H.M.S. Surprise (38 page)

'Clew up,' he shouted above the thunder. 'Back foretop-sail.' The Surprise slowed, lost her way, and lay shrouded in her own smoke right athwart the Marengo's bows, hammering her as fast as ever the guns could fire. The third broadside merged into the fourth: the firing was continuous now, and Stourton and the midshipmen ran up and down the line, pointing, heaving, translating their captain's hoarse barks into directed fire - a tempest of chain. After their drubbing the men were a little out of hand, and now they could serve the Frenchmen out their fire was somewhat wild and often too low: but at this range not a shot flew wide. The powder-boys ran, the cartridges came up in a racing stream, the gun-crews cheered like maniacs, stripped to the waist, pouring with sweat, taking their sweet revenge; thumping it into her, cramming their guns to the muzzle. But it was too good to last. Through the smoke it was clear that Linois meant to run the Surprise aboard - run the small frigate bodily down or board her.

'Drop the forecourse. Fill foretopsail,' he cried with the full force of his lungs: and down the tube, 'Two points off.' He must at all costs keep on the Marengo's bows and keep hitting her - she was a slaughter-house forward, but nothing vital had yet carried away. The Surprise forged on in a sluggish, heavy turn, and the two-decker's side came into view. They were opening their lower ports, running out the great thirty-six-pounders in spite of the sea. One shift of her helm to bring them to bear and the Surprise would have the whole shattering broadside within pistol-shot. Then they could clap the lower ports to, for she would be sunk.

Etherege, with four muskets and his servant to load them, was firing steadily at the Marengo's foretop, picking off any man who showed. Half a mile astern, the British van opened fire on the Sémillante and Belle Poule, who had been reaching them this last five minutes: smoke everywhere, and the thunder of the broadsides deadened the breeze.

'Port, port, hard a-port,' he called down the tube; and straightening, 'Maincourse, there.' Where was her speed, poor dear Surprise? She could just keep ahead of the Marengo, but only by falling away from the wind so far that her guns could not bear and her stern was pointing at the Marengo's bows. Fire slackened, died away, and the men stared aft at the Marengo: two spokes of her wheel would bring the Frenchman's broadside round - already they could see the double line of muzzles projecting from their ports. Why did she not yaw? Why was she signalling?

A great bellowing of guns to starboard told them why. The Royal George, followed by the two ships astern of her, had left the line, the holy line, and they were coming up fast to engage the Marengo on the other side while the van was closing in from the west, threatening to envelop him -the one manoeuvre that Linois dreaded.

The Marengo hauled her wind, and her swing brought the frigate's guns into play again. They blazed out, and the two-decker instantly replied with a ragged burst from her upper starboard guns so close that her shot went high over the frigate's deck and the burning wads came aboard - so close that they could see the faces glaring from the ports, a biscuit-toss away. For a moment the two ships lay broadside to broadside. Through a gap torn in the Marengo's quarterdeck bulwark Jack saw the Admiral sitting on a chair; there was a grave expression on his face, and he was pointing at something aloft. Jack had often sat at his table and he instantly recognised the characteristic sideways lift of his head. Now the Marengo's turn carried her farther still. Another burst from her poop carronades and she was round, close-hauled, presenting her stern to a raking fire from the frigate's remaining guns - two more were dismounted and one had burst - a fire that smashed in her stern gallery. Another broadside as she moved away, gathering speed, and a prodigious cheer as her cross-jack yard came down, followed by her mizen and topgallantmast. Then she was out of range, and the Surprise, though desperately willing, could not come round nor move fast enough through the sea to bring her into reach again.

The whole French line had worn together: they hauled close to the wind, passed between the converging lines of Indiamen, and stood on.

'Mr Lee,' said Jack. 'General chase.'

It would not do. The Indiamen chased, cracking on until their skysails carried away, but still the French squadron had the heels of them; and when Linois tacked to the eastward, Jack recalled them.

The Lushington was the first to reach him, and Captain Muffit came aboard. His red face, glorious with triumph, came up the side like a rising sun; but as he stepped on to the bloody quarterdeck his look changed to shocked astonishment. 'Oh my God,' he cried, looking at the wreckage fore and aft - seven guns dismantled, four ports beat into one, the boats on the booms utterly destroyed, shattered spars everywhere, water pouring from her lee-scuppers as the pumps brought it gushing up from below, tangled rope, splinters knee-deep in the waist, gaping holes in the bulwarks, fore and mainmast cut almost through in several places, 24 lb balls lodged deep. 'My God, you have suffered terribly. I give you the joy of victory,' he said, taking Jack's hand in both of his, 'but you have suffered most terribly. Your losses must be shocking, I am afraid.'

Jack was worn now, and very tired: his foot hurt him abominably, swollen inside his boot. 'Thank you, Captain,' he said. 'He handled us roughly, and but for the George coming up so nobly, I believe he must have sunk us. But we lost very few men. Mr Harrowby, alas, and two others, with a long score of wounded: but a light bill for such warm work. And we paid him back. Yes, yes: we paid him back, by God.'

'Eight foot three inches of water in the well, if you please, sir,' said the carpenter. 'And it gains on us.'

'Can I be of any use, sir?' cried Muffit. 'Our carpenters, bosuns, hands to pump?'

'I should take it kindly if I might have my officers and men back, and any help you can spare. She will not swim another hour.'

'Instantly, sir, instantly,' cried Muffit, starting to the side, now very near the water. 'Lord, what a battering,' he said, pausing for a last look.

'Ay,' said Jack. 'And where I shall replace all my gear this side of Bombay I do not know - not a spar in the ship. My comfort is, that Linois is even worse.'

'Oh, as for masts, spars, boats, cordage, stores, the Company will be delighted - oh, they will think the world of you, sir, in Calcutta - nothing too much, I do assure you. Your splendid action has certainly preserved the fleet, as I shall tell 'em. Yardarm to yardarm with a seventy-four! May I give you a tow?'

Jack's foot gave him a monstrous twinge. 'No, sir,' he said sharply. 'I will escort you to Calcutta, if you choose, since I presume you will not remain at sea with Linois abroad; but I will not be towed, not while I have a mast standing.'

CHAPTER TEN

The Company did think the world of him, indeed. Fireworks; prodigious banquets, treasures of naval stores poured out; such kind attentions to the crew while the Surprise was repairing that scarcely a man was sober or single from the day they dropped anchor to the day they weighed it, a sullen, brutal, debauched and dissipated band.

This was gratitude expressed in food, in entertainment on the most lavish scale in oriental splendour, and in many, many speeches, all couched in terms of unmixed praise; and it brought Jack into immediate contact with Richard Canning. At the very first official dinner he found Canning at his right - a Canning filled with affectionate admiration, who eagerly claimed acquaintance. Jack was astonished: he had scarcely thought twice about Canning since Bombay, and since the engagement with Linois not at all. He had been perpetually busy, nursing the poor shattered fainting Surprise across the sea, even with a favourable wind and the devoted help of every Indiaman whose people could find footing aboard her; and Stephen, with a sick-bay full, and some delicate operations, including poor Bowes's head, had barely exchanged a dozen unofficial words with him that might have brought Diana or Canning to his mind.

But here was the man at his side, friendly, unreserved and apparently unconscious of any call for reserve on either part, present to do him honour and indeed to propose his health in a well-turned, knowledgeable and really gratifying speech, a speech in which Sophia hovered, decently veiled, together with Captain Aubrey's imminent, lasting, and glorious happiness. After the first stiffness and embarrassment Jack found it impossible-to dislike him, and he made little effort to do so, particularly as Stephen and he seemed so well together. Besides, any distance, any coldness on a public occasion would have been so marked, so graceless and so churlish that he could not have brought himself to it, even if the offence had been even greater and far more recent. It occurred to him that in all probability Canning had not the least notion of having cut him out long ago - oh so long ago: in another world.

Banquets, receptions, a ball that he had to decline, because that was the day they buried Bowes; and it was a week before he ever saw Canning in private, He was sitting at his desk in his cabin with his injured foot in a bucket of warm oil of sesame, writing to Sophie 'the sword of honour they have presented me with is a very handsome thing, in the Indian taste, I believe, with a most flattering inscription; indeed, if kind words were ha'pence, I should he a nabob, and oh sweetheart a married nabob. The Company, the Parsec merchants and the insurers have made up a splendid purse for the men, that I am to distribute; but in their delicacy - ' when Canning was announced.

'Beg him to step below,' he said, placing a whale's tooth upon his letter, against the fetid Hooghly breeze. 'Mr Canning, a good morning to you, sir: pray sit down. Forgive me for receiving you in this informal way, but Maturin will flay me if I rise up from my oil without leave.'

Civil inquiries for the foot - vastly better, I thank you -and Canning said, 'I have just pulled round the ship, and upon my word I do not know how you ever brought her in. I absolutely counted forty-seven great shot between what was left of your cutwater and the stump of the larboard cathead, and even more on the starboard bow. Just how did the Marengo lay?'

Few landsmen would have had more than the briefest general account, but Canning had been to sea; he owned privateers and he had fought one of them in a spirited little action. Jack told him just how the Marengo lay; and led on by Canning's close, intelligent participation in every move, every shift of wind, he also told him how the Sémillante and Belle Poule had lain, and how the gallant Berceau had tried to lay, drawing diagrams in oil of sesame on the table-top.

'Well,' said Canning with a sigh, 'I honour you, I am sure: it was the completest thing. I would have given my right hand to be there... but then I have never been a lucky man, except perhaps in trade. Lord, lord, how I wish I were a sailor, and a great way from land.' He looked down-spirited and old; but reviving he said, 'It was the completest thing - the Nelson touch.'

'Ah no, sir, no,' cried Jack. 'There you mistake it. Nelson would have had Marengo. There was a moment when I almost thought we might. If that noble fellow McKay in Royal George could only have brought up the rear a little faster, or if Linois had lingered but a minute to thump us again, the van would have been up, and we had him between two fires. But it was not to be. It was only a little brush, after all - another indecisive action; and I dare say he is refitting in Batavia at this moment.'

Canning shook his head, smiling. 'It was not altogether unsuccessful, however,' he said. 'A fleet worth six million of money has been saved; and the country, to say nothing of the Company, would have been in a strange position if it had been lost. And that brings me to the purpose of my visit. I am come at the desire of my associates to find out, with the utmost tact and delicacy, how they may express their sense of your achievement in something more - shall I say tangible? - than addresses, mountains of pilau, and indifferent burgundy. Something perhaps more negotiable, as we say in the City. I trust I do not offend you, sir?'

'Not in the least, sir,' said Jack.

'Well now, seeing that anything resembling a direct gratification is out of the question with a gentleman of your kind -,

'Where, where do you get these wild romantic notions?' thought Jack, looking wistfully into his face.- some members suggested a service of plate, or Suraj-ud-Dowlah's gold-mounted palanquin. But I put it to them, that a service of plate on the scale they suggested would take a year or so to reach your table, that to my personal knowledge you were already magnificently supplied with silver [Jack possessed six plates, at present in pawn], and that a palanquin, however magnificent, was of little use to a sea-officer; and it occurred to me that freight was the answer to our problem. Am I too gross, speaking with this freedom?'

'Oh no, no,' cried Jack. 'Use no ceremony, I beg.' But he was puzzled: freight-money, that charming unlooked-for, unlaborious, almost unearned shower of gold, fell only on those fortunate captains of men-of-war who carried treasure for Government or for the owners of bullion or specie who did not choose to trust their concentrated wealth to any conveyance less sure; it amounted to two or three per cent of the value carried, and very welcome it was. Although it was far rarer than prize-money (the sea-officer's only other road to a decent competence) it was surer; it had no possible legal difficulties attached, and no man had to risk his ship, his life or his career in getting it. Like every other sailor, Jack knew all about freight-money, but none had ever come his way: he felt a glowing benevolence towards Canning. Yet still he was in a state of doubt: bullion travelled out to India, not back to England; the Company's wealth sailed home in the form of tea and muslin, Cashmere shawls... He had never heard of bullion homeward-bound.

'You may be aware that the Lushington was carrying Borneo rubies, one of our shipments of gems,' said Canning. 'And we have a consignment of Tinnevelly pearls as well as two parcels of sapphires. The whole amounts to no great value, I fear, not even quarter of a million; but it takes no room, either - you would not be incommoded. May I hope to persuade you to convey it, sir?'

'I believe you may, sir,' said Jack, 'and I am exceedingly obliged to you for the, hey, delicate, gentlemanlike way this offer has been made.'

'You must not thank me, my dear Aubrey: there is not the least personal obligation I am only the mouthpiece of the Company. How I wish I could be of some direct service. If there is any way in which I can be of use, I should be most happy - would it, for example, be of any interest to you to send a message to England? If you were to put a few thousand into Bohea and mohair futures, you might well clear thirty per cent before you were home. Some cousins and I keep up an overland mail, and the courier is on the wing He goes by way of Suez'

'Mohair futures,' said Jack, in a wondering voice 'I should be tolerably at sea, there, I am afraid But I tell you what it is, Canning, I should be infinitely obliged if your man would take me a private letter. You shall have it in ten minutes - how kind, how very kind'

He turned Canning over to Pullings for a thorough tour of the ship, with a particular recommendation that he should view the stringers abaft the manger, and the state of the bitts, and resumed his letter.

Sophie dear, here is the prettiest thing in the world

- John Company is stuffing the ship with treasure -you and I are to get freight, as we say - shall explain it to you later: very like prize, but the men don't share, nor the Admiral neither, this time, since I am under Admiralty orders, is not that charming? No vast great thumping sum, but it will clear me of debt and set us up in a neat cottage with an acre or two. So you are hereby required and directed to proceed to Madeira forthwith and here is a note for Heneage Dundas who will be delighted to give you a passage in Ethalion if he is still on the packet-run or to find one of our friends bound there if he is not. Lose not a moment: you may knit your wedding-dress aboard. In great haste, and with far greater love, Jack.

PS Stephen is very well. We had a brush with Linois.

Old Heneage,

As you love me, give Sophie a passage to Madeira. Or if you cannot, stir up Clowes, Seymour, Rieu -any of our reliable, sober friends. And if you can ship a respectable woman as, say boatswain's servant, you would infinitely oblige

Yours ever,

Jack Aubrey PS Surprise had a mauling from Marengo, 74, but paid her back with interest, and the moment her bow-knees are something like, I put to sea. This comes overland, and I dare say it will outrun me by a couple of months.

'Here you are, sir,' he cried, seeing Canning's bulk darken the cabin-door. 'Signed, sealed and delivered. I am most uncommon grateful.'

'Not at all. I shall give it to Atkins directly, and he will take it to the courier before he leaves.'

'Atkins? Mr Stanhope's Atkins?'

'Yes. Dr Maturin gave him a chit for me: it seems that with the envoy dying in that unhappy way, he was out of a place. Are you acquainted with him?'

'He came out in Surprise, of course: but really I hardly saw anything of the gentleman.'

'Ah? Indeed? That reminds me, I have not had the pleasure of seeing Maturin for some days now.'

'Nor have I. We meet at these splendid dinners, but otherwise he is busy at the hospital or running about the country looking for bugs and tigers.'

'Be so good as to call mc an elephant,' said Stephen.

'Sahib, at once. Does the sahib prefer a male elephant, or a female elephant?'

'A male elephant. I should be more at home with a male elephant.'

'Would the sahib wish me to bring him to a house of boys? Cleaned, polite boys like gazelles, that sing and play the flute?'

'No, Mahomet: just the elephant, if you please.'

The enormous grey creature knelt down, and Stephen looked closely into its wise little old eye, gleaming among the paint and embroidery.

'The sahib places his foot here, upon the brute.'

'I beg your pardon,' murmured Stephen at the vast archaic ear, and mounted. They rode down the crowded Chowringhee, Mahomet pointing out objects of interest. 'There lives Mirza Shah, decrepit, blind: kings trembled at his name. There Kumar the rich, an unbeliever; he has a thousand concubines. The sahib is disgusted. Like me, the sahib looks upon women as tattling, guileful, tale-bearing, noisy, contemptible, mean, wretched, unsteady, harsh, inhospitable; I will bring him a young gentleman that smells of honey. This is the Maidan. The Sahib sees two peepul-trees near the bridge, God give him sight for ever. That is where the European gentlemen come to fight one another with swords and pistols. The building beyond the bridge is a heathen temple, full of idols. We cross the bridge. Now the sahib is in Alipur.'

In Alipur: vast walled gardens, isolated houses; here a Gothic ruin with a true pagoda in its grounds, there a homesick Irishman's round tower. The elephant padded up a gravel drive to a portico, very like the portico of an English country house apart from the deep recesses on either side for the tigers, and the smell of wild beasts that hung beneath its roof. They paced out and looked not at but towards him with implacable eyes: their chains still dragged upon the ground, yet their faces were so close together that their whiskers mingled, and it was impossible to say from which cavernous chest came the growl that filled the echoing porch with this low, continuous sound. The porter's infant child, woken by the organ-note, applied himself to a winch, and the tigers were heaved apart.

'Infant child,' said Stephen, 'state the names and ages of thy beasts.'

'Father of the poor, their names are Right and Wrong. They are of immemorial antiquity, having been in this portico even before I was born.'

'Yet the territory of the one overlaps the territory of the other?'

'Maharaj, my understanding does not reach the word overlap; but no doubt it is so.'

'Child, accept this coin.'

Stephen was announced, 'Here is that physical chap again,' said Lady Forbes, peering at him under her shading hand. 'Thu must admit he has a certain air - has seen good company - but I never trust these half-castes. Good afternoon, sir: I trust I see you well, my Sawbones Romeo: they have been at it hammer and tongs and thrown in the bloody coal-scuttle, too: she would have reduced me to tears, if! had any left to shed. You find me at my tea, sir. May I offer you a cup? I lace it with gin, sir; the only thing against this hot relaxing damp. Kumar - where is that black sodomite? Another cup. So you have buried poor Stanhope, I hear? Well, well, we must all come to it: that's my comfort. Lord, the young men I have seen buried here! Mrs Villiers will be down presently. Perhaps I will pour you another cup and then help her with her gown. She will be lying there stark naked, sweating under the punkah: I dare say you would like to go and help her yourself, young fellow, for all your compassé airs. Don't tell me you have no - la, I am a coarse old woman; and to think I was once a girl, alas, alas.'