The Mauritius Command (5 page)

"I wish I had, my dear," said Stephen. "The Nereide and the Sirius were mentioned, to be sure, together with the Otter and the possibility of another sloop; but beyond that everything is nebulous. Vessels that Admiral Bertie had at the time of his latest despatches, dated more than three months ago, may very well be off Java by the time the squadron is actually formed. Nor can I speak to what Decaen may have had in Mauritius before this reinforcement, apart from the Canonniere and possibly the Semillante they range so wide. On the other hand I can tell you the names of their new frigates. They are the Venus, Manche, Bellone and Caroline."

Venus, Manche, Bellone, Caroline," said Jack, frowning. "I have never heard of a single one of "em."

"No. As I said, they are new, quite new: they carry forty guns apiece. Twenty four pounders, at least in the case of the Bellone and the Manche: perhaps in the others too."

"Oh, indeed?" said Jack, his eye still to his telescope. The rosy glow in his mind had strange lurid edges to it now. Those were in fact the French navy's most recent, very heavy frigates, the envy of the British dockyards. Buonaparte had all the forests of Europe at his command, splendid Dalmatian oak, tall northern spars, best Riga hemp; and although the man himself was the merest soldier, his ship-builders turned out the finest vessels afloat and he had some very capable officers to command them. Forty guns apiece. The Nereide had thirty-six, but only twelve-pounders: Boadicea and Sirius, with their eighteen-pounders, might be a match for the Frenchmen, particularly if the French crews were as new as their ships; but even so, that was a hundred and sixty guns to a hundred and ten to say nothing of the broadside weight of metal. Everything would depend on how those guns were handled. The other forces at the Cape hardly entered into the line of count. The flagship, the ancient Raisonable, 64, could no more be considered a fighting unit than the antique French Canonniere: he could not offhand recall the smaller vessels on the station, apart from the Otter, a pretty eighteen-gun ship-sloop: but in any case, if it came to a general action, the frigates alone must bear the brunt. The Nereide he knew of, the crack frigate of the West Indies station, and in Corbett she had a fighting captain; Pym he knew by reputation; but Clonfert of the Otter was the only captain he had ever sailed with... Across the round of his objective-glass travelled a purposeful Marine, mounted on a horse. "0 blessed form," murmured Jack, following him behind a haystack with his telescope, "he will be here in twenty minutes. I shall give him a guinea." All at once the Indian Ocean, the Mauritius command, took on a new, infinitely more concrete reality: the characters of Admiral Bertie, Captain Pym, Captain Corbett and even Lord Clonfert assumed a great practical importance: so did the immediate problems of a new command. Although his intimacy with Stephen Maturin did not allow him to ask questions that might be judged impertinent, it was of such a rare kind that he could ask for money without the least hesitation. "Have you any money, Stephen?" he said, the Marine having vanished in the trees. "How I hope you have. I shall have to borrow the Marine's guinea from you, and a great deal more besides, if his message is what I dearly trust. My half-pay is not due until the month after next, and we are living on credit."

"Money, is it?" said Stephen, who had been thinking about lemurs. There were lemurs in Madagascar: might there not be lemurs on Reunion? Lemurs concealed among the forests and the mountains of the interior? "Money? Oh, yes, I have money galore." He felt in his pockets. "The question is, where is it?" He felt again, patted his bosom, and brought out a couple of greasy two pound notes on a country bank. "That is not it," he muttered, going through his pockets again. "Yet I was sure--was it in my other coat? did I perhaps leave it in London?--you are growing old, Maturin--ah, you dog, there you are!" he cried triumphantly, returning to the first pocket and drawing forth a neat roll, tied with tape. "There. I had confused it with my lancet-case. It was Mrs Broad of the Grapes that did it up, finding it in a Bank of England wrapper that I had--that I had neglected. A most ingenious way of carrying money, calculated to deceive the pick-pocket. I hope it will suffice."

"How much is it?" asked Jack.

"Sixty or seventy pound, I dare say."

"But, Stephen, the top note is a fifty, and so is the next. I do not believe you ever counted them."

"Well, never mind, never mind," said Stephen testily. "I meant a hundred and sixty. Indeed, I said as much, only you did not attend."

They both straightened, cocking their ears. Through the beating of the rain came Sophie's voice calling, "Jack! Jack!" and rising to a squeak as she darted into the observatory, breathless and wet. "There is a Marine from the port admiral," she said between her gasps, "and he will not give his message except into your own hands. Oh, Jack, might it be a ship?"

A ship it was. Captain Aubrey was required and directed to repair aboard HMS Boadicea and to take upon himself the command of the said vessel, for which the enclosed order was to be the warrant: he was to touch at Plymouth, there to receive on board R.T. Farquhar, Esquire, at the Commissioner's office, and any further orders that might be transmitted to him at that place. These stately, somewhat inimical documents (as usual, Captain Aubrey was to fail not, at his peril), were accompanied by a friendly note from the Admiral, asking Jack to dine with him the next day, before going aboard.

Now that direct action was legitimate, it burst forth with such force that Ashgrove Cottage was turned upside-down in a moment. At first Mrs Williams clung tenaciously to her scheme for changing the parlour curtains, clamouring that it must be done--what would Lady Clonfert think?--and protesting that she should not be overborne; but her strength was as nothing compared with that of a newly appointed frigate-captain burning to join his ship before the evening gun, and in a few minutes she joined her daughter and the distracted maid in brushing uniforms, madly darning stockings and ironing neck-cloths, while Jack trundled his sea-chest in the attic and roared down to know where was his neat's-foot oil, and who had been at his pistols? adjuring them "to bear a hand," "to look alive', "to lose not a minute below there', "to light along the sextant-case'.

Lady Clonfert's arrival, so much in the forefront of Mrs Williams's mind not an hour before, passed almost unnoticed in the turmoil, a turmoil increased by the howling of. neglected children, which reached its paroxysm as her coachman thundered on the door. A full two minutes of strenuous battering passed by before the door was opened and she was able to walk into the naked parlour, whose old curtains lay on one end of the settle and the new on the other.

Poor lady, she had but a sad time of it. She had dressed with particular care in garments designed not to offend Mrs Aubrey by being too fashionable or becoming yet at the same time to beguile Captain Aubrey, and she had prepared an artless speech about sailors" wives, Clonfert's respect and affection for his old shipmate, and her perfect familiarity with life aboard a man-of-war, together with some slight hints as to her acquaintance with General Mulgrave, the First Lord, and with Mrs Bertie, the wife of the Admiral at the Cape. This she delivered to Stephen, wedged into a dim corner by the clock under a drip, with some charming asides to Sophie; and she was obliged to repeat it when Jack appeared, trailing cobwebs from the attic and bearing his chest. It is difficult to sound artless twice in quick succession, but she did her best, for she was sincerely devoted to the prospect of escaping an English winter, and the idea of seeing her husband again filled her with a pleasurable excitement. Her confusion caused her bosom to rise and fall, a blush to overspread her pretty face, and from his corner Stephen observed that she was doing quite well against heavy odds--that Jack, at least, was not unmoved by her distress. Yet he also noticed, with regret, a certain stiffening in Sophie's attitude, a constraint in her civil smile, and something near acerbity in her reply to Lady Clonfert's suggestion that she too might darn the Captain's stockings and make herself useful during the voyage. Mrs Williams's stony reserve, her repeated sniff, her ostentatious busyness, he took for granted; but although he had long known that jealousy formed part of Sophie's character--perhaps the only part that he could have wished otherwise he was grieved to see it thus displayed. Jack had caught the signals as quickly as his friend--Stephen saw his anxious glance--and his cordiality towards Lady Clonfert, never very great, sensibly diminished; although he did repeat what he had said at the beginning--that he should be happy to carry her ladyship to the Cape. What had preceded that glance, to make it so anxious? Dr. Maturin lapsed into a meditation upon the marriage state: monogamy, an aberration? How widely spread in time and place? How strictly observed? From this train of thought he was aroused by Jack's strong voice stating that her ladyship was certainly aware of the tediousness of tiding down the Channel, that he strongly recommended her posting to Plymouth, that he begged stores and baggage might be kept to a minimum, and that once again he must urge the most exact punctuality however short the notice: "for his part he should gladly lose a tide to be of use, but on the King's service he must not lose a minute."

Now everybody was standing up: soon Jack had led Lady Clonfert, under an umbrella, to her carriage, had firmly closed the door upon her, and was back in the house, his face radiating universal goodwill, as though she were utterly dismissed.

Mrs Williams was abusing Lady Clonfert's tippet, complexion and morals with a volubility that Stephen could not but admire, yet Jack's statement that a couple of hours would see his dunnage corded up, that Stephen would oblige him infinitely by riding straight to Gosport in order to bring back John Parley in Newman's dogcart to pack the telescope, and that he was determined to go aboard before the evening gun and to get the Boadicea to sea on the ebb, struck her dumb. It had no such effect on her daughter, however, who instantly produced a number of reasons why Jack could certainly not join tonight: the state of his linen would bring discredit on the service; it would be shockingly rude to dear, kind Admiral Wells not to dine with him, most impolitic if not direct insubordination; and Jack had always been such a friend to discipline. Besides, it was raining. It was clear to Stephen that she was not only horrified at losing Jack so soon but that she was also sorry for her recent--shrewishness was far too strong a word--for she now ran straight on into praise of their visitor. Lady Clonfert was a most elegant, well-bred woman, with remarkably fine eyes; her wish to join her husband was in every way meritorious and understandable; her presence aboard would certainly please the gunroom, indeed the whole ship's company.

Sophie then returned to arguments against Jack's leaving quite so soon: tomorrow morning would be far, far better in every way; they could not possibly have his clothes ready before then. In spite of her nimble wit, logical arguments soon began to run short, and Stephen, feeling that at any moment she might resort to others, even to tears, or appeal to him for support, slipped quietly out of the room. He communed with his horse in its outhouse for a while, and when he came back he found Jack at the door, staring up at the scudding clouds, with Sophie, looking exceptionally beautiful in her anxiety and emotion, beside him. "The glass is rising," said Jack thoughtfully, "but the wind is still due south... and when you consider where she lays, right up the harbour, there is not a hope of getting her out on this tide. No, my dear; perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should not go aboard until tomorrow. But tomorrow, sweetheart," he said, looking fondly down, tomorrow at the crack of dawn you lose your husband to his natural element."

CHAPTER TWO

Upon that damp element, always unstable, often treacherous, but for the moment both warm and kind, Captain Aubrey dictated an official letter to his happy clerk:

Boadicea, at sea

Sir,

I have the honour to acquaint you, that at dawn on the seventeenth instant, the Dry Salvages bearing SSE two leagues, His Majesty's ship under my command had the good fortune to fall in with a French national ship of war with a prize in company. On the Boadicea's approach she bore up, abandoning her prize, a snow, whose topmasts were struck down on deck. Every exertion was made in this ship to come up with the enemy, who endeavoured to lead us among the shoals of the Dry Salvages; but missing stays in consequence of the loss of her mizen topmast, she struck upon a reef. Shortly afterwards, the wind having fallen to a flat calm, and the rocks sheltering her from the Boadicea's guns, she was boarded and carried by the boats, when she proved to be the Hibi, formerly His Majesty's twenty-eight-gun frigate Hyaena but now mounting twenty-two twenty-four-pounders, carronades, and two long nines, with a complement of 214 men, commanded by Mons. Bretonniere, lieutenant de Vaisseau, her captain having been killed in the action with the prize. She was thirtyeight days out of Bordeaux, on a cruise, and had taken the English vessels named in the margin. My first lieutenant, Mr Lemuel Akers, an old 52 and deserving officer, commanded the Boadicea's boats and led the attack in the most gallant manner; while Lieutenant Seymour and Mr Johnson, master's mate, displayed great activity. Indeed I am happy to say, that the conduct of the Boadicea's people gave me great satisfaction, and I have no greater loss to deplore than two men slightly wounded. The snow was secured without delay: she is the Intrepid Fox of Bristol, A. Snape master, from the Guinea Coast, laden with elephants" teeth, golddust, grains of Paradise, hides, and skins. In view of the value of her cargo, I have thought proper to send her into Gibraltar, escorted by the Hyaena under the command of Lieutenant Akers. I have the honour to be, etc.

Captain Aubrey watched his clerk's flying pen with great benevolence. The letter was true in essence, but like most official letters it contained a certain number of lies. Jack did not think Lemuel Akers a deserving officer, and the lieutenant's gallantry had in fact been confined to roaring at the Hibi from the stern-sheets of the launch, to which his wooden leg confined him, while the conduct of several of the Boadicea's people had filled their new captain with impatience, and the snow had not been secured without delay.

"Do not forget the wounded at the bottom of the page, Mr Hill," he said. "James Arklow, ordinary, and William Bates, Marine. Now be so good as to let Mr Akers know that I shall have a couple of private letters for him to take to Gibraltar."

Left alone in the great cabin he glanced out of the stern-window at the calm, crowded, sunlit sea, with his prizes lying upon it and boats plying to and fro, the Hibi's or rather the Hyaena's rigging full of men putting the last touches to her repairs, the shrouds of her new mizen rattled down already: he had a first-rate bosun in John Fellowes. Then he reached out for a sheet of paper and began: "Sweetheart--a hasty line to bring you my dear love and tell you all is well. We had an amazing prosperous voyage down as far as 35'30', with a fine double-reefed topsail quartering breeze--Boadicea's best point of sailing in her present trim--all the way from the moment we sank Rame Head right across the Bay and almost to Madeira. We put into Plymouth at the height of flood on Monday night--black, with squalls of sleet and blowing hard -and since we had made our number to Stoke Point, Mr Farquhar was ready waiting, bag and baggage, at the Commissioner's office. I sent to Lady Clonfert's inn, desiring her to be at the quay by twenty minutes past the hour; but through some mistake she did not appear, and I was obliged to proceed to sea without her.

"However, to cut things short, this pretty wind carried us across the Bay, where the Boadicea proved she was a dry, wholesome ship, and at one time I thought we should raise the Island in just over a week. But then it backed into the south-east and I was obliged to stretch away for Tenerife, cursing my luck: and at four bells in the morning watch I happened to be on deck to make sure the master, an ignorant old man, did not run us on the Dry Salvages as he had nearly run us on Penlee Point, when there , right under our lee at the dawn of day, was a Frenchman, lying to with her prize. She had scarcely a chance, for the prize, a well-armed Guineaman, had mauled her briskly before she was taken; her rigging was all ahoo, she was bending a new foretopsail, and many of her people were in the Guineaman, setting her to rights: and of course she was not half our size. And since we had the weather-gage we could afford to yaw and let fly with our bow guns: not that it did her much harm, apart from flustering her people. However, she did her best, peppering us with her stern-chaser and trying to lead us into the four- fathom water of the Dog-Leg Passage. But I sounded that channel when I was a midshipman in the Circe, and since we draw twenty-three foot, I did not choose to follow her, although there was no swell worth speaking of. Had she got through, we might have lost her, Boadicea being a trifle sluggish (though you will not repeat that anywhere, my dear); but we knocked away her mizen topmast- she missed stays in the turn of the passage--ran on to the reef, and there being no wind could not beat across. So we lowered the boats and took her without much trouble, though I am sorry to say her commanding officer was wounded--Stephen is patching him up at this moment, poor fellow.

"There was no glory in it, sweetheart, not the least hint of danger; but the charming thing is, that she can just be called a frigate. She was our old Hyaena, a jackass twenty-eight as ancient as the Ark, that the French took when I was a boy: she was overgunned, of course, and they reduced her to what they rate a corvette, with twenty-four pounder carronades and a couple of long nines--I scarcely recognized her at first, she was so changed. But she is still a frigate for us, and of course she will be bought into the service (she is a fine sailer too, particularly on the wind, and we hauled her clear with no damage at all, bar a fathom or two of her copper being scraped off). And then there is head-money, and above all this Guineaman. She is no prize to us, being English, but she is salvage, and she does represent a certain amount of cash, which, the kitchen copper being in the state it is, will not be unwelcome. Unfortunately the Admiral shares. Although mine were Admiralty orders, the cunning old dog added some nonsense of his own, to make sure of one of my eights if I took anything; and this he did in the most barefaced way, after dinner, laughing cheerfully, ha, ha. All admirals are tarred with the same brush, I fear, and I dare say we shall find the same thing at the Cape." He had scarcely written the last word before Stephen's grave warnings about close counsel came to his mind: he carefully changed it to "our destination', and then returned to the Guineaman. "Ordinarily she would have been crammed with blacks for the West Indies, which would have added much to her value; but perhaps it was just as well that there were none. Stephen grows so outrageous the minute slavery is mentioned, that I dare say I should have been obliged to set them ashore to prevent his being hanged for mutiny. Only the last time I dined in the gunroom, Akers, the first lieutenant, got on to the subject, and Stephen handled him so severely, I was obliged to intervene. Mr Farquhar is of the same opinion with Stephen, and I am sure they are right it is a very ugly thing to see, indeed--yet sometimes cannot help feeling that a couple of biddable, able-bodied young blacks that attended to their duty and could give no month's warning might come in uncommon handy at Ashgrove Cottage. And now I am on the cottage, I have written to Ommaney to send you all he will advance on the Hyaena directly, with which I beg you will instantly buy yourself a pelisse and tippet against its infernal draughts, and... "There followed a list of domestic improvements to be made: the copper, of course; the parlour chimney to be rebuilt; Goadby to be set to work on the roof; a newlycalved Jersey cow to be bought with Mr Hick's advice. "My dear, time is flying," he went on. "They are hoisting in Hyena's boats, and the snow has won her anchor. We may touch at St Helena, but otherwise I must take my leave until we reach our port. God bless and keep you, sweetheart, and the children." He sighed, smiled, and was about to seal when Stephen walked in, looking mean and pinched. "Stephen," he said, "I have just written to Sophie. Have you any message?"

"Love, of course. And compliments to Mrs Williams."

"Lord," cried Jack, writing fast, "thank you for reminding me. I have explained about Lady Clonfert," he observed, as he closed the letter up.

"Then I trust you kept your explanation short," said Stephen. "Circumstantial details destroy a tale entirely. The longer, the less credible." "I merely stated that she did not appear at the rendezvous, and passed on."

"Nothing about three o'clock in the morning, the hocus-pocus at the inn, signals disregarded, the boat being made to row as though we were escaping from the Day of Judgment, and the lady ditched?" asked Stephen, with the unpleasant creaking noise that was his nearest approach to a laugh.

"What a rattle you are, to be sure," said Jack. "Come now, Stephen, how is your patient?"

"Why, he has lost a great deal of blood, it cannot be denied; but then on the other hand I have rarely seen a man with so much blood to lose. He should do very well, with the blessing. He has the late captain's cook with him, a famous artist, and desires he may be kept aboard, if agreeable to the gallant victor."

"Capital, capital. A famous artist in the galley will set the crown on a very pretty morning's work. Was it not a very pretty morning's work, Stephen?"

"Well," said Stephen, "I wish you joy of your capture with all my heart; but if by "pretty" we are to understand an elegant economy of means, I cannot congratulate you. All this banging of great guns for so pitiful a result as the mizen topmast of a little small slip of a thing, and it embarrassed among the rocks, the creature--Armageddon come before its time. And the infamous backing and filling before the Guineaman is even approached, in spite of her captain's ardent pleas; and all this interminable while no one is allowed to set foot upon these rocks, on the grounds that not a minute is to be lost. Not a minute, forsooth: and forty-seven are wantonly thrown away--forty-seven minutes of invaluable observation that will never be made up."

"What I know, Stephen, and what you don't know," began Jack, but a messenger interrupted him: with the Captain's leave, Mr Akers was ready to go aboard. On deck Jack found the south-west breeze setting in steadily, just as If it had been ordered, a perfect breeze to waft the Hyaena and her charge to Gibraltar. He gave his letters to the first lieutenant, again recommended the utmost vigilance, and urged him towards the side. Mr Akers displayed a tendency to linger, to express his extreme gratitude for his command (and indeed the recovered Hyaena meant his promotion) and to assure Captain Aubrey that if a single prisoner showed his nose above the hatchway it should instantly be blown off with his own grapeshot, but presently he was gone; and leaning over the rail Jack watched the Boadicea's boats carrying him and his companions away. Some went to the man-of-war, to work the ship and guard the prisoners; some to the Intrepid Fox, to strengthen her sickly and diminished crew: a surprising number of men in both cases.

Few captains, far from a press-gang, a receiving-ship or any other source of hands, could have smiled at the sight of so many of them pulling awkwardly away to other vessels, never, in all probability, to be seen again, but Jack beamed like the rising sun. Captain Loveless had had excellent connections, and the Boadicea a plethoric crew: a good average crew, upon the whole, with no more than a fair share of landsmen and with a gratifying proportion of hands who deserved their rating of able seaman; yet with a number of hard cases too, not worth the food they ate nor the space they occupied, while the last draft had been made up entirely of quota-men from Bedfordshire, odd misfits, petty criminals and vagrants, not one of whom had ever used the sea. The Hibi's English prisoners, right sallormen taken out of British ships for the most part, together with a couple of prime hands pressed from the Intrepid Fox, far more than compensated for their loss; and now, with real satisfaction, Jack watched eight sodomites, three notorious thieves, four men whose wits were quite astray, and a parcel of inveterate skulkers and sea-lawyers go off for good. He was also happy to be rid of a great lout of a midshipman who made the youngsters" lives a burden to them: but above all he was delighted to be seeing the last of his first lieutenant. Mr Akers was a harsh, greying, saturnine man with one leg; the pain from his wound often made him savagely ill-tempered; and he did not see eye to eye with Jack on a number of matters, including flogging. Yet far more important, honourable wound or not, Akers was no seaman: when Jack had first stepped aboard the frigate he found her lying with two round turns and an elbow in her cables, a very disgusting sight; they had lost an hour and twenty minutes clearing their hawse, with Boadicea's signal to proceed to sea flying all the time, reinforced by guns at frequent intervals: and this impression of busy, angry inefficiency had grown stronger day by day.

So there it was: he had made two charming captures; at the same time he had freed himself of men whose presence would have gone far towards preventing the frigate's becoming a fully efficient instrument for distressing the enemy, let alone a happy ship, and he had done so in a way that would confer the utmost benefit on Mr Akers. That was where the prettiness lay. He was now in command of a crew whose collective seamanship was already tolerably good in spite of the remaining fifty or sixty raw hands, and whose gunnery, though of the lowest standard, as it so often was under officers whose one idea of action was a yardarm-to-yardarm engagement where no shot could miss, was certainly capable of improvement. "Vast capabilities, ma'am, vast capabilities," he murmured; and then his smile changed to an inward chuckle as he recollected that for once his low cunning had over reached Stephen Maturin: for what Jack knew, and what Stephen did not, was that those forty-seven minutes had made all the difference between salvage and no salvage, between the Boadicea's right to an eighth of the Guineaman's value and a mere letter of thanks from her owners. The Intrepid Fox had been taken at forty-six minutes past ten on Tuesday, and if he had accepted the surrender of the French prize-master one moment before twenty-four hours had passed, by sea-law the Guineaman would not have been salvage at all. And as for Stephen's passing three quarters of an hour on the Dry Salvages, searching for problematical bugs, Jack had set him down on remote oceanic rocks before now, and had been obliged to have him removed by armed force, long, long after the appointed time: but, however, he would make it up to him--there were coral reefs in plenty on the far side of the Cape.