Book 9 - Treason's Harbour

by Patrick O'Brian

  In fact the Surprise never made a single clean sweep fore and aft in the six days of her voyage to Zambra, six days of the sweetest sailing that Jack had ever known. Without the lumbering old Pollux she would have accomplished the run in perhaps two days less, and all hands would have regretted it bitterly. These six days, with mild warm prosperous breezes, a gentle sea, and (since their pace was regulated by the Pollux) none of that harassing sense of urgency which marred so many naval journeys—these six days might have been taken out of ordinary time, might not have belonged to the common calendar: it was not exactly holiday, for there was plenty to do; but for once the Surprises did have a moment, even a fair number of moments, to lose; though this was not the only factor by any means nor yet the main one.

  Some of these moments they devoted to the adornment of their persons. Williamson went beyond Calamy in washing the greater part of his neck as well as his face and hands, a striking gesture, since they possessed only one nine-inch pewter basin between them and almost no fresh water; and they both appeared in clean shirts every day. For that matter the quarterdeck as a whole became a model of correct uniform, like that of the Victory when St Vincent had her—loose duck trousers, round jackets and the common broad-brimmed low-crowned straw hats against the sun called benjies gave way either to breeches or at least to blue pantaloons and boots and to good blue coats and regulation scrapers, while the foremast hands often sported the red waistcoats reserved for Sunday and splendid Levantine neckerchiefs. Profane oaths, cursings and execrations (forbidden in any event by the second Article of War) were laid aside or modified, and it was pleasant to hear the bosun cry 'Oh you . . . unskilful fellow' when a hand called Faster Doudle, staring aft at Mrs Fielding, dropped a marline-spike from the maintop, very nearly transfixing Mr Hollar's foot. Punishment, in the sense of flogging at the gangway, was also laid aside; and though this was of no great consequence in a ship that so very rarely saw the cat, the general sense of relaxation and indulgence might have done great harm to discipline to the Surprise had she not had an exceptional ship's company. She always had been a happy ship; now she was happier still; and it occurred to Stephen that a really handsome, thoroughly good-natured but totally inaccessible young woman, changed at stated intervals, before familiarity could set in, would be a very valuable addition to any man-of-war's establishment.

  On most evenings the hands danced and sang on the forecastle until well on in the first watch, while until much later in the night Jack and Stephen played in the cabin or on the quarterdeck or listened with the rest while Mrs Fielding sang, accompanying herself on a mandoline that belonged to Honey.

  She was early invited to dine with the gun-room, and when it was understood that she regretted having nothing to wear no less than three gentlemen sent their most respectful compliments and lengths of the famous silky crimson cloth of Santa Maura, which the Surprise had recently visited: cloth originally intended for their mothers, sisters, or wives, and from which she made a most becoming dress, Killick and the sailmaker sewing the hems to have it ready in time. She was looked upon with a strong, affectionate admiration, and although it was generally believed that she had run off with the Doctor, what little moral condemnation there was aboard pointed not at her but at him. Even Mr Gill, a melancholy, withdrawn, puritanical man, replied 'Only three days, alas, if this breeze holds,' when she asked him how long it would take them to reach Cape Raba, the term of the first stage of their journey.

  On the last but one of these days, when the ships had little more than steerage-way, Jack was asked to dine aboard the Pollux. He regretted it, dinners in his own ship being so very much more enjoyable, but he had virtually no choice, and at ten minutes to the hour he stepped into his barge rigged to the nines, from the silver buckles on his shoes to the chelengk in his hat, his bargemen splendid in watchet blue and snowy duck.

  He found both Captain Dawson, whom he scarcely knew, and Admiral Harte, whom he knew only too well, in great form: Dawson was full of remorse for not having invited Aubrey earlier, but his cook had been ill, 'struck down by a treacherous crab he had ate last thing in Valletta. He is recovered now, I am happy to say: we were growing heartily sick of wardroom fare.'

  Recovered he had, but he had celebrated the event by getting drunk, and the meal followed a strange chaotic course with very long pauses and then the sudden appearance of five removes all together, and eccentricities such as floating island with an uncooked carrot in it.

  'I really must apologize for this dinner,' said Dawson, towards the end.

  'You may well say that, sir,' said Harte. 'It was a very bad dinner, and wretchedly put on the table. Three ducks in a dish! Only think of that!'

  This is most capital port,' said Jack. 'I doubt I have ever drunk better.'

  'I have,' said Harte. 'My son-in-law, Andrew Wray, bought Lord Colville's cellar, and in one of the bins there was some port that would have this look like something for midshipmen, something from the Keppel's Head. Not that this is not pretty well, pretty well in its way.' Pretty well or not, he drank a good deal of it; and as they sat over their bottle he grew extremely curious about Jack's mission. Jack was vague and evasive and he would have got away with no more than the advice 'to kick the Dey's arse—when dealing with foreigners, and even more so with natives, you must always kick their arse,' if he had not unluckily mentioned his watering-place. Harte made him describe it with great accuracy three times over and said he might stand in to have a look: the knowledge might always come in useful. Jack discouraged the notion with all possible firmness and as soon as he could he stood up to take his leave.

  'Before you go, Aubrey,' said Harte, 'I should like to ask a favour.' He pulled out a small leather purse, evidently prepared beforehand. 'When you go into Zambra, pray redeem a Christian slave or two with this. English seamen for preference, but any poor unfortunate buggers will do. Each time I touch the Barbary coast I usually manage to get a couple of old 'uns, past work; and I set them down at Gibraltar.'

  Jack had been acquainted with Harte ever since he was a lieutenant without ever once knowing him to do a handsome thing, and this new aspect of his character added to the dreamlike quality of these last few days. An exquisite gentle dream in spite of its strong sense of 'last time' and even of doom, he reflected, as the barge took him back; but he could find no way of expressing its nature in words. Music would come nearer: he could more nearly define it with a fiddle under his chin, define it at least to his own satisfaction. With the lovely but menacing slow movement of a partita that he sometimes played running through his head he gazed at the Surprise. She was as familiar to him as a ship could well be, but because of this train of reflection, or because of some trick of the light, or because it was really so, her nature too had changed; she was a ship in a dream, a ship he hardly knew, and she was sailing along a course long since traced out, as straight and narrow as a razor's edge.

  'Pull round her,' he said to Bonden at his side; and viewing her now with a prosaic seaman's eye he observed that she was sailing on a perfectly even keel, whereas she really preferred being slightly by the stern. The twenty-odd tons that he would add to his watering-place would soon see to that.

  They raised Cape Raba early in the morning, a dismal morning too, with the barometer falling, the wind backing westerly, low cloud, and the threat of rain. But rain or fine, Mowett, as a zealous first lieutenant, was determined that the Surprise should do herself credit in Zambra, and the hands turned to with a perfect deluge of sea-water to remove every possible remaining grain of the hundredweight of sand they had already used for scouring the decks; then they set to drying what they had wetted and to polishing everything they had dulled. Rather before this ceremony had reached its climax the Captain appeared on deck for the second time, glanced about the sea and sky, and said 'Mr Honey, to Pollux, if you please: permission to part company.'

  Wilkins, the yeoman of the signals, had been expecting this for some time; so had his colleague in the Pollux; and the request and t
he consent flew to and fro with extraordinary speed, together with the civil addition from Pollux, Happy return.

  The Surprise stood in for the land and the ship of the line (for that was her official rating, feeble though she was by current standards) went about, to stand off and on according to their agreement, in case the frigate should rejoin before next day. Slowly the shore looming in the dull south grew clearer, and presently Jack called the youngsters, as he usually did on approaching an anchorage new to them. At this time of morning and in this weather there was no likelihood of seeing Mrs Fielding and everyone was in working clothes, most looking cold and wet. Williams was particularly squalid in a woollen Guernsey frock deep in slush, for he had been helping the bosun grease the topmast caps; but he had dutifully brought the azimuth compass, since Captain Aubrey would certainly require them to take the bearings of various sea-marks when he had explained them.

  'There, on the larboard bow,' he said, nodding towards a tall dark headland with sheer cliffs falling to the sea, 'that is Cape Raba, and you must give it a wide berth, because of the reef running out half a mile from the point. And right ahead, close on two leagues west-south-west, that is Akroma.' They looked attentively at the distant promontory, which was very like the first, except that it had a fortification high on its seaward end. 'Beyond Cape Akroma there is Jedid Bay, rather open but with a good holding-ground in fifteen-fathom water and an island with rabbits on it that keeps off the westerlies and the north-westerlies—a useful place to run for if it is blowing very hard and you cannot double Akroma. But it is nothing nigh so big nor such a fine anchorage as this nearer bay we are heading for now, Zambra Bay, between Raba and Akroma.' The breeze had freshened with the rising of the almost invisible sun, and the Surprise, no longer held back to old Pollux's pace, was making well over eight knots with the wind two points free: Cape Raba moved rapidly astern and they opened Zambra Bay, a noble body of water, deeper than it was broad, an indented gulf with many spurs and capes, and the whole running roughly south ten or twelve miles into the land. The frigate brought the wind on to her beam and ran faster still for the west shore of the bay. 'You cannot see Zambra yet,' said Jack. 'It is tucked away in the south-east corner. But you can see the Brothers. Run south a couple of miles from Akroma Point until you come to a small headland with a palm-tree on it. A trifle beyond that there are four rocks in a line, each maybe a cable's length apart. Those are the Brothers.'

  'I see them, sir,' cried Calamy, and Williamson said 'They bear just south-west by west.'

  'You would see them better if the breeze were strong in the north-east, and if it had had time to work up a hearty sea. There is a reef between them with not much above two-fathom water over it, and with a north-east swell it shows white. But ordinarily it looks quite smooth, like this. The Moors of these parts take no account of it, but we were stuck there when I was in Eurotas, which drew eighteen foot six abaft. Generally speaking, you would be wise to assume that there is always shoal water between a string of rocks of the same kind. Mr Mowett,' he said, breaking off, 'since we have made such excellent time, we had better complete our water before running down to the port. We do not want to be there too early, and in any event I believe it will rain later, in the day, so let us get it over. The watering-place is on the east side, in the inlet beyond those three small islands.' With this he turned to go into his cabin, but then, checking himself when his hand was actually on the lock, he plunged below to the gun-room.

  Here he found Stephen looking frowsty and discontented—there was nothing that more thoroughly persuaded Jack of his friend's innocence with regard to Mrs Fielding than this three days' beard, this vile old wig—and Stephen said to him 'If the woman does not issue a more Christian invitation in two minutes, I shall drink that,'—pointing to the gun-room's coffee, weak, insipid, only just luke-warm. 'She has asked us to take chocolate with her. Chocolate at this time in the morning, dear Mother of God. Suff on her.'

  Killick came in, still with a genteel cabin-smirk on his face, and said 'The lady says certainly there will be coffee if the gentlemen prefer it.'

  Certainly the gentlemen preferred it, and they sat drinking cup after cup in their usual exorbitant way until from a change in the ship's motion Jack knew they were close to the shore. He went on deck and guided her in past the green islands to the little cove with its sandy beach, where he dropped no more than a kedge, sheltered as they were. He went ashore with the first boat of empty casks, and for the first time that morning he found himself in touch with that feeling of another and as it were parallel world again, the feeling that had been with him so strongly these last few days. It was the extraordinary familiarity of the watering-place that brought it back. He had not been there for nearly twenty very active years and yet he knew every stone of its ancient worn coping and even the exact scent of freshness and green as he leant over the basin.

  But getting twenty tons of water aboard, cask by cask, called for a great deal of immediate attention and energy: and since this was one of the tasks that Jack did not choose to delegate, neither he nor anyone else had much leisure for introspection on a conscious level, particularly as a small rain soon began to drive from the north-west in gusts, making the handling of the slippery, ponderous casks even slower and more difficult.

  For some time now the Pollux had been edging down towards the opening of the bay, as everybody had already known she would; and at present, impelled by Harte's curiosity and her own notorious sagging to leeward, she was actually within the line between the two capes, backing and filling under the lee of Akroma and exercising her people in the shifting of topgallantmasts. Although she was technically inside the bay, and would have to wear or tack to get out of it, she was still just keeping her promise, since she was well out of sight of Zambra; but her presence irritated the Surprises. 'If Nosey Parker goes on like this, they will have to make two legs of it, wear and wear again, to make their offing,' said Mowett to Rowan; and as he spoke the fortress high on Cape Akroma fired a gun. The sound, borne by the wind, came clearly across the broad expanse of sea, and all hands who were not actively engaged looked up. But nothing happened; and the launch coming alongside with a load of casks immediately afterwards, they very soon looked down again.

  Yet it seemed strange to Jack, since the fort flew no colours, and he was still looking at the cape with his telescope when a large ship rounded the point from Jedid Bay. A man-of-war, double-decked, eighty guns, wearing Turkish colours and a commodore's broad pennant: she was closely followed by two frigates, one of thirty-eight or forty guns, the other light, perhaps a twenty-eight. He had just time to observe this and to see that the heavy frigate was passing up along the commodore's larboard side when the Turkish colours came down, the French ran up and the two-decker fired her forward guns into the Pollux. The Pollux put before the wind—what wind she had under the lee of the cape—but in two minutes the big Frenchman ranged close alongside, almost yardarm to yardarm, and began hammering her with full broadsides, while the heavy frigate passed the commodore's disengaged side and took up a station athwart the Pollux's hawse. Even before she opened her murderous raking fire the Surprise abandoning launch, kedge and hawser, was racing out from her inlet, packing on canvas as she came and at the same time clearing for action.

  The Pollux was directly to windward, and unless she could come a mile or two down the bay, the Surprise would have to tack twice to reach her, once a little short of the Brothers and a second time at the height of the Akroma fort. Nine miles to travel and precious little time to do it in. But the breeze had freshened; the Surprise was already running at ten knots; the Pollux was now firing at a tremendous rate, and she had thirty-two-pounder carronades on her quarterdeck and forecastle. As far as he could see for the dense smoke streaming from the battle she had all her masts standing yet, and she might well hold out until Jack could come up and either relieve her of the heavy frigate's fire or rake the two-decker's stern. The smaller French frigate seemed neither here nor there; she ho
vered about, putting in an occasional shot, but she did not appear to do much damage and she did not seem very eager to engage.

  'Main topgallant staysail,' he said, and as its sheet was belayed the Surprise leant still further over; already her larboard cathead, her larboard chains were deep in a smother of foam; white water raced the whole length of her rail; and yet she was moving faster every minute. 'Hold on, good sticks,' he murmured, and aloud, 'Spindle-jib.'

  The deck sloped like the roof of a house and he stood there with his right arm hooked round the aftermost mizzen shroud. Mowett was at his side, and a midshipman for messages: two solid quartermasters, Devlin and Harper, at the wheel and the master behind them, conning the ship: the gun-crews, less the sail-trimmers, at their stations with their officers and midshipmen: the Marines and the small-arms men in their places: and all gazing steadfastly at the close-packed roaring battle, the dark smoke and the perpetual orange flashes.

  It was almost time to go about. Jack glanced at the Brothers, half a mile away, and he saw Stephen creeping laboriously up the slope from the companion-way: Dr Maturin's action-station was in the orlop, but he rarely went there until the firing had begun. 'How is Mrs Fielding?' asked Jack, high over the rushing of the water.

  'Pretty well, I thank you. Roman virtue. Fortitude.'

  'Take care: clap on to Davis. We are going about.' Jack caught Gill's eye and nodded.

  'Ready oh!' cried the master, and with a great smooth rush the Surprise came about, staying like a cutter in her own length.