Book 2 - Post Captain

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Signal close engagement,' said the Commodore, and the vast bay roared and echoed with a hundred guns. A great pall of smoke formed at once, rising and drifting away south-west, and within the pall the flashes of the guns followed one another in a continuous blaze of lightning. An enormous din, trembling heart and spine: Stephen stood there near the mainmast, with his hands behind his back, looking up and down; there was the cruel taste of powder in his mouth, and in his bosom he felt the rising fierce emotion of a bull-fight—the furious cheering of the gun-crews was invading him. Then the cheering was cut off, drowned, annihilated by a blast so huge that it wiped out thought and almost consciousness: the Mercedes blew up in a fountain of brilliant orange light that pierced the sky.

  Spars, great shapeless timbers rained down out of the pillar of smoke, a severed head, and now through their fall there was the roar of guns again. The Amphion had moved up to the leeward side of the Medea, and the Spaniard was between two fires.

  Cheer upon cheer, a rolling fire, and the powder-boys ran by in an unbroken stream. Cheers, and then one greater than the rest, quite different, a great exultant cry 'She's struck! The admiral has struck!'

  The fire was slackening all along the line. Only the Lively was still hammering the Clara, while the Medusa was sending a few shots after the distant Fama, who, having struck, had nevertheless borne up: she was flying, uninjured, under a press of sail to leeward.

  A few minutes later the Clara's colours came down. The Lively shot ahead alongside the Indefatigable and Jack hailed the Commodore. 'Give you joy, sir. May I go in chase?'

  'Thankee, Aubrey,' called the Commodore. 'Chase for all you are worth—she has the treasure aboard. Crack on: we are all chewed up.'

  'May I have Dr Maturin, sir? My surgeon is aboard the prize.'

  'Yes, yes. Bear a hand, there. Don't let her get away, Aubrey, do you hear me?'

  'Aye aye, sir. Briskly the cutter, now.'

  The Lively wore clear of the crippled Amphion, just shaving her bowsprit, sheeted home her topgallants and headed south-west. The Fama, untouched in her masts and rigging, was already three miles off, stretching away for a band of deeper blue, a stronger wind that might carry her to the Canaries, or allow her to double back by night for Algeciras.

  'Well, old Stephen,' cried Jack, hauling him inboard by main force, 'that was a hearty brush, eh? No bones broke, I trust? All sober and correct? Why, your face is black with powder-smoke. Go below—the gun-room will lend you a basin until the cabin is set to rights—wash, and we will go on with our breakfast as soon as the galley fire is lit again. I will be with you once we have knotted and spliced the worst of the danger.'

  Stephen looked at him curiously. He was bolt upright, larger than life, and he seemed fairly to glow with light. 'It was a necessary stroke,' said Stephen.

  'Indeed it was,' said Jack. 'I do not know much about politics, but it was a damned necessary stroke for me. No, I don't mean that,' he cried, seeing Stephen jut out his lower lip and look away. 'I mean she let fly at us, and if we had not replied, why truly, we should have been in a pretty mess. She dismounted two guns with her first broadside. Though to be sure,' he added with a delighted chuckle, 'it was necessary in the other meaning too. Come, go below, and I will join you presently. We shall not be up with her—' nodding towards the distant Fama '—much before noon, if that.'

  Stephen went down into the cockpit. He had been in several actions, but this was the first time he had ever heard laughter coming from the place where men paid for what went on on deck. Mr Floris's two assistants and three patients were sitting on chests round the midshipmen's table, where the fourth patient, a simple fracture of the femur, had just been splinted and bandaged: he was telling them how in his haste he had left the rammer in his gun; it had been fired straight into the Clara's side, and Mr Dashwood, seeing it sticking there, had spoken quite sharp and sarcastic—'It shall be stopped from your pay, Bolt,' says he, 'you wicked dog.'

  'Good morning, gentlemen,' said Stephen. 'Since Mr Floris is not aboard, I have come to see whether I may be of any assistance.'

  The surgeon's mates leapt up; they became extremely grave, endeavoured to hide their bottle, assured him of their great obligation, but these men represented the whole of the butcher's bill—two splinter wounds, superficial, one musket-ball, and this femur.

  'Apart from John Andrews and Bill Owen, who lost the number of their mess, in consequence of the figurehead of that old Mercedes cutting 'em in two,' observed the femur.

  'Which she fired very wild, though willing,' said another seaman. 'And mostly at our rigging. Do you know, sir, we thumbed in seventeen broadsides in eight and twenty minutes, by Mr Dashwood's watch. Seventeen broadsides in just short of a glass!'

  The Lively, knotting and splicing, fetched the Fama's wake and settled down to a serious, a grave and concentrated stern-chase. They were a little short-handed, for want of the prize-crew and Mr Simmons aboard the Clara, and when Stephen walked into the cabin he found it still cleared for action, the guns still warm, the smell of battle, a Spanish eighteen-pound ball rolling among the splinters, under the gaping hole it had made in the Lively's side; the place bare and deserted, a clean sweep fore and aft apart from half the forward bulkhead and a single chair, upon which there sat the Spanish captain, staring at the pommel of his sword.

  He rose and made a distant bow. Stephen stepped up and introduced himself, speaking French; he said that he was sure Captain Aubrey would wish don Ignacio to take a little refreshment—what might he offer? Chocolate, coffee, wine?

  'Damn it, I had clean forgot him,' said Jack, appearing in the gutted cabin. 'Stephen, this is the captain of the Clara. Monsieur, j'ai l'honneur de introduire une amie, le Dr Maturin: Dr Maturin, l'espagnol capitaine, don Garcio. Please explain that I beg he will take a little something—vino, chocolato, aguardiente?'

  With immovable gravity the Spaniard bowed and bowed again; he was extremely grateful, but he would take nothing for the moment. A stilted conversation followed, ragging on until Jack had the idea of begging don Ignacio to rest in the first lieutenant's cabin until dinner time.

  'I had clean forgot him,' he said again, returning. 'Poor devil: I know what it feels like. Life scarcely worth living, for a while. I made him keep his sword; it takes away a little of the sting, and he fought as well as he could. But dear Lord, it makes you feel low. Killick, how much mutton is there left?'

  'Two legs, sir, and the best part of the scrag end. There's a nice piece of sirloin, sir; plenty for three.'

  'The mutton, then: and Killick, lay for four—the silver plates.'

  'Four, sir? Aye aye, sir: four it is.'

  'Let us take our coffee on to the quarterdeck: that poor don Garcio haunts me. By the way, Stephen, you have not congratulated me. The Clara struck to us, you know.'

  'I wish you joy, my dear. I do indeed. I wish you may not have bought it too high. Come, give me the tray.'

  The squadron and the prizes were far astern; the Medusa too had been detached to chase the Fama, but she was a great way off, hull down. The Spaniard seemed to be about the same distance ahead as when they began, or even a little more, but the Livelies looked quite unconcerned as they hurried about with fresh cordage, blocks, and bales of sailcloth, casting a casual eye at the chase from time to time. The ease and freedom of battle were still about the decks; there was a good deal of talk, particularly from the topmen re-reaving the rigging high above, and laughter. Quite unbidden a carpenter's mate, padding by with a rough-pole on his shoulder, said to Jack, 'It won't be long now, sir.'

  'They smashed most of our stuns'l booms,' observed Jack, 'and we never touched one of theirs. Just wait till we rig 'em out.'

  'She seems to be running extremely fast,' said Stephen.

  'Yes. She is a flyer, certainly: they say she cleaned her bottom at the Grand Canary, and she has the sweetest lines. There! See, she's heaving her guns overboard. You see the splash? And another. She will be starting her water over the side p
resently. You remember how we pumped and pulled in the Sophie? Ha, ha. You heaved on your sweep like a hero, Stephen. She cannot sweep, however; no, no, she cannot sweep. There goes the last of her starboard guns. See how she draws away now—a charming sailer; one of the best they have.'

  'Yet you mean to catch her? The Medusa is falling far behind.'

  'I do not like to show away, Stephen, but I will bet you a dozen of any claret you choose to name against a can of ale that we lay her aboard before dinner. You may not think it, but her only chance of escape is a ship of the line heaving up ahead, or our carrying a mast away. Though she may wing us, too, if she keeps her chasers'

  'Will you not touch on wood when you say that? I take your wager, mind.'

  Jack looked secretly at him. The dear creature's spirits were recovering a little: he must have been sadly shocked by that explosion. 'No,' he said. 'This time I shall defy fate: I did so, in any case, when I desired Killick to lay four places. The fourth is for the captain of the Fama. I shall invite him. I shall not give him back his sword, however, it was a shabby thing to do, to strike and then run.'

  'All ready, sir,' said Mr Dashwood.

  'Capital, capital: that was brisk work. Rig 'em out, Mr Dashwood, if you please.'

  On either side of the Lively's topgallants, topsails and courses there appeared her studdingsails, broadening her great spread of canvas with a speed, a perfect efficiency that made the Fama's heart sink and die.

  'There goes her water,' said the master, who had her scuppers fixed in his glass.

  'I believe you may set water-sails,' said Jack, 'and clew up the mizzen tops'l.'

  Now the Lively began to lean forward, throwing up the water with her forefoot so that it raced creaming right down her side to join her wake. Now she was really showing her paces; now she was eating the wind out of the Fama; and the distance narrowed. Never a sail that was not drawing perfectly, attended every moment by the crew—the now silent crew. A smooth, steady, urgent progression, the very height of sailing.

  The Fama had almost everything abroad already, but now she tried her driver too, boomed far out. Jack and all the officers on the quarterdeck shook their heads simultaneously: it would never answer—it would not set well with the wind so far aft. She began to steer wild, and simultaneously they all nodded. A yaw that lost her two hundred yards—her wake was no longer a straight line.

  'Mr Dashwood,' said Jack, 'the gunner may try the bow gun. I should like to win my bet.' He looked at his watch. 'It is a quarter to one.'

  The starboard bow-gun spoke out, ringing faint after the din of battle: a plume of water astern of the Fama, white against the blue. The next, a very deliberate shot, was well pitched up, some thirty yards to one side of her. Another, and this must have passed low over her deck, for she yawed again, and now the Lively was coming up hand over hand.

  The interval before the next gun was reaching its close: their ears were ready for the crash. But while they hung up there waiting for it there was an immense tumultuous cheering forward. It spread aft in a flash: the lieutenant came running through the crowd of men, pushing through them as they shook hands and clapped one another on the back. He took off his hat, and said, 'She has struck, sir, if you please.'

  'Very good, Mr Dashwood. Be so kind as to take possession and send her captain back at once. I expect him to dinner.'

  The Lively raced up, turned into the wind, folded her wings like a bird and lay athwart the Fama's hawse. The boat splashed down, crossed, and returned. The Spanish captain came up the side, saluted, presented his sword with a bow: Jack passed it to Bonden, just behind him, and said, 'Do you speak English, sir?'

  'A little, sir,' said the Spaniard.

  'Then I should be very happy to have your company at dinner, sir. It is waiting in the cabin.'

  They sat at the elegant table in the transformed cabin. The Spaniards behaved extremely well; they ate well, too, having been down to biscuit and chick-peas these last ten days; and as the courses followed one another their perfect dignity relaxed into something far more human. The bottles came and went: the tension wore away and away—talk flowed free in Spanish, English and a sort of French. There was even laughter and interruption, and when at last the noble pudding gave way to comfits, nuts and port, Jack sent the decanter round, desiring them to fill up to the brim; and raising his glass he said,

  'Gentlemen, I give you a toast. I beg you will drink Sophia.'

  'Sophia!' cried the Spanish captains, holding up their glasses.

  'Sophie,' said Stephen. 'God bless her.'

  Patrick O’Brian

  WILLIAM WALDEGRAVE

  FEW EVENTS in the continuing history of literature are as satisfying as those moments when a writer, leaving behind the dissonance of experiment and imitation, finds his own authentic voice and settles into a lifetime of successful creativity in a style which he makes his own. That is what gives the excitement to literary biography; we the audience, knowing the success that will come, can delight in the thrills and spills of early false starts; can catch a pre-echo of subsequent triumph buried amongst the juvenilia. Doesn’t this crude early Psmith story give us, for a page or two, a foretaste of Blandings? How will Larkin shake off Yeats and his own self-depreciation and irony in time to become the poet of Dockery and Son? Will Golding even find a publisher?

  The resolution seen from here looks inevitable. Obviously, we say now, a Charles Monteith was going to come along and rescue Golding! Any fool can tell, now, that Larkin was never meant to be a novelist! Clearly, O’Brian was always the pre-ordained creator of Aubrey, Maturin, Villiers, a writer who would win a safe place amongst the pantheon of great historical novelists.

  In fact, of course, we, his readers are the beneficiaries of the usual mixture of luck, of the ambition and determination of the author, and of the cultural and historical background out of which he happened to emerge. What if Sir Dick White or some other modern successor to O’Brian’s brilliant creation, Sir Joseph Blaine, had kept him in the intelligence world after the War? A different, undoubtedly distinguished, but hidden career would have followed. What if the weather in Wales had been better, and the O’Brians had stayed for ever among the more northern Celts? It is impossible to believe that the same books would have followed Testimonies, or, above all, that the rich seed-bed of his Irish, French and English childhood and young adulthood would so naturally have flowered as it did into a unique European voice as a result of the admixture of south east France, Catalonia, and the Mediterranean.

  The richness and diversity of his experience explains the fact that O’Brian’s writing is not academic, scholar though he certainly is. He has not learnt out of books about the relationship between spies and the projection of power. His understanding of the uneasy domination by the big nations of Europe (England, France, Russia) of the smaller (Ireland, Wales, Catalonia) is not theoretical. It is partly bred in the bone, partly the result of acute and prolonged observation (allied to very considerable linguistic gifts) conducted from a very well located base in an area around which every European Empire has ebbed and flowed. His first-hand knowledge of the sea is obviously considerable, too; he is an experienced small boat sailor, though he never, as far as I know, had the luck like Golding to find himself in command of a warship of the Royal Navy.

  The experience then, of action, of people, of the complexity of European history and culture, of the sea, comes from the life. The scholarship, however, is indeed formidable. His biography of Joseph Banks is first-rate; what is more, the research done for that book into the natural history of the period is, I suspect, just the tip of the iceberg of the underpinning work he has done in order to make Maturin authentic. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were not the materials amongst O’Brian’s notes for first-rate biographies of Cuvier, Van Buren, and perhaps Faraday too. Not forgetting the the of navigation and the technology of telescopes and chronometers; remember that Aubrey too addressed the Royal Society on these matters and was in touch with the Hers
chels. And if Aubrey could give a lecture to the Royal Society in the first decade of the nineteenth century, O’Brian will have put himself into the position where he could write that lecture now with an authenticity which would test the archivists in Carlton Gardens if they were asked, blind, to judge its provenance.

  That is a measure of the thoroughness of the work O’Brian does. The density of the knowledge is truly remarkable. Nonetheless, there is no sense of showing off or unnecessary display; but the fact is, whenever I can check, the house always turns out to be built on the solid, authentic rock of primary research. For example, I happen to have on my wall a picture and description of the diving bell used to recover bullion from the wreck of HMS Thetis, which ran onto Cape Frio in December 1830 (my great-grandfather, a midship man on board was amongst those saved). This bell is quite recognisably a slightly improved version of that employed with less successful outcome for exactly the same purpose in Treason’s Harbour. If you were to want a monograph on early nineteenth century diving bells, I have no doubt O’Brian would be your man. Or again the exotic (and extremely amorous) behaviour of the South Sea islanders, together with a hundred little details, which Aubrey and Maturin find in Clarissa Oakes, could come straight from my great-great-grandfather’s (unpublished) account of his cruise to the same islands a little later in HMS Seringapatam—though happily Aubrey shows none of my forebear’s tedious commitment to the exposition of the scriptures. The professional scholars—Lavery, Rodger, and West give much more thorough witness to all this than I can; what is, however, immensely comforting to those of us who enjoy O’Brian’s books without the scholarly background is the well-founded trust we can have that there is no cheating: when we are told something, it is true. Just as there is little beyond learned footnotes and unresolved disputes which high scholarship can add to what Mary Renault (who was an early and important fan of O’Brian’s) tells us about Alexander the Great, so too we can commit ourselves to the enjoyment of the Aubrey novels as literature knowing that we are in the safest possible historical hands.