Book 19 - The Hundred Days

by Patrick O'Brian

  'The ruler who was to provide the pay for the Balkan mercenaries?'

  'Just so. A letter requiring him to recall his caravan and load the treasure aboard one of the Dey's xebecs at Arzila, just south and west of Tangier: the xebec was already on its way and the captain's orders were to receive the treasure and repass the Strait by night with the strong eastward current and a favourable wind, steering for Durazzo with the utmost press of sail—it is the fastest xebec in all Barbary. This is the information that I wished to give the Commodore so that he, who knows the Strait so well, might intercept the vessel.'

  'I am very sorry indeed, that you should have found the Commodore out of immediate reach. I am also very sorry to tell you that later this evening or perhaps tomorrow a new Dey will be proclaimed, Omar Pasha having by then been strangled by the executioners sent to the Khadna valley with those squadrons I mentioned earlier—strangled as his predecessor was strangled. He impaled one youth too many. An error in his calculations that I had not reckoned upon.'

  Sir Peter touched the bell: the tea appeared: and when Stephen had drunk a sip he asked, 'Do you suppose the Vizier was privy to this usurpation?'

  'I have no doubt of it at all. In the first place they were wholly incompatible: the Vizier despised Omar Pasha as an illiterate brute and the Dey despised the Vizier as a cotquean, in spite of his numerous harem, his collection of guns and his status as an important shareholder in the larger associations of corsairs. Furthermore, the Vizier privately admired Bonaparte and privately stood to receive a huge commission on Ibn Hazm's gold. But even in so small a court as that of Algiers privacy, real privacy, scarcely exists. I can do favours on occasion, and I have a number of voluntary informants.'

  'I do not think I know the word cotquean,' said Stephen.

  'Perhaps it is rather out of use now, but we lived in a remote part of Yorkshire and my grandfather often used it—most of his neighbours were cotqueans, particularly those that did not choose to hunt the fox or hare. He meant that they were somewhat effeminate, given to embroidery and probably to sodomy—little better than Whigs.'

  After some moments of reflection Stephen said, 'I grieve for Omar Pasha. He had some excellent qualities; he was truly generous; and I did him a shameful injustice.'

  'Come in,' called the consul.

  'Sir,' said the messenger, 'you told me to warn you the moment the schooner was seen. Moussa believes she is just hull-up in the north.'

  'Shall we go and see?' asked Sir Peter. 'I have a telescope on the roof.'

  'Will your poor leg bear you?'

  'It has done so ever since the Ringle vanished.'

  The roof, like almost all the others in the city, was whitened against the heat of the sun with tiles or lime-wash, and the mass of them gave the impression of some super-human bleaching-field; but Stephen's whole attention was fastened upon the fine stout telescope that stood on a bronze tripod weighed down and steadied by pigs of lead: beside it stood a black boy in a scarlet fez, smiling with triumph.

  Sir Peter hurried over, bent double against the wind but moving even more nimbly that when he had climbed the ladder, and inwardly Stephen swore to abide by no obvious diagnosis for the rest of his life.

  'She is certainly fore-and-aft rigged,' said Sir Peter. 'But this damned wind does so blur the image. Come and look: here is the focusing knob.'

  Stephen peered with lowered head, cupping his eye with both hands. The air was indeed horribly troubled. A little whiteness came, grew almost clear, then utterly dissolved in shimmer.

  'I wish I had a smaller eyepiece,' said Sir Peter. 'This atmosphere will not cope with such a magnification.'

  'I have her,' cried Stephen. 'I have her . . . but alas she is not Ringle. She is a craft with a lateen; and she is losing ground on every tack.'

  'I am so sorry,' said the consul. 'So very sorry: but at least it shows that some hopes of approaching exist. Let us sleep on that, and conceivably the morning will find her snugly in her berth by the mole.'

  'Sir Peter,' called a head at foot-level, the speaker standing precariously on the wind-shaken ladder, 'Dr Jacob sends his compliments and could he be received?'

  'Sir Peter,' said Stephen, 'I ask your pardon for interfering, but my colleague, though an excellent physician (God forgive us both he added mentally) and linguist, is no mariner. Pray let us go down and speak to him in safety.'

  'By all means,' said the consul, and he gave Stephen a hand over the dreadful gulf between the parapet of the roof and the ladder-head.

  'Sir Peter,' cried Jacob, starting up, 'I do beg your pardon for this intrusion, but I thought you would like to know that the lot has fallen on Ali Bey.'

  'Not on Mustafa? I am amazed.'

  'So was he, sir: and I fear it is the bowstring for him—he was led away. But I ventured to come in this informal manner to tell you that Ali is to be proclaimed immediately after the evening prayer.'

  'I am very much obliged to you indeed, Dr Jacob. And as I said, I am amazed: of all the candidates Ali was the most in favour of the Allies and opposed to Bonaparte. Perhaps I had misread the situation . . .' He pondered, and then went on, 'And I should be still more obliged if you and Dr Maturin would go on my behalf—it is still generally understood that my health keeps me withindoors—to be the first to congratulate the new Dey. We have all the proper ceremonial garments here. And after that I hope you will both stay with Lady Clifford and me until the wretched south wind dies enough for your ships to come in. These blasts are very rare, but once they have set in doggedly they usually last six or seven days. Though now I come to think of it, I shall go with you. I shall take a stick and you two will support me: that will be a capital stroke.'

  Jacob glanced at Stephen, saw assent in his eye, and having coughed he said, 'Sir, we should be very happy to support you, as being your known physicians. But as for your exceedingly kind and handsome invitation, for my part may I be allowed to decline? Having uttered all the necessary words of congratulation, I should like to retire to an obscure lodging-house near the Gate of Woe, a house in which some of my less presentable Algerine and Berber friends would excite no comment, whereas they might well compromise an official residence.'

  'By all means,' said the consul. 'And Mr Maturin shall do just as he pleases—dining and spending the night with us, and walking about with you by day, meeting your no doubt very interesting friends: and I am sure watching barometer and the horizon with as much zeal as Isabel and myself, or even more . . . the divan will take place at about seven, I suppose?'

  'Just so: within the half hour following the proclamation.'

  The city, in a state of intense yet still somewhat restrained excitement, grew wonderfully calm for the evening prayer—almost nothing but the voice of the south wind in the palm trees—but the last pious words were barely said, the little prayer-carpets were hardly rolled, before the enormous roaring blast of the Algerine batteries saluted the sky; and as the last echoes died away thousands upon thousands of janissaries and of all those citizens who valued their well-being bawled out the name of Ali, competing with countless harsh trumpets and with drums of every pitch.

  The city now settled down to open merriment and joy and endless conversation across the narrow streets or the full width of the few great squares; and Sir Peter's coach and four made its slow but discreetly magnificent way to the palace. Here the consul's physicians were handed out, gorgeous in their robes, and they supported Sir Peter into the council-chamber, where the new Dey greeted him—the first representative of any foreign state to appear—with great kindness, sending for a particular deeply-cushioned seat for him, and listening with grave satisfaction to Jacob's fluent, sonorous and no doubt elegant Turkish congratulation, interspersed with Persian verse and proverb. An excellent speech and above all one that did not last too long: when it was finished, and when Stephen had presented the ritual sabre, the Dey returned thanks, calling the blessing of Heaven and peace on King George. He then clapped his hands and four powerful black
men carried Sir Peter in his padded chair to the carriage amidst a triple blast of trumpets sustained beyond anything that Stephen had heard in his life.

  By this time it was dark and the steady horses made their way through fireworks, cheering crowds, bonfires with children leaping over them, and great numbers of muskets being fired into the air, the smoke alas still racing northward, perhaps even faster than before.

  'Lord,' said Stephen, as he and Jacob, having changed into more everyday clothes, walked downstairs to dinner at the consulate, 'such an overwhelming wealth of colour, light, noise and emotion I do not think I have ever known before: nor had I known that there were anything like so many people in all Africa Minor. Yet in spite of the dreadful underlying anxiety about Surprise and Ringle—the dreadfully swift passage of time—I do not find that the tumult has quite destroyed my appetite.'

  'Even if it had done so, I believe my news would deal with the situation. Sidi Hafiz, whom I have known these many, many years, told me that great masses of the Russian horse, foot and artillery were blocked by floods in Podolia: the vanguard is waiting for them, so that the dangerous proximity—the time when our Assassins, our Bonapartist Balkan Moslems, can strike at both, causing hopeless confusion, ill-will, delay, mistrust and the like—is postponed for at least a week. This came in a wholly reliable overland message from Turkey.'

  'Thank Heaven for that,' cried Stephen. 'I have been watching the calendar, seeing this wretched month advance so briskly . . . and every change in that vile moon's shape has wrenched my heart.'

  'You have indeed grown much thinner these last days.'

  'I shall eat like a lion tonight, however. A whole week gained! Thank you so very much for telling me, dear Amos. Perhaps they will give us mutton.'

  Lady Clifford's dinner did indeed include mutton: boiled mutton in the English manner, with caper sauce. It was well enough in its way for those used to such dishes (and after several other delights it was followed by a really stout, solid pudding, of which the same might be said), but it could not really compare with the tender lamb, roasted or grilled on skewers in Jacob's obscure quarters near the Gate of Woe. Stephen ate there daily when he was not staring at the horizon or walking about Algiers with Jacob; but in the evening he returned to the consulate to dine with the Cliffords. It was on one of these days, these as it were free days which a kind fate had added to their calendar, that Jacob and he were passing through the now active, reanimated slave-market when Jacob, catching sight of an acquaintance, begged Stephen to wait for him. By heredity Jacob was a jewel-merchant, and the profession, still slumbering in his bosom, was always ready to awake: he had retained not only an intimate knowledge of gem-stones but a fervent love for some of them, and he wished this acquaintance to exchange a small, exquisite jasper bowl for some few of the paper of moderate diamonds that he habitually carried, very well hidden, to provide for such a deal. 'I shall not be long,' he said. 'Let us meet at the blue-domed coffee-house, there in the far corner.'

  'Certainly,' said Stephen; and he was wandering slowly through this ultimate unhappiness and desolation, rendered just tolerable from being so customary, a fact of every day, like a cattle market, when he heard a voice lost in misery say, 'Oh for the love of God,' in Irish: not at all loud, with no strong emphasis. He turned and saw two small children, a boy and a girl, ugly, dirty, and thin. They were far too young for the usual chains, but they were tied together, left arm to right arm, by a piece of string.

  The cheerful merchant called out to Stephen, first in Arabic, then in a mostly Spanish lingua franca, that he should have them for a trifle—they were perfectly healthy and in a very few years, if fed moderately, they would be capable of severe labour: even now, ha, ha, they could be put to scare crows, and they could always be used for pleasure.

  'I shall speak to them,' said Stephen, and this he did. They were twins, said the boy, Kevin and Mona Fitzpatrick, from Ballydonegan, where their father worked for Mr MacCarthy: they had gone to Dursey Island with Cousin Rory in the boat for crabs: somehow with the great wind and the rain from the north the boat came adrift while Rory was with his sweetheart and they were swept out to sea. In the morning the corsairs, the Moors, took them aboard. They had been raiding along the coast but they had brought away only one man, Sean Kelly: and the gentleman there—nodding at the merchant—had sold him yesterday. Sean had told them that the people of Dungarvan and somewhere to the north had killed two dozen Moors.

  A person with a somewhat bookish, secretarial look—a person whom Stephen might well have seen among the new Dey's retinue—spoke privately to the merchant, who listened with obvious respect: and when he had gone Stephen said, in the usual indifferent horse-coper's tone, 'I should like to know what kind of a price such goods fetch in this city.' The merchant replied, 'Four guineas for the boy, sir—the usual redemption fee—and I will throw in the girl for the honour of your custom.'

  'Very well,' said Stephen, feeling in his pocket. 'But you must give me a receipt.'

  The merchant bowed, wrote on a piece of paper, sealed it, received the coins, cut the piece of string, and formally passed the children over with the customary blessing and a second bow. Stephen returned the civility, told the children that he had bought them, and bade each take a hand. This they did without a word, and he led them across the market to the blue dome.

  'Amos,' he said, 'do you think that the people of this house would have something suitable for children? I have just bought these two.'

  'Have they teeth?'

  'Kevin and Mona, have you teeth?'

  They nodded very gravely, and showed them: fine healthy teeth, with the gaps usual at their age.

  'Then I shall call for yoghurt, sugared, and soft bread. Pray what was the language in which you spoke to them?'

  'It was Irish, the language spoken by many if not by most of the people in Ireland.'

  Jacob waved his hand, gave his order, and asked, 'Do these children speak no English?'

  'I will ask them when there is a little food in their bellies. They might weep if they were questioned before.'

  How it vanished, the yoghurt and the great soft flap of bread: within minutes the children looked far more nearly human. And on being asked, after a second helping, Mona said that although she did not know much, she could say most of a Hail Mary. Kevin only hung his head.

  'Do you think that kind woman by the Gate of Woe would wash these children, clothe them in modest decency, and even brush their hair?'

  'Fatima? I am sure of it. She might find them shoes, too.'

  'I doubt they have ever worn shoes.' He asked them and they both shook their heads. 'Not even for Mass?' Renewed shaking, and a hint of tears. 'I know what might answer very well,' said Stephen. 'Those shoes we call espardenyas, made of sailcloth with soft cord soles and ribbons to attach them. Are they to be had, do you think? I should not like to carry them to the consulate barefoot.'

  'Certainly they are to be had. At the southern corner of this very square they're to be had.'

  In these shoes (red for the one, blue for the other) they hobbled with ludicrous pride to Amos Jacob's dubious lair: by the time they reached it they were walking quite easily and their starved little faces were more nearly human, even ready to smile. Fatima, a capable, intelligent woman, looked at them with more sorrow than disapproval: after a longish pause she brought them back washed, clothed, brushed, fed yet again and almost unrecognizable, but perfectly willing to be friendly.

  'They are brisker by far,' said Stephen '—do you notice that the sound of the wind is less?—but they will never walk up all those infernal steps. Would there be carriages to be had, do you suppose?'

  'Certainly there are carriages to be had, and I will send Achmet for one, if you wish.'

  'Pray be so kind.'

  'And certainly I have noticed a lessening in the perpetual roar: it clenched one's innermost man, diaphragm, solar plexus, pericardium into a hard knot that is now perceptibly looser. If we take a carriage, we shall h
ave to go a great way round to reach the consulate, and for two thirds of the journey we shall be gazing over the sea . . .'

  Sea there was, a vast extent of white-flecked sea with its horizon growing more and more distant as they rose: but the whole of it was still empty even by the time they reached the consulate. Stephen left the wondering children with Jacob under the palms and walked in: he was told that Sir Peter was at a consular meeting, but smiling at the news he sent his name up to Lady Clifford.