The Spoils of Conquest

by Seth Hunter

  He came to a decision. ‘We will set up a blockade,’ he informed Picket. ‘And we will let them know we have the option of shelling the port, if it should come to it.’

  He spoke with an assurance he was far from feeling. It was a poor compromise, and he had a strong suspicion that he was doing exactly what Duncan and Picket wanted him to do. Everything now depended upon the French.

  The wind dropped off a little during the night and it was mid-afternoon before they came in sight of Mangalore, or rather the entrance to the river, for the port was beyond sight from the sea. Nathan was in no doubt, however, that the arrival of the British squadron would have been noted from the shore and very swiftly conveyed to the French. It was now a question of what they would do about it.

  He had considered tempting them out by placing the brigs and the bomb ketch close to the shore while the Pondicherry and the Bombay stayed further out to sea. But it was far too risky, and Picket would never agree. They might lose half the squadron, and still let the French get away. So he compromised again by placing the Bombay in the mouth of the river, while the rest of the squadron cruised up and down the coast in an elongated figure of eight, dropping off the wind and wearing at the end of every tack.

  And so they began the long, laborious, thankless task of a blockade. Which was what the Navy did, most of the time. Off Brest or Toulon, Bordeaux or Cadiz, Leghorn or Genoa – anywhere the enemy kept a fleet or a squadron. Pinning them in harbour to keep the sea lanes open for British trade – and closed to the enemy. At least that was the theory. In practice, it did not always work out that way. Adverse winds could force a blockading fleet far off station and allow the enemy to sneak out the odd cruiser, sometimes the whole fleet. But it was the strategy their lordships of the Admiralty had decided upon, and it was the strategy Nathan employed now, even though it condemned the blockading crews to days, weeks, months, even years of idleness and boredom, ploughing a seemingly endless furrow up and down the same heartbreaking stretch of ocean with just a distant smudge of enemy coast to remind them of why they were here. Not for them the glamour of cruising for prizes, or even the risk of death in battle. Instead, they performed the routine, repetitive tasks of keeping the ship afloat. They scrubbed the decks, practised at the guns, did musket drill and cutlass drill; they lowered the boats and took them in, climbed the rigging, hauled at the braces, took in sail or let it out; they changed the watch every four hours, night and day, slept and woke, lashed and stowed; they bickered and quarrelled, were punished for it, ate their food, drank their wine and their grog, played the fiddle, danced a jig, while the ship turned and turned about, and the glass was turned and turned about, and the ship’s bell tolled the precise passage of time, hour after hour after hour …

  Nathan did what he always did. Played chess with the midshipmen and the officers, wrote letters, kept his journal up to date, paced the quarterdeck or the poop or the stern gallery – a novel luxury – watched the stars, thought about home, thought about Sara, and thought about what he would do when the war ended, if it ever did. Once he invited the other captains over for dinner. He decided he did not much like them, apart from Cutler, the captain of the Comet, who had lost his leg at Calvi. He had been a midshipman on the old Agamemnon under Nelson, which Nathan remembered from his time on the blockade of Liguria, though Cutler had departed by then. He had been invalided out of the service, but family connections had secured him a commission with the Bombay Marine. He was a modest, unassuming fellow, but Nathan had the impression that he was tough as well as steady, and he had the technical interest Nathan approved of in an officer.

  It was partly this that inspired Nathan to talk to Blunt. He had seen little of him since they joined the Pondicherry, surprisingly little after such a close acquaintance on their long journey to India. Tully had taken on the task of schoolmaster, along with his other duties, instructing all the young gentlemen in mathematics and navigation and those other facilities required of a sea officer. But Nathan suddenly took it into his head that he should do a spot of mentoring. Make sure the boy was all right, broaden his outlook a little. Seafaring was not just a matter of mathematics and navigation. Nathan had spent much of his time as a midshipman aboard a survey vessel in the South Seas before the war, and had been fortunate to escape many of the restrictions and formalities that were the norm in the King’s service. Certainly he had never had to endure the tedium of a blockade. And he had been privileged to have James Johnston, the captain of the Hermes, as his tutor – the finest man he had ever served under, a legendary explorer and a kindly, accomplished gentleman of considerable intellect. He had taught Nathan not only the finer points of seamanship but encouraged him to share his own interest in many other things – philosophy, music, poetry, astronomy and the natural world – he had even, for a while, managed to interest Nathan in birds. So on the fourth day of the blockade, lacking any other diversion, Nathan decided he must do the same for Blunt.

  He began by suggesting they climb into the tops to spy out the lie of the land, such as they could see of it from three miles out to sea. But when they had reached the crosstrees he spotted something closer to hand to which he drew the boy’s attention.

  ‘Have you noticed the birds?’ he said.

  Blunt indicated politely that he had. Indeed, it was impossible for him not to have noticed them unless he had lost the use of both eyes and his hearing – there were several hundred of them in the immediate vicinity – and in case he lacked either facility they had been trying to shit on him for the last five minutes.

  ‘Not those birds,’ said Nathan, noting the direction of his gaze. ‘They are only seagulls –’ thus dismissing up to a dozen different species, ‘those down there.’ He pointed them out, close to the surface of the water. ‘Those nasty little black things, more like bats than birds. Those are storm petrels. Named after Saint Peter, because they look like they are walking on water. We call them storm petrels because they hide in the lee of a ship during a storm. Mother Carey’s chickens, sailors called them in the old days, from Mater Cara, a name the Papists have for the Virgin Mary – and it was believed she sent them to warn of an approaching storm.’ Nathan let his gaze roam the distant horizon – cloudless as it had been for days. A storm was all they needed in this situation.

  But they had come to see the shore, not the birds. Nathan trained his glass upon it. From this far out it presented an unbroken line of jungle, shrouded in a haze – he could not even see the mouth of the river, let alone the port beyond. No sign of a human presence. They would be there, though, looking back at him and making their own reports.

  ‘They can get word to the Sultan, you know, within hours,’ he said.

  ‘The birds, sir?’

  ‘No, not the birds, Blunt, the people, the Sultan’s people. They can send a message from Mangalore to Seringapatam – one hundred and thirty miles away – in ten hours. They use runners. Professional runners, like the Greeks. They have teams of them, stationed in watchtowers at ten-mile intervals and they run in relays. They can run ten miles in less than an hour – through jungle. What do you think of that?’

  Blunt said nothing but doubtless he was storing it away for future reference.

  ‘That is better than Philippedes, you know,’ Nathan informed him. Blunt frowned enquiringly. ‘You must know who Philippedes is, Blunt. He was the first marathon runner. He carried the news of the Greek victory over the Persians from Marathon to Athens – twenty-six miles in three hours. Then he died. They were tough in those days. You don’t know you’re born, Blunt.’

  He put his eye back to the glass. ‘They are probably on their way already. Ten hours and Tipu will know we are here. Better than the Royal Mail. Bristol to London. Same distance. Sixteen hours. And that is on a good day. I went to Portsmouth once on the Mail, when I was a midshipman, and we had to get out and walk most of the way. And push. Took half a day. They use coconut oil.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘For their joints. Give it to you fe
llows, you’d eat it. Rat cooked in coconut oil. Ever had rat, Blunt?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Don’t know you’re born. I used to cook it spatchcocked when I was a midshipman, with a bread sauce. I was famous for it.’

  He regarded his protégé thoughtfully. He appeared to have lost weight since their sojourn in the desert.

  ‘Are you getting enough to eat?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Nathan did not believe him. Midshipmen never had enough to eat.

  ‘Made any friends since you came aboard?’

  ‘One or two, sir.’ Supplied with caution.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, Mr Vivian is one, sir.’

  ‘Mr Vivian? He is the one who went with Mr Joyce to the temple of fire, is he not?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Talk about it much?’

  ‘Not much, sir.’

  Liar. Fair enough, though. You did not want to be considered an informer, even by yourself. Nathan recalled their conversation when they were crossing the desert, and how Blunt had been going for a parson but had lost his faith in God. He wondered if he had found it again, after his experiences in the Tower of Taiba. But apparently not.

  ‘Not that I did not pray when we were under attack,’ Blunt confessed, ‘but I did not know quite what I was praying to.’

  ‘No. Well, that is nothing to be ashamed of,’ Nathan assured him. ‘We all pray in times of extremity.’

  ‘Even you, sir?’ He appeared startled.

  ‘I am not sure how to take that, Mr Blunt.’

  ‘I did not mean that … It is just that …’

  ‘I pray to my clockmaker,’ Nathan told him.

  ‘Your clockmaker, sir?’

  ‘Mr Harrison. The inventor of the marine chronometer. Surely you have heard of Mr Harrison.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mr Tully told us about him. But I did not know he was someone people prayed to, like the Papists and their saints. Not that I mean—’

  ‘People don’t. Only me. As far as I know. Of course he may have a following I do not know about. A kind of cult. The Harrisonians. But it is a private thing. Have you never thought of the universe as a chronometer?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Mr Blunt doubtfully.

  ‘Well, if you think about it, it makes a great deal of sense. A universal chronometer, run by magnetism. The universal clockmaker is a whimsical notion on my part. But if there is a God, or any kind of Supreme Being, it would be nice to think of him as somewhat resembling Mr Harrison, do you not think? A being of endless patience, setting his mind to improvement, and perfection. And making everything run smoothly.’

  ‘But it never does, does it, sir?’

  ‘No, Blunt, it never does.’

  ‘Ahura Mazda is a bit like that,’ Blunt said after a moment of silent reflection.

  Nathan looked at him. ‘Who?’

  ‘Ahura Mazda. It is the name of the deity worshipped by the followers of Zoroaster, sir.’

  ‘Did Mr Joyce tell you that?’ Nathan had a moment of panic at the thought of Mr Joyce going around converting the ship’s complement, one by one, starting with the officers, until they had taken over the whole ship.

  ‘No, sir.’ Blunt blushed, realising he had been trapped into an indiscretion. ‘Mr Vivian did, sir.’

  ‘He is not a follower of Zoroaster, is he?’

  ‘No, sir. He is Church of England, sir.’

  ‘So this – Ahuro what?’

  ‘Ahura, sir. Ahura Mazda.’

  ‘This Ahura Mazda is like Mr Harrison, you say?’

  ‘Only that – well, the followers of Zoroaster believe that the motion of the planets and astral bodies and so on conforms to a master plan.’

  ‘So do the Christians,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘So do all religions, do they not?’

  ‘Possibly, sir. But the Zoroastrians believe that this order is threatened by a destructive spirit who represents chaos and falsehood. Angra Mainyu. And that we have the freedom to choose between one or the other. That is why things keep going wrong.’

  ‘Because so many people choose Angry Mainoo?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But that is not unlike the Devil in Christian belief.’

  ‘No, but Zoroaster came before the Christians, sir. Six centuries before.’

  ‘So, do you think this is the religion you are looking for, Blunt?’

  ‘No, sir. But it is interesting all the same.’ Then after a pause. ‘But I like some things about it. They say that before you are born your soul is united with its guardian spirit which they call the fravashi and that during life the fravashi acts as a kind of guardian and protector. After death the soul is reunited with the fravashi and the experiences it has collected during life enable it to continue the battle against evil. In the spirit world.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nathan after a moment. ‘I suppose that is quite comforting.’

  ‘But your body has to be eaten by vultures.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘When you die, your body cannot be buried. It has to be left out in the open to be eaten by vultures and other carrion.’

  This was not something Nathan could condone. If death was not to be avoided, and most learned opinion tended to concur on that point, he would rather take his chances with the Reverend Judd and be buried in Alfriston churchyard.

  They both stared into space for a while, lost in their private thoughts, until the bell tolled the end of the second dog watch.

  Nathan dismissed Mr Blunt to the squalor of the midshipmen’s berth, to his obvious relief, and returned to the quarterdeck. It was around the time he usually had a little light supper in the privacy of his own quarters, but feeling something of the loneliness of command, he invited Tully to join him.

  ‘The commodore’s dining room,’ he remarked, gazing about his surroundings. ‘What luxury.’ His tone was sour. ‘I suppose some people think I was born to this.’

  ‘You were born to it,’ Tully commented, as he poured the wine. ‘So was I.’

  Nathan was stunned. ‘How can you sit there, you rogue, eating my cheese and toast and drinking my wine and tell me I was born into a life of luxury? And that I have done nothing to earn my status.’

  ‘I did not say that,’ Tully replied equably. ‘As a matter of fact, I believe you have more than earned it and should be an admiral at least. Then we should have a 74 and I would have a decent cabin instead of a cupboard.’

  ‘A cupboard! I have seen your cupboard. It is a palace compared to what you had on the Unicorn. You should see where Mr Blunt berths and the rest of his kind. There is a cupboard. Eight young gentlemen in a space barely half the size of where we are now sitting – and a monkey. And they are lucky compared with most of the crew.’

  ‘Well, that is the Navy for you,’ agreed Tully complacently, reaching for another piece of toasted cheese.

  ‘Well, it is not good enough.’ Nathan relapsed into a brooding silence.

  Tully filled his glass. ‘We have all been there,’ he said. ‘And some of us have had worse accommodation.’

  ‘This is true.’ Tully, of course, had served before the mast, and Nathan recalled certain quarters he himself had been obliged to tolerate on occasion. ‘Well, I am glad you consider that I have some merit on my own account, and have not been counting on my father’s influence all these years. Not that he has any – not any more – and even if he had in the past, my mother has done her best to deprive me of it. I have been in prison eight times, do you know that? And I am barely out of my twenties.’

  ‘Eight?’ Tully frowned as if he was impressed, but he was only counting. ‘I thought it was only four.’ He began to tick them off on his fingers. ‘Paris, Cuba, Venice, Gibraltar …’

  ‘Three times in Paris. Three different prisons. And you are forgetting the Bridewell in Holborn.’

  ‘I do not think I know about the Bridewell in Holborn. Why—’

  ‘No matter but you may take my word for it, it was my
mother’s fault.’

  ‘And how was Gibraltar her fault? If I remember, you wrote a letter to St Vincent protesting the shelling of Cadiz.’

  ‘Yes, well, I must take full responsibility for that, but the reason I stayed there for three months was because my mother was entertaining rebels and dissidents in her house in Soho. It was bad enough when she was in St James’s but at least she counted the Prince of Wales among her guests. Since she has been in Soho she has been consorting with all manner of rogues and reprobates. Coleridge has been there, you know. Even Sheridan.’

  ‘What is wrong with Sheridan? I thought you preferred him to Shakespeare.’

  ‘I say nothing against him as a writer, but he is Member of Parliament, you know, and a great critic of the East India Company. In fact, I sometimes wonder …’

  He thought better of finishing the sentence. What he had been going to say was that he wondered if certain officers of the company were aware of his mother’s relation ship with Sheridan and other of the company’s critics, and might find it very convenient, even droll, to use her son as a scapegoat for their more disreputable activities. But he was aware that he had a tendency to become unreasonably suspicious. He blamed his mother for that, too.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am become a poor companion. You know what I am like when I do not have enough to do.’

  Tully raised his glass. ‘You have done very well, despite your lamentable parentage – may you continue to thrive under adversity.’

  They could scarcely see each other in the fading light and Nathan had opened his mouth to shout for De Fournier to bring the lamps when Tully’s features were suddenly illuminated by a flash as of lightning striking through the connecting door to the stern cabin – a multiple flash followed, revealing the whole interior in flickering relief, very like a magic lantern. But it was not lightning, not this time, and had there been any doubt in their minds it would have been instantly dispelled by the rippling roar of a broadside.