Book 20 - Blue At The Mizzen

by Patrick O'Brian

  But now that he was going down towards the outer batteries, the dockyard and of course the town, the sullen cloud moved to the forefront of his mind, and his spirits sank with the road. In places it had been blasted out of the rock to allow the passage of heavy guns, and in these hollow stretches he was quite sheltered from the breeze and the diffused murmur of the town, though not from its glow, reflected from the high, even cloud.

  He had just settled on a boulder in one of these sheltered corners when he found that he had given Roche the last of his cigars: it was a vexation, but only a moderate one, and it turned his mind back to the soldier's remarks about men being released from strong discipline and their subsequent excess. 'No,' he said. 'The sailor is a different animal.' He stood up, walked on, and turned out of the cutting on to the plain hill-side, and there the breeze brought him the very powerful, perfectly familiar voice of Higgs. 'There ain't no martial law,' cried the sailor, apparently addressing a fair-sized group in the still unfinished eastern end of the Alameda Gardens. 'There ain't no martial law. The war is over. In any case, Surprise ain't a man-of-war no longer, but a surveying vessel. They can't do nothing to us. We've got our money and we can do what we damned well please. There ain't no martial law, and we are free.'

  'Wilkes and liberty,' cried someone, drunker than most.

  'There are merchantmen crying out for hands, weeping for hands. Eight pound a month, all found, free tobacco and prime victuals. I am going home.' A good deal of hallooing followed this, but Higgs' enormous voice drowned it with the cry 'There ain't no martial law. We are not slaves.'

  'We are not slaves,' cried the others, stamping the ground with a rhythmic stress.

  This falling apart of the frigate's crew, this disintegration of a community, was of course the darkness that he had kept back through the dinner and his happy evening with Isobel and Queenie. It could not but have been there, Jack being of the sea briny, deeply aware of its motions and of the motions of those who sailed upon it. He had been conscious of the hands' discontent even before it was formulated: naturally, with the war over, they wanted to go home and have a good time. But he was not going to lose his ship or his voyage if he could help it.

  They were a motley lot, the present Surprises: the Admiral had had to bring her up to war-time strength when Jack was given his squadron, and no captain in his senses was going to hand over his best men: some of the unhappy pressed objects that came across were more fit for a charitable foundation than a man-of-war, but most were of the lower, more stupid, least-skilled kind of seafaring man, good for hauling on a rope, but little else: natural members of the afterguard. Now, however, full of life, full of gin and admiration for Higgs, they were forming up behind him, and within moments they were marching into the town, all bawling 'There ain't no martial law.'

  'Can it be true, Captain Aubrey?' asked a voice just behind him. 'Can it be true that there ain't no martial law?'

  'Mr Wright? How very pleasant to see you. As for the state of the law, in this case as in almost all others, I am profoundly ignorant: but if I were at home, as a magistrate I should feel inclined to read the Riot Act.'

  They walked along behind the seamen: and when the cry about slavery was suddenly cut short by the sight of an immense fire at the crossroads—two whole carts and countless empty barrels—with people dancing round it anti-clockwise—Jack said, 'I know that Maturin would be very sorry not to see you. I cannot invite you to the ship, she having been sadly damaged in a collision. But he and I are to sup together at the Crown, and we should be delighted if you were to join us.'

  'The Crown? Very happy indeed. As it happens I am staying at the George, and I shall have to call in there first . . . and if you will forgive me, sir, this lane takes me to the side courtyard, avoiding the crowded square.'

  'So it does,' said Jack. 'So it does: then shall we say about ten o'clock? Maturin and I will come and fetch you, the streets being so full of people.'

  Jack Aubrey, a tall, solid and even massive figure in his post-captain's uniform—gold epaulettes broaden a man wonderfully, particularly by firelight—made his way easily enough through the revolving throng and pushed on towards the Surveyor's office, where, if he did not find any of the senior officials present, he meant to leave a note: but at the turning into Irish Town his way was blocked by so compact a mass of people and by such an enormous discordant volume of sound that even his sixteen stone could not advance: and very soon he was blocked from behind as well. In the middle there was a furious battle going on, between Canopuses and Maltas as far as he could make out, while on the right hand a determined body of seamen were breaking into a large wine-shop defended by an equally determined body of well-armed guards; while over on the far side it was clear that a brothel—quite a well-known brothel—had been taken by storm, and its naked inhabitants were trying to escape over the roof, pursued by yet more determined sailors.

  Standing there, wedged, unable to advance or retreat, coughing with the smoke of various fires, he reflected on his hitherto conviction that soldiers and sailors were, upon the whole, quite different creatures. 'And perhaps they are, too: yet perhaps drink, in very large quantities, may make the difference less evident.'

  At this moment a heart-stirring blast of trumpets away on the right cut through the animal bawling and shrieking in the middle and within minutes a large, perfectly disciplined and resolute body of troops with fixed bayonets emerged at the double from three streets, clearing the place with wonderful speed and efficiency: they were followed by mere constables and the like, who seized obvious malefactors and dragged them, bound, to a mule-cart used for night-soil.

  Jack walked across the silent square, saluted now and then by soldiers: blessed ordinariness seemed to have descended upon Gibraltar (though there were still distant fires and what was probably far thunder rather than a raging mob) and it became almost perfect when the few porters and junior clerks in the Surveyor's office declared that none of the higher officials had been in the building for the last three hours. A fine ordinariness in the hospital, too, where Jack sat on a bench outside, drinking an iced mixture of wine, orange and lemon juice through a straw and watching Arcturus growing clearer every minute.

  'Oh Jack, how I hope you have not been waiting long. The infernal whores never told me you were there, and I have been exchanging the smallest of small talk this age and more. Brother, you are low in your spirits.'

  'Yes, I am. I had a delightful dinner—dear old Mr Wright was there: we are to fetch him at the George this evening to sup with us—and a Colonel Roche, one of Wellington's ADCs, gave me such an account of the battle—how I wish you had heard him. But as I walked back I came close to a bunch of Surprises: and I tell you what it is, Stephen—the Surprises as a ship's company no longer exist: I fear the new drafts and above all this ill-timed and excessive prize-money have destroyed it. How I wish our Marines had not been taken from us.' He fell silent. Then after a while he said, 'I had thought of speaking to the officers and asking each how many in his division he could count on. I had thought of mustering the people and telling those who wished to carry on with me to move over to the starboard rail, the others to larboard. I thought of many things: but the position in naval and civil law as far as Surprise is concerned, and my powers aboard her, is deeply obscure and I shall do nothing before I have spoken to Lord Keith tomorrow morning.'

  'I am sure that is wise,' said Stephen, seeing that Jack did not intend to go on. 'The law is a terrible thing to be entangled with. I shall rejoice in Mr Wright's company, however. We fetch him at the George, I believe you said?'

  'Yes: and I shall take Killick and Grimble to protect him from the press.'

  But at the George the people of the house stood aghast. 'You are a doctor, sir, I believe?' asked Mrs Webber. Stephen agreed. 'Then please would you step up and see him? The poor old gentleman was knocked down and robbed by three drunken sailors at our very door. Webber took a horse-pistol to one, but it would not fire. Still, our men did brin
g him in and carry him up. This way, sir, if you would be so kind.'

  When Stephen came down again he said, in answer to Jack's enquiring look, 'A few bruises and a grazed elbow, but nothing broken, I am happy to say. But for a very aged man, the emotional, the spiritual disturbance is almost the equivalent of a broken limb for a lively youth. Yes: he is certainly over eighty—he was elected to the Royal before either of us was breeched—and the ancient, when they are not wholly self-absorbed . . .'

  Killick stood swaying in the doorway, but seeing that the Doctor was not likely to stop for some time, he burst in with 'Which Mrs Webber says would the old gentleman like a little thin gruel? A caudle?' His voice was heavy and slurred, but a sense of what was proper in a post-captain's steward kept him more or less upright, and when he had received and understood Stephen's reply, he said, 'Then I shall tell Grimble to cut along to the Crown and call for your supper to be set on table in half an hour: which I must go and fetch your clean nightshirts.'

  The Surprises, their ship being barely habitable, were scattered about the town, most of the officers at the Crown, the master's mates and the superior warrant-officers at the Blue Boar, while the greater part of the ship's company were lodged in a disused set of barracks, food and beer being supplied by the dockyard in exchange for stores removed from the frigate—'Nothing for nothing, and precious little for fourpence' being the invariable doctrine of the Victualling Office—barracks that were guarded with a certain amount of pomp in front, but whose laundry and sculleries opened on to a squalid lane.

  The Crown, however, being a civilized place where Jack had often stayed when he was in funds—a place that provided him and Stephen with a handsome parlour and with a bedroom apiece—was not at all unlike a ship, so that it came quite naturally to Captain Aubrey to invite two of his officers to breakfast with him, Harding, the first lieutenant, and Whewell, the third. From about two in the morning the town had been, and still was, almost preternaturally silent: all hands had slept well after an extremely trying day, and now all hands were laying into their breakfast with a splendid zeal.

  'May I trouble you again for the sausages, Mr Whewell?' asked Jack; and, taking the dish, 'Good morning, Mr Somers. Will you join us?'

  'Good morning, sir,' said the distressed young man. 'I am very sorry to trouble you—very sorry to bring such wretched news—but I am afraid most of the hands have deserted.' He had seen all the men except those granted shore-leave into their hammocks at lights out: he had spoken to the responsible bosun's mates and quartermasters, and he had left proper orders with the sergeant commanding the soldiers at the outer gate. There were still a couple of score old Surprises in the barracks: they complained bitterly of the dockyard food, but they knew nothing about their shipmates' disappearance: nothing whatsoever.

  'They have probably gone over the Lines into Spain,' said Jack. 'Many of them would venture upon it for a passage home. Sit down, Mr Somers, and take at least a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. I shall send to the Convent—their people are almost certain to have news of the deserters. And Mr Harding, please arrange for a muster aboard at noon. Now, if you will forgive me, I must go and pay an early morning call on the Admiral.'

  The Admiral in question was not Barmouth, who, though civil, was neither very well inclined nor, in matters of this sort, with their odd, ambiguous responsibilities, a fount of wisdom: not Barmouth, but Lord Keith, Jack's friend from very early days and a man of immense naval and administrative experience.

  It was at Keith's door that he knocked, therefore, and the anxious, downcast servant (an old acquaintance) showed him into the breakfast-room, where Queenie was sitting, mechanically dipping into a bowl of porridge. 'Oh Jack,' she cried, 'such wretched news from Tullyallan . . .'

  Tullyallan was a very considerable estate in Scotland belonging to the Admiral—an estate he prized extremely—and it appeared that the factor who looked after it, a man with very wide powers and responsibilities, had made the most of them, absconding with a very large sum of money and leaving Tullyallan in debt and heavily encumbered. 'I have never seen Keith so affected,' said Queenie. 'It is as though he had been struck by a disease . . . he sits there writing letters as fast as his pen can fly, and then tearing them up. But I shall tell him you called, dear Jack.'

  Returning, hot and tired from his bitterly disappointing walk under a sun blazing from very near the zenith—a broadcloth uniform coat a prison rather than a protection—returning as ignorant of his exact legal status and powers as when he set out—Captain Aubrey found Stephen and Dr Jacob sitting on the Crown's veranda, smoking a hubble-bubble. Both Stephen and Jack were used to Jacob's sudden appearances and disappearances: Jack put it down to his being a naturalist as well as a medical man—he had once found Jacob gazing with affection at a remarkably fine plant of henbane, whose qualities he explained with much the same vigour and with an approval almost amounting to enthusiasm as Stephen might have used—a naturalist who could come and go as he pleased.

  'How happy I am to see you, Dr Jacob; I trust you are tolerably recovered?'

  'Perfectly recovered, I thank you: a mere blood-letting, sir.'

  'I am heartily glad of it,' he said, sitting wearily down on the step. 'I dare say Maturin has told you of our misfortune?'

  'Yes, sir: and I told him where they had gone.'

  'Over the Lines, I suppose?'

  'No, sir: they traversed the entire Rock and dropped down to Catalan Bay, where the fishermen packed them all into three boats and took them across to the Spanish shore under San Roque and there landed them. It cost two and a half ounces of silver each.'

  'Pray, how did you find out?'

  'Why, I asked a fisherman, sir.'

  'Sir,' said Harding, 'forgive me for interrupting, but the muster you called for will take place at noon, if that is convenient.'

  'Perfectly convenient. Make it so, Mr Harding: and if you pass by the bar, please ask them to bring a jug of very cold sangria, with at least four glasses.'

  The muster was not a very cheerful occasion, to be sure—the inevitable first name to be called was answered by a heavy, embarrassed silence, and a capital R was placed by Anderson's name, R for run, one of the very few deserters Jack had known as a commanding officer—but he had not asked for numbers, and judging by his officers' tone he had expected things to be much worse. Most of the old and valuable Surprises were there: he greeted each by name—'Well, Joe, and how are you coming along?' 'Davies, I am happy to see you; but you must take that head of yours to the Doctor'—and they answered with such evident and personal good will that it cancelled the absence of many a good seaman, to say nothing of waisters and members of the afterguard.

  This oddly heartening muster took place aboard a docked ship, her bows in an impossible position to allow carpenters—hypothetical carpenters—to deal with some of the sprung butts; and it ended with Harding's most agreeable words, 'Sir, Mr Daniel tells me that Ringle has just made her number.'

  'I am very glad to hear it,' said Jack. 'Mr Reade will no doubt have a message for Lord Keith: please leave word that when he has delivered it, I should be happy if he would dine with me. In the meantime, let us look at the wreck of the bows with Chips.'

  There they stood, or rather crouched, right forward and what ordinarily would have been far below: by now their eyes were used to the darkness, and by what light the lanterns could be induced to shed they gazed at the breast-hooks—at the horrible gashes round the breast-hooks—and sighed. 'Listen, Chips,' said Jack to the carpenter, 'I think you know perfectly well that the yard is going to do nothing to all this for a long, long time. Have any of your fellow-carpenters on the commercial side both the timber and the skill to allow us to put to sea and creep to Funchal, to da Souza's place?'

  'Well, sir,' said the carpenter, 'I do know a little firm of private shipwrights just below Rosia Bay—I sailed as mate with the top man once, and the other day he showed me some lovely wood in his yard. But they are what you might call carriage
-trade, and very expensive. And to do anything here, in the royal yard, they would have to come surreptitious, and sweeten many a palm.'

  'Can you give me any sort of a figure?'

  'It would not be less than ten guineas a day, I am afraid; and the wood on top.'

  'Well, Chips, pray lay it on,' said Jack. 'And pray tell your friends that they shall have a handsome present if upon their conscience we can swim before the new moon.'

  He and Stephen left the ship and walked along the mole, gazing eastward at the white spread of Ringle's sails as she beat against the wind, making good progress; and in this total privacy Jack said, 'I think I have made up my mind. It is very probable that Chips's friends will patch her up well enough for us to hope to reach Madeira and a pretty good yard, which should see us home.'

  'Home, brother?'

  'Why, yes: to Seppings' yard in the first place, the best yard in the kingdom, that practically rebuilt her. And in the second place, to gather an adequate crew, a crew of real seamen. Our South American caper absolutely calls for a strong crew, even without paying any attention to our engagements with the Chileans. Surveying, really surveying these coasts—but then you know about the weather and the tides of the Horn—requires truly able seamen aboard the surveyor's ship.'

  'It was the world's pity that those wretched fellows ran off.'

  'Yes, it was: by the time we had rounded the Horn, the bosun and his mates, to say nothing of the officers' efforts and my own, might have turned the rag-tag and bob-tail half into something like real seamen. I do not really blame them, however. We had nothing much to offer them except for hard work, short commons and hard lying—no possibility of prizes and no home leave. It is true that once even indifferent seafarers are no longer in demand—which will be in a month or two—and once their money is spent, which is likely to be sooner by far, a berth in Surprise might be something to be envied. But as far as we are concerned, I am pretty sure of being able to pick up enough truly able-bodied seamen paid off from King's ships with the corning of peace to form a strong crew, capable of fighting the ship. At present we can handle her with those good souls who have stayed, but we could not fight her. You do not seem quite happy, brother?'