Book 19 - The Hundred Days

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Fairly well.'

  'To tell me whether those whorls, or perhaps I should say those torsades or undulations, and those spirals running from the base almost to the very tip add strength or possibly elasticity to the whole improbable structure.'

  'Beg pardon, sir,' said Killick, 'but your number one scraper ain't fit to be seen aboard the flag.' He held up a gold-laced hat, very fine, but strangely dented. 'Which you trod on it last Thursday and put it back in its case without a word: but there is still just time to have it reblocked at Broad's.'

  'Make it so, Killick,' said Jack. 'Ask Mr Willis for a boat.' And to Stephen, 'I shall add your requests in my letter to Reade: hoop and a crown for Brigid, with your love, and the narwhal horn.'

  'Love to dear Sophie too, of course, and the kindest of wishes to Clarissa Oakes. The horn is in a bow-case, hanging in one of the cupboards in the gun-room. Brother, I am afraid you are low in your spirits.'

  'I do so hate a court-martial, above all one of this kind. Will you attend?'

  'I will not. In any case I have an appointment ashore.' They gazed out of the great broad sweep of stern-lights at the tawny Rock itself, soaring away as unlikely and as impressive as ever. 'Jack,' he went on, with a significant expression familiar to them both, 'it is not impossible that I may bring an assistant surgeon back with me. If I am not mistaken entirely, it would not be fit that the gentleman should mess with the midshipmen and mates, so if he cannot be admitted to the gun-room, perhaps I might be indulged in his company as a guest?'

  'Of course you may,' said Jack. 'But if he is a gentleman of a certain age and standing, as I suppose, I am sure the gun-room would stretch a point, particularly as you are almost never there: he could take your place.'

  'As far as standing goes, he is as much of a physician as myself—a doctor of medicine. We studied in Paris together for a while: he was some years junior to me, but already highly considered as an anatomist. That would certainly be the best arrangement; for although he is a tolerable musician, and you might very well consider inviting him on occasion . . . that would certainly be the best arrangement.'

  Feeling Stephen's embarrassment, Jack cried, 'Oh, I have not told you: tomorrow is going to be a day of hellish turmoil. I am shifting my pennant into Surprise and there are going to be some important changes: apart from anything else the squadron is promised two new drafts to bring us up to something like establishment.'

  The hellish din began before eight bells in the middle watch, when, in the complete darkness, the people who were to remove into other ships began packing their chests and manhandling them along the narrow, crowded passages and up the steep, steep ladders to strategic corners from which they could be hurried on deck as soon as the boats came alongside. These corners were often occupied, which led to disagreement, very noisy disagreement sometimes, and then to renewed thumping as the defeated chest was humped away. At eight bells, or four in the morning, that part of the starboard watch which had managed to stay asleep was roused with the usual shattering din and mustered on deck: then a little later the idlers were called and for the next two hours they and the starboard watch cleaned the decks with water, sand, holystones great and small, and swabs. Barely were the spotless decks quite dry before hammocks were piped up, and in the midst of the frantic hurry boats from Dover, Rainbow, Ganymede and Briseis approached: unhappily, the officer of the watch, Mr Clegg, was some way below the deck, stilling a quarrel about chests dangerously near the sacred cabin, and the master's mate, misunderstanding his cry, allowed the boats to come alongside. The seamen swarmed aboard with their belongings, and it called for all the authority of a tall, furious, nightshirted Captain Aubrey to restore anything like order.

  'I am very sorry for the pandemonium, Stephen,' he said as at last they sat down to their breakfast, brought by a now silent, timid Killick. 'All this mad rushing up and down, bellowing like Gadarene swine . . .'

  The breakfast itself was adequate, with quantities of fresh eggs, sausages, bacon, a noble pork pie, rolls and toast, cream for their coffee; but there was little to be said for it as a fleshly indulgence, since every other bite was interrupted by a message from one ship or another, often delivered by midshipmen, washed, brushed and extremely nervous, presenting their captain's compliments and might he be favoured with a few, just a few, really able seamen, with heavy carronades instead of nine-pounder guns, or any of the countless variety of stores that the Commodore's good word with the dockyard officials might provide. Even more irritating was Killick's unceasing concern with the splendid uniform in which Jack was to appear at the court-martial—his intolerable twitching of the napkin that guarded breeches and lower waistcoat, his muttered warnings about egg-yolk, butter, anchovy paste, marmalade.

  At last the mate of the watch came, with the first lieutenant's duty and compliments, to announce that Royal Sovereign had thrown out her signal for the court-martial. A last cup of coffee and they both went on deck: over the smooth water of the bay captains' barges could already be seen converging on the flagship. Jack's was waiting for him and after a momentary hesitation he nodded to Stephen, stepping forward to the gangway stanchions as the bosun and his mates piped their captain over the side and all his officers saluted.

  'Sir. If you please, sir,' said a boy's voice for the second time, now with a certain impatience, and turning from the rail Stephen saw a familiar face, young Witherby, formerly of the Bellona. The shifting of officers and ratings since Jack's appointment to the Pomone had never been clear to Stephen. He knew that Surprise's coxswain and the bargemen had followed their captain, but what this boy was doing here he could not tell. Indeed, there were many, many things that remained obscure unless he made a determined effort of collecting his mind and concentrating upon the present. 'Mr Witherby,' he said, 'what may I do for you?'

  'Why, sir,' said the boy, 'I understood you were for the shore, and I have the jolly-boat under the stern, if you please to walk this way.'

  Witherby landed him at the Ragged Staff steps, and once he was through the Southport Gate he found the familiar surroundings a comfort: the move into the unknown Pomone, though wholly unimportant in itself, had for once been strangely disturbing. He made his way steadily along to Thompson's comfortable, unpretentious hotel, glancing right and left at shops and buildings he had known these many years. Many red-coats, many sea-officers, but nothing to touch the hive-like multitudes of Gibraltar in full wartime.

  He turned in at Thompson's door. 'Dr Jacob, if you please,' he said. 'He is expecting me.'

  'Yes, sir. Should you like him to come down?'

  'Oh no. Tell me the number of his room and I will go up.'

  'Very good, sir. Pablito, show the gentleman to the third floor back.'

  Pablito tapped; the door opened, and a well-known voice said, 'Dr Maturin, I presume?'

  The door closed. Pablito's feet echoed on the stairs. Dr Jacob seized Stephen, kissed him on both cheeks and led him into a cool, shaded room where a jug of horchata stood on a low table and smoke from the hookah hung from the ceiling down to eye level.

  'I am so exceedingly happy that it is you,' said Jacob, guiding him to a sofa. 'I was so nearly sure of it from Sir Joseph's calculated indiscretions that I brought you an example of the palmar aponeurosis and the contractions which so interested you and Dupuytren.' He slipped into his bedroom and came out carrying a jar: but realizing that his gift could not be fully appreciated in the half-light he thrust open the balcony doors and led Stephen out into the brilliant sun.

  'You are altogether too good, dear Amos,' said Stephen, gazing at the severed hand, clear in its spirits of wine, the middle fingers so hard-clenched against the palm that their nails had grown into the flesh. 'You are too good entirely. I have never seen so perfect an example. I long to make a very exact dissection.'

  But Jacob, taking no notice, turned him gently to the full sun and looked hard into his face. 'Stephen, you have not made some cruel self-diagnosis, I trust?'

  'I have not,'
said Stephen, and in as few words as possible he explained the situation—his personal situation. Amos did not oppress him with any sympathy other than a deeply affectionate pressure on the shoulder, but suggested that they should walk out high on the Rock, where they could speak about their present undertaking in complete safety. '. . . that is to say, if you still feel concerned.'

  'I am wholly concerned, wholly committed,' said Stephen. 'If it were not so wicked, I could almost be grateful for this very evil man and his odious system.'

  They walked out of the town, up and up to the ridge itself, where the cliffs fall down to Catalan Bay and where Stephen saw, with a muted satisfaction, that the peregrine eyrie was occupied again, the falcon standing on the outer edge, bating and calling. All the way along they walked, with the migrant birds passing overhead, sometimes very low, and on either side, Stephen mechanically noting the rarities (six pallid harriers, more than he had ever seen together), right out to the far end overlooking Europa Point, and back again; and all the time, with a much more conscious, concentrated mind, Stephen listened to all that Jacob, with his remarkable sources of information, had gathered about the Adriatic ports, the Muslim fraternities and the progress of their urgent request for money to pay their mercenaries. Jacob also spoke, and with equal authority, of the probable donor and of the pressure that might be brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers. 'But where Africa is concerned,' he said, 'it seems to me that little or nothing should be attempted until we have had at least some success in the Adriatic.'

  Stephen agreed, his eyes following a troop of black storks as they passed over the flagship; and quite suddenly he realized that the Royal Sovereign was no longer flying the court-martial signal. Indeed, the captains' barges were already dispersing.

  On the way down they walked almost in silence. They had said all that could usefully be said at this point, though more intelligence was to be expected at Mahon—and Stephen very often glanced at the flagship's main yardarm. In these waters the Commander-in-Chief was all-powerful: he could confirm a court's sentence of death without the least reference to the King or the Admiralty. In naval courts-martial sentence was pronounced at once: it was final, with no appeal: and Lord Keith was not one for delay.

  By the time they reached the town there was no man hanging from the yardarm; but on the battlements this side of the Southport Gate there were several officers, including Jack Aubrey and some of the Pomone's people, looking earnestly southward along the strand. Stephen joined them, saying, 'Sir, may I introduce Dr Jacob, the assistant surgeon of whom I told you?'

  'Very happy, sir,' said Jack, shaking Jacob's hand. He would obviously have said more, but at this moment a strong murmur all along from the bastion increased immensely as two boats left the flagship, pulling for the shore and towing a bare grating, the soaked and wretched prisoners upon it. A few minutes later the grating was cast off: a small surf brought it in and the men scrambled in the shallows. There was some sparse cat-calling from the crowd, but not much; and half a dozen people helped them to dry land, dragging their belongings.

  'Dr Jacob, sir,' said Jack, 'I hope that you will be able to come aboard without delay. I am eager to be out of sight of this place.' And privately to Stephen he said, 'I repeated your "No penetration, no sodomy", which floored one and all; though I must say that most of them were glad to be floored. I persuaded the others to find no more than gross indecency.'

  'And is being towed ashore on a grating the set penalty for gross indecency?'

  'No. We call it the use and custom of the sea: that is the way it has always been.'

  Chapter Two

  For several years now Stephen Maturin had been perfectly aware that a life at sea, above all in a man-of-war, was not the waterborne picnic sometimes imagined by those living far inland; but he had never supposed that anything could be quite so arduous as this existence between the two, neither floating free nor firmly ashore, with what conveniences the land might provide.

  The squadron, necessarily gathered together in a hurry and necessarily short-handed, had to be thoroughly reorganized, above all the unhappy Pomone: a ship always suffered from a trial for sodomy and although her people had not been in her for anything like an ordinary commission it was long enough for them to feel their position acutely—to resent the calls they heard ashore or the smiles and meaning silence when a group of them walked into a bar. After all, one of their officers had been dismissed from the service in the most ignominious fashion possible and towed ashore on a grating in the view of countless spectators; and some of the discredit clung to his former shipmates. This corporate shame had a thoroughly bad effect on discipline, which had never been the Pomone's strongest point; and a new captain, with a second lieutenant who knew nobody aboard, was unlikely to remedy this state of affairs in the near future. She did have a good bosun, however, and the gunner, though discouraged, was willing and knowledgeable. He and Captain Pomfret were suitably shocked when the Commodore invited them to accompany Surprise well out into the Strait, off Algeciras, so that both ships might exercise the great guns, firing at towed targets. The Pomones brought their ship out creditably and they were reasonably brisk at the dumb-show of running the eighteen-pounders in and out, but some of the gun-crews were hesitant about firing them. Only three or four in the starboard battery had much notion of anything but point-blank aim or of judging the roll. The first and second captains were competent upon the whole, but the midshipmen in charge of the divisions left much to be desired and some of the ordinary hands belonging to the gun might never have seen an eighteen-pounder fired in earnest before. The fury of the recoil shocked them extremely and after the first wavering, ragged broadside several had to be led or carried below, hurt by iron-taut tackles and breechings or even by the angles of the carriage itself. The Marines who took their places did at least stand clear, but on the whole it was a most lamentable exhibition, and the Surprises had no compunction in making it even more obviously ludicrous by destroying, utterly destroying, the hitherto unscathed target with three broadsides in five minutes and ten seconds.

  'Captain Pomfret,' said Jack before he left the ship, 'I can foresee a very great deal of great-gun exercise, morning and afternoon, as well as at quarters: the team must know their pieces through and through, so that they never have to think, as I am sure you are very well aware.'

  'Yes, sir,' said Pomfret, trying to master his distress. 'The only thing I can advance is that we are cruelly short-handed, and the people have not been together long.'

  'You have enough right seamen to man your pinnace and launch?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Then let your first lieutenant and the second when he joins—I know the Admiral means to let you have an excellent young man—take them out in the middle watch and lie off Cape Spartel till dawn. If they do not press a score of hands out of the passing merchantmen who have not yet heard the news I shall be amazed. But above all keep your people hard at it, the young gentlemen especially—idle young dogs, sauntering about with their hands in their pockets—hard at it: yet do not blackguard them. Praise if ever you can; you will find it answer wonderfully. Next week you may fire live—nothing pleases them more, once they are used to the din.'

  Returning to harbour, Jack visited the other ships and vessels of his squadron, requiring each to beat to quarters and at least to cast loose their guns. The exactness of the coiled muzzle-lashing, made fast to the eye-bolt above the port-lid, the seizing of the mid-breeching to the pommelion, the neat arrangement of the sponge, handspike, powder-horn, priming-wire, bed, quoin, train-tackle, shot and all the rest told a knowing eye a great deal about the gun-crew and even more about the midshipman of the sub-division. The Dover, still actively reconverting herself, was in rather a sad way, but not very discreditably so; the others would do at a push, and the little Briseis, one of that numerous class called coffin-brigs from their tendency to turn over and sink, was positively brilliant. He told her captain so, and the hands within earshot visibly swelled with s
atisfaction.

  Back to Surprise and her great cabin, familiar, elegant, but in spite of its conventional name not really spacious enough for all the administrative work he had to do. There were no more than six ships or vessels in the squadron, but their books and papers already overflowed the Commodore's desk: not much more than a thousand men were concerned, but all those of real importance in the running of the squadron had to be entered on separate slips together with what comments he had so far been able to make on their abilities; and to house these slips he had called upon his joiner to make temporary tray-like wings to his desk, so that eventually he should have all the elements at his disposal laid out, to be rearranged according to the tasks the squadron might be called to undertake. In these quite exceptional circumstances, with no settled ships' companies apart from those in Surprise and to some extent Briseis, he would have an equally exceptional free hand.

  But Jack Aubrey was a neat creature by temperament and rigorous training, and he had set no more than one foot in the cabin before he saw that order was confounded, that some criminal hand had merged at least three complements into one unmeaning heap, and that this same hand had spread out several manuscript sheets of music, the score of a pavan in C minor.

  'Oh I do beg your pardon, Jack,' cried Stephen, walking quickly in from the quarter-gallery. 'I had a sudden thought to be set down—but I trust I have not disturbed anything at all?'

  'Not in the least,' said Jack. 'And Stephen, I believe I have solved your problem. I believe I have found you a loblolly-boy you will thoroughly approve of.'