Book 9 - Treason's Harbour

by Patrick O'Brian

  'But I had not been a prentice-soldier in Widin six months before there was Mum with her stall of cakes outside the barracks: so we saw one another every Friday, and often other times; and it was the same in Belgrade and Constantinople when I was out of my time. Wherever the orta went. And so I never forgot my English.'

  'Perhaps that was why they sent you here,' suggested the bosun.

  'If it was, I wish I had cut my tongue out,' said the odabashi.

  'Don't you like it here?'

  'I hate it here. Present company excepted.'

  'Why so, mate?'

  'I always been in cities, and I hate the country. And the desert is ten times far worse than the country.'

  'Lions and tigers, maybe?'

  'Worse, mate.'

  'Serpents?'

  The odabashi shook his head, and leaning towards them he whispered 'Jinns and ghouls.'

  'What are jinns?' asked the bosun, somewhat shocked.

  'Fairies,' said the odabashi, after a moment's consideration.

  'You don't believe in fairies, do you?'

  'What, not when I seen a fucking great fairy in the old tower over there? This high,'—holding his hand a yard from the ground—'with long ears and orange eyes? In the night it goes Uhu, uhu, and every time some poor unfortunate bugger cops it somewhere or other. No worse omen in this mortal world. I've heard it almost every night the last week and more.' He paused, and then said 'I didn't ought to have said fairies. Spirits is more like. Unholy ghosts.'

  'Oh,' said the bosun, who might scorn fairies, but who, like most sailors and certainly all his shipmates in the Surprise, most heartily believed in ghosts and spirits.

  'And what are ghouls?' asked the gunner in a low, almost furtive voice, dreading to hear yet drawing his bag closer.

  'Ho, they are far, far worse,' said the odabashi. 'They often take the shape of young females, but the insides of their mouths are green, like their eyes. You see them walking about in graveyards sometimes, and after dark they dig up the fresh corpses and eat them. Ay, and not always so fresh, either. But they take all sorts of shapes, like the jinns, and you meet them both at every turn in this bloody desert we got to walk across. The only thing to do is to say transiens per medium illorum ibat very quick without a mistake or you're . . .'

  At this time of night throughout the fast the castle cooks flung the bony remains of their feast over the outer wall; and now the jackals were ready waiting. But once again they fell foul of the hyaena and four more of her kind, and the odabashi's words were cut off by a sudden Bedlam of screaming, howling and terrible laughter not twenty yards away. The Surprise's warrant-officers leapt to their feet, grasping one another; and as they stood there aghast a heavy body landed on the pole above them. A moment later its enormous voice filled the tent: Uhu, uhu, uhu.

  A frozen silence inside the tent and a startled silence outside followed the last Uhu, and in this silence they heard a still larger voice cry 'Strike that tent up forward there. D'ye hear me there? Where's the bosun? Pass the word for the bosun. Mr Mowett, the first party may light its lanterns and stand by to move off.'

  Chapter Six

  HEI Company's Ship Niobe

  Suez

  'Dearest Sophie,' wrote Captain Aubrey to his wife,

  'I take advantage of the kindness of Major Hooper, of the Madras establishment, to send you these few hurried lines: he is on his way home, travelling overland—last from the Persian gulf across the desert on an amazingly fine white thoroughbred camel that carried him a hundred miles a day—and so far he has only spent forty-nine days on his journey: he means to go on by way of Cairo.

  'We came here in pretty good order, marching by night and resting under tents and awnings during the heat of the day, and we crossed the isthmus sooner than I or the head camel-driver had thought possible, having made four stages in three in spite of a late start the first night. This was not because of any extraordinary zeal on the part of the men (although they are a very decent ship's company, as you know) but because a mighty stupid English-speaking Turk in command of our escort had filled their heads with tales of ghosts and genii, and the poor silly fellows hurried forward all night long at a sort of shuffling trot, all crammed together, each dreading to be left any distance behind, and all wanting to be very near Byrne of the foretop, a man with a lucky snuffbox, warranted to preserve the owner from evil spirits and the falling-sickness. And unhappily there was always something to keep them in a high pitch of superstititous dread. We camped by wells; there were always bushes and stretches of camel-thorn nearby, and in them there was always some creature to howl or scream like a soul in torment at dawn or dusk or both. Then as if that were not enough there were the mirages by day, scores of them; I remember one that happened when we moved off early, well before sunset, from Bir el Gada. No great way from us, so clear and sharp you would have sworn they were real, there appeared shining water and green palm-trees, with girls walking under them, carrying pots and talking. "Oh, oh," cried my pack of idiots, "it's ghouls—we are lost." And there was that great savage brute Davis (a cannibal, to my certain knowledge) clinging to the bosun with his eyes tight shut and the bosun clinging to a camel-girth and both of them calling out to little Calamy, begging him to tell them when it was all over. A most pitiful set of poltroons; and I should have been ashamed of their being seen, but that the Turks were just as bad.

  'And I must say that Stephen was not always quite as discreet as he might have been. When Parson Martin tried to dismiss ghouls and the like as weak superstition he set him down with the Witch of Endor and the Gadarene swine and evil spirits by the dozen out of Holy Writ—cited all sorts of classical ghosts, appealed to the unvarying tradition of all nations and ages, and gave us a circumstantial account of a Pyrenean werewolf of his acquaintance that absolutely terrified the younger mids. He and Martin hardly had any sleep at all (unless they dozed on their camels by night when we were on the march) for while the rest of us lay under our awnings they hurried about the bushes finding all sorts of plants and creatures; but I think he might not have brought in so many serpents—he must know how uneasy they make seamen feel—and he certainly should never have brought the monstrous bat, three foot across. It flew from the table and clapped on to poor Killick's chest, and I thought he would faint away from mere terror, believing it to be an unclean spirit, as well he might.

  'He did faint away the next afternoon—you would have felt for him—from a mixture of heat-stroke and vexation. A pair of camels ran mad (they often do when they come in season, I am told) and they had a frightful set-to on and over my tent, roaring and bubbling and scattering my belongings far and wide. All hands clapped on to their legs and tails and hauled them apart in time, but by then my best hat had been most cruelly used. I was sorry for it, because it had my Turkish decoration by way of cockade: I had meant the diamonds as a present for you, and in the meantime I hoped they would give me greater weight with the Turks. But the chelengk had been trod deep into the sand, and although Killick, helped by many others, turned over tons of desert until the sun set and as I say he fainted clean away, we had to march on without it, poor Killick slung over a camel.

  'Reverting to Stephen: you know his sparing way of life, of course—one new coat every ten years, threadbare breeches, odd stockings, nothing spent except on books and philosophical instruments—well, he perfectly astonished me by flashing out an extraordinary quantity of gold at Tina and buying himself a positive herd of camels (like Job) to transport this precious diving-bell I have told you about: it takes to pieces, but each piece needs a stout beast to carry it. The Egyptian who assembled the pack-animals for our journey had not reckoned on a diving-bell, but fortunately there was a Bedouin encampment, with camels for sale, near at hand. And oh Sophie, in that same encampment there was such a mare . . .'

  Reaching the end of his description he paused for a while, smiling, and then went on,

  'So we arrived here in excellent time, and with only one casualty—the drag
oman most unhappily pulled on his boot when there was a scorpion in it, and now he is laid up with a leg like a bolster. I am heartily sorry for it, he being a most capable, obliging man, speaking all the languages of the Levant and excellent English too—might have built the Tower of Babel singlehanded. We arrived, but alas, once again our friends were not ready for us. The Company's ship was here, looking very much the bluff-bowed, broad-beamed merchantman, with nearly all her guns out of sight below and a lascar crew, the only European being one of the Company's Mocha pilots; and there was a fine northerly breeze to carry her down the gulf. But where were the Turks who were to go aboard her?

  'I called at the Egyptian governor's house, but he was away, and it appeared that the lieutenant-governor, a new man, the product of some recent upheaval, was not acquainted with the scheme: he seemed anxious only to be paid some absurd sum by way of harbour-dues and watering-fees for the Niobe, and customs on her fictitious cargo. Pressed by Hairabedian, who was brought on a stretcher, he did admit that there was a Turkish detachment in the neighbourhood—they had moved some way off—he was not quite sure where—they might come back after the end of Ramadan—however, he would send to tell them we were here. But it was clear he did not love the Turks; and it would have been strange if the Turks could possibly have loved him, even if they had tried with all their might. He was pretty off-hand with me—how I regretted my chelengk!—but Hairabedian said that at this point, in view of the very delicate relations between Turkey and Egypt, it would not do to fall out with him. He did not send to the Turks, of course, and with Hairabedian laid up I was hamstrung; and all the time there was this perfect wind a-blowing, infernally hot but in the right direction, and all the time the precious hours fled by, the moon smaller every time she rose. It was only by a stroke of luck that I found my soldiers in the end: our escort had spent some time in the town, waiting for the end of the fast before going back to Tina and spending the gratuity I had given them in high living after dark; and before leaving their odabashi came to say goodbye to our warrant-officers. He told them that in consequence of a disagreement between the Egyptian governor and the Turkish commanding officer the Turks had withdrawn to the Wells of Moses, and that according to the bazaar rumour the Egyptian contemplated setting the Beni Ataba, a marauding Bedouin tribe, on them: and although that was probably nonsense, the Egyptians were certainly-not to be trusted. I sent at once to the Wells of Moses, but by now it was Bairam, the end of the fast, and the Turkish officer's only reply was to invite me to their feast, swearing that he should not stir till we had shared a camel-calf—one or two or three days more, said he, made no great odds. Most unhappily the Egyptian had also asked me, and Hairabedian said he would be mortally offended if I did not go, and in my best uniform too. So I went to both.'

  For a moment he thought of telling her about the Egyptian's feast, the interminable Arab music, the enormous heat as he sat there hour after hour, smiling as pleasantly as he could, and about the fat ladies who danced, or at least writhed and quivered for so long, ogling as they did so; about the ride to Moses' Wells, the Turkish welcome with kettledrums, trumpets and salvoes of musketry, and the glutinous, viscid texture of camel-calf seethed with almonds, honey and very large quantities of coriander, and the effect of a temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees in the shade on a body crammed with two successive feasts. But instead of doing so he spoke of the difficulty of communicating with Midhat Bimbashi, the Turkish commanding officer.

  'Since the dragoman was in too bad a way to be moved, poor fellow, Stephen very kindly came along, to do what he could with Greek and the lingua franca and a little of the kind of Arabic they speak in Morocco. This answered tolerably well for ordinary dinner-time remarks like Capital soup, sir, or Allow me to offer you another of these sheep's eyes, but towards the end of the meal, when everyone withdrew except for the two senior officers and the splendid Arab gentleman we are to put on the throne of Mubara, and when I very much wanted to make the Bimbashi aware of the extreme importance of dispatch, our jargon failed us miserably. It had become clear that neither the Turk nor the Egyptian had any notion of the galley that was to put off from Kassawa that very day or perhaps the next carrying the Frenchmen and their treasure north (which was odd, I may say in passing, because before he became so very ill Hairabedian told me that an Arabian merchant in Suez had confirmed the loading of the galley down there in Kassawa with a large number of cases, small, but strongly guarded and heavier than lead), so it was obviously essential that we should make him understand the present situation. But every time we did so both the officers roared with laughter. Turks don't laugh easy, as you know, and these, though young and active, had been as grave as judges hitherto. But when he said hurry, they could not contain; they burst out and fairly hooted, rolling from side to side and beating their thighs; and when they could speak they would wipe their eyes and say tomorrow, or next week. Even Hassan, the stately Arab, joined in at last, whinnying like a horse.

  'Then the hookah was brought in and there we sat smoking, the Turks chuckling to themselves from time to time, the Arab smiling, and Stephen and I sadly out of countenance. At last Stephen had another try, turning the phrase about, and blowing to show that we must take advantage of the favourable wind—that everything depended on the wind. But it was no good. At the first hint of that unhappy word the Turks exploded, and one sent such a blast of air down his hookah-tube that the water spurted up, putting out the tobacco. "Ah, zut alors," says Stephen; the Arab turns to him—"You speak French, Monsieur?" says he, and straight away they fall to it, talking about twenty to the dozen: for it seems that Hassan, like his cousin the present Sheikh, was taken up by the Frenchmen when he was young.

  'Man and boy I have seen some pretty sudden changes of expression, but none quite as instantaneous and thoroughgoing as the Bimbashi's shift from twinkling, full-fed merriment to the most intense and concentrated seriousness when the Arab translated the piece about the French treasure. At first he could not credit the amount, though Stephen had very wisely plumped for the lower estimate of two thousand five hundred purses, and he turned to me. "Yes," I said, tracing the sum with half-melted Turkish delight on the floor (our figures are much the same, you know) "and perhaps this", writing five thousand.

  ' "Oh, indeed?" says he, clapping his hands, and in another minute the whole place was as busy as an overturned beehive, with men running in every direction, petty-officers bawling, drums beating and trumpets sounding. By dawn they were all aboard, every last man-jack of them: and the breeze was blowing steadily in our teeth.

  'It had changed overnight and it has stayed there ever since, blowing hard; and if you look at the map you will see that to run SSE down the long narrow Gulf of Suez we absolutely have to have a leading wind. From time to time the Bimbashi tears his hair and flogs his men; from time to time the damp heat and the frustration make me feel that my little body is aweary of this great world; and from time to time the men (who are all perfectly aware of what we are about and who are all pirates at heart) get at me through the midshipmen or the officers or Killick or Bonden to let me know that they would be very happy to kedge the barky out if I should see fit, and be d——d to sunstroke and apoplexy. While such a wind is blowing I cannot conscientiously do so in this shallow unsheltered harbour, with its dog-leg channels, its sharp coral rocks and its poor holding-ground, but I may try if it lessens; though Heaven knows a man can scarcely walk the length of the ship without breaking into a muck-sweat, let alone engage in the very laborious task of warping a ship. Even the lascars can hardly bear it. In the meantime we do what we can by way of preparation—setting the guns in place, and so on—otherwise we sit gnashing our teeth. Mowett and Rowan are apt to quarrel: I am sorry to have to say so, but I am afraid there is no room for two nightingales in one bush. The only contented men are Stephen and Mr Martin. They spend hours bubbling away down there in their bell, sending up worms and little bright-coloured fishes and pieces of coral, and even eating their meals in i
t; or else they wander all day on the reefs, peering at the creatures in the shallow water and the birds—they tell me they have seen ospreys by the score. Stephen never has minded the heat, however excessive; but how Mr Martin supports it, even with his green umbrella, I cannot say. He is grown as thin as a crane, if you can imagine a crane that perpetually smiles. Forgive me, Sophie; here is Major Hooper, urgent to be on his way. With my dear love to you and the children, your most affectionate husband,

  Jno Aubrey.'

  When he had seen the Major off Jack returned, gasping, to his cabin, where air without the least refreshment came tearing through the open scuttles. Far away, against a line of tall, bowing palms on the western shore, he saw Stephen and Martin carrying a fair-sized turtle between them. A boat came alongside: still another Arab visitor for Mr Hairabedian. Through the skylight overhead he heard Mowett say 'I love to linger near the leafless wood, Where cold and shrill the blasts of winter blow,' and for some reason this brought a picture of last night's moon before his eye—no longer the sickle of Bairam, but an odiously thick slice of melon in the sky, a fat moon that must shine on the galley well advanced in her voyage to Mubara. 'And yet we did not lose a minute, coming across the isthmus: I really cannot blame myself for that,' he reflected. But perhaps he should have handled the Egyptian more tactfully, or have found some cleverer, quicker way of getting into touch with the Turks in spite of him; he turned the possibilities over in his mind, but sleep came welling up through the accusations, softening them a little. 'The best-led mice gang oft astray,' said one side of his mind, and before the other had quite formulated the answer, 'Yes, but unlucky leaders are not the men to be entrusted with a delicate, ill-prepared mission' he dropped off: though indeed the notion lingered deep, ready to come to life again.