H.M.S. Surprise

by Patrick O'Brian

  Jack was fond of the young, and like many other captains he took great care of their professional and social education, of their allowances, and even of their morals; but his constancy at their lessons was not entirely disinterested. He had been a stupid boy at figures in his time, badly taught aboard, and although he was a natural-born seaman he had only managed to pass for lieutenant by feverish rote-learning, the interposition of Providence, and the presence of two friendly captains on the board. In spite of his dear friend Queenie's patient explanations of tangents, secants and sines, he had never had a really firm grasp of the principles of spherical trigonometry; his navigation had been a plain rule-of-thumb progress from A to B, plane-sailing at its plainest; but fortunately the Navy had always provided him, as it provided all other commanders, with a master learned in the art. Yet now, perhaps affected by the scientific, hydrographic atmosphere on the Lively, he studied the mathematics, and like some other late-developers he advanced at a great pace. The school-master was an excellent teacher when he was sober, and whatever the midshipmen may have made of his lessons, Jack profited by them: in the evenings, after the watch was set, he would work lunars or read Grimble on Conic Sections with real pleasure, in the intervals between writing to Sophie and playing on his fiddle. 'How amazed Stephen will be,' he reflected. 'How I shall come it the philosopher over him: and how I wish the old soul were here.'

  But this question of whether he should invite Mr Randall to dinner was still in suspense, and he was about to decide it when the captain of the top coughed significantly. 'Beg parding, your honour,' he said, 'but I think Naiad's seen something.' The Cockney voice came strangely from his yellow face and slanting eyes; but the Lively had been in Eastern waters for years and years, and her crew, yellow, brown, black and nominally white, had worked so long together that they all spoke with the accent of Limehouse Reach, Wapping or Deptford Yard.

  High Bum was not the only man to have caught the flurry of movement on the deck of the next in line ahead. Mr Randall junior swarmed inwards from his spray-soaked post on the sprit-sail yardarm and ran skipping along the deck towards his messmates: his seven-year-old pipe could be heard in the top as he cried, 'She's rounding the point! She's rounding the point!'

  The Niobe appeared as though by magic from the midst of the overlapping Hyères islands, tearing along under courses and topsails and throwing a fine white bow-wave. She might be bringing something in the way of food, something in the way of prizes (all the frigates had agreed to share), and in any case she meant a break from this extreme monotony; she was heartily welcome. 'And here's the Weasel,' piped the infant child.

  The Weasel was a big cutter, the messenger that plied all too rarely from the fleet to the inshore frigates. She too would almost certainly be bringing stores, news of the outside world—what a happy combination!

  The cutter was under a perfect cloud of sail, heeling over at forty-five degrees; and the squadron, hove-to off Giens, cheered as they saw her fetch the Niobe's wake and then cross to windward, with the obvious intention of making a race of it. Topgallants and an outer jib broke out aboard the frigate, but the fore-topgallant split as it was sheeted home, and before the agitated Niobes could blunt up the Weasel was on her starboard beam, wronging her cruelly, taking the wind right out of her sails. The Niobe's bow-wave diminished and the cutter shot past, cheering madly, to the delight of one and all. She had the Lively's number flying—orders aboard for Lively—and she came down the line, rounding to under the frigate's lee, her enormous mainsail flapping, cracking like a shooting-gallery. But she made no motion towards launching a boat: lay there with her captain bawling through the wind for a line.

  'No stores?' thought Jack in the top, frowning. 'Damn this.' He put a leg over the side, feeling for the futtock shrouds: but someone had seen a familiar purple bag handing up through the cutter's main-hatch, and there was a cry of 'Post'. At this word Jack leant out for the backstay and shot down on deck like a midshipman, forgetting his dignity and laddering his fine white stockings. He stood within a yard of the quartermasters and the mate of the watch as the two bags came jerking across the water. 'Bear a hand, bear a hand there,' he called out; and when at last the bags were inboard he had to make a strong effort to control his impatience while the midshipman passed them solemnly to Mr Randall, and while Mr Randall brought them across the quarterdeck, took off his hat, and said, 'Weasel from the flag, sir, if you please.'

  'Thank you, Mr Randall,' said Jack, carrying them with a fair show of deliberation into his cabin. Here he raped the seals of the post-bag with furious haste, whipped off the cord and riffled through the letters: three covers directed to Captain Aubrey, H.M.S. Lively, in Sophie's round but decided hand, fat letters, triple at the very least. He thrust them into his pocket, and smiling he turned to the little official bag, or satchel, opened the tarred canvas, the oiled-silk inner envelope and then the small cover containing his orders, read them, pursed his lips and read them again. 'Hallows,' he called. 'Pass the word for Mr Randall and the master. Here, letters to the purser for distribution. Ah, Mr Randall, signal Naiad, if you please—permission to part company. Mr Norrey, be so good as to lay me a course for Calvette.'

  For once there was no violent hurry; for once that 'jading impression of haste, of losing not a minute, forsooth' of which Stephen had complained so often, was absent. This was the season of almost uninterrupted northerly winds in the western Mediterranean, of the mistral, the gargoulenc and the tramontane, all standing fair for Minorca and the Lively's rendezvous; but it was important not to arrive off the island too soon, not to stand off and on arousing suspicion; and as Jack's orders, with their general instructions 'to disturb the enemy's shipping, installations and communications' allowed him a great deal of latitude, the frigate was now stretching away across the Gulf of Lyons for the coast of Languedoc, with as much sail as she could bear and her lee rail vanishing from time to time under the racing white water. The morning's gunnery practice—broadside after broadside into the unopposing sea—and now this glorious rushing speed in the brilliant sun had done away with the cross looks and murmurs of discontent of the day before—no stores and no cruise; these damned orders had cheated them of their little cruise at the very moment they had earned it, and they cursed the wretched Weasel for her ill-timed antics, her silly cracking-on, her passion for showing away, so typical of those unrated buggers. 'Was she had come along like a Christian not a Turk, we should have been gone halfway to Elba,' said Java Dick. But this was yesterday, and now brisk exercise, quick forgetfulness, the possibility of something charming over every fresh mile of the opening horizon, and above all the comfortable pervading sense of wealth tomorrow, had restored the Lively's complacency. Her captain felt it as he took a last turn on deck before going into his cabin to receive his guests, and he felt it with a certain twinge of emotion, difficult to define: it was not envy, since he was wealthier than any group of them put together, wealthier in posse, he added, with a habitual crossing of his fingers. Yet it was envy, too: they had a ship, they were part of a tightly-knit community. They had a ship and he had not. Yet not exactly envy, not as who should say envy . . . fine definitions fled down the wind, as the glass turned, the Marine went forward to strike four bells, and the midshipman of the watch heaved the log. He hurried into the great cabin, glanced at the long table laid athwartships, his silver plates blazing in the sun and sending up more suns to join the reflected ripple of the sea on the deckhead (how long would the solid metal withstand that degree of polishing?), glasses, plates, bowls, all fast and trim in their fiddles, the steward and his mates standing there by the decanters, looking wooden. 'All a-tanto, Killick?' he said.

  'Stock and fluke, sir,' said his steward, looking beyond him and signalling with an elegant jerk of his chin.

  'You are very welcome, gentlemen,' said Jack, turning in the direction of the chin. 'Mr Simmons, please to take the end of the table; Mr Carew, if you will sit—easy, easy.' The chaplain, caught off his balance by a lee
-lurch, shot into his seat with such force as almost to drive it through the deck. 'Lord Garron here; Mr Fielding and Mr Dashwood, pray be so good,'—waving to their places. 'Now even before we begin,' he went on, as the soup made its perilous way across the cabin, 'I apologise for this dinner. With the best will in the world—allow me, sir,'—extracting the parson's wig from the tureen and helping him to a ladle—'Killick, a nightcap for Mr Carew, swab this, and pass the word for the midshipman of the watch. Oh, Mr Butler, my compliments to Mr Norrey, and I believe we may brail up the spanker during dinner. With the best will in the world, I say, it can be but a Barmecide feast.' That was pretty good, and he looked modestly down but it occurred to him that the Barmecides were not remarkable for serving fresh meat to their guests, and there, swimming in the chaplain's bowl, was the unmistakable form of a bargeman, the larger of the reptiles that crawled from old biscuit, the smooth one with the black head and the oddly cold taste—the soup, of course, had been thickened with biscuit-crumbs to counteract the roll. The chaplain had not been long at sea; he might not know that there was no harm in the bargeman, nothing of the common weevil's bitterness; and it might put him off his food. 'Killick, another plate for Mr Carew: there is a hair in his soup. Barmecide . . . But I particularly wished to invite you, since this is probably the last time I shall have the honour. We are bound for Gibraltar, by way of Minorca; and at Gibraltar Captain Hamond will return to the ship.' Exclamations of surprise, pleasure, civilly mixed with regret. 'And since my orders require me to harry the enemy installations along the coast, as well as his shipping, of course, I do not suppose we shall have much leisure for dining once we have raised Cape Gooseberry. How I hope we shall find something worthy of the Lively! I should be sorry to hand her over without at least a small sprig of laurel on her bows, or whatever is the proper place for laurels.'

  'Does laurel grow along this coast, sir?' asked the chaplain. 'Wild laurel? I had always imagined it to be Greek. I do not know the Mediterranean, however, apart from hooks; and as far as I recall the ancients do not notice the coast of Languedoc.'

  'Why, it has been gathered there, sir, I believe,' said Jack. 'And it is said to go uncommon well with fish. A leaf or two gives a haut relievo, but more is deadly poison, I am told.'

  General considerations upon fish, a wholesome meat, though disliked by fishermen; Dover soles commended; porpoises, frogs, puffins rated as fish for religious purposes by Papists; swans, whales and sturgeon, fish royal; an anecdote of a bad oyster eaten by Mr Simmons at the Lord Mayor's banquet.

  'Now this fish,' said Jack, as a tunny replaced the soup-tureen, 'is the only dish I can heartily recommend: he was caught over the side by that Chinaman in your division, Mr Fielding. The short one. Not Low Bum, nor high Bum, nor Jelly-belly.'

  'John Satisfaction, sir?'

  'That's the man. A most ingenious, cheerful fellow, and handy; he spun a long yarn with hairs from his messmates' pigtails and baited the hook with a scrap of pork-rind shaped like a fish, and so caught him. What is more, we have a decent bottle of wine to go with him. Not that I claim any credit for the wine, mark you; it was Dr Maturin that had the choosing of it—he understands these things—grows wine himself. By the bye, we shall touch at Minorca to pick him up.'

  They should be delighted to see him again—hoped he was very well—looked forward much to the meeting. 'Minorca, sir?' cried the chaplain, however, having mulled over it. 'But did we not give Minorca back to the Spaniards? Is it not Spanish now?'

  'Why, yes, so it is,' said Jack. 'I dare say he has a pass to travel: he has estates in those parts.'

  'The Spaniards are far more civilised than the French in this war, as far as travel is concerned,' observed Lord Garron. 'A friend of mine, a Catholic, had leave to go from Santander to St James of Compostella because of a vow—no trouble at all—travelled as a private gentleman, no escort, nothing. And even the French are not so bad when it comes to men of learning. I saw in The Times the Weasel brought that a scientific cove from Birmingham had gone over to Paris to receive a prize from their Institute. It is your scientific chaps who are the ones for travelling, war or no war; and I believe, sir, that Dr Maturin is a genuine smasher in the scientific line?'

  'Oh indeed he is,' cried Jack. 'A sort of Admiral Crichton—whip your leg off in a moment, tell you the Latin name of anything that moves,'—his eye caught a brisk yellow weevil hurrying across the table-cloth—'speaks languages like a walking Tower of Babel, all except ours. Dear Lord,' he said, laughing heartily, 'to this day I don't believe he knows the odds between port and starboard. Suppose we drink his health?'

  'With all my heart, sir,' cried the first lieutenant, with a conscious look at his shipmates, all of whom shared it more or less, as Jack had noticed at their first appearance in the cabin. 'But if you will allow me—The Times, sir, that Garron refers to, had a far, far more interesting announcement—a piece of news that filled the gun-room, which has the liveliest recollection of Miss Williams, with unbounded enthusiasm. Sir, may I offer you our heartiest congratulations and wish you joy from all of us, and suggest that there is one toast that should take precedence even over Dr Maturin?'

  Lively,

  at sea

  Friday, 18th

  Sweetheart,

  We drank your health with three times three on Monday; for the fleet tender brought us orders while we were polishing Cape Sicié, together with the post and your three dear letters, which quite made up for our being diddled out of our cruise. And unknown to me it also brought a copy of The Times with our announcement in it; which I had not yet seen, even.

  I had invited most of the gun-room to dinner, and that good fellow Simmons brought it out, desiring to drink your health and happiness and saying the handsomest things about you—they had the liveliest recollection of Miss Williams in the Channel, all too short, were your most devoted, etc., very well put. I went as red as a new-painted tompion and hung my head like a maiden, and upon my honour I was near-hand blubbering like one, I so longed for you to be by me in this cabin again—it brought it back so clear. And he went on to say he was authorised by the gun-room to ask, should you prefer a tea-pot or a coffee-pot, with a suitable inscription? Drinking your health recovered me, and I said I thought a coffee-pot, begging the inscription might say that the Lively preserved the liveliest memory. That was pretty well received, and even the parson (a dull dog) laughed hearty in time, when the bonne mot was explained to him.

  Then that night, standing in with a fine topgallant sail breeze, we raised Cape Gooseberry and bore away for the signal-station: we landed a couple of miles from it and proceeded across the dunes to take it from behind, for just as I suspected its two twelve-pounders were so placed that they could only fire out to sea or at the most sweep 75° of the shore, if traversed. It was a long grind, with the loose sand flying in the wind they always have in these parts filling our eyes and noses and getting into the locks of our pistols. The parson says that the Ancients did not notice this coast; and the Ancients knew what they were about, deep old files—one infernal dust-storm after another. But, however, we got there at last, steering by compass, without their smoking us, gave a cheer and carried the place directly. The Frenchmen left as we came in, all except a little ensign, who fought like a hero until Bonden collared him from behind, when he burst into tears and flung down his sword. We spiked the guns, destroyed the semaphore, blew up the magazine and hurried back to the boats, which had pulled along, carrying their signal-books with us. It was a neat piece of work, though slow: if we had had to reckon with tides, which there are none of here, you know, we should have been sadly out. The Livelies are not used to this sort of caper, but some of them shape well, and they all have willing minds.

  The little officer was still in a great passion when we got him aboard. We should never have dared to show our faces, says he, had the Diomède still been on the coast; his brother was aboard her, and she would have blown us out of the water; someone must have told us—there were traitors abou
t and he had been betrayed. He said something to the effect that she had gone down to Port-Vendres three days or three hours before, but he spoke so quick we could not be certain—no English, of course. Then, something of a cross-sea getting up as we made our offing, he spoke no more, poor lad: piped down altogether, sick as a dog.

  The Diomède is one of their heavy forty-gun eighteen-pounder frigates, just such a meeting as I have been longing for and do long for ever more now, because—don't think badly of me sweetheart—I must give up the command of this ship in a few days' time, and this is my last chance to distinguish myself and earn another; and as anyone will tell you, a ship is as necessary to a sailor as a wife, in war-time. Not at once, of course, but well before everything is over. So we bore away for Port-Vendres (you will find it on the map, down in the bottom right-hand corner of France, where the mountains run down to the sea, just before Spain) picking up a couple of fishing-boats on the way and raising Cape Bear a little after sunset, with the light still on the mountains behind the town. We bought the barca-longas' fish and promised them their boats again, but they were very glum, and we could not get anything out of them—'Was the Diomède in Port-Vendres?—Yes: perhaps.—Was she gone for Barcelona?—Well, maybe.—Were they a pack of Tom Fools, that did not understand French or Spanish?—Yes, Monsieur'—spreading their hands to show they were only Jack-Puddings, and sorry for it. And the young ensign, on being applied to, turns haughty—amazed that a British officer should so far forget himself as to expect him to help in the interrogation of prisoners; and a piece about Honneur and Patier, which would have been uncommon edifying, I dare say, if we could have understood it all.