Post Captain

by Patrick O'Brian

  Leaving the bums grim and wooden in the breakfast-room, Stephen smiled with pleasure: here at last was a concrete situation. He knew where he should find them within a mile or two; but he did not know what it would cost him when, having toiled up the chalky slope in the sun, he met their expressions of cold anger, resentment, and hostility.

  'Good morning, now,' he said, taking off his hat. Diana gave him a distant nod and a look that pierced him cruelly. 'You seem to have had a hot walk, Dr Maturin. How eager you must be to see—'

  'You will forgive me if I say a word to Captain Aubrey, ma'am,' he said, with a look as cold as her own, and he led the cob aside. 'Jack, they have come to arrest you for debt. We must cross to France tonight and so to Spain. Your chest and the little cart will be at the end of Foxdene lane by now. You shall stay with me at my house: it falls out very well. We may catch the Folkestone packet if we drive hard.' He turned, bowed to Diana, and set off down the hill.

  The drum of hooves, Diana's voice calling, 'Ride on, Aubrey. Ride on, I say. I must speak to Maturin,' and she reined in beside him. 'I must speak to you, Maturin. Stephen, would you leave and not say goodbye to me?'

  'Will you not let me go, Diana?' he said, looking up, his eyes filling with tears.

  'No, no, no,' she cried. 'You must not leave me—go, yes go to France—but write to me, write to me, and come back.' She gripped him hard with her small hand, and she was away, the turf flying behind her horse.

  'Not Folkestone,' said Jack, guiding the mule through the grassy lanes. 'Dover. Seymour has the Amethyst; he carries the imperial ambassador across tonight. He will give us a passage—he and I were shipmates in the Marlborough. Once aboard a King's ship and we can tell the tipstaff to go to hell.'

  Five miles later he said, 'Stephen, do you know what that letter was you brought me? The small one, wafered?'

  'I do not.'

  'It was from Sophie. A direct letter, sent straight to me, do you hear? She says there have been reports of this Adams fellow and his pretensions, that might have given her friends uneasiness. That there was nothing to it—all God-damned flummery—had scarcely seen him above a dozen times, though he was always closeted with Mama. She speaks of you. Sends you her very kind regards and would be so happy to see you in Bath; the weather there is charming. Christ, Stephen, I have never been so down. Fortune gone, career too maybe, and now this.'

  'I cannot tell you what a relief it is,' he said, bending to see whether the Amethyst's forestaysail were drawing, 'to be at sea. It is so clear and simple. I do not mean just escaping from the bums; I mean all the complications of life on shore. I do not think I am well suited to the land.'

  They were standing on the quarterdeck amidst a crowd of wondering, staring attaches, secretaries, members of the suite, who staggered and lurched, clinging to ropes and to one another as the frigate began to feel the roll and the brisk cross-sea and Dover cliffs vanished in a swathe of summer rain. 'Yes,' said Stephen, 'I too have been walking a tightrope with no particular skill. I have the same sense of enlargement. A little while ago I should have welcomed it without reservation.'

  Chapter Four

  Toulon. The mistral had died away at last, and there was scarcely a fleck of white left on the sea; but the brilliant clarity of the air was still undimmed, so that a telescope from the hills behind the town could pick out even the names of the seven line-of-battle ships in the Petite Rade: the Formidable and Indomptable, both of eighty guns, and the Atlas, Scipion, Intrépide, Mont-Blanc and Berwick of seventy-four apiece. English pride might have been hurt at the sight of the last, for she belonged to the Royal Navy until some years before: and had English pride been able to look into the jealously guarded Arsenal it would have been mortified again by seeing two more British seventy-fours, the Hannibal, captured during Sir James Saumarez's action in the Gut of Gibraltar in 1801, and the Swiftsure, taken in the Mediterranean a few weeks earlier, both of them under active repair.

  Indeed activity, extreme activity, was the word for Toulon. The silent, still-green hills, the great headlands, the enormous sweep of the Mediterranean beyond them and the islands, blue and motionless beyond expression, the flood of hot, oppressive light, and then in the middle this noisy little stirring concentrated town, filled with tiny figures—white shirts, blue trousers, the gleam of red sashes—all of them intensely busy. Even under this noonday sun they were toiling like ants—boats pulling from the Arsenal to the Petite Rade, from the Petite Rade to the Grande Rade, from the ships to the quays and back again, men swarming over the fine great ships on the stocks, plying their adzes, caulking-hammers, augers, beetles, harring-poles; gangs of convicts unloading oak from Ragusa, Stockholm tar, Hamburg tow, Riga spars and cordage, all in the din and the innumerable smells of a great port, the reek of open drains, old stagnant water, hot stone, frying garlic, grilling fish that wafted above the whole.

  'Dinner,' said Captain Christy-Pallière, closing the file of Death Sentences, F-L. I shall start with a glass of Banyuls and some anchovies, a handful of olives, black olives; then I believe I may look at Hébert's fish soup, and follow it with a simple langouste in court-bouillon. Possibly his gigot en croüte: the lamb is exquisite now that the thyme is in flower. Then no more than cheese, strawberries, and some trifle with our coffee—a saucer of my English jam, for example. None of your architectural meals, Penhoët; my liver will not stand it in this heat, and we have a great deal of work to do if the Annibale is to be ready for sea by next week. There are all Dumanoir's dossiers to deal with—how I wish he would come back. I should have interrogated the Maltese this morning, if we have a good dinner they risk to escape unshot . . .'

  'Let us drink Tavel with the lamb,' said Captain Penhoët, who knew that for his part he risked philosophical remarks about digestion—guilt—Pontius Pilate—the odious side of interrogating suspected spies, quite unfit for officers—if he did not interrupt. 'It is—'

  'Two roast-beefs to see you, sir,' said an orderly.

  'Oh no!' cried Captain Christy-Pallière, 'not at this hour, holy name. Tell them I am not here, Jeannot. I may be back at five. Who are they?'

  'The first is Aubrey, Jacques. He claims to be a captain in their navy,' said the orderly, narrowing his eyes and scanning the official slip in his hand. 'Born 1 April 1066, at Bedlam, London. Father's profession, monk: mother's, nun. Mother's maiden name, Borgia, Lucrèce. The other pilgrim is Maturin, Etienne—'

  'Quick, quick,' cried Captain Christy-Pallière. 'My breeches, Jeannot, my cravat—' for ease and commodity he had been sitting in his drawers. 'Son of a whore, my shirt. Penhoët, we must have a real dinner today—find a clothes-brush, Jeannot—this is the English prisoner I was telling you about. Excellent seaman, charming company. You will not mind speaking English, of course. How do I look?'

  'So pimping as possible,' said Captain Penhoët in that language. 'Camber the torso, and you will impose yourself of their attention.'

  'Show them in, Jeannot,' said Christy-Pallière. 'My dear Aubrey,' he cried, folding Jack in his arms and kissing him on both cheeks, 'how very happy I am to see you! Dear Dr Maturin, be the very welcome. Allow me to present Captain of frigate Penhoët—Captain of frigate Aubrey, and Dr Maturin, at one time my guests aboard the Desaix.'

  'Your servant, sir,' said Captain Penhoët.

  'Domestique, monsieur,' said Jack, still blushing as far as his shirt. 'Penhoët? Je préserve—je ai—le plus vivid rémembrance de vos combatte a Ushant, à bord le Pong, en vingt-quatre neuf.' A second of attentive, polite but total blankness followed this, and turning to Christy-Pallière he said, 'How do you say I have the liveliest recollection of Captain Penhoët's gallant action off Ushant in '99?'

  Captain Christy-Pallière said this in another kind of French—renewed, far warmer smiles, another British shake-hand—and observed, 'But we may all speak English. My colleague is one of our best translators. Come, let us go and have dinner in a trice—you are tired, dusty, quite fagged up—how far have you come today? How d
o you stand the heat? Extraordinary for the month of May. Have you seen my cousins in Bath? May we hope for your company for some time? How happy I am to see you!'

  'We had hoped you would dine with us,' cried Jack. 'We have livré une table—booked it.'

  'You are in my country,' said Christy-Pallière in a tone that allowed of no reply. 'After you, dear friends, I beg. A simple meal—a little inn just outside the town. But it has a muscat trellis—fresh air—and the man does the cooking himself.' Turning to Stephen as he shepherded them along the corridor he said, 'Dr Ramis is with us again! He came back from leave on Tuesday. I will ask him to come and sit with us after dinner—he could not bear to see us eat—and he will tell you all the news of our cholera outburst and the new Egyptian pox.'

  'Captain Aubrey led us such a chase,' he said to Captain Penhoët, setting pieces of bread to represent the ships of Admiral Linois's squadron. 'He commanded that little quarter-decked brig the Sophie—'

  'I remember myself of him.'

  'And at first he had the weather-gage of us. But he was embayed—here is the headland, and the wind was so, a caprice wind.' He fought the battle over again, stage by stage. 'And then he put up his helm in a flash, set his studding-sails like a conjuring trick and ran through our line, close to the Admiral. The fox, he knew I dared not risk hitting the flagship! And he knew the Desaix's broadside would come rather slow! He ran through, and with a little luck—'

  'What is luck?'

  'Chance. He might have escaped. But the Admiral made my signal to chase, and the Desaix was only a week out of dock quite clean, and she loves a light breeze on the quarter: and in short . . . I should have blown you out of the sea with my last broadside, dear friend, if you had not jugged like an hare.'

  'How well I remember it,' said Jack. 'My heart was in my boots as I saw you beginning to luff up. But it had gone down there much earlier, when I saw that you sailed two miles to my one, without troubling to set your stuns'ls.'

  'It was an exploit of thunder, to run through the line,' said Captain Penhoët. 'I could almost to wish you had succeeded the blow. I should have struck as soon as the admiral had forereached my ship. But in principle you English carry too much guns, is it not? Too many for sail fast in a such breeze—too many to escape oneself.'

  'I tossed mine all overboard,' said Jack. 'Though in principle you are right. Yet might we not say that in principle you carry far too many men, particularly soldiers? Remember the Phoebe and Africaine . . .'

  The simple meal wound to its even simpler end—a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Captain Penhoët, exhausted by his efforts, had returned to his office; Stephen had been carried off to Dr Ramis's healthier table, to drink gaseous water from a sulphurous spring; and Cape Sicié had turned purple against the now violet sea. Crickets filled the air with a warm continuous omnipresent churr.

  Both Jack and Christy-Pallière had drunk a great deal; they were now telling one another about their professional difficulties, and each was astonished that the other had reason to complain. Christy-Pallière too was caught on the promotion-ladder, for although he was a capitaine de vaisseau, very like a post-captain, there was 'no proper sense of seniority in the French navy—dirty, underhand intrigue everywhere—political adventurers succeeding—real seamen thrust to the wall.' He did not express himself directly, but Jack knew from their conversations a year ago and from the indiscretions of his English Christy cousins, that his friend was but a lukewarm republican, detested the upstart Bonaparte's vulgarity and total ignorance of the sea-service, would have liked a constitutional, liberal monarchy, and was uneasy in his skin—a man devoted to his navy and of course to France, but unhappy in his rulers. Long ago he had spoken in a remarkably informed and perceptive way, about the case of Irish officers in the Royal Navy and the moral dilemma of conflicting loyalties; but at this moment, although four sorts of wine and two of brandy had brought him handsomely into the area of indiscretion, he was solely concerned with his own immediate problems. 'For you it is perfectly simple,' he said. 'You will assemble your interest, your friends and the lords and sirs of your acquaintance; and eventually, with your parliamentary elections, there will be a change of ministry and your evident merits will be recognized. But what is the case with us? Republican interest, royalist influence, Catholic interest, Freemason interest, consular or what they tell me will soon be imperial interest, all cutting across one another—a foul hawse. We might as well finish this bottle. You know,' he said, after a pause, 'I am so tired of sitting on my arse in an office. The only hope, the only solution, is a—' His voice died away.

  'I suppose it would be wicked to pray for war,' said Jack, whose mind had followed exactly the same course. 'But oh to be afloat.'

  'Oh, very wicked, no doubt.'

  'Particularly as the only worth-while war would have to be against the nation we like best. For the Dutch and Spaniards are no match for us now. It makes me stare, every time I think of it, how well the Spaniards build—beautiful, beautiful great ships—and how strangely they handle them. At the Battle of St Vincent—'

  'It is all the fault of their admiralty,' cried Christy-Pallière. 'All admiralties are the same. I swear, on the head of my mother, that our admiralty—' A messenger brought him up short on the brink of high treason; he excused himself, stepped aside and read the note. He read it twice, clearing the fumes of brandy from his head, sobering fast. He was a massive, bear-like man, not as tall as Jack, but stouter, and he could stand his drink: broad, somewhat round-shouldered, with very kind brown eyes—kind, but not foolish; and when he came back to the table, carrying a pot of coffee, they were hard and piercing. He hesitated for some time, sipping the coffee, before he spoke. 'All navies have these problems,' he said slowly. 'My colleague who looks after them here is on leave: I take his place. Here I have a description of a man in a black coat with a telescope on Mount Faron this morning, looking at our installations; medium height, slim, pale eyes, bob wig, grey breeches, speaks French with a southern accent. He has also been talking to a Barcelona merchant, a curious fellow with two feluccas in the darse.'

  'Why,' cried Jack, 'that must certainly be Stephen Maturin. I have no doubt of it—he has a telescope. One of Dolland's very best glasses. I am sure he was up there on Faron this morning before I was out of bed, gazing about for his precious birds. He mentioned some monstrous rare pippit or titmouse that lives here. I wonder,'—laughing heartily—'he did not go up to the fort and beg for the use of their big artillery instruments. Oh no, he is the simplest fellow in the world. I give you my word of honour—unspeakably learned, knows every bug and beetle in the universe, and will have your leg off in an instant—but he should not be allowed out alone. And as for naval installations, he really cannot tell port from starboard, a bonnet from a drabbler, though I have explained a thousand times, and he does try to apply himself, poor fellow. I am sure it must be he, from what you tell me about his speaking to the Barcelona merchant. And in that language, I dare say? He lived in those parts for years, and speaks their lingo like a—like a—why, like a native. We are on our way down there now, to a property he has; and as soon as he has been across to Porquerolles to see some curious shrub that grows on the island and nowhere else, we shall move on. Ha, ha, ha,' he laughed, his big voice full of intense amusement, 'to think of poor good old Stephen being laid by the heels for a spy! Oh, ha, ha, ha!'

  There was no possibility of resisting his transparent good faith. Christy-Pallière's eyes softened; he smiled with relief and said, 'So you will vouch for him, then, upon your honour?'

  'My hand upon my heart,' said Jack, placing it there. 'My dear sir, surely your men must be a very simple crew, to go round suspecting Stephen Maturin?'

  'That is the trouble,' said Christy-Pallière. 'Many of them are stupid. But that is not the worst of it: there are other services, the gendarmerie, Fouché's men and all those land people, as you know, and some of them are no wiser. So pray tell your friend to be more discreet. And listen, my dear Aubr
ey,' he said in a low, significant voice, 'it might be as well if you did not cross to Porquerolles, but pressed on to Spain.'

  'Because of the heat?' asked Jack.

  Christy-Pallière shrugged. 'If you like,' he said. 'I say no more.' He took a turn up and down the terrace, ordered a fresh bottle, and returned to Jack.

  'And so you saw my cousins in Bath?' he said, in quite another, conversational tone.

  'Yes, yes! I did myself the honour of calling at Laura Place the first time I was there, and they very kindly asked me to drink tea with them. They were all at home—Mrs Christy, Miss Christy, Miss Susan, Madame des Aguillières and Tom. Charming people, so friendly and welcoming. We talked about you a great deal, and they hoped you might come over soon—sent everything proper, of course, kindest regards—kisses, I believe, from the girls. The second time they invited me to a ramble and a picnic, but unhappily I was bespoke. I was in Bath twice.'

  'What did you think of Polly?'

  'Oh, a dear girl—full of fun, and so kind to your old—aunt, I believe? And how she rattled away in French! I said several things myself, which she understood straight away, and relayed to the old lady, repeating my signals, as it were.'

  'She is a dear child,' said her cousin. 'And believe me,' he said very seriously, 'that girl can cook. Her coq au vin—! Her sole normande—! And she has a deep comprehension of the English pudding. That strawberries jam was hers. A wonderful housekeeper. She has a modest little fortune, too,' he added, looking abstractedly at a tartan working into the port.

  'Ah, dear Lord,' cried Jack, with a vehemence that made Christy-Pallière look round with alarm. 'Dear Lord, for the moment I had almost forgot. Shall I tell you why I was in Bath?'

  'Do, I beg.'

  'It is between ourselves?' Christy-Pallière nodded. 'By God, I am so wretched about it: it was only that splendid dinner of yours that put it out of my mind these last two hours. Otherwise it has been with me ever since I left England. There was a girl, do you see, that I had met in Sussex—neighbours—and when I had a bad time in the Admiralty court with my neutrals, her mother took her down there, no longer approving of the connection. There was very nearly an understanding between us before then, but somehow I never quite clinched it. Christ, what a fool I was! So I saw her in Bath, but could never come to close quarters: I believe she did not quite like some little attentions I had paid her cousin.'