Book 9 - Treason's Harbour

by Patrick O'Brian

  Faster and faster still on the larboard tack, and now eddies of the wind brought them the smell of powder-smoke. Jack said 'They may say what they like about the Admiral, but no one has ever called him a shy cock. Lord, how Pollux fights!'

  'Sir,' said Mowett, his glass to his eye, 'her foremast is gone.' As he spoke a flaw in the wind swept the smoke aside and there indeed lay the Pollux crippled and unable to turn to leeward, but still firing with a splendid regularity. A moment later the heavy frigate, in response to the two-decker's signal, filled and stood south, followed by the other, to intercept the Surprise.

  'Doctor,' said Jack, 'it is time for you go to below. My best compliments to Mrs Fielding, and I believe she would do best in the hold. Pray show her the way.'

  Now that the frigates were clear of the smoke he watched them with extreme attention. The nearer was as he had supposed a thirty-eight-gun ship, beautifully built and fast; but with her thousand tons she was unlikely to be as nimble as the Surprise. Her second was, like his own, a twenty-eight-gun frigate; but there the likeness ended—she was broad and bluff-bowed, almost certainly Dutch in origin.

  'Half a point a-weather,' he said.

  'Half a point a-weather it is, sir.'

  When they were within range the leading Frenchman would yaw to give the Surprise a broadside and ordinarily the Surprise would put her helm hard a-weather to avoid being raked. Yet with this scarcely perceptible half-point in hand he could haul his wind a trifle and not only avoid the broadside but perhaps sweep by before the enemy had time for another. Perhaps. So much depended on what the second ship did. It would be a most perilous business, getting past the two of them. Yet it had to be done. As if they had divined his intention the two frigates altered course, one slightly to starboard, the other slightly to port, to take him between them.

  He was exceedingly tense, exceedingly alive; yet some small fragment of his mind remembered Stephen telling him that à-Dieu-va, the French for about ship, also meant, in ordinary language, we must chance it and trust to God. 'That is just about it with us,' he reflected, looking at the distant two-deckers, still battering one another with terrible fury; and as he looked the entire bank of smoke parted, blasted outwards from the centre, and in the middle rose an enormous brilliance, a vast towering jet of flame interspersed with black objects rising, rising, the whole crowned with white smoke. The Pollux had blown up; and even before the immeasurable flash had died away the roar of her exploding magazine reached them, shaking the sea and the sails as it came. The French commodore's foremast had also gone by the board, but the explosion and the falling spars and vast baulks of timber had not sunk her.

  'Stand by to wear ship,' said Jack. Now that there was no Pollux to help he must do what he could to save the Surprise and her people; and trying to force his way past those two frigates was not the best fashion of setting about it.

  He had not the least doubt that with this overwhelming superiority the French would attack him in Zambra, and it was not to gain the shelter of a neutral port that he ran south-south-east, towards the headland with a fort on it that interposed between him and the town, guarding the entrance to the harbour.

  Leaning on the taffrail he trained his glass on the French two-decker. Now and then squalls of rain blurred his view, but he grew more and more certain that she was very badly damaged. What boats she had left were over the side, and they were making a raft or a stage of sorts out of spars; she had already carried out lines fore and aft. As long as he kept out of the range of her remaining thirty-two pounders he probably had little to fear from her. As for the frigates, that was another matter; he could probably deal with either separate, though a well-handled thirty-eight to windward in a confined bay would be hard to escape from. But the two together . . .

  He studied them with the most concentrated attention, with a perfectly cold, impartial, expert judgment; and more and more it became evident to him that the heavy frigate, though an elegant ship and a fine sailer, was handled in no more than a conscientious, journeyman fashion—a captain and crew that had spent more time in port than at sea in all weathers. They were not at home in their ship; there was a lack of coordination in her manoeuvres, a slowness, a certain hesitancy, that showed they were not used to working together. It seemed to him that they had no great sense of the sea. But that did not mean that her guns might not be very well served in the usual French style, nor that her broadside weight of metal was not far greater than his own. As for the smaller one, she had a more able commander, but she was slow; quite far astern already by the time the Surprise came abreast of the fort. Astern, but to windward: that was the devil of it. The two of them had the weather-gage.

  It did not surprise him when the fort opened an ineffectual fire; from the first appearance of the French squadron he had been convinced that the Dey was their ally. But it did give him a most plausible excuse for doing what he had in mind.

  He shied away and steered close-hauled for the western shore, once again pushing the Surprise as hard as ever she could go. Never had he felt so much one with his ship. In the somewhat lighter wind at the bottom of the bay she could wear a prodigious amount of canvas; he knew exactly how much she could stand and he gave it her; and she behaved like a thoroughbred, drawing well away from the big Frenchman, who had turned almost at the same moment and who was now sailing a parallel course two miles on the Surprise's starboard quarter, firing an occasional shot with her bow-chaser. The western shore came nearer, and several fishing-boats spreading their nets: nearer and nearer at this breakneck pace, and all the time Jack's mind was working out the courses open to him, the strength of the wind, his leeway—a smooth, barely conscious sequence of calculations.

  In the quietness Jack called 'Stand by to go about. And at the word jump to it like lightning.' Another hundred yards: two hundred: and 'Helm a-lee,' he cried.

  Once again the frigate came about with a perfect grace and raced northwards up the western coast towards the Brothers and the cape just beyond them. But now the full advantage of the weather-gage appeared: in spite of the Surprise's rapid turn and her greater speed, the Frenchmen had less distance to sail—they were in the position of horses on the inner rail in a race, with the Surprise confined to a distant outer rail; and unless she ran herself ashore it seemed that they must either cut her off before the Brothers or, by passing through them, pin her against the cape beyond.

  There was dead silence aboard as the Brothers, with their three channels, swept towards them and the two French ships came pelting in. During this long straight run the heavy frigate had had time to pile on a great deal of canvas and now she was running as fast as the Surprise or even faster; and so as not to check their way, neither fired a shot. The heavy frigate was steering for the middle passage, which would bring her to the end of the cape before the Surprise: she would be lying there with her broadside presented as the Surprise worked along the headland. The twenty-eight-gun ship fetched the Surprise's wake to cut her off if, having passed the first channel, she tried to double back.

  The heavy frigate was now rather more than half a mile away just abaft the starboard beam and coming up fast. Jack did not so much reduce sail as reduce speed, discreetly starting sheets and luffing a little too much. The hands were used to his ways, but even so they looked extremely grave as the Frenchman drew first abreast and then ahead while the passage between the first rock and the second came closer still and the wall of the cape beyond loomed up tall and threatening in the rain. In passing the Frenchman gave them a distant broadside but instead of returning it Jack cried 'Stand by to reduce sail,' and stepped over to the wheel.

  The Frenchman raced ahead, flinging a splendid bow-wave, raced on into the middle passage: and struck with unbelievable force, all her masts instantly pitching forwards and to leeward. Her consort at once bore up, running fast to the eastern shore.

  'Silence fore and aft,' roared Jack above the cheering. 'Clew up, clew up. Back the maintopsail.' And when enough way had come off he steer
ed her, gently gliding, not through the first passage at all but through a deep cleft between the first Brother and the shore-cliff itself, so narrow that her yardarms scraped on either side. 'Brace up and haul aft,' he said; and the Surprise, gathering live way again with the wind on her beam, headed out to the open sea.

  As she ran clear of the headland beyond the Brothers a veil of rain swept across the bay from the north-northwest, a thick grey veil that blotted out the shores on either hand and checked the extreme exuberance on deck. Men stopped thumping one another on the back, shaking hands, and crying 'We served 'un out, the old sod—we foxed 'un—God love us, did you ever see the like?' But even so it was with flushed, shining faces and eager eyes that they looked at their captain when the rain had passed over, leaving blue sky over beyond Cape Akroma.

  He was standing firmly planted by the taffrail with his legs wide apart, swinging his telescope from one end of the bay to the other. The first savage blaze of triumph had faded, but his eye still had a fine piratical gleam in it as he turned the possibilities over in his mind. 'Pass the word for the Doctor,' he called after a while; and when the Doctor came, 'Listen, this is the situation,' he said, nodding over the mile and a half of grey heaving sea to where the French two-decker lay motionless, 'Pollux is sunk—blown up—sunk, of course—but she mauled the Frenchman finely first.' He passed the telescope, and Stephen saw the look of demi-wreck, the midship ports battered in, the foremast gone, the water pouring from her scuppers. 'And the explosion did a vast amount of damage—beams slipped from the clamps, I dare say. She has lines out fore and aft; she is low in the water, very much by the head; and I am convinced she will not move today, whatever we may do.'

  Stephen moved his glass about the blackened wreckage covering half a mile of sea. 'Five hundred men in a second's blast, dear Mother of God.'

  'Now look back at the Brothers,' said Jack after a short pause. 'That is their heavy frigate dismasted on the reef of the middle passage. She ran on so hard, so far, that she will never come off. It is not even worth our while going over to burn her.'

  'Those are her people going ashore in the boats, I collect,' said Stephen.

  'Just so. And now,'—pointing—'look right down the bay. That is her poor shabby consort cracking on like smoke and oakum to reach Zambra: a Dutchman, I take it, pressed into the French service, with no notion of shedding her blood for a parcel of foreigners. You have the situation clear in your mind?'

  'What are all those boats down there?'

  'They are fishermen and the like, coming out to loot anything they can carry from the wreck.'

  'And that—that vessel over there with two masts?'

  'She is our launch. We left her behind when we slipped: Honey will be joining with the kedge and hawser.'

  'In that case I believe everything is clear.'

  'Very well. Then be so good as to give me your opinion, your political opinion, on the following plan: we proceed to Zambra without the loss of a minute, engage that miserable Dutch herring-buss and the fort that fired on us, and having taken them send to the Dey stating that unless his government instantly apologizes for the insult to the flag we shall burn all the shipping in the harbour. When that is settled, we can have our interview with Mr Consul Eliot. Do you think this a good scheme?'

  'No, sir, I do not. It is clear that the Dey was a party to this carefully-laid trap, and since his fort fired on the Surprise he obviously considers that we are already in a state of war. From all I understand he is an unusually bloody-minded, choleric man, and I believe that an attack at this stage, in the present state of excitement, would certainly result in Mr Eliot's death. And with a French two-decker in the bay there is no time for pourparlers, even though she may be obliged to lie at her moorings for a while. I think the plan politically unsound, not only for these reasons but for many more, and beg you will abandon it. In the present circumstances no political counsellor in his right wits could advise you to do anything but sail away with the utmost dispatch and ask for fresh instructions together with a powerful reinforcement.'

  'I was afraid you would say that,' said Jack, with a longing glance over the water towards Zambra. 'Yet there is a great deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot, you know . . . but clearly we must not kill Mr Eliot. And it would be stretching my orders uncommon far to sack the town.' He took a couple of turns to the mainmast and back, raised his voice in an order to close the launch, and then with his usual cheerfulness he said, 'You are quite right: Gibraltar with the utmost dispatch let it be. And since it has stopped raining, aud since we are to have no battle, we must let poor dear Mrs Fielding out of the hold.'

  They had moved away from the low-toned privacy of the taffrail, and he spoke in a voice loud and general enough for it not to be indecent, in this particular and most companionable atmosphere of extreme tension relaxed, for Williamson to cry 'I will fetch her sir,' and for Calamy to call out 'I know just where she is, sir. Pray let me go.'

  She came on deck just as the Surprise backed her maintopsail and the launch hooked on alongside. She had been told about the Pollux's fate, and she looked extremely grave: she hoped that Captain Aubrey had not lost any friends in her—for her part she had not known anyone aboard, though her husband, she added with a somewhat doubtful look, had served for a while under poor Admiral Harte. The proper things were said, and indeed they were felt in spite of the predominant mood of victory; but they could hardly be expressed at any length, because of the hoisting-in of the launch, a manoeuvre that called for a great deal of piping and the shouting of orders.

  In fact there seemed to Captain Aubrey to be rather more chat that was usual or desirable; and even when the launch was safely inboard and griped on its chocks the chat went on, with the word Hoops continually repeated. By the time he had made Mrs Fielding understand the position of the frigate on the now distant reef he saw Mowett hovering as though to speak, with the purser behind him, looking furious, and behind the purser Honey, looking sulky.

  'Mr Mowett?' he said.

  'I beg pardon, sir,' said Mowett, 'but Mr Adams wishes to represent, with the utmost respect, that his hoops have not been fetched away.'

  'Four bundles of one and ninepennies, and two of half and half,' said the purser, as though on oath. 'Lent to the cooper for the spare casks and never fetched away by Mr—never fetched away by Someone.'

  Mowett continued: 'He suggests that were we to skirt the islands, it would not be a moment's work for the jolly-boat to fetch them.'

  'All hoops are the purser's responsibility,' said Mr Adams, still addressing the universe rather than any particular person. 'And the Board has checked me something cruel three times this last quarter.'

  'Mr Mowett,' said Jack, 'if those hoops were made of triple-refined gold they would still remain on shore until we pass this way again. There is not a moment to lose. Mr Gill, shape me a course for Gibraltar, if you please, and let us spread all the canvas she can possibly bear.'

  'My hoops . . .' said the purser.

  'Your hoops are very well, Mr Adams,' said Jack, 'but they are not to compare with the chance of catching these two Frenchmen sitting, if we have any luck with the wind. Yes, Killick, what is it?'

  'The lady's cabin is set to rights, sir, if you please; and I have made a pot of coffee.'

  No one had ever set the cabin to rights in so short a time for Jack, nor had anyone produced a pot of coffee; but he did not quarrel with his good fortune, and as the ship, clearing the bay, heeled to the full force of the north-north-wester, he said, 'I do not like to tempt Fate, but at this pace and with the breeze veering north so pretty, we may be in Gibraltar by Tuesday morning—always a lucky day—so I shall start my official letter this very evening.' If the Admiral gave him a ship of the line with a captain junior to himself—the names of half a dozen passed through his mind—the possible, indeed the probable, taking of the two Frenchmen would set him on the right road again, the road for employment, a good command, a forty-gun frigate on the North
American station. 'I shall pitch it hot and strong,' he said, with a very happy smile.

  'And I shall write,' said Laura Fielding. 'I shall write at once to Charles and beg him to come and fetch me. I shall tell him how kind you have been to me, and he will be so happy to meet you: as soon as we have been together for a little while, he will be so very happy to meet you.'

  Stephen said, but to himself alone, 'I too shall write a letter. Not more than eight or perhaps nine men knew the contents of Jack's orders; and if that does not enable Wray to lay his hands upon the prime chief Judas, then there is the very Devil in it.'

  The Medical World of

  Dr Stephen Maturin

  LOUIS JOLYON WEST

  IN 1800 WHEN WE FIRST MEET Dr Stephen Maturin, there were no fewer than nineteen medical licensing bodies in Great Britain, each with different and often conflicting powers and rights.

  Medical men practised with university degrees, various forms of licenses, sometimes a combination of these, and sometimes with none at all. Medical training varied from classical—university education and the study of Greek and Latin medical texts, on the one hand, to broom-and-apron apprenticeship in an apothecary's shop, on the other—and sometimes involved no recognisable education at all. Quacks, 'empirics', and drug peddlers practised freely with no legal sanctions against them, while a physician in London could be disciplined by his College for preparing and selling a prescription to his patient. (M. Jeanne Peterson, The Medical Profession in Mid-Victorian London)

  Medical men of Maturin's day were divided into three orders—physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries—which took corporate form in the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Society of Apothecaries. Each had different duties, privileges, perquisites, and social status. The physicians were at the top of the ladder and Maturin's unusual status as a 'naval surgeon' is noted from the beginning as rare; a physician would not as a rule care to be known as a surgeon, the latter being called 'Mister' rather than 'Doctor'.