The Yellow Admiral (32 page)

Before they sat down they both saw many friends: the Hydrographer to the Admiralty gave Jack a significant look, but said no more than 'I do hope you will soon give us another paper on nutation,' while the Surveyor to the Navy, Robert Seppings, the famous architect who had strengthened the Bellona with diagonal bracing and trussing, pushed through the press to ask Captain Aubrey how the ship had stood up to the huge seas and south-westerly gales off Brest. 'Admirably, sir, admirably, I thank you,' said Jack. 'Rarely more than six inches in the well, and as stiff as a man could wish.' 'I am delighted to hear it,' cried the Surveyor, and he went on to speak of his son Thomas, who was incorporating the same principles in the smaller ships and vessels that he was intending to build or repair in his new yard at Poole. '...full of hope, just married, eager to work double tides, and now this peace...' After a few more words on the same subject they were parted by the call to take their seats.

The Philosophers were not a particularly ascetic body of men: few of them had ever allowed philosophy to spoil their appetites - their president weighed over fifteen stone - and they now set about their dinner with the earnestness it deserved.

'I do wish I could persuade you to drink some of this porter,' said Jack, holding up his tankard. 'It goes admirably well with roast beef.'

'If you will forgive me,' said Stephen, 'I believe I shall wait for the wine.'

He did not have to wait long. When the beef, admirably carved and gratefully eaten with horseradish, mustard, turnips, potatoes and cabbage, had all disappeared, the cloth was drawn and the wine appeared together with warden pie, treacle tart and every kind of cheese known in the three kingdoms. Stephen seized upon a variety as they trundled by, Stilton, Cheddar and Double Gloucester, a decanter of claret (probably a Latour, he thought) and some crusty bread: he drank to all those who called out 'A glass of wine with you, sir,' bowing to him, but he raised his glass only to Sir Joseph and once again to a new member, a mathematical duke from Scotland. He came away therefore perfectly steady on his feet, which was more than could be said for all the Fellows and their guests, particularly Jack Aubrey, who had kept steadily to port, never leaving a single acquaintance out of his toasts. However, it was quite a walk from the Mitre to Somerset House: virtually all the Fellows were reasonably philosophic by the time they got there, and the hard benches, and the arid nature of the paper read to them, dealing with the history of the integral calculus and a new approach to certain aspects of it, sobered them entirely.

Jack and Stephen walked back to St James's, passing by the Grapes: it was late, and both the bar and snug were full, so they went up to Stephen's room to make the arrangements for the Chileans' dinner tomorrow - fish, preferably John Dory from the nearby Billingsgate - and while they were about it the little girls burst in, wearing their night-gowns, to ask the Doctor how he did. They stopped dead on seeing the Captain too, and Stephen had to lead them in by hand to pay their faltering duty: Jack had been a very dreadful figure aboard, at least to those of Sarah's and Emily's age.

'Well, sir,' said Mrs Broad, when they had padded barefoot upstairs, back to bed, 'I never thought to have seen them so abashed. In the street or in the bar they will answer, and very sharp too, if anyone is at all what you might call jocular. But I warrant you, you will have the finest John Dorys in Billingsgate: they are the best market hands you can imagine, kind and civil and well-liked, but not to be put upon for a moment, no, not if it is ever so. But tell me, sir' - this to Stephen - 'do your foreign gentlemen speak English?'

'Sure, two of them are fairly fluent; and although the third can barely ask his way, the others can keep up a conversation.'

They could indeed, if the conversation were not too demanding; and when they were seated at a table in Stephen's private room they were particularly civil to Jack, whose sea-going reputation they knew well and whose words they followed with close attention; but their knowledge of the language did not enable them to discuss the fine points of the scheme (they were there in fact to assess Captain Aubrey's size and moral capacity) and this they left to Garcia and Stephen, they begging Jack's pardon for their Spanish. All three guests were very well-bred men, somewhat dark but rather good-looking than otherwise; and although their complaisance slightly exceeded that usual in England, they had strong faces. They were clearly not men to be trifled with; and although they could not be induced to drink more than one glass of the excellent Meursault, nor eat more than a trifle of the good honest suet pudding, Jack found them pleasant company, and when they parted they shook hands in the friendliest way, Garcia saying, with an earnest look, 'Very happy.'

'I hope you got along as well with your man as I did with my two,' he said, when the Chileans had been put into a hackney-coach. 'I found them very decent creatures.'

'Yes: Garcia and I were in complete agreement - we had discussed it in some detail long before, in Santiago, you know. We shall have to put something in writing for the sake of our masters but in essence it is what I outlined to you earlier on: you will survey and chart their coasts in Surprise, sailing early next year - there is to be a six months grace on either side and of course you are free at any time if England should go to war. You will help them to build up and train a small navy; and if the Peruvians, having declared their independence, attack Chile, you will defend the country. You will however be absolved from all duty towards them in the event of a war that involves England with any foreign power. Just exactly what your status will be with respect to the Admiralty I am not yet quite certain: we shall not know that until we have appeared before the Committee, but I am reasonably certain that you will be given indefinite leave in your present rank and that you will be lent to the Hydrographic Department. When your survey is complete or whether you consider your task is done, you may return, to be reinstated with no loss of seniority. You will perceive that this gives you an opportunity for service and distinction when all other captains, candidates for flag-rank, are sitting idly on shore or, at the most, drilling their ships in the peaceful inglorious Mediterranean.'

'Stephen,' said Jack, stopping in the street outside St James's Palace, 'I am infinitely obliged to you. I could not ask more - no, not half as much.' He walked on, almost under the wheels of a carriage and pair that swore most horribly, the whip crackled about his ears. 'But Surprise will certainly need strengthening for the Horn. How glad I am to know about Seppings' son. And oh how I hope the Committee and the Admiralty will look as though they love me, in spite of everything.'

'At the Committee you will have mostly friends or at least well-inclined neutrals: it is not a body in which Lord Stranraer has much influence if any at all. You might be well advised, on Monday, to dress very soberly and well, to say nothing unless you are directly addressed and then to keep your answers clear and short, short; and at all times to look both intelligent and attentive, but never cynical or amused.'

This was a Friday evening and they found Black's almost empty; after a trifling supper of Welsh rabbit and a distracted game of backgammon or two they went early to bed, Jack saying as they parted, 'If you are a tenth part as anxious as I am about the Committee and the Admiralty, I cannot tell how we shall pass Saturday and Sunday.'

They spent Saturday in fact at Greenwich, at the great naval hospital, calling on former shipmates, ancient or crippled or both, dining with the officers and returning to London with the tide for yet another concert; while on Sunday, Stephen having attended Mass with the little girls and Jack having walked down to the Queen's Chapel, they hired two mild old grey mares (sisters) and rode up to Hampstead, exploring the Heath and revisiting their old haunts.

On Monday morning Jack's anxiety cut his appetite, and he ate nothing but a piece of toast. 'I wonder at your insensibility,' he said, watching sausages, bacon, fried egg disappearing from Stephen's plate, the yolks being wiped up with bread.

'It is strength of mind rather than insensibility,' said Stephen. 'I am perfectly aware that this interview may make the essential difference between your being either blued or yellowed in the fullness of time; but I bear the trial with a manly fortitude.'

'I hesitate to correct so heroic a creature - such prodigious constancy of mind - but you will allow me to observe the "blued", in the sense of being made a flag-officer of the blue squadron, though plausible, is not used in the service. "Yellowed", I am sorry to say, is employed only too often.'

'I cannot recommend more than one cup of coffee,' said Stephen. 'Two, in a subject of a nervous temperament, may well bring about an untimely sense of urgency, a need that cannot be satisfied, or relieved, however imperative.'

They walked silently along Whitehall: Jack was not at ease in his civilian clothes; nor, indeed, in his mind.

'Listen, brother,' said Stephen, laying his hand on Jack's sleeve as they turned the decisive corner. 'In this meeting, five of the members are my friends. They are benevolently inclined towards you, as I have said. Of the others none to my knowledge is in any way hostile; and all are aware of your reputation as a sailor. This is really not going to be a serried interrogation: the important people there already know all they need know; and this official meeting, like so many other official meetings, is very largely to endow what has already been decided with unanimous official approval.'

So it appeared. The discussion was directed by Sir Joseph Blaine and an intelligent man from the Foreign Office, and as the talk moved from one end of the table to the other, some members having to be told the same thing twice in slightly different forms, so Jack's mind relaxed. He continued to look as intelligent as was convenient, and attentive; but it was clear to him that the three or four men who really understood were in favour of the scheme and that although the Treasury dragged his feet, he would soon be drawn along with the current. The few questions Jack was asked by any but the Hydrographer (who was clearly on his side) could be answered very easily and clearly: this he did, but much of the confused talk between departments escaped him. He did not much regret the loss.

'And Captain Aubrey thoroughly understands the position?' asked the chairman, who did not seem to have total confidence in Jack's political sense by land.

'He does, sir,' said Sir Joseph. 'Dr Maturin has explained it all, at proper length.'

'Then in that case, gentlemen,' said the chairman, 'since we are all in agreement I believe we may terminate the session, leaving the rest to the Treasury, the Hydrographer, and the procurements officer. And for my part let me wish Captain Aubrey a calm, prosperous voyage and a happy return.'

The Admiralty, the next day, did not at first promise to be nearly so grave a trial, partly because the building was so very familiar and partly because Jack was in naval uniform in the most naval of all surroundings. He was to ask for Sir Joseph Blaine, and as soon as he uttered the name the porter's stony face, worn to inhumanity by perpetually denying the First Lord to the countless officers who wanted to see him, almost smiled and he said, 'Certainly, sir. Job, show the Captain into the farther waiting-room.'

Here Sir Joseph joined him directly - asked after the Doctor - congratulated Jack on the Committee's unanimous approval - and led him along unknown corridors to a particularly dismal, ill-lit, low-ceilinged office with an aged official sitting at a desk, his feet on a carpet eight feet by three, a mark of very great seniority. Even so, the aged official rose, waved them to dimly-seen chairs, and said, 'Sir Joseph, I believe that you will be pleased with me. I have all the necessary papers signed and in two instances sealed here on my desk. If Captain Aubrey will be so obliging as to draw his chair a little nearer, so that he can put his name to this acknowledgement of each item - but stay, Sir Joseph, would you have the great kindness to pass them, one by one, so that there can be no mistake in number or content? I will first snuff the candle: some are wrote very small.

One by one Jack acknowledged their receipt; and one by one he put them into his bosom. After the last, which contained the formal condition 'I clearly understand that the suspension hereby granted is at once cancelled in the event of war between England and any other power', the ancient gentleman sanded the signatures, stood up, and said, 'There, Sir Joseph: as expeditious a piece of work as ever I have seen. Such comfort to an orderly mind.' With this he bowed.

'It was a wonderful display of exactly-regulated celerity,' said Sir Joseph.

'Very like a well-ordered broadside,' said Jack. 'I am deeply obliged to you, sir.'

The official gave a wintry smile, bowed again, and opened the door for them.

'Now I must take you to the Hydrographer's quarters,' said Blaine, leading Jack through still other corridors. 'Let us hope that Mr Dalhousie will be equally brisk.'

He was not, nor anything like it: but Mr Daihousie had spent much of his life at sea - he was a marine animal -and Jack was very much at home with the surveyors and surveying. Theirs was a pleasant, friendly interview; yet even so, when Jack reached Whitehall, the broad and open street, he was still in something of a daze from that earlier series of orders, instructions, dockets and other papers that he had received and signed for, and by which he was now bound.

'I was perfectly amazed,' he told Stephen. 'I had expected pretty long discussions, explanations, directions and so on, probably with the Fourth Sea Lord and some other grandees, with a possibility of putting in some humble requests of my own: but nothing of the sort - I was packed up like a parcel, and here I am, changed in a little over five minutes from a person fairly high on the post-captains' list to a man removed from it, lent to the Hydrographic Department and told to proceed to Chile in the hired vessel Surprise within seven calendar months from the present day, there to survey the coast and islands, my proceedings being at all times subordinate to the requirements of the political adviser. My full pay however will continue until the end of this lunar month, after which only half can be claimed or expected. So here I am' - tapping his swollen bosom - 'as free as the air and strangely uneasy.'