the hands were at the capstan. I doubt he is even on the ship's books—he would not appear among those that have to be accounted for. Nevertheless, sir, I must observe that even as a nominal soldier it was his duty to escape.'

  'Maybe,' said the Admiral. 'But I hope you will not attempt to imitate him, Captain Aubrey. I do not care greatly about a half-witted supernumerary, particularly if he was not on the muster-roll—though he must certainly be found—but with a post-captain, an officer of your distinction, sir, the case is altered; and I warn you that at the least attempt you will find yourself incarcerated at Bitche. At Bitche, sir, and incarcerated.'

  Jack felt that he was on the verge of a flashing piece of repartee, of one of the best things he had ever said in his life: 'then indeed I should be bitched', or 'that would bitch my chances, I am sure', or something more brilliant still; but the want of a true colloquial link between the English bitch and the French chienne baffled him; the anticipatory smile faded, and he only said, 'Oh, as for that, sir, I dare say I shall be your guest until the end of the war. Let us hope that it will not be so long delayed that I wear out my welcome.'

  'I am sure it will not,' said the Admiral. 'The Emperor is carrying all before him in the north. The Austrians are crushed.'

  'I have been threatened with Bitche,' said Jack, returning to the nunnery. His meaning was instantly clear, for Verdun and Bitche had been the chief topic of conversation for the last five days, except for a certain amount of talk about the progress of the war as it could be gathered from the Moniteur and about the young woman who brought Jagiello's meals. Verdun was the town where the prisoners of war were kept; Bitche the fortress where those who tried to escape were confined. Both were well known by rumour as very disagreeable places in the far north-east of France, cold, wet, and expensive, but scarcely anyone in the service knew them at first hand, for since in principle Buonaparte refused to exchange prisoners in the traditional way, and since in fact very few were exchanged, almost all who went there never came back. Yet among those few was Hyde, who as a senior midshipman had escaped first from the one and then from the other with three companions, eventually reaching the Adriatic on foot.

  They listened to his accounts with the utmost attention, which restored some small part of his shattered self-esteem—he had been the only one among them too low, too miserably unhappy, to give the commissary the usual facetious answers: his details had been plain, dull, and correct. Now Jack asked him to tell them about the fortress once again, with particular reference to the best means of escape, and once again Hyde described the towering sandstone crag, the covered ways, the bomb-proof excavations, the extraordinarily deep well: 'As for escape, sir, the great thing is money, of course, and a map and a compass; dried beef and biscuit and a warm coat for when you have to lie up by day, and very stout boots; but the great thing is money. It can do almost anything, and even a guinea goes a long way; English gold being at such a premium here . . .' Jack smiled: he had a fair amount in his pocket, a surprising amount, quite enough to keep the Ariel's hands in modest comfort for their journey; and he knew that Stephen concealed an inconvenient weight of guineas in his bosom, the funds taken to the Baltic in case of need and entirely untouched. 'A really good knife and a marline-spike, or at least a fid, come in very handy,' Hyde continued, 'and a—'

  'A young person for Monsieur Jagiello,' said the guard, with a grin. He stood away from the door, and there was the young person, holding a cloth-covered basket, blushing and hanging her pretty head. The others walked away to the window and talked in what they meant to be a detached, natural way; but few could help stealing glances at the maiden, and none could fail to hear Jagiello cry, 'But my dear, dear Mademoiselle, I asked for black pudding and apples, no more. And here is foie gras, a gratin of lobster, a partridge, three kinds of cheese, two kinds of wine, a strawberry tart . . .'

  'I made it myself,' said the young person.

  'I am sure it is wonderfully good: but it is much more than I can ever afford.'

  'You must keep up your strength. You can pay for it later—or in some other way—or however you like.'

  'But how?' asked Jagiello, in honest amazement. 'By a note of hand, do you mean?'

  'Pray step into the passage,' said she, pinker still.

  'There you are again,' said Jack, drawing Stephen into another room. 'Yesterday it was a thundering great patty, with truffles; and tomorrow we shall see a wedding-cake for his pudding, no doubt. What they see in him I cannot conceive. Why Jagiello, and the others ignored? Here is Fenton, for example, a fine upstanding fellow with side-whiskers that are the pride of the service—with a beard as thick as a coconut—has to shave twice a day—as strong as a horse, and a very fair seaman; but there are no patties for him. However, that is not what I meant to say. The Colonel is off.'

  'I know it,' said Stephen, who had visited the castle with the Ariel's surgeon.

 
'I thought you might,' said Jack. 'You do not seem unduly concerned.'

  'I am not,' said Stephen: and after a moment, 'You have not seen him at his best. At sea he is out of his element; he talks too much and you might even take him for a mere blateroon. But I do assure you, my dear, that as a guerrillero he has not his match, a true fox by land. He will glide down a hedge like a serpent, and while you are beating about the bushes, peering into the ditch, there he is beyond a haystack, a long mile before you. I have known him make his way from Tarragona to Madrid with a hundred ounces of gold on his head, and there cut a traitor's throat as the man lay asleep in his bed. No, no: he is well supplied with money; he is rich in experience; he will be over the frontier before we reach Verdun.'

  'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Hyde at the door, 'but our dinner is on the table.'

  They ate their meals in what had been the nuns' parlour, an austere room, scarcely changed but for stouter bars at the windows, a judas-hole at each of the outer doors and a number of English inscriptions: J. B. loves P. M.; Bates is a Fool; How I wish Amanda were here; Laetitia, none prettier; J. S. master's mate, aetat. 47. And now their dinner was spread: it came from the best establishment in the town, recommended by the Admiral, whereas Jagiello had chosen the cheapest cookshop; yet it made a poor show compared with his—only a couple of bass, two pairs of fowls, a saddle of mutton, half a dozen side-dishes, and a floating island.