by Sten Nadolny
Whether a man could sail round a continent in a rotting ship with a deathly sick crew and still make reliable maps – that sort of thing was not decided beforehand by admirals on shore. If a man was slow he could accomplish a great deal, but he had to have good friends.
Anything the commodore wanted to tell his flotilla passed through John’s hands, and whatever came back his eyes read first. Meanwhile, he knew by heart all the flags and their combinations. When he looked he could do so with automatic ‘blindness’ – it was possible to do that with flags. Sometimes Old Man Dance watched him. His glance seemed approving. He said nothing.
John had made a list of his own aims. To reach every port by means of his nautical skill. To prevent mishaps – for example, to avoid drifting toward shore in a storm. Never to have to be ashamed, like Captain Palmer of the Bridgewater. And not to be guilty of producing bad results, not to cause the death of others. The list was not all that long.
The squadron passed through the South China Sea and was approaching the Anamba Islands. ‘I hope nothing happens,’ Westall said all of a sudden, and he didn’t take the trouble to elaborate.
‘Sail ho!’
Their fears were confirmed: French warships. ‘They’ve been lying in wait for us,’ muttered Lieutenant Fowler. ‘If I were in command here I’d use every scrap of sail and draw out our formation in three directions.’ ‘It would be our only chance,’ remarked another. ‘Those fellows have seventy-four guns apiece; they’ll put us in their pipes and smoke us. We ought to have been before the wind long ago.’ And one of the younger men said, ‘The old man is too slow.’
Who should rule in this world? Which third man among three should tell the other two what to do? Who saw most? Who was a good captain?
Just then Nathaniel Dance clambered up the mainmast to survey the situation from the proper height. But who checked whether an aging commander still had the sure eye or whether he had lost it? Now he was at last at the maintop, painstakingly adjusted the sights of his telescope, peered into the distance, and blew his nose. Then he climbed down again, not a bit faster than before. He didn’t have to call the officers together. They and the crew were already standing there.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the old man as, unabashed, he swung his left leg back and forth: it had gone to sleep in the maintop. ‘There are five Frenchmen out there; they’re up to something. But they didn’t calculate correctly. Mr Sturman, please be so good as to ready the ship for combat. Mr Franklin?’
‘Sir?’ That had become automatic. When John heard his surname, he supplemented it at once with ‘Sir’ without further thought. So his answer was no slower in coming than that of all the others.
‘Set the signal: squadron clear for combat. Close ranks on line. Heave to.’
Uncertain cheers sounded. At bottom they were all very ill at ease. At first the flags John raised brought only queries in return. The entire flotilla was in a daze. Eventually, something like a battle line developed after all. But then an astounding event occurred. The warships hove to also. Their hulls could not yet be recognised from the top. ‘Ours can’t be either,’ Fowler said, on the gundeck, giggling. ‘They won’t dare do a thing before tomorrow.’
The sun set behind the island of Pulau Aur, whose tip could just be made out. The wide-bellied merchantmen were lying there in their grim black-and-yellow garments, as though they were heavily armed ships of the line. They were sheep in wolves’ clothing. The French wouldn’t allow themselves to be bluffed for long. During the night everyone expected the command to set sail, but it didn’t come. Dance actually wanted to remain where he was. Nobody slept. A few said hoarsely, ‘Why not fight? We’ll show ’em!’ Some felt an inkling of courage rising to the surface of their consciousness, but those whom it didn’t seize hoped at least that the French would slip away on their own to escape from an assumed superior English force.
There were no signals to be set in the dark. John had time to occupy himself with his doubts. Decisiveness and self-confidence were not easy to come by today. He could not rely on the fact that he always did the right thing. There had been that white flag on the Investigator long ago. Quite distinctly he had heard an order which had perhaps never been given. If so, he would have had to face a possible court martial under any other captain.
On the other hand, Nelson! He had simply ignored the order of the highest admiral to retreat before Copenhagen – no court martial! But even Nelson had been protected by his success after the fact. Only those could maintain certainty who were themselves of great permanence – like the stars, the mountains and the sea. And they in turn possessed no words with which to tell what they had come to know from their long existence. On this score, John discovered, there was more freedom than one could wish. One could, of course, do the right thing, but it was always possible that all the others thought it wrong. They might even be right.
Day broke. The sails on the horizon were still there and did not stir. The French continued to heave to, lying motionlessly in the wind. The commodore let his ships sail on in the old direction to force the enemy into a decision. It didn’t take long for the French sails to multiply and grow tall. Now John was very busy. Dance changed course again and sent the fleet directly towards the enemy.
To his annoyance, John noticed that he was trembling. And because he noticed it, his fear worsened. That the battle of Copenhagen would repeat itself he considered not probable, but that was of little help. He therefore tried to imagine that all this would be over sometime. Pulau Aur lay to the west. He thought how after the battle the survivors would flee to this island, English as well as French. Would they share their food and make decisions together? Or would they kill each other? Even this thought already contained his fear. He resolved to think of completely different things which were useful and kind. He ticked them off. ‘Food, water, tools, bandages, ammunition …’ Things which had to go into the lifeboats in case of shipwreck. If he couldn’t conquer his fear, at least he could get rid of that miserable trembling.
Why hadn’t Dance fled during the night? That risk would have been smaller. He couldn’t possibly dare take a chance on being boarded.
John felt weak, but he observed, decoded, reported, confirmed everything correctly. When signals came, they set his mind into motion outside himself. If none came, he continued his list: ‘Telescope, sextant, compass, chronometer, paper, plumbline, fishing-rod, kettle, needle …’ The list was long enough for his fear. Among the few things not to be saved from a sinking ship under any circumstances were the holystones.
The trembling actually got worse.
‘Spars, sailcloth, twine, flags …’
The warships came on fast.
‘Signals,’ John murmured. ‘Dear God, if possible, just signals this time.’
On the Earl Camden one of the first French shells hit the helmsman. Dance looked toward the waiting replacement and pointed his chin in his direction. With this gesture he bent his head slightly so that his forehead pointed to the helm and his chin to the man. He could also have said: ‘You! Take over!’ But the place at the helm was awash with blood, so he preferred to talk with his chin and forehead. Then he pulled out his watch and studied it carefully, as if the precise moment were the most important aspect of James Medlicott’s death.
John’s trembling became more violent. He wondered how he could hide it. No one could hold on to his own face, his own body. He bent down, grabbed the dead man by his back and knees, and lifted him up the way one would lift women and children. Mockridge had once told of an accident involving a nine-year-old boy in Newcastle who, in his fatigue, had plunged one evening into a running machine. The story had frightened John very much. He had often imagined how he would have carried the wounded child away if he had been there.
‘But the man is dead!’ one of the lascars shouted. John gave no answer. He carried the corpse carefully, bumped into no obstacle. Of course, what he did was nonsense. But he finished it now, especially since it covered up his trembling
. The guns roared; the ship jerked and bucked. John laid down the dead man alongside the wounded and walked away as fast as he could. The surgeon would determine that there was nothing that could be done. John climbed up again. He firmly believed that it was not cowardice that had made him do this. Rather, it was a kind of disapproval. Yes, that’s what it had been. But it had not been unworthy. John’s breath became quieter, his fear abated. Above, the French boarding-attack would come soon. John refused to acknowledge it, exactly as he did everything else in that situation. There was nothing but defiance within him. He said, ‘I cannot condone this. I will not fight.’
He wanted to see, to wait like a mountain, dead or alive. For war, all of them were too slow, not just John Franklin.
John climbed the last companionway to the deck in deep calm. There was hardly a more resolute person on this ship; that much was sure.
But the test did not materialise.
Everything turned out differently.
After three-quarters of an hour John had to send another signal: general pursuit of the enemy for up to two hours. The French had enough and decamped. They were chased by sixteen British merchantmen with a well-stocked cargo of Japanese copper, saltpetre, agar-agar and tea in their bellies. Five men-of-war, bristling with guns and ammunition and with a battalion of Marines standing ready with fixed bayonets, had stood out to sea.
At one point, John noticed that all around him everyone was laughing like mad because at that moment the world could not have been crazier and brighter and because someone on the foredeck had shouted, ‘I think they didn’t want to get us!’ John also perceived that he had long since joined their laughter, that it didn’t end his defiance but rather, on the contrary, his defiance actually expressed itself in this laughter.
From the quarterdeck the commodore shouted, ‘Mr Westall! Have you made a few sketches?’ The painter replied, ‘Unfortunately not, sir. I was a bit surprised by the way this exercise went off.’ Now the word ‘exercise’ made the rounds, and the laughter continued.
Nathaniel Dance had placed all his bets on this victory. Now he was a hero. They all were heroes.
The commodore invited his officers and captains to the flagship to celebrate the ‘Victory of Pulau Aur’. He raised his glass: ‘We were successful only because God looked upon us with favour and because we didn’t act precipitously. Scrutinise three times; act once. Young people don’t always grasp this. Being slow and faultless is better than being quick and final. Isn’t that so, Mr Franklin?’
Now they all looked at John, probably because they expected him to say joyfully, ‘Aye aye, sir,’ as he was supposed to. But he only looked at the commodore and trembled slightly. That was really unusual. They were all astonished. But he was just busy preparing a sentence he wanted to say. To avoid trying their patience, he began his introduction: ‘Sir, I disapprove …’ and considered some more how he should go on. Everyone was suddenly very still. So he might as well attack the most important sentence at once: ‘The war, sir, is too slow for us all.’
Amid the rising raucous laughter, he feverishly compared once more what he had said with what he had wanted to say. But that no longer helped, especially since Fowler slapped him on the shoulder, shaking up everything all over again.
Only the commodore had perhaps understood, or had wanted to understand. ‘Neither too slow nor too fast,’ he said seriously. ‘My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me.’ Then he added, ‘Now even Mr Franklin is talking in sentences rather than in pauses. We’ll still get a lot out of him. Today’s a good day.’
Although none of those present could make head or tail of that, they all laughed as though responding to a successful joke, for that was the way to behave toward a victorious elderly gentleman.
Soon everyone on the Earl Camden knew that John had meant it differently. He went to Dance and all the others and corrected his sentence. To Westall he said: ‘I wished I were always courageous right on the spot, but whatever I do must also be correct. Everything I do comes hard, even courage.’
Westall winked: ‘But you give a good picture of it.’
Ceylon lay behind them. They passed Cape Comarin. John looked out to sea while the painter sketched him. Westall’s tongue licked his lower lip incessantly, for he couldn’t draw in any other way. John started to talk again.
‘Mr Westall, I must tell you something, too. I find precision still better than presentiment.’
Westall measured the distance between John’s eyes with his raised thumb and the beginning of his ears with the side of his left hand. ‘This picture will be exact,’ he said.
John was very content. He was quiet and sat without moving. If Mr Westall was going to paint him in the good old way, he had to take care not to disturb the picture by stirring.
In the roadstead in Bombay they saw the monsoon coming up. William Westall left the ship. He said, ‘I want to stay here and paint India. I’ll start with the monsoon. My brother’s most beautiful picture is called Cassandra Prophesies the Destruction of Troy. My picture will be called The Coming of the Monsoon. And it will express the same thing – only better.’ John didn’t understand a word, and he was sad, because this dear, crazy man was now gone, too.
Portsmouth! Fortifications and docks looked as they always had. The entire city appeared as though he had seen it only yesterday. No one here was moved even to set down his glass upon hearing that one John Franklin had come back after three years. Portsmouth bubbled with young men and women, with noise, toil and initiative. The city was preoccupied with itself. If old people lived here, it was only because of this spirit, not in spite of it. Nobody raised roses here; nobody preached or listened to a sermon. One lived fast because life could end so fast. They worked hard in the docks, even at night, by the light of oil lamps. It was a hungry, fast city, and in that it always remained the same.
John found out that an unsuspecting Matthew had been caught by the French in Mauritius and had been arrested as an alleged spy. He had assumed that the peace was still in effect and had therefore anchored in French Mauritius, although his pass had been valid only for the late Investigator. One hoped they would allow him to keep those charts that had cost him so much effort, and would send him home soon.
Mary Rose was still there.
She lived as before on Keppel Row, only two houses farther down. Over the fire hung the big water kettle in a small, well-built rack; with it she could brew tea without taking the water off the fire. Overall, she seemed to be well.
She said, ‘You talk faster than you did three years ago.’
‘I’ve got my own rhythm now,’ replied John, ‘but I’m also more disapproving than I used to be; that speeds things up.’
Mary’s face had more wrinkles round those arched lines. John looked at her breathing body. In her armpits, fine, delicate little hairs shimmered in the light. That down had the strongest effect; it did a lot for John. Big things were set in motion. ‘I feel like a sine curve; everything is constantly rising.’ Soon he forgot geometry and realised instead that much can be made good in this world and that two human beings are enough to make it work. He saw a sun filling up the sky, which paradoxically was at the same time the sea and warmed him from below instead of from above. Perhaps the present is like that when once in a while it doesn’t run away, thought John.
He heard Mary’s voice. ‘With you it’s different,’ she said. ‘Most of them are too fast. When it gets to the point, it’s already over.’
‘That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking for some time,’ John answered, and he was happy because Mary made him feel well understood. He observed her shoulder-blade, how the white skin was stretched taut over the arched bone. Most delicate was the skin on her collarbones – that did it to him again, promising a new present and a new sun from below.
Mary showed John that there is a language of touching and feeling. One could speak in it and answer in it. Any confusion was out of bounds. He lear
ned a great deal that evening. Towards the end, he wanted to stay with Mary for good. She said, ‘You’re crazy.’
They talked deep into the night. It was hard to talk John out of anything. If other suitors were waiting outside, they had long since gone away, disgruntled.
‘I’m so glad that I can now do everything with my body,’ John murmured. Mary Rose was touched. ‘From now on you needn’t travel round the world for three years for something like that.’
In front of the White Hart Inn stood old Ayscough, eighty years old, sixty-five of them spent as a soldier in Europe and America. Every day he was there when the mailcoach came, closely inspecting everyone who got off and asking where they were from.
He recognised young Franklin by the way he moved. He held the midshipman’s hand with a steady grip, for he wanted to be the first to hear everything. ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘You already have a ship again, and a big one. You’ll soon be in combat again to defend England.’
Then John went off in the direction of his parents’ house. The sun was climbing through the fruit trees. He had yearned to be away from here for as long as he could remember. But while his hopes had been directed toward faraway distances, he had actually looked at these chimneys, at the market cross, and at the tree in front of the Town Hall. Perhaps homesickness was only the desire to recapture that early hope. He wanted to think about that and put down his luggage next to the market cross.
Yet now he had a present hope, a fresh hope. And it was better founded than the earlier one. How, then, did this homesickness come about?
Perhaps he had loved all these things here at a time he couldn’t remember. But now the strange distances were here. It seemed to him that even the spring air on the wall in Whampoa had smelled more intimate than these steps leading up to the market cross. Still, there remained a suggestion of love.
