The Letter of Marque (31 page)

Long before he went up the side, helped by the cheerful cutter's midshipman, Stephen had had a premonition of disaster; and although the happiness or unhappiness of the ship was wholly irrelevant to his sense of personal catastrophe, the feeling was strengthened by his first sight of the Leopard's captain and pilot wrangling, while three of the officers steadily lashed the men heaving at the capstan-bars, swearing as loud as ever they could bawl.

Supper was no very cheerful ceremony either. The drizzling fog, the slight and shifting wind, the dangerous currents and shoals and the risk of collision would have made it an anxious meal even in the old Leopard; now it was barbarous as well. The wardroom was divided into two hostile groups, the master's friends and the purser's; and as far as Stephen could see they were equally determined to show their lack of respect for the captain, a tall, thin, elderly, weak, ill-tempered clerk-like man who looked in from time to time. There were also some other passengers for Sweden, marine-store merchants; and each of these three groups kept up its own whispered conversation. The passengers - and Stephen belonged more among them than elsewhere, since the Leopard's surgeon was dead drunk in his cabin - were of no interest whatsoever to the sailors. They were mere landsmen, often a nuisance, often sick, always in the way, come today and gone tomorrow; but they did serve as a means of communication between the hostile camps. Words ostensibly addressed to a hemp-buyer from Austin Friars bounced off him to reach the far end of the table; and in this way Stephen learnt that still another collier had hailed to say that Americans had been sighted off the Overfalls, heading south; so the Old Man was going inside the Ower and the Haddock bank.

Shortly after this all hands were called to fend off a Dutch buss that had fallen aboard the Leopard's quarter in spite of all the yelling and gunfire. Stephen followed the merchants on to the wet, dark, slippery deck, found that he could neither see anything nor do anything, and so retired, the cries of 'Butter-boxes, bugger off growing fainter as he went down to his cabin and closed the door.

Since then he had lain on his back with his hands behind his head in what had been Babbington's cot during the Leopard's voyage to the Spice Islands by way of the Antarctic - had lain swinging with the easy motion of the ship. In the course of what now amounted to many years he had imperceptibly become so much of a seaman that he found this posture and this living heave the most comfortable attitude and motion known to man, the best for either sleep or reflection, in spite of the sound of the ship's working, the shouts and footsteps, overhead, and on this occasion the thump of the signal-gun.

For the first part of the night, while he was waiting for his draught to have its effect, he deliberately composed his mind to help sleep come. There was a a vast expanse in which his thoughts could take their pleasure: Jack Aubrey's affairs could hardly be more prosperous, and short of a very hideous mischance (Stephen unhooked his hand to cross himself) it was scarcely possible that he should not be fully, publicly reinstated within the next few months. He would most probably be given a command after the South American voyage: and perhaps it would be another independent commission - his genius lay that way. Conceivably they might explore the high northern latitudes together: extremely interesting, no doubt; though they could scarcely hope for the fantastic wealth of the south again. Stephen's mind returned to Desolation Island, where this very ship had taken him - physically these very same timbers, battered and uncared-for though they were now -Desolation, with its sea-elephants and countless penguins, petrels of every kind and the glorious albatrosses that would let him pick them up, warm and if not companionable then at least in no way hostile. Whale-birds, blue-eyed shags! The crab-seals, the leopard-seals, the otaries!

His mind, perhaps a little too conscientious in its pursuit of happiness, turned back to his evening with Blaine. He dwelt for a while on their excellent meal, their bottle of Latour so smooth and round and long, and reviewed Sir Joseph's confidential words as they finished their wine: 'Retirement to the country, to gardening and etymology, did not answer - attempted once: never again - night-thoughts in an unoccupied mind at his age, with his experience, and with his trade behind him, were too disagreeable - pervading sense of guilt, though each separate case could be satisfactorily answered - present activity and the busy persecution of the enemy was the only answer.' And from this he moved to the opera, where they had heard a truly brilliant performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, brilliant from the first notes of the overture to what Stephen always looked upon as the true end, before the hurlyburly of jovial peasants - the part where from a dead silence the dumbfounded Conte sings Contessa perdono, perdono, per-dono with such an infinite subtlety of intonation. He repeated it inwardly several times, together with the Contessa"s exquisite reply and the crowd's words to the effect that now they would all live happily ever after -Ah tutti contenti saremo cosi - but never quite to his satisfaction.

At some point he must have dozed off, for as he woke he was conscious that the watch had changed and that the ship's speed had increased by perhaps a knot. The drum had stopped beating on the forecastle, but the gun still uttered its gruff bark every minute or so. And his inner voice was still singing Ah tutti contend saremo cost: it had the cadences more nearly in their true line, but oh how much less conviction there was in those words at present. They were now purely mechanical, a mindless repetition, because in his sleep that earlier premonition of extreme unhappiness had risen up and now it occupied him entirely.

It now appeared evident to him that his visit to Sweden must be seen as an odious importunity. It was true that he was carrying back her blue diamond, which she valued extremely. But it could have been sent by a messenger; it could have been sent through the legation; and this bringing it in person might be looked upon as a singularly ungenerous demand for gratitude, necessarily self-defeating as far as the essence was concerned. Blaine was probably right in saying that Diana was not or was no longer attached to Jagiello: Stephen hoped so, because he liked the beautiful young man and he did not look forward to the conventional bloody meeting with any pleasure. Yet that did not mean that she was not attached to some other man, perhaps much poorer, more discreet, less in the public eye. Diana was a passionate creature and when she was attached she was usually attached passionately. Stephen knew very well that in their relations the very strong feeling was all on his side: she had a certain liking, friendship and affection for him, but certainly no passion of any kind. Passionate resentment of his supposed infidelity, perhaps, but no other.

There were large and important areas of Diana's mind that were as strange to him as his was to her, but he was quite sure of one thing: her love of high, expensive living was far more theoretical than real. Certainly she hated being pinched and confined; but she hated being commanded even more. She might love careless extravagance, but she would do little or nothing to come by the means of it: certainly nothing against her inclination. She valued nothing so much as independence. Nothing was more valuable to her than her independence.

What had he to offer in exchange for even a very little part of it, for the appearance of even a very little part of it? Money, of course; but of course in this context money was neither here nor there. If kissing did not go by favour it was not kissing at all. What else had he to offer? He might have ten thousand a year and a deer-park, at least a potential deer-park, but by no stretch of the imagination could he be called a handsome husband. Nor even a tolerable husband. He had little conversation and no charm. He had offended her very publicly and very deeply: or so she and her friends believed, which came to the same thing.

The more he reflected on it, lying there in the heave of the sea as the Leopard carried him towards Sweden, the more it seemed to him that his premonition was well founded, that his journey could not be anything but an exquisitely painful failure. At the same time he found the unreasoning part of his mind so longing for its success that he became physically distressed, seized with a kind of rigour that made him gasp. Presently he sat up, clasping his hands and rocking to and fro; and in time, against all good sense, all resolution and fortitude, he opened his chest, groped for the bottle, and repeated his night-draught.

He woke not so much from a laudanum sleep, for by now his tincture would have had little effect on a well-grown child, as from an unusual degree of mental exhaustion; yet in spite of that he was still so stupid that he might have been stuffed with poppy, mandrake and nepenthe, and it took him some moments to understand the steward's cry 'Come on, sir. We'm sunk.'

The man repeated his words, shaking the cot's hangings as he did so, and Stephen recognized the steady grinding thump below: the ship was aground, beating not on rock but on sand. 'Sunk?' he said, sitting up.

'Well, no, sir,' said the steward. 'That was just my jovial way of putting it, to rouse you, like; but that wicked little old bugger has run us on to the tail of the Grab, and Mr Roke is going ashore for help. Captain thinks the passengers should run in with him, in case the ship goes to pieces.'

'Thankee, steward,' said Stephen, getting up, tying his neck-cloth (which was all he had taken off) and locking his chest. 'Pray give a seaman this' - handing him a crown-piece - 'to see my dunnage into the boat; and if you could bring me a cup of coffee on deck you would oblige me.'

On the deck itself he found a thin grey daylight - drizzle, but no wind, and the ship beating less as she settled with the falling tide. The bosun had the pilot wedged against the rail and between insults the captain hit him with a rope's end. The other members of the crew were methodically getting a boat over the side, taking little notice of the pilot's cries. No land was in sight, nothing but yellowish-grey drizzle over yellowish-grey sea, but the people seemed confident of their whereabouts and there was no feeling of particular emergency.

Yet once over the side and manned the boat proved leaky, and they had not shoved off five minutes before water was washing about their feet. 'Jog the loo,' cried Mr Roke, addressing Stephen. And then louder, 'Jog the loo, I say.'

A friendly young mate, unseen before this moment, leant over Stephen and briskly worked the pump-handle up and down. They would be in Manton before the turn of the tide, he said, and if Stephen wished to put up at a comfortable inn, he could recommend the Feathers, kept by his auntie. It would not be a long stay, in all likelihood. They had just beat off the rudder and lost some of the false keel, but Joe Harris of Manton would tow them in and put them to rights as soon as she floated. The passengers were only put ashore because of the insurance. Stephen need not be afraid.

'Jog the loo,' cried Mr Roke.

'There's Manton, right ahead,' observed the young man, when Stephen had more or less cleared the boat. It was a promising East Anglian landscape, a flat, flat mingling of the elements, with decayed sea-walls, saltings, reed-beds in the half-light, and the smell of marsh-gas and seaweed mixed.

'Do you know the Reverend Mr Heath, of Manton?' asked Stephen.

'Parson Heath? Why, everyone knows Parson Heath. We always carry him anything rare, like a sea-baby or a king of the herrings.'

Mr Roke started up, balancing in the boat. 'Now, sir,' he said very loud, 'if you will not jog that bloody loo, change places with me, and I will jog it myself.'

In the front room on the first floor of the William's Head at Shelmerston Sophie read out 'Bread in bags, 21,226 pounds: the same in butts, 13,440 pounds. Flour for bread in barrels, 9000 pounds. Beer, in puncheons, 1,200 gallons. Spirits, 1,600 gallons. Beef, 4000 pieces. Flour in lieu of beef in half-barrels, 1,400 pounds. Suet, 800 pounds. Raisins, 2,500 pounds. Peas in butts, 187 bushels. Oatmeal, 10 bushels. Wheat, 120 bushels. Oil, 120 gallons. Sugar, 1,500 pounds. Vinegar, 500 gallons. Sauerkraut, 7860 pounds. Malt in hogsheads, 40 bushels. Salt, 20 bushels. Pork, 6000 pieces. Mustard seed, 160 pounds. Inspissated lime-juice, 10 kegs. Lemon rob, 15 kegs. The prices are on the list by the ink-well: I have worked out all the sums except the last two, which Dr Maturin has already paid; perhaps we could compare our answers.'

While Mr Standish, the Surprise's new and inexperienced purser, was multiplying and dividing, Sophie looked out of the window at the sunlit bay. The Surprise was lying against Boulter's wharf, taking in the vast quantities of stores recorded on the papers lying there on the table: the frigate was not looking her best, with her hatchways agape and derricks peering into her depths, while it would have been folly to lay on her last coat of paint before the lading was complete; but a seaman's eye would have observed the new suit of Manilla rigging, which any King's ship might have envied, to say nothing of the blaze of gold-leaf on her figurehead and the scrolls behind it. In the course of her long career she had been called L'Unite, the Retaliation and the Retribution, and the rather cross-looking image in front had answered, more or less, for any of these names; but now some natural genius had arched her eyebrows and pursed her mouth, so that she really was the personification of surprise - pleased surprise, with a great wealth of golden locks and an undeniable bosom.

As Sophie gazed she saw her children rush by below: saw and above all heard them. They could never at any time have been called genteel children, having been brought up mainly by strong-voiced, plain-speaking, over-fond seamen; but now that they had been let loose for some time among a whole community of adoring privateersmen, stuffed with sweetmeats and nips of sugared gin, loaded with knives, poll-parrots and shrunken heads from foreign parts, they were in a fair way to being ruined. At present Bonden and Killick were nominally in charge of them, but both were encumbered by Jack Aubrey's evening finery - the Aubreys were to dine with Admiral Russell - and they had been left far behind. In answer to their increasingly threatening cries the two girls stopped, poised on the low wall overlooking the hard; with admirable timing their little brother gave them each a shove, so that they fell a good four feet on to the shore. He pelted off for the ship as fast as his short legs could carry him and they were picked out of the low-tide shingle by three women of the town, dusted, comforted and mended in the kindest way - Charlotte's pinafore was torn. They were also told very firmly that they must not call out after their brother with such words as sod, swab and whoreson beast, because their mama would not like it.