The Wine-Dark Sea

by Patrick O'Brian

  It was Stephen's custom, particularly when he was walking in a flat country, to turn his face to the zenith every furlong or so, in order not to miss birds soaring above the ordinary range of vision. When he had been walking for an hour he did this again after a longer pause than usual and to his infinite delight he saw no less than twelve condors wheeling and wheeling high in the pale sky between him and Lima. He walked a few paces more, sat on a mile-stone and fixed them with his pocket-glass. No possibility of error: enormous birds: not perhaps as wide as the wandering albatross but more massive by far- a different kind of flight, a different use of the air entirely. Perfect flight, perfect curves: never a movement of those great wings. Round and round, rising and falling, rising and rising still until at the top of their spiral they glided away in a long straight line towards the north-east.

  He walked on with a smile of pure happiness on his face; and presently, just after he had passed a posada where carts and wagons stood under the shade of carob-trees while their drivers drank and rested, he felt his smile return of its own accord: there on the road ahead was a tall black horse carrying a taller, blacker rider at a fine easy trot towards Callao. At the same moment the trot changed to a brisk canter, and a yard from Stephen Sam leapt from the saddle, his own smile still broader.

  They embraced and walked slowly along, each asking the other how he did, the horse gazing into their faces with some curiosity.

  'But tell me, sir, how is the Captain?'

  'His main being is well, thanks be to God - '

  'Thanks be to God.'

  ' - but he had the wad of a pistol in his eye. The bullet itself rebounded from his skull - a certain concussion - a certain passing forgetfulness - no more. But the wad set up an inflammation that had not yet quite yielded to treatment by the time I left him - by the time he ordered me to leave him. And he had a pike-thrust in the upper part of his thigh that is probably healed by now, though I wish I could be assured of it... But before I forget, he sends his love, says he hopes to bring the Franklin, his present ship, into Callao quite soon, and trusts that you will dine with him.'

  'Oh how I hope we shall see him well,' cried Sam. And after a moment, 'But my dear sir, will you not mount? I will hold the stirrup for you; he is a quiet, gentle horse with an easy walk on him.'

  'I will not,' said Stephen, 'though he is the dear kind creature, I am sure,' - stroking the horse's nose. 'Listen: there is a little small shebeen two minutes back along the road. If you are not desperate for time, let you put him up in the shelter there and return to Callao with me. There is nothing to touch walking for conversation. Reflect upon it, my dear: me perched up on this high horse, and he is seventeen hands if he is an inch, calling down to you, and yourself looking up all the while like Toby listening to the Archangel Raphael - edifying, sure, but it would never do.'

  Sam left not only his horse but his black clerical hat, disagreeably hot through the beaver with the sun reaching its height, and they walked along with an agreeable ease. 'There is another thing that the Captain wished to speak to you about,' said Stephen. 'Among other prizes we took a pirate, the Alastor: she is in the port at this moment. Most of her crew were killed in the desperate fighting- it was in this battle that the Captain was hurt - and Captain Pullings has delivered up those who were not to the authorities here; but she also had a few seamen prisoners whom we have set free to go ashore or stay, as they please, and a dozen African slaves, the property, if I may use the word, of the pirates; they were shut up below and they took no part in the fighting. There is no question of their being sold to increase our people's prize-money, since the most influential men in our crew, deeply religious men, are abolitionists, and they carry the others with them.'

  'Bless them."

  'Bless them indeed. But the Captain does not like to turn the black men ashore; he fears they may be taken up and reduced to servitude again: and although he does not feel so strongly about slaves as I do - it is one of the few points on which we differ - he is of opinion that having sailed for even so short a time under the British flag they ipso facto became free, and that it would be an injustice to deprive them of their liberty. He would value your advice.'

  'I honour him for his care of them. Properly vouched for, they may certainly live here in freedom. Have they a trade, at all?'

  'They were being carried from one French sugar-plantation to another when their vessel was taken: as far as I can make out - their French amounts to a few words, no more - that is all the work they understand.'

  'We can find them places here easily enough,' said Sam, waving towards a sea of green cane. 'But it is hard work and ill-paid. Would the Captain not consider keeping them aboard?'

  'He would not. We have only able seamen or highly-skilled tradesmen - the sailmakers, coopers, armourers - and landsmen could never be countenanced in such a vessel as ours. Yet surely even a low wage with freedom is better than no wage and lifelong slavery?'

  'Anything at all is better than slavery,' cried Sam with a surprising degree of passion in so large and calm a man. 'Anything at all - wandering diseased and three parts starved in the mountains, roasted, frozen, naked, hunted by dogs, like the wretched Maroons I sought out in Jamaica.'

  'You too feel very strongly about slavery?'

  'Oh indeed and indeed I do. The West Indies were bad enough, but Brazil was worse by far. As you know, I worked for what seemed an eternity among the black slaves there.'

  'I remember it well. That was one of the many reasons that I looked forward so to seeing you again in Peru.' He looked attentively at Sam; but Sam's mind was still in Brazil and in his deep voice, deeper than Jack's, he went on, 'There may be a tolerable domestic slavery - who has not seen something like it in slave-countries? - but the temptation is always there, the possibility of excess, the latent tyranny, the latent servility; and who is fit to be continually exposed to temptation? On the other hand it seems to me that there is no possibility whatsoever of a tolerable industrial slavery. It rots both sides wholly away. The Portuguese are a kindly, amiable nation, but in their plantations and mines..."

  After a while, the road flowing past them and the river on the right-hand side, Sam checked abruptly and in a hesitant, faltering tone he said, 'Dear Doctor, sir, pray forgive me. Here am I prating away for ever and in a loud voice to you, a man that might be my father. Sure you know all this better than I do, and have reflected on it since before ever I was born: shame on my head.'

  'Not at all, not at all, Sam. I have not a tenth part of your experience. But I know enough to be sure that slavery is totally evil. The early generous revolution in the France of my youth abolished it: Buonaparte brought it back; and he is an evil man - his system is an evil system. Tell me, does the Archbishop feel as you do?"

  'His Grace is a very ancient gentleman. But the Vicar-General, Father O'Higgins, does.'

  'Many of my friends in Ireland and England are abolitionists,' observed Stephen, deciding to go no farther at this point. 'I believe I can make out the Alastor among the shipping to the left of the Dominican church. She is painted black, and she has four masts. That is where we live while the Surprise is being repaired: her knees cause some anxiety, I understand. I look forward to presenting my little girls to you, Sarah and Emily, who are good - well, fairly good - Catholics, though they have barely seen the inside of a church, to showing you the Captain's unhappy, bewildered, half-liberated black men, and to asking your help in housing my patients if the prize is sold from under them before they are quite well. And Sam,' he went on as they entered Callao, 'at some later time when you are free I should very much like to talk to you about the state of public opinion here in Peru: not only about abolition, but about many other things, such as freedom of commerce, representation, independence, and the like.'

  Chapter Seven

  The little girls, stiff with pride and amazement, and fairly soused with holy water, were handed into the carriage after pontifical High Mass in Lima cathedral. They smoothed their white dres
ses, their broad blue Marial sashes and sat quite straight, looking as happy as was consistent with a high degree of pious awe: they had just heard the tremendous voice of an organ for the first time; they had just been blessed by an archbishop in his mitre.

  The crowded steps and pavement thinned; the viceroy's splendid coach rolled away, escorted by guards in blue and scarlet, to his palace fifty yards away; the great square became clearly visible.

  'There in the middle is the splendid fountain of the world,' said Sam.

  'Yes, Father,' they replied.

  'Do you see the water spouting from the top?' asked Stephen.

  'Yes, sir,' they answered, and they ventured no more until they came to Sam's quarters in an arcaded court behind the university, not unlike a quadrangle in one of the smaller Oxford colleges. 'Yes, Father: yes, sir,' was their total response to the news that the fountain was forty foot high, not counting the figure of Fame on the top; that it was surrounded by four and twenty pieces of artillery and sixteen iron chains of unusual weight; that the Casa de la Inquisicion had scarcely a rival but the one in Madrid; that two of the streets through which they passed had been entirely paved with silver ingots to welcome an earlier viceroy; and that because of the frequent earthquakes the upper and sometimes the lower floors of the house were built of wooden frames filled with stout reeds, plastered over and painted stone or brick colour, with appropriate lines to help the illusion - that the great thing to do, in the event of an earthquake, was to open the door: otherwise it might jam and you would be buried under the ruins.

  They grew a little less shy, a little more human, when they were led indoors and fed. Sam's servant Hipolito pleased them by wearing a sash broader than their own but clerical violet; they were delighted to see that the door was indeed kept open by a wedge, and even more so by the discovery of a ludicrous resemblance between Hipolito and Killick - the same look of pinched, shrewish discontent, diffused indignation; the same put-upon air; and the same restless desire to have everything proceed according to his own idea of order - but with this essential difference, that whereas Killick relied on the Captain's cook for all but coffee and the simplest breakfast dishes, Hipolito could provide a capital dinner with no more help than a boy to carry plates. This meal, however, being very early and the guests very young, was as plain as well could be: gazpacho, a dish of fresh anchovies, a paella: with them a little flowery wine from Pisco. Then came fruit, including the Peruvian version of the custard-apple, the chirimoya at its best, of which the little girls ate so greedily that they were obliged to be restrained - so greedily that they could manage few of the little almond cakes that would have ended their feast if they had been allowed to remain. But happily Hipolito had been born old, and neither Sam nor Stephen had any notion of entertaining the young apart from putting volumes of Eusebius on their chairs so that they might dominate their food. Their wine-glasses had been regularly filled; they had as regularly emptied them; and when towards the end of the meal the boy, standing in the doorway, saw fit to make antic gestures behind his master's back they were unable to restrain themselves. Stifled laughter-swelled to uncontrollable giggles - neither could look at the other, still less at the boy in the doorway; and both were rather relieved than otherwise when they were turned out into the quadrangle and told 'to run about and play very quietly, until Jemmy Ducks comes to fetch you in the gig.'

  'I am so sorry, Father,' said Stephen. 'They have never behaved like this before: I should have whipped them had it not been Sunday.'

  'Not at all, not at all, God love you, sir. It would be the world's pity if they were kept to a Carmelite silence - sure a healthy child must laugh from time to time; it would be a dismal existence otherwise. Indeed they were very good, sitting up straight with their napkins held just so.' He passed almond cakes, poured coffee, and went on, 'As for public opinion here in Peru, I should say that there is reasonably strong feeling for independence, particularly as the present Viceroy has made some very unpopular decisions in favour of those born in Spain as opposed to those born here. In some cases it is combined with a desire to see the end of slavery, but I do not think this is so much so as it is in Chile. After all, there are perhaps ten times as many slaves here, and many of the plantations depend entirely on their labour: yet there are many highly-respected, influential men who hate it. I have two friends, two colleagues, who know very much more about the matter than I do: the one is Father O'Higgins, the Vicar-General and my immediate superior - he is very, very kind to me - and the other is Father Inigo Gomez, who lectures on Indian languages in the university. He is descended from one of the great Inca families on his mother's side - you know, I am sure, that there are still many of them, even after the last desperate rising. That is to say, those who were opposed to the rebellious Inca Tupac Amaru; and they still have many followers. Clearly, he understands that side better than any Castillian. Should you like to meet them? They are both abolitionists, but they would do their best to speak without prejudice, I have no doubt at all.'

  The chiming watch in Stephen's fob, so often his conscience before, now warned him once again. He started up and in a low hurried voice he said, 'Listen, Sam, I do not wish to abuse your friends' confidence, far less your own. You must know that I am not only bitterly opposed to slavery but also to the dependence of one country upon another - you may smile, Sam, brought up as you were by Irish missionaries, God be with them - yet I mean the dependence of any country at all upon another; therefore I may be suspected of political, even subversive motives by those in authority. Do not run yourself or your friends into danger; for where those who are called intelligence-agents or their allies are concerned the Inquisition is mildness itself in comparison with those who maintain the established order.' He saw the half-suppressed, not wholly unexpected smile on Sam's face, heard him say, 'Doctor dear, you are beyond measure more candid than the Frenchmen here, the serpents,' and went on, 'But tell me now, Sam, where is the calle de los Mercadores? If it takes ten minutes I shall be twenty minutes late.'

  'If I let you out by the stable door it will be the third on your right hand: and I will give the little girls over to the sailor when he comes with the gig.'

  In spite of his name Pascual de Gayongos was a Catalan, and when by a series of arbitrary questions and answers Stephen had established his identity it was in Catalan that he said, 'I had expected you long, long before this.'

  'I regret it extremely,' said Stephen. 'I was caught up in a particularly interesting conversation. But, my dear sir, does not a long, long time almost border on the excessive for twenty minutes?'

  'I was not speaking of twenty minutes, no, nor of twenty weeks. These funds have been in my hands for an even greater time.'

  'Certainly. Some information about our undertaking had been betrayed to Spain' - Gayongos nodded - 'and it was thought expedient that I should change to another ship, rejoining the Surprise at a stated rendezvous. An intelligent plan, and one that would have caused no great delay; but it did not foresee that this second vessel should be wrecked in a remote part of the East Indies, nor that the inevitable pauses in Java and New South Wales should eat up days, weeks, months that will never return.'

  'And in that period,' said Gayongos in a discontented voice, 'the situation here has changed radically: Chile is now a very much more suitable plan for the enterprise, the whole series of undertakings."

  Stephen looked at him attentively. Gayongos was a big heavy man, well on in middle age; he gave the impression of general greyness and he was over-weight: at this point his fat trembled with passion, fairly well concealed. His commercial dealing had already made him rich: he had nothing to gain and his motives seemed wholly pure, if indeed hatred could be called pure: hatred of the Spaniards for their treatment of Catalonia; hatred of the Revolutionary and Bonapartist French for ravaging the country.

  'Is Government aware of this?' asked Stephen.

  'I have made representations through the usual channels, and I have been told to mind my own bus
iness: the Foreign Office knows best.'

  'I have known the same treatment.' Stephen reflected and went on, 'But at this point I am necessarily bound by my instructions: any alteration must take six months to reach me and those six months, added to the present delay, will see the decay of the whole structure built up here and in Spain. I shall have to do the best I can: yet at the same time I shall endeavour to avoid committing what we have at our disposal until we see some strong probability of success.'

  After a silence Gayongos made a gesture of resignation and said, 'If the Foreign Office were a firm of marine insurers they would be bankrupt within a year. But it must be as you wish, and I shall arrange the agreed meetings, or at least those that are still of any consequence, as soon as possible.'

  'Before we speak of them, be so good as to tell me, very briefly, how the situation has changed.'

  'In the first place General Mendoza is dead. His horse threw him and he was picked up dead. He was one of the most popular men in the army, particularly among the Creoles, and he might well have carried half the officers with him. In the second the Archbishop is now - I hardly like to use the word senile about so good a man and so outspoken an abolitionist: but we are deprived of the full force of his support. In the third place Juan Munoz has returned to Spain, and he has been replaced as far as governmental enquiries, secret service and unavowable activities are concerned by Garcia de Castro, too timid to be equally corrupt and in any event wholly unreliable: clever perhaps but oh so weak - terrified of the new Viceroy, terrified of losing his place. He is not a man to have anything to do with, near or far.'