Book 9 - Treason's Harbour

by Patrick O'Brian

  'I too am an urinator,' said Martin, 'and I am thoroughly accustomed to the bell. I should be happy to go with Dr Maturin.'

  'No, no, gentlemen,' cried Jack. 'You are very good—infinitely generous—but you must not think of such a thing for a moment. Consider the danger; consider poor Hairabedian's end.'

  'We do not intend going out of the bell,' said Stephen.

  'But may not the sharks come into it?'

  'I doubt that: and even if they were to do so, sure we should induce them to go out again, with an iron prong, or maybe with a horse-pistol.'

  'That's right,' said Killick, and to cover the remark he let fall a dish, retiring with the pieces.

  On going below to attend the Captain's dinner Stephen had left a dismal deck, full of tired, deeply disappointed men, gasping-hot, apt to quarrel with one another and with the Turks; he returned to find sunny faces, affectionate looks, a holiday atmosphere, laughter fore and aft, his bell beautifully put together, ready to be swung clear of the rail and lowered; its glass had been newly polished and a series of beckets within held six loaded pistols and two boarding-pikes, while a variety of hooks, tackles, lines and ropes lay neatly coiled upon the bench. But the laughter stopped and the mood changed entirely when what had been in prospect became immediate reality. 'Should you not wait until the evening, sir?' asked Bonden as Stephen prepared to get into the bell, and it was clear from their serious, concerned faces that he was speaking for a good many of the crew.

  'Nonsense,' said Stephen. 'Remember, now, at two fathoms we pause and renew the air.'

  'Perhaps we should try with a couple of midshipmen first,' said the purser.

  'Mr Martin, pray take your seat in the usual place,' said Stephen. 'James Ogle,'—this to the man in charge of the pair of barrels—'mind you do not let us want for air.'

  There was no fear of that. The cranks whipped round as though for James Ogle's own salvation, and the bell had not sunk its first gentle two fathoms before the fresh air was there, ready to be let in. Everything that anxious care on board could do was done, and twenty picked hands with muskets lined the side; but there was little that could be done apart from tending the tackles, and there was not a man aboard who did not feel sick with apprehension when a huge fish, thirty-five to forty feet long, glided between them and the bell, far too deep for any musket. It turned above the glass, darkening the day. 'That must be the big carcharodon,' said Stephen, looking up. 'Let us see what he will make of this.' He reached for the cock and let out a furious bubbling stream of used air. In a single swift movement the shark turned its vast bulk and was seen no more.

  'I wish he had stayed a little longer,' said Martin, reaching down for the hose from the next barrel. 'Poggius says he is excessively rare.' He raised the tube and the compressed air hissed into the descending bell, driving the few inches of water that had entered it down to the rim. 'I believe this is the clearest day we have ever had.'

  'I am sure you are right. I never have made an ascent in an air balloon, alas, but I imagine it to give this same immaterial floating even dreamlike sensation. There is a small Chlamys heterodontus.'

  A few minutes later the bell settled on the galley's deck, neatly placed abaft the rowers' benches and just over the after hatchway, whose grating had floated off.

  Time passed: interminable for those above, quite short for those below.

  'What can they be at?' cried Jack at last. 'What can they be at?' There was no signal from the bell, no sign of life apart from the streams of air that made the surface boil and froth from time to time. 'How I wish I had never let them go.'

  'Perhaps,' said Martin, after their tenth attempt at connecting line, hook and tackle, 'perhaps we might send up a message desiring them to lower down a stout hook already tied to its necessary ropes and pulleys.'

  'I am very unwilling that they should suppose I am not the complete seaman,' said Stephen. 'Let us try just once again.'

  'There are two young tiger-sharks peering through the glass,' observed Martin.

  'No doubt, no doubt,' said Stephen testily. 'I do beg you will pay attention, and pass the rope through this loop, while I hold it open.'

  Through the loop or not, the assembly would not hold, and the shameful message, written with an iron stylus on a small sheet of lead, was obliged to be sent up.

  A perfectly simple, perfectly foolproof hook came down. Working it from the Niobe's deck called for much more labour, but the hands who tailed on to the fall cared nothing for that, although the temperature was now a humid hundred and twenty-eight degrees under the awnings, and presently great stretches of the galley's deck came floating to the surface. It was so thin and light, apart from the beams fore and aft of the masts, that a grapnel could pull it apart; and the beams themselves yielded to the first heave of the Niobe's kedge. The entire hull lay open, and although by now the water was so troubled that nothing could be clearly made out from the ship, the bell sent up a message 'We see small rectangular chests, or large boxes, apparently sealed. If you will move us a yard to the left we can reach the nearest, which we shall attach to a rope.'

  'I should never have believed that so small a bulk could be so heavy,' said Martin as they lifted it across to the middle of the bell, where there was most light. 'Do you see that the French seals, with the Gallic cock, are red, while the Arabic are green?'

  'So they are, joy. Now if you will tilt it up, I will pass the rope around twice.'

  'No, no. We must do it up at both ends, like a parcel. I do wish the Navy had ordinary string: this thick rope is so plaguey stiff and hard to tie. Do you think this bow will answer?'

  'Admirably well,' said Stephen. 'Let us slide it out under the rim again, and give the signal.'

  'Bell signals heave away, sir, if you please,' said Bonden.

  'Carry on, then,' said Jack, 'but handsomely, handsomely.'

  At this time the bell was emitting no bubbles. The chest could be seen, at first dimly, then quite clear, rising slowly through the water; and the grinning hands perceived its weight.

  'Oh my God the knot's slipping,' cried Mowett. 'Bear a hand, bear a hand, bear a . . . Hell and death.'

  On reaching the surface the chest glided through its bonds and plunged free, directly over the bell. 'If it hits the glass they are dished,' thought Jack, following its course with appalled anxiety while at the same time he roared 'Stand by the bell tackle-fall—jump to it.'

  The plummeting chest missed the glass by inches, striking the bell an echoing blow and landing by its rim. 'The next time we must cross the knot the other way,' said Martin.

  'I cannot stand this any longer,' said Jack. 'I shall go down and make them fast myself. Mr Hollar, give me some spun-yarn and marline. Raise the bell.'

  The bell came up; it swung dripping inboard, and Stephen and Martin stepped out, cheered by one and all. 'I am afraid we did not tie it quite tight enough,' said Stephen.

  'Not at all. You did splendidly, Doctor. Mr Martin, I congratulate you with all my heart. But perhaps this time I will take your place. Every man to his trade, you know, and the cook to the foresheet.'

  A gale of laughter followed this, and his shipmates thumped the cook on the back: they were in such tearing spirits they could scarcely contain themselves. Captain Aubrey, on the other hand, had to overcome a very real repugnance as he mounted the bell and sat on the bench; his look of flushed triumphant happiness faded to sobriety and it was all he could do to keep it to that; he hated being confined—he would not have gone into a coal-mine for anything in the world—and during their passage down he was obliged to repress a very strong irrational urge to escape whatever the cost. However, their pause in midwater, the business of renewing the air and letting out the old, kept him occupied; and when he was standing on the galley's floor he felt somewhat better—at least in full control.

  'We have returned to our old place exactly,' said Stephen. 'Here is the very one we dropped. Let us pull it in.'

  'Are they all like this?' asked Jack, l
ooking at the stout chest with its deeply recessed ends.

  'As far as I can see they are all exactly the same. Look under the rim—there is a whole range of them running forward.'

  'Then it is great nonsense using a line. Iron cask-slings would deal with them in no time. Let us go up and fetch a pair. We will put this on the bench and carry it with us.'

  Once again the bell rose up and swung inboard: once again the people cheered, and louder than before. Bonden and Davis, two strong men, carried the heavy little chest to the middle of the quarterdeck.

  'Make a lane, there,' cried the bosun, pushing at the intensely expectant, happy, tight-packed crowd of Surprises, Turks and Lascars. The carpenter came through the lane, bearing his tools. He knelt to the chest, drew three nails, and levered back the lid.

  The expectant, happy faces, even more crowded now, looked taken aback, puzzled. The more literate slowly read Merde à celui qui le lit painted in white upon a dull grey block of metal.

  'What does this mean, Doctor?' asked Jack.

  'Roughly whoever reads this is a fool.'

  'It's a fucking pig of lead,' cried Davis, catching up the block with frightful force and dancing as he stood, holding it high over his head, his mouth white with spittle and his face black with rage.

  'Give me t'other end,' said Jack kindly, patting him on the shoulder, 'and we'll toss it overboard.'

  'Sir,' said Rowan hesitantly, 'should we like to buy some fish?'

  'I can imagine nothing that would give me more pleasure, Mr Rowan,' said Jack. 'Pray, why do you ask?'

  'There is a boat alongside, sir, and the man is holding up something like a skate with red spots; but he has been here quite a while, and I am afraid he will shove off if we don't attend to him.'

  'Buy all he has and bring him aboard,' said Jack. 'Doctor, be so good as to question him about the situation on the island with Mr Hassan. That will enable the Turks to decide about their landing, and it will tell us how we stand.'

  He walked into his cabin, and it was there that Stephen found him in the torrid late afternoon. 'Listen, Jack,' he said, 'the position is clear. The French have been here for a month and four days; they have repaired the fortifications and they have set up batteries wherever they are needed. There is no possibility of landing. For the last week they have been sending this galley down the south channel in the night and bringing it up again in the day. The fishermen were firmly persuaded that it had great quantities of silver aboard, and I imagine the original cases were kept aboard to keep the notion alive, so that if we met any casual dhow or felucca we should still hear of treasure and be lured in.'

  'We have been done brown,' said Jack. 'What flats we must look.'

  'Perhaps one should look for such a result when an expedition has been so much talked of as this was,' said Stephen. 'But even so I am surprised at the precision of their intelligence.'

  Chapter Seven

  During the Niobe's return to Suez the usual northerly breezes blew with scarcely a pause; she had to beat up all the way, often tacking two or three times in a watch, and the cry of 'All hands about ship' was even more frequent than that for sweepers, seeing that it came by night as well as by day. And by now her bottom was very foul, especially where her copper had been ripped off: this not only caused her to miss stays more often than was agreeable but it also made her dreadfully slow, a point of some importance in a crowded ship that had relied on getting rid of her Turks at Mubara and on completing her water there. The people were put on short allowance, and the scuttle-butt, which ordinarily stood on deck for anyone to drink from, was now deprived of its dipper: those who wished to drink had to suck the water up through a dismounted musket-barrel; and so that no man should do so wantonly the barrel was kept in the maintop, since only great thirst would make the climb worth while in such overwhelming heat. This was felt to be unjust by the Turks, who said that neither their fathers nor their mothers were apes, and that climbing did not come naturally to them, whatever might be the case with others: the seamen retorted that as the Turks did not work, and as they fouled the heads so horrid, they had no right to be thirsty; but the argument carried no conviction and there might have been serious trouble if the Niobe had not put into Kosseir, where water was to be had in abundance, although the wells were awkwardly placed for the boats and the ship had to lie far offshore.

  It would in any case have taken a considerable time to fill all the casks and get them aboard, but now it took longer than usual. In the ordinary course of events the air over the Red Sea was so extremely humid that the sun did not burn but only boiled those exposed to its rays and the hands went about stripped to the waist, most of them still quite pale after weeks of it. But on a Friday—still another Friday—the breeze came right off the land, the air grew parching dry, biscuit, charts and books became crisp against from one watch to the other, and the seamen burnt brick-red or purple. An order to the effect that no hands who were not already black, brown, or yellow were any longer to be indulged in the liberty of going shirtless came too late, and although Stephen lavished sweet-oil on their tender backs the burns were so deep that it had little effect. Watering was therefore painful as well as slow; and while it was running its tedious course the Bimbashi, who had never forgiven Jack for having been misled, very carefully and at great length showed him the scene of another of the Royal Navy's failures—the little five-gun fort defending Kosseir roads, which had been bombarded by two thirty-two-gun frigates, Daedalus and Fox, for two days and a night, when it was in the hands of the French. They fired six thousand rounds, said the Bimbashi, writing it down so that there should be no mistake, six thousand rounds, but they failed to take the fort and their attack was repelled with the loss of a gun and of course a great many casualties.

  'Pray tell the Bimbashi how deeply I am obliged to him for his information,' said Jack to Stephen, 'and how highly I value it as an example of his politeness.' This necessarily had to pass through Hassan, a man of delicate breeding who had been uneasy throughout the Bimbashi's account and who now looked uneasier still.

  Yet Hassan's farewell was as cold as the Bimbashi's when they took leave of Jack in Suez, the Turk to take his men to Ma'an and the Arab to return to his wilderness.

  'That was an odd way to say good-bye,' said Jack, looking after him with a certain regret and some slight shade of indignation. 'I always did the civil thing by him; we always got along perfectly well, I cannot imagine what made him so chuff.'

  'Can you not?' said Stephen. 'Surely it is that he expected you to come down on him for the seven hundred and fifty purses he promised you to bilk the Egyptian. As he saw it you had fulfilled your part of the bargain while he was unable to produce a single purse at the moment of parting, let alone several hundred: he felt that you must scorn him, which is enough to make any man stiff and proud.'

  'I never agreed to his monstrous proposal for a moment—gave it no countenance whatsoever.'

  'Of course you did not, but he thought you did, which is what matters. He is not at all a bad horse, however: I spent much of the forenoon with nim, while you were breaming the ship, together with a French-speaking Coptic ohysician he had known since his childhood, a gentleman who will act for us if we have any further dealings with the Egyptian governor, a gentleman, moreover, with wide connections among the Greek and Armenian merchants of these parts, and an insatiable appetite for information. Will I call for another pot of this admirable sherbet, the only cool thing in creation, perhaps, and tell you what I learnt?'

  'If you please.'

  They were sitting in the loggia over the gatehouse of the caravanserai in which Stephen had left his personal troop of camels and which was now given up to Captain Aubrey's party. Most of the Surprises were to be seen under the shaded arcades that surrounded its central square, reposing after their morning's labour and contemplating the camels, which lay in the full sun, not far from their future burdens, the dismantled bell and the many, many boxes of coral, shells and natural wonders collec
ted by Stephen and Martin. Some had adopted members of the tribe of half-wild dogs that roamed the streets of Suez, and Davis was bargaining with the leader of a female Syrian bear for her cub. They all had a pleasant, drowsy, peaceable air, but at the far end there stood pyramids of muskets, piled in the naval manner; and it was perhaps these weapons as much as Jack's chelengk that made the Egyptian governor so much more obliging than he had been before. All his own troops had been drawn off for Mehemet Ali's campaign, and although he still mentioned harbour-dues he did not dwell on the matter, just as his customs-officers did not insist when told that the boxes contained not merchandise but personal property and could not be opened.

  The sherbet came, frosted with the cold, and having drunk a voluptuous pint Stephen said 'Well, now, it appears that our intelligence was right about the galley's cargo but mistaken about its time of departure. The Frenchmen were perfectly aware of our general intentions and even I suspect of our specific motions and they hired a crew of Abyssinian Christians, who rowed it up during Ramadan. But after the Abyssinians had gone home they kept the vessel going up and down that repulsive channel, and they spread the rumour that more treasure was being moved from one of the southern islands: this so that the tale might reach us. It was hoped that we should take the galley in chase, fully convinced of its value, and that it should lead us into a particularly narrow inlet beyond the batteries, where its crew was to abandon it and we, having rushed aboard, were to be captured or destroyed.'