During the night the wind, which had been backing and strengthening all the afternoon, settled in the north-west and began to blow quite hard, so that after quarters Jack struck topgallantmasts down on deck. A little before the moon came up he was thinking of taking a second reef in his topsails, not so much because of the strength of the wind as because it was blowing across the swell and working up a cross-sea that made even the Surprise complain. It would have been labour lost, however: even before the moon was clear of the horizon the forecastle lookout bawled 'Sail ho! Sail on the larboard bow. Two points on the larboard bow,' and there she lay, the Edinburgh's French privateer. Jack instantly shook out his first reef and with equal promptness the privateer bore up for the shelter of Taranto and its powerful guns. But the Dryad was to windward of her, and in answer to the Surprise's blue lights she spread all the canvas she possessed and cut the Frenchman off from the land. She carried on in this heroic way for some considerable while, the two of them coursing the nimble privateer like a couple of greyhounds; and although eventually she carried away her jibboom and her maintopmast, all going by the board in one spectacular sweep, by this time the Frenchman could no longer turn. He was directly to leeward of the Surprise, not much above two miles away, heading south for the distant Barbary coast as hard as ever he could pelt.
Both sides now settled down to a perfectly straightforward chase, each captain using every last turn of seamanship, every subtle change of trim and helm, to run the faster. The privateer had the slight advantage of being able to choose his point of sailing, which was with the wind three points abaft the beam, whereas the Surprise preferred it on her quarter; but the frigate had a crew that could flash sails in and out slightly quicker; and so they tore across the bright moonlit sea at twelve and even thirteen knots, flinging the white water wide, spray flying aft and all hands intensely alive. The privateer started her water over the side; then came her boats from the beams, splash after splash; her bower anchors; and at last her guns. And with the wind easing slightly she began to draw away, gaining a quarter of a mile between two in the morning and three. The Surprise checked the gain by pumping out twenty tons of water and lining all available hands along the weather rail to make the ship a trifle stiffer; and then the wind strengthened again, so that the chase could no longer keep her studdingsails abroad—they parted company before she had time to take them in—whereas the frigate could; and the privateer's lead dwindled, dwindled. In the first light of dawn the Surprise was within musket-shot, yet the Frenchman kept racing on, hoping against all probability that the frigate might lose a spar. There was a general feeling in the Surprise that he was coming it a trifle high; that this was mere obstinacy and showing away; and that he should be brought up with a round turn, or the galley fires could never be lit and breakfast would be late. Jack caught many a meaning look, many a raised eyebrow and questioning head cocked at the bowchasers, which had been cleared away long ago and whose priming Mr Borrell now ostentatiously renewed. And in reply to some remark Mowett said to him, 'Sir, I am concerned about the decks. This is the day for a complete grinding with bears fore and aft; and if that fellow . . .' Solid water hurtling aft head-high cut him short, but Jack knew very well what he would have said: shading his eyes from the spray and holding firmly to an iron-taut backstay as the frigate bucked the rise, he stared over the torn water at the flying privateer, a fine sight with every possible stitch of urgent canvas set and the foam so thick around her that her hull was in a haze. 'Very well,' he said, 'we will give her a gun.' And raising his voice, 'Mr Borrell, a wide ball to let her know we are in earnest, if you please. Wide, but not too wide.'
'Wide but not too wide it is, sir,' replied the gunner; and after a calculating pause, filled with pleasurable expectation, Long Tom Turk went off with his usual gruff decided bark. A hole appeared in each of the chase's topsails, well out on the starboard side; the foretopsail, already stretched to the very edge of breaking-point, instantly split; the privateer shot up into the wind and struck her colours. The Surprise's cook and his mates hurried to the galley, muttering.
This solitary gun was all that Stephen knew of the chase, and even that, since the ship had not beat to quarters, he put down to some nautical whim, conceivably a salute, and went back to sleep again; so that when at last he came on deck ill-tempered from having overslept—none of the usual holystones to wake him, no shrieks, no yells, no rhythmic wheeze of pumps—he was utterly amazed to find the frigate lying-to with another ship under the lee and boats plying between them. He replied to no good mornings but stood there with narrowed eyes, and after a while he cried 'That is not the Dryad. It has three masts.'
'There is no concealing anything from the Doctor,' said Jack, and turning directly to him he went on, 'Give you joy of our prize: we took her in the night.'
'Breakfast is disgracefully late,' said Stephen.
'Come and drink a cup with me,' said Jack, 'and I will tell you about the chase.'
This he did, and at somewhat tedious length; but together with the coffee civility flowed back into Stephen, who listened with every appearance of attention. Yet when Jack said 'I have rarely seen such a sailer, going large: she will certainly be bought into the service. Rowan is to carry her in as soon as we have bent a new foretopsail,' he came to life entirely and asked 'Is there any likelihood of his reaching Malta before us?'
'Oh no,' said Jack. 'None at all, unless we happen to meet an enemy, or chase another possible prize.'
Stephen hesitated, and then in a low voice he said 'It is of great importance that the news of Fielding's escape should not be known in Valletta before I am there.'
'I see,' said Jack rather coldly. 'Well, I can make sure of that.'
'What about the Dryad?'
'I really do not think you need be afraid of her. She lost her maintopmast and jibboom, and with the wind as it is I doubt she can have made much headway. And then again tonight's run was not altogether out of our road by any means: just south-east instead of south-south-west. We are not likely to see her until we have been in port a couple of days at least.'
Stephen looked upon his friend as infallible where ships and the sea were concerned, and although the Surprise met with contrary winds, his mind was at ease until they ran in the Grand Harbour late on a dark, oppressive, thundery Sunday afternoon, a harbour unusually poor in men-of-war. With real concern he noticed the absence of the Commander-in-Chief's flagship: and two minutes later, with a shock that cut his breath off short, he saw the Dryad lying there at her moorings. She was surrounded with bumboats and dghaisas, and as he watched one of her cutters, filled with liberty-men in shore-going rig, shoved off from the side. The Dryads cheered to see the prize brought in—the prize in which they would share—and the Surprises cheered in reply; and as the Surprise wafted by, heading for Thompson's Jetty, where she would discharge her prisoners, a good deal of wit about the sloop's present appearance and the frigate's slow return flew to and fro. Stephen looked anxiously round for Jack, but the signal for the captain of Surprise had been thrown out within minutes of her making her number and he was below shifting his clothes. 'Mr Mowett,' he said through the amiable din, 'pray call out and ask how long they have been here.'
Since Friday night. That gave the whole of Saturday and most of Sunday for the officers at least to go ashore. Without the least apology Stephen hurried into the sleeping-cabin where Jack was pulling on his best white breeches and said 'Listen. I must go into Valletta at once. Will you take me?'
Jack looked at him hard and said 'You know the rules of the service: no liberty until the captain has reported. Is this an exception you can properly ask for?'
'It is, upon my honour.'
'Very well, then. But I must tell you that with such a signal it is very likely we shall be sent off as soon as we have completed our water.'
'Certainly,' said Stephen in an absent voice and he ran down into his cabin for a pistol and to his medicine-chest for a short, heavy surgical knife.
Nix Mangiare steps in the gathering dusk, and Stephen leapt out of the barge. He hurried as fast as he could through the slowly-moving crowd to the palace, to Wray's quarters in the palace. And here the news that Wray was in Sicily shattered all his plans and notions—destroyed them entirely, so that for the moment he could hardly tell what to do. This was an exceedingly dangerous, delicate situation, and there was no knowing whom he could trust. Wray's words about his suspicions kept recurring: that navium duces might refer to anyone in high command. He was making his way against the tide of humanity setting along the Strade Reale towards Floriana when Babbington, Pullings and Martin, all somewhat elevated, barred his way under a golden street-lamp, and told him that rain was on its way—squalls, storms—and that he should stay with them—they would go to Bonelli's and make a night of it, singing till dawn. His cold, reptilian glare shocked them; their jocularity died away; they let him go.
As he turned into her street the long-awaited lightning ripped the sky, instantly followed by a most enormous thunder-clap as though the firmament itself had split and a few moments later by a storm of great hailstones that leapt waist-high. Together with a crowd of other people he took shelter under her outer door: he was almost certain that the watch would not be on, but even so he was glad of the mad running, the jostling, and the darkness, which would have made even the closest watch quite useless. A downpour of rain succeeded the hail, melting the deep white layer and rushing down the gutters in a continual roar. It stopped suddenly, and after a while people moved off, stepping high and gingerly over the puddles; but low clouds were still passing over the moon, lightning still flickered over Senglea, and there was surely more to come.
Stephen walked along the passage. For some reason he was certain that Laura Fielding was not there, and indeed when he came to the door it was shut; nor did his knock set off a bellowing and snorting from within. It was a door with a self-closing lock and Laura had shut herself out so often that she kept a spare key hidden in the gap between two stones: Stephen felt along the wall for it and let himself in.
The court was filled with the smell of thunder-rain, wet earth, and hail-bruised lemon-leaves; and beyond the arches he could hear water still pouring into the cistern. Against the wall on the right hand the paving had been taken up and a passing gleam of moonlight showed him a raised mound, presumably a new flower-bed, though rather high: there were flowers on it, now beaten down by the storm. Otherwise everything was as it had been. High up inside the porch the small lamp still burned before Saint Elmo's niche, untouched by the hail or rain; the house door, as usual, was unlocked; and in Laura's bedroom another lamp, blue this time, glowed between Charles Fielding's portrait and Our Lady of Consolation. The whole place was neat and trim and it felt thoroughly inhabited, as though she had left it only an hour ago: there was a vase of frail rock-roses by the lamp, and not a petal had fallen yet. He sat down with a feeling of relief so great that for a while the release of tension left him quite weak.
He did not strike a light, partly because Laura's tinder-box was notoriously inefficient, and partly because now that his eyes were accustomed to the dim blue glow he could see reasonably well. From where he sat he had no difficulty in making out the portrait, and for a while he considered that formidable, unhappy, passionate man. 'Laura is the only one who can deal with him,' he reflected, as a whole series of flashes made Fielding seem to leap from his frame, to the accompaniment of long, tremendous thunder like the whole Mediterranean fleet saluting. The rain began again and he stood at the sitting-room window, watching it in the intermittent play of lighting: the new mound was disintegating under the downpour, with earth and battered flowers drifting towards the door. 'It is very like a grave,' he observed, turning and sitting down at Laura's piano. His hands wandered over the keyboard, playing of themselves. Working out the measures to be taken was useless until he saw Laura and learnt how things stood; nevertheless his mind raced through the various possibilities again and again until, during a pause in the rain, he heard the Franciscans' little cracked bell somewhere in the blind tangle of roofs beyond the court ringing for complines.
Mechanically at first and then with real intention he recited the prayer for protection during the darkness of the night; then he began to play a rough version of the first psalm in the Dorian mode. But he did not do it well and in any case the piano was not the instrument for plainchant. He fell silent and sat there a great while, his body quite relaxed. The rain was falling still, sometimes hard, sometimes merely steady, yet by now the cistern was brim-full and it no longer made a noise. The only sound that reached the silent, lonely court was the falling rain; and during a particularly gentle spell an odd metallic grating at the outer door caught his ear: looking from the window he saw light shining under the lintel. The sound again, three times repeated, quite soft, but an uncommon sound and one that he had heard before: someone was picking the lock. Not forcing the door with a bar, but picking the lock.
He waited until it opened—opened carefully, slowly, with none of its usual creak—and before they dowsed their dark lantern he saw two men, one tall, one short. They paused for a moment before running on tiptoe through the rain and across the flooded court, and Stephen moved silently back through the house to the broad window-seat in Laura's bedroom. Undrawn curtains hung on either side; they covered no great area, but in his experience people rarely suspected such a hiding-place.
After a soundless approach they strode into the bedroom, flashing their lights about. 'She is not back yet,' said one in French, with his beam on the unruffled counterpane.'
'Go and look in the kitchen,' said the other man.
'No. She is not back yet,' said the first man, returning. 'Though the party should have been over hours ago.'
'The rain is keeping her.'
'Shall we wait?'
The shorter man, who was sitting on the sofa, took the hood completely off his lantern, set it on the low brass table and looked at his watch: he said 'We cannot afford to miss Andreotti. If she is not back by the time he reaches St James's we shall have to send a couple of reliable men. At about three or four in the morning, when she is bound to be here. She cannot stay at the Commendatore's all night, for heaven's sake.'
With the stronger light Stephen recognized Lesueur from Graham's and Laura's description: a hard man. Then with a most uncommon shock he recognized Lesueur's companion: Boulay, a civilian fairly high in Sir Hildebrand's administrative staff. He abandoned the idea of making sure of Lesueur with his pistol and taking his knife to the other: Boulay was far too valuable to be dispatched out of hand. Unless things turned ugly, he must be preserved.
'Beppo and the Arab?' suggested Boulay.
'No, not Beppo,' said Lesueur impatiently. 'He takes far too much pleasure in it altogether. As I told you, I want it done quick. Clean, no fuss.'
'There is Paolo: very serious and conscientious, and as strong as a bull. He was a butcher's man.'
Lesueur did not reply for some time, and it was clear to Stephen that he hated the whole thing. 'The ideal,' he said at last, 'would have been to find her asleep.' Then for a long interval all three sat still, listening to the rain.
A desultory conversation between Boulay and Lesueur did spring up in time, but Stephen learnt far less from it than he had hoped. A certain Luigi was embezzling much of the money sent to Palermo, and various plans were suggested for confounding him; neither spoke with much concern or conviction however and it was clear that nine parts of their attention was fixed on the outer door, waiting for it to open. Yet Stephen did gather that Boulay was a Channel Islander, with relatives at Fécamp; that Lesueur suffered from piles; and that there were two other French organizations represented in Malta, the one cooperative, the other comparatively hostile, neither of much importance. It also became evident that both men had come directly from Città Vecchia in the downpour, which accounted for their having no suspicion of the frigate's return, no notion that he could possibly be present in Valletta.
Valletta, at this juncture, was in the curious position of having a port-admiral's office but no port-admiral. The senior naval officer, to whom Jack Aubrey reported, was an elderly post-captain by the name of Fellowes, a prim, starchy officer who had served much of his time ashore. They hardly knew one another and their meeting was formal. 'It is to be regretted that Surprise did not come in two days earlier,' said Fellowes. 'The Commander-in-Chief—with a reverent inclination of his head—'delayed his departure until the evening in the hope of seeing her. However, I am charged to give you these orders, to answer any questions that may arise from them to the best of my ability, and to add certain verbal instructions. Perhaps you had better read them straight away.'
Treason's Harbour Page 30
