Post Captain

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Well done, well done! Tell me, Stephen, would you do me a kindness?'

  'I might,' said Stephen, looking shrewish.

  'It is just to shift your brutes into the quarter-gallery. The guns are to fire in the cabin, and perhaps the bang might be bad for them. Besides, I do not want another mutiny on my hands.'

  'Oh, certainly. I shall carry the hive and you shall fix the gimbals. Let us do it at once.'

  When Jack returned, still trembling and with the sweat running down the hollow of his spine, it was time for quarters. The drum beat and the Livelies hurried to their stations in the usual way; but they knew very well that this was no ordinary ritual, not only from the gunner's uncommon activity and knowing looks, but also because Mrs Miller had been desired to step down into the hold, with a midshipman bearing an armful of cushions to show her the way: asked if she minded a bang, had replied, 'Oh no, I love it.'

  The frigate was gliding along half a mile from the shore under topsails alone, so close in that the members of a flock of sheep could be seen on the green grass, surrounding their shepherd as he stared out to sea; and the Livelies were not surprised, after they had been reported present and sober, sir, to hear the order 'Out tompions.'

  Some of the tompions needed a furious heave to get them out, they having sat in the muzzles of their guns for so long, but as the frigate approached the battery guarding the little port of Balbec all the guns were staring at it with their iron eyes wide open. This was a little battery of three twenty-four pounders on an islet outside the creek, and it vanished in its own smoke at extreme range, so that only its immense tri-colour could be seen floating over the cloud.

  'We will fire the guns in succession, Mr Simmons,' said Jack, 'with a half-minute interval between each. I will give the word. Mr Fanning, note down the fall of each shot with the number of the gun.'

  The French gunners were accurate but slow—shorthanded, no doubt. They knocked away the Lively's stern lantern with their third salvo, but they did not do more than make a hole in her maintopsail before the frigate was within the range that Jack had chosen—before he gave the word to fire. The Lively was slow and inaccurate—little notion of independent fire, almost none of elevation. Only one shot from her starboard guns hit the battery at all, and her last gun was followed by a derisive cheer from the land.

  The frigate was coming abreast of the battery, a little over a quarter of a mile away. 'Are those after guns run out, Mr Simmons?' asked Jack. 'Then we will give them a broadside.' As he waited for the long roll, one twenty-four pounder hulled the Lively in the mizzen-chains and another passed over the quarterdeck with a deep howl. He noticed that two of the midshipmen bobbed to the ball and then looked anxiously to see whether he had noticed: they had not been under fire before. 'Fire!' said Jack, and the whole ship erupted in a vast roaring crash, trembling to her keelson. For a moment the smoke blotted out the sun, then raced away to leeward. Jack stretched eagerly over the rail: this was a little better—stones knocked sideways, the flag leaning drunkenly. The Livelies were cheering; but they were not running up their guns with anything like the speed they furled their topsails The minutes dragged by. The battery sent a ball into the Lively's stern. 'Perhaps that was the quarter-gallery,' he thought, with a spurt of hope through his boiling impatience. 'Shiver the maintops'l. Hard a-starboard. Will you get those guns run up, Mr Simmons?' The range was lengthening, drawing out and out. A ball hit the boats on the booms, scattering planks and splinters. 'Port your helm Thus, thus. Fire. Ready about, ready oh!'

  Only two of her shots had gone home, but one of them had silenced a gun, hitting the embrasure fair and square. The Lively came about, fired her larboard guns in succession—the men had their shirts off now—and then a broadside. As she came abreast of the battery for the second time, gliding smoothly up much nearer to and with her carronades ready to join in, the little garrison was seen to be pulling furiously for the shore, all crammed into one small boat, for the other had gone adrift, its painter cut. 'Fire,' said Jack, and the battery leapt in a cloud of dust and chips of stone.

  'How are our boats?' he asked a quarterdeck midshipman.

  'Your gig has been hit, sir. The others are all right.'

  'Cutter away. Mr Dashwood, be so good as to take the cutter, spike up any serviceable guns and carry what is left of the colours to Mrs Miller with the Lively's compliments. And just secure that boat of theirs, will you? Then we shall be all square.'

  The frigate lay gently pitching on the swell while the cutter hurried across the sea and back. There was nothing in the little port except fishing craft: nothing to be done there. 'However,' he said, when the boats were hoisted in, 'the good of the service requires us to batter the battery a little more. Up jib. We really must see if we can do better than four and a half minutes between broadsides, Mr Simmons.'

  To and fro she went, shattering and pulverizing the heap of rubble, the gun-crews very pleased with themselves and plying their pieces with great zeal if not much accuracy.

  By the time she sailed away her practice was a little better, the co-ordination was a trifle nearer what he could wish, and the men were more accustomed to the crash and leap of their deadly charges; but of course it was still pitifully slow.

  'Well, Mr Simmons,' he said to the first lieutenant, who was looking at him with a certain uneasiness, 'that was not bad at all. Number four and seven fired very well. But if we can manage three accurate broadsides in five minutes, then there will be nothing that can stand against us. We must salute every French battery we pass like this—so much more fun than firing at a mark—and our affectionate friends cannot handsomely object. I hope we shall have a little more Channel duty before they send us foreign.'

  He would not have formed this wish if he had known how surprisingly soon it was to be fulfilled. The Lively had not anchored in Spithead before orders came off desiring and directing him to proceed immediately to Plymouth to take charge of a north-bound convoy—Bermuda was off for the next few weeks, perhaps for good. The port admiral's boat also brought a young man from Jack's new agent, bearing a cheque for a hundred and thirty pounds more than Jack had dared hope for, and a letter from General Aubrey announcing his return from St Muryan, the rottenest of all the rotten Cornish boroughs, the property of his friend Mr Polwhele, on the simple platform of Death to the Whigs. 'I have composed my maiden speech,' wrote the General, 'and am to deliver it on Monday. It will dish them completely—such corruption you would not credit, hardly. And I shall deliver another, worse, after the recess, if they do not do something for us. We have bled for our country, and may I be damned if our country shall not bleed for us, moderately.' The moderately was scratched out, and the letter concluded by desiring Jack to enter his little brother's name on the ship's books, 'as it might come in useful, some day.' Jack's face took on a very thoughtful cast; it was not that he disliked the sentiment about bleeding—he was all for it; but he knew his father's notions of discretion, alas. They bundled Mrs Miller ashore, as proud as Pontius Pilate with her piece of flag, and carried on their zigzag course down the Channel against the west and south-west winds, pausing only to celebrate Jack's wealth and General Aubrey's election by beating a battery on the headland of Barfleur into the ground and destroying the semaphore-station at Cap Levi. The frigate spent barrel after barrel of powder and scattered some tons of iron over the French landscape; her gunnery improved remarkably. Next to the pleasure of shooting at a fellow man, the Livelies loved destroying his works; no shooting at the mark at sea could possibly have given them such delight or have increased their zeal a tenth part as much as shooting at the windows of the semaphore-station, with their guns at their utmost elevation. And when at last they hit them, when the glass and frames vanished with a crash, they cheered as though they had sunk a ship of the line; and the whole quarterdeck, including the chaplain, laughed and simpered like a holiday.

  He would not have formed the wish, if he had known that it would mean depriving Stephen of the tropical deligh
ts he had promised, to say nothing of the pleasure of walking about on land himself, unhunted, with never an anxious glance behind, in Madeira, Bermuda or the West Indies, unharassed by any but the French, and perhaps the Spaniards and the yellow fever.

  Yet there it was, formed and fulfilled; and here he was, under the lee of Drake's Island, with Plymouth Hoe on his larboard bow, waiting for the 92nd Foot to get into their transports in Hamoaze: and a long business it would be, judging from their present state of total unpreparedness.

  'Jack,' said Stephen, 'shall you call on Admiral Haddock?'

  'No,' said Jack. 'I shall not. I have sworn not to go ashore, you know.'

  'Sophie and Cecilia are still there,' observed Stephen.

  'Oh,' cried Jack, and took a turn up and down the cabin. 'Stephen,' he said, 'I shall not go. What in God's name have I to offer her? I have thought about it a great deal. It was wrong and selfish in me to pursue her to Bath—I should never have done it; but I was hurried along by my feelings, you know—I did not reflect. What sort of a match am I ? Post, if you like, but up to the ears in debt, and with nothing much in the way of prospects if Melville goes. A chap that goes sneaking and skulking about on land like a pickpocket with the thief takers on his line. No. I am not going to pester her as once I did. And I am not going to tear my heart to pieces again: besides, what can she care for me, after all this?'

  Chapter Fourteen

  'Beg pardon, ma'am, but can you tell me where Miss Williams is?' asked the Admiral's butler. 'There is a gentleman to see her.'

  'She will be down presently,' said Cecilia. 'Who is it?'

  'Dr Maturin, ma'am. He particularly told me to say, Dr Maturin.'

  'Oh, show him in to me, Rowley,' cried Cecilia. 'I'll entertain him. Dear Dr Maturin, how do you do? How come you are here? Oh, I am amazed, I declare! What a splendid thing about Captain Aubrey, the dear man, and the Fanciulla: but to think of the poor Polychrest, all sunk beneath the wave—but you saved your clothes, however, I dare say? Oh, we were so pleased to read the Gazette! Sophie and I held hands and skipped about like lambs in the pink room, roaring out Huzzay, huzzay! Though we were in such a taking—Lord, Dr Maturin, such a taking! We wept and wept, and I was all swollen and horrid for the port admiral's ball, and Sophie would not even go at all, not that she missed much—a very stupid ball, with all the young men stuck in the door and only the old codgers dancing—call that dancing!—by order of rank. I only stood up once. Oh, how we. wept—handkerchiefs all sopping, I do assure you—and of course it is very sad. But she might have thought of us. We shall never be able to hold up our heads again! I think it was very wrong of her—she might have waited until we were married. I think she is a—but I must not say that to you, because I believe you were quite smitten once, ages and ages ago, were you not?'

  'What upset you so?'

  'Why, Diana, of course. Didn't you know? Oh, Lord.'

  'Pray tell me now.'

  'Mama said I was never to mention it. And I never will. But if you promise not to tell, I will whisper it. Di has gone into keeping with that Mr Canning. I thought that would surprise you. Who ever would have guessed it? Mama did not, although she is so amazing wise. She was in a horrid rage—she still is. She says it has quite ruined our chances of a decent marriage, which is such a shame. Not that I mind so much about a decent marriage; but I should not like to be an old maid. That is quite my aversion. Hush, I hear her door closing: she is coming down. I will leave you together, and not play gooseberry. I may not be six foot tall, but at least no one can say I am a gooseberry. You won't tell, will you? Remember, you promised.'

  'Sophie, my dear,' he said, kissing her, 'how do you do? I will answer your questions at once. Jack is made post. We came in that frigate by the little small island. He has an acting command.'

  'Which frigate? Where? Where?'

  'Come,' said Stephen, swivelling the admiral's great brass telescope on its stand. 'There you have him, walking on the quarterdeck in his old nankeen trousers.'

  There in the bright round paced Jack, from the hances to the aftermost carronade and back again.

  'Oh,' she cried, 'he has a bandage on his head. Not—not his poor ears again?' she murmured, focusing the glass.

  'No, no, a mere scalp-wound. Not above a dozen stitches.'

  'Will he not come ashore?' she asked.

  'He will not. What, set foot on land to be arrested for debt? No friend of his but would stop him by force—no woman with any heart of friendship in her would ask it.'

  'No, no. Of course. I was forgetting . . .'

  Each time he turned he glanced up to Mount Edgcumb, to Admiral Haddock's official residence. Their eyes seemed to meet, and she started back.

  'Is it out of focus?' asked Stephen.

  'No, no. It is so prying to look like this—indecent. How is he? I am so very glad that—I am quite confused—everything is so sudden—I had no idea. How is he? And how are you? Dear Stephen, how are you?'

  'I am very well, I thank you.'

  'No, no, you are not. Come, come and sit down at once. Stephen, has Cissy been prattling?'

  'Never mind,' said Stephen, looking aside. 'Tell me, is it true?'

  She could not reply, but sat by him and took his hand.

  'Now listen, honey,' he said, returning the kindness of her clasp.

  'Oh, I beg your pardon,' cried Admiral Haddock, putting his head in at the door and instantly withdrawing.

  'Now listen, honey. The Lively, the frigate, is ordered up-Channel, to the Nore, with these foolish soldiers. She will sail the minute they are ready. You must go aboard this afternoon and ask him to give you a lift to the Downs.'

  'Oh, I could never, never do such a thing. It would be very, very improper. Forward, pushing, bold, improper.'

  'Not at all. With your sister, perfectly proper, the most usual thing in the world. Come now, my dear, start packing your things. It is now or never. He may be in the West Indies next month.'

  'Never. I know you mean so very kindly—you are a darling, Stephen—but a young woman cannot, cannot do such things.'

  'Now I have no time at all, none, acushla,' said Stephen, rising. 'So listen now. Do what I say. Pack your bonnet: go aboard. Now is the time. Now, or there will be three thousand miles of salt unhappy sea between you, and a waste of years.'

  'I am so confused. But I cannot. No, I never will. I cannot. He might not want me.' The tears overflowed: she wrung her handkerchief desperately, shaking her head and murmuring, 'No, no, never.'

  'Good day to you, now, Sophie,' he said. 'How can you be so simple. So missish? Fie Sophie. Where's your courage, girl? Sure, it is the one thing in the world he admires.'

  In his diary he wrote, 'So much wretchedness, misery and squalor I do not believe I have ever seen collected together in one place, as in this town of Plymouth. All the naval ports I have visited have been cold smelly blackguardly places, but for pox-upon-pox this Plymouth bears the bell. Yet the suburb or parasite they call Dock goes even beyond Plymouth, as Sodom outran Gomorrah: I wandered about its dirty lanes, solicited, importuned by its barbarous inhabitants, male, female and epicene, and I came to the poor-house, where the old are kept until they can be buried with some show of decency. The impression of meaningless absolute unhappiness is with me yet. Medicine has brought me acquainted with misery in many forms; I am not squeamish; but for complications of filth, cruelty, and bestial ignorance, that place, with its infirmary, exceeded any thing I have ever seen or imagined. An old man, his wits quite gone, chained in the dark, squatting in his excrement, naked but for a blanket; the idiot children; the whipping. I knew it all; it is nothing new; but in this concentration it overcame me so that I could no longer feel indignation but only a hopeless nausea. It was the merest chance that I kept my appointment with the chaplain to listen to a concert—my feet, more civil than my mind, led me to the place. Curious music, well played, particularly the trumpet: a German composer, one Molter. The music, I believe, had nothing to say, but it
provided a pleasant background of 'cellos and woodwinds and allowed the trumpet to make exquisite sounds—pure colour tearing through this formal elegance. I grope to define a connection that is half clear to me—I once thought that this was music, much as I thought that physical grace and style was virtue; or replaced virtue; or was virtue on another plane. But although the music shifted the current of my thoughts for a while, they are back again today, and I have not the spiritual energy to clarify this or any other position. At home there is a Roman stone I know (I often lay there to listen to my nightjars) with fui non sum non curo carved on it; and there I have felt such a peace, such a tranquillitas animi et indolentia corporis. Home I say, which is singular: yet indeed there is still a glow of hatred for the Spaniards under these indulgent, unmanly ashes—a living attachment to Catalan independence.' He looked out of the cabin window at the water of the Sound, oily, with the nameless filth of Plymouth floating on it, a bloated puppy, and dipped his pen. 'Yet on the other hand, will this glow ever blaze up again, when I think of what they will do with independence? When I let my mind dwell on the vast potentiality for happiness, and our present state? Such potentiality, and so much misery? Hatred the only moving force, a petulant unhappy striving—childhood the only happiness, and that unknowing; then the continual battle that cannot ever possibly be won; a losing fight against ill-health—poverty for nearly all. Life is a long disease with only one termination and its last years are appalling: weak, racked by the stone, rheumatismal pains, senses going, friends, family, occupation gone, a man must pray for imbecility or a heart of stone. All under sentence of death, often ignominious, frequently agonizing: and then the unspeakable levity with which the faint chance of happiness is thrown away for some jealousy, tiff, sullenness, private vanity, mistaken sense of honour, that deadly, weak and silly notion. I am not acute in my perceptions—my whole conduct with Diana proves it—but I would have sworn that Sophie had more bottom; was more straightforward, direct, courageous. Though to be sure, I know the depth of Jack's feeling for her, and perhaps she does not.' He looked up from his page again, straight into her face. It was outside the window, a few feet below him, moving from left to right as the boat pulled round the frigate's stern; she was looking up beyond the cabin window towards the taffrail, with her mouth slightly open and her lip caught behind her upper teeth, with an expression of contained alarm in her immense upturned eyes. Admiral Haddock sat beside her, and Cecilia.