Post Captain (24 page)

'We shall make a go of her, once we get used to her ways, I make no doubt,' said Jack. 'She may be a little odd to look at, to the prejudiced eye; but she floats, and that is the essential, do you see? She floats; and as a floating battery - why, I have rarely seen the like! We only have to get her there, and then we have four and twenty thirty-two pounders to bring into play. Carronades, you may say; but thirty-two pounder carronades! We can take on any French sloop afloat, for these are your genuine smashers - we could tackle a thirty-six-gun frigate, if only we could get close enough.'

'By this same argument of proximation you could also set about a three-decker, a first-rate, at six inches; or two, indeed, if you could wedge yourself between them and fire both sides. But believe me, my dear, it is a fallacious argument, God forbid. How far do these carronades of yours fling their vast prodigious missiles?'

'Why, you must engage within pistol shot if you want to hit what you point them at; but at yard-arm to yard-arm, oh, how they smash through the oak!'

'And what is your enemy doing with his long guns, while you labour to approach him? But I am not to teach you your own trade, however.'

'Approach him... 'said Jack. 'There's the rub. I must have hands to work the ship. We are thirty-two men short of our complement - no hope of another draft - and I dare say you will reject some of the cripples and Abraham-men the receiving-ship has sent us: sad thievish little creatures. Men I must have, and the glass is running out... tell me, did you bring Scriven with you?'

'I did. I thought he might be found some small employment.'

'He is an eminent hand at writing, is he not? Pamphlets and such? I have tried dashing off a poster - even three or four volunteers would be worth their weight in gold - but I have had no time, and anyhow it don't seem to answer. Look.' He brought some papers out of his pocket.

'Well,' said Stephen, reading. 'No: perhaps it don't.' He rang the bell and bade the man ask Mr Scriven to walk up. 'Mr Scriven,' he said, 'be so good as to look at these -you see the problem -. and to draft a sheet to the purpose. There is paper and ink on the table over there.'

Scriven withdrew to the window, reading, noting and grunting to himself; and Jack, as he sat there, warm and comfortable by the fire, felt a delicious total relaxation creep over his person; it espoused the leather chair, sinking into its curves, no tension anywhere at all. He lost the thread of Stephen's remarks, answering oh and ah at the pauses, or smiling and moving his head with ambiguous appreciation. Sometimes his legs would give a violent twitch, jerking him out of this state of bliss; but each time he sank back, happier than before.

'I said "You do move with the utmost caution, I am sure?" 'said Stephen, now touching him on the knee.

'Oh, certainly,' said Jack, at once grasping the subject. 'I have never set foot on shore except for Sunday, and every boat that comes alongside is examined. In any case, I am moving out to Spithead on tomorrow's tide, which will prevent surprises. I have refused all Dockyard invitations, even the Commissioner himself. The only one I shall accept is Pullings' feast, where there is no risk of any kind - a little place in Gosport by the landing-stage, quite out of the way. I cannot disappoint him: he is bringing his people and his sweetheart up from the country.'

'Sir,' said Mr Scriven, 'may I show you my attempt?'

£5,000 a man! (or more)

WEALTH EASE DISTINCTION

YOUR LAST CHANCE OF A FORTUNE!

HMS Polychrest will shortly sail to scour the seas of ALL KING GEORGE'S enemies. She is desined to SAIL AGAINST WIND AND TIDE and she will Take, Sink and Destroy the Tyrant's helpless man-of-war, without Mercy, sweeping the Ocean of his Trade. There is no time to be lost! Once the Polychrest has gone by there will be no more PRIZES, no more fat French and cowardly Dutch merchantmen, loaded with Treasure, Jewels, Silks, Satins

and Costly Delicacies for the immoral and luxurious Usurper's Court.

This Amazing New Vessel, built on Scientific Principles, is commanded by the renowned

'CAPTAIN AUBREY!

whose brig Sophie, with a 28lb broadside, captured £100,000's worth of enemy shipping last war. 28lb, and the Polychrest fires 384lb from either side! So what will she do, in this proportion? More than TWELVE TIMES as much! The Enemy must soon be Bankrupt - the End is Nigh. Come and join the Fun before it is too late, and then set up your Carriage!

Captain Aubrey has been prevailed upon to accept a few more Hands. Only exceptionally wide-awake, intelligent men will be entertained, capable of lifting a Winchester bushel of Gold; but PERHAPS YOU ARE THE LUCKY MAN! Hurry, there is no time to be lost. Hurry to the Rendezvous at the - YOU MAY BE THE LUCKY MAN WHO IS ACCEPTED!

No troublesome formalities. The best of provisions at 16 oz to the pound, 4lb of tobacco a month. Free beer, wine and grog! Dancing and fiddling aboard. A health-giving, wealth-giving cruise. Be healthy and wealthy and wise, and bless the day you came aboard the Polychrest!

GOD SAVE THE KING

'The figures I have ventured to put are merely for the form,' he said, looking into their faces as they read.

'It is coming it a trifle high,' said Jack, writing sums that could be attempted to be believed. 'But I like it. I am obliged to you, Mr Scriven. Will you take it round to the Courier office and explain to them how it is to be printed?

You understand these things admirably. They may strike off a hundred posters and two hundred as handbills, to be given out where the country waggons and coaches come in. Here is a couple of guineas. Stephen, we must get under way. There will still be light enough to check the new patent slides, and you have two drafts to sort out: pray do not reject anything that can haul a rope.'

'You will like to meet the other officers,' he said, as they stood waiting for their boat. 'They may look a little rough, just at first. They have been led a devil of a dance with it, with this fitting-out, especially Parker. The man who was the first to be offered Polychrest dilly-dallied - could not be found, could not make up his mind - and Pullings, bless him, did not come until I was here. So it was all on Parker's shoulders.'

He stepped into the boat and sat there silent, thinking about his first lieutenant. Mr Parker was a man in his middle fifties, grey, precise, strict, a great one for spit and polish and details of uniform - this had earned him Prince William's good word - and brave, active, conscientious; but he tired easily, he did not seem very intelligent, and he was somewhat deaf. Far worse, he had no sense of the men - his black-list was as long as his arm, but the real seamen took little notice of him - and Jack suspected that he had no sense of the sea either. Jack also suspected, more than suspected, that Parker's was the little discipline, the hazing discipline; that under Parker uncontrolled the Polychrest would be a flash ship, all paint outside and no order within, the cat in daily use and the crew sullen, unwilling and brutal - an unhappy ship, and an inefficient fighting-machine.

It would not be easy to deal with him. There must be no discord on the quarterdeck; Parker must be seen to be in charge of the day-to-day running of the Polychrest, with no easy-going captain to undermine his authority. Not that Jack was in the least easy-going; he was a taut officer and he liked a taut ship, but he had served in one hell afloat, he had seen others, and he wanted no part of it.

'There she lies,' he observed, nodding towards the Polychrest, a certain defensive note in his voice.

'That is she?' said Stephen. A three-masted vessel - he hesitated to call her a ship, however - very trim, rather high in the water: shining black sides with a brilliant lemon streak broken by twelve portlids, also black; and above the lemon a line of blue, topped with white; gold scroll-work running into the blue from either extremity. 'She does not look so mighty strange to me, except that she seems to have both ends sharp, and no beak-head, in the sense of that dip, that anfractuosity, to which we are accustomed; but after all, the same remarks apply to the curragh in which Saint Brendan made his voyage. I do not understand what all the coil is about.'

'His curragh stayed well? She sailed against wind and tide?'

'Certainly. Did he not reach the Islands of the Blessed?'

By Friday Jack's spirits were higher than they had been since he took his first command down the long harbour of Port Mahon and out to sea. Not only had Pullings brought back seven cross but able seamen from the Lord Mornington, but Scriven's poster had induced five youths from Salisbury to come aboard 'to ask for details'. And better was in store: Jack and Stephen were on deck, waiting to go to Pullings' feast, waiting in the grey fog until the unhandy crew, badgered by Mr Parker and harassed by the bosun, should succeed in getting the launch into the water, when a wherry came alongside, suddenly appearing through the murk. There were two men in it, dressed in short blue jackets with brass buttons down one side, white trousers, and tarpaulin hats; this with their long pigtails, gold earrings and black silk neck-cloths, made them look more like man-of-war's men than was quite right, and Jack stared down at them hard from the rail. To his astonishment he found himself looking straight into the face of Barret Bonden, his former coxswain, and another old Sophie, a man whose name escaped him.

'They may come aboard,' he said. 'Bonden, come a-board. I am very happy to see you,' he went on, as Bonden stood beaming at him on the quarterdeck. 'How do you come along, eh? Pretty spry, I trust? Have you brought me a message?' This was the only rational explanation for the presence of a seaman, bobbing about on the crowded waters of Spithead as though the hottest press in years were a matter of unconcern: but there was no ship's name to the ribbon flying from the hat in Bonden's hand, and there was something about his delighted bearing that kindled hope.

'No, your honour,' said Bonden. 'Which our Joe,' - jerking his thumb at his companion (Joseph Plaice, Bonden's cousin, of course: sheet-anchor man, starboard watch, elderly, deeply stupid, but reliable when sober, and a wonderful hand at a variant of the Matthew Walker knot, sober or speechless) - 'said you was afloat again, so we come round from Priddy's Hard to enter volunteerly, if so be you can find room, sir.' This was as near an approach to open mirth as decency would allow.

'I shall stretch a point for you, Bonden,' said Jack. 'Plaice, you will have to earn your place by learning the boys your Matthew Walker.' This flight was beyond Joseph Plaice, but he looked pleased and touched his knuckle to his forehead. 'Mr Parker, enter these men, if you please, and rate them Plaice fo'csle'man, Bonden my cox'n.'

Five minutes later he and Stephen were in the launch, Bonden steering, as he had steered for Jack in many a bloody cutting-out expedition on the Spanish coast. How did he come to be at liberty at such a time, and how had he managed to traverse the great man-hungry port without being pressed? It would be useless to ask him; he would only answer with a pack of lies. So as they neared the dim harbour entrance Jack said, 'How is your nephew?' meaning George Lucock, a most promising youth whom he had rated midshipman in the Sophie.

'Our George, sir?' said Bonden, in a low voice. 'He was in the York.' The York had foundered in the North Sea with the loss of all hands. 'He was only a foremast jack: pressed out of a Domingoman.'

'He would have made his way,' said Jack, shaking his head. He could see that young man, bright with joy at his promotion, shining in the Mediterranean sun, and the flash of polished brass as he took the noon altitude with his sextant, that mark of the quarterdeck. And he remembered that the York had come from Hickman's yard - that there were tales of her having put to sea with timbers in such a state that no lanterns were needed in the hold, because of the glow of rotten wood. At all events she was in no condition to meet a full gale, a North Sea widow-maker.

These thoughts occupied him as they wove through the shipping, ducking under cables that stretched away to the great shadowy forms of three-deckers, crossing the paths of the countless boats plying to and fro, sometimes with outbursts of rage or wit from the licensed watermen - once the cry of 'What ho, the Carpenter's Mistake' floated from behind a buoy, followed by a burst of maniac laughter; and they brought his spirits low.

Stephen remained perfectly mute in some dark study of his own, and it was not until they were coming in to the landing-stage that the sight of Pullings waiting for him lighted some cheerfulness in Jack's mind. The young man was standing there with his parents and an astonishingly pretty girl, a sweet little pink creature in lace mittens with immense blue eyes and an expression of grave alarm. 'I should like to take her home and keep her as a pet,' thought Jack, looking down at her with great benevolence.

The elder Mr Pullings was a farmer in a small way on the skirts of the New Forest, and he had brought a couple of sucking-pigs, a great deal of the King's game, and a pie that was obliged to be accommodated with a table of its own, while the inn provided the turtle soup, the wine and the fish. The other guests were junior lieutenants and master's mates, and to begin with the feast was stiffer and more funereal than might have been wished; Mr Pullings was too shy to see or hear, and once he had delivered his piece about their sense of Captain Aubrey's kindness to their Tom in a burring undertone whose drift Jack seized only half-way through, he set himself to his bottle with a dreadful silent perseverance. However, the young men were all sharp-set, for this was well past their dinner-hour, and presently the huge amounts of food they ate engendered talk. After a while there was a steady hum, the sound of laughter, general merriment, and Jack could relax and give his attention to Mrs Pullings's low, confidential account of her anxiety when Tom ran away to sea 'with no change of linen, nothing to shift into - not even so much as his good woollen stockings'.

'Truffles!' cried Stephen, deep in the monumental pie, Mrs Pullings's particular dish, her masterpiece (young hen pheasants, boned, stuffed tight with truffles, in a jelly of their own life's blood, Madeira and calves' foot). 'Truffles! My dear madam, where did you find these princely truffles?' - holding one up on his fork.