Book 9 - Treason's Harbour

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Give me your pass-key first,' said Jack; and walking through the door he called out 'Rouse and bitt, out or down, show a leg there,' and when this brought no response he seized the sleeper and shook him hard. Stephen opened his red-rimmed eyes, struggled up through the fog of sleeping-pills and gave his friend a look of pure hatred: Jack had plucked him from a brilliantly vivid dream in which Mrs Fielding felt a flame of equal warmth with his own. He took the wax balls from his ears and said 'What's o'clock?' in a thick, stupid voice.

  'Half past three, and a freezing drizzly night,' said Jack, drawing the curtain, throwing back the shutters and letting in a blaze of sun. 'Come now, this will never do.'

  'What's afoot, sir?' asked Bonden in the doorway. He and Killick had arrived in the kitchen as the chambermaid came down with her tale of blood flowing under the door, just like number seventeen all over again and the poor gentleman's head almost off of his body so desperate was the stroke, no doubt, and a mort of scrubbing to be done.

  'The Doctor must be at the palace in seven minutes, washed, shaved, and in his number one uniform,' said Captain Aubrey.

  In an angry whine Stephen said that his presence was not necessary, that the meeting, such as it was, would go along perfectly well without him, and that the note from the flagship should be construed not as an order but as a mere invitation, to be accepted or not according to the . . . Jack walked out during these remarks, however, and as neither mercy nor reason was to be expected from Bonden or Killick Dr Maturin said no more until he was installed in a chair in the crowded council-room, very shortly before the arrival of the great man. His face was unusually pink from friction, his uniform and even his shoes were all they should be, and his wig was set rigidly square on his head; but his eyes were still bleary from want of sleep and he gave his neighbour Graham little more than an animal grunt by way of good day. This did not deter Graham for a moment: the words came fairly pouring from him as he hissed in Stephen's ear 'Do you know what they have done to me? They have ruined my dinner. I must not go on the returning Dromedary on Thursday. No, sir. I must go aboard the Sylph today at half-past twelve precisely. Ruined, ruined, my dinner is quite ruined, and it is all the doing of that long-eared looby Figgins Pocock. There he sits, the illiterate, ill-deedy gowk, next to the Admiral's secretary. Have you ever seen such a foul fa'd face?'

  Stephen had seen fouler fa'd faces by far, and quite often at that; in fact although Mr Pocock had an improbable amount of hair growing from his ears and nose and although his cheeks were a dusty, parched yellow, his looks compared rather well with Mr Graham's. Though far from beautiful, Pocock's was a strong, mature, intelligent face, much more so than that of the Admiral's secretary, a surprisingly young man for such an important appointment: not that Mr Yarrow looked at all stupid, but he gave the impression of being anxious, inexperienced, and harassed. He was now clutching a great sheaf of papers and leaning towards Mr Wray, listening to him with the utmost deference.

  The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Francis Ives, came in and the meeting began. As Graham had predicted a great many words were uttered and very little was said; but for some time Stephen looked attentively at Sir Francis: he was a small, compact admiral, rather elderly, but trim and unbowed in his splendid uniform, and he had an immense air of energy and natural authority. Although he belonged to a well-known naval family and had served with great distinction he had not had a sea-going command for some years, and it was said that he intended to run the Mediterranean fleet with such effect that it would earn him a peerage at last: both his brothers were lords, and no effort would be too great to overhaul them. He gazed round on the assembled officers and advisers with his odd hooded eyes as the talk went on, weighing them up but giving nothing away, a man thoroughly used to committees. Mr Wray had the same ability to sit through long meaningless speeches without apparent emotion, but his father-in-law, Rear-Admiral Harte, an officer remarkable only for his wealth—his recently-inherited wealth—and his lack of seamanship, had not. The Rear-Admiral was glaring at Sir Hildebrand as the Governor went on and on, stating that although unauthorized persons might possibly have obtained information, none of the departments under his control could conceivably be held to blame; he had the utmost confidence in his officers, in his secretariat, and in all those concerned with the civil administration.

  Having contemplated Sir Francis long enough to see that his wall of reserve was not likely to give way and that he would discuss serious matters only later, in a smaller council, Stephen lost interest in the proceedings and sat there with his head bowed, at times allowing himself to doze and at times sullenly eating pieces broken from the slice of toast that he had darted into his pocket when Bonden was not looking. At intervals he heard gentlemen declare that the war should be prosecuted with the utmost vigour, and that no efforts should be spared, while others were of the opinion that there should be no relaxation of discipline, and that the heartiest good-will and cooperation should prevail between the services. At one point he thought he heard the clever-looking soldier who fed Sir Hildebrand the figures and notes observe that he was opposed to tyranny and to the French domination of the world; but that might only have been a passing dream. In any event neither he nor Graham was directly called upon to express an opinion; they both ignored all opportunities for intervention; and Graham for one spent his time being doggedly, ostentatiously silent.

  Stephen expected Wray, who had greeted him with a civil bow, to join him when the conference broke up and to enlarge upon the 'delicate affair' he had spoken of at their earlier meeting. 'I shall have to know much more of his mind and his discretion before I involve Laura Fielding however,' he reflected: for Laura had already put her head well into the noose, and although she would almost certainly be allowed to escape by turning King's evidence a heavy official hand would cause her untold suffering. Furthermore he preferred to carry out his mystification of the French agents without any interference; it was an infinitely delicate operation and in his view it had to be performed by a single, well-practised hand. 'I shall not open myself today,' he concluded. 'On the other hand, I shall be interested to hear what he has to say about Graham's André Lesueur.'

  In the event he was not required to open himself, nor did he hear about Lesueur, for Wray walked off, deep in talk with the Admiral's secretary, with no more than another bow and a significant look as though to say 'You see how I am taken up—my time is not my own.'

  During these morning hours Jack Aubrey was in the dockyard, conferring with the shipwrights far down in the bowels of his dear Surprise. The shipwrights and those who controlled them were profoundly corrupt, but they did allow that there was a world of difference between government money and private money, and that a captain's personal outlay called for real value in return; furthermore they were capable of expert craftsmanhip, and Jack was thoroughly satisfied with her fine new Dalmatian oak diagonal hanging-knees and the stringers abaft the mainchains, where the frigate had been cruelly mauled. He also believed the shipwrights when they told him that apart from saints' days they had just over a full week's work to do. They were tolerably vague about the number of saints' days, however, and as Jack climbed the temporary ladders to the ravaged deck, brushing wood-shavings off his coat and breeches, they sent for the calendar, telling off the holidays one after another and disagreeing furiously about whether St Aniceto and St Cucufat amounted to twelve hours or only an afternoon for carpenters as well as caulkers. Jack wrote it all down. He knew the Admiral of old: Sir Francis might not have been the first officer in the Navy to require his people to do everything at the double, but he was certainly one of the most forceful and persistent; he hated sloth on the quarterdeck as much as anywhere else, and when he called for a decision, a report, or a statement of a ship's condition he liked to have it very briskly. Sometimes of course these brisk decisions, reports or statements did not wear quite so well as more deliberate, pondered versions; but, as he said, 'If you stand considering which leg to put into your breeches first, y
ou are likely to lose your tide; and in the meanwhile your breech is bare.' He maintained that speed was the essence of attack; and in his own actions this had certainly proved true.

  'Mr Ward,' said Jack to his clerk, who was waiting on the quarterdeck with the ship's open list under his arm, 'be so good as to draw up a statement of condition showing that Surprise should be ready for sea in thirteen days, her guns in, her water completed and her shrouds rattled down, and let me have it as soon as the muster is over.'

  They walked over the brow to the black huts where the Surprises lived. Captain Aubrey was expected and all his officers were present to receive him; poor lost Thomas Pullings was also there, standing somewhat apart so as not to appear to be encroaching upon the territory of William Mowett, his successor. Four more commanders had been made in the Mediterranean fleet alone: they too had been turned loose upon the Maltese beach, and if any vacancy occurred—an improbable state of affairs—it was likely that one of them would be given it, all four having considerable interest. He now wore a plain round jacket rather than his gold-laced splendour, and an old, old sea-worn hat; but most of the other officers were also in working clothes—all, indeed, except for Mr Gill the master and Mr Adams the purser, who both had assignations in Valletta—because as soon as the inspection was over the whole ship's company was marching off to shoot for Mr Pullings' prize, a weekly iced cake in the form of a target that was much valued by the men and that gave the Commander a tenuous remaining connection with the ship. Marching off by boat, that is to say, for as nothing would induce them to keep in step or stand up straight their officers were unwilling to parade them through streets filled with redcoats, and they were to be taken as far as possible by sea. They were now standing in free and easy attitudes holding their muskets more or less as they saw fit: and when, his formal tour being over, Jack said to Mowett, 'Mr Mowett, we will muster by the open list, if you please,' and Mowett said to the bosun 'All hands to muster,' and the bosun sprung his call, uttering the sequence of howls and short sharp notes designed to bring people from the farthest depths of the orlop and forepeak, the seamen piled their weapons in heaps that would have made any soldier blush and assembled in a straggling group on the bald dusty stretch of ground that purported to be the larboard side of the quarterdeck. The clerk called their names, and one by one they crossed over, just abaft an imaginary mainmast, to the starboard, touching their foreheads to their captain as they did so and calling out 'Here, sir.'

  They were a sadly diminished band. Although some of course were in hospital, naval prison or military guardhouse, many, far too many had been drafted away. Yet for all that, Jack had fought with extraordinary fury for his older shipmates and his best seamen, sometimes going so far as substitution, misrepresentation and downright falsehood when he was absolutely forced to give up a certain number, and now, as they crossed over, there was scarcely one he had not known for years. Some indeed had served in his very first command, the fourteen-gun brig Sophie; and among the rest there were hardly any boys, no landsmen and no ordinary seamen. They were all able, and many of them might have been rated quartermaster in a flagship: at least as far as skill was concerned. They looked at him with mild affection as they went by, and he looked at them with profound disgust. Never, never had he seen such a squalid crew: crapulous, down-at-heel, frowsty. Mowett and Rowan and the master's mates laboured heroically keeping them busy through much of the day, but it would have been inhuman to deny them all liberty, and worse than inhuman—contrary to custom. And if this liberty were to go on much longer . . . Davis had not answered his name, twice repeated.

  'Has Davis run?' asked Jack eagerly. Davis was his Old Man of the Sea, a dark, powerful, dangerous fellow who insisted upon volunteering or being transferred into any ship Captain Aubrey commanded; and nothing, nothing, would induce him to desert.

  'I am afraid not, sir,' said Mowett. 'He only took some Scotch soldiers' kilts away from them, and they have laid him up in their guard-room.'

  Much the same kind of fate accounted for the temporary absence of three more Surprises. Far graver was the real difference between this muster and the last, no less than eleven men having been taken to hospital, four with Malta fever, four with the great pox, two with limbs broken in drunken falls, and one pierced with a Maltese knife, while a twelfth was in prison, waiting trial for a rape. There were no desertions, however, although several merchant vessels had been in and out: the Surprises were mostly steady men-of-war's men, and they belonged to a happy ship.

  'Well, at least I have all the figures,' said Jack, sighing and shaking his head.

  It was just as well that he had got them then, for he had scarcely finished his notes and uttered the wish that the frigate might have a chaplain—'Someone to reclaim them—the fear of Hell-fire might do better than the cat—anything to stop this wasting away'—when a midshipman arrived, at the double, requiring his presence aboard the Commander-in-Chief.

  Thanking Heaven that he had put on a good uniform for the muster, Jack said, 'Captain Pullings, would you be so very kind as to take my place? I was just going to see our people at the hospital. Mr Mowett, carry on. Bonden, my gig. Youngster,'—to the flagship's midshipman, who had come across in a dghaisa—'come along with me. It will save you fourpence.'

  As the gig sped across the Grand Harbour Jack said 'I thought the Admiral was ashore.'

  'So he is, sir,' said the boy in his high clear treble, 'but he said he would be aboard long before I found you, and longer still before you put on your breeches.' The gig's crew grinned, and bow-oar uttered a strangled hoot. 'But I did not even go to the lady's house,' the boy went on in perfect innocence, 'because one of our bargemen said he had seen you putting off at Nix Mangiare steps for the dockyard, and I found you first go!'

  Going up the Caledonia's side, Jack noticed with satisfaction that the gathering of officers on the quarterdeck was far more impressive than was called for by the arrival of a mere post-captain: clearly the Admiral had not yet returned. Indeed, the Caledonia's bell had time to be struck twice while Jack was talking to her commander before the Admiral's barge was seen to shove off and come racing out, pulling double-banked as though for a wager. The whole quarterdeck stiffened: the bosun's mates wetted their calls, the Marines straightened their stocks, the sideboys put on their white gloves. The Admiral came aboard in style: hats flew off, and Marines presented arms with a ringing unanimous stamp and clash, while their officer's sword cut a gleaming curve in the sunlight and the bosun's calls wailed over all. Sir Francis touched his own hat, glanced about the quarterdeck, caught sight of Jack's bright yellow hair and called out 'Aubrey! Now that is what I call brisk. Good: very good. I had not looked for you this hour and more. Come along with me.' He led the way to the great cabin, waved Jack to an elbow-chair, settled behind a broad, paper-lined desk and said 'First I must tell you that Worcester is condemned. She should never have been attempted to be repaired: it was a damned job to firk money out of Government. The new surveyors I have brought with me say that without she is completely rebuilt she can never take her place in the line of battle, and she ain't worth it; we have already spent far, far too much on her. So since we are in need of one, I have ordered her to be converted into a sheer-hulk.'

  Jack had been expecting this; and since he had the Surprise for the present and the firmly-promised Blackwater for the future he was not much concerned, particularly as the Worcester was one of the few ships he had known that he never could love or even esteem. He bowed, saying 'Yes, sir.'

  The Admiral looked at him with approval, and said 'How is Surprise coming along?'

  'Pretty well, sir. I went over her this morning, and barring mishaps she should be ready for sea in thirteen days. But, sir, unless I am given a very large draft of men I shall not have hands enough to work her. We have been bled white.'

  'You have enough to work a moderate ship?'

  'Oh yes, sir: enough to work and fight any sloop in the list.'

  'And I dare say most o
f them are seamen? I dare say you kept the hands that had served with you in other missions?' said the Admiral, taking the list Jack brought from his pocket. 'Yes,' he said, cocking it to the light and holding it at arm's length, 'scarcely a man that is not rated able. Now that is just what I want.' He searched among the folders on his desk, opened one, and said with his rare smile, 'I believe I may be able to put you in the way of a plum. You deserve one, after turning the French out of Marga.' He looked through the papers for some minutes, while Jack gazed out of the stern-windows at the vast sunlit Grand Harbour with the Thunderer, 74, wearing red at the mizzen, gliding towards St Elmo under topsails before the west-north-west breeze, bearing Rear-Admiral Harte away to the blockading squadron and its everlasting watch on the French fleet in Toulon. 'Plum?' he thought. 'How I should love a plum. But there are precious few left in the Mediterranean: can he be topping it the ironical comic?'

  'Yes,' said the Admiral, 'turning the French out of Marga was a capital stroke. Now,'—taking a chart from the folder and speaking in quite another tone, in the rapid, urgent, emphatic way that came naturally to him when any naval undertaking was in hand—'bring your chair over here and look at this. Have you ever been in the Red Sea?'

  'Only as far as Perim, sir.'

  'Well, now, here is the island of Mubara. Its ruler has some galleys and an armed brig or two; he is obnoxious to the Sublime Porte and to the East India Company, and it was thought he could be quietly deposed by a small force arriving unexpectedly, the Company providing an eighteen-gun ship-rigged sloop and the Turks a suitable body of troops and a spare ruler. The sloop is there, lying at Suez with a small crew of lascars and conducting herself as a merchantman, and the Turks are ready with their soldiers. It was thought that Lord Lowestoffe would go out, travelling overland with a party of seamen, and carry out the operation some time next month. But Lowestoffe is sick, and in any case a new situation has arisen. The French want a base for the frigates they have and plan to have in the Indian Ocean and although Mubara is rather far to the north it is a great deal better than nothing. They offered the ruler—his name is Tallal, and he has always been a friend of theirs—gunners and engineers to fortify his harbour, together with a present of gewgaws. But Tallal was not interested in gewgaws: hard cash was what he wanted, and a very great deal of it. Indeed, his demands have increased at every interview. I say, his demands have increased at every interview.'