The Thirteen Gun Salute

by Patrick O'Brian

  Chapter 4

  Jack Aubrey's answer was yes, as Stephen had known very well it would be; but with what tearings of heart, what anxious self-questioning did he produce it at length, well on in the eleventh hour; and what sad, longing, perhaps guilt-stricken looks did he direct at the Surprise, already under sail far down there in the Tagus as he rode away, leaving his shipmates low-spirited, disappointed and in some cases even bereft. Some had been angry at first; many had said they had always known it would be an unlucky voyage; but no man had accepted Jack's offer to give him his wages and pay his passage home, and they had derived increasing comfort from the fact that it was the Diane that they personally had cut out, their own Diane, in which he was to sail, and that the two ships were to meet at a given rendezvous - a rendezvous made all the more solid and palpable by the Captain's wine and cold-weather clothes, which remained on board, together with crate after crate of the Doctor's books.

  Not only the hands but the officers took the parting hard. Pullings was devoted to Jack and the others had the greatest respect for him; and although they attributed less importance to Aubrey's private personal luck than did the foremost hands, it did not leave them indifferent by any means; furthermore, they knew very well how much easier it was to command a fierce, turbulent crew when there was a legendary figure aboard - legendary for courage, success and good fortune. However, Stephen was able to assure Pullings that he was virtually certain of a command if he brought the Surprise home safely; and both West and Davidge felt that in such a case they would have much better chances of reinstatement.

  Since Aubrey was to travel to his new ship by land and with the utmost haste he was unable to take any followers apart from his steward and coxswain, and the deserted, uncomplaining look of those he left behind was one of the hardest things about the whole operation.

  Yet it was clear to him - it was clear to everyone concerned - that this was still another of those naval occasions on which there was not a moment to be lost; and in a way it was just as well, since the incessant activity, and the extreme difficulty of travelling fast through Portugal and north-western Spain in a time of armed occupation and massive destruction, with the tide of war only just receding and liable to come flooding back at any time, took Jack's mind from his deserted ship and shipmates. But nothing, travel, guilt, extreme discomfort, could take away from the deep glow in his heart: if he could stay alive for the next couple of weeks or so, he would be gazetted and he would have a command - the charming promises would become infinitely more solid realities: changing from what his mind believed to what his whole person knew as a living fact. The fact, however, could not be mentioned, nor the glow acknowledged; even the inward singing must be repressed.

  They travelled in a variety of hired coaches and carriages, sometimes drawn by an improbable number of animals but always, however many or however few, running as fast as ever they could be induced to run. That is to say Sir Joseph, Standish, whom Jack had offered a lift after their explanation, the baggage, the musical instruments and the large number of documents Stephen needed travelled so, with Killick and Bonden (no great horsemen) sitting with the driver or up behind, except in the blinding rain of Galicia, when Sir Joseph made them come inside. Jack and Stephen rode: there were great numbers of lost, stolen, strayed cavalry horses from the various armies to be had and each travelled with a remount and a groom, pushing ahead in the evening to attend to supper and bed.

  It was hard going, on and on, always on and on, passing wonders without ever a pause - never so much as a glass of wine in Oporto itself - mud in the north, mud axle-deep, and once a band that tried to stop the coach but that scattered in the face of determined professional pistol and carbine fire. Yet for Blaine it was nothing like such hard going as it had been on the way down: now he had a guide perfectly accustomed to the language and the manners of the people, familiar with the road and most of the towns, widely acquainted, so that they stayed at two country houses and one monastery as well as the best inns the country afforded. He was also now part of a formidable armed party, including powerful sailors capable of dealing with most situations, such as freeing a bogged wheel by means of a tackle seized to a stout tree, the fall running along a dry bank, so that all hands could bowse upon it. Indeed the travelling itself was almost pleasant and the evening was very much so: on his way down Sir Joseph, spending public money, had not exactly stinted himself, but he had a certain conscience, whereas Stephen, once he had overcome a reluctance to part with copper, flung gold about like jack-ashore, and Aubrey had never been less than lavish whenever he had anything to be lavish with. Having travelled like kings all day, they ran dinner and supper into one regal feast in the evening, and after it Standish would play to them.

  Sir Joseph was devoted to music; he appreciated Standish's playing at its true worth, and Stephen hoped that he might deal with the situation by finding the unhappy man some harmless minor position under Government. But this was not to be. One evening in Santiago Standish was playing a brilliant Corelli partita entirely from memory - not a hemidemisemiquaver of all the multitude out of place - when Jack, who had drunk a great deal of the thin, piercing white wine from the landlady's own vineyard, was obliged to tiptoe to the door. He opened it with the utmost precaution and a bulky officer in the uniform of the First Foot Guards fell into the room. He was covered with confusion - apologized most profusely for listening - fairly worshipped good music - Corelli, was it not? - congratulated the gentleman most heartily. When the music was done they invited him to stay and drink port with them. His name was Lumley; he was in charge of the regiment's depot in Santiago - they had already noticed a number of battered guardsmen creeping about the muddy streets - and as it so often happens in cases of this kind they found they had a large number of acquaintances in common. When the others had gone to bed he shared a last pot with Stephen, who gave him a discreet account of Standish and his position. 'Do you think he would be my secretary?' asked Colonel Lumley. 'The duties would be very light - my clerks do most of the paper-work - but I should give a great deal to have such a violin at hand.'

  'It seems to me quite probable,' said Stephen, and he might have added, 'Indeed, I believe the poor man would accept any work that would keep him alive rather than go aboard ship again, and in the Bay of Biscay at that', if he had not thought it liable to influence even a very benevolent employer; and Colonel Lumley had, at least in these circumstances, the kindest face. Instead he observed, 'So probable that I am sure it is worth making the offer.'

  The offer was made and accepted. The party set off as soon after dawn as the ostlers could be roused from their straw, with Standish standing by the stable gates in the drizzle waving until they were out of sight. His happiness, his relief, his sense of reprieve affected them all, even Bonden and Killick, who imitated post-horns on the back of the coach and made antic gestures at the passing peasants and soldiers most of the morning; but the mounting south-south-west wind veering to south-west with heavy rain damped their ardour, and presently Sir Joseph made them get inside again, where they sat stiff, mum and genteel until at last the gasping mules brought the carriage down through Corunna to the port.

  Here Jack and Stephen were waiting for them on the quay, beside the Nimble, the cutter that was to carry Sir Joseph and his party home.

  'This could not be better,' said Jack as he heaved the coach door open against the blast. 'It is almost sure to strengthen, and even if it don't we may well see Ushant by Thursday evening.'

  In the last grey twilight Blaine looked at the streaming, shining quay, the streaming, shining mules drooping their heads under the rain, the uneasy surface of the harbour, the steeply-chopped white water beyond, where the tide was ebbing against the Atlantic rollers. He made no reply, but took Jack's arm and staggered across the brow into the cutter, his eyes half-closed.

  Stephen settled with the coachman and his carbine-bearing companion, paid the grooms, telling them they might keep the horses, and so in his turn crossed the b
row. The baggage had long since been whipped across by a line of seamen, and as soon as Stephen was aboard they cast off fore and aft, filled the jib and stood for the open sea.

  The two-hundred-ton Nimble, fourteen guns, was one of the largest cutters in the Royal Navy, and for those accustomed to doggers, hoys, galliots and smacks in general she seemed a behemoth, particularly when she had topgallants and even royals spread on her tall single mast; but for the rest of the world, especially those used to rated ships, she might have seemed designed for dwarfs. Even Maturin, who was rather a small man, stood bent, with bowed head, in the cabin. Yet as it so often happened in the Navy, she was commanded by one of the tallest officers the service possessed: he came in, having seen his cutter well clear of the land, and stood there, a pink-faced, smiling, anxious young man in a lieutenant's coat.

  'You are very welcome, gentlemen,' he said again. 'May I offer you a little something to stay you before supper? Sandwiches, for example, and a glass of sillery?'

  'That would be delightful,' said his guests, to whom it was clear that the sandwiches had already been cut and the wine put over the side in a net to cool.

  'Where is Sir Joseph?' asked the captain of the Nimble.

  'He turned in at once,' said Jack, 'because, says he, prevention is better than cure.'

  'I hope it answers, I am sure. Lord Nelson's coxswain told me the admiral used to suffer most cruelly for the first few days, if he had been ashore for a while. Stubbs' - directing his voice through a scuttle - 'light along the sandwiches and the wine.'

  'The bubbly stuff is all very well,' said Jack, looking at the light through his glass, 'but for flavour, for bouquet and for quality, give me good sillery every time. Capital wine, sir: but now I come to think of it, I do not believe I caught your name.'

  'Fitton, sir. Michael Fitton,' said the young man with a shy, expectant look.

  'Not John Fitton's son?' asked Jack.

  'Yes, sir. He often spoke about you, and I saw you once at home when I was a boy.'

  'We were shipmates in three commissions,' said Jack, shaking his hand. 'Isis, Resolution, and Colossus, of course.' He looked down, for it was on the gun-deck of the Colossus, not three feet away from him, that John Fitton had been killed during the battle of St Vincent.

  At this moment Sir Joseph, whose cupboard opened into the cabin, called out in a choking voice for his servant, and when the hurrying to and fro was over Stephen said, gazing about, 'So this is a cutter. Well, I am prodigiously glad to have seen a cutter. Pray why is it so called?'

  At another time Jack might have replied that Stephen had seen cutters by the score, by the hundred, every time he came into home waters, and very often elsewhere, and that the rig had been carefully explained to him so that he should not confuse a cutter with a sloop; but now he only said, 'Why, because they go cutting along, you know. Skilfully handled' - smiling at young Fitton - 'they are the fastest craft in the Navy.'

  'Should you like to see over her, Doctor, when it is raining a little less?' asked Fitton. 'She is remarkably large and elegant for a cutter - nearly seventy feet long - and although some people might say she wanted headroom, she is much broader in the beam than you would think: twenty-four feet, but for a trifle. Twenty-four feet, sir, I do assure you.'

  After supper Jack and the captain of the Nimble fell to a close discussion of the sailing of cutters, both with fore-and-aft and with square rig, in order to get the best out of them by as well as large; and although from time to time they remembered that Stephen was there and tried to make the question clear to him, he soon went to bed. He was in fact quite tired - he had reason to be - but before he went to sleep he reflected for a while on diaries, on the keeping of diaries. The Nimble was now pitching to such an extent that Killick came in and took seven turns about him and his cot to prevent him from being tossed out or being flung against the deck-head, but even without the constriction it would have been impossible to make one of his habitual entries - cryptic entries, because of his strongly-developed sense of privacy, and selective entries, because of his connexion with intelligence.

  'Today I should have recorded no more than the weather, the helleborus foetidus when we stopped to mend a trace, and the handsomely expressed gentlemanly gratitude of the men, the wholly uneducated men, to whom we gave the horses. When first I met Jack I should have been very much more prolix. Or should I? I was terribly low in those days, after the obvious, inevitable failure of the rising, the infamous conduct of so very, very many people, and of course the loss of Mona; to say nothing of the intolerable miseries in France and the destruction of all our sanguine generous youthful hopes. Lord, how a man can change! I remember telling James Dillon, God rest his soul, that I no longer felt loyalty to any nation or any body of men, only to my immediate friends - that Dr Johnson was right in saying that the form of government was of no consequence to the individual - that I should not move a finger to bring about the millennium or independence. And yet here I am, hurrying through this wicked sea in an attempt however slight at bringing about both, if the defeat of Buonaparte can be considered the one and Catholic emancipation and the dissolution of the union the other. When I am at the Grapes I shall look at the diary of that year and see what in fact I said. Shall I remember the code?'

  At breakfast Michael Fitton said, 'Today, Doctor, if the rain stops, you will see the Nimble in all her glory: she is almost directly before the wind, with topsail and single-reefed square mainsail, and at the last heave she ran off eleven knots and the best part of a fathom.'

  'Yes,' said Jack, 'and you will see the extraordinary merits of a running bowsprit. When she pitches like this' - the table took on a forward slope of twenty-five degrees, their hands automatically securing the toast - 'the bowsprit does not stab into the sea and snap off short or at the very least check her way.'

  'How can this be achieved, for all love?'

  'Since a cutter's bowsprit has no steeve, since it is horizontal, it can be run in on deck,' they told him kindly, and promised that he should see it directly.

  But they were mistaken. The rain continued steadily, sweeping in vast grey swathes from the south-west, over a grey sea mottled here and there with white; and although in the dim afternoon of Thursday Jack dragged him on deck to look at Ushant, a faint white-ringed blur on the starboard bow, he could not be induced to go forward to see the bowsprit nor even to climb a little way up the shrouds to view the remote ships of the Brest blockade; and the next day, when the Nimble was racing up the Channel, the breeze had hauled so far forward that she now wore her fore-and-aft mainsail, foresail and jib; her bowsprit was therefore run out, and it remained run out until the end of their voyage - a most remarkably fine passage that brought them into Portsmouth late on Friday afternoon, quite a warm day for May, and with no more than an intermittent drizzle.

  Sir Joseph, whose policy of lying motionless and eating very large quantities of dry bread had worked well after the first horrible hours, set off for London as soon as he had taken tea and muffins at the Crown; he said to Jack, 'I presume orders will be telegraphed down to Admiral Martin as soon as I have made my report; and I have little doubt that officially or unofficially I shall see you both early next week.'

  They accompanied him to his post-chaise, and as they walked back Stephen said, 'I have been thinking, brother. Diana will be in a very delicate condition by now, and if we suddenly appear, it may shock her extremely.'

  'Oh,' said Jack, who had been on the point of sending for horses, 'I suppose it might. Pen a discreet, diplomatic note hinting that you might be in the neighbourhood presently, and we will send it by Bonden or Killick or both in a chaise.'

  'A chaise, with Bonden and Killick getting out of it, would be sure to cause alarm - dreadful apprehensions of bad news travelling with such speed and ostentation. A boy on a mule would be much more suitable.'

  The boy on a mule set off with a note -My dear, pray do not be alarmed or in any way concerned if you should see us presently: we are bo
th perfectly well and send our love - and the men were about to set off to gaze at the Diane from a discreet distance when they ran into the Port Admiral, a cheerful soul, who insisted on their cracking a bottle: 'I am seventy-four today; you cannot refuse me.' A number of other sea-officers were in the hall and he invited them too. Some were very well known to Jack, among them three post-captains; like many other post-captains they made up for their solitary state at sea by being unusually loquacious by land. The Physician of the Fleet was also there, together with one of the medical men from Haslar; and they too were very conversible. Talk flowed, bottles came and went, time passed, passed. But at length the landlord's son came and stood by Stephen: 'Oh, Dr Maturin, sir,' he said when Stephen paused in his account of the Basrah method of setting broken bones, 'there is a coach outside with some ladies asking for you'

  'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' muttered Stephen, darting from the room.

  Diana was at the near-side window She leant out and cried, 'Oh Maturin, my dear, what a monster you are to terrify innocent women like this 'Inside the coach behind her Sophie's voice rose to a high squeak, 'Is not Jack there? You said Jack would be there.'

  Diana opened the door and offered to jump out, but Stephen took her elbows and lifted her down. 'My dear, you are a fine size,' he said, kissing her tenderly. 'Sophie, will you come in and see Jack and Admiral Martin and a number of other sailors? They are drinking port in the Dolphin room.'

  'Oh Stephen,' called Sophie, 'pray bring him out and let us all go home together at once. I do not want to lose a minute of him. Nor of you either, dear Stephen.'

  'Sure you are right, for the moments are few: we must be in town on Tuesday, I do believe.'

  In fact it was on Sunday evening that a message came from the Port Admiral requiring Captain Aubrey to wait upon the First Lord in Arlington Street at half-past five o'clock the next day. Yet if the reprieve had been longer they could scarcely have said any more, all of them having talked incessantly since the coach started moving back to Ashgrove Cottage from the Crown.