The Surgeon's Mate (31 page)

'I was not,' said Stephen. 'He is in a deep coma. But I am afraid his uniform has nothing of the aide-de-camp's glory about it at all; and his letters are those of an ordinary subaltern. Besides, such a wild dash was surely the act of boys rather than of sober, reflecting senior officers.'

'I don't know,' said Jack. 'If I had command of a place like Grimsholm, I think I might have tried it; I think I might have tried for a horse on shore - it is not many hours ride. But I am very certain that I should have pulled away on the blind side for a mile or two. What is it, Mr Rowbotham?'

'If you please, sir, the spare anchor is new-puddened.'

'Very good, very good: then bend the bitter-end to it. The bitter-end, Mr Rowbotham.'

'Oh yes, sir: the bitter-end it is.'

The second lieutenant came for fresh instructions, and while the urgent technical talk flowed past his ears Stephen watched the lights far over the bank, the lights of all Ariel's and Minnie's boats busy about the radiating arms of rope that were to pull her off: of all the boats except the gig, which was carrying Pellworm away to the distant Humbug, to bring her in through the devious channels.

A small dismal rain began to fall, veiling the lights. Fenton ran aft, and Stephen said, 'But if I may have a word with the Minnie's captain, we may learn all there is to be learnt. I must speak to him in any event, to hear what he has to say about Grimsholm. I understand that the Minnie goes there from time to time.'

'As soon as we have a boat free I will send for him,' said Jack, and raising his voice he called, 'Mr Hyde, tell the Minnie's master to stand by to come across in the next boat. He is to bring the ship's papers, too.'

'Sir,' came Hyde's reply out of the wet darkness, 'the Frenchmen pistolled him. Shall I send his mate?'

Two dim wet figures came to report; an unseen boat hailed to say that the warp was entangled in a sunken wreck.

'Never fret your spirit now, my dear,' said Stephen. 'It would advance us nothing at this stage to know whether General Mercier is living or dead; tomorrow morning would answer very well, so it would.'

A violent rending sound, a confusion of voices in the darkness, and Jack disappeared. Stephen waited, and then, the rain increasing, he went down to his cot, where he lay staring at the candle-flame in his lantern, his hands behind his head. Physically he was tired and his body relaxed throughout its entire length: his mind was in much the same state, floating free, detached, as though he had taken his old favourite, the tincture of laudanum. He felt no particular anxiety. The attempt must either succeed or fail: he hoped with all his heart for success, but 'all his heart' did not amount to a great deal now that some essential part of its core seemed to have died. Yet on the other hand he felt more able to command success in that it meant no less to him - to command it with a strength that arose not indeed from a fundamental indifference to his own fate but from something resembling it that he could not define; it had a resemblance to despair, but a despair long past, with the horror taken out of it.

The Humbug came through the fairway late in the middle watch, having had to fetch a long cast to windward, beating up tack upon tack; she brought the growing breeze with her and the threat of a dirty end to the night. The lantern swung wider in the small silent cabin: Stephen slept on.

For the next hour and more the hermaphrodite laid out anchors and buoys; the ablest seamen in all three vessels spliced cables end to end. The cables ran through the hawse-holes until there were none left in the tiers; and gradually the whole series of purchases designed either to pluck the Minnie from her bed or to tear her guts out took form.

Stephen woke to the sound of a familiar voice raised high, so high that it pierced the deck, for now the whole system was to be put to the test, and now the strain was on - a strain divided between four anchors, nearly a mile of cables and hawsers, and all concentrated on the Ariel's capstan. 'Stamp and go,' cried Jack to the hands at the bars, 'stamp and go. Heave, heave her round. Heave hearty there.' By now most of the men were Minnies, pressed into the present service; though they might not understand the actual words the gist was plain enough. They could scarcely gain an inch as they heaved and the brisk clicking of the pawls faded steadily to no more than a click a minute; and then to none. Now the full force was on; the cable between the two ships showed never a curve as it vanished into the faint but growing light. 'Heave and rally. Heave, heave and rally. Bosun, start that man. Heave and pawl. Well fare ye, my lads. Now heave with a will.'

A distant cry: 'She stirs.'

The bars moved, the gasping men advanced half a step, the capstan turned, turned faster. 'Well fare ye - heave and aweigh,' cried Jack: the Minnie slid stern-first from her bank, gliding into deep water, where she lay rocking easy, and half a dozen hands collapsed at the bars. Stephen dozed off for a time, while innumerable ropes of all sizes were recovered and stowed away. He heard a last cry of 'Splice the mainbrace' and sank far down into sleep.

It was full day when he woke. The rain had stopped and the Minnie was alongside, receiving the Ariel's wine and tobacco: far, far astern the Humbug could be seen sweeping for the lost small bower. All hands apart from the spry and cheerful Jagiello looked somewhat bleary, but none so bleary as a glum middle-aged man in a sheepskin cap with books under his arm, who was pointed out to Stephen as the Minnie's first mate.

'Mr Jagiello,' said Stephen, 'I am just about to visit my patient: when I come back - and I do not expect to be long

- may I ask you to be so kind as to desire that man to come downstairs, to your cabin if you please? With your help, I should like to ask him some questions.'

The visit was indeed quite brief. The young man was still in his coma, looking little more than a child, in spite of his carefully-trained nascent moustache; he was breathing easily, deeply, and the surgery seemed successful so far -at least the delicate ligature had held, and would hold now

- but Stephen had a keen sense of approaching death and he believed he felt it now. There was nothing he could do at present and he walked back to Jagiello and the mate.

The questions were asked. Who were the French officers in the boat? What were the signals used for approaching Grimsholm? What were the formalities of landing?

But little response did they obtain: the mate took refuge in ignorance and forgetfulness - this was his first voyage in the Minnie; he knew nothing of Grimsholm; he had never seen the Frenchmen; he did not remember anything about them.

'I think I shall leave this sullen fellow for a while,' said Stephen, looking at the Minnie's muster-roll. 'A period of recollection may make him more amenable: at present he is lying, mechanically and doggedly lying - the roll shows that he has been in the vessel for a year and four months. And in any case I yearn for the coffee I smell at no great distance. Will you accompany me?'

'Thank you,' said Jagiello, 'but I have already had my morning draught in the gunroom.'

To his surprise Stephen found Jack already at table, shaved, pink, and eating voraciously. 'Are you not abed yet, for all love?' he cried.

'Oh, I took a cat-nap in Draper's chair,' said Jack. 'It sets you up amazingly. Have a beef-steak.'

'I thank you, Jack, but a cup of coffee and a piece of toast would answer very well for the moment. I mean to go back to the prisoner very soon; I have thought of a means of confounding the stupid creature. But first let me congratulate you on having refloated the Minnie: a noble feat, upon my word.'

'It was the tide that turned the day,' said Jack. 'You would hardly credit that a few miserable inches - and it is no more in the Baltic, you know - could have such an effect. But it gave just that trifle of lift at the very moment we needed it: another half hour and I should have had to slip and run. It was nip and tuck, I do assure you. But tell me, what news of the French officers? And what news of the young fellow? How does he do?'

Stephen shook his head. 'He is still in his deep coma,' he said, 'and I fear I may have been too sanguine last night. The mechanical processes function well enough, and the ligature has held; but the spirit is on the wing, perhaps. However, I hope to learn something about his companions directly.'

He carried his coffee back to Jagiello and once again there was a surprise for him. Something had happened during his absence: the young man had the pleased, slightly mad look of an Apollo - a primitive Apollo -who has just made a neat job of Marsyas; whereas the captive was so pale that his lips showed yellow.

'He has told me quite a lot,' said Jagiello, as he set a chair for Stephen and put a cushion in it, 'and now he is speaking the truth. He really does not know who the French officers were, because they stayed in the cabin all the time; in principle the ship was bound for Bornholm, but they could easily have put into Grimsholm on the same voyage. Only the Minnie's captain would have known just where he meant to touch. He did see them when they were launching the boat and he says they were not old; but that proves nothing - a French colonel or even a general might be quite young. As for Grimsholm, he knows there is a private signal, and the last time the Minnie was there it was a Hamburg jack upside down on the front mast, but it might have changed since then. Only the captain would know. And then he says no one is ever allowed to land: they must stop at a little island near the shore, present their papers at the wharf, and unload by boats. They talk only to the French, who receive their papers. The little island is at the bottom of the bay, and it has a landing-place, a wharf: it is the third of such islands. Draw, incest,' he said to the Dane.

Stephen took the drawing and considered it. 'Come,' he said, 'let us check these statements with the more prudent, responsible members of the Minnie's crew: and allow me to observe, Mr Jagiello, that a gold piece, decently proffered, will often obtain the best intelligence; and that the prospect of more in the event of success may elicit a flood of information untainted by concealed malignity. What we have here is very well, very specious; but believe me, I should not move an inch upon it without confirmation.'

Jack was still eating, but slowly now, when Stephen returned to the cabin: he had appeared briefly on deck when the loading of the prize was completed; had observed that the wind was steady in the west-north-west; and had given orders that her own people, with a competent guard of marines, should sail the Minnie under the lee of the Ariel and her guns, to give his own men a rest. He had also fixed the Ariel's position: if the transports were true to their rendezvous they should show to the north-west in about an hour; and two hours after that Grimsholm should rise in the south-east.

'I have ascertained these facts,' said Stephen, rehearsing them and showing the drawing. 'They are corroborated by the Minnie's carpenter and bosun, questioned separately; I do not count her second mate, for he has found means to be drunk, weeping drunk.'

'It is very good as far as it goes,' said Jack. 'But I am not happy about the private signal. The Minnie has not been here for months, and it is very likely to have been changed.'

'I abound in your sense, brother,' said Stephen. 'And I have been thinking. I have been thinking about Artemisia.'

'Indeed?' said Jack.

'Do not suppose I refer to Mausolus' wife..." said Stephen, raising one finger.'

'If you mean the frigate, she is in the West Indies.'

'... for it is Lygdamus' daughter that I have in mind, the Queen of Cos. As you will recall, she accompanied Xerxes, with five ships, and she took part in the battle of Salamis. Perceiving that the day was lost, and that several Athenians were in pursuit of her, she at once attacked a Persian ship. The Athenians assumed that she was an ally, gave over their pursuit, and so allowed her to escape. Now it occurs to me that there is a certain analogy here: suppose the Minnie were to fly into Grimsholm, all sails abroad, pursued by the Ariel, firing guns, do you not think it would take? Do not you think that any error in the private signal would be overlooked in such a case, particularly as the Hamburg jack was valid at the time of the Minnie's last visit?'

Jack thought for a while. 'Yes, I think it would,' he said. 'But it would have to be convincing. You tell me that a good many of the people on the island are seamen: it would have to be damned well done to convince a seaman. Still, I think it could be managed: yes, I certainly think it could be managed. I like your scheme, Stephen.'

'I am heartily glad you approve it. And since you do, I shall offer some further observations. It would be the pity of the world if the Dutch and Baltic hands Sir James was so kind as to give us were to betray the stratagem by the propriety of their conduct or the Uniformity of their dress: they are neat, well-behaved men, accustomed to the discipline of the Royal Navy, and I see that they all wear much the same kind of purser's slops. I suggest they should exchange clothes as well as places with the Minnies; for what could be more authentic than the Danish garb itself, taken from a Danish back? And then, so that there should be at least some familiar faces aboard, I suggest that her cook and carpenter should remain; they have both accepted a douceur in exchange for information, and they both stand to gain a considerable sum if all goes well.'

'It shall be as you say,' said Jack, draining the coffee-pot. 'I will put it in hand at once.'

He went on deck, and shortly afterward the Minnies began to come aboard in batches. When first they were told to strip they looked very blank and apprehensive, and even when they were made to understand that this was an exchange, even when they were dressed again, in the Ariel's slops, they remained exceedingly suspicious.

Back in his cabin, with the ship's books before him, Jack was studying the record of his new hands when Hyde came in. 'I beg your pardon, sir,' said he, 'but the men say the Danes are lousy, and beg to be excused from putting on their clothes.'

'They will be complaining of the weevils next,' said Jack.