THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL aam-11

by Patrick O`Brian

  'In England, I find,' said Stephen after a while, 'cranes are called herons; and there are many other differences. As an Englishman, pray how would you define a ptarmigan, now?'

  'Why, ptarmigans are those contentious froward cross overbearing women you come across only too often. Lady Bates is one; so is Mrs Miller. They are called after Mahomet's wife, I believe; or at least that was what my old father told me when I was a boy.'

  Had General Aubrey confined himself to etymology, however bold, he would have done his son no harm; but he had seen fit to go into politics as an opposition member for various rotten boroughs, and since he was a man of weak understanding but inexhaustible energy his perpetual vehement harrying of the ministry had made even his Tory connexions objects of dislike or suspicion. He was now associated with the least reputable members of the Radical movement, not because he wished to see the slightest reform of parliament or anything else, but because in his folly he still imagined that the ministry would give him some plum, such as a colonial governorship, to shut his mouth. He also thought that some of his Radical friends were devilish clever money-making fellows; and he was intensely eager, indeed avid, for wealth.

  Stephen had met Jack's father - a really dangerous parent - and the wish that the General might choke to death on his next bite fleeted through his mind, but he passed the toasted cheese in silence, and soon after they played a very gentle lament he had learnt in the City of Cork from Hempson, the great harper of the world, when he was a hundred and four. The second Spartan they saw was in fact just this side of the Azores, plum to windward, within a hundred miles of the place where she had taken Pullings and the Danaл in chase; and just as Pullings had said in his letter, she was so like a Portuguese man-of-war that at a mile even an old experienced hand would have sworn she was all she seemed. Everything was right: colours, officers' uniforms, even the gilded crucifix catching the sun on the quarterdeck.

  The old experienced hand would still have sworn it at half a mile: and Captain Aubrey and Mr Allen, who had been standing there side by side with their telescopes fixed on the approaching ship while the keen smell of slow-match wafted about them and hands stood by to cast off the cloths masking the loaded guns, turned to one another with the same expression of dawning comprehension, surprise, disappointment, and relief.

  'Thank God we never fired, sir,' said the master.

  Jack nodded, and cried, 'Dowse the match, there; dowse the match. Mr Mowett, pennant and colours.' The Portuguese hail came across the water, somewhat testy, and he went on 'Mr Allen, pray reply,' - for the master was fluent in Portuguese - 'and ask the captain to dine with me.'

  The Portuguese captain would not dine, but he did accept Jack's apologies and explanation with a good grace. They split a bottle of capital white port in his cabin, and Jack learnt that although there were two American privateers in the harbour of Fayal, neither was the Spartan, nor anything like her size. She had been seen in these waters, but the Portuguese thought she had probably borne away for the Guinea coast, unless conceivably she was lying far to the eastward 'looking out for some of your fat West Indiamen with the full moon to chase them in' he said with a chuckle, for he loved a prize as much as any man living.

  The full moon was indeed no great way off, and its increase tended to swallow the wind, so that by the time the Surprise saw her third Spartan, well to the east of Terceira, the Atlantic looked as harmless as the Serpentine, ruffled here and there with light airs and varying breezes. She appeared as ships so often did, from a morning bank of haze: she was lying there to the northward, hull up from the quarterdeck, on the frigate's starboard bow and she too was on the larboard tack. At first she met with little credit. The starboard watch, red legged from cleaning the decks with water that was now quite cold, were sick of this here so-called privateer, sick of this goddam deck-cargo and these bloody side-cloths. it was far too late to come across any Spartan now, and they wanted their breakfast.

  Jack, staring out over the sea from the maintop, was much of their opinion, but he did think it worthwhile to call down that hammocks were not to be piped up and that the watch below was to stay there until further orders.

  As the light strengthened he was glad he had done so. His very recent experience of a Portuguese man-of-war made the Spartan's disguise - for this was the true, the genuine privateer - less convincing; and in any case the ship over there answered exactly to Pullings' description. A tall ship with massive spars, no doubt very fast indeed, and capable of throwing a shockingly heavy broadside, at least at close quarters. On seeing the Surprise she had at once clapped her helm a-lee, and this seemed to Jack profoundly significant, since it would in time give her the weather-gage. A real Portuguese, with no more than a discretionary duty to inspect, would not go to so much trouble - would not undertake a move which at this distance and in these light airs could come to good only after hours of careful manoeuvring.

  Jack steered a corresponding course, and as he took his breakfast in the top he watched her with unremitting attention. By his last cup of coffee he was perfectly convinced of her identity, and his conviction had communicated itself to the crew. From time to time he sent still more men below, so as to reduce his visible crew as nearly to the size of a merchantman's as he could: a difficult task, since at the same time he needed enough hands to make sail and brace round the heavy yards as quickly as the privateer, which, he saw, was very well manned indeed.

  The larboard watch, at first delighted with the idea of the starbowlins doing all the cold wet work on deck while they lay like lords in their hammocks, soon became uneasy: then, as more starbowlins were sent below, almost desperate. On the lower deck there were of course no ports nor even scuttles and they were obliged to rely on reports delivered down the forehatchway by their happier companions.

  Ships in the Royal Navy differed enormously in the matter of discipline. There were some in which two men could hardly be seen talking together quietly without being put down as malcontents, perhaps potential mutineers, and reported by the master-at-arms. The Surprise was nothing remotely like any of those unhappy vessels, but even so prolonged conversation on duty was not encouraged, especially at a time when exceedingly delicate operations were in hand. The accounts that came down the hatchway were therefore sparse and fragmentary; but uttered by seamen for seamen they gave the broad picture quite accurately.

  The two ships lay north and south of one another, and although there were odd cat's paws and small local breezes from other quarters the undoubted general movement of the air was from the westward; and there were signs that in time, perhaps tomorrow, it might freshen. The aim of each captain was to get the weather-gage, that is to say to gain a position westward of the other so that he might come down with the breeze on his best point of sailing and force the engagement at the moment and in the conditions most favourable for himself rather than undertake a long and perhaps inconclusive windward chase, with the continual possibility of having an important spar knocked away by gunfire or carried away by the breeze. But each wished his manoeuvre to seem unstudied, a natural part of his ordinary, peaceful voyage, so that his unsuspecting, unhurrying adversary should let himself be outstripped, thinking no harm.

  This added a fresh dimension to the snail-paced but strenuous race to windward, in which every vagrant puff had to be wooed and embraced by all the canvas that could be spread, but it was one that set the Surprise at a disadvantage to begin with, since in her character as a prudent merchantman she had no royal masts above her stump topgallants, and they could hardly be sent up man-of-war fashion without exciting suspicion; nor could royals, skysails, moonsails, stargazers and other flying-kites, all very useful in these mere zephyrs, where the higher air moved somewhat faster than that just over the sea.

  The masts and yards were sent up in time and the lofty sails were set upon them, but in the meanwhile the Spartan, profiting by a north-western slant of wind, had come half a mile closer.

  This did not suit Jack's book at all. He
did not want his ship or his people to be wounded or killed for the sake of a privateer: what he hoped to do was to gain a decided advantage in beating up to the west and then, with the Spartan under his lee and well within reach of his long guns, to throw off his disguise, send a shot across her bows and await her surrender. If it did not come directly, then a couple of broadsides should certainly bring it. But if this present advance went on the privateer would be laying him aboard and there would be a general mйlйe, the Spartan's forty-two-pound carronades coming into play, with the ship being hurt and a great many people wounded.

  Looking very keenly at the cat's paw travelling over the smooth surface and bearing the Spartan with it, Jack leaned over the top-rim and called down his orders. The Surprise turned gently to starboard, glided across towards the Spartan, to within random shot, picked up the cat's paw as it left her and went about, staying with a smooth perfection. For ten or fifteen minutes the Surprise ran fast enough to make the water ripple along her side, leaving the Spartan with all her sails limp, barely capable of steering.

  By the time the breeze left the frigate too the balance had been restored. This was reported to the men below, and Faster Doudle, an old and knowing hand, observed that now they could settle down to a luffing-match in peace: the skipper need fear no one in a luffing-match, and as for sailing on a bowline, the barky had no equal -she would eat the wind out of anything afloat by the end of the day.

  It was a luffing-match, certainly, with each ship trimming its sails with infinite attention and sailing wonderfully close to what wind there was, with bowlines twanging taught; but it was also much more, with each ship moving from her windward line, sometimes perilously far, in search of one of the vagrant breezes that passed across the sea, often under the fat cushions of cloud. And then there were the moves intended to deceive, such as paying off to gather impetus, putting the helm a-lee, with hands at their stations for going about, and even letting the headsails shiver as though the ship were on the very point of tacking, but then flatting in the jib and foretopmast staysail, falling off and carrying on as before - the intention being that the other ship, carrying out the same manoeuvre, should either hang in stays on seeing her error and so lose time, or go about briskly and lose still more time getting back on to the original tack.

  By the late afternoon - a hot, damp, oppressive afternoon - each captain had a distinct notion of his opponent's capabilities. It was clear to Jack that the other fellow was a thorough seaman, cunning, devious, and up to every kind of duplicity, and that his ship, at least in light airs, was almost a match for the Surprise. Almost, but not quite, for when the sun began to sink towards the horizon, swallowing even the lightest airs so that the sea was glass from rim to rim, the Surprise had gained perhaps a quarter of a mile of windward distance and Jack felt reasonably confident that if the breeze revived with the setting of the sun, which was probable, he could increase this lead by the amount required to cover the mile or so separating them (for they had been sailing on parallel tacks until the wind fell quite away), place the Spartan directly under his lee, and so call upon her to surrender. But for this the breeze had to revive, and although the Surprise's people, starting with her Captain, whistled and scratched backstays, never a breath did they raise. Nothing whatsoever broke the surface of the sea, not the heave of a distant whale, nor a flight of flying-fish (though half a dozen had been picked up on the gangway yesterday evening), nor the slightest ripple of a moving air; and the ships lay there motionless, both with their heads to the north, the Surprise looking at the Spartan's larboard quarter.

  'You might ask the Doctor and Mr Martin whether they would like to see a perfect clock-calm,' said Jack to his coxswain, who was in the maintop with him. 'Perhaps their whistling might do something to change it.'

  When Bonden came back he found some difficulty in delivering his message. Both gents, it seemed, were profiting by this splendid freedom from motion to spread their important collections of Brazilian and Polynesian coleoptera out in the gunroom. Bonden had unfortunately trodden upon some and swept others to the ground as he recoiled; the gents had answered rather testy, even the chaplain: they would whistle if so required, and would even scratch a backstay like idolatrous heathens if the implement were pointed out, but unless the Captain absolutely desired it they begged to be excused - they had far rather not leave their beetles now.

  'Well,' began Jack, smiling, 'it was only a…' He broke off and clapped his telescope to his eye. 'They arc hooking yards and stays to lower boats,' he said, and a few moments later the Spartan's yawl splashed down, picked up a line from the bows and towed the ship's head round until she was broadside on to the Surprise. After a careful pause she fired one of her heavy carronades: Jack saw the captain point the gun, at full elevation, and pull the lanyard. The ball grazed the smooth surface and came skipping over the sea towards the Surprise in great leaps; it kept a wonderfully true line, but the range was too great and the ball sank at the tenth rebound, a little after the sound of its firing had reached the ship. It was clear that the privateer's captain was still convinced of the frigate's innocence, and that he meant to finish things out of hand, in case the coming breeze should enable her to work still farther to windward. He meant first to intimidate her with this heavy ball and then to overcome her by towing his ship within killing range and boarding with his boats -the others were ready for lowering.

  'All hands,' called Jack in a strong but not unexpected voice, and the seamen below rushed up from their odious leisure. This was followed by a quick succession of orders, and Martin said to Stephen, 'How they do run about, to be sure. What are those little groups beyond the teapot?'

  'They are duplicates for Sir Joseph Blain.'

  'You have mentioned Sir Joseph before, but I do not believe you have ever told me who he is,' said Martin, looking a little jealously at a Dynastes imperator of which he had only two examples.

  'His daily bread is Whitehall,' said Stephen, 'but his delight is entomology, and he has a fine cabinet of rarities. He was one of the vice-presidents of the Entomological Association last year: I will introduce you when next we are in town. I trust I shall see him quite soon after landing. Amen, amen, amen,' he said privately with some warmth, for that vile brass box and its monstrous uneasy wealth preyed upon his waking and his sleeping mind. 'Casks over the side,' called Jack. 'Cast off the side-cloths. Mr Mowett, when is that boat going to be hoisted out?'

  'Directly sir, directly,' cried Mowett from the gangway. But for once the ship's efficiency failed her. The pin of a block had broken; the tackle was hopelessly jammed, and in spite of the bosun's furious efforts the boat hung dismally from a single ring until the second cutter was bundled unceremoniously over the quarter. In the meantime, and to his intense vexation, Jack saw the farther sea, the northern sea, ruffling with a breeze coming fast from the west. It reached the Spartan and, filled with suspicion, she swung round to bring it on to her larboard quarter, veering the yawl astern as she moved away eastward, faster and faster, her people bracing round the yards with extraordinary activity.

  'Maintop, colours and the short pennant,' cried Jack. 'Master Gunner, put me a ball across her bows: and another through her mainsail if that don't stop her.'

  In the present position the starboard chaser was the only gun that could bear, but in any case Jack would not have used his broadside to begin with. Quite apart from killing people unnecessarily, he had no wish to maul the privateer and then spend days knotting and splicing. If she did not strike and lie to, however, he would have to do so; and all that was needed for the murderous discharge was swinging the ship six points, a simple matter in a sea as smooth as silk.

  A simple matter, but for Awkward Davies. The blue cutter had been launched over the side by main force and had shipped a great deal of water in the process, but the crew took no notice of the bath they sat in and pulled furiously ahead to pick up the tow-line. Davies, at stroke oar, caught it: the cutter pulled on a few strokes to take in the slack, and
then Davies stood up. His dark, fierce, brutal face was set, a line of white showed between his lips and his eyes were ablaze; taking no notice of Howard's

  squeaking orders he set his foot on the gunwale and gave an enormous heave. The boat instantly tilted, filled and sank.

  Few of the cutter's crew could swim and the situation was complicated by other people, also unable to swim, plunging in after them. By the time they had all been brought aboard, some of them pretty far gone, and by the time the ship had at last been swung round, the Spartan was a great way off. She had seen the horrid accuracy of the chaser, she had seen the long row of unmasked guns and the sudden swarm of men about her decks; she did not mean to wait for any further proof and she was already rigging out her weather studdingsail booms.

  'Fire high,' said Jack, dripping on to his quarterdeck he had fished out the wretched Davies, as well as little Howard, for the third or even fourth time in their long acquaintance - 'Fire high, and let the smoke clear between each shot.'

  No. The broadside speckled the sea in the Spartan's wake, short and poorly grouped.

  'House your guns,' he said, and they did so, looking at him nervously. But this was no time for recrimination with the Spartan already making better than five knots. a cable's length farther away every minute - and the breeze, the true, the steady breeze this time, spreading south to reach the Surprise. He studied the course of the wind with the keenest attention, unaware of the towel, the dry shirt and coat that Killick held out, mute for once, and he called 'Man the fore clew-garnets.'

  His mind was wholly concerned with making up these lost miles, for not only had the Spartan gained this flying start, but all the Surprise's former gain was now so much handicap. The first high gusts reached the frigate's royals and skysails: she swung round: she gathered steerage-way, and as the sun went down, turning her nascent wake blood-red, he began to make sail. Hitherto she had been beating up, with an array of sharply-braced square sails and staysails reaching almost to the sky; now she was -to have the breeze on her quarter, or very near, and he set studdingsails aloft and alow, with a ringtail to the driver, bonnets, of course,, and save-ails under the studdingsails and even the driver-boom, brought the foretack to the cathead with a passaree, cast off the maintack and hauled the weather-clew of the maincourse to the yard.