The Thirteen Gun Salute (7 page)

'The distance seems about the same,' observed Stephen.

'I wish I could think so,' said West. 'We had gained a cable's length by two bells, but now she has won it back and even more. Still, the tide will change against the wind in an hour or so, and that should chop up a nasty head-sea for her.'

'Has the Captain gone to bed?' asked Stephen, cupping his hands to make his voice, curiously hoarse and weak at present, carry over the roar of sea and wind.

'No. He is in the cabin, pricking the chart. We had a very fine fix with Vega and Arcturus just now.'

That, of course, would be the simplest way of dealing with at least one side of his ignorance. If he were to walk into the cabin there he would see the ship's position marked on the chart with all the accuracy of an expert navigator. Doing so would not be elegant however; and as well as being inelegant it would be in direct contravention to his particular morality, the private set of laws which for him separated the odious practice of spying from the legitimate gathering of intelligence.

'I beg your pardon,' he said, having missed everything of West's last remark but for the fact that he had spoken or rather bellowed something about fire.

'I was only saying they must be burning heather or furze over there in Anglesea,' said West, pointing to a distant orange serpent on the starboard beam.

Stephen nodded, reflected for a moment and then crept backwards down the companion-ladder meaning to walk forward along the waist. Most of the starboard watch were sheltering under the break of the quarterdeck, and Barret Bonden left the group to shepherd him along past the double-breeched guns and under the double-griped boats on the skid-beams, past the galley and so by the hooked steps in the Surprise's broad top-tackle scuttle to a place as nearly comfortable, safe and dry as so bleak a station could afford.

It was quieter here in the bows, in the lee of the foremast and the topsail-sheet bitts, and they talked for a while about the progress of the chase, the snow there before them clear and sharp, a mile ahead, tearing along and throwing the water wide. Bonden knew the Doctor was upset, and in case it should be something to do with this prize, with the frigate's relatively poor performance, or with what a landsman might consider the Captain's want of enterprise, he very delicately offered a few points for consideration: at the beginning of a very long voyage, no captain would risk masts, spars and cordage unless he were up against an enemy man-of-war, a national ship, or at least a very important privateer; at the beginning of a very long voyage the ship, low and sluggish with all her stores, could not be driven really hard, as she could be driven when she was riding light and homeward-bound, with supplies only a few days ahead - the Doctor would remember how the barky wore topgallants in a close-reef topsail breeze, and not only topgallants but foretopmast and lower studdingsails too, when they were chasing the Spartan on their way home from Barbados. If they were to do that now, the barky would fall to pieces, and they would have to swim home, those that were not provided with wings.

Bonden observed with regret that he had been on the wrong lay altogether, that this was not what the Doctor had been fretting about. So with a few general remarks about taking great care when he came aft - a hand for the ship and a hand for himself - he left him to his own reflexions, if indeed that was the word for the anxious hurry of spirits, going over and over the same ground while the frigate and her chase sailed perpetually over the same troubled moonlit sea, neither making any perceptible progress in a world with no fixed object.

Yet there was this new factor: Jack Aubrey did not regard the capture of the snow as of the first importance. Might it therefore be suggested to him that they turn about and hurry south for their rendezvous in Lisbon?

No, it might not. Jack Aubrey knew exactly how far he was allowed or rather required to endanger the ship for the sake of the prize; and where his professional duty was concerned it would be as useful to offer him a bribe as a piece of advice.

'Why, Stephen, there you are,' cried Jack, suddenly emerging from behind the bitts and Bonden's little sailcloth screen stretched between them. 'You are as wet as a soused herring. The tide is on the turn; it will cut up quite a sea presently and you will get wetter still, if possible. Lord, you could be wrung out like a swab even now. Why did not you put on oilskins? Diana bought you a suit. Come and have a mug of broth and some toasted cheese. Let me give you a hand round the bitts: wait till she rises.'

A quarter of an hour later Maturin said that he would digest his broth and toasted cheese in the orlop, where he had a number of urgent tasks.

'I am going to turn in until the end of the watch,' said Jack. 'You might be well advised to do the same: you look quite done up.'

'Indeed, I am somewhat out of order. Perhaps I shall prescribe myself a draught.'

He had every reason to be out of order, he reflected, sitting there by the medicine-chest on his stool. His very remote and tentative words about other commanders, in other circumstances, abandoning some hypothetical chase had been quite useless; or even, if Jack had caught any faint hint of their drift, worse than useless. His only plan, that of diverting the ship's course, was one of those easy phantasms that look well enough until they are examined; in this case it would be practicable only in dark and covered weather, when the compass alone commanded, and if it could be done discreetly. Though admittedly the ship's position was right; she could be made to turn well to the west of her present position without coming to any harm: not that in itself the fact was of any consequence.

Out of order he was, and restless he was: the changing tide had worked up a considerable sea, not as fierce as had been hoped, because the wind was slackening, but still so rough that the bows were impossible for any length of time. He therefore paced the length of the upper deck between the cabin door and the foremost gun on the weather side. Each watch saw him pass to and fro, and in each watch some of the simpler hands said they had never known the Doctor worry so about a prize, while their more gifted mates asked them 'was it likely that a gent with a gold-headed cane and his own carriage should worry about a little ten-gun privateer snow? No. It was the toothache he had, and he was trying to walk it off; but that would not answer - it never did - and presently he would take a comfortable draught, or perhaps Mr Martin would draw the tooth.'

It was at five bells in the graveyard watch, with the situation, as far as he could tell, quite unchanged, that Stephen finally returned to the orlop, unlocked the medicine-chest and took out his bottle of laudanum. 'No,' he said, drinking his modest dose with deliberate composure, 'the only concrete and feasible solution I have been able to devise is worthless. I shall have to await the event and act accordingly; but in order to act with any effect I must have at least some sleep and I must overcome this disproportionate distress.'

He climbed the ladders for the last time, walked into the coach, and threw off his sodden clothes. Killick, who had no right to be up at this hour, silently opened the door and handed him a towel, then a dry nightshirt. He picked up the heap of clothes, looked sternly at the Doctor, but changed what he was going to say to a 'Good night, sir.'

Stephen took his rosary from its drawer: telling beads was as near to superstition as intelligence-work was to spying, but although for many years he had thought private prayer, private requests impertinent and ill-mannered, the more impersonal, almost ejaculatory forms seemed to him to have quite another nature; and at this point a need for explicit piety was strong on him. Yet the warmth of the dry nightshirt on his pale soaked shivering body, the ease of the swinging cot, once he had managed to get into it, and the effect of his draught were such that sleep enveloped him entirely before his seventh Ave.

He was woken by the sound of gunfire and by the roar of orders immediately overhead. He sat up, staring and collecting himself; a thin grey light was straggling through the companion, and he had the impression that the glass was being strongly hosed with water. The sea had gone down. Another gun, right forward.

He stepped out of the cot, stood swaying, and then put on the clean shirt and breeches lying on the locker. He was hurrying towards the companion-ladder when Killick roared out 'Oh no you don't. Oh no you don't, sir. Not without this here' - a long, heavy, smelly tarpaulin coat with a hood, both fastened with white marline.

'Thank you kindly, Killick,' said Stephen, when he was tied in. 'Where is the Captain?'

'On the forecastle, in the middle of the catastrophe, carrying on like Beelzebub.'

At the foot of the ladder Stephen looked up, and his face was instantly drenched - drenched with fresh water, with teeming cold rain so thick he could hardly draw breath. Bowing his head he reached the mizen-mast and the wheel, the rain drumming on his hood and shoulders. The decks were full of men, exceedingly busy, apparently letting fly sheets, most of them unrecognizable in their foul-weather gear; but there seemed to be no very great alarm, nor was the ship even beginning to clear for action. A tall sou'westered figure bent over him and looked into his face: Awkward Davies. 'Oh, it's you, sir,' he said. 'I'll take you forward.'

As they groped their way along the larboard gangway, scarcely able to see across the deck for the downpour, the squall passed over, still blotting out the north-east entirely but leaving no more than a remnant of drizzle over the ship and the sea to the south and west. There was Jack in his oilskins with Pullings, the bosun and some hands, still streaming with water amidst what looked like an inextricable tangle of cordage, sailcloth and a few spars, among which Stephen thought he recognized the topgallantmast with its cheerful apple-green truck.

'Good morning, Doctor,' cried Jack. 'You have brought fine weather with you, I am happy to see. Captain Pullings, you and Mr Bulkeley have everything in hand, I believe?'

'Yes, sir,' said Pullings. 'Once Mr Bentley has roused out his spare cap, there are only trifles left to be done.'

'At least the decks will not need swabbing today,' said Jack, looking aft, where the rain-water was still gushing in thick jets from the scuppers. 'Doctor, shall we take an early pot, and what is left of the soft-tack, toasted?'

In the cabin he said, 'Stephen, I am sorry to be obliged to tell you I have made a sad cock of it, and the snow has run clear. Last night Tom wanted to have a long shot at her, in the hope of checking her speed. I said no, but this morning I was sorry for it. The squall had flattened the sea, and with the breeze dying on us she was drawing away hand over fist: so I said "It is now or never" and cracked on till all sneered again. We came within possible range and we had a few shots, one pitching so close it threw water on to her deck, before a back-stay parted and our foretopgallant came by the board. She has run clear away, going like smoke and oakum, and in this dirty weather there will be no finding her again. I hope you' are not too disappointed.'

'Not at all - never in life,' said Stephen, drinking coffee to hide his intense satisfaction and gratitude.

'Mark you,' said Jack earnestly, 'she is very likely to be taken by one of our cruisers. She altered course eastwards when she saw us coming up so fast, and now she is hopelessly embayed in the Firth. She will never get out with this wind, and it may last for weeks.'

'Does not the same apply to us?'

'Oh no. We have much more sea-room. Once we have head-sails we can make a short leg to the south-east to be sure of weathering the Mull, go north about past Malin Head, gain a good offing, a very good offing, and then hey for Lisbon. Come in, Tom. Sit down and have a cup of coffee, cold though it be.'

'Thank you, sir. The immediate work is done, and we can hoist jib and foretopmast staysail whenever you choose.'

'Very good, very good indeed: the sooner the better.' He swallowed his coffee and the two of them hurried on deck. A moment later Stephen, finishing the pot, heard Jack's powerful voice at its strongest: 'All hands, there. All hands about ship.'

Chapter 3

'Bonden,' said Jack Aubrey to his coxswain, 'tell the Doctor that if he is at leisure there is something to be seen on deck.'

The Doctor was at leisure; the 'cello on which he had been practising gave a last deep boom and he ran up the companion-ladder, an expectant look on his face.

'There, right on the beam,' said Jack, nodding southwards. 'You can catch the breakers at its foot as clear as can be on the rise.'

'Certainly,' said Stephen, watching Malin Head fade and faintly reappear in the thin rain; then, feeling that something more was expected of him, 'I am obliged to you for showing it to me.'

'It will be your last glimpse of your native land for about sixteen degrees of latitude and God knows how many of longitude, for I mean to make a great offing if ever I can. Should you like to look at it with a telescope?'

'If you please,' said Stephen. He was fond of his native land, even though this piece of it booked unnaturally black, wet and uninviting; but he could not wish the spectacle prolonged, particularly as he knew from personal experience that part of this province was inhabited by a tattling, guileful, tale-bearing, noisy, contemptible, mean, wretched, unsteady and inhospitable people, and as soon as he decently could he clapped the glass to, handed it back, and returned to his 'cello. They were to attempt another Mozart quartet in a few days and he did not wish to disgrace himself in the presence of the purser's far more accomplished playing.

Left alone Jack continued his habitual pacing fore and aft. He must have covered hundreds and hundreds of miles on this same quarterdeck in the course of all these years and the ringbolt near the taffrail where he turned shone like silver; it was also dangerously thin. He was glad to have seen Maim Head so clear. It proved that Inishtrahull and the Garvans, upon which many a better navigator than himself had come to grief, especially in thick weather with no sight of the sun by day or any star by night, were all safely astern. After a measured mile for good buck, he gave the orders that would carry the ship as nearly due west as the south-west wind would allow; and he found to his pleasure that she needed it only half a point free to run happily at seven knots under no more than topsails and courses, though a moderate sea kept striking her barboard bow with all the regularity of a long-established swell, throwing her slightly off her course and sweeping spray and even packets of water diagonally across the forecastle and the waist.