Book 20 - Blue At The Mizzen

by Patrick O'Brian

  With all its disadvantages of close quarters, lack of privacy, and desperate shortage of post, to say nothing of books, newspapers, magazines, it was indeed a return to order, to that unquestioned order so absent in life, above all urban life ashore. In a very little while they might have been back in a sea-going monastic order—monastic, but for the shocking prevalence of pox in its dismal varieties that kept Stephen, and at a certain remove his loblolly girl, so busy.

  How quickly the old train of life, ruled by bells and pipes, the swabbing of decks, by quarters, lights out, the cry of sentinels and all the rest came back—all the rest including an excellent appetite, particularly among the young, who, when invited to the captain's breakfast-table (which often happened if they had had the morning watch) would eat four eggs without a blush and then finish whatever happened to be in the bacon-dish. Good appetites, together with a longing for a change of diet and, among the older seamen, a dread of running out of stores, so that now, when they had scarcely sunk the high land behind Rabat, they cheered the foretopmast look-out when he hailed the quarterdeck with the news of a body of tunny-fishers standing along the Moroccan coast; and when the Captain altered course to meet the boats even the grizzled old fo'c'sle hands capered like lambs on a summer's green.

  Here the Surprise bought a fine great fish, still quivering, hoisted him aboard, cut him up on the fo'c'sle, carried the massive pieces to the galley in tubs, washed the red blood off the deck, swabbed and flogged it dry, and ate an improbable amount for dinner. A very great deal: yet even so, the wind veering northerly, they were still eating him for supper the next day, officers, men, boys, and the few women they were allowed, such as Poll Skeeping and Maggie Tyler the bosun's wife's sister, eating him steadily with active pleasure and what little Gibraltar beer they still had aboard, when the cry came down from the starving masthead: 'On deck, there, on deck. Land very fine on the starboard bow. Sort of reddish, like,' he added in an undertone.

  'I believe that must be our landfall almost to the minute,' said Jack, looking at his watch with great satisfaction.

  A brief-lived satisfaction, however, for when they cut their meal short, carrying coffee up on to the quarterdeck, they found the whole gun-room and most of the midshipmen's berth already there. On seeing their Captain, the officers cast a guilty look aft and sidled forward along the starboard gangway. Only Harding, as in duty bound, remained. 'It may not be as bad as it looks, sir,' he said.

  It did indeed look bad: very bad. The 'sort of reddish' was now a great crimson blaze all along that part of the town where ships were built, including Coelho's famous yard: a great blaze with huge flames soaring and even cracking off to soar alone.

  The ebbing tide and falling wind kept the frigate well off shore until first light, when it was already apparent that the fire was growing sullen. At slack water the breeze revived a little and they stood on, pumps and fire-hoses ready. But it was clear that the townsmen had the upper hand, and there was nothing that strangers could do but keep out of the way until ordinary life resumed; if, indeed, it ever did. There was scarcely a man aboard Surprise who had not seen a dockyard, a ship-building yard, ablaze, together with all its stores of timber, its rigging-lofts and all the vessels on the stocks: but this outdid anything the Adriatic or the Aegean had had to offer on their last campaign.

  After a silent breakfast, with all hands gazing at the blackened ruins and the vessels burnt to the water-line, with smoke still rising over all, they approached the good holding-ground where they usually checked their way with a kedge in order to salute the castle handsomely, broadside on.

  The castle already had its colours flying, still, as Jack noticed with the British next to the Portuguese; but the gunners within, presumably exhausted from their night's labours, could not gather their wits to return the civility for close on five minutes; and during this time a small, dirty, unofficial boat put off and pulled for the frigate. A very thin young man, in what could still just be described as naval uniform, came up the side, and taking off his hat to Captain Aubrey, said in a fluting, intensely nervous voice, 'Wantage, sir: come aboard, if you please.'

  'Mr Wantage,' said Jack, looking attentively into his face, in part familiar, yet strangely altered. 'There is an R against your name.' The young man, a master's mate, had not responded to the ship's repeated signals, and she had left Funchal without him. It was known among his shipmates that he was much attached to a shepherdess in the hills, and his absence was attributed to this liaison.

  'Yes, sir. But it was not my fault. A gang of men took me far into the mountains and kept me shut up. They beat me every Sunday, taking turns, until a monk said it was hardly right. And they were very cruel to me, sir: they cut me.'

  Certainly he was very much reduced: and very deeply embarrassed. Most of those aboard had some knowledge of the countryside, some acquaintance with the practices of shepherds; and they were aware of his present condition.

  'Pass the word for Mr Daniel,' said Jack: and two moments later, 'Mr Daniel, here is a colleague for you, Algernon Wantage, master's mate, who was detained in the mountains when the ship was called to Gibraltar, but who has now rejoined. Take him below, show him the new members of the berth, remind them of his seniority, and make him as comfortable as our limited space allows.'

  'Yes, sir,' said the one, and 'Thank you, sir,' said the other.

  'And now I come to think of it, Mr Wantage,' he called after them, 'I believe we carried off your sea-chest and other belongings. Jason, tell one of the holders to rouse them out. Mr Harding, as soon as I have paid my duty-call on His Excellency, I believe we must talk to the port-captain. Doctor, you will be so very kind as to interpret for us, as you did before?'

  Stephen bowed: but when they had put on formal clothes he said, 'Interpret, is it? As I told you before I do not speak—not as who should say speak—Portuguese. Still less do I understand the language when it is spoke. No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese, without he is a native or brought up to comprehend that strange blurred muffled indistinct utterance from a very early, almost toothless, age. Anyone with a handful of Latin—even Spanish or Catalan—can read it without much difficulty but to comprehend even the drift of the colloquial, the rapidly muttered version . . .'

  The captain of the port, however, was a master of the lingua franca spoken over most of the Mediterranean and even beyond, as well as the archaic Catalan still current in his mother's part of Sardinia, and it took him very little time indeed to destroy Jack Aubrey's hopes entirely, speaking with the utmost loquacity, sometimes in one language, sometimes in the other—the different versions each shedding a dismal light on the other. He addressed himself entirely to Stephen, but at the same time he gazed upon Jack with unfeigned astonishment and concern. 'Had not the gentleman seen with his own eyes that Coelho's yard, the glory of Funchal, of Madeira, of the western world, was utterly destroyed? That there was not another in the whole island to be mentioned in the same breath? And that even Carteiro's could not possibly accommodate anything above a hundred and twenty tons?' The captain of the port shook his saddened head. He called for madeira of the famous year 1775, and when they had drunk a couple of glasses each, he observed in a gentle side-voice directed at Dr Maturin, though his eyes still dwelt upon Jack, that 'he wondered where the gentleman had been in his youth, and during all the years since then, not to know that at this time of the year there was not a seaman in Madeira, with two hands and both legs, to be had. The fleets bound for both the Indies, East and West, had sailed a little early, because of Nostradamus; and all who did not go with them were on the Banks for cod or in the tunny-boats along the African shore. And even the few odd remaining cripples could not possibly be tempted by a hydrographical voyage to survey the Horn and its terrible passages, with no possibility of taking a prize.'

  Here Stephen did his discreet best to convey the notion that, in certain circumstances, prizes might not be altogether out of the question. 'After all, there were always, or at
least very often, pirates—legitimate quarry—beyond the Straits of Magellan.'

  'Oh, certainly,' replied the port captain. 'Prizes on the far side of the world. Beyond the Straits of Magellan: but, my dear sir,' he added with civil triumph, 'you will remember what happened to Magellan himself.'

  'Indeed,' said Stephen, 'and how I regret that great man's untimely death. But I clearly see that I shall have to disillusion my superior officer: allow me to thank you however for your luminous, wholly convincing statement of the position, and to beg your acceptance of these few pairs of English worsted stockings.'

  'Well,' said Jack, as they walked through the unburnt part of the town—some streets slightly charred on the left-hand side, but no outright ruin—'I suppose there is no help for it: but it was a damned unlucky stroke, the Indies fleets going off like that. Who is this Nostradamus?'

  'Oh, a sort of prophet, like our Old Moore; but not quite so wise. May I ask whether you have made up your mind what to do?'

  'Oh yes: I have no doubt of it. I should have liked some new breast-hooks here, in Coelho's yard, and some more diagonal bracing; but I am reasonably sure that Surprise will carry us back to Seppings' yard for an overhaul that will allow us to face the Horn without terror: at least without absolutely paralysing terror. And that, after all, is what I had wanted from the start.'

  After a while, Stephen, speaking hesitantly, said, 'My dear, have you reflected upon mainland Portugal and Atlantic Spain, with their famous ports, and shipwrights who turned out such beautiful vessels as the Santa Ana, which Nelson himself so much admired?'

  'Yes,' said Jack. 'Harding and I turned the matter over before ever we shaped our course for Funchal: at the time the wind would have served for either, whereas now it is awkwardly east for the main. Yet I am sure our choice of Funchal would have been perfect, but for that infernal blaze. Certainly the Spaniards can build a noble first-rate, noble ships of the line; but they are not so happy with frigates, and in any event I do not think that a small English hydrographical vessel would be really welcome in a Spanish yard, nor very briskly attended to. And as for crew, I should not care for so large a proportion of Spaniards: there has been too much ill-feeling for too long. Whereas the Portuguese, in my experience, are just as good seamen, and kinder, less likely to fly into a passion. More easy-going, if you understand me. And then again, Funchal was accustomed to moderate-sized ocean-going yachts, vessels quite like the Surprise: which is not the case in Vigo, nor at the Groyne. No. What I think is the clever thing for us to do is to lie here for a few days while Chips, who knows the town well, will see if he can find some prime timber in the outlying stores, and if he can, to bring some master-shipwrights—there will be many, many out of employ at the present, poor souls—and set them to work on our bows. Then hey for Seppings' yard, a thorough overhaul, and a full crew of right West-country seamen . . .' He would have added 'and England, home and beauty, of course,' but for the fear that the mention of the first two might bring the third into Stephen's mind and wound him cruelly: his expression was already far from cheerful.

  In fact the sombre look was caused by his knowledge of the extreme impatience of any revolutionary force and by his persuasion that if they did not come to a solid agreement with the Chileans they knew, having met them by appointment in this very town, an agreement with set dates, undertakings and statement of forces in being and above all if they did not make an appearance in their well-armed hydrographical ship—these first Chileans might lose faith, might let their impatience overcome them, or—another strong probability—might be superseded by some new, even more enthusiastic and impatient body, with even less knowledge of the facts. All this amounted to little more than a presentiment: a somewhat more informed presentiment than most, but certainly nothing to be set against the considered opinion of two experienced sea-officers.

  They walked along, each deep in his own thoughts, passing through the sad, dirty, worn-out people on either side, many of whom had obviously toiled all night: no gaiety whatsoever, so that the hoots of silly laughter at the far end of the street seemed more than usually offensive. Hoots of laughter, then another imitation of a man's falsetto, and hoots again. The crowd cleared somewhat and Jack saw that the imitator was the heaviest, hairiest, most pimpled of his new midshipmen, Store, accompanied by the admiring smallest, a first-voyager called Shepherd. For the sake of his father, a former shipmate, Jack had invited Store to dinner and had been surprised by his uncouth, silent barbarity, until he remembered that Admiral Store—Rear-Admiral Sir Harry Store, to be exact—had spent almost the whole of the war on the Indian and South African stations. At present it was obvious that the reefers were following Wantage and a carpenter's mate, some fifty yards ahead, and openly mocking them. He called out in his strong, sea-going voice. The tall youth turned, looking guilty, ashamed, defiant: he made his unsteady way back accompanied by the little one, but at least he had wit enough to stand up straight and pull off his hat. 'Who gave you leave to come ashore?' asked Jack.

  'Mr Harding, sir,' they said in unison.

  'Go back to him at the double and tell him that on my orders you are to go to the foremast head and Mr Shepherd to the mizzen, there to stay until I return.'

  Wantage had stopped short on hearing Captain Aubrey's hail, and now that the midshipmen were running off he came up. 'What is your errand, Mr Wantage?' asked Jack.

  'Sir, the carpenter asked me to go along with his mate'—the mate touched his forehead with a knuckle—'and cheapen some pieces of dragon-wood for him.'

  'You speak the Portuguese, I collect?'

  'Yes, sir: my father was a wine-merchant here in Funchal, and I used to come and stay with my grandmother.'

  'That is a capital accomplishment, to be sure. I shall call upon you, if I may, when the ship needs an interpreter. I hope you are successful in your bargaining: but do not stick for a dollar or two—the ship comes first. Good day to you.'

  He returned their salute, and after a pause he went on to Stephen, 'There is your point to the very life. Wantage may not be a Newton or a Halley or a Cook—how I honour that man!—but he did have a Portuguese grandmother, when he was a little fellow, and now he has the Portuguese, ha, ha, ha! And to think I never knew it.'

  'Perhaps you never asked,' said Stephen, somewhat put out.

  'On the other hand, that might have been his loss too. Without the Portuguese he could never have cuckolded the shepherd. But I must not speak lightly of serious things . . . I shall have a word with Harding.'

  Back to the ship—the ceremony of boarding her—to the great cabin, and the word passing for the first lieutenant.

  'Mr Harding, pray take a seat. May I offer you a glass of Madeira?'

  Harding bowed his agreement, and having drunk a sip, he said, 'Capital Madeira, sir, capital.'

  'It is pretty good, is it not, though I say it myself: but where can you get capital Madeira if not in Funchal itself?' They drank in a grave, considering way, and refilling their glasses Jack went on, 'But I tell you this, Mr Harding, our midshipmen's berth is not what it should be.'

  'No, sir: it is not.'

  'I watched them on the way from Gibraltar. The newcomers have no idea of their duty and except for the little fellow, the first-voyager, no wish to learn it. But what really angered me extremely was Store's conduct ashore. He followed that poor unfortunate Wantage, crowing like a cock in an affected eunuch's voice. For God's sake, a gentleman's son behaving so in public! I have told him very clearly that if he ever ventures upon such a caper again I shall first have him made fast to a gun and beat him very hard indeed and then put him ashore at the nearest port, in whatever country it may be. I think that has calmed him for the moment: but he is a thoroughly undesirable influence on the mere boys, and since we cannot inflict him on the gunner, I believe we must return to the old way of asking him to look after youngsters, which will leave Daniel, Salmon, Adams—who must be thirty-odd—and Soames to keep Store in order: to say nothing of poor Wantage, who m
ust make the wretched fellow anxious.'

  'I quite agree, sir. You would not consider putting him ashore here?'

  'No. I did think of it; but his father and I were shipmates. Yet at the very first hint of a repetition, out he goes. You and the bosun and the bosun's mates must keep him very busy—he cannot even manage a clove-hitch. And whenever he presumes to start a seaman with fist, foot or rope-end let him go straight to the masthead. In any case, if we re-commission in England after the repair, I very much doubt that I shall invite him to come with us.'

  'Stephen,' he said much later, when they had finished their rather dull game of piquet—not a really interesting hand since the very first deal, and only fourpence won or lost—and they were sitting at their ease, drinking Madeira, 'I rarely, or tolerably rarely, bore you with the miseries of command: a good ship, a happy ship—and the two are much the same—pretty well runs herself, once all the people are settled down, above all if they are mostly old man-of-war's men.'