The Mauritius Command

by Patrick O'Brian

  These feasts were attended by Clonfert's officers, and once again Stephen noted the curiously vulgar tone of the Néréide's gun-room and midshipmen's berth, the open flattery of the Captain, and the Captain's appetite for this flattery, however gross. Not a dinner passed without Webber, the second lieutenant, comparing Clonfert with Cochrane, to Clonfert's advantage: the word 'dashing' was in daily use: and once the purser, with a sideways look at Stephen, offered a comparison with Commodore Aubrey—a comparison that Clonfert, with an affectation of modesty, declined to allow. Stephen also observed that when McAdam was invited, which was not always the case, he was encouraged to drink and then openly derided: it grieved him to see a grey-haired man so used by young fellows who, whatever their seamanship and courage might be—and there was little doubt of either—could make no claim to any intellectual powers nor yet to common good-breeding. And he found it still more painful to see that Clonfert never checked their merriment: the Captain seemed more concerned with gaining the approval—even the worship—of his young men than with protecting an old, diminished friend.

  It was in the mornings that Stephen found Clonfert's boisterousness more than usually tiresome: and he particularly regretted his company one forenoon, when, in an interval between political activities, he was negotiating with his old lady for the bolster. Clonfert spoke quite good French and he meant to help, but he hit a false note from the beginning. His noisy facetiousness offended and confused her; she began to show signs of incomprehension and alarm and to repeat that 'one never slept so well as upon dodo—sleep was the greatest blessing that God sent to the old—the gentlemen were young, and could do very well on booby-down.' Stephen had almost abandoned hope when Clonfert was called away; but once he was out of the room she reconsidered his argument, and he was paying down the price when the door burst open, a voice shouted 'Run, run for the boats. The enemy is in sight,' and the village was filled with pounding feet. He laid down the last broad piece, caught the bolster to his bosom, and joined the rout.

  Far out at sea, to windward, five ships were standing in towards the Ile de la Passe. Steadying himself in the gig, with his spy-glass to his eye, Clonfert read them off. 'Victor, the corvette, leading. Then their big frigate, the Minerve. I can't make out the next. Then, by God, the Bellone. I could almost swear the last Is the Windham Indiaman again. Stretch out, stretch out, there; pull strong.'

  The gig's crew pulled strong, so strong they left the two other boats that had been launched far behind—three more in a farther creek had not yet even gathered their men. But it was a long, long pull, the whole length of the two spreading anchorages between the shore and the island, four miles and more against the wind.

  'I shall lure them in,' said Clonfert to Stephen. And then, having glanced impatiently back towards the distant boats, he added, 'Besides, if they go round to Port-Louis, Sirius and Iphigenia will be no match for them, with Hamelin bringing his three frigates out.' Stephen made no reply.

  The exhausted crew ran the gig alongside the Néréide. Clonfert told the coxswain to stay there and ran aboard; a few moments later the frigate displayed a French ensign and pennant and Clonfert dropped down into the boat, crying, 'The fort, and stretch out for all you are worth.'

  Now the fort too showed French colours, and after a short pause the French signal ran up the flagstaff on the island: 'Enemy cruising north of Port Louis'. The leading frigate replied with the French private signal; the island answered it correctly; and each ship made her number. Clonfert had been right: Victor, Minerve, Bellone; and the two others were Indiamen, outward-bound Indiamen taken in the Mozambique channel, the Ceylon and the unlucky Windham again.

  On nearing the reef the French squadron reduced sail; it was clear that they were coming in, but they were coming slowly now, and there would be time to make ready for them. Stephen chose a high, remote corner of the fort from which he could survey the whole scene and sat there on his bolster. Above him the white trade-clouds passed steadily over the pure sky; in the warm sunlight the breeze cooled his cheek; and overhead a bosun-bird wheeled in perfect curves: but within the ramparts below he saw far more confusion than he had expected. Aboard the Néréide, which had warped in closer to the island and which was now anchored with a spring on her cable, everything seemed to be in order, although so many of her hands were away in the boats; she was clearing for action, her guns were run out already, and her old standing officers had the process well in hand. But in the fort people were running hither and thither; there was a great deal of shouting; and the Indian gunners, whose officer was somewhere in the boats or perhaps on shore, were arguing passionately among themselves. Soldiers and sailors were at cross purposes: and even among the seamen there was none of that quiet, efficient cheerfulness that marked the actions Stephen had seen with Jack Aubrey—no impression of a machine moving smoothly into place. No food was served out, either: a small point, but one that Jack had always insisted upon. And the remaining boats, with at least a hundred and fifty soldiers and seamen in them, were still a great way off: as far as he could make out, the launch had run aground on the horn of a bank, and since the tide was on the ebb the others were having great difficulty hauling it off.

  In the fort and on the lagoon time seemed to stagnate, in spite of the strenuous activity: out at sea it flowed steadily, perhaps faster than its natural pace, and Stephen felt a large, ill-defined apprehension fill the back of his mind, like that which accompanies a nightmare. Now men could be distinguished aboard the ships: now their faces were becoming visible, and orders came clear upon the wind. The French ships had formed a line to enter the channel, the Victor first, then the Minerve, then the Ceylon. The corvette steadied, hauled up her courses, and led in under topsails alone, the lead going in the chains on either side. The noise in the fort had given place to dead silence, with the smell of slow-match wafting on the breeze, drifting from the spare tubs and those beside each gun. The corvette entered the narrows, glided nearer and nearer, her bell flashing in the sun; came abreast of the fort, where the turbanned gunners crouched behind the parapet, and passed it, still in this dead silence. Her master's order to the helmsman brought her round in a tight curve behind the fort, into the deep water, and within twenty yards of the Néréide. The Néréide's French ensign came down, the English colours ran up with a cheer, and her side vanished in a great cloud of smoke as her broadside roared out in a single vast prolonged explosion. Another and another, with incessant cheering: the corvette dropped her anchor under the Néréide's starboard quarter, still under her full traversing fire, and an officer ran aft along her shattered deck, calling out that she had struck.

  At this point the powerful Minerve was already in the channel, well within the channel, with the Ceylon close behind her: now they were right under the heavy guns of the fort; they could not turn nor bear away nor move any faster. This was the deadly moment, and every man was poised for the order. At the flagstaff the tricolour raced down to make place for the union flag; but the cheering fool who hauled it down flung it wide on to a tub of burning match near the upper magazine. Flame leapt across and with a crash far louder than a broadside and more blinding than the sun a hundred charges exploded all together. At the same second the Bombay artillerymen, still without an officer to stop them overloading, set off their ill-pointed guns, bursting or dismounting six of them and killing a man in the Néréide gig as it was going to take possession of the Victor.

  Stephen picked himself up in the clearing smoke, realized that shrieks were piercing through his deafness, and hurried to the dead and wounded men scattered all about the flagstaff and the dismounted guns. McAdam's assistant was there and his loblolly boy, and with the help of a few clear headed seamen they carried them to the shelter of a rampart. By the time they had done what little they could, dressing horrible burns with their torn up shirts and handkerchiefs, the scene had changed. The Victor, having hoisted her colours again, had cut her cable, and she was following the Minerve and the Ceylon in towards Port S
outh-East. The Bellone and Windham, just far enough out to sea, far enough from the narrows, to be able to turn, had hauled their wind. The French ships in the lagoon were standing straight for the narrow pass where the Néréide's other boats were advancing in a confused heap, and it seemed that they must take them in the next few minutes. The Minerve showed no obvious damage at all.

  Clonfert hailed the fort from the Néréide, calling for all the soldiers to come aboard: he was going to attack the Minerve, and he needed every man to work his guns. It was not an impossible contest in spite of the Néréide's lighter metal; the Minerve was not yet cleared for action, she was approaching the second dog-leg off the Horseshoe bank, where she could not turn, whereas the Néréide would still have room in the nearer anchorage to luff up and rake her; and neither the Victor nor the Ceylon could give her much support. But while the soldiers were in the act of going a-board, the Bellone changed her mind. She let fall her topgallantsails and headed for the channel and the island. The moment she was engaged in the narrows there was no doubt of what she meant to do: she must come on. And she did come on, with great determination. As she came, handled no doubt by a man who knew the passage perfectly, for she threw an extraordinary bow-wave for such a dangerous piece of navigation, Stephen looked round to see what Clonfert was at, and to his astonishment he saw that the launch and the cutters were passing, had passed, the French men of-war without being touched—had passed them in the narrows within a biscuit-toss. It was inexplicable. But in any case there they were, with their men pouring into the Néréide, and cheering as they came. The Néréide had not yet slipped her cables.

  The Bellone stood on. She had already cleared her starboard broadside and as she approached the island she fired her forward guns: the smoke, sweeping before her, veiled the fort, and through this veil she fired her full array as she swept by, sending eighteen-pound ball and countless lethal fragments of stone flying among the small remaining garrison. Swinging round into the Néréide's anchorage she sent in another broadside against the other face of the battery: and to all this the demoralized Bombay gunners, deprived of support from small-arms men, unofficered, unused to ships, returned no more than a ragged, ineffectual fire. The Bellone went straight for the Néréide, as though to run her aboard; but just before they touched the Bellone put her helm hard down and shot by. For a moment the two frigates were yardarm to yardarm, almost touching: both broadsides crashed out together, and when the smoke cleared the Bellone was well beyond the Néréide, running on, still under her topgallantsails, for the second sharp turn in the channel, apparently undamaged. The Néréide had lost her driver-boom and a couple of upper yards, but her turn and a sudden gust had laid the Bellone over so that her fire was too high to hurt the Néréide's hull or to kill many of her crew: it had cut the spring to her cable, however, and she slewed round so far and so fast that she could not fire into the Frenchman's stern.

  Now the silence fell again. The four French ships—for the Windham, shying at the entrance and the fort, had stood out along the coast—moved smoothly down to anchor in twenty fathom water off the Olive bank, half way to Port South-East, and Clonfert returned to the island with a strong party of soldiers. He was in excellent spirits, hurrying about with the army officers to put the fort into such order that it could withstand an attack by the French squadron. Catching sight of Stephen he called out, 'How did you like that, Dr Maturin? We have them in the bag!'

  A little later, when the armourers had set up the dismounted guns and spare carronades had replaced those that had burst, he said, 'If it had not been for that infernal luck with the flag, we should have sunk the Minerve. But it was just as well—the Bellone would have hauled her wind, and as it is we have both of them hard up in a clinch. I am sending Webber in the launch to tell Pym that if he can spare me just one frigate—Iphigenia, or Magicienne if she has joined—I will lead in and destroy the whole shooting-match. We have them finely in the bag! They can never get out except on the land-wind just before sunrise. How Cochrane will envy us!'

  Stephen looked at him: did Clonfert, in his euphoria or his leaping excitement, really believe that he had done well, that his position was tenable? 'You do not intend sailing away yourself in the Néréide to bring down the reinforcements, I collect?' he said.

  'Certainly not. Pym ordered me to hold this fort, and I shall hold it to the last. To the last,' he repeated, throwing up his head with a look of pride. At the next word his expression changed. 'And did you see that dog?' he cried. 'The Victor struck her colours to me and then hoisted them again and made off like a scrub, a contemptible sneaking little God-damned scrub. I shall send a flag of truce to demand her. See where she lays!'

  She lay between the two heavy frigates, and from the fort her crew could be seen busily repairing the damage the Néréide had inflicted: the French colours flew at her peak.

  'They are too close by far,' said Clonfert. He turned to the artillery officer, haggard and quite wretched at having been separated from his men, at having lost the finest opportunity of his professional career, and said, 'Captain Newnham, will the brass mortar fetch them, do you think?'

  'I shall try it, my lord,' said Newnham. He loaded the piece himself with a thirteen-inch bomb-shell, laid it—a long and delicate operation—set the fuse just so, and fired. The shell soared high in the clean air, a rapidly-diminishing black ball, and burst right over the Bellone. A delighted cheer went up: the French ships slipped their cables and stood farther in, to anchor out of range. The last shell, fired at extreme elevation, fell short: and it was the last shot of the day.

  The remaining hours of light saw all the precautions taken that should have been taken the day before: by the next morning the Ile de la Passe was capable of sinking any ship that attempted the passage. The Néréide had crossed new topgallantyards, had repaired her boom and fished her wounded foremast; and she sent in a boat to demand the surrender of the corvette.

  'I hope to God Webber has found the Sirius,' said Clonfert, gazing eagerly out to sea. But the day passed, and no sail showed beyond the cape. The night passed too, with boats rowing guard: before sunrise the perilous landbreeze began to blow—perilous because it might bring the powerful ships and a swarm of boats across the lagoon in the darkness, but the French never stirred, and at dawn the reviving south-easter kept them where they lay. So two days went by, with no incident apart from the French commodore's refusal to give up the Victor. The soldiers drilled and polished their equipment; the artillerymen exercised their pieces; the master-gunner filled cartridge and checked his stores. Clonfert remained as cheerful and active as ever, and his spirits reached a new height on the third day, when the French ships were seen to move down to the far end of the harbour, right down among the shoals and under the batteries of Port South-East, mooring in a curved line that stretched from one end of the sunken reef that guarded the port's entrance to the other; for this, said he, must mean that Webber had found the Sirius. At least some of the blockading force must have disappeared from off Port-Louis, and Governor Decaen, fearing an attack upon the Minerve and Bellone, had surely sent the news overland to Port South-East. Clonfert was right. Some hours later the Sirius herself rounded the cape under a great press of sail.

  'Look sharp with the signal,' said Clonfert, when they had exchanged numbers. The prepared hoist broke out, and he laughed aloud.

  'What does it signify?' asked Stephen.

  'Ready for action and Enemy of inferior force,' replied Clonfert with a slightly conscious look; and immediately afterwards, 'Look alive with the book, Briggs. What is she saying?'

  The signal-yeoman muttered the answer, and the midshipman spoke up: 'Send Néréide's master aboard, my lord.'

  'Gig's crew,' cried Clonfert. 'Mr Satterly, bring her in as quick as ever you can.'

  In she came, and her last signal before she entered the channel told the Néréide to get under way. The Sirius passed the fort almost as fast as the Bellone, and still under her topsails and courses swept by the
Néréide, Pym leaning over the rail and hailing Clonfert to follow him. Down the long winding channel they went, more cautiously now, but the Sirius still with her topsails set, for there was not much daylight left. In the Néréide her black pilot was at the con; he had her under staysails, no more, and he was muttering to himself, for after the Horseshoe bank their course would lead them into a region of the inner harbour that they did not know well—a region that they had avoided, it being swept by the guns of Port South-East.

  Past the Noddy shoal, with the lead going fast: past the Three Brothers, and a four-point turn to larboard. The leadsman's calls came sharp, quick and clear: 'By the mark ten; and a half ten; by the deep eleven; by the deep eleven; by the mark fifteen.' A good depth of water, a clear channel one would have sworn: yet at the last call the Sirius, only just ahead, struck hard on the tail of a bank and ran far up on to the submerged coral.

  Yet if she had to go aground at least she had chosen a good place for doing so. The shore-batteries could not reach her, and the wind, blowing right on to the land, pinned the French frigates to their moorings. The Sirius and the Néréide carried out their warps undisturbed as the sun set over Mauritius, and they settled down to heaving her off in a seamanlike manner. But she would not come off at the first heave, nor in the first hour of heaving, during which the tide began to ebb: however, tomorrow's flood would be higher and there were great hopes of floating her at about eight in the morning; and in the meantime there was nothing to be done except to ensure that no French boat-attack could succeed.

  'What have you to say to our patient's present state of exaltation?' said Stephen to McAdam. 'In these circumstances, does it pass the limits of reasonable conduct? Do you find it morbid?'