The Hundred Days (16 page)

Jack Aubrey gazed earnestly at his friend for a
minute; then he nodded and said, ‘Very well.
Give Dr
Jacob his orders and what
introductions you think fit, and I will summon
Ringle.’ He touched the bell, and to Killick he said, ‘My
compliments to Dr Jacob, and should like to see him as soon as it may be
convenient.’

‘Dr Jacob,’ he said, a few moments later, ‘pray sit
down. Dr Maturin will tell you the reason for this somewhat abrupt summons; and
in the mean time I shall go on deck.’

On deck he said to the signal midshipman, ‘To
Ringle: Captain repair aboard.’

 William
Reade came up the side, his hook gleaming and with something of the look of a
keen, intelligent dog that believes it may have heard someone taking down a
fowlingpiece. Jack led him below. ‘Now, William,’ he said, guiding him to the
chart-table, ‘here is Kutali, a fine upstanding city, going up like the stairs
inside the Monument; or it was when I last saw it. The approaches are
straightforward and you have good holding ground in fifteen to twenty fathoms
from here to here: only you want to have two anchors out ahead almost to the
bitter end if the bora sets in. And you are to take Dr Jacob there. In all
likelihood you will outsail us, so unless you receive orders to the contrary
you will proceed to Spalato the moment Dr Jacob is aboard again: still with the
utmost dispatch.’

‘To Kutali it is, sir, and then to Spalato, with
the utmost dispatch in both cases,’ said Reade. ‘Is the gentleman ready?’

Ready or not, Jacob was hurried aboard the schooner
with what letters Stephen had had time to write to his friends in Kutali, with
a clean shirt wrapped up by Killick and his best coat, and with Stephen’s words
nestling in his ears: ‘The whole essence is to learn whether the Brotherhood’s
messengers have been sent, and if so whether they can still be intercepted.
Money is of no consequence whatsoever.’

Ringle did indeed outsail Surprise and Pomone, but
not to such an extent as she might have done if Captain Vaux had not grown more
used to the ways of his ship and had not so changed her trim, bringing her by
the stern, that even in these moderate breezes she gained nearly a knot on a
broad reach. The schooner was indeed just in sight from the masthead when they
rounded Cape Santa Maria at dawn, but she soon
vanished with the coming of the sun. It rose over the
Montenegrin heights, and for a while the far coast remained sombre though the
zenith was already a brilliant, quite light blue. This eastern shore was a
coast familiar to Jack and Stephen: in the very same ship they had sailed up
from the lonian Sea reasonably far along the Adriatic.

They drew in with the land - a fine topgallant
breeze on the larboard quarter - and presently the sea grew more and more
populated with feluccas, trabaccaloes, merchantmen of various rigs and sizes
making for the Bocche di Cattaro or emerging from the splendid great harbour,
and with fishermen, some in fast xebecs with twenty-foot-long trolling rods out
on either side, like the antennae of some enormous insect.

One hailed the Surprise, and drawing alongside,
pointed to their catch, a single tunny, but so huge that it filled the bottom
of the boat - a fish that would feed two hundred men. The master, a jovial
soul, called out to Jack, ‘Cheap, cheap, oh very cheap,’ and made the gestures
of eating - of eating with delight.

‘Pass the word for the cook,’ said Jack, and to the
cook, who stood there wiping his hands on his apron, ‘Franklin, nip down into the boat:
look whether it is a today’s fish, and if so, set a fair price.’ Franklin was considered a judge of
fish and a competent hand with the lingua franca.

‘Dead fresh, sir,’ called Franklin, looking up from the boat.
‘Still warm.’

‘Do you speak figuratively?’ asked Stephen.

‘Anan, sir?’

‘Do you mean warm warm, as who should say a rabbit
was so fresh killed that it was still warm?’

The cook looked anxious, and made no reply; so
Stephen scrambled down the side, tripped over the xebec’s gunwale and fell on
his knees in the tunny’s blood.

‘Well, sir,’ said the cook, setting him upright,
‘now you’ve fair wrecked and ruined your trousers - which it will never come
out - so you might as well put your hand in the place where they gaffed him and
where all this blood is coming out of.’

‘By God, you are right,’ cried Stephen, rising and
shaking Franklin’s reluctant hand. ‘It is against nature - I
am amazed-amazed and delighted.’

The cook fixed the price in a passionate
five-minute argument, referred it to the purser, who nodded, and then said to
Stephen, ‘By your leave, sir, by your leave,’ as a double whip came down from
the mainyard to hoist the great fish aboard.

Stephen came up the frigate’s side again, leaving
traces all the way. ‘That was wonderful, wonderful,’ he cried, disengaging
himself from Killick’s officious hand. ‘I must run downstairs for a
thermometer.’

The whole ship’s company dined on that enormous
fish; and this being Thursday, a make-and-mend day, they sat about on deck,
some quite stertorous, all delighting in the gentle breeze that tempered the
sun.

‘I can scarcely remember a more agreeable day,’
said Stephen, looking up from his notes, ‘- and there, just above the high land
behind Castelnuovo, is a pair of spotted eagles, almost exactly where I saw my
first. I only regret that Jacob was not here to view, to experience the tunny’s
blood. But I shall read such a paper to the Royal, ha, ha...’ He dipped his
pen, took another draught of coffee, and wrote on.

‘Mr Harding’s duty, sir,’ said a midshipman, ‘and the
cutter is alongside.’ Jack followed him, and looking down at the squalor he
said, ‘Well done, Mr Whewell. I do not  think anyone would connect the boat
with the Royal Navy.’

‘I hope not, sir,’ said Whewell, surveying the
grease, slime, plain filth and tawdry ornament fore and aft, the knotted
rigging and the crew of flashily undressed criminal lunatics. ‘I did not like
to come aboard in quite this shape.’

‘The gunroom might have blushed at quite so much
rouge,’ said Jack. ‘Well, shove off now, Mr Whewell, if you please. Fortunately
the breeze is veering, and I do not think you will have to pull back.’

Nor did they. The cutter
was seen coming round the point at dawn, close-hauled and making a good five
knots: her  crew
had spent much of their time cleaning the boat and themselves, and although
neither sails nor rigging could do the Surprise any credit until the bosun and
the sailmaker had taken her in hand again, Whewell did not hesitate in coming
aboard, nor indeed in breakfasting with the Commodore and his surgeon.

‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘there she was, lying in
front of the old castle, as you said: but there were two armed polacres with
her, or rather a polacre and a polacre-settee: both Algerines, I take it.’

‘How many guns did they carry?’

‘It was very difficult to make out, sir, the ports
being closed and great heaps of sailcloth and cordage dangling over the sides,
but I should say probably twelve for the one and perhaps eight for the other.
Nine-pounders, I should imagine, though I cannot assert it. A
great many people aboard.’

‘Shore batteries, I dare say?’ Jack was not good at
dissembling: Stephen noticed the artificial lightness of his tone, but gazed
steadily at the coffee in his coffee-cup.

‘Yes, sir: one at each end of the mole. I did not like
to be too busy with my glass, but I thought I could make out six emplacements
in each. I could not speak to the nature of the guns.’

‘No, of course not.’ A pause.
‘Mr Whewell, pray help yourself to bacon: it stands at your right hand - the
covered dish.’

Chapter Five

When Captain Vaux came aboard the pennant-ship in
response to a signal he found the great cabin still comfortably scented with
bacon, coffee and toast.

‘Good morning, Vaux,’ said the Commodore, offering
him a chair. ‘Mr Whewell had just given me his report on Ragusa Vecchio, where
that Bonapartist frigate is lying. As you know, she is moored by the mole in
front of the old castle. She has been very short of stores and cordage, but now
it seems probable that she has been supplied with them by her Algerian friends:
there are two of them with her at present, a polacre and a polacre-settee, both
armed and mounting perhaps a score of guns between them, nine- or at the most
twelve-pounders. There are also two shore-batteries with six gun-emplacements
each: how armed I cannot tell. Now if, as it seems probable, she has the cables
and hawsers to allow her to put to sea, she is very likely to go off cruising
with her Algerian companions: the present situation makes some people think that
Napoleon will very soon be restored. So I think we should deal with this
frigate at once. We will sail up the coast prepared for action and summon him:
if he does not comply, why so much the worse for him. Or conceivably for us: he
carries eighteen-pounders. But since today is a banyan day I have ordered beef
to be served out instead of the dried peas, as being a better foundation for
battle. You might consider of it.’

‘I too shall certainly order beef, sir,’ said Vaux.

‘With this breeze and a steady glass, I believe we
should raise Ragusa Vecchio at four or five bells in the afternoon watch. But
there is this question of shore-batteries: Mr Whewell reports one at each end
of the mole - come and look at the chart. Here we are. He could not tell what
guns they mounted, but even nine-pounders intelligently fired - and generally
speaking the French artillery is very good - could annoy us in our approach,
knocking away spars and even masts. You have your full complement of Marines, I
believe?’

‘Yes, sir: under a very capable, experienced
officer, Lieutenant Turnbull.’

‘Well, that makes sixty-five between us: and it
occurs to me that if we land them here’ - he pointed to a small bay just south
of Ragusa Vecchio - ‘they can cross the slight rise to the next beach and take
the batteries from behind. The mole will protect them from the frigate’s guns,
once they reach it. Let our Marine officers consider the plan and tell us what
they think. Your Mr Turnbull is the senior, I believe?’

‘Yes, sir: and he has led some remarkably dashing attacks  by land.’

‘Very well: they will turn it over in their minds
while we are filling cartridge and rousing out our dreadnought screens. I think
we should weigh at about four bells: that will give us plenty of time to have
dinner quietly and clear for action with no mad frenzy.’

So little frenzy was there, indeed, that when
somewhat before the appointed time Stephen walked aft from the bows, where he
had been watching a flight of Dalmatian pelicans, presumably from the Scutari
lane, he found Jack Aubrey playing his violin in the cabin - a cabin that was
already pretty bare, but by no means really stripped for action.

Jack listened to his account of the pelicans, of
the hundreds and hundreds of pelicans and their curious evolutions, no doubt
associated with the mating season, and then said, ‘I know little of birds, as
you are aware; but let me tell you of a remarkable instance of humanity in our
own kind: the Royal Marine officers waited on me to give their opinion of my
suggested attack on the shore-batteries. They thought it an excellent scheme -
were much pleased with the idea of tearing along under the shelter of the mole
- but they proposed that just for this occasion, it being so uncommon hot,
their men might be indulged in trousers rather than tight breeches and gaiters,
and that they might take off their stocks.’

Four bells, loud and clear; and Mr Harding could be
heard, louder and clearer, giving the order to ship capstan bars. From that
time on there was little point in playing the violin or even conversing, for
although the capstan on the quarterdeck was not directly overhead, its bars,
now in place, swept back almost to the wheel, and once the messenger had been
made fast to the cable, once it had taken the strain and the bosun had cried
‘Stamp and go’ and a little wizened old forecastle-hand had leapt onto the
capstan-head with his fife and played the tune of ‘Round and round and round we
go, step out my lads and make your feet tell ‘em so’, the whole space below was
filled with a huge confusion of sound dominated by the rhythmic tread of the
men at the bars and punctuated by innumerable cries, and by the indescribable
sound of the great sodden cable coming in, attached by nippers to the
messenger, and then, they being cast off, plunging heavily down to the tiers in
the orlop where very strong men coiled it and stowed the great coils away.

The frigate glided over the water quite briskly,
then slower, slower until the bosun called ‘Right up and down, sir,’ and the
officer of the watch replied ‘Thick and dry for weighing,’ a cry instantly
echoed from the depths by the extraordinarily penetrating voice of Eddie
Soames, the ship’s eunuch, always good for a laugh.

The Surprises, who had done this hundreds of times
before, catted and then fished the anchor: this accomplished, they hurried to
their stations for making sail: but no order came from aft. Both Jack and
Somers had seen that the less skilled Pomones were having difficulty with
passing the cat-hook: indeed, some had fallen from the cathead into the sea.

‘Thick and wet for weighing,’ called Eddie Soames,
‘Ha, ha, ha.’

However, it appeared that they were soon fished
out, for presently Pomone spread most of the canvas she possessed and somewhat
later she assumed her proper position a cable’s length astern of the Commodore:
and thus they sailed easily along the coast, both ships now completely cleared
for action - everything peaceable struck down into the hold, shot-garlands
filled, screens in place over the magazines, deck sanded and wet, cutlasses
sharpened and ready to hand, together with boarding-axes and pistols; while
down below Stephen’s operating-table (the midshipmen’s sea-chests lashed
together and covered with tight-drawn number eight sailcloth) was ready, the
lantern hanging just so, and dressings, pledgets and coil upon coil of bandages
tactfully covering the leather-bound chains necessary for some operations. To
one sitte there lay the grim saws, retractors, tenacula, scalpels, bistouries
(sharp and blunt-pointed), forceps, trephines, single-edged amputating knives
and catlings, arranged with loving care by Poll and her friend the bosun’s
wife’s sister, both of whom wore starched aprons, bibs and sleeves, and white
caps. Buckets, and the usual lavish supply of swabs.