The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

by Patrick O'Brian

  It was an unhappy state of affairs, above all that Edward Heatherleigh was away in the north and that in his absence Christine was staying at Woolhampton, where her support for Brigid increased the atmosphere of ill-will.

  ‘Sometimes I count the remaining days of holiday on the calendar,’ write Sophie. ‘They seem to stretch on and on, and I am so afraid that Christine and I may quarrel. Sometimes I see her check the angry words when the twins are particularly unkind: and rather than have that I am minded to suggest that she and Padeen should travel up to the north to stay with dear Edward, at least until the girls go back to school. I know that she is particularly anxious to escape the attentions, the very pronounced attentions, of Captain Miller.’

  ‘I do not think I know about Captain Miller.’ said Stephen. ‘What is his ship?’

  ‘Oh no: he is only a soldier,’ said Jack. ‘He has a moderate estate the other side of Caxley. A surprising number of pheasants; but a sad coxcomb, I fear. I only say ‘How d’ye do?’ when we meet. A soldier: his regiment was posted to Sierra Leone at one time. That will be the Admiral,’ MS II, 14he said, breaking off as the salute began, doubled and redoubled by echoes and by the citadel’s prodigious reply to Leyton’s civility.

  ‘The Admiral is at hand,’ said Jack in the flattened silence, ‘and I should have told you before that he begs the favour of passage home for his flag-captain and another unfortunate whose name I forget. And I rather think, brother, that I have pledged your word in exchange for the moving of sixty-odd prime hands to Suffolk, which can hardly win her anchors else. Oh, they were so happy when …’

  ‘Wittles is up,’ said Killick, and the scent of toasted cheese wafted in with him.

  They ate in silence, intently, hungrily; and then, resting his fork, Jack said, ‘I have had what I think is an idea worthy of Newton: but during the night I must spend the rest of my time reading the rest of my letters and unless they contradict me I shall tell you at breakfast: for once that is eaten, Surprise must make sail.’

  Chapter Three

  MS III, 1The diminished but still well-manned Surprise and her lithe fore-and-aft companion Ringle swung easily at their moorings on the making tide not far from the imposing Suffolk, and they gazed at the South African squadron farther inshore, actively victualling, watering and getting ready to move into various docks and yards beyond the citadel for repairs, some of them urgent.

  ‘Good morning, Stephen,’ said Jack as his friend walked into the cabin.

  ‘Good morning to you, my dear,’ said Stephen.

  ‘You have done your writing, I see?’

  ‘So I have too: a simple harsh direction that Brigid shall be delivered into the hands of the bearer and carried aboard – whichever vessel we decide upon – there to be in her father’s custody: this is, as I understand it, a necessary legal form in case any of Diana’s relatives should object. It is, I hope entirely softened by a most affectionate private note to Christine and her brother, inviting them to join us.’

  ‘I have done much the same, simply requiring Sophie to come aboard with the utmost dispatch, bringing a minimum of impediments, and of course the girls.’

  Each eyed the other’s letter, which looked more like a laboured study than a simple note; and Jack said, ‘Well, let us at least have a preliminary cup, and then we can ask Harding to join us.’ Some moments later he touched the bell, and said to Killick, ‘Ask Mr Harding to walk in. Mr Harding, pray sit down – may I pour you a cup of coffee? Now you know very well that Surprise and Ringle are to return to Portsmouth with all possible speed to deliver a certain number of officers to the Commander-in-Chief, together with the Doctor’s communications and my dispatches. You may find it possible to shape your course without any impropriety so that you touch at Shelmerston before heading for Plymouth. If it is feasible, you, a firm-natured married man, will post straight to Woolcombe and there hand this letter to my wife and this to Mrs Wood, her near neighbour. Our hope, do you see, is to convey both ladies, together with Mrs Wood’s brother, the three children MS III, 2and the strict minimum of attendants to the Cape, either catching the squadron before it leaves the River Plate or joining company during the voyage – they will almost certainly water at Saint Helena – or simply at the Cape itself. Now you know both vessels through and through; and you know more than I do about children, attendants and the married state. When you have heard the ladies express their views on baggage and on these points you will form an opinion on the irreducible minimum and choose your conveyance accordingly. Ringle is undoubtedly faster than Surprise, but I should not like to have her passengers unduly cramped – given a disgust of the sea – for the sake of a few days.’

  ‘Two ladies, one gentleman, three children, and I suppose three or four maids and a man.’

  ‘It does of course depend on whether the gentleman chooses to come,’ observed Jack. ‘Mr Harding, you will read these letters if you please: they are in no way confidential.’

  ‘I make no doubt that the gentleman will come,’ said Stephen.

  Harding, a poised middle-aged lieutenant, read the letters with attention. The others watched him. ‘Well, sir,’ he said at last, ‘Well, gentlemen: I am of opinion that Ringle is the right choice. I was perpetually easing my sheet when she was in company with Surprise, though indeed there are few faster frigates. The passengers will not lie altogether at their ease, to be sure, but they will have the delight of seeing the bow-wave flung wide to leeward and the wake racing away, everything alive and tearing through the water. They would be dull souls that did not love that: and if I may be so bold, Miss Brigid loved it purely last time she was afloat in a blow. Anyhow, you would want Ringle as a tender, sir.’

  ‘Very true: so you think all these people could be crammed in?’

  ‘I should take my davy on it, sir.’

  ‘Very well. You can sail with Surprise, then; and she will deliver my officers, passengers and despatches at Portsmouth, then run down to be laid up in Sepping’s yard, while you return with your passengers in Ringle.

  MS III, 3‘Very good, sir,’ said Harding, folding the letters away in his bosom. ‘So now, since the gentlemen for Portsmouth are already aboard Surprise, I shall ask permission to take my leave and wish you and Suffolk a happy, prosperous voyage. And Doctor, how I hope you and your mate may bag a brace or two of phoenixes.’

  They shook hands and parted. ‘There is a fine fellow,’ said Jack. ‘He can sail the schooner very, very hard indeed: it was the right choice. But I think he was not mistaken when he said they would not always lie at their ease.’

  ‘It would be ill-natured on my part to suggest that he might be influenced by the certainty, under Providence, of coming back to your blue squadron and acting as tender to the imposing great Suffolk under your command: I shall not say it however, although my lower being does feel exceptionally bad-tempered today. Jack, with your idea you have wholly forestalled me. You spoke of a notion worthy of Newton, but you did not elaborate: and I was only waiting for an opportunity of telling you mine.

  ‘Pray do so now, dear Stephen: I am sure it would be more luminous.’

  ‘What I was going to say was that you had no idea of the fundamental difference between a mere landlubber and a seaman.’

  ‘Oh was you, indeed?’

  ‘You may toss your head in that superior way, but you have never been a mere landlubber. You were introduced to the ocean as an infant child; you boated before you knew the difference between right and wrong; you went positively to sea under Captain Willis well before puberty. Far from you the wondering calf-like gaze of those who watch the intrepid mariner traverse the tossing deck – the gaze almost instantly followed by a feeling of unavoidable and certain death, cold death, followed by furious uncontrollable heaves and MS III, 4shameless vomiting, morbid frigor and despair. They, with some slight recovery and even an upright position, the sight of these godlike creatures stalking about the nightmare deck in their uncouth garments, uttering their brutish cries, hal
ing upon ropes great and small – finding their way by night – reaching the stated port – all this reduces the lubber to a state of laudable and permanent humility. No, no, my good sir, you may say what you please, but there is a great gulf fixed between the landlubber – the landlubber who comes late to things that float – and the true-born seaman: a gulf as great as that between a sheep and a seal.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Jack, who had had the training of some of the sheep.

  ‘Now you are to consider,’ Stephen went on, ‘that my Brigid was not only baptized in sea-water, but dipped before she could walk. When we were ashore she rejoiced in boats, when we were afloat she delighted in heavy sea, never minding in the least when they soaked her through and through – nimble in the rigging, the darling of the upper-yardmen. She often explains the rigging to me, and I have seen old hands like Tobin nod with approval. No, my dear Jack, what I should have said had you not in essence said it before me, was that one (however young) who has sea-legs, sea-sense and a knowledge both acquired and to some degree as it were instinctive of the sea’s very nature itself bears down all frippery land-based experience, however old.’

  ‘Oh come, Stephen, Charlotte and what’s her name are not exactly crones. As I remember they only date from the Mauritius campaign.’

  ‘They might have been born with Helen of Troy as far as that is concerned. Aboard, particularly aboard so lithe and eager a vessel as Ringle, Brigid must bear them down; and a just equilibrium will be reached, with mutual respect and no bullying.’

  There were many vantage-points high above the harbour that MS III, 5Jack and Stephen used to climb, once a reasonable period had elapsed, a period in which a well-handled weatherly craft with favourable winds (and as far as could be told they had been favourable) could reasonably be expected to sail out and back; and Stephen had the pleasure of seeing some moderately upland birds and the bizarre mating habits of a colony of variegated scorpions, while the sun passed over the almost invariable translucent sky; but Jack always made his descent to the still fairly active yards (Lord Leyton’s mainmast footing still gave great trouble) with hope disappointed.

  By now Suffolk was in very fine fig, and since Jack was blessed with an experienced and upon the whole intelligent wardroom, the gun-crews, at least in dumb-show, were as brisk as he could wish while the small-arms men (who could, within limits, fire their pieces) were all well above the average. Her stores were completed – prime salt beef from the immense ranches, smaller amounts of moderate pork, a remarkably agreeable army biscuit, tobacco in industrial quantities – while for daily use flesh-boats plied to and from the butchers stalls along the quay, and flat-bottomed craft brought fruit and vegetables in unlimited amount. As a peace-maker the Nuncio had worked wonders, though to be sure commercial enterprise had played its part.

  ‘It is only a Friday,’ said Jack, when he and his first lieutenant (he sailed without a flag-captain) had made sure that there was not a becket out of place and that all Suffolks were present, correctly shaved and provided with all that was required. ‘It is only a Friday, but I think I shall stroll up well beyond our usual mound with a telescope. Do you choose to come, Stephen?’

  ‘I do, too: we might see some of the first migrants.’

  Up and up: fairly easy going now that they were used to the land; and as they rose the horizon increased enormously, the empty horizon, though in with the land there were some lateen-rigged fishermen.

  The mound they chose was thinly covered with a sparse herbage in which there grew a small particularly vicious cactus, while in the many bare places the earth showed MS III, 6dull purplish red: a landscape more wholly foreign they had never seen, although they had travelled very, very widely – it was, after all, their calling.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ said Jack, sitting comfortably down, his back to a rock, after a piercing search of the nearer sea and the northern horizon, ‘how I long for Woolcombe and the green Woolhampton downs, speckled with sheep. Woolcombe and the soft dew falling: the cawing of rooks. When I was a mere post-captain, you know, and there was this prospect of peace, I used to console myself, particularly when I was solvent again with that dear prize-money and Cousin Edward’s land doing so well – I used to console myself with the thought of restoring the place to what it was when I was a boy, before my father lost his head about the Stock Exchange, when we had a pack of hounds and a damned good huntsman and when the water-bailiff kept the streams as neat as a man-of-war: full of trout and the odd salmon on the spring run. Lord, we had such sport, such fun! There was an old hound called Captain, and he always hit off the line after a check. “Hark to Captain” we would cry, and they all followed him like a single creature. Lord! How I longed to be back! Now of course I must stand my trick as a flag-officer: and most uncommon lucky I am to have it to do. But I do so long to be back, sometimes, under Hamble Down, showing George how to work out a line. Stephen, you can have no idea how beautiful it is.’

  ‘Can I not?’

  ‘Oh of course you can, of course you can. I am sure the Glens of Avoca are even finer. I do beg your pardon. But, do you see, it was my childhood.’

  ‘Have you noticed that small vessel right in with the land, almost beneath us, under the cliff? Her sails are all in a line.’

  Jack leapt to his feet. ‘By God, she’s Ringle,’ he cried. ‘She must have stood inshore …’ The voice and the explanation died on the downward slope.

  ‘I should never have believed MS III, 7that a man so tall and stout could have moved so fast,’ murmured Stephen, fixing the schooner in his glass. He liked to believe that he could make out Brigid and Christine with Edward Heatherleigh clinging to a spar behind them, but it was clearly time to descend.

  The perilous slope, the milder slope, the mule-track, the paved road, and at last the quays with Jack still far, far ahead, though now moving more like an admiral.

  Ringle was a beautifully-proportioned vessel and it was only when there was a tight knot of people on her fo’c’sle that one saw how small she was in fact. Kindly hands heaved on the mooring ropes to let Stephen step aboard from the quay, and clear over the general din he heard the Aubrey twins’ shrill cry, raised for the seventh time, ‘Why are you not wearing your admiral’s uniform?’ while at the same time his own Brigid slipped through the throng and whispered ‘Dearest Papa’ as he bent to kiss her. Christine was just behind, and looking up from the child’s shining, happy, sun-browned face he said, ‘Dear Christine, she does you infinite credit. Edward, my dear sir, how do you do? How happy I am to see you.’

  The visitors’ cabins had long since been prepared, and now the admiral’s barge carried them over: after their extraordinarily rapid but somewhat cramped voyage they were amazed by the scale of a ship of the line. ‘It is almost as good as Grignon’s hotel,’ said Charlotte, which earned her a sour look from Killick. ‘And have you noticed that the sails are square?’ asked her sister, to which Brigid replied, ‘Don’t you know the odds between a ship and a schooner?’ with such firmness and such effect that Stephen saw, with infinite satisfaction, that a decent balance had been established. Then again, Brigid knew quantities of old Surprises, some of whom had taught her the ropes: these she found out and asked them how they did, calling them by name, MS III, 8which put her head and shoulders above any passenger but Mrs Aubrey. In any case the twins never entered into competition: as might have been predicted, they had been dreadfully seasick, confined to their bunks, horrible to see and worse to hear from the very beginning until a few days ago, so that they had acquired no sea-legs, no fundamental knowledge; and even now they were incapable of distinguishing a bowline from a rolling-hitch.

  Yet in a surprisingly short time as it is measured by days the new inhabitants of the Suffolk, even the more stupid of the Aubrey girls, took bells for granted, the ritual swabbing of decks, set meals (less Spartan now that they lay in port) and the many and very fine gradations that separated the rear-admiral from the boy, third-class. Stephen observed, with a mute but int
ense satisfaction, that here his daughter had not the least air of being a stranger in the house, a friend’s child accepted for that friend’s sake: here, with so many friends and accompanied by Padeen, an old Surprise of remarkable standing and authority, she was very much at home. Yet as far as he could see she did not flaunt her sea-going knowledge, but as soon as the twins were willing to be peaceable she was both kind and companion-like.

  Very soon they had explored almost every part of the ship from the safer tops (propelled by Padeen and other seamen) to the echoing vaults of the darkened hold, where facetious midshipmen and first class volunteers would terrify them with sepulchral moans and waving sheets.

  ‘Dearest Stephen,’ said Sophie, passing him a cup of tea in the cabin, ‘I cannot tell you how glad I am that our daughters are friends again: there was a time when I almost despaired – when I should have whipped them if I had not thought MS III, 9it would do more harm than good. It only made me dogged when I was young.’

  ‘I cannot imagine you being whipped, Sophie,’ said Christine.

  ‘But I was, and quite often too. My mother would make us stand with our faces to the wall and whip the back of our legs with a thin sheaf of willow-wands: I do not think it ever improved my French verbs or arithmetic or even my manners.’

  ‘I knew some Dominican nuns who did that,’ said Stephen. ‘They whipped my Saavedra cousins until they bled: I had thought it was only Catholic. Jack hardly ever flogs: discourages it, indeed. How do you find him, my dear?’

  ‘Oh, very well, I thank you,’ said Sophie, blushing. ‘I must admit he is rather thinner than I could wish: but he does love having his flag, and I am so very, very happy for him. It was Prince William who sent us the news, with his best compliments, which I thought wonderfully polite.’