The Thirteen-Gun Salute

by Patrick O'Brian

  Bonden observed with regret that he had been on the wrong lay altogether, that this was not what the Doctor had been fretting about. So with a few general remarks about taking great care when he came aft—a hand for the ship and a hand for himself—he left him to his own reflexions, if indeed that was the word for the anxious hurry of spirits, going over and over the same ground while the frigate and her chase sailed perpetually over the same troubled moonlit sea, neither making any perceptible progress in a world with no fixed object.

  Yet there was this new factor: Jack Aubrey did not regard the capture of the snow as of the first importance. Might it therefore be suggested to him that they turn about and hurry south for their rendezvous in Lisbon?

  No, it might not. Jack Aubrey knew exactly how far he was allowed or rather required to endanger the ship for the sake of the prize; and where his professional duty was concerned it would be as useful to offer him a bribe as a piece of advice.

  'Why, Stephen, there you are,' cried Jack, suddenly emerging from behind the bitts and Bonden's little sailcloth screen stretched between them. 'You are as wet as a soused herring. The tide is on the turn; it will cut up quite a sea presently and you will get wetter still, if possible. Lord, you could be wrung out like a swab even now. Why did not you put on oilskins? Diana bought you a suit. Come and have a mug of broth and some toasted cheese. Let me give you a hand round the bitts: wait till she rises.'

  A quarter of an hour later Maturin said that he would digest his broth and toasted cheese in the orlop, where he had a number of urgent tasks.

  'I am going to turn in until the end of the watch,' said Jack. 'You might be well advised to do the same: you look quite done up.'

  'Indeed, I am somewhat out of order. Perhaps I shall prescribe myself a draught.'

  He had every reason to be out of order, he reflected, sitting there by the medicine-chest on his stool. His very remote and tentative words about other commanders, in other circumstances, abandoning some hypothetical chase had been quite useless; or even, if Jack had caught any faint hint of their drift, worse than useless. His only plan, that of diverting the ship's course, was one of those easy phantasms that look well enough until they are examined; in this case it would be practicable only in dark and covered weather, when the compass alone commanded, and if it could be done discreetly. Though admittedly the ship's position was right; she could be made to turn well to the west of her present position without coming to any harm: not that in itself the fact was of any consequence.

  Out of order he was, and restless he was: the changing tide had worked up a considerable sea, not as fierce as had been hoped, because the wind was slackening, but still so rough that the bows were impossible for any length of time. He therefore paced the length of the upper deck between the cabin door and the foremost gun on the weather side. Each watch saw him pass to and fro, and in each watch some of the simpler hands said they had never known the Doctor worry so about a prize, while their more gifted mates asked them 'was it likely that a gent with a gold-headed cane and his own carriage should worry about a little ten-gun privateer snow? No. It was the toothache he had, and he was trying to walk it off; but that would not answer—it never did—and presently he would take a comfortable draught, or perhaps Mr Martin would draw the tooth.'

  It was at five bells in the graveyard watch, with the situation, as far as he could tell, quite unchanged, that Stephen finally returned to the orlop, unlocked the medicine-chest and took out his bottle of laudanum. 'No,' he said, drinking his modest dose with deliberate composure, 'the only concrete and feasible solution I have been able to devise is worthless. I shall have to await the event and act accordingly; but in order to act with any effect I must have at least some sleep and I must overcome this disproportionate distress.'

  He climbed the ladders for the last time, walked into the coach, and threw off his sodden clothes. Killick, who had no right to be up at this hour, silently opened the door and handed him a towel, then a dry nightshirt. He picked up the heap of clothes, looked sternly at the Doctor, but changed what he was going to say to a 'Good night, sir.'

  Stephen took his rosary from its drawer: telling beads was as near to superstition as intelligence-work was to spying, but although for many years he had thought private prayer, private requests impertinent and ill-mannered, the more impersonal, almost ejaculatory forms seemed to him to have quite another nature; and at this point a need for explicit piety was strong on him. Yet the warmth of the dry nightshirt on his pale soaked shivering body, the ease of the swinging cot, once he had managed to get into it, and the effect of his draught were such that sleep enveloped him entirely before his seventh Ave.

  He was woken by the sound of gunfire and by the roar of orders immediately overhead. He sat up, staring and collecting himself; a thin grey light was straggling through the companion, and he had the impression that the glass was being strongly hosed with water. The sea had gone down. Another gun, right forward.

  He stepped out of the cot, stood swaying, and then put on the clean shirt and breeches lying on the locker. He was hurrying towards the companion-ladder when Killick roared out 'Oh no you don't. Oh no you don't, sir. Not without this here'—a long, heavy, smelly tarpaulin coat with a hood, both fastened with white marline.

  'Thank you kindly, Killick,' said Stephen, when he was tied in. 'Where is the Captain?'

  'On the forecastle, in the middle of the catastrophe, carrying on like Beelzebub.'

  At the foot of the ladder Stephen looked up, and his face was instantly drenched—drenched with fresh water, with teeming cold rain so thick he could hardly draw breath. Bowing his head he reached the mizzen-mast and the wheel, the rain drumming on his hood and shoulders. The decks were full of men, exceedingly busy, apparently letting fly sheets, most of them unrecognizable in their foul-weather gear; but there seemed to be no very great alarm, nor was the ship even beginning to clear for action. A tall sou'westered figure bent over him and looked into his face: Awkward Davies. 'Oh, it's you, sir,' he said. 'I'll take you forward.'

  As they groped their way along the larboard gangway, scarcely able to see across the deck for the downpour, the squall passed over, still blotting out the north-east entirely but leaving no more than a remnant of drizzle over the ship and the sea to the south and west. There was Jack in his oilskins with Pullings, the bosun and some hands, still streaming with water amidst what looked like an inextricable tangle of cordage, sailcloth and a few spars, among which Stephen thought he recognized the topgallantmast with its cheerful apple-green truck.

  'Good morning, Doctor,' cried Jack. 'You have brought fine weather with you, I am happy to see. Captain Pullings, you and Mr Bulkeley have everything in hand, I believe?'

  'Yes, sir,' said Pullings. 'Once Mr Bentley has roused out his spare cap, there are only trifles left to be done.'

  'At least the decks will not need swabbing today,' said Jack, looking aft, where the rain-water was still gushing in thick jets from the scuppers. 'Doctor, shall we take an early pot, and what is left of the soft-tack, toasted?'

  In the cabin he said, 'Stephen, I am sorry to be obliged to tell you I have made a sad cock of it, and the snow has run clear. Last night Tom wanted to have a long shot at her, in the hope of checking her speed. I said no, but this morning I was sorry for it. The squall had flattened the sea, and with the breeze dying on us she was drawing away hand over fist: so I said "It is now or never" and cracked on till all sneered again. We came within possible range and we had a few shots, one pitching so close it threw water on to her deck, before a back-stay parted and our foretopgallant came by the board. She has run clear away, going like smoke and oakum, and in this dirty weather there will be no finding her again. I hope you are not too disappointed.'

  'Not at all—never in life,' said Stephen, drinking coffee to hide his intense satisfaction and gratitude.

  'Mark you,' said Jack earnestly, 'she is very likely to be taken by one of our cruisers. She altered course eastwards when she saw u
s coming up so fast, and now she is hopelessly embayed in the Firth. She will never get out with this wind, and it may last for weeks.'

  'Does not the same apply to us?'

  'Oh no. We have much more sea-room. Once we have head-sails we can make a short leg to the south-east to be sure of weathering the Mull, go north about past Malin Head, gain a good offing, a very good offing, and then hey for Lisbon. Come in, Tom. Sit down and have a cup of coffee, cold though it be.'

  'Thank you, sir. The immediate work is done, and we can hoist jib and foretopmast staysail whenever you choose.'

  'Very good, very good indeed: the sooner the better.' He swallowed his coffee and the two of them hurried on deck. A moment later Stephen, finishing the pot, heard Jack's powerful voice at its strongest: 'All hands, there. All hands about ship.'

  Chapter Three

  'Bonden,' said Jack Aubrey to his coxswain, 'tell the Doctor that if he is at leisure there is something to be seen on deck.'

  The Doctor was at leisure; the 'cello on which he had been practising gave a last deep boom and he ran up the companion-ladder, an expectant look on his face.

  'There, right on the beam,' said Jack, nodding southwards. 'You can catch the breakers at its foot as clear as can be on the rise.'

  'Certainly,' said Stephen, watching Malin Head fade and faintly reappear in the thin rain; then, feeling that something more was expected of him, 'I am obliged to you for showing it to me.'

  'It will be your last glimpse of your native land for about sixteen degrees of latitude and God knows how many of longitude, for I mean to make a great offing if ever I can. Should you like to look at it with a telescope?'

  'If you please,' said Stephen. He was fond of his native land, even though this piece of it looked unnaturally black, wet and uninviting; but he could not wish the spectacle prolonged, particularly as he knew from personal experience that part of this province was inhabited by a tattling, guileful, tale-bearing, noisy, contemptible, mean, wretched, unsteady and inhospitable people, and as soon as he decently could he clapped the glass to, handed it back, and returned to his 'cello. They were to attempt another Mozart quartet in a few days and he did not wish to disgrace himself in the presence of the purser's far more accomplished playing.

  Left alone Jack continued his habitual pacing fore and aft. He must have covered hundreds and hundreds of miles on this same quarterdeck in the course of all these years and the ringbolt near the taffrail where he turned shone like silver; it was also dangerously thin. He was glad to have seen Malin Head so clear. It proved that Inishtrahull and the Garvans, upon which many a better navigator than himself had come to grief, especially in thick weather with no sight of the sun by day or any star by night, were all safely astern. After a measured mile for good luck, he gave the orders that would carry the ship as nearly due west as the south-west wind would allow; and he found to his pleasure that she needed it only half a point free to run happily at seven knots under no more than topsails and courses, though a moderate sea kept striking her larboard bow with all the regularity of a long-established swell, throwing her slightly off her course and sweeping spray and even packets of water diagonally across the forecastle and the waist.

  This, and the taste of salt on his lips, was a deep satisfaction; yet at the same time he knew that the frigate's people were upon the whole low-spirited, disappointed and out of humour. He thought it very probable that some of the more dismal hands might already be using the words 'an unlucky voyage' or 'a Jonah aboard', which could become very dangerous indeed if they got a firm hold on the ship's collective mind, always inclined to fatalism—even more dangerous in a ship with no Marines, no Articles of War, no recourse to the service as a whole, a ship in which the Captain's authority depended solely on his standing and his standing on his present as well as his past success. This he had not learnt from listening to their conversation nor from reports brought by confidential hands like Bonden or Killick or the equivalent of the master-at-arms or the ship's corporal—he hated a tale-bearer—but from having spent most of his life afloat, some of it as a foremast jack. His gauging of the ship's mood was for the most part unconscious—faintly recorded impressions of dutifulness rather than zeal, lack of coarse humorous remarks forward, the occasional wry look or contentious answer between shipmates, and the general want of tone—but though it was largely instinctive it was surprisingly accurate.

  'There is little hope of any consolation in these waters unless we chance on an American,' he reflected, 'but at least for the rest of the month we shall have regular blue-water sailing, tack upon tack every watch until we reach the westerlies; plenty to keep them busy but not too much; and then presently we shall see the sun again.'

  Far out into the Atlantic, long tack upon long tack, every day having the same steady routine from swabbing the decks at first dawn to lights out, its unchanging succession of bells, its wholly predictable food, nothing in sight from one horizon to another but sea and sky, both growing more agreeable, and the habit of sea-life exerted its usual force; cheerfulness returned to almost its old carefree level and as always there was the violent emotion and enthusiasm of the great-gun practice every evening at quarters—practice carried out with the full deadly charge and the ball directed at a floating target.

  While the Surprise was making her westing Jack spent more in barrels of powder than ever he would have made in prize-money if the snow had been taken. He justified this to his conscience (for no one else, least of all Stephen, questioned the expense) by an appeal to the frigate's very high standards of rapid, accurate fire, by the fact that all hands were somewhat rusty and the Orkneymen (some of whom had come aboard with crossbows) had very little notion of combined disciplined practice at all; but he knew very well that the thunderous roar, the stabbing flame in the smoke-cloud, the screech of the recoiling gun, the competition between watch and watch, and the ecstasy when a raft of beef-cask two hundred yards away flew suddenly to pieces in a flurry of white water and single staves flung high did a great deal towards restoring the general tone and bringing the Surprise back towards the state of a happy ship, the only efficient fighting-machine, the only ship that it was a pleasure to command.

  Only in a few exceptional cases did this state arise spontaneously, as when a good set of foremast hands happened to enter upon a dry, weatherly ship with efficient warrant-officers—the bosun was often a most important figure where happiness was concerned—a decent group of seamanlike officers, and a taut but not tyrannical captain. Otherwise it had to be nursed along. The lower deck had its own way of dealing with really worthless hands, turning them out of their messes and leading them a horrible life; but there were others, stronger characters, men of some education, who could cause serious trouble if they chanced to be both awkward and discontented. In the Surprise at present, for example, there were eight Shelmerstonians serving before the mast who had had commands of their own, while there were more who had been mates and who understood navigation.

  The same applied, in rather a different way, to the wardroom or gun-room as the case might be. An ill-fitting member of that small society could upset the working of the whole ship to a remarkable degree; and the small failings that would not matter at all during a passage to Gibraltar might assume gigantic proportions in the course of a long commission—a couple of years blockading Toulon, for example, or three on the African station. And Jack was wondering whether he had been very wise in appointing Standish purser, almost entirely on the basis of the man's excellent violin-playing and the recommendation of Martin, who had been acquainted with him at Oxford, and in spite of Standish's want of experience.

  Except for that excellence, Jack had rarely been more mistaken in a man: the modesty and diffidence that the penniless, unemployed Standish had brought aboard were now no longer to be seen; and the assurance of a monthly income and a settled position had developed a displeasing and often didactic loquacity. He was also, of course, incompetent. As Jack said in his letter to Sophie, 'I had suppos
ed anyone with common sense could become a tolerable purser; but I was wrong. He did make an attempt at first, but as he is seasick every time we hand topgallants and as he can neither add nor multiply so as to get the same answer twice, he soon grew discouraged and now he leaves everything to his steward and Jack in the Dust. He is not without his good points. He is perfectly honest (which cannot be said of all pursers) and it was most gentlemanly in him not to let anyone know that he was a strong swimmer after I had pulled him out of the sea. And he listens attentively, even eagerly, when Stephen and Martin explain the ship's manoeuvres to him, and the difference between the plansheer and the spirketting; but apart from these lectures (and it would do your heart good to hear them) when he is quiet, he talks, he talks, he talks, and always about himself. Tom, West and Davidge, who have had no more education than can be picked up aboard ship and who are not much given to reading, are rather shy of him, he being a university man, and Martin is wonderfully charitable; but this cannot last, because as well as being incompetent as a purser, he is also sadly foolish.'

  Jack paused, remembering an incident during his most recent dinner with the gun-room, when he heard someone, in the midst of Standish's long anecdote, say, 'I did not know you had been a schoolmaster.'

  'Oh, it was only for a short time, when my fortunes were low. That is a recourse we university men always have—in case of temporary embarrassment, you can always take refuge in a school, if you have a degree.'