Book 13 - The Thirteen-Gun Salute

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Not at all, not at all. I believe, Captain, that I was at sea well before you.'

  'Indeed, sir? Forgive me: I had no idea.'

  'Yes. I was born aboard my father's ship, a West-Indiaman, off Jamaica, ha, ha.'

  The rest of the evening was passed with voyages, passages to India and beyond, some extraordinarily fast, some extraordinarily slow, and with an account of Jack's friend Duval carrying the news of the battle of the Nile to Bombay by way of the desert and the Euphrates.

  Shao Yen was a tall thin man in a plain grey robe, more like an austere monk than a merchant; but he grasped the situation at once. They spoke in English, he having had much to do with the East India Company's people in Canton in his youth and having lived in Macao during the two recent English occupations as well as in Penang. Raffles left them together after a few general remarks of a friendly nature and when the proper civilities were over Stephen said, 'When I go to Pulo Prabang it may be necessary for me to purchase the good-will of certain influential men. For this purpose I have a fair amount of gold. It appears to me that the best way of proceeding would be to deposit it with you and, subject of course to the usual commissions and charges, to carry a letter of credit to your correspondent in Pulo Prabang and to draw on him.'

  Shao Yen replied, 'Certainly. But when you say a fair amount have you any approximate sum in mind?'

  'It is made up of different currencies: it would weigh about three hundredweight.'

  'Then may I observe that if either or both of my correspondents—for I have two—were to scrape the island bare they could not produce a tenth part of the amount you speak of. It is a very poor island. But in my opinion that tenth part, tactfully presented, would buy all the good-will that is to be had.'

  'In this case there is likely to be some competition.'

  'Yes,' said Shao Yen. He looked down for a few moments and then said, 'It might answer very well if I were to give you a letter of credit for what I believe my correspondent can produce and then notes of hand for various sums: my paper is good from Penang to Macao.'

  'That would answer admirably: thank you. And may I beg you to impress upon your correspondent that I should wish any large transaction to be entirely confidential? Ordinary money-changing may as well be public as not, but I should be sorry if it were thought I could be squeezed for thousands.'

  Shao Yen bowed, smiled, and said, 'I have two correspondents, both from Shantung and both discreet; but Lin Liang has the smaller house; he is less conspicuous, and perhaps I should direct your letter of credit to him.'

  Having drunk tea with Shao Yen and eaten little cakes from a multitude of trays, Stephen looked for Jack Aubrey, but found to his disappointment that he had already set off for Anjer to bring the Diane up to Batavia, so that not a moment should be lost.

  'Poor soul,' Stephen reflected. 'It will take his mind off this foolish rumour.' For his own part he was satisfied by the financial expert's words, and he spent the first part of the day with Raffles' Javanese peacock, far finer than the Indian bird, a friendly binturong, the gardens, where he was joined by Mrs Raffles in an apron and leather gloves, and the enormous hortus siccus—such a pleasant forenoon.

  Dinner was less agreeable, however. Before it Fox introduced him to three high officials who were to join the mission, almost caricatures of their kind, tall, red, thick, arrogant, with booming voices and an inexhaustible store of platitudes. Their conversation was dull almost past believing, and afterwards Fox said, 'I am sorry to have inflicted this upon you, but they are necessary properties on the present stage. We have to produce a show at least equal to what the French can offer—it appears that they have three gentlemen apart from the two traitors, who are not regularly accredited, and the servants—and these people the Governor has lent me are used to missions of this kind: they can stand there in their gold-laced uniforms for hours without suffering; they can give the appearance of listening to speeches; they never have to steal away to the privy; and at banquets they are capable of eating anything from human flesh downwards. But I admit that their company is a trial.'

  'Vous I'avez voulu, George Dandin.'

  'Yes. And I can bear it for the voyage and the time of the negotiations. I could and would bear a great deal more to succeed in this undertaking. Apart from anything else,' he added with a slight laugh, 'the Governor tells me that if I bring back a treaty and if he has the writing of the dispatch it might mean a knighthood, even a baronetcy.' For a moment Stephen did not know whether Fox was speaking seriously, but when after a reflective pause he went on to say, 'It would so please my mother,' the doubt was resolved.

  The Diane came into Batavia with a leading wind and a making tide that afternoon, and Jack sent an official message to the effect that he hoped to sail at eleven the next morning. It was Seymour who brought the message, together with a private note to Stephen begging him to urge all those concerned to exact promptitude, to give an example himself, and to suggest that the Governor might like to visit the ship. 'And I was to say, sir, he was very sorry you were not aboard as we sailed past Thwart-the-Way island, because we were surrounded by those swallows that make bird's-nest soup.'

  'I should like it of all things,' said Raffles, on hearing the suggestion. 'There is nothing, in its way, more beautiful than a man-of-war.'

  'Nor anything, alas, more rigorously dominated by time and bells. I am so glad you are coming. Your presence will oblige the others to show a leg, as we say.'

  They showed a leg, whether they liked it or not, for Raffles was as regular as a well tempered chronometer, and a procession of boats, headed by the Governor's barge, set out for the Diane at a quarter to ten. She was looking beautiful, more beautiful than any ship that had been wooding, watering and taking in stores at such furious speed could be expected to look; but then her captain and her first lieutenant were perfectly aware of the effect of yards exactly squared by the lifts and the braces, the sails furled in a body, and of the quantity of unsightly objects that could be concealed under the hammock-cloths, drawn drum-tight and with never a wrinkle. And in any case the smoke of the thirteen-gun salute would hide a number of imperfections, while the ceremony of reception diverted attention from any that might be visible through the clouds. This ceremony had been rehearsed three times since dawn and it passed off perfectly well: the barge hooked on, the white-gloved sideboys ran down with baize-covered manropes to make the ascent almost foolproof, the bosun and his mates sprung their calls, the Diane's forty marines, red as lobsters and perfect to the last button, presented arms with a fine simultaneous clash as the Governor and the envoy came aboard, welcomed by Captain Aubrey and all his officers in their best uniforms.

  The day was hot and cloudless, and since the great cabin was divided up Jack had caused an awning to be stretched over the after part of the quarterdeck; here he and his guests sat, drinking sherbet or madeira and talking or contemplating the broad harbour with its great numbers of European ships, Chinese junks, Malay proas, and innumerable boats and canoes plying to and fro; and in the meantime the mission's additional baggage and servants came aboard on the larboard side. At a quarter past ten Raffles asked if he might be shown the ship: he walked round with Jack and Fielding, making intelligent, appreciative comments, and when he was brought back to the quarterdeck he called his people, said farewell to the mission, thanked Jack heartily for his entertainment and went down into the barge, once more with the usual honours, once more with the roar of guns.

  Jack's eye followed the boat with great approval, and as soon as it was at a proper distance he said to Richardson, the officer of the watch, 'Let us get under way.'

  With the bosun piping All hands to unmoor ship, the frigate sprang to ordered life: she was fast to the chain-moorings laid down long ago for Dutch men-of-war and it took her little time to cast them off and spread her topsails to the moderate westerly breeze. She made her cautious way through the merchant shipping, some of it wonderfully stupid, and as six bells in the forenoon watch struck she c
leared the harbour.

  'Now that is the kind of visitor I really like,' said Jack, joining Stephen in the cabin. 'A man who knows just when to come and just when to go. They are wonderfully rare. We will drink a bottle of Latour to his health.' He took off his massive gold-laced coat and tossed it on to the back of a chair: it slipped off as the Diane heeled to the thrust of her topgallantsails, and Killick, appearing as though from a mouse-hole, snatched it up and carried it away muttering 'fling it about like it was old rags—best Gloucester broadcloth—brushed all over again—toil, toil, toil.'

  'You look worn, brother,' said Stephen.

  'To tell you the truth,' said Jack with a smile, 'I am rather worn. Wooding and watering at top speed is a wearing occupation, particularly when the hands are all so eager for liberty, to kick up Bob's a-dying on shore after so many months at sea. We did lose ten, not having time to comb though all the bawdy-houses or the backsides of godowns. Still, that does allow us to shift hammocks forward to make room for all these new servants—preposterous numbers of servants. And then again I believe we can look forward to less anxious sailing now. We are directly in the path of the Indiamen bound for Canton until we have to steer east a little south of the Line, and although the waters are dangerous, I have Muffitt's very careful charts as well as his directions. And Muffitt, you know, made the voyage more often than any other man in the Company's service: a better hydrographer, in my opinion, than Horsburgh or even Dalrymple.'

  Jack Aubrey, however, was reckoning without his guests. The three necessary properties, designed to give the mission greater weight or at least greater bulk, were called Johnstone, Crabbe and Loder, a judge and two members of the council, who had reached their present rank by outliving and outsitting all competitors; and when the Diane, having made her way through the close-clustered Thousand Islands and having crossed the notorious Tulang shoal with three fathoms to spare, was approaching the Banka Strait, Johnstone met Stephen on the half-deck, the one coming, the other going. Stephen had never known a judge he liked: those few he had met or seen in court had been self-important prating men, unequal to their great authority; and Johnstone was a particularly unfortunate example. After a few insipid remarks he said, 'I too am very fond of music; nobody loves a tune better than I do. But I always say enough is as good as a feast; do you not agree? And I am one of those curious people that are no good unless they have a good night's sleep. I am sure the Captain does not know how permeable the cabin walls are, permeable to sound, I mean; but I hope I may rely upon you to be good enough to drop a hint, just a very gentle diplomatic hint.'

  'As to your position that enough is as good as a feast, Judge, allow me to point out that it is contrary to the views of all good men from the earliest recorded times,' said Stephen. 'Think of the feasts in Paralipomenon, in Homer, in Virgil: they were neither prepared by fools nor eaten by them. As for the rest, it is clear that you cannot know that I am Captain Aubrey's guest, or you would never have supposed that I could give him hints on how he should behave.'

  Johnstone flushed with anger, said, 'Then I shall do it myself,' and turned away.

  He did not do so at dinner, though he was obviously nerving himself for it and although his friends kept looking at him, but the news reached Jack that evening, when the frigate was threading the strait between Banka and Sumatra, less than ten miles broad in places. The breeze was awkward, coming now from one shore, now from the other, and although the spectacle of forests on either hand, separated by a stretch of sky-blue sea, was agreeable for the passengers—Stephen, in the maintop with a telescope, was very nearly sure he had seen a Sumatran rhinoceros—the continual tacking, the continual cry of the leadsman in the chains, sometimes calling less than five fathoms, and the continual possibility of uncharted shoals made it an active and uneasy passage for the seamen. At one point Jack hurried below to check a warning in Muffitt's papers, and while he was doing so he heard Killick in the farther cabin giving Bonden a lively description of Those Old Buggers and the way they carried on about the music. Apart from calling 'Avast, there,' he took no notice, being too deeply concerned with his rocks, but it had sunk into the depths of his mind and it rose up again after quarters, when the cabins had just been reassembled and his violin-case came up from the orlop. 'Killick,' he called. 'Go and see if His Excellency is at leisure for a visit.'

  His Excellency was, and Jack went round at once. 'My dear Mr Fox,' he cried, 'I am so sorry. I had no idea we made such a din.'

  'Eh?' said Fox, looking startled. 'Oh, the music, you mean. Please do not feel the least concern. It is true I have no ear for music, no appreciation at all, but I cope with the situation perfectly well with little balls of wax: all I hear through them is a kind of general hum, which I find rather agreeable than otherwise—soporific.'

  'I cannot tell you how relieved I am. But your companions . . .'

  'I do hope they have not been making a fuss, after all your kindness in arranging their quarters and their stores. They have little sense of what is fitting: they have none of them travelled in a man-of-war, only in Company's ships, where of course they are important people. I try to keep them in order, but they do not seem capable of understanding. One of them sent for Maturin this morning . . . Has the ship stopped?'

  'Yes. We have anchored for the night. I dare not go through the strait in the darkness, not carrying Caesar, or at least Caesar's representative, and all his fortunes.'

  Jack Aubrey rarely turned a compliment, but Fox's unaffected, generous response really pleased him, the more so as it was unexpected. In fact he would not have dared go through the strait in any circumstances. It was a slow and anxious navigation, with strong, varying currents to add to the difficulty. The Old Buggers remained perfectly indifferent to all this, however: they might have been travelling in a coach on a well-traced road. They none of them ever tackled Jack directly, but they made Fielding's life quite unhappy. Fleming was reported to him for having prevented Loder from talking to the quartermaster at the con: he was told that it was extremely inconvenient to have their baggage struck down into the hold every evening, and that last time it happened Crabbe's pencil-case and a valuable fan had not been put back in the right place—it was at least half an hour before he could find them: and every evening in the strait, when the ship lay at anchor, Jack turned the hands up to sing and dance on the forecastle by way of a break after the arduous day, which was another cause for complaint. But the most usual grievance had to do with their servants, who were obliged to wait their turn at the galley and who were treated with coarse jocularity, even with obscene gestures and expressions.

  In any case Jack was far out of their reach. He and the master spent much of their time in the foretop with azimuth compass and telescope at hand and a midshipman to hold their papers flat. They saw, noted and dealt with a number of hazards, and as the frigate was crossing the shoal that made leaving the strait so dangerous if the passage were missed—as she was in fact entering the South China Sea—they saw another peculiar to these waters. From an island to windward, laid down as Kungit by Horsburgh and Fungit by Muffit, came two large Malay proas. They had outriggers, and with the wind on their beam they came up very fast: presently it could be seen that their long slim hulls were crowded with men, surprising numbers of men even for such an enterprise.

  Their intentions were perfectly obvious, piracy being a way of life in these parts; and although ships the size of the Diane were rarely attacked it had happened on occasion, sometimes with success. 'Mr Richardson,' called Jack. 'Sir?' came the answer. 'Stand by to run out the guns as brisk as can be when I give the word. The hands are to keep out of sight.'

  The proas separated, one on the frigate's larboard quarter, the other to starboard, and they approached cautiously, spilling their wind as they came. The tension mounted. The gun-teams crouched by their pieces, as motionless as cats. But no, it was not to be: the proas hesitated, decided that this was a real man-of-war, not a merchant disguised, hauled their wind and were gone:
a universal sigh along the gundeck, and the handspikes were laid aside.

  For some reason this stilled the Old Buggers' complaints for the following days, which was just as well, since just under the equator the Diane had to leave the Indiamen's course and sail into uncharted shallow seas, traversed only by proas or junks, which drew almost no water at all, whereas the frigate, with her present stores, drew fifteen feet nine inches abaft: perhaps they were dimly aware of the gravity aboard, an atmosphere in which querulous words might meet with a short answer.

  Yet even so Jack was glad to be rid of them at the end of the voyage, a voyage indeed that ended in beauty. After a night of ghosting along the parallel under close-reefed topsails, the lead going all the time, dawn showed the perfect landfall, a large, unmistakable volcanic island directly to leeward, with a fine breeze to carry them in.

  Jack kept to his reefed topsails, however. He wanted to give the Malays long warning of his arrival; he wanted the ship and the mission to have plenty of time for their preparations; he also meant to have his breakfast in comfort.

  This he accomplished, together with Stephen, Fielding and young Harper; and when it was over they returned to the crowded quarterdeck, where Fox and his companions and all the officers were gazing at Pulo Prabang, now very much nearer. They gazed in silence, and apart from the sigh of the breeze in the rigging the only sound in the ship was the measured chant of the man in the chains: 'By the deep, twelve. By the deep, twelve. And a half, twelve.' To be sure, it was an arresting sight. The island stretched wide across the field of vision, most of it dark green with forest, the truncated cone of the central volcano soaring up in a pure line beyond the level of the trees; there were other peaks, lower, less distinct and perhaps much older, in the interior, but they could only be made out by attentive inspection, whereas the craters they were approaching, the crater in the sky and the crater at sea-level, could not conceivably be missed or mistaken. The second was an almost perfect circle a mile across, and its wall rose ten and even twenty feet above the surface; here and there a palm-tree could be seen, but otherwise the ring was unbroken except in one place, the gap towards which the ship was heading. Though it is true that on the landward side it was obscured by the long slow accumulation of earth and silt, the delta of the river on which the town was built.