Book 18 - The Yellow Admiral

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Jack,' said Stephen when they were back in the Bellona's great cabin. 'I admire your fortitude in making no reply.'

  'One of the first things one learns in the service is that any reply to a superior officer, any justification, protest and counter-accusation is absolutely useless: and if the superior wishes to destroy you, it is the best possible way of helping him to do so. No. It is a poor, shabby thing to blackguard a man who cannot answer; but I believe he was vexed to the very heart.'

  'He was, too,' said Stephen, and they sat in silence for a while. It was a pleasant day, and the squadron, now well south of the Black Rocks, was standing across the bay under an easy sail, heading for the Saints, that deadly chain of reefs upon which so many ships had been wrecked.

  'We are going to pass through the Raz de Sein,' said Jack, 'and then the Admiral will haul his wind and rejoin the offshore squadron west of Ushant, leaving us with the Ramillies, a couple of frigates and a cutter or so: he will look in from time to time, perhaps bringing reinforcements. Presently I will show you Dead Man's Bay and the Pointe du Raz.'

  Stephen gazed over the sea at the distant mainland; he felt the agreeable heave of the south-west swell, and he said, 'Here's space—here's air—the vast sweep of the ocean—this glorious room—servants and victuals a-plenty—no domestic worries of any kind—hundreds of miles from importunity—and as I understand it we simply go up and down in this spacious great bay—delightful sailing, sure. Perhaps after dinner we may have some music.'

  'With all my heart,' said Jack. 'I have scarcely touched my fiddle this month and more. By the way, I have invited Harding and one of the new mids, a boy called Geoghegan, whose father was kind to us in Bantry. Poor fellow. He is quite clever with figures, and he plays a creditable oboe; but he cannot be taught to coil down a rope like a Christian.'

  'Listen,' said Stephen, and once again it was apparent to Jack that his friend's mind was, and had been, elsewhere. 'Listen, will you now? The Admiral, in his artless approach, let fall some words having a certain misty reference to the future; and they seemed to me to chime with some of your indistinct deprecation to do with yellowing and your superstitious hatred of the colour itself, even. Be so good as to explain the matter in words adapted to the meanest understanding.'

  'I was telling Sophie about it only the other day,' said Jack, 'so I hope I shall make it plain: though things one has taken for granted all one's life, like the flowing of the tide, are hard to explain to those who do not know the meaning of high tide or low, like the natives of Timbuktoo. Well now, formerly any man who was made a post-captain was sure of reaching flag-rank by seniority so long as he did nothing very wrong or refused service more than once or twice—by service I mean an offered command. When he reached the top of the captains' list he would become a rear-admiral of the blue squadron at the next promotion, and hoist his flag at the mizzen. This was the absolute crown of a sea-officer's career, and he could die happy. If however he lived on, he would, still by seniority, climb through the various grades and eventually become admiral of the fleet. But this tradition was broke in 1787, when a very deserving officer, Captain Balfour, was passed over. Since then nothing has been the same. Now many people are placed on the Navy List as retired captains, or if this is too flagrantly unjust then as rear-admirals, but of no squadron whatsoever and of course no command. When this happens he is said to have been yellowed—to have been appointed to an imaginary yellow squadron. And if he has had the service at heart all his life he cannot but die unhappy. I am sure I should. It is an extremely public disgrace and your friends hardly know how to meet your eye.'

  'But my dear you are quite far from the top of the list. Sure you must have served some years more before you need worry about your flag?'

  'Certainly. But it is the running-up period that is so important, the time while the Admiralty are slowly making up their minds, the years when you must distinguish yourself if you possibly can and when above all you must not put a foot wrong; above all now, when there is a real danger of peace breaking out with countless officers thrown on the beach and commands as rare as needles in a haystack. I do not have to tell you, Stephen, how wholly I long to receive, the order requesting and requiring me, as rear-admiral of the blue, to proceed to the smallest of commands, to His Majesty's sloop-of-war Mosquito, say, with two four-pounders and a swivel, and to hoist my flag at her mizzenmast. I should do anything for it. Anything.'

  'Does Simmon's Lea come within the limits of anything?'

  'No, of course not, Stephen; how can you be so strange?'

  'It is an elastic term, you know. But, however, even if your fears are realized, that is not necessarily the end of your sea-going career. I made some very good friends in Chile, three of whom I met again in my recent travels across Spain, remarkably intelligent and well-informed men, who very clearly saw the inevitable end of this war and the independence of their country. They are also aware of the very strong likelihood of rivalry between the liberated provinces, of attempts at the domination of Chile on the part of Peru and the necessity for a Chilean navy, officered at least in part by very highly experienced men, victorious in almost all their encounters. What more suitable recruit than an admiral like you, even though he may have been yellowed by political jobbery?'

  They sat in silence for some time, digesting this and the possibilities it contained. 'There is Dead Man's Bay,' said Jack. 'And we are now in the Raz de Sein, a devilish passage in heavy weather. By dinner-time—and I think I already hear Killick with the glasses—we should have the Pointe du Raz on our larboard quarter.'

  Stephen nodded, and with a curiously knowing look, his head on one side, he asked, 'Can you foretell the dark of the moon with reasonable accuracy?'

  'I believe so,' said Jack. 'Her motions are of some importance in navigation you know, and we learn them quite early.'

  'Well, I am happy to hear you say so, for at the dark of the moon I must beg you to set me ashore, with a gentleman at present aboard the flagship, in a little cove just south of this same Pointe du Raz.'

  Jack gazed over the sea. 'Just how serious are these people?' he asked after a while.

  'Deeply serious,' said Stephen. 'They are closely associated with O'Higgins and his friends. They are men of great substance in those parts and they are wholly committed to independence. More serious you could not wish.'

  Another silence. 'The dark of the moon will be in eight days,' said Jack.

  Chapter Five

  For five days, no less, they simply went up and down the fine spacious great bay, admiring the billows and fishing over the side—delightful sailing indeed—and in the evening they played music until supper-time or beyond. On the sixth day, misled by reports of a convoy coming up from Lorient, the inshore squadron sailed through the Passage du Raz once more and across the bay of Audierne to the farther point, where they lay to and sent the Ringle round to look into the harbour and inlets farther south.

  Captain Aubrey had dined in the wardroom—a wardroom which on this occasion included the Bellona's surgeon, a member of course by right—and now he was standing on the poop, drinking coffee with William Harding, the first lieutenant, Captain Temple of the Royal Marines, Mr Paisley the purser, a convivial soul, a great hand at whist, and always willing to play sentimental ballads on his viola while others sang, together with Stephen and a few others. 'There, Doctor,' said Jack, pointing to a truly dreadful reef half a mile on their larboard beam. 'There are the Penmarks.'

  'I have often heard them mentioned,' said Stephen. 'Always with strong disapprobation and even loathing.'

  'Scylla and Charybdis ain't in it, with a strong southwester and a falling tide,' said Jack. 'Nor the Gorgonzola. And that's Penmark Head beyond. Lord, that must have been a rough wild night of it,' he added, to Harding.

  'Indeed it was, sir,' said Harding. 'I never wish to see such another.'

  'I do not suppose you do,' said Jack. 'Doctor, do you know about the Droits de l'Homme?'

  'Few things are
more familiar to me than that amiable fiction. I my youth I wrote several versions, each more liberal than the last In one I even included women, asserting that they were . . .'

  The sailors smiled indulgently, and the purser said, 'He means the man-of-war, Doctor. A French seventy-four. It was in the days of high revolutionary fervour, in ninety-six or ninety-seven, when they gave ships names like that.'

  'The time of Hoche's expedition to Ireland,' said Harding.

  'That I remember,' said Stephen, with a chill about his heart: and then, feeling that something more was called for, 'Will you tell me about it, so?'

  'Pray do,' said the Marine. 'I was in India at the time.'

  'Well,' said Harding, collecting his thoughts, 'it began a little before Christmas of the year ninety-six, here in Brest. The French had gathered seventeen of the line, thirteen frigates, six brig-corvettes, seven transports and a powdership. We were aware of their motions, of course, although we could not tell where they were going, and Admiral Colpoys had a strong force off Ushant, while the inshore squadron was under Sir Edward Pellew in the Indefatigable, forty-four—you will remember, Doctor, that the Indefatigable was cut down from a two-decker, and she was a heavy frigate, carrying twenty-four-pounders—I was a master's mate in her at the time. And under him he had three other frigates and a lugger. The Frenchmen came out one afternoon with a kindly east wind, forty-four sail of them with something like twenty thousand soldiers aboard; and they steered for the Passage du Raz, to avoid Admiral Colpoys. But one struck on the Grand Stevenet just at the opening of the passage and others went out by the Iroise, their admiral having changed his mind quite late in the day, when dusk was falling: there was a shocking confusion of signals and lights and guns. But although Sir Edward sent to the Admiral and to Falmouth they were never intercepted: no, they sailed on through fog and foul weather to Bantry Bay, where they had a perfectly appalling time of it—gale after gale, with ships driving from their anchors and being blown out to sea, frigates pitching fo'c'sle under, foundering, impossible to land troops, food running out; and eventually most of them straggled back to France. There was a second rendezvous off the mouth of the Shannon. A few looked in, but only one stayed any length of time before seeing it was hopeless, and having found nobody at Bantry either she steered not for Brest like most of the others but for some point south, probably Rochefort. She was commanded by Commodore La Crosse, a right seaman, and we—Indefatigable and Amazon, 36, first saw her in thick weather about half past three in the afternoon of January 13th, when we were in 47°30'N, Ushant bearing north-east fifty leagues, a strengthening squally wind from the westward and a heavy swell. She was some way to the north-east of us and far from distinct, but presently we made out that she was a two-decker with no poop, her lower-deck gunports closed, obviously Les Droits de l'Homme, known for swimming low in the water. And while everyone on the quarterdeck had her in their glasses, a squall hit her, carrying her maintopsail braces and then her fore and main topmasts, which fell over her lee-guns. They cleared away very quick, expecting us to attack on that side, but when we were within hail and under close reefed topsails, Sir Edward hauled up to rake her. Yet she hauled up too and we exchanged broadsides—prodigious musketry on her part, from all the soldiers aboard. Then Sir Edward tried to cross her bows and rake her fore and aft: she foiled him again and did all she could to run us aboard. In avoiding her we showed our stern, but with her lower-deck gunports so near the surface and the very heavy roll of the ship with so little to steady her—courses and mizzen topsail was all she could spread—she did no great damage. Presently, when it was near full dark, Amazon came pelting up, fired her larboard broadside into the Droits's quarters at pistol-shot and then steered to cross her stern and give her the other. Again the Droits clapped her helm over, which brought us both on her less damaged leeward side; and we all blazed away until half past seven, still running south-east, the wind having backed a point or two. Then we and the Amazon shot ahead to knot and splice and fill more powder—we had the legs of her, of course, with our topmasts standing. An hour later we were at it again, lying on her bows, one each side, and yawing to rake her by turns, while she did much the same—she still steered very quick—giving us some hard knocks and trying to board. About half past ten she cut away her wounded mizzen, and rather later we hauled off to secure our masts, their rigging being much shattered; but apart from that the fire barely slackened until something after four in the morning, when the moon breaking through the clouds showed land close on board and all three ships hauled as near to the wind as ever they could to avoid it. Yet just before dawn there were breakers white on the lee bow. We wore ship, heading northwards: and when day broke, there was the land again, very close ahead and on the weather bow, with breakers to leeward—wore ship to the southwards in twenty fathom water. And then, just after seven, there we saw her—there she lay, the Droits de l'Homme, right in with the land, broadside up with the tremendous surf beating clean over her. Just there,' he said, pointing, deeply moved by the strength of his recollections, 'just there, beyond that tall pointed rock . . . At least six hundred dead, they say. I will not go into the horrors of war,' he said with an embarrassed smile, conscious of having talked too much. 'Anyhow, Doctor, you know much more about them than I do. The Amazon had gone ashore too, but farther along, farther in, and almost all her people were saved. The wind was right on the land, the tide was making, and there was nothing, nothing we could do for the Droits de l'Homme. We had four foot of water in the hold . . . We just managed to claw off, though we shoaled water terribly at one point and though our people were so utterly exhausted they could scarcely haul the mainsheet aft. We lay off for a while, putting the ship into some sort of order, while the surgeon and his mates looked after our wounded and the cook got at least something for the hands to eat. And although the sea remained very high, the sky soon cleared over the Penmarks and the land inshore. It was that which made me think of the Droits de l'Homme in the first place, this same very curious greenish light over the reef and land, all along from the cape itself to St Guénolé, do you see? It is always taken to foretell heavy weather; and we certainly had a cruel time of it for the next week or ten days.'

  'Mr Harding spoke of a week or ten days, did he not?' asked Stephen.

  'I believe so,' said Jack. 'May I trouble you for the marmalade?'

  'Oh, I beg pardon,' cried Stephen as the ship gave a furious lee-lurch and the jar flew from his hand.

  'Killick. Killick, there. Swab and a damp cloth. And then another pot of marmalade.'

  'Not again?' said Killick. 'Not a . . . again? The same yesterday, the same on Thursday and that was with the poor bloody milk-jug too. All the forenoon watch on my poor bloody knees . . . floor cloth never be itself again.' This in a mutter: in a louder voice from beneath the table, 'Which there ain't no more orange marmalade neither.'

  When at last he had gone away, Jack said, 'Fortunately it was only a common old pot, not that splendid Irish cut-glass affair you so kindly gave us. Yes, he did mention ten days; but only in a manner of speaking, you know. These blows never go by the calendar.'

  'When this present tempest slackens, perhaps we shall have a post. I quite long to hear from Woolcombe: and indeed from London and Ballinasloe. I had been led to believe that one of the very few advantages of the Brest blockade was that it allowed the sufferers frequent supplies of fresh food and mail.'