The Ionian Mission (41 page)

   'It ain't no bleeding good, sir,' said Killick in an angry whine, coming in with Jack's best coat over his arm. 'This nasty foreign mess will not come out, not if it's ever so, and now I've tried to cover it with saffron over the gold lace it looks even worse. Time and time again I've said "Your sleeve's in your dinner, sir" when it was only beef and pudding or drowned baby or the like, and that's been bad enough; but this here foreign mess—why . . .'

   'Come, Killick, pipe down and give me my coat,' said Jack. 'There is not a moment to be lost.'

   'On your own head be it,' said Killick, helping him into the heavy full-dress coat; and he added something mutinous about 'laughing-stock' under his breath.

   Yet no very great degree of mirth greeted Captain Aubrey when he stepped on to his quarterdeck: this was a Wednesday, and at six bells in the forenoon watch on Wednesdays it was customary for all hands to be piped aft to witness punishment, a solemn occasion. Six bells struck: all the officers and young gentlemen were present, all in uniform: the grating was rigged and the bosun's mates stood by it, prepared to seize up any guilty man at the Captain's word and flog him with the cat-o'-nine-tails that Mr Hollar had ready in its baize bag.

   The cat was not needed for the earlier defaulters. They were all mild cases of profane oaths, cursings, execrations, reproachful and provoking speeches or gestures, of uncleanliness or of drunkenness, and they were dealt with by suspension or dilution of grog or by extra duties; but when Davis' name was called and his offence made known and admitted or at least not denied, the bosun began untying the baize bag's strings. 'This is a damned bad state of affairs, Davis,' said Jack. 'There you are, a man rated able these twenty years and more, answering an officer. You must have heard the Articles read out some hundreds of times, and yet there you are, answering an officer! Mr Ward, let us hear number twenty-two, the second part.'

   'The twenty-second Article of War, sir: the second part,' said the clerk, and he continued in a hieratic boom, 'If any mariner, or other person in the fleet, shall presume to quarrel with any of his superior officers, being in the execution of his office, or shall disobey any lawful command of any of his superior officers; every such person being convicted of any such offence by the sentence of a court-martial, shall suffer death.' Here he paused and repeated '
shall suffer death
' before going on in a perfunctory manner 'or such other punishment as shall, according to the nature and degree of his offence, be inflicted on him by the sentence of a court-martial.'

   'There you are,' said Jack, looking at Davis, who looked steadily at the deck. 'How can you hope to escape flogging? Have you anything to say for yourself?' Davis made no reply, but began to take off his shirt. 'Has anyone else anything to say for him, then?'

   'If you please, sir,' said Elphinstone, taking off the cocked hat he had put on for the occasion., 'he is in my division and has always been diligent and attentive hitherto, obedient to command and respectful.' At this one of Davis' messmates, out of sight in the throng, burst out in a coarse hoot of laughter, but Elphinstone, blushing painfully, went on, 'I believe it was only a temporary lapse, sir; and should like to beg him off his punishment.'

   'Come, that is handsomely put,' said Jack. 'Do you hear, Davis? Mr Elphinstone begs you off your flogging.' He then delivered a particularly dreary homily on right and wrong, whose only merit was that it was fairly short and that it made him smile within.

   He was smiling openly when Stephen walked in, looking shrewish. Like many large, florid, good-natured men, Jack Aubrey was afflicted with an undue proportion of small pale, meagre friends of a shrewish turn. One of his earliest shipmates and closest acquaintances, Heneage Dundas, had already earned himself the name of Vinegar Joe throughout the service; Jack's steward was a confirmed nagger; and at times even Sophie . . . He was therefore peculiarly sensitive to the quality of shrewishness and even before Stephen opened his mouth Jack knew that he was about to say something disagreeable.

   'I ask only for information,' he said, 'and without the least personal bearing: but tell me, when captains set themselves up as judges and lay down the moral as well as the military law, extolling virtues that they rarely if ever practise, do they often feel the spiritual squalor of their conduct?'

   'I dare say they do,' said Jack, smiling still. 'I know I have often wondered that I was not struck down by a levinflash. But there you are—no ship carries a man rated spotless Christian hero, so the captain has to do what he can, for the sake of discipline.'

   'I see,' said Stephen. 'So it is not for the sake of exalting him in his own opinion, it is not for the sake of airing his own views before an audience that dare not stir or disagree, it is not for the deeply discreditable, nay, wicked pleasure of exercising his almost unlimited power: nor is it that our gentleman is unaware of the true nature of his act. No, no: it is all for discipline, for the country's good. Very well: I am content.' He sniffed, and went on, 'Pray, what is this I hear about passing for a gentleman?'

   With a flash of insight Jack perceived that Stephen had been talking to Driver, the new Marine officer they had shipped at Malta, a great admirer of kings, titles of honour, ancient families, coats of arms, hereditary office and privilege in general. 'Well,' he said, 'you know what we mean by passing for lieutenant? When a mid has served his six years he attends the Board with his certificates and his logs, the captains present examine him, and if they find he understands his profession he passes for lieutenant.'

   'Sure, I have heard of it many, many times; and I remember poor Babbington's trembling anxiety. But I calmed his spirits with three drops of the essence of hellebore on a piece of sugar, and he passed with sailing colours.'

   'Flying colours.'

   'Let us not be pedantical, for all love.'

   'But,' said Jack, 'so many have passed since the beginning of the war, and so many have been made lieutenants, that now there are more on the list than there can be employment for, let alone promotion; so some years ago men of no particular family found they were being left on shore. They had not passed for gentlemen, and they did not possess the friends or connections that could make interest for them, though sometimes they were capital seamen. Tom Pullings could not find a ship for a great while: and of course no ship, no promotion. I did my best, naturally, but I was away much of the time, and anyhow one scheme after another came to nothing: just before they gave me the
Worcester
I took him to dine at Slaughter's with Rowlands of the
Hebe
, who had lost a lieutenant overboard. They got along well enough, but afterwards Rowlands told me he did not choose to have anyone on his quarterdeck who did not say balcóny, and unfortunately poor Tom had said bálcony. It is the old story of the gentleman captains and the tarpaulins all over again.'

   'What is your view of the matter?'

   'I have no very clear view. There are so many factors; and so much depends on what you mean by gentleman. But suppose it is no more than the usual notion of someone whose family has had a certain amount of money for two or three generations, someone with reasonably good manners and at least a scrape of education—why then, seamanship being equal, I should rather have the gentleman than not, partly because it is easier for the officers to live together if they have roughly the same ideas of behaviour, but even more because the foremost hands value birth so highly, perhaps much more highly than they should.'

   'Your ideal is a gentleman who is also a seaman?'

   'I suppose so. But that would exclude Cook and many other men of the very first rate. As a rough rule it might answer for the common run, but it seems to me that your really good sea-officer is always an exceptional being, and one that ordinary rules scarcely apply to. Tom Pullings, for example: he may not be another Howe or Nelson, but I am quite certain he would make a far better captain than most—we do not often have occasion to talk of balconies at sea. I have tried to get him made again and again, as you know very well; but pushing don't always answer, and too much may do harm. Look at this,' he said, passing a letter from among the papers on his open desk.

   'Sir,' read Stephen, 'The Board not having considered the service (alluded to in your letter of the 14th) performed under the direction of Lieutenant Pullings of the description that entitles him to promotion, I must confess my surprise at the manner in which you have thought fit to address me on the subject of it. Very sincerely, your humble servant, Melville.'

   'That was years ago,' said Jack. 'The cutting-out of the
Rosa
. But things are no better now—rather worse indeed, with my old father cutting his capers in the Commons and shedding such a blight on any recommendation of mine—and Tom's only hope is a successful action. That is why we were so very disappointed when Emeriau slipped away, and why I do so very much hope that this next Turk, this Mustapha, may show more promise than the last. Turning the French out of Marga would almost certainly count as a frigate-action, with a step for the first lieutenant. With this breeze we should reach Karia tomorrow, and form some notion of the Capitan-Bey.'

   In the event they formed their notion of him a good deal earlier. The
Surprise
was standing northward, surrounded by a cloud of her own making, when the lookout gave news of two ships on the starboard quarter, two ships under the land. He would have given the news sooner if he had not been watching the competition between the watches with such passionate interest, and now his hail had an anxious quality, for the ships were already hull-up, and this was one of the offences that Captain Aubrey rarely overlooked. By way of covering up he added details—'Turkish frigate, coming up hand over hand—stuns'ls aloft and alow—t'other maybe a twenty-gun ship, Turk likewise—all plain sail—holds her course under the land—very hard to see.'

   The starboard watch had just shattered a floating cask at four hundred yards, at the end of an exercise in which they had attained a thoroughly satisfactory rate of accurate fire: Jack said, 'House your guns. Starbowlines win by two points. A creditable exercise, Mr Pullings.' Then walking to the taffrail he directed his telescope at the newcomer and her distant consort. Graham and Stephen were standing by the stern-lantern, and to them he said with a smile, 'We are in luck. Here we have the whole Turkish navy this side of the Archipelago: that is the
Torgud
coming up and the
Kitabi
over there under the land, and I make no doubt the Capitan-Bey is aboard the frigate.' Raising his voice he gave the order that brought the
Surprise
close to the wind on the starboard tack, steering a course that would cross the
Torgud's
bows.

   Jack moved up to the forecastle as the ship turned and studied the Turk intently. She was built in the European manner, probably in a French or Venetian yard, and although the people on her deck wore turbans or scarlet skullcaps she was sailed in the European manner too. Pretty well handled: far better than her lumpish consort over the way, who was most shamefully brought by the lee, rounding a headland, just as he turned his glass on her.

   The
Torgud
threw a fine bow-wave under her press of sail—she was obviously quite fast when going large—and as the
Surprise
was always happy on a bowline the two frigates came together at a spanking pace. For a while they were almost head-on, but then the angle opened as the
Torgud
altered course to swing wide and cross the
Surprise's
wake; she turned with a fine gleam of brass cannon all along her side and now for the first time Jack could really see what she was like: she was rather heavier than the
Surprise
and she mounted another pair of guns—damned odd gun-ports amidships, too—but he had the impression that they overpressed her, that she would not handle easy and that she might be slack in stays: from the churning of her wake she must carry an uncommon strong weather-helm. But there was little time for staring. 'Sir,' said Pullings, 'I believe they mean to come under our stern.'

   'Come, that is civil,' said Jack. 'Professor Graham, do you understand the Turkish naval etiquette?'

   'No, sir, I do not,' said Graham. 'But in general they follow the French.'

   'Silly dogs,' said Jack. 'However, he means to be polite. Mr Borrell, stand by to give him thirteen guns the moment his jib comes in.'

   The Turkish frigate ran down, put her helm hard over and rounded to, lying there under the
Surprise's
lee. It was pretty well done: scarcely Navy-fashion—the taking in of the studdingsails was far too ragged for that and there was a sad want of coordination in the rising of the tacks, a general raggedness—but few merchantmen or privateers could have beat the
Torgud's
performance.

   And none could have outdone her in briskness of lowering a boat. It splashed down with an almighty thump from her quarter-davits and its crew tumbled over the rail in a most surprising fashion, followed almost as rapidly by men in robes, presumably officers. Jack had expected a long shouted exchange of civilities from ship to ship, but he had hardly had time to return to the quarterdeck before the Turkish boat was half-way across. Its bargemen were not elegantly dressed (one had nothing more than a torn pair of calico drawers), nor did they row pretty, but from their urgency and concentrated effort they might have been pulling for a prize; and facing the rowers, acting as his own coxswain, sat a man in a purple turban, a red beard down to his swelling belly, and purple baggy trousers, so big a man it was a wonder the boat was not grossly by the stern.

   Jack clapped on the cocked hat that Killick silently passed him, glanced fore and aft and saw that Pullings, quicker-witted than his commander, had already turned out the Marines and laid on a proper reception. Then he heard the boat hook on, and looking over the rail he saw the big man reach for the manropes—the
Surprise
gave a distinct heel as he grasped them—and come running up the side as nimbly as a boy. Reaching the quarterdeck he put his hand to his forehead, then to his heart, bowing with a magnificence that might have seemed excessive in a smaller man: but Mustapha was huge in person and in presence. Though not quite as tall as Jack he was broader by far, and his vast purple Turkish trousers made his bulk seem even greater: 'Mustapha, Capitan-Bey,' he said in a resounding boom, and the wispy officer who had followed him said the same, adding in Greek and something like English, 'Commander of the Grand Turk's ships in these waters, and lord of Karia.'