The Hundred Days (2 page)

A master’s mate led the Pomone’s youngster away,
and Captain Buchan, who commanded the Royal Sovereign, ushered Jack Aubrey
below, to the Admiral’s splendid quarters: but rather than the very large, grim
and hoary Commander-in-Chief, there rose a diaphanous cloud of blue tulle from
the locker against the screen-bulkhead - tulle that enveloped a particularly
tall and elegant woman, very good looking but even more remarkable for her fine
carriage and amiable expression. ‘Well, dearest Jack,’ she said, they having
kissed, ‘how very happy I am to see you wearing a broad pennant. It was a
damned near-run thing that you were not out of reach, half-way to Tierra del
Fuego in a mere hydrographical tub, a hired vessel. But how we ever came to
miss you on Common Hard I shall never understand - never, though I have gone
over it again and again. True, Keith was in a great taking about the naval
estimates, and I was turning some obscure lines of Ennius in my head without
being able to make any sense of them frontwards or backwards; but even so…’

‘Nor shall I ever understand how I came to be such
an oaf as to walk in here, ask you how you did, and sit down by your side
without the slightest word of congratulations on being a viscountess: yet it
had been in my head all the way across. Give you joy with all my heart, dear
Queenie,’ he said, kissing her again; and they sat there very companionably on
the broad cushioned locker. Jack was taller than Queenie and far more than
twice as heavy; and having been in the wars for a great while and much
battered, he now looked older. He was in fact seven years her junior, and there
had been a time when he was a very little boy whose ears she boxed for
impertinence, uncleanliness and greed, and whose frequent nightmares she would
soothe by taking him into her bed.

‘By the way,’ said Jack, ‘does the Admiral prefer
to be addressed as Lord Viscount Keith like Nelson in his time or just as plain
Lord K?’

‘Oh, just plain Lord, I think. The other thing is
formal court usage, to be sure, and I know that dear Nelson loved it; but I
think it has died out among ordinary people. Anyway he does not give a hoot for
such things, you know. He values his flag extremely, of course, and I dare say
he would like the Garter; but the Keiths of Elphinstone go back to the night of
time- they are earl marischals of Scotland, and would not call Moses
cousin.’

They sat smiling at one another. An odd pair:
handsome creatures both, but they might have been of the same sex or neither.
Nor was it a brother and sister connection, with all the possibilities of
jealousy and competition so often found therein, but a steady uncomplicated
friendship and a pleasure in one another’s company. Certainly, when Jack was
scarcely breeched and Queenie took care of him after his mother’s death, she
had been somewhat authoritarian, insisting on due modesty and decent eating;
but that was long ago, and for a great while now they had been perfectly well
together.

A cloud passed over her face, and putting her hand
on Jack’s knee she said, ‘I was so happy to see you - to have recovered you
from Cape
Horn
at the very last moment - that I overlooked more important things. Tell me, how
is poor dear Maturin?’

‘He looks older, and bent; but he bears up
wonderfully, and it has not done away with his love of music. He eats nothing,
though, and when he came back to Funchal, having attended to everything at
Woolcombe, I lifted him out of the boat with one hand.’

‘She was an extraordinarily handsome woman and she
had prodigious style: I admired her exceedingly. But she was not a wife for
him; nor a mother for that dear little girl. How is
she? She was not in the coach, I collect?’

‘No. The only other one on the box was
Cholmondeley; my mother-in-law and her companion inside, and Harry Willet, the
groom, up behind - happily Padeen did not go that day. And Brigid does not seem
very gravely upset, from what I understand. She is very deeply attached to
Sophie, you know, and to Mrs Oakes.’

 ‘I do not
believe I know Mrs Oakes.’

‘A sea-officer’s widow who lives with us, a learned
lady - not as learned as you, Queenie, I am sure - but she teaches the children
Latin and French. They are none of them clever enough for Greek.’

A pause. ‘If he does not eat, he
will certainly grow weak and pine away,’ said Lady Keith. ‘We have a famous
cook aboard Royal Sovereign - he came back to England with the Bourbons. Would
an invitation be acceptable, do you think? Just us and the
Physician of the Fleet and a few very old friends. I have a crux in this
passage of Ennius I should like to show him. And of course he must have a
conference with Keith’s secretary and the political adviser very soon... Oh,
and Jack, there is something I must tell you, just between ourselves. Another
Mediterranean command would be too much for him, so we are only here until
Pellew comes out; though we shall stay in the Governor’s cottage a little while
to enjoy the spring. Do you get along well with Pellew, Jackie?’

‘I have a great admiration for him,’ said Jack -
and indeed Admiral Sir Edward Pellew had been a remarkably dashing and
successful frigate-captain - ‘but not quite the veneration I have for Lord
Keith.’

‘My dear Aubrey,’ cried the Admiral, walking in
from the coach, ‘there you are! How glad I am to see you.’

‘And I to see you, my Lord Viscount, if I may so
express myself. My heartiest congratulations.’

‘Thankee, thankee, Aubrey,’ said the Admiral, more pleasant
than quite suited his wife. ‘But I must say that I deserve to be degraded for
having put in that foolish proviso in your orders about waiting for Briseis. I
should have said-but never mind what I should have said. The fact is that at
that time I merely wanted your squadron to guard the passage of the Straits:
now, at the present moment, the situation is much more complex. Six hundred
thousand people cheered Napoleon when he entered Paris - Ney has joined

him - a hundred and fifty
thousand King’s troops, well-equipped, drilled and officered, have done the
same - he has countless seasoned men who were prisoners of war in England and Russia and all over Europe at his devotion, flooding
to the colours - the Emperor’s colours. There is the Devil to pay and no tar
hot. Is Dr Maturin with you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is he up to talking about all this with my
secretary and the politicos?’

‘I believe so, my Lord. Although he shuns ordinary
company he is dead set on the war and seizes upon any means whatsoever of informing
himself - newspapers, correspondence and so on - and I have known him talk for
three hours on end with a French officer - royalist of course - whose brig was
in company with us during a flat calm off Bugio.’

‘He would sooner not dine aboard Royal Sovereign, I
gather.’

‘I believe not, sir. But he will discuss the
international situation and the means of bringing Napoleon down with the utmost
vigour. That is what keeps him alive, it seems to me.’

‘I am glad he has so great a resource at such a
dreadful time, poor dear man. I have a great regard for him: as you will
remember, I proposed he should be Physician of the Fleet at one time. Aye, aye,
so I did. Well, I shall not pain him with an invitation he might find difficult
to refuse. But if, in the course of duty, you could require him to report
aboard just after the evening gun, when I hope for an overland packet by
courier, he may learn still more about the international situation. A damned complex situation, upon my word. As I said, when
first I sent for you I thought your squadron would be enough, at a pinch, to
guard the passage of the Straits - at a pinch, for you see how pitifully little
we have here. But now, now, you will have to cut yourself in three to do half
the things I want you to do. Heugh, heugh,- a damned
complex situation as the Doctor will learn when he comes here: he will be
finely amazed. I will give you the broadest view just for the now...’

Lady Keith gathered up her belongings and said, ‘My
dear, I will leave you to it. But do not tire yourself: you have a meeting with
Gonzalez this evening. I will send Geordie with a dish of tea directly.’

The broadest view, stripped of the Admiral’s great
authority and of his distinctive northern accent, generally pleasing to an
English ear though sometimes impenetrably obscure, was very roughly this:
Wellington, with ninety three thousand British and Dutch troops, and Blucher,
with a hundred and sixteen thousand Prussians, were in the Low Countries,
waiting until Schwarzenberg, with two hundred and ten thousand Austrians, and
Barclay de Tolly, slowly advancing with a hundred and fifty thousand Russians,
should reach the Rhine, when in principle the Allies were to invade France. For
his part Napoleon had about three hundred and sixty thousand men: they were
made up of five corps along the northern frontier, the Imperial Guard in Paris, and some thirty thousand
more stationed on the southeast frontier and in the Vendée.

Both men made their additions: both made their
allowances for unity of command, the great value of a common language, and the
stimulus of fighting on one’s own soil under the orders of a man who had
battered Prussians, Austrians and Russians again and again, fighting with
extraordinary tactical skill against odds far greater than these.

Jack could not with propriety ask about the zeal or
even the good faith of the Austrians and Prussians at this juncture, still less
about the efficiency of their mobilization and equipment; but the Admiral’s
worn, anxious face told him a great deal. ‘Still,’ said Lord Keith, ‘this is
all the soldiers’ business: we have our own concern to deal with. How I wish
Geordie would come along with that tea - why, Geordie, put the tray down here,
ye thrawn, ill-feckit gaberlunzie.’

 A pause. ‘How I value a cup of tea,’ he said. ‘May I pour
you another?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Jack, shaking his head. ‘I
have done admirably well already.’

The Admiral reflected, carefully put more hot water
to the teapot, and went on, ‘In the first place there is the difficulty about
the French Navy, their attitude varies from port to
port, ship to ship. They are of course extremely susceptible and any untoward
incident - so easily brought about - might have disastrous results. But far
worse is this building of French men-of-war in the obscure Adriatic ports:
obscure, but filled with prime timber and capital shipwrights - country you
know very well. This continued building, more or less disguised, is a great
evil; and all the greater as Bonapartist officers and men are said to be
standing by to take them over.’

‘But payment, sir? Even a corvette costs a
very great deal of money, and there is talk of frigates, even of two or three
heavy frigates.’

‘Aye. There is something very
odd about it all. Our intelligence people see a Muslim influence, possibly
Turkish, possibly the Barbary states, or even of all of them
combined. At this very moment there is much greater activity in Algiers, Tunis and down the Moroccan
coast, fomented by Napoleonic renegadoes with native craft and vessels up to

the size of a sloop of war: it
is almost impossible to deal with it, our naval strength being so reduced and
so tied up. Already it is most harmful to Allied trade, particularly to ours,
and it is likely to grow worse.’

The Admiral stirred his tea, contemplated, and
said, ‘If Napoleon Bonaparte with his three hundred thousand very well trained
men and his usual brilliant cavalry and artillery, can knock out say the
Russians or part of the Austrians, the French navy may sweep us out of the
Mediterranean again, above all as the Maltese and the Moroccans are so
ungrateful as to hate us and as there is a real possibility of a French  alliance with Tunis, Algeria and the other
piratical states, to say nothing of the Emperor of Morocco and even the Sultan
himself. For you know, Aubrey, do you not, that Bonaparte turned Turk? During
the Egyptian campaign I think it was; but Turk in any case.’

‘I heard of it, sir, of course; but no one has ever
asserted that he recoiled from swine’s flesh or a bottle of wine. I put it down
to one of those foolish things a man says when he wishes to be elected to
Parliament, such as “give me your votes, and I undertake to do away with the
National Debt in eighteen months.” I do not believe he is any more a Mussulman
than I am. You have to be circumcised to be a Turk.’

‘For my own part I have no knowledge of the
gentleman’s soul, or heart, or private parts: all I am sure of is that the
statement was made, and that at this juncture it may be of capital importance.
But we are prating away like a couple of old women...’ He was interrupted by
his secretary, who said, ‘I beg pardon, my Lord, but the courier is just come
aboard with his budget.’

Jack had started to his feet, and now he said, ‘May
I wait upon you later, sir, when you are less engaged?’

‘Is there anything urgent, Mr Campbell?’ asked Lord
Keith, with a temporizing wave.

‘Tedious and toilsome, rather than immediate, apart
from one enclosure that I have already sent on.’

‘Very good, very good. Thank you, Mr Campbell.
Sit down, Aubrey. I will just run through the heads of these, then attend to
your statements of the squadron’s condition, and give you some notion of what I
should like you to do.’ A pause, during which the Admiral’s long-practised hand
ran through the dockets, already marked with Campbell’s secret mark of
importance: none rated above c3, and putting them down he said, ‘Well, Aubrey,
in the first place you must allot a force adequate for the protection of the Constantinople trade. Convoys have been
re-introduced, you know one is due within the week - and the Algerians in
particular have grown very bold, though some vessels are also to be expected
from Tripoli, Tunis and the rest, while other
corsairs push up from Sallee and pass the Straits in the dark of the moon. Then
you must prevent any unauthorized outward or inward movement to the best of
your ability. But your most important task by far is
to look into those Adriatic ports you know so well. Even the small places are
capable of building a frigate, and we have reports of actual ships of the line
on the stocks in four places whose names Campbell will give you. If any of
the two-deckers have openly declared for Napoleon you must not venture upon an
action but send to me without the loss of a moment. Where frigates, corvettes
or sloops are concerned, particularly if they are unfinished, you must
endeavour to stop the building and obtain their disarmament, all of which
requires the utmost degree of tact: I am so glad you have Maturin with you. An incident
would, as I have said, be disastrous: though of course if there is a
clearly-expressed intent of joining Bonaparte, you must burn, sink or destroy
as usual.’