Aub-Mat 08 - The Ionian Mission

by Patrick O'Brian

  ‘Egrets,’ said Stephen. ‘And who else besides Pangloss?’

  ‘Martineau and Egmont, as well as the Duroures. It is too many altogether. I was against it from the start. There is always the possibility of an indiscretion, an accident ^and gathering so many people, some of whom we hardly know, in such a place as this ... hush,’ he whispered in an urgent voice, thrusting Stephen behind a clump of reeds, ‘What is that?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the corner, where the dyke turns to the left. It moves.’

  In the shifting moonlight it was difficult to be sure of anything, but after a while Stephen said, ‘I take it to be a gate-post with an owl upon it. There: the owl has flown. Pray put your pistol away.’

  They walked on, Leclerc speaking of the organizers of this rendezvous with the waspish malignancy of a frightened man, and the gate-post proved to be in fact a lightning-blasted willow-tree. But they had scarcely passed it, they had scarcely turned the corner before there were shots in the marsh below them, a few hundred yards to the right. An exchange of shots from two separate places, orange stabs of flame in the darkness, crashing in a reed-bed over towards the road. A moment’s stunned silence and Leolerc cried ‘We are sold - betrayed,’ and set off at a furious run towards the shooting-box.

  Stephen slipped from the dyke and into the reeds, where he stood, listening intently. What he heard puzzled him: it was more the sound of a skirmish with both sides running off rather than that of a determined engagement or a pursuit. A good deal of sporadic shooting and then silence. An indistinct drumming sound, perhaps the galloping of horses a great way off, then nothing more. The clouds finally overcame the moon, and the night grew almost wholly dark.

  The south wind, which had been blowing for some time in the higher regions of the air, now came in gusts across the marsh, making a noise like breakers in the tall reeds and bringing with it the first small sweeps of rain. The bittern began again, answered by another a great way off: Stephen pulled the hood of his boat-cloak over his head, against the drips.

  When he had waited so long that it was certain that Leclerc was not coming back either on horse or foot Stephen climbed on to the dyke again. He now had to walk bowed against the strong south wind, but even so it was far below and he wanted to get away as soon as ever he could, back to the dunes before any organized search was possible.

  Although he was worried by the thought that this wind might very soon work up such a surf that no boat could take him off, the deep and at times almost disabling dread that had been with him earlier had gone. It was less fear than anger, then, that he felt when he was walking along a stretch of dyke with water on either side of it and he saw a faint light ahead, a moving light but moving far too steadily for a will-o’-the-wisp and too clearly defined: almost certainly a lantern like his own, a dark-lantern slightly open.

  He was unwilling to slip down into bare water of an uncertain depth, and there were no reed-beds for several hundred yards: indeed this was a singularly bare stretch, the only shelter being some stunted tamarisks. Rather than retreat, losing distance, he plunged into these, and with his hood drawn over his face to hide the whiteness, he crouched there waiting for the light to pass.

  As it came nearer he became more and more convinced that it was carried by one man alone, not a party, and that this one man was not a soldier. His step was hesitant and slow, and sometimes he stopped altogether, though he did not appear to look round or search the marsh on either side.

  Nearer, and Stephen lowered his eyes. A strong gust of wind, a squall of heavy rain, and clapping his hand to his hat the light-bearer stepped under the lee of the tamarisks and sat down. He was three yards from Stephen and a little beyond him; he sat there hunched with his back to the wind until the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. He stood up and they might well have passed if he had not suddenly sat down again, opening his lantern wide to inspect his naked foot. It was covered with mud, but as he wiped the dirt off with his handkerchief a red flow covered the white skin: he tried to staunch it with his neckcloth and in the reflected light Stephen saw Professor Graham’s face, closed and hard with pain, but unmistakable.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Once again the flagship made the approaching Worcester’s signal, requiring her captain to repair aboard; and once again Jack Aubrey sat primly on an upright chair in front of the Admiral’s desk. But this time he did not sit so near the edge; his conscience was as clear as the pure Mediterranean sky; he had brought mail from Mahon as well as stores, and there was no hint of iciness in the great cabin.

  ‘And so learning that the greater part of the spars had not arrived, sir,’ he went on, ‘I had the less scruple in complying with Dr Maturin’s request that he should proceed to the French coast without delay. Fortunately the breeze served and I was able to set him ashore at the appointed place and time and to take him off the next morning, together with a wounded gentleman, the Mr Graham we carried out as far as Port Mahon.’

  ‘Ah? Well, I am heartily glad you have brought Maturin back so soon: I was anxious for him. He is aboard? Very good, very good: I shall see him directly. But first tell me what they have sent us in the way of spars. I should give my eye-teeth for a comfortable supply of spars.’

  Jack provided the Admiral with an exact, detailed account of the spars in question, and the Admiral gave Jack his views on the over-masting of ships, particularly of wall-sided ships, in the Mediterranean: or anywhere else, for that matter. While he was doing so, Dr Maturin and Mr Allen sat in the secretary’s cabin, drinking marsala and eating Palermo biscuits. Stephen however was not reporting to Mr Allen - very far from it indeed -but rather offering remarks upon the unfortunate results of divided councils with his own recent expedition as an example. ‘A better example you could not wish,’ he said, ‘for here you have a dark marsh with difficult, obscure paths - a pretty figure for this kind of warfare - and over these difficult obscure paths you have two bodies of men approaching one another in the black night, .both moving to much the same rendezvous, both actuated by much the same motives, but neither knowing of the other’s existence - they blunder into one another - mutual terror, foolish terror, flight - and the utter ruin of at least one carefully elaborated plan, to say nothing of the suspicions of indiscretion if not of downright treachery that make the renewing of contact almost impossible.’

  ‘The man Graham must be a great fool,’ observed Allen, ‘A busy, pernicious fool.”

  ‘I have expressed myself badly, I find,’ said Stephen, ‘I intended no reflection upon the individual, only upon a system that allows still another department of Government to set up an intelligence service of its own, working in isolation from the others and sometimes in its ignorance even directly against them. No, no: Professor Graham has shining parts. He was the gentleman responsible for the capitulation of Colombo, which made such a noise in its time.’

  Allen was a newcomer to Intelligence in this restricted sense and he looked surprisingly blank for so clever a man; his lips silently formed the word Colombo twice; and Stephen said, ‘Allow me to refresh your memory. When that Buonaparte seized Holland we seized, or attempted to seize, the Dutch possessions abroad, including of course those in Ceylon. The fortification of Colombo, the key to the whole position, threatened to present insuperable difficulties, particularly as the garrison was Swiss; for as the world in general knows the Swiss, if duly paid, are not easily dislodged nor yet bribed, persuaded, or overawed. Furthermore, the place was commanded by Hercule de Meuron, a Swiss officer of the most eminent military genius. But he was also an acquaintance of Mr Graham’s, a close acquaintance as I understand it, even an intimate. Graham proceeds to Colombo disguised as a Turk, enters into contact with Meuron by means of a message concealed - elegant stroke -in a Dutch cheese - reasons with him - convinces him - the Swiss march out, the English march in, and Buonaparte is denied the resources of Ceylon. What means Graham used I do not know, but I am morally certain that it was not money.”

 
; ‘He must be an eloquent gentleman.’ ‘To be sure. But my immediate point is that he is also eloquent in Turkish: he is a Turkish scholar, and that is why I have brought him, so that he may be presented to the Admiral.’

  ‘A trustworthy Turkish scholar would be unspeakably welcome - a Godsend. At present we have to make do with a most pitiful ancient one-eyed Greek eunuch and Dupin’s chrestomathy. But would Mr Graham ever consent to serve?’

  ‘Mr Graham has no choice. He quite understands that in natural justice he is now my property, my lawful prize; and when I desired him to remain aboard rather than leave the ship at Mahon he submitted without a murmur. After all, poaching on my preserve, the enemy coast, he undid all my careful legitimate web; and I took him off that coast, at very considerable inconvenience to myself since I had to prop him for miles through an evil bog, and at very great danger indeed to those devoted souls who came in through the surf - and such surf! - at the very minute of appointed time, while the horse-patrols were already searching the dunes, the country having been aroused by all that foolish running about and banging in the night. Nigh several times they had to come in, now sideways, now backwards, at infinite peril, before they could fetch him away, and he lashed to a grating, three parts smothered in that universal roaring foam.’

  Professor Graham still looked if not three parts smothered then at least very humble, very much reduced, when he was first brought limping aboard the flagship. His spirits revived a little when he was away from Stephen, whom he had so injured and to whom he owed such a burden of gratitude; but although he held a chair in no mean university it was long before he could recover his academic pride and sufficiency, since every time he put his stocking on or off he was reminded of his ignominious wound - for stumbling with a cocked pistol in his hand he had blasted off his little toe. Yet in the flagship he was once again the king of his company as far as moral philosophy was concerned, to say nothing of Turkish, Arabic, and modern Greek, and once more he was surrounded by the Navy’s perhaps somewhat excessive respect for erudition, particularly classical erudition: and Stephen, coming across from a Worcester that had settled back into the monotonous routine of blockade, found a Professor Graham who had settled back into at least the appearance of his habitual self-esteem.

  ‘I am come on behalf of the Worcester’ wardroom to invite you to dinner tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Honest fellows,’ said Graham. ‘I shall be happy to see them again so soon. I had not looked to visit the ship before the performance.’

  ‘Hamlet is delayed once more, I am sorry to say; but the oratorio is in great forwardness. Mr Martin has come across several times to put a final polish to the shriller parts - and I believe we may hear it at last on Sunday. We expect a numerous audience, Mr Thornton having signified his approval.’

  ‘Very good, very good: I shall be happy to be among them. And I shall be happy to dine with the Worcester’s wardroom again, a homelike gathering. It is still the same nest of genteel harmony, I make no doubt?’

  ‘It is not, sir. As every schoolboy knows, the same grove cannot contain two nightingales: nor can the same wardroom contain two poets. It most unhappily appears that Mr Rowan, whom you will remember as the gentleman who attached you to the grating, sees fit to set up in rivalry with Mr Mowett; and what Mr Rowan may lack in talent he makes up in facility of composition and in fearless declamation. He has a considerable following, and the young gentlemen repeat his verses more readily than Mr Mowett’s. Yet he is not satisfied with his performance and this morning he showed me these lines,’ said Stephen, pulling a roll of paper from his pocket, ‘desiring me to correct them: and if at the same time I could furnish him with some learned expressions he would be uncommonly obliged. For various reasons I declined the honour, but seeing his candid ingenuous disappointment I said that the squadron contained no more learned man than Professor Graham and that if he pleased I should carry the verses with me to the flagship. He was delighted. He submits himself entirely to your judgement, and begs you to strike out whatever does not please.’

  Mr Graham pursed his lips, took the roll, and read:

  But on arrival at the fleet’s anchorage, there

  A very sad story we next did hear,

  That Buenos Ayres had been retaken

  And our little army very much shaken.

  But a small reinforcement from the Cape

  Induced the Commodore to try a feat

  To reduce Monte Video was his intent

  But which proved abortive in the event.

  ’You have begun at the end,’ observed Stephen.

  ‘Is the beginning of the same nature?’ asked Graham.

  ‘Rather more so, perhaps,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Clearly I am under great obligation to Mr Rowan,’ said Graham, looking through the other pages with a melancholy air. ‘But I am ashamed to say that as I was dragged through the surf I did not distinguish him as clearly as I should have done: is he indeed the very cheerful round-faced black-eyed gentleman, somewhat positive and absolute at table, who so often laughed and gambolled among the ropes with the midshipmen?’

  ‘Himself.’

  ‘Aye. Well, I shall do what I can for him, of course; though the correction of verses is a thankless task.’ Graham shook his head, whistling in an undertone and reflecting that perhaps being rescued was an expensive amusement; then he smiled and said, ‘Speaking of midshipmen reminds me of young Milo of Crotona and his daily struggle with the bull-calf, and of his particular friend, the tow-haired boy Williamson. Pray, how do they come along, and how does the bull-calf do?’

  ‘The bull-calf now luxuriates in whatever part of the vessel may be appropriate, eating the bread of idleness, since it has become so much a part of the ship’s daily life that there can be no question of slaughtering it, nor even of castrating it, so that in time we shall no doubt have a very froward guest in the Worcester’s bowels. Yet it is Mr Williamson that gives me more immediate anxiety. As you may have heard, mumps is got into the ship, brought by a Maltese lad in a victualler; and Mr Williamson was the first and most thorough-going case.’

  Mr Graham could never have been described as a merry companion: few things amused him at all and fewer still to the pitch of open mirth; but mumps was one of these rarities and he now uttered an explosive barking sound.

  ‘It is no laughing matter,’ said Stephen, privily wiping Graham’s saliva from his neckcloth. ‘Not only is our Hamlet brought to a halt for want of an Ophelia - for Mr Williamson was the only young gentleman with a tolerable voice- but the poor boy is in a fair way to becoming an alto, a counter-tenor for life.’

  ‘Hoot,’ said Graham, grinning still. ‘Does the swelling affect the vocal cords?’

  ‘The back of my hand to the vocal cords,’ said Stephen. ‘Have you not heard of orchitis? Of the swelling of the cods that may follow mumps?’

  ‘Not I,’ said Graham, his smile fading.

  ‘Nor had my messmates,’ said Stephen, ‘though the Dear knows it is one of the not unusual sequelae of cynanche parvitidaea, and one of real consequence to men. Yet to be sure there is something to be said in its favour, as a more humane way of providing castrati for our choirs and operas.’

  ‘Does it indeed emasculate?’ cried Graham.

  ‘Certainly. But be reassured: that is the utmost limit of its malignance. I do not believe that medical history records any fatal issue - a benign distemper, compared with many I could name. Yet Lord, how concerned my shipmates were, when I told them, for surprisingly few seem to have had the disease in youth -’

  ‘I did not,’ said Graham, unheard.

  ‘Such anxiety!’ said Stephen, smiling at the recollection. ‘Such uneasiness of mind! One might have supposed it was a question of the bubonic plague. I urged them to consider how very little time was really spent in coition, but it had no effect. I spoke of the eunuch’s tranquillity and peace of mind, his unimpaired intellectual powers -I cited Narses and Hermias. I urged them to reflect that a marriage
of minds was far more significant than mere carnal copulation. I might have saved my breath: one could almost have supposed that seamen lived for the act of love.’

  ‘The mumps is a contagious disease, I believe?’ said Graham.

  ‘Oh eminently so,’ said Stephen absently, remembering Jack’s grave, concerned expression, the grave concerned expressions in the wardroom, and upon the faces of a delegation from the gunroom that waited on him to learn what they could do to be saved; and smiling again he said, ‘If eating were an act as secret as the deed of darkness, or fagging, as they say in their sea-jargon, would it be so obsessive, so omnipresent, the subject of almost all wit and mirth?’

  Professor Graham, however, had moved almost to the very end of the Orion’s empty wardroom, where he stood with his face by an open scuttle; and as Stephen approached he limped swiftly towards the door, pausing there to say, ‘Upon recollection, I find I am compelled to decline the Worcester’s wardroom’s most polite and obliging invitation, because of a previous engagement. You will present my best compliments and tell the gentlemen how much I regret not seeing them tomorrow.’

  ‘They will be disappointed, I am sure,’ said Stephen. ‘But there is always the oratorio. You will see them all at the oratorio, on Sunday evening.’

  ‘On Sunday evening?’ cried Graham. ‘Heuch: how unfortunate. I fear I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to be present at a public exhibition or display on the Sabbath, not even a performance that is far from profane; and must beg to be excused.’