Book 6 - The Fortune Of War

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Were they a very wicked set?'

  'Oh, I dare say they were as wicked as their means allowed, at twelve or thirteen or so, but it was not that: they were low. We looked upon them as a miserable crew of sneaking upstart lubbers, learning seamanship and gunnery out of books and pretending to set themselves on a level with us, who had learnt them at sea. Still, we were cousins, so I took him to the Blue Posts and gave him a decent dinner: I had seven guineas of prize-money in my pocket, and he had not a stiver—old Mr Broke was generous in big things, but he was precarious near with his ha'pence. And we went to the play, to see "Venice Preserved", and to a raree-show, where there was Cleopatra's asp, and some fleas that drew a coach, and for twopence more the genuine living Venus, without a stitch. I offered to treat him, but he said no, it was immoral.

  'Then he joined Bulldog, Captain Hope: he must have been fifteen or sixteen then, very old to go to sea for the first time. But he was lucky in his captain, a first-rate seaman and a friend of Nelson's; he followed him into L'Eclair, and I saw something of him in the Mediterranean. Then he followed him into Romulus, and we were shipmates for a while, when I took passage home in her. In those days I could not hold a candle to him in navigation; mine was all rule of thumb, until I came to love my conic sections quite late in life and to work out the theories for myself. His navigation did not surprise me, because he had always been good at mathematics as well as hic haec hoc; but I was amazed to find how he had come on in seamanship. We both passed for lieutenant at about the same time, but I did not see him again until St Vincent, when he was third of Southampton, and we waved as we passed, forming the line. After that we did not meet for years, though we heard about one another, of course, from common friends: he was in the Channel most of the while, and the German Ocean, made commander into that rotten old Shark, a miserable slug, only good for convoy-duty. He was posted well before I was, his father being a great friend of Billy Pitt's, but even so he could not get a ship and he was on the shore for years and years. He wrote me a very handsome letter after we took the Cacafuego, and he told me he was drilling the peasantry. He had married by that time, not very well, I am afraid.'

  'Was the lady unsuitable? So many sailors take the strangest trollops to wife. Even drabogues.'

  'No, no, she was perfectly suitable, in that sort of way: a gentlewoman, a connection, and a thumping dowry too—ten thousand, I believe. But she had the vapours, you know, a poor doer, weakly, always in need of repair; but above all she is always ill-used, always sorry for herself. I knew her as a little girl, and she was sorry for herself then, gasping and turning up her eyes. I am afraid it weighs upon him. I am sure he would have been better off with a jolly, good-natured wench without a farthing; a woman that takes herself seriously, and cannot laugh—Lord, it must weigh on him. I am sure it would weigh on me. I went down to Broke Hall soon after their first boy was born, and I wondered that he could bear it; but he did, just like one of your old Stoics; or a patient on the Monument, as they say. Still, he did get afloat as soon as ever he could after the peace, although he had inherited by then, a neat estate with some prime farming-land and the best partridge-shooting in the country: they gave him the dear old Druid, patched, wet, uncomfortable, cramped, and so weak she had to be doubled with fir, but how she could fly! I have absolutely seen her making fourteen knots with the wind on her quarter, under topgallants, three reefs out of her topsails, and studdingsails aloft and alow. But he never had a chance of distinguishing himself in her, never met a Frenchman who was his match, which was a pity, because there never was a man who longed for glory more, or who worked harder for it—even Old Jarvie praised the order Druid was kept in, although the Brokes are Tories, and always have been. Then they gave him the new Shannon, built at Brindley's yard to replace the one Leveson Gower ran aground near La Hogue. That was in the year six, and I went aboard her at the Nore. You was in Ireland at the time, I believe. He had only just commissioned her and he had not had time to work her up, but she looked promising, and I hear she is in fine trim: certainly he always had the right ideas about gunnery and discipline.

  'I had not seen him since my visit to Broke Hall, and I found him changed. Quieter, rather sad; I am sure it was his marriage. He always was a religious man and now he was more so: not one of your blue-light, psalm-singing, tract-and-cocoa captains, and there was no hint of turning the other cheek, or at least not to the King's enemies. You could tell that from his guns—he had fitted them with tangent sights already, out of his own pocket—and from the private powder and shot he had laid in by the ton; and anyhow he had a fine reputation for enterprise. No resounding single-ship actions, of course, since they had never come his way; but cutting-out expeditions and privateers by the score. But still, there was just a touch of the Puritan: no women aboard, the youngsters' grog cut on the first occasion, and no bawdy at his table.'

  'I have known you stop the little boys' grog altogether, and you dislike women aboard: yet you are not a Puritan. It is true that you talk bawdy with other captains, and that you sing lewd songs when drunk.'

  'Yes,' said Jack, leaving his songs to one side, 'but I do it for discipline and good order. Drunken youngsters or midshipmen are a nuisance, and quarrels about women can upset a whole ship's company, besides emptying their pockets so that they sell their slops and steal the ship's furniture, and ruining their health so that they cannot lay aloft or train a gun. Broke does it on moral grounds. He hates drunkenness in itself, and he hates adultery and fornication, because they, are all three of them sins not against the ship but against God. When I say women, by the way, I mean common women, the hordes that put off in boats when a ship comes in.'

  'This I have never seen.'

  Jack smiled. There was a good deal in the Navy that Stephen had never seen. 'No, I do not suppose you have, since you have only sailed with me, and I will not have it in ships I command. But surely you must have noticed the swarms of boats, the hordes of brutes, round any man-of-war in port?'

  'I had supposed they were visitors.'

  'Some of them are. The men's wives and families, or sweethearts, but most of 'em are whores, two or three hundred whores at a time, sometimes more whores than men, and they lie with the watch below, doubling up in every hammock, sharing their victuals and taking their money, until the ship goes to sea again. It is a surprising sight, all that busy copulation—for there is never a screen, as you know—and not very pleasant for the married men's real wives and children. Most captains allow it, so long as the women are searched for spirits: they say it is good for the hands. And a good many of the officers and mids take girls in too. When I was a boy, I remember the gun-room and the midshipmen's berth in the old Reso was full of 'em whenever we put in, and you were thought a miserable scrub and a holier-than-thou killjoy if you did not have your whack. It opens a youngster's eyes, I can tell you.'

  Supper came, a single dish of cod, and Maurya said, 'Why, Doctor, sir, I thought you were in your room. I was going to take your tray in there. Did the gentleman find you, so?'

  'What gentlemen was that, my dear?'

  'The foreign gentleman I told go up, I was so busy with the pots. Sure, he's sitting there yet, the creature.'

  'I will go and see,' said Stephen.

  The gentleman was not sitting there yet, but he had improved his time by going through Stephen's papers: it had been well done, barely discernible to an unsuspicious eye, except that the gentleman's professional skill did not extend to re-making a bed with the precision of a pair of nurses, and where he had searched under the mattress there was an unsightly bulge. But in any case Stephen's was a suspicious eye; it caught the unnatural neatness of the medical notes on his table and the rearrangement of his borrowed books.

  'Jack,' he said, when they had eaten up their cod, 'things are not quite as I could wish. At one time they suspected you of being concerned with intelligence; now they suspect me. I do not believe the Americans will act without proofs, and there are no proofs. But there are French
agents in America—one has just searched my room—and with them it is different. It is not impossible that the situation may turn ugly.'

  'But surely they cannot do anything to you in the United States? This is not Spain.'

  'Perhaps not: still and all, I have a suspicion they might try, and I mean to take my precautions. When Mr Herapath comes tomorrow, please to give him this note: when he has read it, take it back and put it in the fire. It tells him I feel that further meetings between him and myself would be inopportune at this moment, and it begs him to procure us a pair of pocket-pistols. Do you think he will do so, Jack?'

  'Yes,' said Jack, 'I believe so, if only I may mention the Frenchmen. He hates the French as much as I do.'

  'Just touch upon them, then; a diplomatic hint, no more.' Herapath was not Johnson, not by a very long way indeed. 'I have already desired the porter to admit no man he does not know, and I have borrowed this from Mr Choate's instrument-cabinet.' He unwrapped his handkerchief and showed a catling with a heavy handle and a short double-edged blade. 'We use these for amputations,' he observed.

  'It looks precious small,' said Jack.

  'Bless you, Jack, an inch of steel in the right place will do wonders. Man is a pitiably frail machine,' said Stephen, looking attentively into Jack's face: perhaps he had been wrong to speak—the fever seemed to be returning. 'And many a one has been killed by a lancet, no more; though not always on purpose. But you are not to take what I have said as anything but a statement of suspicion. We have to take measures even against great improbabilities; and a pair of pocket-pistols will always come in.'

  The suspicion, vivid throughout the night and morning, strengthened exceedingly as Stephen was walking through the little town to keep his rendezvous with Johnson. Coming towards him, on the other side of the busy main street, he saw Louisa Wogan: his eye was attracted to her by the men's heads turning on her passage, and he observed that two of her admirers were captured Royal Navy lieutenants, pleasantly named Abel and Keyne. She caught sight of him a moment later, gave him a queer look, difficult to interpret, though concern, fright, and enmity were there, and darted into the nearest shop, a tobacconist's.

  'Thank you, my dear,' said Stephen. He kissed his hand to her and walked on, following the sailors at some thirty yards; he noticed how gaily they twirled their canes and saluted their acquaintance.

  Carriages of one kind and another were picking up and setting down outside Franchon's hotel, or merely waiting, and from one of these, a little before he drew abreast of it, leapt Pontet-Canet, glaring about with a wild look upon his face and calling for a doctor. Seeing Stephen he ran to him, crying 'Quick, Doctor Maturin—the dame is in a fit—here in the coach—blood, blood!' He took him by the arm, urging him towards the open door. Two other men jumped out: two more came from the hotel porch. They were round him, pressing close, and all the time Pontet-Canet kept crying, 'Hurry, oh come at once. Hurry, hurry.' Quick low French muttered words, 'The other arm—club him quick—get his neck—fling him in.'

  Stephen lunged back with all his force and threw himself to the ground, roaring and bawling, 'Stop thief, stop thief. Pickpockets. Keyne and Abel, a rescue, a rescue', making an infernal noise, lashing about, grasping arms and legs. He brought one man down and bit him till he screamed—they heaved him bodily up, but by now it was too late. There was shouting all around, a crowd, Keyne and Abel plying their sticks, and without a pause he kept up his 'Stop thief. Pickpockets.' Pontet-Canet's English deserted him. His 'Him robber' carried no conviction. The crowd was turning nasty. The Frenchmen crammed themselves into the coach with extraordinary speed and it thundered off, followed by angry shouts.

  'Are you hurt, sir?' asked Abel, helping him to his feet.

  'Did they rob you, sir?' asked Keyne, dusting him.

  'All is well, I thank you,' said Stephen. 'Please to lend me a pin. Those ruffians tore my coat.'

  'I am glad I broke my stick over the fat one's head,' said Keyne.

  'How pleasant to see you,' said Johnson, when Stephen was shown in.

  Stephen was pale and trembling with anger still but his mind was sharp and clear: he would play his hand as an outraged citizen. 'Mr Johnson, sir,' he cried, 'I wish to register an official complaint of the utmost gravity. I have just been set upon in the street, in front of this hotel, in front of your hotel, sir, by a band of ruffians, Frenchmen, led by Pontet-Canet. They attempted to abduct me, to force me into a coach. I shall register the same complaint with the British agent for prisoners of war first thing tomorrow morning. I demand the protection of your country's laws and the common security of person universally afforded to captured officers. I demand that Pontet-Canet be brought to trial and his followers identified and punished; and as soon as I have seen the agent he will make the same demand at the highest official level.'

  Johnson was infinitely concerned. He begged Dr Maturin to lie on the couch, to take a little brandy, or at least a glass of water. He regretted the incident extremely, and he should certainly make the strongest representations to the Frenchman's chief.

  Still playing the part of one who has received an outraged citizen's complaint, he then spoke in general terms for some considerable time, saying nothing with the practised ease of a politician—the iniquity of such proceedings to be deplored—the dreadful consequences of war—the desirability of peace, of a just and lasting peace. Stephen watched him as he spoke, and although he could control his impatience at the meaningless flow and his anger at the blundering attack, he was not so much the master of his eyes: their pale, unwinking, somewhat reptilian examination made Johnson nervous—it put him off his stroke. He brought his discourse to a lame conclusion, stood up, took a turn or two about the room, opened the window and called out to the workmen on the balcony to make less din, and then, recovering his poise, he went on in quite a different tone. Speaking confidentially, as man to man, he asked Dr Maturin to consider the difficulty of his position; he was only a small cog in a very large machine, and if in war-time those above thought fit to give French agents a greater degree of liberty, a freer hand than he for his part thought congruent with the national sovereignty, he could do nothing more than protest. And the reply would no doubt be that it was done for the sake of reciprocity—that American agents in the territories governed by the French were tacitly allowed an equal freedom

  'On the other hand,' he said, 'I can most certainly protect my own agents of that you may be absolutely confident. So I do beg that for your sake you will allow me to enrol you as a consultant—What is it?' he cried, in answer to a knock.

  'The carriage is at the door, sir,' said a servant, 'and Mr Michael Herapath is still waiting.'

  'I cannot see him now,' said Johnson, going to his desk and taking a sheaf of galley-proofs Give him these and say I hope to see him the day after tomorrow. No: stay. I shall give them to him myself on the way out.' The door closed, and he went on, 'To enrol you as a consultant, say on Catalan affairs. The barest minimum, a slight aide-mémoire on the situation there, the historical background, would suffice—just enough to satisfy Mr Secretary's conscience. I will not press you now; you are disturbed and I dare say very angry. But I do beg you to give it the most earnest consideration, and to let me have your response on my return the day after tomorrow. Until then, I guarantee there will be no repetition of this morning's incident. And now, if I may, I will call a carriage for you. Though now I come to think of it, there is Herapath downstairs, if you prefer to go back with him: you certainly should not walk home alone, after such unpleasantness.'

  Unless Michael Herapath was a perfect monster of duplicity, he was entirely ignorant of the whole affair; and Stephen had known the young man long enough and well enough to be sure that he was no monster of any kind, except perhaps of erudition. As they walked along he talked eagerly of his father's changed attitude towards the medical school, which he believed he owed to Dr Maturin's great kindness, and of his future studies; and he talked even more eagerly of his book, showed sampl
e sheets, admired the print, gazed with loving eyes upon the title-page, and standing in the busy throng he read some passages aloud. 'Here is a version, my dear sir,' he said, 'that I flatter myself you will not wholly disapprove:

  Flower: is it a flower?

  Mist: is it a mist?

  Coming at midnight

  Leaving with the dawn.

  She is there: the sweetness of a passing springtime

  She is gone: the morning haze—no trace at all.'

  Stephen listened gravely and applauded. He said, 'That may sum up the usual relationship between the sexes. Each tends to worship a being of its own creation. Women often expect oranges to grow on apple-trees, and men look for constancy to a purely imaginary ideal: how often a woman proves to be no more than the morning mist,' and slowly he edged Herapath along, sometimes as much as a hundred yards between the poems. In a decent interval he asked after Caroline, who was very well, apart from a slight rash, and after Mrs Wogan, who was somewhat out of sorts, mumpish, and off her food; but she would soon be cured by a sight of these proofs. Speaking as one medical man to another, Herapath offered a physical explanation for this state of mind and body; and going on from this they fell to discussing the books he should read.

  'But more than any book,' said Stephen, 'I do most earnestly recommend a private corpse. Your school cadaver, tossed about in wanton play, your odd heads and parts, indifferently pickled by the porter's wife, are well enough for the coarse processes; but for the fine work, give me a good fresh private corpse, preferably a pauper, to avoid the fat, lovingly preserved in the best spirits of wine, double-refined. Here are eloquent volumes—nocturna versate manu, versate diurna—worth a whole library of mere print: there is your father on the other side of the road. I am sure he will help you to a corpse: he is a worthy man. Do you not perceive your father, Mr Herapath?'