Master & Commander (46 page)

   The sound that woke him in the middle watch: a low cry mounting by quarter tones or less and increasing in volume to a howling shriek, then a quick series of spoken or chanted words, the mounting cry again and the shriek—the Irish men of the crew waking James Dillon, stretched there with a cross in his hands and lanterns at his head and his feet.

   The burials. That child Ellis in his hammock with the flag sewed over him looked like a little pudding, and now at the recollection his eye clouded again. He had wept, wept, his face streaming with tears as the bodies went over the side and the marines fired their volley.

   'Dear Lord,' he thought. 'Dear Lord.' For the re-writing of the letter and this casting back of his mind brought all the sadness flooding up again. It was a sadness that had lasted from the end of the action until the breeze had died on them some miles off Cape Mola and they had fired urgent guns for a pilot and assistance: a sadness that fought a losing battle against invading joy, however. Trying to fix the moment when the joy broke through he looked up, stroking his wounded ear with the feather of his pen; and through the cabin window he saw the tall proof of his victory at her moorings by the yard; her undamaged larboard side was towards the
Sophie
, and the pale water of the autumn day reflected the red and shining gold of her paintwork, as proud and trim as the first day he had seen her.

   Perhaps it was when he received the first unbelieving amazed congratulations from Sennet of the
Bellerophon
, whose gig was the first boat to reach him: then there was Butler of the
Naiad
and young Harvey, Torn Widdrington and some midshipmen, together with Marshall and Mowett, almost out of their minds with grief at not having taken part in the action, yet already shining with reflected glory. Their boats took the
Sophie
and her prize in tow; their men relieved the exhausted marines and idlers guarding the prisoners; he felt the accumulated weight of those days and nights come down on him in a soft compelling cloud, and he went to sleep in the midst of their questions. That marvellous sleep, and his waking in the still harbour to be given a quick unsigned note in a double cover from Molly Harte.

   Perhaps it was then. The joy, the great swelling delight was certainly in him when he woke. He grieved, of course he grieved, he grieved bitterly for the loss of his shipmates—would have given his right hand to save them—and mixed in his sorrow for Dillon there was a guilt whose cause and nature eluded him; but a serving officer in an active war has an intense rather than a lasting grief. Sober objective reason told him that there had not been many successful single-ship actions between quite such unequal opponents and that unless he did something spectacularly foolish, unless he blew himself as high as the
Boyne
, the next thing that would reach him from the Admiralty would be the news of his being gazetted—of his being made a post-captain.

   With any kind of luck he would be given a frigate: and his mind ran over those glorious high-bred ships—
Emerald, Seahorse, Teipsichore, Phaëton, Sibylle, Sirius
, the lucky
Ethalion, Naiad, Alcmène
and
Triton
, the flying
Thetis. Endymion, San Fiorenzo, Amelia
. . . dozens of them: more than a hundred in commission Had he any right to a frigate? Not much: a twenty-gun post-ship was more his mark, something just in the sixth rate. Not much right to a frigate. Not much right to set about the
Cacafuego
, either; nor to make love to Molly Harte. Yet he had done so. In the post-chaise, in a bower, in another bower, all night long. Perhaps that was why he was so sleepy now, so apt to doze, blinking comfortably into the future as though it were a sea-coal fire. And perhaps that was why his wounds hurt so. The slash on his left shoulder had opened at the far end. How he had come by it he could not tell; but there it was after the action, and Stephen had sewn it up at the same time he dressed the pike-wound across the front of his chest (one bandage for the two) and clapped a sort of dressing on what was left of his ear.

   But dozing would not do. This was the time for riding in with the tide of flood, for making a dash for a frigate, for seizing fortune while she was in reach, running her aboard. He would write to Queeney at once, and half a dozen letters more that afternoon, before the party—perhaps to his father too, or would the old boy make a cock of it again? He was the worst hand imaginable at plot, intrigue or the management of what tiny amount of interest they had with the grander members of the family—should never have reached the rank of general, by rights. However, the public letter was the first of these things, and Jack got up carefully, smiling still.

   This was the first time he had been openly ashore, and early though it was he could not but be conscious of the looks, the murmurs and the pointing that accompanied his passage. He carried his letter into the commandant's office, and the compunction, the stirrings if not of conscience or principle then at least of decency, that had disturbed him on his way up through the town and even more in the anteroom, disappeared with Captain Harte's first words. 'Well, Aubrey,' he said, without getting up, 'we are to congratulate you upon your prodigious good luck again, I collect.'

   'You are too kind, sir,' said Jack. 'I have brought you my official letter.'

   'Oh, yes,' said Captain Harte, holding it some way off and looking at it with an affectation of carelessness. 'I will forward it, presently. Mr Brown tells me it is perfectly impossible for the yard here to supply half your wants—he seems quite astonished that you should want so much. How the devil did you contrive to get so many spars knocked away? And such a preposterous amount of rigging? Your sweeps destroyed? There are no sweeps here. Are you sure your bosun is not coming it a trifle high? Mr Brown says there is not a frigate on the station, nor even a ship of the line, that has called for half so much cordage'

   'If Mr Brown can tell me how to take a thirty-two gun frigate without having a few spars knocked away I shall be obliged to him.'

   'Oh, in these sudden surprise attacks, you know . . . however, all I can say is you will have to go to Malta for most of your requirements.
Northumberland
and
Superb
have made a clean sweep here.' It was so evidently his intention to be ill-natured that his words had little effect; but his next stroke slipped under Jack's guard and stabbed right home. 'Have you written to Ellis' people yet? This sort of thing'—tapping the public letter—'is easy enough: anyone can do this. But I do not envy you the other. What I shall say myself I don't know . . .' Biting the joint of his thumb he darted a furious look from under his eyebrows, and Jack had a moral certainty that the financial setback, misfortune, disaster, or whatever it was, affected him far more than the debauching of his wife.

   Jack had, in fact, written that letter, as well as the others—Dillon's uncle, the seamen's families—and he was thinking of them as he walked across the patio with a sombre look on his face. A figure under the dark gateway stopped, obviously peering at him. All Jack could see in the tunnel through to the street was an outline and the two epaulettes of a senior post-captain or a flag-officer, so although he was ready with his salute his mind was still blank when the other stepped through into the sunlight, hurrying forward with his hand outstretched. 'Captain Aubrey, I do believe? Keats, of the
Superb
. My dear sir, you must allow me to congratulate you with all my heart—a most splendid victory indeed. I have just pulled round your capture in my barge, and I am amazed, sir,
amazed
. Was you very much clawed? May I be of any service—my bosun, carpenter, sailmakers? Would you do me the pleasure of dining aboard, or are you bespoke? I dare say you are—every woman in Mahon will wish to exhibit you. Such a victory!'

   'Why, sir, I thank you most heartily,' cried Jack, flushing with undisguised open ingenuous pleasure and returning the pressure of Captain Keats' hand with such vehemence as to cause a dull crepitation, followed by a shattering dart of agony. 'I am infinitely obliged to you, for your kind opinion. There is none I value more, sir. To tell you the truth, I am engaged to dine with the Governor and to stay for the concert; but if I might beg the loan of your bosun and a small party—my people are all most uncommon weary, quite fagged out—why, I should look upon it as a most welcome, indeed, a Heaven-sent relief.'

   'It shall be done. Most happy,' said Captain Keats. 'Which way do you go, sir? Up or down?'

   'Down, sir. I have appointed to meet a—a person at the Crown.'

   'Then our ways lie together,' said Captain Keats, taking Jack's arm; and as they crossed the Street to walk in the shade he called out to a friend, 'Tom, come and see who I have in tow. This is Captain Aubrey Of the
Sophie!
You know Captain Grenville, I am sure?'

   'This gives me very great pleasure,' cried the grim, battle-scarred Grenville, breaking out into a one-eyed smile: he shook Jack by the hand and instantly asked him to dinner.

   Jack had refused five more invitations by the time he and Keats parted at the Crown: from mouths he respected he had heard the words 'as neat an action as ever I knew', 'Nelson will rejoice in this', and 'if there is justice on earth, the frigate will be bought by Government and Captain Aubrey given command of her'. He had seen looks of unfeigned respect, good will and admiration upon the faces of seamen and junior officers passing in the crowded street; and two commanders senior to him, unlucky in prizes and known to be jealous, had hurried across to make their compliments, handsomely and with good grace.

   He walked in, up the stairs to his room, threw off his coat and sat down. 'This must be what they call the vapours,' he said, trying to define something happy, tremulous, poignant, churchlike and not far from tears in his heart and bosom. He sat there: the feeling lasted, indeed grew stronger; and when Mercedes darted in he gazed at her with a mild benevolence, a kind and brotherly look. She darted in, squeezed him passionately and uttered a flood of Catalan into his ear, ending 'Brave, brave Captain—good,
pretty
and brave.'

   'Thank you, thank you, Mercy dear; I am infinitely obliged to you. Tell me,' he said, after a decent pause, trying to shift to an easier position (a plump girl: a good ten stone), 'diga me, would you be a good creature, bona creatura, and fetch me some iced negus? Sangria colda? Thirst, soif, very thirst, I do assure you, my dear.'

   'Your auntie was quite right,' he said, putting down the beaded jug and wiping his mouth. 'The Vinaroz ship was there to the minute, and we found the false Ragusan. So here, acqui, aqui is auntie's reward, the recompenso de tua tia, my dear'—pulling a leather purse out of his breeches pocket—'y aqui'—bringing out a neat sealing-waxed packet—'is a little regalo para vous, sweetheart.'

   Present?' cried Mercedes, taking it with a sparkling eye, nimbly undoing the silk, tissue-paper, jeweller's cotton, and finding a pretty little diamond cross with a chain. She shrieked, kissed him, darted to the looking-glass, shrieked some more—eek, eek!—and came back with the stone flashing low on her neck. She pulled herself in below and puffed herself out above, like a pouter-pigeon, and lowered her bosom, the diamonds winking in the hollow, down towards him, saying, 'You like him? You like him? You like him?'

   Jack's eyes grew less brotherly, oh far less brotherly, his glottis stiffened and his heart began to thump. 'Oh, yes, I like him,' he said, hoarsely.

   'Timely, sir, bosun of the
Superb
,' said a tremendous voice at the opening door. 'Oh, beg pardon, sir.

   'Not at all, Mr. Timely,' said Jack. 'I am very happy to see you.'

   'And indeed perhaps it was just as well,' he reflected, landing again at the Rope-Walk stairs, leaving behind him a numerous body of skilful, busy Superbs rattling down the newly set-up shrouds, 'there being so much to do. But what a sweet girl it is . . .' He was now on his way to the Governor's dinner. That, at least, was his intention; but a bemused state of mind, swimming back into the past and onwards into the future, together with a reluctance to seem to parade himself in what the sailors called the High Street, brought him by obscure back, ways filled with the smell of new fermenting wine and purple-guttered with the lees, to the Franciscan church at the top of the hill. Here, summoning his wits into the present, he took new bearings; and looking with some anxiety at his watch he paced rapidly along by the armoury, passed the green door of Mr Florey's house with a quick upward glance and headed north-west by north for the Residence.

Behind the green door and some floors up Stephen and Mr Florey were already sat down to a haphazard meal, spread wherever there was room on odd tables and chairs. Ever since coming back from the hospital they had been dissecting a well-preserved dolphin, which lay on high bench by the window, next to something covered by a sheet.

   'Some captains think it the best policy to include every case of bloodshed or temporary incapacity,' said Mr Florey, 'because a long butcher's bill looks well in the Gazette. Others will admit no man that is not virtually dead, because a small number of casualties means a careful commander. I think your list is near the happy mean, though perhaps a trifle cautious—you are looking at it from the point of view of your friend's advancement of course?'

   'Just so.'

   'Yes . . . Allow me to give you a slice of this cold beef. Pray reach me a sharp knife—beef, above all,
must be cut thin
, if it is to savour well.'

   'There is no edge on this one,' said Stephen. 'Try the catling.' He turned to the dolphin. 'No,' he said, peering under a flipper. 'Where can we have left it? Ah'—lifting the sheet—'here is another. Such a blade: Swedish steel, no doubt. You began your incision at the Hippocratic point, I see,' he said, raising the sheet a little more, and gazing at the young lady beneath it.

   'Perhaps we ought to wash it,' said Mr Florey.

   'Oh, a wipe will do,' said Stephen, using a corner of the sheet. 'By the way, what was the cause of death?' he asked, letting the cloth fall back.