Post Captain (55 page)

'It is possible that you may be required to undertake some negotiations, and that I may be of use in them.'

'Well, I must be discreet myself, I find,' said Jack, sitting down and looking wonderingly at Stephen. 'But you did say...'

'Now listen, Jack, will you? I am somewhat given to lying: my occasions require it from time to time. But I do not choose to have any man alive tell me of it.'

'Oh no, no, no,' cried Jack. 'I should never dream of doing such a thing. Not,' he added, recollecting himself and blushing, 'not when I am in my right mind. Quite apart from my love for you, it is far, far too dangerous. Hush: mum's the word. Tace is the Latin for a candle. I quite understand - am amazed I did not smoke it before: what a deep old file you are. But I twig it now.'

'Do you, my dear? Bless you.'

'But what takes my breath away, what flabbergasts me to this high pitch,' said Jack, 'is, that they should have given you a temporary commission. The Navy, you know, is uncommon jealous of rank, very sparing of such compliments. I hardly remember ever to have heard of it, except once. They must think the world of you in Whitehall.'

'I wonder at it too, this insistence upon a commission. It struck me at the time. I am sensible of the compliment, but puzzled. Why should I not have been your guest?'

'I have it,' cried Jack. 'Stephen, may I ask without indiscretion whether this could be a - what shall I say?

- a profitable expedition?'

'It might be, too.'

'Then they mean to cut you in on the prize-money. Depend upon it, they mean you to share as a captain. These are Admiralty orders, so no flag gets a share: if it comes to anything, your cut should be pretty handsome.'

'What a pretty thought in Sir Joseph; remarkably delicate in him. I do not regret sending him my gynandromorph by the messenger now: the fellow seemed amazed, as well he might - a princely gift. Tell me, what would be a captain's share of - I name a hypothetical sum - a million pounds?'

'Taken by a squadron with four, no, five, captains in it? Let me see, fives into ten is two, and eights into two hundred, five and twenty - seventy-five thousand pounds. But there are no prizes like that afloat these days, my poor Stephen, more's the pity.'

'Seventy-five thousand pounds? How absurd. What could Sir Joseph imagine I should do with such a sum? What could any reasonable man do with such a sum?'

'I can tell you what I should do,' cried Jack, his eyes ablaze. He darted out of the cabin in spite of the cry of 'Stay!' to see whether the inner jibe were drawing, and every bowline harp-string taut. Having harassed the watch for some minutes he returned, leaving tart, unfavourable comments behind him.

'I hope this skipper is not going to turn into a jib and stays'l jack,' said the captain of the foretop.

'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the yeoman of the sheets. 'This giving of himself such airs is something new.'

'Perhaps he has a rendezvous with his Miss,' said Blue Edward, the Malay. 'God damn my eye, I should crack on, if I had such a Miss to see, Sophie by name.'

'No disrespectful words, Blue Edward,' cried George Allen. 'For I won't abide it.'

'A man might, of course, make a circumambulation of Lapland, or emulate Banks in the Great South Sea,' observed Stephen. 'But tell me, Jack, how did your journey go? How did Sophie withstand the motion of the vessel? Did she take her porter with her meals?'

'Oh, admirably, admirably!' It had been the most perfect series of warm, gentle days, scarcely a fleck of white water - Simmons had made a magnificent show with royals and skysails, and studdingsails aloft and alow; she had never seen anything more beautiful, she said - the Lively had left the Amethyst standing: red faces on her quarterdeck - and then there had been some charming dead calms, the whole day long - they had often talked of Stephen - how they had missed him! - and she had been so kind to that youngster Randall, who wept when poor Cassandra died - Randall senior loved her to distraction; so did the whole gun-room - they had dined twice with the officers - Cecilia seemed very well with Dredge, of the Marines - Jack was grateful to him for drawing her off - certainly Sophie had drunk her porter, and a glass of bosun's grog - had eaten splendidly: Jack loved a girl that tucked in hearty - and as for the future, they were full of hope, but... could do with very little... no horses..cottage... potatoes. 'Stephen,' he said, 'you are asleep.'

'I am not,' said Stephen. 'You just mentioned the last syllable of recorded time with evident approval. But I am weary, I confess. I travelled all night, and yesterday was something of a trial. I will turn in, if I may. Where must I sleep?'

'There's a question,' said Jack. 'Where should you berth, in fact? Of course you shall sleep in my cot; but officially where should you be? That would puzzle Solomon. What seniority did they give you?'

'I have no idea. I did not read the document; apart from the phrase. We, reposing especial trust and confidence in S.M., which pleased me.'

'Well, I suppose you are junior to me; so you shall have the leeward side of the cabin and I the windward, and every time we go about, we shall change sides, ha, ha, ha. Ain't I a rattle? But seriously, I suppose you should be read in to the ship's company - an amazing situation.'

'If there is any doubt, pray do no such thing. It would be far better for me to remain unobserved. And Jack, in all this that has passed between us, all that you may have guessed, I rely wholly upon your discretion, eh? There are moments when my life might turn upon it.'

He had every reason to rely upon Jack, who could keep close counsel; but not all captains were so discreet, and when the Medusa came tearing out of Plymouth with a dark gentleman aboard, known to speak Spanish - a gentleman who remained closeted with the captains of the Lively, the Amphion and the Medusa, and Dr Maturin while they were lying to off the Dodman, waiting for the Indefatigable to join - the general opinion of the ship was that they were bound for Cadiz, that Spain had come in or was just about to come in; and this gave a great deal of simple pleasure, for hitherto Spanish merchantmen had been immune from capture. In a sea swept almost clear of prizes, they ploughed steadily along past cruisers, through blockading squadrons, laughing and kissing their hands, their holds so full of wealth that a foremast jack might make five years' pay in one pleasant Saturday afternoon.

At last the Indefatigable hove in sight, a heavy forty-gun frigate, making heavy weather of it too, close-hauled on the westerly gale with green seas keeping her beak-head clean and the signal flying Form in line astern: make all suitable sail.

Now, as the four frigates, in a perfect line, each two cables from the next, stretched away to the south-southwest, came a tedious, frustrating time for the Livelies: the topmen were rarely on deck, but it was not to make sail. In order to keep rigidly to her station in the Amphion's wake, the Lively was perpetually reefing, dewing up, hauling down jibe, staysails, spanker, starting sheets. And when the sealed orders were opened - when, after the captains' last conference aboard the Indefatigable, it became certain knowledge that they were to intercept a Spanish squadron from the River Plate to Cadiz, this impatience grew to such a height that they welcomed the dirty look of Sunday evening. A vast unformed blackness filled the south and western sky, an enormous swell was running, so great that men who had scarcely set foot on shore for years were sick; the wind boxed the compass, blowing now hot, now cold, and the sun went down in an ill-looking bank of livid purple with green lights showing through. Cape Finisterre was not far under their lee, and they doubled their preventer-stays and rolling-tackle, roused up storm canvas, secured the boats on the booms, double-breeched their guns, struck the topgallants down on deck, and made all snug.

At two bells in the middle watch the wind, which had been blowing fitfully from the south-west, backed suddenly into the north, hurling itself against the mountainous swell with tripled force - thunder just overhead, lightning, and such a deluge of rain that a storm-lantern on the forecastle could not be seen from the quarterdeck. The maintopimast staysail blew out of its boltrope, vanishing ghostly to leeward in pale strips of cloth Jack sent more hands to the wheel, rigged relieving-tackles, and came into the cabin, where Stephen lay swinging in his cot, to tell him that it was coming on to blow.

'How you do exaggerate, brother,' said Stephen. 'And how you drip! The best part of a quart of water has run off your person in this short space of time - see how it sweeps to and fro, defying gravity.'

'I love a good blow,' said Jack, 'and this is one of your genuine charmers; for, do you see, it must hold the Spaniards back, and the dear knows we are very short of time. Was they to slip into Cadiz before us, what flats we should look.'

'Jack, do you see that piece of string hanging down? Would you have the goodness to tie it to the hook over there, to reattach it? It came undone. Thank you. I pull upon it to moderate the motion of the cot, which exacerbates all my symptoms.'

'Are you unwell? Queasy? Sick?'

'No, no. Not at all. What a foolish suggestion. No. This may be the onset of a very serious malady. I was bitten by a tame bat a little while ago. and I have reasons to doubt its sanity: it was a horseshoe bat, a female. It seems to me that I detect a likeness between my symptoms and the Ludolphus' description of his disease.'

'Should you like a glass of grog?' asked Jack. 'Or a ham sandwich, with luscious white fat?' he added, with a grin.

'No, no, no,' cried Stephen. 'Nothing of the kind. I tell you, this is a serious matter, calling for... there it goes again. Oh, this is a vile ship: the Sophie never behaved so - wild, unmeaning lurches. Would it be too much to ask you to turn down the lamp and to go away? Surely this is a situation that requires all your vigilance? Surely this is no time to stand idly smirking?'

'Are you sure there is nothing I can fetch you? A basin?'

'No, no, no.' Stephen's face assumed a pinched, mean expression: his beard showed black against the nacreous green. 'Does this sort of tempest last long?'

'Oh, three or four days, no more,' said Jack, staggering with the lee-lurch. 'I will send Killick with a basin.'

'Jesus, Mary, Joseph,' said Stephen. 'There she goes again.' In the trough of the enormous waves the frigate lay becalmed, but as she rose, so the gale took her and laid her down, down and down, in a never-ending roll, while her forefoot heaved up until her bowsprit pointed at the racing clouds. 'Three days of this,' he thought. 'No human frame can withstand it.'

Happily it was only the tail of the notorious September blow that the Lively had to deal with. The sky cleared in the morning watch; the glass rose, and although she could show no more than close-reefed topsails it was plain that she would spread more by noon. Dawn showed a sea white from horizon to horizon, a sea with nothing on it but the waterlogged wreck of a Portuguese bean-cod, and far to windward the Medusa, apparently intact. Jack was now senior captain, and he signalled her to make more sail - to make for their next rendezvous off Cape Santa Maria, the landfall for Cadiz.

Towards noon he altered course due south, which brought the wind on the Lively's quarter, easing her motion greatly. Stephen appeared on deck, still very grave, but more humane. He and Mr Floris and Mr Floris's assistants had spent the morning dosing one another; they had all suffered more or less from the onset of diseases (orchitis, scurvy, the fell Ludolphus' palsy), but in Dr Maturin's case at least the attack had been averted by a judicious mixture of Lucatellus' balsam and powder of Algaroth.

After dinner the Lively exercised the great guns, swell or no, rattling them in and out, but also firing broadside after broadside, so that the frigate was preceded by a cloud of her own making as she ran southwards at eleven knots, some twenty leagues off the coast of Portugal. The recent training had had effect, and although the fire was still painfully slow - three minutes and ten seconds between broadsides was the best they could do - it was more accurate by far, in spite of the roll and pitch. A palm-tree trunk, drifting by on the starboard bow three hundred yards away, was blown clear of the water on the first discharge; and they hit it again, with cheers that reached the Medusa, before it went astern. The Medusa also put in an hour's strenuous practice; and aboard the Medusa too, a good many hands were employed carefully picking over the round-shot, choosing the most spherical and chipping off flakes of rust. But most of the Medusa's time was taken up with trying to overhaul the Lively; she set topgallants before the Lively had shaken out the last reef in her topsails, and she tried studdingsails and royals as the breeze moderated, only to lose two of her booms, without the gain of half a mile. The Lively's officers and her sailmaker watched with intense satisfaction; but underlying their pleasure there was a haunting anxiety -were they going to be in time to cut the Spanish squadron off from Cadiz? And even if they were, would the Indefatigable and Amphion reach the rendezvous before the clash? The Spanish reputation for courage, if not for seamanship, stood high; and the odds were very great - a forty-gun frigate and three thirty-fours against a thirty-eight and a thirty-two; for Jack had explained the tactical situation to his officers as soon as he had opened his sealed orders -as soon as there was no danger of communication with the shore. The same anxiety, that they might be too late, was general throughout the ship: there was scarcely a man aboard who did not know what came from the River Plate, and those few - a person from Borneo and two Javanese -were told. 'It's gold, mate. That's what they ship from the River Plate: gold and silver, in chests and leather bags.'

All through the day the wind declined, and all through the night; and whereas the log had once taken the line straight off the reel, tearing it away to show twelve and even thirteen knots, heave after heave, at dawn on the last day of September it had to be helped gently off and veered away, so that the midshipman of the watch could announce a dismal 'Two and a fathom, sir, if you please.'