The Hundred Days (30 page)

They listened, amazed: they both knew enough of the
sea and of that particular blast to have some notion of the appalling situation
of the three ships in question. They shook their heads, but said nothing.

‘It is difficult to believe that we survived those
God knows how many days, but at least Ringle could carry and fetch, and we were
all fairly well supplied. And luckily the weather, though as foul as can be
imagined, was not cold: luckily, for all the beds aboard Surprise had to be
stuffed into those shocking started butts, where the sea came pouring in for
the first two days, in spite of all the fothering in the world. The bows of
sharp-built craft are very, very hard to fother. It was a rough time, with the
pumping alone; and I have never seen so much grog drunk with so little effect.
And the people, at least our people, behaved very well: never a cross word. In
time Lion did manage a tolerable jury-rig, enough to give her five knots; the
wind and our leaks grew a little less wicked; and we limped into Mahon on Tuesday morning, making
a perfect landfall. We landed our wounded - strains, hernias and falling
blocks, mostly - the Commodore had Ringle surveyed - they pronounced her fit -
we took some stores aboard, and with the wind veering just enough to let us out
of Mahon he sent me off to fetch you, while he and all the shipwrights who
could be spared from Lion laboured on repairing Surprise right round the clock.
We went with a heavy heart - heavier still when the wind shifted right back
into the south and we thought we should never see Africa again. Nor did I think I
should ever again bless a southerly gale, though this one is all a man could
wish.’

Indeed it was now the kindest breeze, and late the
next morning it wafted them up the long, long inlet to Port Mahon, where the
naval yard echoed with the caulkers’ mallets thundering upon the Lion’s hull.
But out in the fairway there rode Surprise, apparently
as trim as ever she had been, with her captain in a boat under her
newly-painted bows telling his joiner just where to place the last rectangles
of gold leaf on her upper forefoot.

As soon as he was aware of the Ringle’s presence he
sent his joiner up the side, spun the boat about and pulled rapidly across the
harbour. He was in the plainest of working cinthes, but the Ringles had seen
him from afar and he was received with all the ceremonial honours that any
commodore has a right to, and with much more pleasure and good will than most.

‘A very hearty welcome to you all,’ he cried. ‘I
never thought to have seen you so soon, with a full gale so steady in the
south.’

‘Nor you would not have seen us, sir,’ said William
Reade, ‘but for an uncommon blessing. We could make no headway at all - turned
and turned just in sight of Algiers, losing ground on every tack the last day
or so; but a corsair galley came ,racing out full before the wind, her lateens
hare-eared on either side; and she was carrying Dr Maturin and his slaves, and
Dr Jacob.’

‘Doctors,’ said Jack, shaking their hands, ‘how
very glad I am to see you. Come back to the ship with me, and we will all have
dinner together - some guests are coming, among them the Admiral, and we have
been preddying her fore and aft.’

‘Mona,’ said Stephen, ‘make
your bob to the Commodore: Kevin, make your leg.’

Jack bowed to each in return, and said, ‘These are
your slaves, I presume?’

‘Just so,’ said Stephen. ‘May I be allowed to take
them with us and confide them to Poll?’

‘Of course you may,’ said Jack. ‘William, if you
bring Ringle alongside, I think it would be better than in and out of boats.’

It was very like a home-coming, and as he gazed
about the spotless deck, the impeccable exactitude of the yards and the
gleaming paint, to say nothing of the extreme brilliance of every piece of
metal that could be induced to shine, Stephen felt that he might have been
aboard the frigate fresh from Sepping’s yard and Madeira, lying within the New
Mole and waiting for the visit of the Commander-in-Chief and Lady Keith, rather
than on a vessel that had undergone a battering so severe that she very nearly
went down with all hands. It was true that Jack Aubrey looked twenty years
older and quite thin, that the traces of extreme hard labour and fatigue were
evident on most of the faces - the smiling faces - that he saw, and that the
grey, bowed figure that approached, touched his hat, and said, ‘I give you joy
of your return, sir,’ remained unrecognized until he spoke.

‘Killick,’ he cried, detaching himself from Mona
and shaking his hand, ‘I hope I see you well?’

‘I ain’t complaining, sir; and you look tolerable
spry, if I may take the liberty. Which I have laid out your
decent clothes in the bed-place.’

‘Must I change?’

‘You would never wish to bring discredit on the
barky, with all that filth.’ Killick pointed to some odd patches of rifle-oil
here and there. ‘The Admiral is dining aboard.’

Stephen bowed to the inevitable and said, ‘Killick,
please do me another kindness and take these children to Poll with my
compliments - beg her to wash, brush and rig them in a suitable manner, feed
them on whatever is appropriate, and above all be very kind and gentle with
them. They do not speak any English yet, but Geoghegan will interpret.’

‘Kind and gentle, sir?’ He sniffed, and added,
‘Well, I shall give the message.’

Stephen explained all this to the children: but he doubted
that they, with so many new and extraordinary experiences, sights, so many
strange people, even partially understood his words. However, they did each
give Killick a hand and followed him to the after hatchway, from which they
cast back a wan and anxious look.

He found Jack and Harding looking most attentively
at the new accommodation-ladder, shipped for their illustrious guests. ‘Jack,’
he said, ‘forgive me, but I must have a word with you. You will excuse me, Mr
Harding?’

In the cabin he went on, ‘I have been bursting with
my news - there’was not a single fit moment aboard the Ringle. As, you know
very well, one of the prime objects of our voyage was, to prevent gold reaching
the Adriatic Muslims.’ Jack nodded. ‘The then Dey agreed not to let it pass by
way of Algiers: but he has been murdered and betrayed: the
gold is now aboard a very rapid vessel in the port of Arzila - is now or very soon will
be aboard. This vessel, a galley, as I recall, is to attempt the passage of the
Strait by night with a favourable wind. Is it reasonable that we should lie
here, inactive? I knew the facts in Algiers, and it almost killed me,
being unable to tell you because of that cruel south wind, and the days
passing, passing.’

‘How well I, understand your pain, dear Stephen,’
said Jack, laying a hand on his shoulder. ‘But you must recollect that these
same southerly gales have been blowing elsewhere, even far west of the
Canaries. They have kept almost all shipping on the west coast of Spain and Portugal in port, and even stout,
new-built ships of the line did not attempt the Strait and its wicked lee-shore
until last Monday. Your Moorish galley or xebec would never, never have
ventured out in such seas. Take comfort, brother. Drink up a little glass of
gin to restore your appetite, and enjoy your dinner.

 The Admiral
is coming, and his politico, and your friend Mr Wright - he has often asked
after you.’

‘You relieve my mind wonderfully, Jack.’ Stephen
sat breathing deeply for a while: he looked so pale that Jack poured his gin at
once, added a squeeze of lemon, and urged him to get it down in little sips
before he changed.

Before the glass was empty someone knocked at the
cabin door. It was Simpson, the ship’s barber, with a fresh white apron and jug
of hot water. ‘Simpson, sir,’ he said. ‘Which Killick thought the Doctor might
like a shave.’

Stephen ran his hand over his chin, as men will do
on such occasions - even Popes have been known to make the same gesture - and
he acquiesced. It was therefore a smoothed, brushed, and quite well-dressed Dr
Maturin who stood there on deck, just before the appointed hour, behind the
Commodore, his first lieutenant and the officer of the Royal Marines, all
equally smooth and all in their splendour, blue and gold for the sailors, scarlet
and gold for the soldiers. As the more conscientious clocks of Mahon prepared to strike the
hour, Admiral Fanshawe stepped from a coach, followed by his secretary and
political adviser; and before he set foot on deck, hats flew off, the bosun
sounded his call and the Marines presented arms with a perfectly simultaneous
crash.

Some time after this, an aged, shabby gentleman
wearing the clothes of another age and followed by two porters carrying a
copper tube wandered hesitantly towards the accommodation-ladder: mounting it
with some difficulty, he said to the officer of the deck, ‘Sir, my name is
Wright: Captain Aubrey was so kind as to invite me, but I fear I may be a
little late.’

‘Not at all, sir,’ said Whewell. ‘May I show you
the way to the cabin, and unburden your men? Wilcox, Price, come and take this tube, will you?’

‘You are too kind,’ said Mr Wright, and he followed
Whewell aft. But the two porters would not be unburdened: they carried right on
with their tube, entering the already somewhat crowded great cabin with their
tube and thrust it across the table, regardless of cloth, glasses and silver,
saying loud and clear, ‘One and fourpence, sir, if you please.’

‘Eh?’ cried Mr Wright, from the midst of his
conversation with the Commodore and Dr Maturin.

‘One and fourpence, or we carry it away.’

Harding whipped round the table, gave them half a
crown and in a low, very,very vicious tone desired
them to get out of the ship. Killick and his mate Grimble, together with the
more presentable gunroom servants, smoothed the snowy cloth, rearranged the
glasses and silver and watched as Mr Wright, wholly unconscious of
inconvenience, untimeliness and fuss, unsealed one end of the tube, gave the
other end to the Commodore to hold, and withdrew the gleaming narwhal’s horn,
perfect in its curves and spirals, without a hint of repair. ‘I cannot detect
the slightest join,’ cried Stephen. ‘It is a masterpiece. Thank you, sir: thank
you very much indeed.’

All this, to the bitter grief of the Commodore’s
cook, had delayed the beginning of dinner quite shockingly; but in time they
were all seated. Jack at the head of the table, Admiral Fanshawe on his right,
then Reade, the Marine officer, the Admiral’s secretary, Harding at the foot,
then Stephen with Mr Wright next to him; then came the Admiral’s political
adviser and lastly Dr Jacob - a pretty large party for so small a frigate, but
with the table set athwartships and the guns trundled into the coach and the
sleeping-cabin it could be done. And done it was, with great success: the news
of the horn’s perfect restoration, of its being in an even finer state of
beauty than before - Mr Wright, with his delicate burrs and buffs having given
it the gleam of fine old ivory - spread rapidly through the frigate: the ship’s
luck was aboard again. Killick’s unattractive, shrewish face beamed once more,
his messmates (he had very nearly been expelled from their society) smiled,
winked and nodded at him in the cabin and slapped him on the back as he
travelled to and from the galley.

Good humour is a charmingly infectious state
anywhere, particularly aboard a ship that has recently had a very rough time of
it and that is now in port, moored fore and aft. Conversation at table very
soon rose to a fine volume of sound, and Mr Wright had to strain his quavering
old voice to give Stephen an account of the many mathematical calculations and
even advanced physical studies in a current of strongly-flowing water, to
determine the effect of the narwhal horn’s spirals and tori on the animal’s
progress, all to no effect - to no effect yet: but so important a process must
have a function, almost certainly a hydrodynamic function, and either plodding
science or one of those beautiful intuitions - or perhaps Mr Wright should say
sudden illuminations - would give the solution. Harding and the Admiral’s
secretary agreed very well; and although the Royal Marine found it difficult to
get beyond ‘An uncommon fine day, sir’ to William Reade on his left, they
somehow discovered that they had both been at Mr Willis’s school together when
they were little boys; and from that moment on, except when common good manners
required that they should say something to their other neighbours or drink a
glass of wine with an acquaintance on the other side of the table, it was a
series of ‘Old Thomas and the mad bulldog, of how kindly the maids would hand
out yesterday’s cold suet pudding from the back windows of the kitchen, of the
famous thrashing Smith major had given Hubble’. The Admiral had known Jack time
out of mind, and they had a great deal of naval news and recollection to
exchange, while Jacob and the politico got along reasonably well together, once
they had established a neutral ground which they could speak with no fear of
compromising anybody at all and where no unguarded word could do harm.

‘God love us,’ said Joe Plaice, taking his ease on
the quarter-deck, a little abaft the wheel, ‘what a din they do make, to be
sure. You would think it was the snuggery of the William at Shelmerston of a
Saturday night.’

‘Never mind, mate,’ said his cousin Bonden, ‘the
port decanters are just putting on the table, and once they have drunk the
King, they will be quieter. They have eaten two whole sucking-pigs, which weigh
on the stomach.’

There was indeed a pause after all present had
murmured ‘God bless him’ and drunk their wine; and when the talk had regained a
moderate pitch Jacob said to the politico, ‘I believe my colleague is anxious
to have a word with you.’

‘And I with him, as you may ‘imagine: we have had
hardly any news from the other side since the sea went mad.’