Book 16 - The Wine-Dark Sea

by Patrick O'Brian

  'A very little, then,' said Jack, who had in fact known of Gregory's Liquid together with Harris's Guaranteed Unguent, Carey's Warranted Arrowroot, brimstone and treacle on Friday and other staples of domestic medicine, all as much a part of daily life on land as hard-tack and mustering by divisions on Sunday at sea.

  With his hat very carefully arranged over his new bandage—for in spite of his innumerable faults Killick did not lack a kind of sparse tenderness—Jack made his way up the companion-ladder at half a glass before five bells in the forenoon watch, hauling himself up step by step. It was an exceptionally beautiful day, brilliant, cloudless, with the immense sky a deeper, more uniform blue than usual and the sea, where it was not chopped white, an even deeper shade, the true imperial blue. The wind was still due east, singing quite loud in the rigging; but although the Franklin could have spread topgallant-sails she was in fact lying to, bowing the uneven seas with her main topsail aback and a balancing mizzen. Under her lee lay her most recent prize, a fur-trader down from the north, a fat, comfortable vessel, but naturally so unweatherly and now so foul-bottomed as well that she was utterly incapable of working to windward at all, and Captain Aubrey was waiting for the return of the south-east or south-south-east trade to see her in. She carried no extraordinary cargo—she had meant to fill up her hold with seals' skin down at Más Afuera—but those Surprises, and there were several of them, who had been on the Nootka run and who had conversed with their prisoners, knew that in sea-otter skins and beaver alone the able seaman's share of the prize would be in the nature of ninety-three pieces of eight; and it was a cheerful ship that her Captain was now about to inspect.

  The starboard watch had already brought up their clothes bags, arranging them in a low pyramid on the booms, and the larbowlines were laying theirs in a neat square far aft on the quarterdeck when Jack appeared. As he had done a thousand times on such occasions he cast an eye at the sea, the sky, and the ship's trim: literally an eye, for even if the other had not been hidden by a bandage it could not bear this brilliant light, whilst in the dimness of his sleeping-cabin its sight was troubled, uncertain. He also absorbed the mood of the ship's company, and in spite of the severe indwelling pain and anxiety some of their cheerfulness came into his mood.

  Five bells, and he nodded to Vidal, the acting first lieutenant, who cried, 'Beat to divisions.' So many people were away in various ships that the order did not run down the usual series of repetitions but came into instant effect with the thunder of the roaring drum. The recently-promoted stopgap officers, most of them Shelmerstonian master-mariners in their own right, reported that their divisions were 'present, properly dressed and clean'.

  Vidal crossed the deck, took off his hat, and said, 'All the officers have reported, sir.'

  'We will go round the ship, then, if you please,' replied Jack.

  And round they went in the traditional manner, except that Bonden, as Captain's coxswain, accompanied them in case of a false step on the blind side: for though Bonden's ribs and breastbone had been exposed to public view in the taking of the Alastor, his wound had healed fast and his friends had taken seamanlike steps to ensure that it should not open again: first a girth of linen rubbed with hog's lard, then two of number eight sailcloth, then the same of number four, and over all a span-broad white-marline plait ending in stout knittels that could be and were hauled taut with a heaver, so taut that he could breathe only with his belly.

  The afterguard and waisters under Slade formed the first division, and here were most of the Alastor's black slaves, naturally enough, since they were the merest landsmen, useful only for holystoning the deck in smooth weather, swabbing and sweeping it, or hauling on a rope under strict supervision: abruptly Jack found that he did not know their names—could not tell one from another—and was unable to exchange the usual word. They were beautifully clean, shining clean, and perfectly dressed in their new duck frocks and trousers, and they had been taught to stand up and pull off their hats, but they looked nervous, far from happy: their eyes rolled with apprehension. The next group had two more as well as some remaining Franklins, and although Jack knew the white men tolerably well he was surprised to see them in this division. But the people under his command had necessarily been given such different duties and moved to and fro between such different ships that even a captain who had not been knocked on the head and obliged to keep his cabin for some time might have been confused. It was better when he came to the gunners and the forecastlemen, the oldest hands aboard, ludicrously under Reade, whose voice had not yet finished breaking; but Jack was still worried when he went below with his escort to inspect the galley, the berthdeck and all the rest. He had always felt that it was an officer's absolute duty to know all his men, their watch, rating, abilities, and of course their name and division: he, Vidal and Bonden at length returned to the daylight, filed past the remaining seamen prisoners and so to the leeward side of the quarterdeck where the captured officers stood. 'It is a pleasure to see you walking about and looking so well, sir,' said one of them.

  'You are very good, sir,' replied Jack. Then, conscious of an absence, he ran his eye sharply over the little band and cried, 'Where is Mr Dutourd? Bonden, jump down to his cabin and rouse him out. Find his servant.'

  There was no Dutourd: nor could his servant be found though the ship, the prize and the schooner-rigged launch towing astern were searched through and through with all the skill of those accustomed to hiding goods from customs officers and men from impressment. His sea-chest, with the plate reading Jean du Tourd, was in his cabin, and all his clothes; his writing-desk, open and disordered, with some papers presumably taken from it; but his purse, which Jack had restored, was not to be seen.

  The testimonies were extraordinarily varied: they agreed only in that Dutourd had not dined in the gun-room for quite a while and that he had seemed to be offended—was thought to be messing by himself. But how long that time was no one could tell for certain. Even Killick, the most inquisitive man aboard, had no sure, clearly-dated knowledge, and to Jack's astonishment he was not even aware that Dutourd had been refused leave to go to Callao in the Surprise with his former shipmates—did not even know that he had asked for permission. No one could swear to having seen him on the quarterdeck after the Franklin had parted company: none could swear to the contrary: most had the impression that he was keeping his cabin, studying or sick.

  There were several possibilities, and Jack turned them over in his mind as he sat, alone at last, in the Franklin's stern window: Dutourd might have brought his belongings over from the Surprise to the Franklin, returning on some pretext and there concealing himself. He might have walked into the Alastor when she was alongside, transferring stores: the same applied to the whaler. And there was the launch, sent in to bring hands from Callao.

  It was the outcome that really mattered, however: in his reserved way Stephen had said that sending Dutourd in to Callao 'might be impolitic'; and there was no doubt that Dutourd was in Callao at this moment.

  'Pass the word for Mr Vidal,' he called, and when Vidal came, 'Sit down, Mr Vidal. Who took the launch into Callao?'

  'I did, sir,' said Vidal, changing colour.

  'How did she handle?'

  'Sir?'

  'How did she handle? Is she a weatherly boat? Does she hold a good wind?'

  'Yes, sir. She points up very close indeed: makes almost no leeway, close-hauled, a jewel of a . . .' His voice died away.

  'Very well. Pray have her victualled and stored, with masts stepped, before the first dog.'

  '. . . craft,' said Vidal, finishing his words.

  'Do not let them forget fishing-tackle and a casting net: it may need two or three days to beat in if this wind don't change. I shall take Bonden, Killick, Plaice, William Johnson: and your Ben.' The last he named after an infinitesimal pause, for while they were speaking he had come to an intimate conviction that Dutourd had gone ashore in the schooner and that taking Ben would if nothing else prevent any foolish
action on Vidal's part: it might have been wiser to take Vidal himself, but with so many of the most responsible and experienced men away or wounded Vidal was by far the best to leave in charge: he might have chapelish, democratic, even republican views, but he had been the master of a ship larger than the Franklin, he was a prime seaman, thoroughly respected, and he had a large following. 'You will take command while I am away,' he said after a silence. 'If the wind keeps in the east, as I believe it will, you will not be able to carry the prize a single mile nearer Callao, though you beat up day and night. Should it change you may come in, and if you cannot fetch Callao we will rendezvous off the Chinchas. But I shall give you your orders in writing, together with a list of meeting-places from the Lobos Rock far to the southward.'

  Indeed, to make any real progress in a breeze as strong and steady as this a vessel had to be rigged fore and aft, and nothing could have been more wholly fore and aft than the Alastor's elegant mahogany launch with her remarkably flat-cut sails: in spite of his deep uneasiness Jack took a pleasure in getting all that he could from her, bringing her up to the very edge of shivering, falling off just that much and sending her fast through the coming sea. The launch was as responsive as a well-mannered, spirited horse; it was beamy and stiff enough for this kind of weather; and well before nightfall they had sunk the Franklin's topsails in the west.

  When Jack Aubrey was strongly moved he seemed to grow taller and broader-shouldered, while without the slightest affectation or morosity his ordinarily good-humoured expression became remote. Killick was not easily put down: ordinary fits of anger over dropped bottles, inept orders from Whitehall or the flag left him totally unmoved, so did reproach and even abuse, but this rare, particular gravity intimidated him and when he dressed leg, eye and scalp that evening he did so with no more words than were necessary, and those uttered meekly.

  The decked part of the launch was divided fore and aft into two long cuddies, each with headroom enough to sit up; it was here that Jack stretched out on a mattress over the grating a little after the setting of the watch. Although the forward part of the cuddy was filled with canvas and cordage there was plenty of room for him and according to his life-long habit he fell asleep within minutes, in spite of pain and anxiety. His neighbours in the larboard cuddy, Johnson and young Ben Vidal, did much the same. Johnson, a black man from the Seven Dials, began telling Ben about his triumph over the whoreson pinchfart master-at-arms in Bellerophon when first he went to sea, but his voice dwindled when he found he had no hearer.

  It had been laid down that they should be at watch-and-watch, and a few minutes before midnight Jack woke straight out of what had seemed a deep and dreamless sleep. Yet some parts of his mind must have been active, since he knew perfectly well that the launch had gone about four times and that the wind had diminished to a moderate breeze. He made his way out of the cuddy into the light of the moon, a true clock if one knew her age and her exact place among the stars for the beginning of each watch. Suddenly, as he stood there swaying to the quieter sea and wishing he could stretch over the lee rail and dash water into his face, it occurred to him that his eye scarcely hurt at all: there was still a certain irritation, but the deep pain was not there. 'By God,' he said, 'perhaps I shall be able to swim again in a week or two.'

  'You are a good relief, sir,' said Bonden, yielding the tiller; and he gave an exact account of the courses steered—two reaches as near south-east by east as possible and two north-east by east—and their speed, rising to ten knots one fathom now that the head-seas had grown less lumpish. Behind them there was the muffled sound of the changing watch, the very small watch; and Jack said, 'Well, turn in, Bonden, and get what sleep you can.'

  He settled into the helmsman's place with the living tiller under his hand and forearm, and while his companions pumped and baled the launch dry—a good deal of water had come aboard earlier, but now there was no more than the odd waft of spray—his mind moved back to its essential preoccupations. His moral conviction that Vidal had been party to Dutourd's escape was irrational in that it was based on no more than an instinctive distrust of Vidal's first reply; but now that he reflected, gathering all he had ever heard of Dutourd's views and those of the Knipperdollings, all that he knew about enthusiasm and the lengths to which it might lead the enthusiast, it appeared to him that here reason and instinct coincided, as they sometimes did when he fought a battle over again in recollection or at least those phases such as boarding and the hand-to-hand encounter in which there was really no time for deliberation, no time at all. And his reflecting mind approved of his having Ben here in the launch: it might do great good; it would do no harm at all.

  Yet how Dutourd had managed to get away was scarcely worth pondering about for any length of time: all that signified was that he had got away and that Stephen had said he should be kept aboard. 'From my point of view it might be impolitic' for him to be set ashore in Peru.

  Stephen's point of view had of course to do with intelligence, as Jack knew very well: during an earlier voyage he had seen him drop a box which, bursting, revealed a sum so vast that it could only have been intended for the subversion of a government; and he strongly suspected him of having dished two English traitors, Ledward and Wray, attached to a French mission to the Sultan of Prabang.

  In a parenthesis he heard Stephen's voice: 'Tell me, Jack, my dear, is dish a nautical term?'

  'We often use it in the Navy,' Jack replied. 'It means to ruin or frustrate or even destroy. Sometimes we say scupper; and there are coarser words, but I shall not embarrass you by repeating them.'

  On the windward bow Canopus was just clearing the horizon. 'Stand by to go about,' he called, and his companions ran to their stations. He eased off half a point, cried, 'Helm's a-lee,' and ducking under the boom he brought the launch round in a true smooth curve, filling with barely a check on the starboard tack.

  The moon was lowering now, and dimmed by a high veil she gave so little light that he scarcely saw Johnson come aft. 'Shall I spell you now, sir?' he asked, and his teeth showed in the darkness.

  'Why, no thank you, Johnson,' said Jack. 'I shall sit here for a while.'

  The launch sailed on and on, almost steering herself as the breeze grew lighter: and as the seas declined—no breaking crests at all—so the water became alive with phosphorescence, a pale fire streaming away and away in her wake but also gleaming in vast amorphous bodies at depths of perhaps ten or even twenty fathoms, and at various levels the movement of fishes could be seen, interweaving lanes or sudden flashes.

  Jack returned to his reflexions: Stephen's point of view had of course to do with intelligence. This had almost certainly been the case for many, many years, and on occasion Jack had been officially required to seek his advice on political matters. But he had no notion of Stephen's present task: he did not wish to know, either, ignorance being the surest guarantee of discretion. Nor could he imagine how such a man as Dutourd could be any hindrance to whatever task it was. Surely no government, however besotted, could ever think of using such a prating, silly fellow as an intelligence agent or any sort of envoy.

  He turned the matter over this way and that. It was an exercise as useful as trying to solve an equation with innumerable terms of which only two could be read. To windward there was a vast expiring sigh as a sperm whale surfaced, black in a corruscation of green light, an enormous solitary bull. His spout drifted across the launch itself, and he could be heard drawing in the air, breathing for quite some time; then easily, smoothly, he shouldered over and dived, showing his flukes in a final blaze.

  Jack continued with his pointless exercise, with one pause when Johnson spelled him, until the end of the watch, ending with no more valuable observation than that with which he had begun: if Dutourd was in any way a threat to Stephen on shore it was his clear self-evident duty to get the man aboard again if it could be done, and if it could not, then at least to take Stephen off.

  From the end of the watch at four he slept until si
x, blessing himself for this eye, but uneasy about the failing breeze, still right in their teeth, but barely carrying the launch close-hauled at more than five knots, and they measured by a hopeful mind.

  It did not surprise him to wake to a calm, but for a moment he was surprised by the strong smell of frying fish: there was still an hour to go before breakfast.

  'Good morning, sir,' said Killick, creeping in with his dressings. 'Flat calm and an oily swell.' But this he said without his usual satisfaction in bringing unwelcome news, and he went on, 'Which Joe Plaice asks pardon, but could not help having a cast; and breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. It would be a shame to let it grow cold.'

  'Then bring me the hot water, and as soon as I am shaved I shall come on deck. You can do my eye afterwards: it is much better.'

  'I knew as how Gregory would do it,' cried Killick, a look of triumphant happiness on his face. 'I shall double the dose. I knew I was right. It rectifies the humours, you understand.'

  Joe Plaice, a steady forecastle-hand, was good at all the countless skills required of an able seaman, but he was an absolute artist in the use of a casting-net: poised on the bowsprit, with his left hand on the stay, he swung the net with his right, throwing it with an exactly-calculated twist that spread its weighted edge so that the whole fell flat as a disk on the surface just over one of the countless bands of anchovies that surrounded the launch for miles in every direction. The little fishes stared in amazement or even tried to leap upwards. The weights quickly carried the edge of the net down and inwards; a string drew them together; and the imprisoned fish were drawn aboard. Half the first cast had been eaten by the helmsman, who was always fed first; the second half and two more were eaten fresh and fresh by all hands, sitting on the deck round a large pan, itself poised over charcoal on a raised iron plate.

  'By God, this is good,' said Jack, sweeping up the juice with his biscuit. 'There is nothing better than your really fresh anchovy.' 'It must die in the pan,' observed Plaice. 'It is deadly poison else.' There was a general murmur of assent. 'Very true,' said Jack. 'But I tell you what, shipmates,' he went on, nodding towards the east-south-east, 'you had better blow your kites out, you had better eat all you can, because God knows when you will have another hot meal. Or a cold one, for that matter. Ben, do you know what a wind-gall is?'