'I have almost forgotten what a prize is like,' said Jack; but then the fine piratical gleam died out of his eyes and he said, 'But those days are pretty well over, I am afraid, except maybe in the Adriatic or farther east. At this end what few ships there are that are fair prize crowd sail for the African coast the moment they see one of our cruisers, and once in with the land they are safe. These Beys and Pashas are so hellfire touchy about their neutrality and their goodwill is so important to us at this stage that the Admiral would break any man that cut out a prize on their shores, even if it were bursting with silk and pearls, gold, myrrh, and frankincense. I know that Harvey, in the Antiope, chased a very rich ship into a cove to the westward of Algiers, a cove with a paltry little tower in it, and left her there, for fear of upsetting the Dey. The Rear-Admiral spoke about that this morning, and I see the clerk put something in the orders: poor fellow, he was so badgered on all sides he wrote down the essence of everything that was said. At the bottom of page two.'
' "Scrupulous respect will be paid to the laws of neutrality." '
'Wittles in ten minutes,' said Killick, coming crablike in against the ship's strong leeward heel, carrying a tray of drinks. 'Which the gents are coming aft this moment. Give the door a shove with your knee,' he called out in his polished way. A muffled thump, the door flew open, Pullings and Mowett walked in, very fine in their roastbeef coats, and pleasant it was to see their frank, open delight at finding their old shipmate Babbington. They had all three been midshipmen in Jack's first command; they had sailed together in some of his later ships; and although Babbington, the youngest, was already a commander and likely to be made a post-captain in a year or two, while the others were only lieutenants and likely to remain in that rank for the rest of their lives unless they had the luck to take part in a successful action, there was not the least sign of jealousy, nor of any repining at a system that, with merit roughly equal, would probably make Babbington a comfortably-housed admiral by the end of his career while they lived on a half-pay of a hundred and nine pounds ten shillings a year. The only word that showed any awareness at all came late in the cheerful meal, when Jack, having observed that if this breeze held and that if the transport did not keep them hanging about at Palermo they should make an amazingly brisk passage, asked, 'Who has the Polyphemus now?'
No one knew. A Transport Agent or even a Transport Commander was a desperately obscure person, outside all hope of promotion, almost outside the service. 'Some broken-winded old lieutenant, I dare say,' said Pullings, and then with a wry grin he added, 'Not but what I may be precious glad to hoist a plain blue pennant and command a transport myself, one of these days.'
The transport did not keep them hanging about. They found her standing off and on well north of Cape Gallo, obviously waiting for them and keeping as sharp a lookout as any man-of-war. They exchanged numbers, and Jack, standing on under easy sail, signalled the Polyphemus to join him. The transport dropped her topgallants and flashed out jib and staysails in a most seamanlike manner; but since she had to beat up, tack upon tack, to fetch the Worcester's wake, he had plenty of time to observe her.
This he did, quite casually at first, as he sat drinking hot lime-juice in the great cabin. His telescope lay on the locker beside him, and quite early he had recognized the transport's commander, an elderly lieutenant by the name of Patterson who had lost an arm in an unsuccessful cutting-out expedition at the beginning of the war. He was now sailing the Polyphemus, a weatherly flush-decked ship, with great skill, keeping her as close to the wind as ever she would lie in the last long leg that would cut the Worcester's course; but it was not Patterson's steel winking in the sun nor his exact judgement of the increasing breeze that made Jack stare more and more but rather something exceedingly odd that was going on amidships. It was as though the transport's people were trundling a gun up and down: but a grey gun, and a gun far larger than any first-rate would carry even on her lower tier. He could not make it out from the cabin, nor from the stern-gallery, nor from the poop. On the quarterdeck he said to the signal midshipman, 'Desire the transport to pass within hail, Mr Seymour,' and to the officer of the watch, 'We will lie to for a moment, Mr Collins, if you please.'
The Polyphemus crossed the Worcester's wake, shot up under her lee, backed her foretopsail and lay there, rising and falling on the lively sea, her commander standing with his hook fast round the aftermost mainshroud, looking attentively up at the ship of the line. He was a lean, elderly man in a worn, old-fashioned uniform and his bright yellow scratch-wig contrasted oddly with his severe, humourless, sun-tanned face; but once again it was not Mr Patterson who fixed Jack's gaze, and the gaze of every Worcester who could decently look over the side. It was the rhinoceros that stood abaff the foremast, motionless amidst its motionless attendants, the two ships being frozen into respectful silence while their captains conversed over the water like a couple of well-conducted bulls.
For propriety's sake Jack first asked for news of the Admiral—sailed on Thursday evening, Melampus in company—for Mr Consul Hamilton—was aboard and would wait on Captain Aubrey as soon as he could stand: was somewhat incommoded by the motion at present—and then he said, 'Mr Patterson, what is that creature abaft the foremast?'
'It is a rhinoceros, sir: a rhinoceros of the grey species, a present for the Pasha of Barka.'
'What is it doing?'
'It is exercising, sir. It must be exercised two hours a day, to prevent its growing vicious.'
'Then let it carry on, Mr Patterson: do not stand on ceremony, I beg.'
'No, sir,' said Patterson, and to the seaman in charge of the party, 'Carry on, Clements.'
As though some spring had been released the rhinoceros and its crew started into movement. The animal took three or four twinkling little steps and lunged at Clements' vitals: Clements seized the horn and rose with it, calling out, 'Easy, easy there, old cock,' and at the same moment the rest of the party clapped on to the fall of a travelling burton, hoisting the rhinoceros clear of the deck. It hung by a broad belt round its middle, and for a while its legs ran nimbly on: Clements reasoned into its ear in a voice suitable to its enormous bulk and thumped its hide in a kindly manner, and when it was lowered again he led it forward to the foot of the foremast, holding it by the same ear and advising it 'to step lively, watch for the roll, and mind where it was coming to, not to crush people with its great fat arse.' Here it was hoisted up, swung round, lowered, and led aft, walking quite meekly now with only an occasional skip and thrust of its horn or wanton flirt of its rump: hoisted again, turned and led forward: to and fro under the fascinated eyes of the Worcesters until at last it was brought to the main hatchway. Here it looked expectant, with its ears brought to bear, its dim eyes searching, its prehensile upper lip pointing from side to side. Clements gave it a ship's biscuit, which it took delicately and ate with every appearance of appetite. But then the hatches were removed and the creature's aspect changed: Clements blindfolded it with his black neckerchief, and by way of explanation Mr Patterson called out 'It is timid. It fears the darkness, or perhaps the depth.'
'Handsomely, now,' said Clements. He and the rhinoceros rose a foot, travelled over the hatchway and vanished downwards, the seaman with one hand on the rope, the other over the animal's withers, the rhinoceros with its four legs held out, stiff, its ears drooping, the image of grey anxiety.
'Lord, how I wish the Doctor were here,' said Jack to Pullings, and in a louder voice, 'Mr Patterson, I congratulate you on your management of the rhinoceros. Will you dine with me tomorrow, weather permitting?'
Mr Patterson said that if the weather permitted, he should be happy to wait on Captain Aubrey; but he said so in a doubtful bellow, with a shake of his head to windward, where there was every appearance of wind brewing up. And in the event Jack dined alone, the three ships running east-south-east under courses and reefed topsails over a sea too rough for boats to be launched with any comfort: he was just as glad, for although the breeze was fair, and
although there was a general feeling of holiday, they being away from the squadron, his cold had so increased upon him that he was scarcely fit for company. Again he said to Pullings at breakfast 'I wish the Doctor were here.' He felt that it would be disloyal to Stephen to summon Mr Lewis, and before dinner he tried some of the remedies that had been suggested: they, or the wine he drank, may have done some good, for as they approached the Pantellaria channel and he spread his forces in the faint hope of a prize, he found his spirits rise to a fine point of cheerfulness. The hope was faint indeed, yet it had a reasonable existence: there were still some ships that would risk the eastern run for the sake of the enormous profits, and although these were fast, knowing craft upon the whole, often in the privateering or the smuggling line, this was one of the few sea-lanes in which they were less rare than elsewhere; and in this stretch of sea with this south-west wind a blockade-runner, beating up for home, would be at a great disadvantage. He was so hoarse that Pullings was obliged to relay his orders, but it was with real satisfaction that he saw the Dryad steer south and the Polyphemus north until they were spread out so that in line abreast the three of them could survey the great part of the channel—a sparkling day, warm in spite of the wind, a truly Mediterranean day at last with splendid visibility, white clouds racing across a perfect sky, their shadows showing purple on a sea royal-blue where it was not white: an absurd day to have a cold on.
'Should you not go below for a while, sir?' said Pullings to him privately. 'It is perhaps a little damp.'
'Nonsense,' said Jack. 'If everybody started taking notice of a cold, good Heavens, where would one be? The war might come to an end. In any case we can only sweep for a little while: we lose Dryad once we are a day's sail from Medina, say at the height of Cape Carmo.'
All day long they sailed, searching the sea from their mastheads, and nothing did they find, apart from a group of tunny-boats out of Lampedusa, who sold them some fish and told them that a French Smyrna-man, the Aurore, had passed the day before, deeply-laden and somewhat crippled, having been mauled by a Greek pirate from Tenedos. They took it philosophically, as sailors must if they are not to run mad, being so subject to wind and tide and current; and with the sun going down astern while the full moon rose ahead, the Worcester sent the Dryad away for Medina, called the Polyphemus in and stood eastward with her, the breeze abating with the close of day. An easy sail and a flowing sheet: and while Jack consoled himself with Gluck and toasted cheese the hands gathered on the forecastle and danced in the warm moonlight until the setting of the watch, and, by Pullings' leave, beyond it. They were heartier still, since Jack had his skylight open and the wind had hauled forward; but it was a cheerful sound, one that he loved to hear, as signifying a happy ship. The confused distant noise, the familiar tunes, the laughter, the clap of hands and the rhythmic thump of feet was full of memories for him too, and as he wandered up and down his spacious, lonely domain, cocking his ear to the sound of Ho the dandy kiddy-o, he cut a few heavy, lumbering steps, in spite of his cold.
When he lay in his cot, swinging to the Worcester's lift and roll, his mind drifted back to the days when he too had belonged on the forecastle, when he too had danced to the fiddle and fife, his upper half grave and still, his lower flying—heel and toe, the double harman, the cut-and-come-again, the Kentish knock, the Bob's a-dying and its variations in quick succession and (if the weather was reasonably calm) in perfect time. To be sure there was a golden haze over those times and some of the gold was no doubt false, mere pinchbeck at the best; but even so they had an irreplaceable quality of their own—perfect, unthinking health, good company upon the whole, no responsibility apart from the immediate task in hand—and he was thinking of the rare, noisy, strenuous, good-natured fun they had had when hands were piped to mischief as he fell asleep, smiling still. His sleeping mind often strayed far away, sometimes home to his wife and garden, sometimes to beds less sanctified, but now it scarcely stirred from the ship and he woke with the word Thursday in his ears, as clearly as if it had been shouted.
Of course it was Thursday: hammocks had been piped up early, well before sunrise, at the end of the middle watch, and his unconscious being had no doubt recorded the fact. Long, long ago he too would have been required to rise and shine, to show a leg and rouse out there in the dark, cold or no cold: now he could take his ease.
On Thursdays the Worcester presented her less glorious, less martial, more domestic face. Unless the weather was extraordinarily foul or unless the ship was in action, she washed her clothes that morning in enormous tubs and rigged clothes-lines fore and aft, while in the afternoon all hands were piped to make and mend. It was also the day when Jack was invited to dine in the wardroom, and as he went there at the appointed hour by way of the quarterdeck and the companion-ladder he surveyed as fine a show of washing as the heart could desire: a thousand shirts and more, five hundred pair of duck trousers, countless handkerchiefs and smalls all waving and fluttering in the breeze. It was true that they were all washed in sea-water, the Worcester being short of fresh, that since the soap would not lather they were not very clean, and that they were harsh and salty to the touch, but they made a brave, many-coloured show, a cheering sight.
In the wardroom itself his presence had less of a damping effect than usual: there were few officers who had not either a cure for a cold or an account of a very shocking long-lasting bout, caught on some particular and clearly-defined occasion such as the leaving off of a waistcoat, the wearing of a Magellan jacket on watch one night and not on the next, standing talking to a woman with one's hat off, rain falling on one's hair, sitting in a draught, an untimely sweat; and these topics carried the meal on to the more informal stage of general conversation. Jack said little: he could not, being almost voiceless, but he looked and indeed felt amiable, and being adjured on all hands 'to feed a cold, sir, and starve a fever,' he ate a great deal of the fresh tunny that graced half the table's length, so welcome a change from salt pork. At the same time he listened to the talk at his end of the table: rhinoceroses, how best stowed, their probable weight, their diet—the one-horned kind and the two, where found—anecdote of a Sumatra rhinoceros belonging to HMS Ariel, its appetite for grog and unhappy end—the properties of powdered rhinoceros-horn, taken inwardly—regret at Dr Maturin's absence—a health to the absent Doctor—Barka, and the possibility of renewing their livestock, at least in sheep and poultry—the likelihood of the Pasha's coming it the handsome in the article of bullocks, in view of the rhinoceros and a cargo of no doubt equally valuable presents. At the far end however Mowett and Rowan, the man who had replaced the lubberly Somers, seemed to be in disagreement, strong and even acrimonious disagreement. Rowan was a round-faced, bright-eyed young fellow with a rather decided air: Jack had seen enough of him to know that although he was a man of little formal education—a West-Country shipwright's son—he was a competent officer and a great improvement on Somers; but apart from that he had gathered little and now, during a momentary pause in the talk on either side of him, he was surprised to hear Rowan say 'I may not know what a dactyl is, but I do know that Will you take A piece of cake is poetry, whatever you may say. It rhymes, don't it? And if what rhymes ain't poetry, what is?'
Jack quite agreed; and he was morally certain that Mowett did not know what a dactyl was either, though he loved him dearly.
'I'll tell you what poetry is,' cried Mowett. 'Poetry is . . .'
The midshipman of the watch came darting in. 'Beg pardon, sir,' he said at Jack's elbow. 'Mr Whiting's duty and Dryad is in sight from the masthead, sir, two points on the starboard bow. At least, we think it is Dryad,' he added, quite ruining the effect.
It would be strange if there could have been a mistake about the Dryad, with her man-of-war's pennant and her distinctive rig; but it would also be strange, the breeze being what it was, if the Dryad could possibly have reached such a position without carrying an extraordinary press of sail.
'What is she wearing?'
&nb
sp; 'Skyscrapers, sir.'
That was decisive. No man-of-war would be flying out from the land, cracking on to that perilous degree, unless she were the Dryad. 'Very well, Mr Seymour,' he said. 'My compliments to Mr Whiting, and he may make sail to close the Dryad, if Dryad she be. I shall come on deck after dinner.' And in an aside to Pullings he added 'It would be a pity to waste a crumb of this glorious treacle-crowdy.'
Dryad she was, coming along as fast as ever her ungainly form would allow her: with a fine breeze on the beam and every sail that she could possibly bear she made very nearly nine knots, trembling as she did so and from the utmost limit of signalling distance flying a request to speak to the Worcester. For her part the Worcester, on the opposite tack, ran ten knots clean off the reel once she had stowed her remaining laundry away, and the two therefore approached one another over that empty brilliant sea so fast that they were within hailing distance before the inhabitants of the wardroom had been on deck, digesting their dinner, for more than half an hour. This was the first time, apart from practice, that the Worcester had spread her royals and loftier staysails since she came into the Mediterranean—the first time that her present complement had ever done so in more than a capful of wind—and although the fine urgent leeward lean of the ship, the strong rush of water along her side, and the white bow-wave spreading wide lifted Jack's heart, he looked very thoughtful indeed as he watched some of the orders being carried out. Many of the midshipmen and some of the upper-yardsmen did not understand their duty, and the setting of the mizzen topgallant staysail would have cost one youngster a terrible fall if not his life but for the captain of the top, who caught him by the hair. And then when the ship was to fold her wings, as it were, her multiplicity of wings, to lie to for Babbington to come aboard he saw some very odd sights, such as two leading members of the Halleluia chorus heaving upon a rope with immense zeal and good will in the wrong direction until a distracted bosun's mate beat them off—better judges of Handel than the finer points of seamanship. There were not enough real seamen aboard, that was the trouble: these inland fellows, if properly shoved into place, could go through the ordinary motions well enough by now, or at least without disgrace, but in anything like an emergency many of them would be all to seek, quite lost without direction. The ship brought by the lee at night, for example, or laid on her beam-ends in a squall, or closely engaged with a determined enemy, spars, blocks and even masts falling about their ears. A crew of able seamen or even of ordinary seamen was not formed in a few months; and the only way of growing used to storm and battle was to work through both. He wondered how some of his people would behave on their first introduction to either, for he did not count what few blows they had had so far or the trifle of gunfire as emergencies, still less as storm or battle. These thoughts were prompted in part by the excellent seamanship displayed by the Dryad, and they were now dispelled by the sight of her captain coming aboard the Worcester as though there were not a moment to be lost. And to judge by his shining face as he came up the side it was good news that he was bringing.
The Ionian Mission Page 17
