The Fortune of War

by Patrick O'Brian

  The young man's face expressed wonder, astonishment, perhaps incredulity, but before he could speak a small round brisk man stepped from the group of figures somewhat aft and cried, 'Aubrey? By God, so it is—I did not recognize you—thought you was lost a great while since—how come you here?—Your Excellency—'to a tall figure in white just behind him—'allow me to name Captain Aubrey of the Navy—General Hislop, Governor of Bombay.'

  Jack's head swam, but he managed a civil bow, a 'Your servant, sir', and a kind of smile at the Governor's words '. . . knew your father . . . delighted . . . most interesting occasion' Then unable to recall the name of the familiar face before him, he said, 'Captain, may my men be seen to? They are quite knocked up. My surgeon will need a bosun's chair And we have a corpse with us. Pray tell me, have you any news of boats from La Flèche?'

  No news alas, and Captain Lambert—for Lambert was his name—having given orders, urged Jack to come below. 'Come, take my arm. A glass of brandy . . .'

  'I will just see my people aboard,' said Jack. He would have given the world to sit on the carronade-slide just by him, but he stood there while the Leopards and the Flitches reached the deck; he introduced his officers; and he even noticed that the Javas made a poor fist of hoisting the boat on deck. When he reached the cabin, and when Captain Lambert was calling for 'a glass of brandy, there, and mince pies; but only small ones, d'ye hear me, only small ones,' he was obliged to steer his way, half-blind, to the quarter-gallery, and there he fell. 'The fall very nearly came before the pride,' he said to himself as he half-lay, half-reclined there—no room to measure his unusual length—wonderfully comfortable and relaxed. And much later, 'What did he mean by mince pies? Lambert is his name, Harry Lambert: he had Active in the year two: cut out the Scipion: married Maitland's sister. Mince pies. Why, of course: it must be Christmas in a day or two.'

  It was indeed, and in spite of the enormous sun the Java's galley turned out puddings and pies in prodigious quantities, enough for well over four hundred men and boys with healthy appetites and for twelve whose lust for food was barely human. She was a fine dry quick-sailing weatherly ship, with plenty of headroom between decks, and she would have been called roomy, by naval standards, if she had carried only the normal complement for a thirty-eight-gun frigate; but she was bound for Bombay, and she had the new Governor aboard, with his numerous suite; and as though that were not enough, drafts for the Cornwallis, Chameleon, and Icarus had been joined to them, so that where three hundred men could have turned and breathed and fed with something like ease, four hundred could not—on punishment days there was scarcely room to swing the cat effectively—and the accommodation of twelve more presented serious difficulties. Difficulties in the matter of volume, not of victuals; the Java was a well-found ship, her lower depths still crammed with sheep, swine and poultry in addition to her ordinary stores, and although her captain was known to be poor, she had a comparatively wealthy gun-room, and the catering-officer at once ordered a massacre of geese, ducks, sucking-pigs.

  Yet in spite of the season and the rich smell of festivity, there was no Christmas spirit in the ship at all. Stephen's first impression was that she was the gloomiest vessel he had ever known. Her people were kind, none kinder: they re-rigged their guests in the most open-handed way: the tallest lieutenant provided clothes for Captain Aubrey, and Captain Lambert provided the marks of splendour due to his rank, while the Java's surgeon gave Stephen his best coat and breeches, to say nothing of the anonymous linen that appeared in his cabin. But there was no merriment aboard, and when, after a long night's perfect sleep, a shave, a visit to his worst sunburns in the sickbay, and a turn on deck, Stephen made acquaintance with the gun-room as a body at breakfast he thought them a strangely mumchance crew: never a smile, never a single one of those flights of naval wit, flabby puns, traditional jokes, proverbs, saws, to which he was accustomed and which he now so curiously missed. It was not that they were short of talk; on the contrary, there was a great deal of conversation; but it was all dogged, glum, declamatory, indignant, or angry. It was all highly professional, too, and it seemed to him that he had only exchanged the boredom of La Flèche for a greater boredom still, since here too it was all about the navy of the United States, and here there were twice as many men at table.

  'Oh for women at sea to obviate the eternal crosscat-harpings,' he said to himself, 'to do away with the grumlin-futtocks, and to inject a little civilization, even of an equivocal nature, even at the risk of moral deviation.'

  He was the first of the Leopards to appear, and apart from offering him coffee, tea, mutton chops, bacon, eggs, soused herrings, cold pie, ham, butter, toast and marmalade, and seeing to his comfort, few people spoke to him. He was obviously still much reduced by his ordeal; he was thought to be deaf; and their surgeon had told them that he was not to be excited—'He has an ugly livid countenance that argues some damage to the heart.'

  The master did ask him what he thought of the President, but he replied, 'A most unfortunate choice, sir. No bottom, weak, easily blown from side to side.'

  'Indeed, sir?' cried the master: and several other officers paid close attention.

  'He may be a tolerable Hebrew scholar; he may have genteel insinuating manners and a handsome wife; he may overflow with private virtues. But there is the evil corrupting love of power, the consuming lust for office—'

  'I was referring to the ship, sir, to the frigate President.'

  'Oh, as for the ship, I am not qualified to form any opinion, at all.'

  The master turned to his neighbour, who had something to offer on the subject of scantlings, as they were understood in the United States; so, as neither Babbington nor Byron was yet afoot, Stephen escaped the American navy by swallowing his breakfast in a few quick snaps, in spite of his colleague's warning 'not to eat too much—to chew every mouthful forty times', took a couple of pinches of fortifying snuff, returned to the deck, and asked for news of Captain Aubrey. Captain Aubrey too was still asleep; and pleasantly enough the words were uttered in a little above a whisper, in spite of the hullaballoo that filled the ship from stern to stern.

  Stephen took a few more turns in the brilliant morning sun, revelling in the luxury of clean linen—of any linen at all. The others on the quarterdeck watched him with discreet curiosity, and he watched the working of the ship: even to his unprofessional eye it seemed a little haphazard. Surely there was more noise, more instruction, more pushing men into place than was usual? Forshaw interrupted his thoughts, a strangely transformed Forshaw, not only in that he was clothed, and clothed in garments far too big for him, but in that he had never a smile: his face looked as though he had been crying, and in a low voice he told Stephen that 'if he were at leisure, Captain Aubrey would be glad to have a word with him'.

  'I hope that child has not had bad news,' said Stephen to himself, walking to the cabin. 'Some letter announcing death, sent out and here received. On top of what he has experienced, it might have very ill effects. I shall give him half of a blue pill.'

  But the look of grief was not peculiar to young Forshaw; it was plain upon Jack's face too, and even more pronounced, a look of shock and deep unhappiness. Captain Lambert, already straitened for room, had moved the Java's master from his day-cabin for his latest guest, and here Jack sat, wedged between an eighteen-pounder gun and the chart-table, with a pot of coffee on the locker beside him. He gave a poor smile as he wished Stephen good morning, asked him how he did, and invited him to share his pot.

  'First show me your tongue and let me take your pulse,' said Stephen; and a moment later, 'You have had bad news, brother?'

  'Of course I have,' said Jack in a low, vehement tone. 'Surely you have heard?'

  'Not I.'

  'I will put it in half a dozen words: it don't bear dwelling on,' said Jack, putting down his untasted cup. 'Tom Dacres, in Guerrière, 38, met the American Constitution, 44, brought her to action of course; and was beat. Dismasted, taken, and burnt. Then their sloop Wasp, 18
, tackled our brig Frolic, of almost exactly the same weight of metal, and took her too. Then United States, 44, and our Macedonian, 38, had a fight off the Azores, and Macedonian struck to the Americans. Two of our frigates and a sloop have struck to the Americans, and not one of theirs to us.'

  In his diary that night Stephen wrote, 'I do not believe I have ever seen Jack so moved. If he had heard of Sophie's death he would no doubt have felt an even keener, even crueller emotion; but it would have been a personal grief, whereas this is beyond self, except in so far as he is entirely identified with the Royal Navy—it is, after all, his life. This series of defeats, without a single victory, in the first months of a war, is striking enough, particularly since the frigate is the very type of the fighting ship; but it is of no real consequence. This whole American war and a fortiori these defeats which scarcely affect the enormous British naval force at all, is essentially irrelevant: furthermore, the defeats themselves can readily be explained (and I have no doubt the ministry is busily explaining them at this moment to a shocked, an outraged public opinion). The Americans brought larger frigates with more and heavier guns to the task: their ships are manned by volunteers, I understand, and not by what the press-gang, the quota-system, and the gaols can provide. But no, this will not do; there is no comfort for the sailors here. The British army may be defeated again and again; that can be accepted; but the Navy must always win. It always has won these last twenty years or so; nor is there any record of serious naval defeat since the Dutch wars. The Navy has always won, and it must always continue to win, to win handsomely whatever the odds. I remember the unfortunate Admiral Calder, who, with fifteen line-of-battle ships, met M. de Villeneuve with twenty, and who was disgraced because he took only two of them. Twenty years of victory and some inherent virtue must offset heavier guns, larger ships, more men. And although I have hitherto regarded the Navy more as a medium in which to work—although I do not feel that the heavens have fallen, nor that the foundations of the universe are subverted—I must confess that I am not unmoved. I feel no hint of animosity against the Americans, except in so far as their action may to some degree help Bonaparte, yet it would do my heart (as I term the illogical area of my being—and what an expanse it does cover, on occasion!) it would do my heart good to hear of some compensating victory.'

  Christmas Day, and Jack, Stephen and Babbington dined with Captain Lambert, General Hislop, and his aide-de-camp. It was a creditable spread and they ate a good many geese, pies, and puddings; but Jack caught Lambert's anxious eye on the wretched wine and his heart was moved for him: Jack too had been a captain with nothing but his pay, compelled to entertain voracious, thirsty guests. The soldiers were gay enough, although General Hislop did refer to the unfortunate effect these recent events would have in India, where moral force counted for so much. And the others did their best; yet upon the whole, with its factitious merriment, it was not a very successful feast and Stephen was glad when Captain Lambert suggested showing them the ship.

  A long tour it was, with Jack and Lambert pausing by each of the eighteen-pounder guns, each of the thirty-two-pounder carronades, and by the two long nines, discussing their qualities; yet this too had its end. Jack and Stephen retired to the master's day-cabin, where they sat eating ship's biscuit from their pockets: they could both eat without a stop, and they both did so almost automatically.

  Their future was clear. The Java had taken a prize, a fair-sized American merchantman that was to meet her off San Salvador, where they were both to water. This prize, the William, was a slow-sailing vessel, and Captain Lambert had left her behind while he went in chase of the Portuguese ship the Java had brought to when the cutter saw her. They would move into the William in a few days' time and either take passage in her to Halifax or go straight to England in some other ship from San Salvador. Acasta was still on the Brest blockade, and she had a jobbing-captain, Peter Fellowes, to keep her warm for Jack.

  'I am glad Lambert has a decent prize at last,' said he.

  'He has always been a most unlucky wight, and never was there a man who needed money more—half a dozen boys and an invalid wife. No luck at any time: if ever he took a merchantman it was re-taken before it reached home, and of the three enemy ships he captured, two sank under him, and he had battered the third so hard that Government refused to buy her for the service. Then he was on shore for a couple of years, living in lodgings in Gosport with all his brood, a damned uneasy life; and now they have given him Java, about as expensive a command as you could wish. Burning to have a go at the Americans, like all of us, and then to be sent off to Bombay, with a shipful of guests, no chance of distinguishing himself, and precious little of any prizes. They might have sent Hislop in an Indiaman; it was cruel to tie up a fellow like Lambert, as good a fighting captain as any man afloat. And what a crew!'

  'What is the matter with them? Are they disaffected? Mutinous?'

  'No, no. They are honest creatures, I believe, God help them; but I doubt he has a hundred real seamen aboard. How they contrived to take the William I cannot imagine, with so many landsmen and assorted vermin in the ship—such a Bartholomew Fair, striking topgallantmasts, I have rarely seen. It reminded me of our early days in Polychrest. And as for the forward guns at quarters . . . but it is not fair to judge Lambert or his officers. She is only forty-odd days out of Spithead, and she had foul weather for the first twenty of them; so they have not had time to work up their gun-crews. They will come to it in time, I dare say; Lambert has a very good notion of gunnery, and Chads, his first lieutenant, is a very scientific officer. He dearly loves a gun.'

  'What did Captain Lambert mean by saying, when you suggested a real discharge, a live discharge, that you were to remember the regulation, and that he had already been rapped on the knuckles for exceeding his allowance?'

  'Why, there is a strict rule that for the first six months of a commission no captain is allowed to fire more shot a month than a third the number of his guns; and after the first six months, only half as much.'

  'Then you must have infringed the regulation almost every day; I scarcely remember quarters without the firing of guns. Sometimes all of them, on both sides, with small-arms and swivels from the tops as well.'

  'Yes, but that was powder and shot I had either captured or bought. Most captains who can afford it and who care for gunnery get round the regulation that way. Lambert cannot afford it; and although Chads might be able to, he could not possibly put himself forward.'

  'Mr Chads is wealthy, I collect. Did he do well in prize-money?'

  'Not that I have ever heard of. He went a far more compendious way about it—cut out the only daughter of a Turkey merchant in very dashing style with a chaise and four. A thirty thousand pounder, I have heard tell.'

  Mr Chads might be rich, but he was not proud; nor was he impatient. Early in the morning some days later, when they had raised the high land of Brazil and were in hourly expectation of the William, Stephen came across him in the bows, showing a particularly stupid, though willing, gun-crew how to point their weapon. Again and again he made them and their midshipman heave it in and out, go through the motions of loading, taking aim, and firing: he clapped on to the tackles himself, plied the handspike, tried to make them understand the ideas of elevation, point-blank range, line of metal, the difference between firing on the upward and the downward roll. He praised their real efforts, saved two of the duller lands-men from having their feet crushed off by the moving carriage, and promised they should fire a live round at a target presently. He showed them how to bowse their gun tight against its port and make all fast, so that the two tons of concentrated weight should not start lurching about the deck; and then, wiping his face, he joined the Doctor, saying, 'They will do very well. Good, sensible, steady men.'

  'Surely, sir,' said Stephen, 'it must call for a very nice appreciation of distance, of angle, and of direction, to judge the right moment for firing off a piece, when both the deck and the target are in motion?'

&n
bsp; 'It does, Doctor, it does indeed,' said Chads. 'But it is wonderful what use will do. Some men get the knack of it very soon—a matter of eye and tact—and they will fire amazingly well at a thousand yards after a couple of months.'

  'On deck, there,' hailed the look-out from on high, in an unemphatic tone. 'Sail fine on the starboard bow.'

  'Is she William?' called the officer of the watch.

  'William she is, sir,' replied the look-out, after a considering pause. 'And a-closing of us fast.'

  Chads glanced towards the remote loom of Brazil to the westward, and said, 'I shall be glad to have her alongside again. There are three of my best gun-captains in the prize-crew, and one landsman who has come along amazingly. But we shall be losing you and the other Leopards, sir, and we shall all be sorry for that.'

  'I shall be sorry too: I should have liked another view of your ingenious sight. There were some points that I did not quite apprehend.' Mr Chads had invented a device, designed to take some of the uncertainty out of gunnery at sea and adapted to the meanest understanding: and he had spent the evening hours of Thursday explaining it to Stephen. 'But I suppose that I must pack up my belongings.'

  They were not inconsiderable; the Java's gun-room had done the Leopards proud, and Stephen for one had never possessed so many handkerchiefs in his life. But the word brought his vanished collections to his mind. He dismissed them at once. A woman whose acquaintance he greatly valued had once remarked that it was foolish to reflect on the past except where that past was agreeable: he did his best to observe the precept, but it was not much use—a sense of bereavement would keep breaking in. Nor had it been much use to the lady in question; she had withered away after the death of his cousin Kevin, a young man in the Austrian service.