The Letter of Marque (11 page)

When Stephen came on deck, therefore, he found the after part of the ship unusually crowded, unusually busy. As it often happened, he had spent much of the night awake thinking about Diana and seeing brilliantly clear mental images of her, particularly one of her setting her horse at a monstrous fence where many men turned back and she flying over with never a pause; then at about two o'clock he had taken his usual draught, sleeping late and waking stupid. Coffee had revived him somewhat, and he would have sat with it longer if a glance at his watch had not told him that presently he must be about his duties, attending at the sick-bay with Martin while Padeen, the acting loblolly boy, beat a brass basin at the mainmast and sang

Let the sick assemble here,

For to see their Doctor dear,

since although he stammered extremely in ordinary speech he could sing quite well.

First, however, Stephen meant to look at the sky, bid his companions a good morning, and see whether the Merlin was in company: yet he had barely climbed the ladder - he had barely received more than a general impression of warmth, brilliant sunlight, brilliant sky and a crowd of blinding white sails reaching up into it - before a cry of universal disapprobation wiped the smile off his face.

'Sir, sir, get off it, sir.'

'Stand back, Doctor, for Heaven's sake stand back.'

'He will fall into the pot.'

The new hands were as vehement as the old Surprises, and much ruder - one called him 'Great ox' - for they had very soon understood what was afoot and nothing could have exceeded their eagerness to engage with the Spartan nor their zeal in preparing for the engagement, hypothetical though it might be.

'Hold hard,' said Jack, grasping him by the elbows. 'Do not stir. Padeen. Padeen, there. Bring new shoes for your master, d'ye hear me, now?'

The new shoes came. Stephen stepped into them, gazed at the blue-painted strips stretching away to the taffrail, at the stern but relenting faces turned towards him, said to Jack 'Oh how sorry I am. I should never have looked at the sky,' and then after a moment, 'Padeen, it is the face again, I find."

The face it was. The poor soul's cheek was swollen so that the skin shone bright, and he answered with no more than a groan.

Five bells struck. Padeen beat his basin and chanted his piece in a strangled voice; yet although the Surprise had the usual number of hypochondriacs aboard the activity on deck was so earnest, intense and single-minded that not a single patient reported to the sick-bay except Padeen himself. Stephen and Martin looked at him sadly: for some time they had suspected an impacted wisdom-tooth, but there was nothing that either of them could do and presently Dr Maturin, having taken Padeen's pulse and looked into his mouth and throat again, poured out a generous dose of his usual physic, tied up the face in a rabbit-eared bandage, and excused him duty.

'It is almost your panacea,' observed Martin, referring to the laudanum.

'At least it does something,' said Stephen, drawing up his shoulders and spreading his hands. 'And we are so very helpless ..." A pause. 'I came across a capital word the other day, quite new to me: psychopannychia, the all-night sleep of the soul. I dare say it has long been familiar to you, from your studies in divinity.'

'I associate it with the name of Gauden,' said Martin. 'I believe he thought it erroneous.'

'I associate it with the thought of comfort,' said Stephen, caressing his bottle. 'Deep, long-lasting comfort; though I admit I have no notion whether the state itself is sound doctrine or not. Shall we walk on to the forecastle? I do not believe they will persecute us there.'

They did not: they were far too busy with their sailcloth and with painting the white band on the ship's windward side, at least aft of the forechains, by leaning perilously out of the gunports. The forecastle deck was tilted eleven or twelve degrees to the sun, and the warmth was wonderfully agreeable after a long and desolate English winter. 'Blue sea, blue sky, white clouds, white sails, a general brilliance: what could be more pleasing?' said Stephen. 'A little sportive foam from the bow-wave does not signify. Indeed, it is refreshing. And the sun penetrates to one's very bones.'

After dinner, a hurried, scrappy meal, eaten with little appetite, the hands returned to their work, the surgeons to their contemplation, this time with the comfort of spare paunch-mats to sit upon. The Merlin, which had been sailing dutifully in the frigate's wake since dawn, a cable's length away, now overhauled her, making eight knots for the Surprise's six, being so much faster close to the wind, and coming alongside hailed to say they were taking mackerel as fast as they could haul them in. Yet even this, the hands' favourite amusement - favoured above all in times of short allowance - could not disturb them from their task. Several of the new men could navigate; most of the old Surprises had a very fair notion of where the ship should lie if she was to have a chance of finding the Spartan in time; they had all seen the officers taking the sun's altitude at noon, and they had all, with great satisfaction, heard Davidge say 'Twelve o'clock, sir, if you please; and forty-three degrees fifty-five minutes north,' while the Captain replied 'Thank you, Mr Davidge: make it twelve.'

This meant that as far as latitude was concerned they had only about six degrees to run down in three days; there was perhaps still a little westing to be made up, but even so an average speed of five knots should do it handsomely; and hitherto no heave of the log had ever shown less than six. They might be in action, gainful action, on Thursday, and to spoil their chances of closing with the Spartan for the sake of a few mackerel, Spanish mackerel at that, would be foolish indeed.

Even so, between two strokes of his paintbrush Bonden ran forward with a basket of hand-lines, and Stephen and Martin, sharing strips of a red handkerchief between them as bait, plucked the fishes from the sea. They had half-filled the basket - they had caught sight of bonitoes pursuing the mackerel and their hopes were on tiptoe when there came the dismal cry 'Man overboard!'

'Come up the sheets,' called Jack, leaping over the painted strips and on to the hammocks in their netting. Men threaded their way with the utmost speed though still with the utmost care to their appointed ropes, and within the minute there was an all-pervading roar of sails flacking and slatting as they spilt the wind - a horrible sound. Jack had his eye fixed on the man, a painter who had leaned out just too far, and saw that he was swimming: he also saw the Merlin port her helm and drop the boat from her stern davits and he rebuttoned the coat he had been about to fling off. 'Back the foretopsail,' he said, and the way came off the Surprise - an odd dead feeling aboard, after so much urgent rhythmic life.

The Merlin's boat, with the rescued man aboard, caught her up, and warned by vehement cries not to touch her sides, hooked on at the stern. Pullings came up the ladder, then some bags were passed after him, and last came the sodden object of their solicitude, an elderly Surprise by the name of Plaice, Joe Plaice: he was not welcomed aboard, though he had many friends and even relations in the frigate; he was not congratulated on being alive. 'I dare say the lubber dropped his -ing brush as well," said one of his shipmates as he passed, bowed with shame. 'You had better go and shift yourself, Plaice,' said Jack coldly, 'If your improvident habits have left you any dry clothes,' and raising his voice he gave the series of orders that set the ship progressively back in motion -anything sudden might have endangered the topgallants, though it was true that the breeze already had a most unpleasant declining feel about it.

'How does she handle, Tom?" asked Jack, nodding towards the Merlin.

'Oh, as sweet as you could wish, sir,' said Pullings. 'Dry and weatherly, and steers herself. But, sir, the ladies are creating something cruel - insist upon being taken to England directly - will report us - will have the law of us - we shall be transported to Botany Bay.'

'I thought I heard them screeching when you hailed us about the mackerel,' said Jack. 'You can tell them it will soon be over. We cannot stay out any longer than Thursday unless we eat our belts and the soles of our shoes. I shall have to put the people on short allowance tomorrow in any event: four upon two. And even if we did stay out, I do not think there would be any chance at all of finding our man after Thursday. Indeed, Thursday is the very farthest limit; perhaps even beyond it.'

'As for belts and shoes, sir, I have ventured to bring a few comforts over, in those bags. They were voluntary offerings,' he added, seeing Jack's look of reserve and feeling that the word 'pillage' might have entered his mind.

'Thankee, Tom,' said Jack absently. He walked forward, whistling, and scratched a backstay. 'If the wind hauls northerly again, and strengthens, as I hope and pray it will -'

'Amen, sir," said Pullings, also scratching the backstay.

'- then we shall probably leave you behind. Do not crack on beyond reason to keep company - nothing beyond your topsails - but rendezvous at 37� 30' N, 25� 30' W. And thank you for the comforts.'

'37� 3�' N, 25� 30' W it is, sir," said Pullings, stepping over the taffrail.

Yet in spite of the whistling and backstay-scratching - and there was not a seaman aboard who did not follow his captain's example - the wind died sickeningly throughout the day and throughout the night, so that the Merlin, far from being left behind, was obliged to take in everything but a double-reefed foresail to keep her station.

'It is a rum go," said Davidge, in the gunroom, 'but I could have sworn the wind would haul into the north, from the look of the day. So could the captain, although the glass was behaving so strangely. But perhaps drinking a health to Boreas might help.' He ladled punch into the glasses - Pullings' comforts had included a bottle of brandy for each of the officers - and said, 'Gentlemen, to Boreas.'

'To Boreas,' said West. 'But in decent moderation. No close-reefed topsails in the graveyard watch.'

'To Boreas, by all means,' said Stephen. 'Yet should he be absent, just for an hour or so in the morning, Mr Aubrey would have the consolation of swimming, and Mr Martin and I that of gathering specimens in the boat. We passed through a flotilla of nondescript jellyfish this afternoon, none of which could be reached with the hand-net.'

'We are very grateful for your mackerel and the bonitoes," said West, 'but I do not believe there is a single man in the ship that would give up a mile of southing for all the jellyfishes in the world: no, nor yet a hundred yards, even if you were to throw in a barrel of oysters for every mess.'

Yet Tuesday's sun, rising over an opalescent sea with barely a tremor on its surface except where the boat made its trifling wake, lit up the surgeons as they peered into the translucent depths or took up small organisms and floating weed. Jack Aubrey did not in fact console himself by swimming, though he had a great mind to it after a sleepless night, trying to urge the ship on in the dying breeze by force of will, while at every other glass the log took out less and less of its line, until at last not even a single knot ran off the reel, in spite of all the help the quartermaster could give it.

No swimming. As soon as there was light enough he began to organize stages over the side, and by a little after breakfast-time the ship, though drooping in every sail, was once again a hive of industry.

'This is perfect,' he called over the still water to Pullings in the Merlin, a quarter of a mile abeam and turning as she very slowly drifted farther. 'This is just what I have been praying for.'

'May God forgive you,' murmured Killick, a few feet below him in the now re-assembled cabin.

'Now we can finish off the upper black-strake and then deal with the lower: we can get right down to the copper.'

A few of the simpler men from Shelmerston may have been deceived, but those who had long sailed with Captain Aubrey either nodded to one another or smiled privately; they knew very well that there were times when a commanding officer was required to talk just like this, just as a parson was required to preach on Sundays. They did not believe him for a moment; yet this did not affect their purpose; and although the watch after watch of calm had taken away from their first enthusiasm, they worked on doggedly. If there was the slightest chance of getting the barky to the height of the Azores by Thursday, it would not be their fault if she was not ready; and indeed by noon both lower black-strakes were coated with sailcloth pinned tight with close-set copper nails above and below the waterline, the guns having been run across the deck in either case to heel the ship. The very last of the blue paint had been laid on, parsimoniously scraped out to cover the greatest possible extent; the blue did not quite meet the surface, but that did not signify, since it shaded down to a rim of mixed filth and cook's slush, in the usual sea-going way. At all events Guzman reported from Stephen's boat that she and the Azul now looked as like one another as two chick-peas from the same pod.

Now all that remained was changing her into a barque and striking down her tall and too-recognizable maintopgallant-mast; but this was an operation that Jack meant to leave to the last, since the rig would reduce her speed, and in the present case speed was everything.

It was everything, to be sure: and at noon the ship lay there motionless, not having run eighty miles since the last observation. Crueller still, crueller by far, was the breeze when at last it came, whispering up from the south right in their teeth and strengthening hour by hour.

The Surprise dutifully beat up into it, tack upon tack; but it was with death in their hearts that the men braced round the heavy yards and trimmed the sails to the finest possible degree.

Stephen and Martin came upon deck at the second cry of 'All hands about ship' after a prolonged session with their pelagic crustaceans, some of them certainly undescribed and quite unknown to science. 'What a pleasure it is to be moving again,' cried Stephen. 'How the ship bounds along!'

He caught Jack Aubrey's black look of contained exasperation, his tight-shut mouth; he noticed the grim faces of the waisters and afterguard, the general silence; and at the roar of 'Helm's-a-lee' he murmured 'Let us go downstairs again.'