H.M.S. Surprise

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Satisfaction, take the helm,' he said. 'Bonden, con the ship.'

  The two sides, the approach to the harbour, were run-fling together, and where they almost joined lay the narrow mouth with its heavy batteries on either side. Some of the casemates were lit, but there was still light enough over the water for a watcher to take notice of an officer at the helm—an unnatural sight. Nearer, nearer: and the gunboat moved silently through the mouth, close enough to toss a biscuit on to the muzzles of the forty-two-pounders at the water's edge. A voice in the twilight called out, 'Parlez-vous français?' and cackled: another shouted 'Hijos de puta.'

  Ahead lay the broad stretch with the hospital island in it, the lazaretto, a good mile away on the starboard bow; the last reflection of the day had left the hilltops, and the long harbour was filled with a deep purple, shading to blackness. Fitful gusts from the tramontane outside ruffled its surface, ugly gusts sometimes; and there beyond the lights—they were increasing every moment—was the gap in the hills where just such a gust had laid the Agamemnon on her beam ends in '98.

  'Brail up,' he said. 'Out sweeps.' He fixed the lazaretto island, staring till his eyes watered; and at last a boat put off. 'Silence fore and aft,' he called. 'No hailing, no speaking: d'ye hear me there?'

  'Boat on the starboard bow, sir,' murmured Bonden in his ear.

  He nodded. 'When I wave my hand so,' he said, 'in sweeps. When I wave again, give way.'

  Slowly they drew together, and although his mind was as cool and lucid as he could wish, he found he had stopped breathing: he heaved in a deep draught with a sigh, and the boat hailed, 'Ohé, de la barca.'

  'Ohé,' he repeated, and waved his hand.

  The boat ran alongside, hooked on, and a man made a blundering leap for the rail; Jack caught his arms and lifted him clear over, looking into his face—Maragall. The boat shoved off; Jack nodded significantly to Bonden, waved his hand, and led Maragall into the cabin.

  'How is he?' he whispered.

  'Alive—still there—they talk of moving him. I have sent no message, received none.' His face was strained and deadly pale, but he moved it into the shape of a smile, and said, 'So you are in. No trouble. You are to lie off the old victualling wharf; they have given you the dirty filth-place, because you are French. Listen, I have four guides, and the church will be open. At half after two o'clock I put fire to Martinez's warehouse close to the arsenal—Martinez it was denounced him. This will allow a friend, an officer, to move the troops; by three there will be no soldiers or police within a quarter of a mile of the house. Our two men who work there will be at the church to show the way inside the house. Right?'

  'Yes. How many men inside tonight?'

  'Boat hailing, sir,' said Bonden, thrusting in his head.

  They leapt from their seats, and Maragall stared out over the water. The lights of Mahon were showing round the point, silhouetting a black felucca a hundred yards away. The felucca hailed again. 'He asks what it is like outside,' whispered Maragall.

  'Blowing hard—close-reefed topsails.'

  Maragall called out in Catalan, and the felucca dropped astern, out of the lights. Back in the cabin he wiped his face, muttering, 'Oh, if only we had had more time, more time. How many men? Eight and a corporal: probably all five officers and one interpreter, but the colonel may not have come back. He is playing cards at the citadel. What is your plan?'

  'Land in small parties between two and three o'clock, reach St Anna's by the back streets, take the rear wall and the garden house. If he is there, away at once, the way we came. If not, cross the patio, seal the doors and work through the house. Silently if possible, and fall back on the gunboat. If there is a row, then out across country: I have boats at Cala Blau and Rowley's Creek. You can manage horses? Do you need money?'

  Maragall shook his head impatiently. 'It is not only Esteban,' he said. 'Unless the other prisoners are released, he is pointed at—identified, and God knows how many others with him. Besides, some of them are our men.'

  'I see,' said Jack.

  'He would tell you that himself,' whispered Maragall urgently. 'It must look like a rising of all the prisoners.'

  Jack nodded, peering out of the stern window. 'We are almost in. Come on deck for the mooring.'

  The old victualling-wharf was coming closer, and with it the stench of stagnant filth. They slid past the customs house, all lit up, and into the darkness beyond. The pratique boat hailed, backing water and turning back down the harbour. Maragall replied. A few moments later Bonden murmured 'In sweeps' and steered the gunboat gently up along the black and greasy side. They made fast to a couple of bollards and lay there in silence, with the lap of water on the starboard side and the diffused noise of the town on the other. Beyond the stone quay there was a vague plain of rubbish, a disused factory on the far side, a rope-walk, and a shipbuilder's yard with broken palings. Two unseen cats were howling in the middle of the rubbish.

  'You understand me?' insisted Maragall. 'He would say exactly the same.'

  'It makes sense,' said Jack sharply.

  'He would say so,' repeated Maragall. 'You know where you are?'

  'There's the Capuchins' church. And that is St Anna's,' he said, jerking his head towards a tower. It stood high over them, for at this point, the far end of the harbour, a cliff rose sheer from the low ground, a long cliff beginning in the middle of the town, so that this part of Mahon rode high above the water.

  'I must go,' said Maragall. 'I shall be here at one with the guides. Think, I beg of you, think what I have said: it must be all.'

  It was eight o'clock. They carried out a kedge, moored the gunboat stern-on with the sweeps ready at hand and lay there in squalid loneliness: Jack had a meal served out to the men in messes of six, crowded into the little cabin, while the rest sheltered under the half-deck—only one light, little movement or sound, no appearance of activity.

  How well they bore the waiting! A low murmur of talk, the faint click of dice; the fat Chinese snoring like a hog. They could believe in an omniscient leader, who had everything in hand—meticulous preparations, wisdom, local knowledge, sure allies: Jack could not. Every quarter the church bells chimed all over Port Mahon; and one, with a cracked treble, was St Anna's, which he had often heard from that very garden house with Molly Harte. A quarter past; the half-hour; nine. Ten.

  He found himself staring up at Killick, who said, 'Three bells, sir. Gentleman back presently. Here's coffee, sir, and a rasher. Do get summat in your gaff, sir, God love us.'

  Like every other sailor Jack had slept and woken in all latitudes at all hours of the night and day; he too had the trick of springing out of a deep sleep ready to go on deck, highly developed by years and years of war; but this time it was different—he was not only bright awake and ready to go on deck—he was another man; the cold desperate tension was gone and he was another man. Now the smell of their foul anchorage was the smell of coming action—it took the place of the keen whiff of powder. He ate his breakfast with eager voracity and then went forward in the quarter moonlight to talk to his crew, squatting under the half-deck. They were astonished at his contained high spirits, so different from the savage remoteness of the run down the coast; astonished, too, that they should outlast the stroke of one, of half past, the waiting and no Maragall.

  It was nearly two o'clock before they heard steps running on the quay. 'I am sorry,' he said, panting. 'To make people to move in this country . . . Here they are, guides. All's well. St Anna's at three, yes? I shall be there.'

  Jack smiled and said, 'Three it is. Good-bye.' And turning to the shadowy guides, 'Cuatro groupos, cinco minutos each, eh? Satisfaction, then Java Dick: Bonden, bring up the rear.'

  He stepped ashore at last, the stiff, unyielding ground after months at sea.

  He had thought he knew Port Mahon, but in five minutes of climbing up through these dark sleeping alleys, with no more than a cat flitting in the doorways and once the sound of a baby being hushed, he was lost; and whe
n they came crouching through a low stinking tunnel he was astonished to find himself in the familiar little square of St Anna's. The church door was ajar: they pushed silently in. One candle in a side-chapel, and by the candle two men holding white handkerchiefs. They whispered to the guide, a priest or a man dressed as a priest, and came forward to speak to him. He could not make out what they said, but caught the word foch several times repeated, and when the door opened again he saw a red glow in the sky. The back of the church was filling as the guides led in his other groups: close-packed silent men, smelling of tar. The glow again, and he went to look out—a fire down by the harbour, with smoke drifting fast away to the south, lit red from below—and as he looked he heard a shriek: high bubbling agony cut off short. It came from a house no great way off.

  Here was Bonden with the last party, doubling across the square. 'Did you hear that, sir? Them buggers are at it.'

  'Silence, you God-damn fool,' he said, very low.

  The clock whirred and struck: three. Maragall appeared from the shadows. 'Come on,' said Jack, ran from the square to the alley in the corner, up the alley, along the high blank wall to where a fig-tree leaned over the top. 'Bonden, make me a back.' He was up. 'Grapnels.' He hooked them around the trunk, whispered 'Land soft, land soft, there,' and dropped into the court.

  Here was the garden house, its windows full of light: and inside the long room three men standing over a common rack; one civilian at a desk, writing; a soldier leaning against the door. The officer who was shouting as he leant over the rack moved sideways to strike again and Jack saw that it was not Stephen spreadeagled there on the ground.

  Behind him there was the soft plump of men dropping from the wall. 'Satisfaction,' he whispered, 'your men round the other side, to the door. Java Dick—that archway with the light. Bonden, with me.'

  The bubbling shriek rose again, huge, beyond human measure, intolerable. Inside the room the strikingly handsome youth had turned and now he was looking up with a triumphant smile at the other officers. His coat and his collar were open, and he had something in his hand.

  Jack drew his sword, opened the long window: their faces turned, indignant, then shocked, amazed. Three long strides, and balancing, with a furious grip on his hilt, he cut forehand at the boy and backhand at the man next to him. Instantly the room was filled—bellowing noise, rushing movement, blows, the thud of bodies, a shout from the last officer, chair and table crashing down, the black civilian with two seamen on top of him, a smothered scream. The soldier shooting out of the door—an animal cry beyond it; and silence. The demented, inhuman face of the man on the rack, running with sweat.

  'Cast him off,' said Jack, and the man groaned, shutting his eyes as the strain relaxed.

  They waited, listening: but although they could easily hear the voices of three or four soldiers arguing on the ground floor and someone whistling sweet and true upstairs, there was no reaction. Loud voices, didactic, hortatory, going on and on, unchanged.

  'Now for the house,' said Jack. 'Maragall, which is the guard-room?'

  'The first on the left under the archway.'

  'Do you know any of their names?'

  Maragall spoke to the men with the handkerchiefs. 'Only Potier, the corporal, and Normand.'

  Jack nodded. 'Bonden, you remember the door into the front patio? Guard that with six men. Satisfaction, your party stays in this court. Java, yours each side of the door. Lee's men come along with mc. Silence, silence, eh?'

  He walked across the court, his boots loud on the stones and soft feet padding by him: a moment's pause for a last check and he called out 'Potier.' in the same instant, like an echo from up the stairs came the shout 'Potier', and the whistling, which had stopped, started again, stopped, and 'Potier!' again, louder. The argument in the guardroom slackened, listening; and again, 'Potier!'

  'J'arrive, mon capitaine,' cried the corporal; he came out of the room, still talking into it before he closed the door. A sob, an astonished gasp, and silence. Jack called 'Normand,' and the door opened again; but it was a surly, questioning, almost suspicious face that craned out, slammed the door to at what it saw.

  'Right,' said Jack, and flung his sixteen stone against it. The door burst inwards, shuddering as it swung; but there was only one man left this side of the crowded open window: they hunted him down in one quick turn. Shrieks in the courtyard.

  'Potier,' from above, and the whistling moved down the stairs, 'qu'est-ce que ce remue-ménage?'

  By the light of the big lantern under the arch Jack saw an officer, a cheerful, high-coloured officer, bluff good humour and a well-fitting uniform, so much the officer that he felt a momentary pause. Dutourd, no doubt.

  Dutourd's face, about to whistle again, turned to incredulity: his hand reached to a sword that was not there.

  'Hold him,' said Jack to the dark seamen closing in. 'Maragall, ask him where Stephen is.'

  'Vous êtes un officier anglais, monsieur?' asked Dutourd, ignoring Maragall.

  'Answer, God rot your bloody soul,' cried Jack with a flush of such fury that he trembled.

  'Chez le colonel,' said the officer.

  'Maragall, how many are there left?'

  'This person is the only man left in the house: he says Esteban is in the colonel's room. The colonel is not back yet.'

  'Come.'

  Stephen saw them walk into his timeless dream: they had been there before, but never together. And never in these dull colours. He smiled to see Jack, although poor Jack's face was so shockingly concerned, white, distraught. But when Jack's hands grappled with the straps his smile changed to an almost frightened rigour: the furious jet of pain brought the two remote realities together.

  'Jack, handsomely, my dear,' he whispered as they eased him tenderly into a padded chair. 'Will you give me something to drink, now, for the love of God? En Maragall, valga'm Deu,' he said, smiling over Jack's shoulder.

  'Clear the room, Satisfaction,' said Jack, breaking off—several prisoners had come up, some crawling, and now two of them made a determined rush at Dutourd, standing ghastly, pressed into the corner.

  'That man must have a priest,' said Stephen.

  'Must we kill him?' said Jack.

  Stephen nodded. 'But first he must write to the colonel—bring him here—say, vital information—the American has talked—it will not wait. Must not: vital.'

  'Tell him, sir,' said Jack to Maragall, looking back over his shoulder, with the look of profound affection still on his face. 'Tell him he must write this note. If the colonel is not here in ten minutes I shall kill him on that machine.'

  Maragall led Dutourd to the desk, put a pen in his hand. 'He says he cannot,' he reported. 'Says his honour as an officer—'

  'His what?' cried Jack, looking at the thing from which he had unstrapped Stephen.

  Shouting, scuffling, a fall on the way up.

  'Sir,' said Bonden, 'this chap comes in at the front door.' Two of his mates propped a man into the room. 'I'm afraid the prisoners nobbled him on the way up.'

  They stared at the dying, the dead colonel, and in the pause Dutourd whipped round, dashed out the lamp, and leapt from the window.

  'While trying to escape,' said Stephen, when Java Dick came up to report. 'Oh, altogether too—too—Jack, what now? I cannot scarcely crawl, alas.'

  'We carry you down to the gunboat,' said Jack.

  Maragall said, 'There is the shutter they carry their dead suspects on, behind the door.'

  'Joan,' said Stephen to him, 'all the papers that matter are in the press to the right of the table.'

  Gently, gently down through the open streets, Stephen staring up at the stars and the clean air reaching deep into his lungs. Dead streets, with one single figure that glanced at this familiar cortege and looked quickly away: right down to the quays and along. The gunboat: Satisfaction's party there before them, ready at the sweeps. Bonden reporting 'All present and sober, sir, if you please.' Farewell, farewell, Maragall: God go with you and may no
new thing arise. The black water slipping by faster, faster, lipping along her side. The strangled chime of a clock among the neat bundles of loot under the half-deck. Silence behind them: Mahon still fast asleep.

  Lazaretto Island left astern; the signal lanterns swaying up, answered from the battery with the regulation hoist and a last derisive cry of 'Cochons'. And the blessed realisation that the dawn was bringing its usual slackening of the tramontane—and that the sail down to leeward was the Lively.

  'God knows I should do the same again,' said Jack, leaning on the helm to close her, the keen spray stinging his tired, reddened eyes. 'But I feel I need the whole sea to clean me.'

  Chapter Four

  'Will the invalid gentleman take a little posset before he goes?' asked the landlady of the Crown. 'It is a nasty raw day—Portsmouth is not Gibraltar—and he looks but palely.' She was on the point of appropriating the chambermaid's 'more fit for a hearse than a shay' when it occurred to her that this might cast a reflection upon the Crown's best post-chaise, now standing at the door.

  'Certainly, Mrs Moss; a capital idea. I will carry it up. you put a warming-pan in the chaise, I am sure?'

  'Two, sir, fresh and fresh this last half-hour. But if it was two hundred, I would not have him travel on an empty stomach. Could you not persuade him to stay dinner, sir? He should have a goose-pie; and there is nothing more fortifying than goose-pie, as the world in general knows.'

  'I will try, Mrs Moss; but he is as obstinate as a bee in a bull's foot.'

  'Invalids, sir,' said Mrs Moss, shaking her head, 'is all the same. When I nursed Moss on his death-bed, he was that cross and fractious! No goose-pie, no mandragore, no posset, not if it was ever so.'

  'Stephen,' he cried, with a meretricious affectation of gaiety, 'just toss this off, will you, and we will get under way. Is your great-coat warming?'

  'I will not,' said Stephen. 'It is another of your damned possets. Am I in childbed, for all love, that I should be plagued, smothered, destroyed with caudle?'