Book 20 - Blue At The Mizzen

by Patrick O'Brian

  'So she is,' said Jack, following his gaze, and the gaze of all the bargemen. 'So she is: but what a difference the colour makes. I am not sure I should have recognised her.'

  'God love you, sir: I was a boy aboard her, and being she was a packet, they liked her to be kept Navy-fashion, and there ain't a brass handle, knob or bolt I don't know. Watch your stroke there, bow-oar.'

  Jack turned to Stephen, who was watching a flight of pelicans, and said, 'Four craft along, to starboard, there are your friends, I do believe. Our colleagues of the Royal.'

  'Oh,' cried Stephen, 'but they have painted her blue. Could the boat row over, do you think, so that we may hail her?'

  Jack gave the necessary orders and they moved gently across the stream. 'Take care of the paint, you moon-struck bastards,' called an angry voice in Chilean Spanish.

  'Watch out for the paint—do not touch it for your life: by God, it's Maturin! And Aubrey! How very pleasant to see you here, dear colleagues. Pray thread your way through to the wharf, to our other side, which is quite dry, and come aboard. We have some really excellent lemonade.'

  How they talked, how they quaffed the excellent lemonade! The bargemen were dismissed to an eating-house on the open quay a little way along, and the Fellows told of the horrors and delights and discoveries of their respective voyages, several of them talking at once now and then and all as hoarse as toads by the time Jack stood up, begged leave to go and look at the various yards for his wounded tender, and engaged them all to dine aboard Surprise tomorrow. 'And if I may, gentlemen, I will pluck Maturin from your bosoms: he speaks the Spanish, you know, which I do not.'

  'One hears very high opinions of Lopez,' said Dobson. 'And he was certainly most obliging with our paint and a small leak.'

  'It is the second yard on the right as you go up the stream,' said an eminent botanist. 'The first is occupied by the Chilean navy.'

  They got along but slowly, partly because there were several small yards on either side, whereas they had heard of only three, and partly because parties of water-fowl passed overhead, sometimes in great number, and Stephen would come to a stand, cursing the absence of his telescope and trying to make out the birds' nature despite the absence.

  They were approaching yet another quay and Stephen threatened to come to yet another halt as a very lofty flight of long-legged, long-necked crane-like birds came across the sky, when they heard a voice from the other side of the road. 'Aubrey! How glad I am to see you here. Are you looking for Asp?'

  'Lindsay! What a pleasant meeting: it must be years and years since I last saw you.'

  'Yes, indeed,' said Lindsay, walking over: he was wearing a uniform very like that of the Royal Navy, but with rather more lace. 'I dare say you are looking for Asp?'

  'At the moment I am looking for Lopez' yard.'

  'It is just beyond the theatre—but perhaps you do not know the town?'

  'Lord, no. This is the first time I have ever been here, and apart from drinking lemonade with some Fellows of the Royal Society we have done nothing but walk along this quay.'

  'Fellows of the Royal Society? Those men in the former Lisbon packet? I dare say you were very much at sea in that learned company?'

  Their slight acquaintance did not at all warrant this familiar tone and Jack left a distinct pause before he said, 'May I introduce my political adviser, who is also a Fellow? Dr Maturin, Sir David Lindsay.'

  'Your servant, sir,' said Lindsay, somewhat confused. And to Jack, 'Should you like to look at Asp? She is just across the way, in the naval basin.' They crossed, and with increasing confidence Lindsay pointed out the various changes he had made, particularly the lengthening of the deck for more guns a side. Jack had reservations, but he did not utter them, contenting himself with the observation that the Asp must have made a remarkable passage.

  'Good God, yes: but I was in a hurry; and as you know I have never been afraid of cracking on: so I took the Strait. Some people say it is dangerous and prefer to creep round by the Horn; but I don't mind a little danger, and I took the Strait. At one point just after the Second Narrows, when we were very nearly close-hauled, the wind began to back before we were handsomely round the cape and with tears in his eyes the master begged me to put into the sheltered bay. But "No," said I, "in for a penny, in for a pound", and we rounded the point with barely a fathom to spare.'

  'Well done, well done,' said Jack, feeling that it was required of him; and for a while Lindsay stood relishing his feat and murmuring 'In for a penny, in for a pound'. But then one of the circling crane-like birds dropped a turd on his hat: he wiped it fairly clean with a piece of sea-wrack, and then went on in a more matter-of-fact tone, 'I was in a hurry, of course, as you will understand; and I got here in very good time. I have already looked at almost all my bases, almost the whole of my command—Concepción, some of the smaller island places, Talcahuana, and now this. But I must tell you, Aubrey,' he went on, after a significant pause, 'I must tell you that the discipline, sense of order, and indeed elementary cleanliness, to say nothing of seamanship, are not what we could wish: that is one of the many reasons why I am so happy to have a man like you—of your reputation—under my orders.'

  'What you say is particularly kind and flattering,' said Jack after a considering pause and a glance at the wholly impassive Maturin, 'but I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding. As a post-captain on the active list, on detached service, I am under the orders of the Admiralty and of nobody else on earth.'

  Lindsay reddened, and after two false starts he said, 'I am commander-in-chief of the Junta's naval forces, and as such . . .'

  'How do you mean, Junta?'

  'The combination of authorities that make up the Republic.'

  'The republic of the whole country?'

  'The entirety—apart from a few dissident northern bases near the Peruvian frontier that will soon be liberated. And as such,' he went on, resuming his official voice, 'it is within my power to press your men and impound your vessel.'

  'Gentlemen,' said Dr Maturin in a voice that expressed neither authority nor impatience but that did stress the need to speak in a lower, more adult tone and to abandon rhetoric, 'it is surely time to sit in the shade; and although tea can scarcely be hoped for, yet coffee may well be had, or mate. There is an agreeable awning at no great distance.'

  'The gentleman, as I believe I said before, is my political adviser,' observed Jack. Lindsay bowed again, and said that coffee, iced coffee, was indeed to be had under the awning.

  It was with evident relief that they descended from this near crisis and sat in the shade, called for their coffee and talked for a while like ordinary human beings, discussing common acquaintances, the few ships still in commission and the fate of officers, particularly junior officers, flung on shore and living there on half-pay. Then Stephen, having found that Lindsay was somewhat less foolish than he had appeared at an earlier stage, laid out the position (or a chosen part of the position) as it was seen in London. Government was in favour of Chilean independence: it did not much care for some of the members of the southern junta or group of juntas and had not committed itself to anything resembling recognition; it was on better terms with those in the north, and there had been a certain indirect intercourse, a certain understanding. But if any vexation, let alone any violence, were offered to a ship even remotely connected with the Royal Navy, the effects on Chilean independence would be disastrous, disastrous: whereas a more or less tacit co-operation in suppressing Spanish privateering or the like, to say nothing of Peruvian invasion, would have entirely the opposite effect. Sir David was no doubt perfectly aware of Surprise's force, her fighting reputation, her superbly well-trained crew: her prime and ostensible function was hydrographical—above all surveying—but in the course of her activities she might well have many and many a chance of helping the infant republic to full and acknowledged independence. If Sir David would make all these facts clear to the many influential men with whom he was in contact, he would do
both countries a very great service indeed.

  They parted with expressions of good will and assurances on Lindsay's part of the most wholly discreet cooperation in case of need; and when they were separated by a decent stretch of ground Jack said, 'How can that young man have been so bubbled, so wildly deluded, as to think that I had come out to join him? I am deeply puzzled. For as you have observed, he is not altogether a fool: yet he really believed what he was saying. And to believe that even in peace-time a post-captain quite high on the list and not reduced to actual beggary should consent to act in such a wholly unauthorised caper—and to serve under him . . . it passes imagination.'

  'Certainly I can advance not a shadow of official approval or qualified assent, no instant solution, no convincing hypothesis at all. But a line runs—or rather limps, for I do not think I have it right: "Jockey of Norfolk be not so bold, For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." '

  A few yards farther and he said, 'I have had a certain experience of juntas and I must say that quite often those combinations for a common aim bring out the worst in men, they generally having private ends in far greater mass than the common aim. And Jack, it is my belief that you too have been bought and sold, some considerable member of the northern junta that first approached you having defected to the south and having transferred your services, as he might those of a common mercenary, to his new friends. But I speak very much at random and must submit my notions to Jacob's vastly superior local knowledge and connexions. I hope to see him in Santiago: but meanwhile we have done no harm.'

  Chapter Nine

  'My dear Sir Joseph,' wrote Stephen, 'how I wish I had the words to express my admiration at the celerity of your message and at your very particular kindness in sending down to Dorset for as much as the ladies concerned could write while the chaise was turned round. The celerity of course owed a great deal to Mr Bridges' ingenuity together with his profound knowledge of Andean passes, and to the most uncommon physical powers of his Indian runners, but even more to the network of republican Masonic lodges that found us here rather than at our southern port. Yet the kindness was yours alone and I thank you very heartily, enclosing the briefest of all brief replies. Now as for the actual posture of affairs here in Santiago and the rest of Chile, the varying composition of the juntas (roughly one for each considerable stretch of territory) and their convictions, to say nothing of their desire for power, makes any prediction so tentative in my present state of knowledge that it is scarcely worth writing down; yet I will say that O'Higgins, the Supreme Director, appears to be losing popularity, together with San Martín, whereas the Carrera brothers and Martinez de Rozas are certainly increasing theirs. When I have been here a little longer and have spent more time with the invaluable Dr Jacob, I shall send you a more considered, better-informed account of the shifting, almost impenetrable political scene: but for the moment I shall close, if I may, with my sincerest thanks for the increased grant, and a few words on our naval affairs. The first of these words is a little discouraging, since it must state that His Catholic Majesty's heavy frigate, renamed O'Higgins, of no less than fifty guns, is now found to have become wholly unserviceable, through age and decay: and the republican ports are very short of all naval stores. On the other hand, Captain Aubrey and Sir David Lindsay have reached a working agreement: and Surprise is now lying off a small port in Chiloé, which is still held by the royalists, who have a considerable base there as well as two or three of moderate size. But the port in question is a commercial harbour in which a notorious Spanish privateer has taken refuge—a vessel that Surprise means to board and take by night at slack water, so that if the wind should fail, the ebb will bring her out. Aubrey is attended by three republican sloops, which, says he, know nothing of their trade but are pitifully willing to learn: each has an experienced RN master's mate or senior midshipman to help them. And Heaven knows the Republic has a very great and urgent need of sailors who possess at least the rudiments of their calling, when the naval force of Peru is considered, with their thirty-two gun, quite new frigate, others somewhat older but serviceable, several ship-sloops and brigs, manned by a body of competent professional officers and seamen, and commanded, in effect, by a viceroy perfectly loyal to his king and bitterly resentful of the royalist defeat at Chacabuco. The Peruvian army may be discredited, but this most certainly does not apply to the Peruvian navy: and while the Spaniards still hold the southern base of Valdivia and those on the important northern island of Chiloé, the new republic's trade, its sea-borne trade, is in constant danger, and swarms of privateers, under royalist licence or no licence at all, take whatever ships they can overtake and overwhelm.

  'Now until I have the honour of writing more fully, after consultation with Dr Jacob, I shall just append a provisional list of the juntas of which I have personal knowledge, encode the whole, and end, with the utmost gratitude, dear Sir Joseph,

  Your humble, obedient, and most affectionate servant,

  S. Maturin'

  Before encoding the whole, however, S. Maturin looked at the two scraps of paper that had come with Blaine's message: one addressed to him, the other to Jack. Unfolding his own he read, with infinite tenderness, 'from two very close friends at Woolcombe, with their dearest love. Brigid and Christine', but hearing someone at the door, he thrust it secretly into his bosom.

  The sound at the door was of course Jacob: unlike many orthodox Masons he had no strong prejudice against these somewhat irregular republican lodges in Chile; but he did deplore their loquacity.

  'At least,' he said, sitting down heavily and taking snuff, 'I did learn that the younger O'Higgins, the one you were so friendly with in Peru, will be here tomorrow.'

  'Ambrosio? Yes, I did like him, and could wish to see him again. A deadly shot, and a not inconsiderable botanist. Would it be sensible to invite him, do you think?'

  Jacob considered, took more snuff, and said, 'It would be noticed, of course: particularly if we went to Antoine's. But I do not think it would do any harm. Rather the reverse.'

  'Then I shall invite him. Never was a more permeable frontier. We have a reasonable number of agents there, I believe?'

  'Tolerable, tolerable . . . we could certainly do with more.'

  'See if you can find a couple of reasonably intelligent, reasonably truthful men with some nautical experience to keep an eye on the state of naval preparation in Callao. There are rumours of unusual activity. Amos: forgive a personal question, I beg, but do you put crumbled coca-leaves into your snuff?'

  'No. I have more respect for the septum of my nose. I keep to mere tobacco. It is not so good, admittedly; but it revives me after the dreary meetings. And as you see,'—tapping it—'my septum is intact.'

  'Long may it remain so. For my part I prefer to chew, or swallow. In moderation, in moderation, of course. Should you like to cast an eye over my synthesis of your information on the juntas and their political colour?'

  'Certainly.'

  'And I shall encode my piece for Whitehall, and then, with the blessing, we can dine. The day after tomorrow, having seen young O'Higgins, I mean to go down to Valparaiso: Captain Aubrey should be back by then. Will you come?'

  'I had rather stay, if you do not mind. Two or three agents will be coming here from Lima.'

  As Stephen rode down on a fine smooth-paced dapple-grey mare he turned a towering shoulder of rock and there was the ocean before him, an enormous, magnificent sea stretching to the horizon, and beyond the horizon, if his memory served, to China, Krim Tartary and the countries beyond: but here, close at hand—relatively close at hand—was the dear Surprise, unmistakable with her towering thirty-six-gun frigate's mainmast, and accompanied, which was by no means unusual, by a prize, a moderate ship-rigged privateer, now with drooping ears and in her turn accompanied by three republican sloops. These little vessels, though new to the game, knew enough about the ways of the prize-court to remove everything of value aboard, whether it was screwed down or not; and even from this distance they
could be seen swarming over the side with their booty, like a body of ants.

  At this early stage, when the foreigners—and nothing could have been more foreign in Chile than Jack Aubrey, fair-haired, red-faced, massive, his officers and most of the hands—were looked upon as valued, welcome allies, it was a pleasure to walk about Valparaiso, with smiles, bows and cheerful cries—Merry Christmas! Good night!—on every hand, and when he had confided the mare to a stable that she obviously knew and liked, Stephen walked into the Capricorno with a mild satisfaction if not complacency, instantly succeeded by open astonishment as he recognised Dobson and his shipmates sitting at a punch-bowl, all delighted by his surprise. They made him sit down with a variety of delights. 'I had no idea you would be so far north already,' he said.

  'Oh, the Isaac Newton can be induced to go at an astonishing speed; and having a professional master and his mate, who knew her very well on the Lisbon run, we can even sail by night, you know.'

  'There is that amiable young man of the schooner, Mr Reade,' said another Fellow, interrupting his account of a dicotyledonous plant unknown to science. 'Let us be mute, and see his amazement.'

  The amazement reached their highest expectations, and they sat William Reade at the top of the table. 'Tell me, sir,' said Stephen's neighbour in a low voice, nodding towards William's hook, 'does the young gentleman ever feel the effects of electricity, of static electricity?'

  'I do not believe so, sir,' said Stephen. 'But then there is a considerable amount of insulation between the steel and his flesh, you know.' A pause, and he went on, 'I am wonderfully ignorant of the whole subject: is there yet a general theory of electricity—electricity, what it is?'