Book 8 - The Ionian Mission

by Patrick O'Brian

  'You have often mentioned it,' said Stephen.

  'Well now,' said Jack, 'consider one line of battle to windward and another to leeward. It is clear that the ships to windward, those that have the weather-gage, can force the action and decide when it shall take place. They can bear down when they choose; and then again their smoke, going to leeward before them, hides them, which is a great point when you come within musket-shot. You may say that with a heavy sea running and a close-reefed topsail breeze the windward ships cannot easily open their lower gun-ports as they come down, because they heel so; and that is profoundly true: but then on the other hand the squadron that has the weather-gage can break the enemy's line!'

  'I am sure he can,' said Stephen.

  'For example, the Admiral could order every other ship to pass through and so double up the Frenchman's van, two of ours engaging each one of his on either side, destroying or taking them before his rear division can come up, and then serving them the same way—not a single one to be left unsunk, unburnt, untaken! And you would fling all this away just for the satisfaction of being there first? It is rank treason.'

  'I only threw out the remark,' said Stephen. 'I am no great naval strategist.'

  'Sometimes I wonder whether you have really grasped that it is the wind alone that moves us. You have often suggested that we should charge to the right or the left as the case might be, just as though we were flaming cavalry, and could go where we chose. I wonder you have not improved your time at sea better; you have, after all, seen a certain amount of action.'

  'It may be that my genius, though liberal, is more of the land-borne kind. But you are also to consider, that whenever there is a battle, I am required to stay below stairs.'

  'Yes,' said Jack, shaking his head, 'it is very unfortunate, very unfortunate indeed,' and in a gentler tone he asked whether Stephen would like to hear of a battle, ideal in all its stages—remote approach, inception, prosecution, and termination—the kind of battle the squadron might engage in tomorrow if the Admiral had guessed right about the Frenchmen's direction and if the wind remained true—'for you must understand that everything, everything at sea depends on the wind.'

  'I am fully persuaded of it, my dear; and should be happy to hear of our ideal encounter with Monsieur Emeriau.'

  'Well then, let us suppose that the wind holds true and that we have calculated our course and our speed correctly—I may say that Mr Gill and I came to the same answer independently, give or take two miles—and that we have done the same for the French, which is probable, since they have two or three dull sailers with them, Robuste, Borée and maybe Lion, whose performance we know very well; and their squadron can sail no faster than the slowest. So we stand on all night in this loose formation, keeping our eyes fixed most religiously upon the Admiral's toplight when he hoists it; then at first light one of the frigates out ahead, and I do hope it will be dear Surprise—look, she is moving up to take her station now. She refitted at Cadiz, and they did wonders for her—brand-new knees, stringers, cant-pieces . . . how she flies.'

  'She seems to be coming dangerously close to us,' observed Stephen, having stared for a while.

  'I dare say Latham has thought of something witty to say about our hawsers and the Irish pennants. He has been peering at us through his glass this last hour and more, and cackling with his officers,' said Jack. 'Lord, how he does crack on! She must be making a clear thirteen knots off the reel—look at the feather she throws, Stephen.' He gazed fondly at his old command as she came racing through the gloom, all white sails, white bow-wave, white wake against the greyness; but the look of loving admiration vanished when she drew alongside, taking the wind out of the Worcester's sails and checking her pace with a started sheet just long enough for Captain Latham to make an offer of his bosun's services, in case Worcester should wish to deal with all those Irish pennants.

  'From the look of your rigging, I should never have thought you had a single seaman aboard, let along a bosun,' replied Jack with the full force of his lungs.

  The Worcesters uttered a triumphant roar at this, and anonymous voices from open ports below begged to know whether they might favour Surprise with any ewes—an obvious and wounding reference to a recent court-martial in which the frigate's barber was sentenced to death for bestiality.

  'That settled Latham's hash, I believe,' said Jack with quiet satisfaction as the Surprise, having run out of wit, filled and shot ahead.

  'What did he mean with his Irish pennants?' asked Stephen.

  'Those untidy flakes and wefts of hemp on the hawsers. They would be intolerably slipshod in regular rigging—there, do you see, and there. We call them Irish pennants.'

  'Do you, indeed? Yet they are utterly unknown in Irish ships; and when they are perceived in others, they are universally termed Saxon standards.'

  'Call 'em what you like, they are damned ill-looking uncouth objects and I knew very well the squadron would laugh and come it the satirical; but I will be b—d if I have a topmast carry away and so miss all the fun, and I will be damned if the Admiral throws out our signal to make more sail. And with a wall-sided, weak-kneed ship what can you . . . There goes his toplight, by the way.' Jack cocked his ear to the poop: he heard the utterly reliable Pullings' voice say 'Bear a hand now, and wipe Orion's eye,' and the golden effulgence of the Worcester's three stern lanterns lit the mizzen topsail and the maincourse several seconds before those of any other ship in the squadron.

  'You were telling me of your ideal battle, with a view to illustrating naval strategy,' said Stephen.

  'Yes. The frigates tell us that the enemy is there under our lee—for the wind has stayed true, do you see—preferably straggling over a couple of miles of sea in two or three untidy heaps, as foreigners do, with the land no great way off to hamper their movements and to make it even easier for Admiral Thornton to decide the moment for the action. My bet is that he will instantly make a dash for it, before they can form their line—bear down immediately, forming our own as we go, double on his weakest part and so work up, taking, burning or sinking as we go. For it will take them a great while to make an orderly line, whereas we do so every day, and we practise the manoeuvre from the dispersed positions at least twice a week. Every man will slip into his place; and since the Admiral has explained his plans for half a dozen situations every man will know just what he is to do. There will be little signalling. The Admiral dislikes it except in the greatest emergency, and the last time he spoke to the captains he said that if any one of us was puzzled or could not make out the order of battle because of the smoke, he might take it upon himself to engage the nearest Frenchman yardarm to yardarm. But there are fewer of us, and since we must be able to compel a perhaps unwilling enemy to accept battle just when and where it suits us, all this, you understand, depends on our having the weather-gage: that is to say, that the wind shall blow from us to them. Lord, Stephen, I shall not be satisfied with anything under twenty prizes, and a dukedom for the Admiral.'

  'Sure, I take your point about the wind,' said Stephen in a sombre voice. Although he longed for the final overthrow and destruction of Buonaparte and his whole system, the immediate prospect of huge slaughter depressed him extremely—apart from anything else his duties during battle and after it brought him to be intimately acquainted with war's most hideous side and with young men maimed; he did not mention this, however, but after a pause he asked 'Twenty? That is more than Monsieur Emeriau has with him.'

  Jack had named the impossible number by way of conjuring fate: in fact he expected a very severe encounter indeed, for although from want of keeping the sea the French were often slow in manoeuvring, their gunnery was sometimes deadly accurate, and their ships were solid, well-found and new; but he was aware of what was in his friend's mind and he was about to pass his twenty off as a slip of the tongue when the Renown, quarter of a mile away on the Worcester's starboard bow, hoisted a string of coloured lanterns to tell the Admiral that she was overpressed with sail.
/>   'Overpressed with sail,' said Jack. 'And she will not be the only one. We shall see a good many topgallants gone in the morning, if the breeze keeps freshening like this, working up an ugly sea.'

  'It is shockingly rough indeed. Even I have to cling on with both hands,' said Stephen, and as he spoke a packet of mixed water and froth struck the side of his face, running down inside his shirt. He considered for a while and added, 'Poor Graham will be in a sad way: he has not yet learnt the lithe gliding motion of the seaman. He has not learnt to anticipate the billow's force.'

  'Perhaps you should turn in, Stephen. You may need all your strength tomorrow. I will have you called the moment the French fleet is seen, never fear—I promise you shall miss nothing.'

  Yet the sun rose and no one woke Dr Maturin. A thin grey damp light straggled down to the cabin where he swung in his damp cot, dripped or even squirted upon each time the Worcester rolled, and still he lay, almost comatose after eight sleepless, tossing hours and then at last a small glass of laudanum. A more than usually violent lee-lurch sent a positive jet of water through the ship's side as her timbers opened and closed under the strain; and the jet, striking him in the face, plucked him from a dream of whales into the present world, and he woke with a confused sense of extreme urgency.

  Sitting up and clinging to the lengths of baize-covered man-rope that had kindly been provided for his getting in and out he raised his voice in a grating howl, his nearest approach to the all-pervading sea-officer's call for his servant. Nothing happened. Perhaps his hail had been drowned by the omnipresent noise of grinding timber, pounding seas, and roaring wind. He said 'Damn the booby' and hurried into his damp breeches, tucking his wet nightshirt about him. He groped his way to the empty wardroom and there he hailed the wardroom steward; but again he hailed in vain. Empty it was, the long table stretching away with fiddles upon it holding a few empty bowls while the bread-barge glided up and down as the Worcester pitched. The wardroom kept a barrel of small beer slung from the after beams for those who liked it and Stephen, dry within though damp without, was wondering whether the draught would be worth the journey when the Worcester plunged her stern deep into her own wake, so that he was obliged to crouch to keep his balance. There followed a quivering pause during which he considered small beer and then the forward part of her hull crashed down into a hollow of the sea with such extraordinary and quite unexpected violence that Stephen turned a double backward somersault, miraculously landing on his feet, quite unhurt.

  'That was why I was dreaming of whales, no doubt—of the ship diving upon whales,' he reflected as he climbed the companion-ladder and put his head above the rim of the quarterdeck. A rough, blowing, overcast day he saw, with spray and packets of solid water flying through the air: a grim quarterdeck, with almost all the officers and young gentlemen upon it, looking grave, and a strong party at the pump by the mainmast, turning the winches fast, with reliefs standing by. Jack and Pullings over on the weather side, obviously discussing something high among the sails.

  Even if Jack had not been so obviously engaged, Stephen would not have approached him: the Captain of the Worcester never allowed his young gentlemen to appear improperly dressed and he expected his officers to set a good example. He was himself rosy with new-shaving, although from his drawn face he had certainly not been to bed at all. Nor had a good many other people Stephen could see; and from their grey, jaded looks it appeared to him that both watches had been on deck all night. There was obviously some grave emergency, for one of the oldest, most strictly observed of all naval rules required that those who attended to the officers' comfort should never, never be called away unless instant dissolution threatened; yet here before him, at the cump-winches or waiting their turn, stood his own servant, the wardroom steward, Killick himself, and the Captain's cook.

  Eager to know more, he crammed his nightcap into a pocket, passed his hand over his bristly skull by way of making himself more presentable, and climbed the remaining steps, with the intention of sidling along behind the midshipmen to the leeward beak of the poop, where the purser (a great tactician) was evidently explaining the situation to Stephen's two assistants and the Captain's clerk. But again he had reckoned without the Worcester's strange surprising capers—he was on the rim itself, bending forward, when the ship dropped her bows sideways into the long vacancy, making that same monstrous jerk and crash and bowling him diagonally across the deck to his Captain's feet.

  'Bravo, Doctor,' cried Jack. 'You could set up for a tumbler, if all else fails. But you have no hat, I see—you have forgot your hat. Mr Seymour,' he called out to a midshipman, 'jump to my fore-cabin for the spare foul-weather hat by the barometer, and read the glass as you bring it away.'

  'Twenty-eight inches and one sixteenth, sir, if you please,' said Mr Seymour, passing the hat. 'And sinking still.'

  Jack clapped the hat on Stephen's head, Pullings fastened the tapes under his chin, and together they propelled him to the rail. 'But there they are,' he burst out, his voice cracking with emotion. 'There they are, for all love.'

  And there they were indeed, the long line of French men-of-war covering a mile of torn, white-whipped sea, the rearmost division somewhat separated from the rest and not much above two miles from the English ships. 'Give you joy of your prophecy, Jack,' he cried but the words were hardly out before he wished them back. For the essence of the prophecy was not there: the strong, gusty wind was blowing from the enemy line and not towards it and that was the reason for the look of cruel, long-drawn-out disappointment on his friend's face. Emeriau it was who had the weather-gage, and he was making use of it to go home, declining battle.

  The wind had veered steadily throughout the night, falling to a near calm in the middle watch and then suddenly springing up again and blowing harder from the north-west, so that although they found the French fleet off Cape Cavaleria as they had hoped, the whole situation was reversed. The enemy were now steering for home with the wind one point free, while the English line, close-hauled, crowded sail in the hope, the very faint hope, of cutting off the rear division.

  'The trouble is, being new and clean they sail so much better on a bowline than we do with our foul bottoms and old ships,' said Jack. 'But we still have a chance: the wind may back and favour us—it has often shifted these last hours—and they have the indraught and the Cavaleria current to contend with.'

  'What is that frightful noise, that great resounding crash?'

  'We call it slapping. Some of our northern ships do it when they stem these short hollow seas. It makes the Mediterranean builders laugh.'

  'Perilous would it be, at all?'

  Jack whistled. 'Why, as long as we do not spring a butt, we are not likely to founder,' he said. 'But it does make things a little damp between decks, and it does check our speed. Now you must forgive me. You would get a better general view from the poop: Mr Grimmond, Mr Savage, give the Doctor a hand to the poop. He would like to sit on the coaming where he can clap on to the fife-rail if it should get rough. Forecastle, there: is that spritsail-topsail laid along?'

  He returned to the task of driving a heavy, partially-waterlogged and possibly disintegrating ship through a savage chaotic cross-sea, the Mediterranean at its sudden worst: and all the time he tried to persuade himself that the rearmost Frenchmen were not drawing away. The English line had changed a good deal since it was first formed at crack of dawn and the Worcester had moved up two places, the Orion dropping astern for want of foretopgallantmast and then the Renown with her bowsprit gone in the gammoning: the squadron was now sailing in a bow-and-quarter line, pelting along as hard as ever they could go, all their carefully-husbanded stores, cordage, sailcloth and spars now laid out with a reckless prodigality. Jack could see the Admiral, made fast to an elbow-chair clamped to the Ocean's quarterdeck, his telescope often trained forward to fix Emeriau's flagship. Little time he had for watching the Admiral, however: this pace, close-hauled on a strong but capricious and veering wind that might lay the Wor
cester on her beam ends with a sudden furious gust or take her aback, called for the closest attention; and all this time the four experienced quartermasters at the wheel had to favour her to try to avoid the murderous slap, but without losing speed.