H.M.S. Surprise (8 page)

'Right,' said Jack, and flung his sixteen stone against it. The door burst inwards, shuddering as it swung; but there was only one man left this side of the crowded open window: they hunted him down in one quick turn. Shrieks in the courtyard.

'Potier,' from above, and the whistling moved down the stairs, 'qu'est-ce que ce remue-ménage?'

By the light of the big lantern under the arch Jack saw an officer, a cheerful, high-coloured officer, bluff good humour and a well-fitting uniform, so much the officer that he felt a momentary pause. Dutourd, no doubt.

Dutourd's face, about to whistle again, turned to meredulity: his hand reached to a sword that was not there.

'Hold him,' said Jack to the dark seamen closing in. 'Maragall, ask him where Stephen is.'

'Vous êtes un officier anglais, monsieur?' asked Dutourd, ignoring Maragall.

'Answer, God rot your bloody soul,' cried Jack with a flush of such fury that he trembled.

'Chez le colonel,' said the officer.

'Maragall, how many are there left?'

'This person is the only man left in the house: he says Esteban is in the colonel's room. The colonel is not back yet.'

'Come.'

Stephen saw them walk into his timeless dream: they had been there before, but never together. And never in these dull colours. He smiled to see Jack, although poor Jack's face was so shockingly concerned, white, distraught. But when Jack's hands grappled with the straps his smile changed to an almost frightened rigour: the furious jet of pain brought the two remote realities together.

'Jack, handsomely, my dear,' he whispered as they eased him tenderly into a padded chair. 'Will you give me something to drink, now, for the love of God? En Maragall, valga'm Deu,' he said, smiling over Jack's shoulder.

'Clear the room, Satisfaction,' said Jack, breaking off- several prisoners had come up, some crawling, and now two of them made a determined rush at Dutourd, standing ghastly, pressed into the corner.

'That man must have a priest,' said Stephen.

'Must we kill him?' said Jack.

Stephen nodded. 'But first he must write to the colonel- bring him here - say, vital information - the American has talked - it will not wait. Must not: vital.'

'Tell him, sir,' said Jack to Maragall, looking back over his shoulder, with the look of profound affection still on his face. 'Tell him he must write this note. If the colonel is not here in ten minutes I shall kill him on that machine.'

Maragall led Dutourd to the desk, put a pen in his hand. 'He says he cannot,' he reported. 'Says his honour as an officer -,

'His what?' cried Jack, looking at the thing from which he had unstrapped Stephen.

Shouting, scuffling, a fall on the way up.

'Sir,' said Bonden, 'this chap comes in at the front door.' Two of his mates propped a man into the room. 'I'm afraid the prisoners nobbled him on the way up.'

They stared at the dying, the dead colonel, and in the pause Dutourd whipped round, dashed out the lamp, and leapt from the window.

'While trying to escape,' said Stephen, when Java Dick came up to report. 'Oh, altogether too - too - Jack, what now? I cannot scarcely crawl, alas.'

'We carry you down to the gunboat,' said Jack.

Maragall said, 'There is the shutter they carry their dead suspects on, behind the door.'

'Joan,' said Stephen to him, 'all the papers that matter are in the press to the right of the table.'

Gently, gently down through the open streets, Stephen staring up at the stars and the clean air reaching deep into his lungs. Dead streets, with one single figure that glanced at this familiar cortege and looked quickly away: right down to the quays and along. The gunboat: Satisfaction's party there before them, ready at the sweeps. Bonden reporting 'All present and sober, sir, if you please.' Farewell, farewell, Maragall: God go with you and may no new thing arise. The black water slipping by faster, faster, lipping along her side. The strangled chime of a clock among the neat bundles of loot under the half-deck. Silence behind them: Mahon still fast asleep.

Lazaretto Island left astern; the signal lanterns swaying up, answered from the battery with the regulation hoist and a last derisive cry of 'Cochons'. And the blessed realisation that the dawn was bringing its usual slackening of the tramontane - and that the sail down to leeward was the lively.

'God knows I should do the same again,' said Jack, leaning on the helm to close her, the keen spray stinging his tired, reddened eyes. 'But I feel I need the whole sea

to clean me.' -

CHAPTER FOUR

'Will the invalid gentleman take a little posset before he goes?' asked the landlady of the Crown. 'It is a nasty raw day - Portsmouth is not Gibraltar - and he looks but palely.' She was on the point of appropriating the chambermaid's 'more fit for a hearse than a shay' when it occurred to her that this might cast a reflection upon the Crown's best post-chaise, now standing at the door.

'Certainly, Mrs Moss; a capital idea. I will carry it up. you put a warming-pan in the chaise, I am sure?'

'Two, sir, fresh and fresh this last half-hour. But if it was two hundred, I would not have him travel on an empty stomach. Could you not persuade him to stay dinner, sir? He should have a goose-pie; and there is nothing more fortifying than goose-pie, as the world in general knows.'

'I will try, Mrs Moss; but he is as obstinate as a bee in a bull's foot.'

'Invalids, sir,' said Mrs Moss, shaking her head, 'is all the same. When I nursed Moss on his death-bed, he was that cross and fractious! No goose-pie, no mandragore, no posset, not if it was ever so.'

'Stephen,' he cried, with a meretricious affectation of gaiety, 'just toss this off, will you, and we will get under way. Is your great-coat warming?'

'I will not,' said Stephen. 'It is another of your damned possets. Am I in childbed, for all love, that I should be plagued, smothered, destroyed with caudle?'

'Just a sip,' said Jack. 'It will set you up for the journey. Mrs Moss does not quite like your travelling; and I must say I agree with her. However, I have bought you a bottle of Dr Mead's Instant Invigorator; it contains iron. Now just a drop, mixed with the posset.'

'Mrs Moss - Mrs Moss - Dr Mead - iron, forsooth,' cried Stephen. 'There is a very vicious inclination in the present age, to -,

'Great-coat, sir,' said Killick. 'Warm as toast. Now step into it before it gets cold.'

They buttoned him up, tweaked him into shape, and carried him downstairs, one at each elbow, so that his feet skimmed the steps, to where Bonden was waiting by the chaise. They packed him into the stifling warmth with understanding smiles over his head as he cried out that they were stifling him with their God-damned rugs and sheepskins - did they mean to bury him alive? Enough damned straw underfoot for a regiment of horse. Killick and Bonden were cramming in the few last wisps and Jack was at the other door, about to get in, when he felt a touch upon his shoulder. Turning he saw a man with a battered face and a crowned staff in his hand - a quick glance showed two others at the horses' heads and a reinforcement of burly sheriff's officers with clubs. 'Captain Aubrey, sir?' said the man. 'In the name of the law, I must ask you to come along with me - little matter of Parkin and Clapp -judgment summons. No trouble, sir? We will walk along quietly, no scandal? I'll come behind, if you prefer it, and Joe will lead the way.'

'Very well,' said Jack, and leaning in at the window he said, 'Stephen, I am nabbed - Parkin and Clapp -a caption. Please see Fanshaw. I'll write to you at the Grapes, maybe join you there. Killick, get my valise out. Bonden, you go along with the Doctor: look after him, eh?'

'Which sponging-house?' asked Stephen.

'Bolter's. Vulture Lane,' said the tipstaff. 'Every luxury, every consideration, all conweniencies.'

'Drive on,' said Jack.

'Maturin, Maturin, my dear Maturin,' cried Sir Joseph, 'how extremely shocked I am, how concerned, how deeply moved.'

'Ay, ay,' said Stephen testily, 'it is showy enough to look at, no doubt, but these are only the superficial sequelae. There is no essential lesion. I shall do very well. But for the moment I was obliged to beg you to visit me here; I could not manage the stairs. It was benevolent of you to come; I wish I could receive you better.'

'No, no, no,' cried Sir Joseph. 'I like your quarters excessively - another age - most picturesque - Rembrandt. What a splendid fire! I trust they make you comfortable?'

'Yes, I thank you. They are used to my ways here. Perfect, if only the woman of the house did not take it upon herself to play the physician, merely because I keep my bed some hours every day. "No, ma'am," I say to her, "I will not drink Godfrey's Cordial, nor try Ward's drop. I do not tell you how to dress this salmagundy, for you are a cook; pray do not tell me how to order my regimen, for as you know, I am a medical man." "No sir," says she, "but our Sarah, which she was in just the same case as you, having been overset at the bear-baiting when six months gone, took great adwantage from Godfrey; so pray, sir, do try this spoonful."

Jack Aubrey was just the same. "I do not pretend to teach you to sail your sloop or poop or whatever you call the damned machine; do not therefore pretend -" But it is all one. Nostrums from the fairground quack, old wives' remedies - bah! If rage could reunite my sinews, I should be as compact as a lithosperm.'

Sir Joseph had intended to suggest the waters of Bath, but now he said, 'I hope your friend is well? I am infinitely obliged to him; it was a most heroic stroke. The more I reflect upon it, the more I honour him.'

'Yes. Yes, it was. It appears to me that these coups can be brought off only by enormous pains, forethought, preparation, or by taking them on the volley; and for that a very particular quality is required, a virtue I hardly know how to name. Baraka, say the Moors. He possesses it in a high degree; and what would be criminal temerity in

another man is right conduct in him. Yet I left him in a sponging-house at Portsmouth.'

Amazement; concern.

'Yes. his virtue seems to apply only at sea; or in his maritime character. He was arrested for debt at the instance of a coven of attorneys. Fanshaw, his agent, tells me it was for a sum of seven hundred pounds. Captain Aubrey was aware that the Spanish treasure was not to be regarded as prize, but he had no notion that the news had spread in England; nor, I must confess, had I, since there has been no official announcement. However, I must not importune you with private discontents.'

'My dear sir, my dear Maturin - I beg you will always speak to me as a personal friend, a friend who has a great esteem for you, quite apart from all official considerations.'

'That is kind, Sir Joseph; it is very kind. Then I will tell you, that I fear his other creditors may get wind of his renewed difficulties and so load him with processes that he will be hopelessly involved. My means do not allow me to extricate him; and although the ex gratia payment you were good enough to mention may eventually extinguish the greater part of his debt, it will leave a considerable sum. And a man may rot in prison as thoroughly for a few hundred as for ten thousand pounds.'

'Has it not been paid?'

'No, sir. And I detect a certain reluctance in Fanshaw to make an advance upon it - these things are so unusual, says he, the event dubious, the delay unknown, and his capital was so very much engaged.'

'It is not my province, of course: the sluggish Transport Board and the still more sluggish Ticket Office have to pass the vouchers. But I think I can promise something like despatch. In the meantime Mr Carling will speak a private word to Fanshaw, and I am sure you will be able to draw on him for the sum you mention. Mention.'

'Should you like a window open, Sir Joseph?'

'If it would not incommode you. Do you not find it a trifle warm yourself?'

'I do not. The tropic sun is what I require, and a bushel of sea-coals is its nearest equivalent. But it would scarcely answer for a normally-constituted frame, I agree. Pray take off your coat - loosen your neckcloth. I do not stand on ceremony, as you see, with my nightcap and catskin comforter.' He began to heave on a system of cords and purchases connected with the window, but sank back, muttering, 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph. No grip, no grip at all. Bonden!'

'Sir?' said Bonden, instantly appearing at the door.

'Just clap on to that slab-line, and tally and belay right aft, will you now?' said Stephen, glancing at Sir Joseph with covert pride.

Bonden gaped, caught the Doctor's intention, and moved forward. But with his hand on the rope he paused and said, 'But I don't hardly know, sir, that draught would be the thing. We ain't so spry this morning.'

'You see how it is, Sir Joseph. Discipline all to pieces; never an order carried out without endless wrangling. Damn you, sir.'

Bonden sulkily opened the window an inch or two, poked the fire and left the room, shaking his head.

'I believe I shall take off my coat,' said Sir Joseph. 'So a warm climate would suit, you tell me?'

'The hotter the better. As soon as I can, I mean to go down to Bath, to wallow in the warm and sulphurous -,

'Just what I was about to observe!' cried Sir Joseph. 'I am delighted to hear it. It was the very thing I should have recommended if' - if you had not looked so very savage, explosive, obstinate and cantankerous, he thought; but said 'if it had been my place to advise you. The very thing to brace the fibres; my sister Clarges knew of a case, not perhaps quite identical... ' He felt he was on dangerous ground, coughed, and without a transition said, 'But to return to your friend: will not his marriage set him up? I saw the announcement in The Times, and surely I understand the young lady to be a very considerable heiress? Lady Keith told me the estate is very handsome; some of the best farm-land in the county.'

'That is so, sure. But it is in her mother's hands entirely; and this mother is the most unromantic beast that ever urged its squat thick bulk across the face of the protesting earth; whereas Jack is not. He has the strangest notions of what constitutes a scrub, and the greatest contempt for a fortune-hunter. A romantic creature. And the most pitiful liar you can imagine: when I had to tell him the Spanish treasure was not prize, but that he was a pauper again, he feigned to have known it a great while - laughed, comforted me as tender as a woman, said he had been quite resigned to it these months past, desired me not to fret - he did not mind it. But I know all that night he wrote to Sophia, and I am morally certain he released her from her engagement. Not that that will have the slightest effect upon her, the honey bun,' he added, leaning back on his pillows with a smile.

Bonden walked in, staggering under the weight of two butts of coal, and made up the fire.

'Sir Joseph, you will take some coffee? Perhaps a glass of Madeira? They have an excellent sercial here, that I can conscientiously recommend.'

'Thank you, thank you - perhaps I might have a glass of water? A glass of cold water would be most acceptable.'

'A glass of water, Bonden, if you please, and a decanter of Madeira. And if I find another raw egg beaten up in rum on the tray, Bonden; I shall fling it at your head. That,' he said, sipping his wine, 'was the most painful aspect of my journey, the breaking of my news. Even more painful than the fact that my let us call it interrogation was carried out by the French, the nation I love best.'

'What civilised man does not? Their rulers, politicians, revolutions set apart, and this horrible engouement for Bonaparte.'

'Just so. But these were not new men. Dutourd was an engineer, ancien régime, and Auger a dragoon - regular, traditional officers. That was the horrible part. I had thought I knew the nation through and through - lived there, studied in Paris. However, Jack Aubrey had a short way with them. Yes. As I was saying, he is a romantic creature: after this affair he tossed his sword into the sea, though I know the value he had for it. Then again, he loves to make war - no man more eager in the article of battle; but afterwards it is as though he did not feel that war consisted of killing your opponents. There is a contradiction here.'

'I am so glad you are going to the Bath,' said Sir Joseph, whom the conflicts within the heart of a frigate-captain he had never seen interested less than the restoration of his friend's health; for although in ordinary relationships the chief of naval intelligence more nearly resembled an iceberg than a human being, he had a real affection, a real warmth of affection for Maturin. 'I am delighted, because you will meet my successor there, and I shall be down from time to time. I shall look forward extremely to enjoying your company, and to bringing you better acquainted with him.' He felt the strength of Stephen's gaze at the word successor, relished it for a moment, and went on. 'Yes. I shall be retiring presently, to my Sabine beetles; I have a little place in the Fens, a Paradise for coleoptera. How I look forward to it! Not without a certain regret, of course; yet this is lessened by the fact that I leave my concerns - our concerns - in good hands. You are acquainted with the gentleman.'

'Indeed?'

'Yes. When you desired me to send a confidential person to take down your report because of the state of your hands - oh, it was barbarous, barbarous, to have used you so -

I begged Mr Waring to come. You sat with him for two hours!' he said, savouring the triumph.

'You astonish me. I am amazed,' said Stephen crossly. But then a smile spread across his face: that subfuse, entirely unremarkable man, that Mr Waring, would answer charmingly. He had done his work with no fuss of any kind, efficiently; and his only questions had been immediately to the point; he had given nothing away - no special knowledge, no particular interest; and he might have been some dull, respectable civil servant in the middle reaches of the hierarchy.

He has the greatest admiration for your work, and a thorough grasp of the situation. Admiral Sievewright will appear for him - a much better system - but you will deal directly with him when I am gone. You will agree very well, I am sure: he is a professional. It was he who dealt with the late Monsieur de La Tapetterie. I believe, by the bye, that you gave him to understand that you had some other papers or observations that lay somewhat outside the limits of your report.'

'Yes. If you will be so good as to pass me that leather-covered object - thank you. The Confederacio burnt the house - how those fellows love a blaze - but before we left I desired their chief to remove the important papers, from which I offer you this, as a personal present for your retirement. It comes to you by right, since your name appears in it - les agissements néfastes de Sir Blame on page three, and le perfide Sir Blame on page seven. It is a report drawn up nominally by Colonel Auger but in fact by the far more brilliant Dutourd for your homologue in Paris, showing the present state of their military intelligence network in the eastern part of the Peninsula, including Gibraltar, with appreciation of the agents, details of payment, and so on. It is not finished, because the gentleman was cut short in mid-paragraph, but it is tolerably complete, and authentic even to the very blood stains. You will find a certain number of surprises, particular Mr. Judas Griffiths; but on the whole I hope it will gratify you. Oh, that we had such a document for England! In my yesterday's state of knowledge it seemed to me a document that should pass from my hands directly to yours,' he said, handing it over.