Master and Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

It was by the light of these juniper fires that Jack ran into Captain Keats of the Superb, with two of his lieutenants and a civilian. After the first surprise, greetings, introductions, Captain Keats asked him to take supper aboard—they were going back now—only a scrap-meal, of course, but some genuine Hampshire cabbage brought straight from Captain Keats' own garden by the Astraea.

  'It is very kind of you indeed, sir; most grateful, but I believe I must beg to be excused. I had the misfortune to lose the Sophie, and I dare say you will be sitting on me presently, together with most of the other post-captains.'

  'Oh,' said Captain Keats, suddenly embarrassed.

  'Captain Aubrey is quite right,' said the civilian in a sententious voice; and at that moment an urgent messenger called Captain Keats to the Admiral.

  'Who was that ill-looking son of a bitch in the black coat?' asked Jack, as another friend, Heneage Dundas of the Calpe, came down the steps.

  'Coke? Why, he's the new judge-advocate,' said Dundas, with a queer look. Or was it a queer look? The trick of the flames could give anyone a queer look. The words of the tenth Article of War came quite unbidden into his mind: If any person in the fleet shall cowardly yield or cry for quarter, being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court-martial, shall suffer death.

  'Come and split a bottle of port with me at the Blue Posts, Heneage,' said Jack, drawing his hand across his face.

  'Jack,' said Dundas, 'there is nothing I should like better, upon my oath; but I have promised Brenton to give him a hand. I am on my way this minute—there is the rest of my party staying for me.' He hurried off into the brighter light along the mole, and Jack drifted away: dark steep alleys, low brothels, smells, squalid drinking-shops.

  The next day, under the lee of the Charles V wall, with his telescope resting on a stone, and with a certain sense of spying or eavesdropping, he watched the Caesar (no longer the flagship) being eased alongside the sheer-hulk to receive her new lower mainmast, a hundred feet long and more than a yard across. She got it in so quickly that the top was over before noon, and neither it nor the deck could be seen for the number of men working on the rigging.

  The day after that, still from his melancholy height, full of guilt at his idleness and the intense, ordered busyness below, particularly about the Caesar, he saw the San Antonio, a French seventy-four that had been delayed, come in from Cadiz and anchor among her friends at Algeciras.

  The next day there was great activity on the far side of the bay—boats plying to and fro among the twelve ships of the combined fleet, new sails bending, supplies coming aboard, hoist after hoist of signals aboard the flagships; and all this activity was reproduced in Gibraltar, with even greater zeal. There was no hope for the Pompée, but the Audacious was almost entirely ready, while the Venerable, the Spencer and, of course, the Superb, were in fighting trim, and the Caesar was so near the final stages of her refitting that it was just possible she might be fit for sea in twenty-four hours.

  During the night a hint of a Levanter began to breathe from the east: this was the wind the Spaniards were praying for, the wind that would carry them straight out of the Gut, once they had weathered Cabrita Point, and waft them up to Cadiz. At noon the first of their three-deckers loosed her foretopsail and began to move out of the crowded road; then the others followed her. They were weighing and coming out at intervals of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to their rendezvous off Cabrita Point. The Caesar was still tied up alongside the mole, taking in her powder and shot, with officers, men, civilians and garrison soldiers working with silent concentrated earnestness.

  At length the whole of the combined fleet was under way: even their jury-rigged capture, the Hannibal, towed by the French frigate Indienne, was creeping out to the point. And now the shrill squealing fife and fiddle broke out aboard the Caesar as her people manned the capstan bars and began to warp her out of the mole, taut, trim and ready for war. A thundering cheer ran all along the crowded shore, from the batteries, walls and hillside black with spectators; and when it died away there was the garrison band playing Come cheer up my lads, 'tis to glory we steer as loud as ever they could go, while the Caesar's marines answered with Britons strike home. Through the cacophony the fife could still be heard: it was most poignantly moving.

  As the Caesar passed under the stern of the Audacious she hoisted Sir James's flag once more and immediately afterwards heaved out the signal weigh and prepare for battle. The execution of this was perhaps the most beautiful naval manoeuvre Jack had ever seen: they had all been waiting for the signal, they were all waiting and ready with their cables up and down; and in an unbelievably short space of time the anchors were catted and the masts and yards broke out in tall white pyramids of sail as the squadron, five ships of the line, two frigates, a sloop and a brig, moved out of the lee of the Rock and formed in line ahead on the larboard tack.

  Jack pushed his way out of the tight-packed crowd on the mile-head, and he was half-way to the hospital, meaning to persuade Stephen to mount the Rock with him, when he saw his friend running swiftly through the deserted streets.

  'Has she got out of the mole?' cried Stephen, at a considerable distance. 'Has the battle begun?' Reassured, he said, 'I would not have missed it for a hundred pounds: that damned fellow in ,Ward B and his untimely fancies—a fine time to cut one's throat, good lack a-day.'

  'There's no hurry—no one will touch a gun for hours,' said Jack. 'But I am sorry you did not see the Caesar warping out: it was a glorious sight. Come up the hill with me, and you will have a perfect view of both squadrons. Do come. I will call in at the house and pick up a couple of telescopes; and a cloak—it grows cold at night.'

  'Very well,' said Stephen, after a moment's thought. 'I can leave a note. And we will fill our pockets with ham: then we shall have none of your wry looks and short answers.'

  'There they lay,' said Jack, pausing for breath again. 'Still on the larboard tack.'

  'I see them perfectly well,' said Stephen, a hundred yards ahead and climbing fast. 'Pray do not stop so often. Come on.'

  'Oh Lord, oh Lord,' said Jack at last, sinking under his familiar rock. 'How quick you go. Well, there they are.'

  'Aye, aye, there they are: a noble spectacle, indeed. But why are they standing over towards Africa? And why only courses and topsails, with this light breeze? That one is even backing her maintopsail.'

  'She's the Superb; she does so to keep her station and not over-run the Admiral, for she is a superb sailer, you know, the best in the fleet. Did you hear that?'

  'Yes.'

  'It was rather clever, I thought—witty.'

  'Why do they not make sail and bear up?'

  'Oh, there is no question of a head-on encounter—probably no action at all by daylight. It would be downright madness to attack their line of battle at this time. The Admiral wants the enemy to get out of the bay and into the Gut, so there will be no doubling back and so that he will have sea-room to make a dash at them: once they get well into the offing I dare say he will try to cut off their rear if this wind holds; and it looks like a true three-day Levanter. Look, there the Hannibal cannot weather the point. Do you see? She will be on shore directly. The frigate is making sad work of it. They are towing her head round. Handsomely does it—there we are—she fills—set the jib, man—just so. She is going back.'

  They sat watching in silence, and all around them they could hear other groups, scattered all over the surface of the Rock—remarks about the strengthening of the wind, the probable strategy to be observed, the exact broadside weight of metal on either side, the high standard of French gunnery, the currents to be met with off Cape Trafalgar.

  With a good deal of backing and filling, the combined fleet, now nine ships of the line and three frigates, had formed their line of battle, with the two great Spanish first-rates in the rear, and now they bore away due westwards before the freshening breeze.

  A little before this the British squadron had worn together by signal, and now they were
on the starboard tack, under easy sail. Jack's telescope was firmly on the flagship, and as soon as he saw the hoist running up he murmured, 'Here we go.'

  The signal appeared: at once the press of canvas almost doubled, and within a few minutes the squadron was racing away after the French and the Spaniards, dwindling in his view—growing smaller every moment as he watched.

  'Oh God, how I wish I were with them,' said Jack, with a groan of something like despair. And some ten minutes later, 'Look, there's Superb going ahead—the Admiral must have hailed her.' The Superb's topgallant studdingsails appeared as though by magic, port and starboard. 'How she flies,' said Jack, lowering his glass and wiping it: but the dimness was neither his tears nor any dirt on the glass—it was the fading of the day. Down below it had already gone; a tawny late evening filled the town, and lights were breaking out all over it. Presently lanterns could be seen creeping up the Rock to the high points from which perhaps the battle might be seen; and over the water Algeciras began to twinkle, a low-lying curve of lights.

  'What do you say to some of that ham?' said Jack.

  Stephen said he thought ham might prove a valuable preservative against the falling damps; and when they had been eating for some time in the darkness, with their pocket-handkerchiefs spread upon their knees, he suddenly observed, 'They tell me I am to be tried for the loss of the Sophie.'

  Jack had not thought of the court-martial since early that morning, when it became certain that the combined fleet was coming out: now it came back to him with an extraordinarily unpleasant shock, quite closing his stomach. However, he only replied, 'Who told you that? The physical gentlemen at the hospital, I suppose?'

  'Yes.'

  'Theoretically they are right, of course. The thing is officially called the trial of the captain, officers and ship's company; and they formally ask the officers if they have any complaints to make against the captain, and the captain whether he has any to make against the officers; but obviously in this it is only my conduct that is in question. You have nothing to worry about, I do assure you, upon my word and honour. Nothing at all.'

  'Oh, I shall plead guilty at once,' said Stephen. 'And I shall add that I was sitting in the powder-magazine with a naked light at the time, imagining the death of the King, wasting my medical stores, smoking tobacco and making a fraudulent return of the portable soup. What solemn nonsense it is'—laughing heartily—'I am surprised so sensible a man as you should attribute any importance to the matter.'

  'Oh, I do not mind it,' cried Jack. 'How you lie,' said Stephen affectionately, but within his own bosom. After a longish pause Jack said, 'You do not rate post-captains and admirals very high among intelligent beings, I believe? I have heard you say some tolerably severe things about admirals, and great men in general.'

  'Why, to be sure, something sad seems to happen to your great men and your admirals, with age, pretty often: even to your post-captains. A kind of atrophy, a withering-away of the head and the heart. I conceive it may arise from . . .'

  'Well,' said Jack, laying his hand upon his friend's dimly-seen shoulder in the starlight, 'how would you like to place your life, your profession and your good name between the hands of a parcel of senior officers?'

  'Oh,' cried Stephen. But what he had to say was never heard, for away on the horizon towards Tangiers there was a flash flash-flash, not unlike the repeated dart of lightning. They leapt to their feet and cupped their ears to the wind to catch the distant roar; but the wind was too strong and presently they sat down again, fixing the western sea with their telescopes. They could distinctly make out two sources, between twenty and twenty-five miles away, scarcely any distance apart—not above a degree: then three: then a fourth and fifth, and then a growing redness that did not move.

  'There is a ship on fire,' said Jack in horror, his heart pumping so hard that he could scarcely keep the steady deep-red glow in his object-glass. 'I hope to God it is not one of ours. I hope to God they drown the magazines.'

  An enormous flash lit the sky, dazzled them, put out the stars; and nearly two minutes later the vast solemn long rumbling boom of explosion reached them, prolonged by its own echo off the African shore.

  'What was it?' asked Stephen at last.

  'The ship blew up,' said Jack: his mind was filled with the Battle of the Nile and the long moment when L'Orient exploded, all brought back to him with extraordinary vividness—a hundred details he thought forgotten, some very hideous. And he was still among those memories when a second explosion shattered the darkness, perhaps even greater than the first.

  After this, nothing. Not the remotest light, not a gun-flash. The wind increased steadily, and the rising moon put out the smaller stars. After a while some of the lanterns began to go down; others remained, and some even climbed higher still; Jack and Stephen stayed where they were. Dawn found them under their rock, with Jack steadily sweeping the Gut—calm now, and deserted—and Stephen Maturin fast asleep, smiling.

  Not a word, not a sign: a silent sea, a silent sky and the wind grown treacherous again—all round the compass. At half-past seven Jack saw Stephen back to the hospital, revived himself with coffee and climbed again.

  In his journeys up and down he came to know every wind in the path, and the rock against which he leaned was as familiar as an old coat. It was when he was going up after tea on Thursday, with his supper in a sailcloth bag, that he saw Daiziel, Boughton of the Hannibal and Marshall bounding down the steep slope so fast that they could not stop: they called out 'Calpe's coming in, sir,' and blundered on, with the little dog running round and round them, very nearly bringing them down, and barking with delight.

  Heneage Dundas of the fast-sailing sloop Calpe was an amiable young man, much caressed by those who knew him for his shining parts and particularly for his skill in the mathematics; but never before had he been the best-loved man in Gibraltar. Jack broke through the crowd surrounding him with brutal force and an unscrupulous use of his weight and his elbows: five minutes later he broke out again and ran like a boy through the streets of the town.

  'Stephen,' he cried, bursting open the door, his shining face far larger and higher than usual. 'Victory! Come out at once and drink to a victory! Give you joy of a famous victory, old cock,' he cried, shaking him terribly by the hand. 'Such a magnificent fight.'

  'Why, what happened?' asked Stephen, slowly wiping his scalpel-and covering up his Moorish hyena.

  'Come on, and I will tell you as we drink,' said Jack, leading him into the street full of people, all talking eagerly, laughing, shaking hands and beating one another on the back: down by the New Mole there was the sound of cheering. 'Come on. I have a thirst like Achilles, no, Andromache. It is Keats has the glory of the day—Keats has borne the bell away. Ha, ha, ha! That was a famous line, was it not? In here. Pedro! Bear a hand there! Pedro, champagne. Here's to the victory! Here's to Keats and the Superb! Here's to Admiral Saumarez! Pedro, another bottle. Here's to the victory again! Three times three! Huzza!'

  'You would oblige me extremely by just giving the news' said Stephen. 'With all the details.'

  'I don't know all the details,' said Jack, 'but this is the gist of it. That noble fellow Keats—you remember how we saw him shoot ahead?—came up with their rear, the two Spanish first-rates, just before midnight. He chose his moment, clapped his helm a lee and dashed between 'em firing both broadsides—a seventy-four taking on two first-rates! He shot straight on, leaving his smoke-cloud between 'em as thick as peasoup; and each, firing into it, hit the other; and so the Real Carlos and the Hermenegildo went for each other like fury in the dark. Someone, the Superb or the Hermenegildo, had knocked away the Real Carlos' foretopmast, and it was her topsail that fell over the guns and took fire. And after a while the Real Carlos fell on board the Hermenegildo and fired her too. Those were the two explosions we saw, of course. But while they were burning Keats had pushed on to engage the San Antonio, who hauled her wind and fought back like a rare plucked 'un; but she had to strike in
half an hour for, do you see, Superb was firing three broadsides to her two, and pointing 'em straight. So Keats took possession of her; and the rest of the squadron chased as hard as ever they could to the north-north-west in a gale of wind. They very nearly took the Formidable, but she just got into Cadiz; and we very nearly lost the Venerable, dismasted and aground; but they got her off and she is on her way back now, jury-rigged, with a stuns'l boom for a mizzenmast, ha, ha, ha!—There's Dalziel and Marshall going by. Ahoy! Daiziel ahoy! Marshall! Ahoy there! Come and drink a glass to the victory!'

  The flag broke out aboard the Pompée; the gun boomed; the captains assembled for the court-martial.

  It was a very grave occasion, and in spite of the brilliance of the day, the abounding cheerfulness on shore and the deep chuckling contentment aboard, each post-captain put away his gaiety and came up the side as solemn as a judge, to be greeted with all due ceremony and led into the great cabin by the first lieutenant.

  Jack was already aboard, of course; but his was not the first case to be dealt with. Waiting there in the screened-off larboard part of the dining-cabin there was a chaplain, a hunted-looking man who paced up and down, sometimes making private ejaculations and dashing his hands together. It was pitiful to see how carefully he was dressed, and how he had shaved until the blood came; for if half the general report of his conduct was true there was no hope for him at all.

  The moment the next gun sounded the master-at-arms took the chaplain away, and there was a pause, one of those great lapses of time that presently come to have no flow at all, but grow stagnant or even circular in motion. The other officers talked in low voices—they, too, were dressed with particular attention, in the exact uniform regularity that plenty of prize-money and the best Gibraltar outfitters could provide. Was it respect for the court? For the occasion? A residual sense of guilt, a placating of fate? They spoke quietly, equably, glancing at Jack from time to time.