The Yellow Admiral (34 page)

She delighted in small-craft, ships and the sea; she had picked up and retained an extraordinary number of sailor's words from her first voyage and her second, in an English packet that brought her back from Valencia, and all these she explained to George in a high clear voice, hurrying him fore and aft.

'Welcome aboard, sir,' said Harding. 'What a lovely vessel. Is she as weatherly as she looks?'

'She will lie almost as close as the dear Ringle over there,' replied Jack, nodding towards the tender, laid up over the water. 'And she too despises leeway. I am sorry to have to leave the schooner.' Harding looked at him; but questioning one's superior officers was not encouraged in the Navy, not even in so marginally naval a vessel as this, with women and children all over the deck, and no Marines.

By way of acknowledging his first lieutenant's restraint Jack said, 'But the blue cutter has been coppered, and if we step her mast six inches forward I think she will do very well.'

With his fortune restored, Stephen had passed the word to give the ship all she could wish; and Jack, easier now with his most recent prize, had filled those gaps that only a seaman could perceive, adding among other things Manilla cordage, blocks of the very first quality, full suits of sails for all weathers, cut by an artist in excellent canvas.

Their leading wind was still with them and the glass beautifully steady as they cast off, took in fresh milk and vegetables, warped out into the harbour, spread their snowy wings and swept out on the ebbing tide.

'That's the main-brace,' cried Brigid, as they trimmed the sails for a perfect departure. 'No, booby - at the end of the yard.' She was hoarse with explanation and George, though he admitted her superiority, had been growing a little sullen; but now, as the Surprise met the heave and roll of the sea and her bow-wave built up and up, tearing down her side with the most exhilarating sound in the world, all his sweetness and candour returned and he swore he should go up to the masthead as soon as the hands were not so busy.

In fact his father, knowing that George was afflicted neither with giddiness nor seasickness, took him up shortly after; up, if not to the very head of the mast itself then at least to the topmast crosstrees, going by way of the maintop and placing his feet from below: from this height, the day being fine and clear, George could see for about fifteen miles, a vast expanse of glittering sea to larboard, with some shipping, and the English coast stretching away and away to starboard. 'If you look aft you will see the Wight,' said Jack, moving about with the ease of a spider - an enormous spider, truly, but benevolent. George's look of ecstasy touched his heart: and presently he said, 'Some people don't quite like being up here, just at first.'

'Oh sir,' cried George, 'I don't mind it: and if I may I shall go right up to the very top.'

'God love you,' said Jack laughing. 'You shall quite soon, but not until you are perfectly at home up to the crosstrees. There is St Alban's Head, and Lulworth beyond. We are making about eight knots and steering south-south-west, so about dinner-time you may see Alderney and perhaps the tip of Cape La Hague in France.'

George laughed with joy, and repeated, 'Cape La Hague, in France.'

When at last he could be prised off the crosstrees and so down through the maintop and by way of the ladder-like shrouds, he slid the last few feet to the deck by the topmast breast-backstay like his father. Dusting his hands he looked up at Jack with a glowing face and said, 'Oh sir, I shall be a sailor too. There is no better life.'

There was nothing in the rest of this not inconsiderable voyage to change his opinion. The almost unvarying topgallant breeze from the north-east carried them along at between seven and ten knots day after day, and although they handed topgallants by night and sometimes took a reef in the topsails, it often looked as though they should reach the island in a week. Yet once or twice the wind hauled forward and the children had the pleasure of watching the frigate beat up tack upon tack, which she did with wonderful ease and fluency, for not only was she as handy as a ship could well be, but her people were right seaman who had known her for years and years, often in very furious seas indeed.

Only once did the wind fail them entirely, and that was a barely disguised blessing, for all hands were able to watch a school of dolphins feeding eagerly upon a school of green-boned garfish, a school that dwindled as they watched. Then, George and his father having swum from the jolly-boat, they all gazed at a turtle, apparently asleep, just under the stern.

'It cannot be eaten. Oh, it cannot be eaten, sure,' said Brigid, looking very earnestly at Stephen: she loved the turtle, and she had heard of turtle soup.

'Never in life,' said Stephen. 'Never in life, my dear: he is a hawksbill.'

That evening hands sang and danced upon the forecastle until the watch was set, ending a day that might have been designed to steal a boy's heart away. George had been twice to the maintop crosstrees with Bonden; and the only thing wanting for perfection was a whale.

Yet an island stretching broad this side of the horizon next morning was a reasonable compensation for a whale: an island with tall mountains in the middle, tipped with snow, although down here it was shirt-sleeves weather, even at breakfast. On the larboard quarter there was another island, perhaps fifteen miles away, and on the bow some others, long rocky thin affairs that the hands told them were the Desertas. Yet though the name had its charm, they had eyes for nothing but Madeira itself, which came nearer and nearer, the coast, often sheer cliff, moved steadily from left to right. 'Oh how I wish Padeen was here,' said Brigid. 'He dearly loves a cliff.'

'Somebody has to guard the house, with all the men away,' said George. 'Padeen is strong enough to tear a lion in two. And someone had to take the coach home with the groom.'

The Surprise passed through a squadron of Portuguese men-of-war, those jellyfish with a kind of crest well above the surface, by which they are said to sail along, directing their course by the frightfully poisonous stinging tentacles that dangle a great way below. 'Was you to swim among those creatures, Master George,' said Joe Plaice, who had sailed with Jack all over the world, 'you would have died in screaming agony, being brought aboard maimed something horrible, though dead.' He laughed, and added, 'Worse nor sharks, seeing it lasts longer,' and laughed again at the reflection, which he repeated.

But this damped no spirits: Funchal harbour was opening, a bay full of shipping with a small fort on an island rock, and then the town sweeping up behind it, white-washed houses one above another to a great height, with palm-trees bursting green among them, then vineyards and fields of sugar-cane rising higher still, and mountains beyond them.

Stephen came and stood on the forecastle too - the women were busy packing below in their usual rather disappointing way - and with his glass he showed the children not only oranges and lemons, but also quantities of bananas among the sugar-canes, and the inhabitants of the island, dressed in the Madeiran manner, wonderfully strange and gratifying to an untravelled eye.

Over to starboard Jack and Harding gazed at the ships and vessels in the harbour. A fair number of merchantmen and many, many fishing-boats, but what really interested them were the British men-of-war. 'Pomone, thirty-eight,' said Jack with absolute certainty, he having captured her in the Mauritius campaign. 'Wrangham has her now, I believe.'

'Yes, sir: I think so. And behind her Dover, thirty-two; but she is only a troop-ship at present. I am sure you have noticed the union flag over the little fort, sir?'

'Yes. And over the castle above the town. It seems that we are looking after the place for the Portuguese - left over from when we and they were both at war with Spain. Then beyond the brig there are two corvettes, Rainbow and Ganymede. We had better anchor just inshore of Ganymede: there is something of a sea running and she will shelter us. The ladies would not like being wetted. They would not object to a bosun's chair to reach the boat, either.'

They made no objection, but sat quietly in the stern-sheets of the launch with Jack and Stephen, the children wedged in where they would fit, forbidden to trail their hands in the water, talk, or play the goddam fool; and they made their way through the many boats plying to and fro between the strand and the ships, carrying water and stores in one direction and liberty-men from the naval vessels in the other, all looking pleased, all dressed in their shore-going rig.

When the launch was two or three cables' lengths from the landing-place Stephen murmured to Jack, 'Among the people there, I believe I see our Chilean friends.'

He was quite right. With a spurt the launch ran up the fine grinding shingle and the bow-men heaved her high. The Chileans handed the ladies out with infinite courtesy and told Stephen that the whole party were their guests: and they had provided a conveyance to take them to an English hotel. This was a curtained sledge for four, with broad wooden runners that slid, more or less, up the brisk, uneven slope, drawn by oxen. The children, though fairly well disciplined and biddable in ordinary life, absolutely refused to get in, but ran by the side or in circles round it.

The hotel might have been an English inn of the better sort in a country town, except for the wild burst of tropical plants in the courtyard; and here, while the women were unpacking, Jack, Harding and Stephen met several naval acquaintances. Stephen's was the surgeon of Pomone, who came over and asked him how he did; they talked for a long while, Jack and the Chileans having moved off to show Sophie, Clarissa and the children the wonders of Funchal. Stephen was fond of this Mr Glover, a most respectable, conscientious medical man; and when, with a certain hesitation, Glover asked, 'Would you think it improper if I were to speak of one of your patients?'

'I would not, in your case,' said Stephen.

'Well, now, I was aboard the Queen Charlotte a little while ago and Sherman asked me to look at the Admiral. I thought him in a very declining way. Sherman agreed: said you had prescribed digitalis... that he and the Admiral had noticed a marked improvement after two or three days: that the patient had increased the dose, and when Sherman protested had said you were a physician and therefore knew more than a mere surgeon. Indeed, he appears either to have confiscated the bottle or to have obtained the substance from another source - here poor Sherman's account was rather confused, though I should say that he at no time criticized your prescription - but at all events the unhappy Admiral must by now have absorbed great quantities. When I saw him and told him that there was grave and very dangerous excess, he was barely lucid.'

'Thank you, dear colleague,' said Stephen. 'I shall write to Lord Stranraer at once, this very hour itself, dissuading him in the strongest possible terms. And I shall send Sherman a note suggesting the tincture of laudanum, to allay the constant anxiety that accompanies such a condition: then shore-leave as soon as possible.'

'Or the grave,' said Glover in a low voice. 'Now will you come and look at my poor captain? He is a straightforward broken leg - tib and fib falling down a hatchway - in the dear nuns' hospital just up the way. It would comfort him, I am sure. And then I must admit it has been going on too long - will not knit. I should value your opinion.'

The Chileans were kind, hospitable, civilized creatures: they knew - it was obvious - that Captain Aubrey and Dr Maturin wished their families to see the island before the packet left for England in a fortnight's time, but they did want to get Jack away to South America as soon as ever they could and they conducted the visit at a speed that reduced even the children to an exhausted silence: two vineyards and an extensive plantation of sugar-cane one morning, the cathedral and the charnel house in the afternoon. The mountains, on mule-back, the next day, with a pause to see the curious buildings in which madeira was matured in a vast barrel at a temperature that would have been considered excessive in the calidarium of a Turkish bath. A mysterious further delight was promised for the next day, and the victims were discussing various schemes of escape as they sat on the hotel terrace, eating a splendid English breakfast and gazmg out over the harbour when Jack saw a xebec with an extraordinary press of sail come tearing in, weave through the moored shipping and race up to the landing-place. A young naval lieutenant in formal uniform leapt out, ran up the strand and vanished in the narrow streets below.

'By God, that fellow was in a hurry,' said Jack, relaxing. 'I was sure he must foul a cable. My dear, pray be so good as to pour me another cup of coffee. I am quite exhausted.'

The coffee crossed the table, gratefully received, but not half of it was drunk before the young lieutenant appeared, gazed about, saw Jack, advanced, whipped off his hat, begged pardon for interrupting Captain Aubrey, but here was a letter from the Admiral.

'Thank you, Mr Adams,' said Jack, who had last seen him as a midshipman. 'Sit down and drink something long and cool while I read this in my room. Forgive me, my dears,' taking the letter and bowing all round.

The letter was from Lord Keith: it was dated Royal Sovereign, at sea 28 February 1815 and it ran

My dear Aubrey,

Tom coxswain tells me that I walked straight past you on Common Hard the other day. I am heartily sorry for it, because it might have looked intentional - might have led to a misunderstanding.

However, a particular friend of yours and of Dr Maturin's at the Admiralty told me where to reach you, so I trust I can put that inadvertence and some other things right: for this is a moment when we have need of good officers.

Napoleon escaped from Elba the day before yesterday. You are to take all His Majesty's ships and vessels at present in Funchal under your command, hoisting your broad pennant in Pomone, and as soon as Briseis joins you will proceed without the loss of a moment to Gibraltar, there to block all exits from the Straits by any craft soever until further notice. And for so doing the enclosed order shall be your warrant.