'Sharp look-out before, there,' he called, a little after four bells.
The answer came back over the wind 'Aye-aye, sir,' and he knew from the voice that it was young Taplow of the maintop, a thoroughly reliable hand. 'Mr Rowan,' he said, 'I am turning in. Let me be called as soon as the islands are sighted.'
As he moved across the deck the gale thrust him from behind, almost as strong as it had ever been, and almost as hot and unbreathable as the noonday blast. Yet when he struggled up from the extreme depths of leaden sleep, Calamy shaking his cot and shouting 'Islands in sight, sir. Islands ahead, if you please,' he was not surprised to find that the ship was scarcely heeling a strake and that no air came racing through the open skylight. The unsleeping part of his mind (though very small it must have been) had told him that the wind was dropping. It had chosen an odd way of getting through the barrier of immense weariness—a dream in which he was riding a horse, a very fine horse to begin with but one that progressively dwindled and shrank until he became more and more uneasy and at last most painfully ashamed, because his feet were touching the ground on either side and people in the crowded street looked at him with indignation. Yet although the message about the wind was coded, its meaning must have been pretty clear to him for some time, because now he was quite resigned to the present state of things.
He made his blear-eyed way on deck, and there in fact were the islands right ahead and on either bow, clear in the newly-risen sun: they formed a little archipelago guarding the end of the gulf, an intricate navigation; but beyond them lay the Red Sea in all its comfortable breadth. Although the air was still hazy it was not to compare with yesterday and beyond the left-hand island he could see the cape that marked the limit of the gulf and then the coast beyond it, trending away eastwards far out of sight, running a good fifty miles and more, as he knew from the chart. There was no lee-shore to be dreaded now; Mr McElwee had taken particular notice of the fairway between the two easternmost islands; the Niobe had made up a most astonishing amount of her distance; and apart from the breeze everything was perfect. But the breeze was the whole essence of the matter, and the breeze was dying, dying. He looked around, gathering his wits: the starboard watch were washing the deck, sending great quantities of water aft from the head-pump to get rid of the masses of caked mud that had come aboard in the form of dust and that had lodged in every corner that was not directly swept by the sea, and from the scuppers shot thick jets of sand-coloured water to join the turbid yellow sea. Usually he never interfered with operations of this kind nor disturbed the watch below, but now he said 'All hands to make sail. Up topgallantmasts.'
The Niobe spread her wings, the water began to sing down her side again as she leant to the thrust of the not inconsiderable remaining wind, and with the tide helping she ran quite fast through the islands and into the open sea, a pretty sight with her topgallants and studdingsails aloft and alow.
A prettier sight still as the sun crept to the zenith, for by now she was wearing almost everything she possessed—royals, skysails, skyscrapers, and some strange light lofty staysails—and in addition to these she had spread awnings fore and aft against the intolerable heat.
Stephen was busy in the sick-bay much of the morning, since a blow of such sudden severity always meant ugly strains and bruises among the seamen and often broken bones; and this time he also had the poor tumbled Turks to patch. When he had finished with them he went to Hairabedian's cabin. He was not surprised to find it empty: the dragoman had almost completely recovered, and he complained most piteously of the confinement and the heat. Stephen therefore carried on to the quarterdeck, where, if he had looked up through the gap between this awning and the next, he would have seen the pretty sight reduced to a mockery, the carefully spread, exactly braced sails all hanging limp, with no way on the ship at all, while the hands who had laboured so violently and in such danger only the day before could now be seen furtively scratching the backstays to call up a breeze, and whistling gently.
'Good morning, Doctor,' said Jack. 'How are your patients?'
'Good morning to you, sir. They are as comfortable as can be expected, the creatures; but one has escaped me. Have you seen Mr Hairabedian at all?'
'Yes. He went running along the starboard gangway just now, skipping like a lad. There he is, just abaft the cathead. No, the cathead, the thing that juts out. Do you wish to speak to him?'
'Not I, now that I see him so well; though indeed he seems the only happy soul in this mournful ship. See how cheerfully he talks to William Plaice; see how sullenly Plaice turns away, grieving for the want of wind, no doubt.'
'Perhaps he does. Perhaps not all of us possess the Bimbashi's philosophy; and there may be some Surprises who would rather be rich than poor—who fret at the notion of the galley escaping us, pulling steadily north, breeze or no breeze, while we sit here broiling in idleness. If the squall had left us boats enough, I am sure they would be out ahead at this moment towing the ship, if they had their own way.'
'I was speaking to Hassan about the winds in these parts. He says that the Egyptian is often followed by a calm, and then the usual northerly breeze sets in again.'
'Does he, indeed? Honest fellow. I had certainly understood that that was the case, but I am heartily glad to hear it confirmed from such a source.' The other inhabitants of the quarterdeck, apart from the men at the helm and the con who were necessarily fixed, had all moved over to the larboard side, where they put up a creditable appearance of not listening. But the Niobe was a little ship and in this quietness, with nothing but the gentle lap of the still water against her side, they were obliged to hear whether they wanted to or not. The 'usual northerly breeze' meant the possibility of wealth, and a general grin spread among them; in an access of cupidity Williamson sprang into the mizzen shrouds, saying to Calamy 'Race you to the truck.'
'Did he mentioned the length of the calm?' asked Jack, wiping the sweat from his face.
'He spoke of two or three days,' said Stephen, and the grins faded. 'But he observed that it was all in God's hands.'
'What the devil is he about?' said Jack, as he saw the dragoman take off his shirt and stand on the rail. 'Mr Hairabedian,' he called. But it was too late: although Hairabedian heard he was already in midair. He dived into the warm, opaque sea with scarcely a splash and swam aft along the side under the surface, reappearing by the mainchains, looking up at the quarterdeck and laughing. Abruptly his cheerful face jerked upwards—his chest and shoulders shot clear of the water. A long dark form could be seen below him and while his face still looked up, his wide-open mouth uttering an enormous cry, he was shaken from side to side with inconceivable ferocity and he vanished in a great boil of water. Once again his head rose up, still recognizable, and the stump of an arm: but now at least five sharks were striving furiously in the bloody sea and a few moments later there was nothing but the red cloud and the fishes questing eagerly in it for more, while others came racing in, their fins sharp on the surface.
The shocked silence went on and on until at last the quartermaster at the con gave a meaning cough: the sand in the half-hour glass was running out.
'Shall I carry on, sir?' asked the master in a low voice.
'Aye, do, Mr Gill,' said Jack. 'Mr Calamy, my sextant, if you please.'
The ceremony of the noon-observation went mechanically through its ritual words and motions, at the end of which Jack, in a harsh official voice said 'Make it twelve.' A few moments later eight bells was struck and Rowan cried 'Pipe to dinner.'
The bosun piped, the men ran to their places, the cooks of each mess assembled in the galley, where (though it seemed unbelievable) their lumps of pork had been simmering for a great while, together with their dried peas, this being Thursday. The movements were quite automatic, having been repeated so often, but they did not bring appetite; few men ate much, and that little almost in silence. The atmosphere changed a little with the coming of the grog, but even so there was no cheering, no calling out of old jo
kes, no banging of plates.
Later in the afternoon Mowett came to Captain Aubrey and said, 'Sir, the men wish me to say that they would be glad of permission to use the shark hooks and tackle: they had a respect and esteem for Mr Hairabedian, and could wish to serve a few of them out.'
'Not with the poor man still in their bellies, for God's sake?' cried Jack, and it was clear from the faces of the listening hands that they quite took the point, and agreed. 'No,' he went on, 'but at quarters this evening we shall exercise the small-arms, and they may each fire half a dozen rounds at 'em, if they please.'
The sun crept down the sky, and a little after quarters it set in a blaze of glory over Egypt, the whole sky vivid crimson from pole to pole, while the Niobe slowly turned in the current, east, east-north-east, and so to north-west by north, where she had come from, and the brighter stars began to show. Jack, having fixed his discouraging latitude with a twilight observation, and having drunk coffee with the Turks, retired to gasp in his cabin.
'God help us, Stephen,' he said, throwing a towel over his nakedness as Stephen came in, 'we might be in a hammam, a bagnio, a Turkish flaming bath. I must have lost a couple of stone.'
'You could spare as much again,' said Stephen. 'And since you are of a very full habit, you would certainly benefit from blood-letting. I will draw off sixteen or twenty ounces directly: you will feel more comfortable, and there will be a little less danger of siriasis or apoplexy,' he said, putting down the box he was carrying and drawing a lancet from his pocket. 'This is rather blunt,'—trying it on the locker—'but I dare say we shall get it into the vein in time. I must sharpen the whole set tomorrow; for if this calm continue, I think of bleeding the whole ship's company.'
'No,' said Jack. 'It may sound girlish, but I really do not want to see blood again today, my own or anyone else's. I cannot get Hairabedian out of my mind. I regret him extremely.'
'I wish he could have been saved,' said Stephen, cautiously. He hesitated, turning the box in his hand. 'I attended to his papers and belongings, as you desired me to do,' he said after a pause. 'I did not find his family's direction in any of the letters I could read—they were mostly Arabic—but I did find this.' He passed the box, took out its false bottom, and passed the chelengk.
'Oh what a damned thing,' cried Jack. 'I am so sorry. Poor fellow.' He tossed it into a drawer, stood up and put on his shirt and trousers. 'Let us take a turn on deck,' he said. 'In five minutes we should see that God-damned moon rise up, a great deal nearer the half than I could wish.'
The God-damned moon was nearer still the following night, yet still the Niobe sweltered there in the gently heaving calm, turning in the current but advancing not at all. The Bimbashi's khat ran out, and with it his philosophy; he had two of his men beaten in the Turkish manner, beaten with rods, and with such severity that one was carried off insensible, while the other staggered away with blood running not only from his lacerated back but from his mouth. The beating was very savage even by naval standards, yet the watching Turks seemed unmoved and the victims uttered nothing but a few involuntary grunts. This raised them in the Surprises' opinion; and there were some who thought it not unlikely that it was their bloody, well-borne punishment that earned the ship her relief, the small breeze that sprang up almost as soon as the deck had been cleaned.
But if that was so, then at least a dozen Turks should have suffered to produce a wind strong enough to carry the Niobe south in time to intercept the galley: for this breeze remained small, desperately small, little more than a light air. It did allow them to breathe, and it did just fill what sails could be set with advantage; but as it kept obstinately dead aft these were comparatively few—spritsail, foresail and lower studdingsails, and foretopsailyard scandalized, main topsail and all she could wear above, but nothing below and nothing on her mizzenmast at all—and even with the hoses in the tops wetting all the canvas they could reach and buckets whipped aloft to be flung over the higher sails, the Niobe rarely moved at more than three knots.
By now the moon was long past the first quarter and Jack Aubrey felt the bitterness of slow defeat rise in his heart: the heat grew if anything more oppressive, and the marked unfriendly reserve of Hassan and the Turkish officers made the position even more unpleasant, if possible. From the very first they had cried out against the reduction of sail, but as he explained to them through Stephen that spreading more canvas did not always mean moving with greater speed and that in this instance sails set aft must necessarily becalm those farther forward, he now supposed that their wry looks must have another cause, probably his remarks about the soldiers' filthiness. It never occurred to him that they thought he was playing false until Stephen came to him one unspeakably harassing tedious evening and said 'I have promised to execute a commission, and I will be as concise as possible, boiling three hours of delicate hint, surmise, theoretical case and half-avowal into one coarse minute: Hassan suspects that the Egyptians have offered you a great reward not to capture the galley. Everyone knows, says he, that your dragoman saw messengers from Mehemet Ali; and everyone knows, says the Bimbashi, that the more sails there are the more wind they will catch: it stands to reason. Now Hassan's proposition is that you should accept a great sum from him and bilk the Egyptian. There: I have done.'
'Thank you, Stephen,' said Jack. 'I suppose it is no good explaining the elements of seamanship all over again?'
'None whatsoever, my dear.'
'Then I suppose I shall have to put up with their mumpishness,' said Jack. But here he was mistaken. The wind, such as it was, backed north-west during the night, breathing in over the Niobe's quarter, and when Hassan and the Turks came on deck the next morning they found as many sails set as could possibly be desired. They exchanged discreet but exceedingly knowing glances, and presently Hassan came up to Captain Aubrey and addressed some complimentary remarks to him in French, a language with which Jack had at least a nodding acquaintance, while the Bimbashi made some Turkish observation in a low, conciliating voice. Jack however wished to give their suppositions no countenance whatsoever; he only bowed, and then climbed to the maintop, from which he viewed the great expanse of misty, heat-quivering blue, staring south with intense longing through the gaps in the cloud of sail. Having gazed his full, with a heavy and desponding heart, he called Rowan and told him quite sharply that he liked to walk his quarterdeck in peace, that in the service it was usual for the officer of the watch to protect his captain from the vapid good days and how d'ye does of passengers who did not understand naval customs, and that the foretopsail yard was by no means as square as it ought to be.
A cloud of sail indeed, and tended with the most religious care; but even so they were still nearly two degrees north of Mubara when the moon reached the full, and by the time they actually raised the island she was a seventeen-day-old object, disagreeably gibbous, late in rising.
It was on a Thursday afternoon that Mubara appeared at last, clear in the light of the setting sun and standing out sharply against the far background of mountains in Arabia. Jack at once hauled his wind to pass unseen and very carefully shaped his course for the passage between the smaller islands and reefs to the south. They were now in a region of trustworthy charts, and with the help of two excellent seamarks he and McElwee set the Niobe half way down the channel, dropping anchor in thirty-five fathom water.
There was still a possibility that the galley might not have passed. It was a very slight possibility, since the usual northerly winds had either not blown at all or had breathed so faintly that they would not have held her back; yet still a certain more or less theoretical hope subsisted, particularly in those bosoms that most desired it, and well before dawn Captain Aubrey, all his officers except the surgeon and the chaplain, and most of the watch below were on deck. It was a misty end to the night, and a slightly fresher west-north-west breeze blew a scud of warm vapours and exhalations over the waning moon; but she still shed a general, diffused light, and the larger stars showed through as orange b
lurs.
The Niobe swung to her anchor, the leeward tide running with a continuous gentle ripple; if the people spoke at all it was in an undertone. The eastern sky grew perceptibly lighter. Jack had been looking at Canopus, an indistinct glow in the south, and thinking about his son: would a boy brought up by his mother, with only sisters to play with, grow up a milksop? He had known smaller boys than George go to sea. Perhaps the clever thing to do was to take him for a four seasons' voyage and then put him to school for a year or two before returning to the Navy, so that he should not be as illiterate as most sea-officers, including his father. Some friend would certainly keep George's name on his ship's books, so the schooling would not mean the loss of any time before he could pass for lieutenant. Two bells. At the sound he glanced forward; and when he looked back again the star was gone.
The head-pump started wheezing, and in this uncomfortable hour when the peace of night was dead and the true life of day had not yet returned the starboard watch began cleaning ship. The tide of water and sand had reached the waist and the holystones were grinding away on the forecastle when the rim of the sun showed red on the horizon. Calamy, sitting on the capstan with his trousers rolled up to keep them from the wet, suddenly leapt down and splashed over the deck to Mowett, who cried 'Forward there, belay,' and strode across to Jack. 'Sir,' he said, plucking off his hat, Calamy thinks he hears something.'
'Silence fore and aft,' called Jack. All hands froze where they stood, as in a children's game, often in ludicrous attitudes, a holystone or a swab upraised, and an expression of the most intense listening on their faces; and from far over to leeward all hands heard a remote chant Ayo-huh hah, ayo-huh hah that came in snatches against the breeze.
'Stand by to slip,' said Jack. 'Pass the word for Mr Hassan and the serang.'
But Hassan and the serang were already there, and both, as he turned to them, nodded emphatically, making the motion of pulling an oar: it was indeed the galley-rowers' song.
Book 9 - Treason's Harbour Page 19
