Book 17 - The Commodore

by Patrick O'Brian

  Padeen had instantly run to his station at the fore-sheet. Stephen took up a post on the starboard quarter where he was reasonably out of the way: he could hear the rapid exchanges between Reade and the men whose opinion he asked; and he caught the hands' words as they worked or stood by. All agreed that the lugger was a Frenchman out of Douarnenez called the Marie-Paule—very fast: the Revenue cutters had never caught her—sometimes a privateer—privateer now, for certain sure, so full of hands—they might spare a Brixham trawler, but no one else, Christian, Turk or Jew—and François the skipper was a right bastard—a brass nine-pounder in the bows they served most uncommon well. All hands spoke very seriously, and they looked grave. He could not see Reade's expression—he was at the tiller with Bonden and his back was turned—but Bonden's was firm-set, composed.

  Looking fore and aft Stephen assessed the position, the light strengthening every minute and the clipper heeling more and more as the sheets were hauled and belayed right aft. As far as his sea-going experience went there was no way out. A short mile ahead Cape Vares ran north into the sea: they could not clear its tip on this starboard tack: they must go about to gain an offing, and as they did so the big lugger must necessarily board them. She was coming up fast, full-packed with men.

  Many a sea-chase had he known, as either hunter or quarry, and they had all been long, sometimes very long, a matter of days, with the tension great yet sustained, as it were spread out and more nearly bearable. Now it was to be a matter of minutes rather than hours or days: the clipper, her lee-rail buried in foam and a cloud of sail abroad, was already making ten knots and she must either strike that cape in four minutes or go about and receive the lugger on her starboard beam.

  As these minutes passed he realized, with an extraordinary intensity, just what his fortune, lying in its chests below, meant to him and his daughter and to a thousand aspects of his life. It had not occurred to him that money could have such value—that he could prize it so much. Gulls drifted between the Ringle and the cape, waves breaking along its shore. He turned a haggard face to the men at the helm and as though he felt the look Reade glanced back at him. The young man's expression had something of that happy wildness Stephen had often seen in Jack Aubrey at times of crisis, and smiling he called, 'Stand by, Doctor. Watch out,' adding some words to Slade about a biscuit. Then he and Bonden, their hands on the triple-turned rope and the tiller, their eyes fixed to the leach of the foresail, eased the helm alee, and still more alee.

  Stephen saw the dreadful shore of the cape, now so close, racing away to the left. He saw its seaward end appear, just clear of their larboard bow, at ten yards perhaps. He heard young Reade cry, 'Toss it hard.' Slade flung the biscuit, hit the rock, and in a roar of laughter they were past, round into the open sea.

  The lugger fired an ineffectual gun and tacked, incapable of weathering the cape, losing ground, impetus, and her prize. The pursuit continued for some hours, but by noon the lugger was hull-down in the east, hopelessly outsailed.

  The Ringle carried on in a state of extraordinary good humour, often laughing, often reminding one another that 'they had weathered that old Cape Vares within biscuit-toss, ha, ha, ha!' Some tried to explain their triumph to Mrs Oakes and Brigid, but although they conveyed their happiness and sense of good fortune they had not fully succeeded before the Ringle opened the port of Corunna, or as some said, the Groyne.

  As Stephen stood in the bows, smiling at the busy harbour and the town, Mould sidled casually up to him and out of the corner of his mouth be said, 'Me and my mates know the Groyne as well as we know Shelmerston: this is where we used to come for our brandy. And if so be you should like to have the goods landed discreet, as I might say, we know a party, dead honest, or he would have been scragged long since, that might answer.'

  'Thank you, Mould, thank you very much for your kind suggestion but this time—this time, eh?—I mean to land them in all legality. And that is what I am going to tell the captain of the port and his people. But I am very much obliged to you and your friends for your good will.'

  Some hours later Stephen, sitting in the cabin with a perfectly mute Reade and the two senior port authorities, said, 'And apart from the martial stores belonging to this vessel, the tender to His Britannic Majesty's ship Bellona, that you saw so recently, none of which constitutes merchandise, there is nothing except some treasure belonging to me personally, which I mean to lodge with the Bank of the Holy Ghost and of Commerce in this city—I am acquainted with don José Ruiz, its director, who shipped it to me in the first place. As it is in minted gold, in English guineas, it is of course exempt from duty.'

  'Does it amount to a great deal?'

  'The number of guineas I cannot tell, but the weight, I believe, is somewhere between five and six tons. That is why I must beg you to do me the very great kindness of giving this vessel a berth against the quay, and, if you possibly can, to lend me a score of trustworthy able-bodied men to carry the chests. Here'—waving to two fat little canvas bags—I have put up a sum that I hope you will distribute as you think fit. May I take it that we are in agreement, gentlemen? For if so, I must hurry ashore, speak to don José about the gold, and then go straight up and pay my compliments to the Governor.'

  'Oh sir,' they cried, 'the Governor is half way to Valladolid by now. He will be distracted with grief.'

  'But Colonel don Patricio FitzGerald y Saavedra is still with us, I trust?'

  'Oh certainly, certainly, don Patricio is with us still, and all his men.'

  'Cousin Stephen!' cried the Colonel, 'how happy I am to see you. What good wind brings you to Galicia?'

  'First tell me do I see you well and happy? Kindly used by Fortune?'

  'Faith, her privates me: but never let a soldier complain. Pray carry on.'

  'Well, now, Patrick, I have brought my daughter Brigid and the lady who looks after her, because I should like them to spend some time with Aunt Petronilla in Avila: they have a servant, Padeen Colman, but with the country so disturbed and the journey so long, and myself bound to part, I do not like to let them go alone, without a word of Spanish between them. Ruiz, at the bank, has bespoken a carriage with a French-speaking courier and the usual guards, but if you could lend me even half a dozen of your troopers and an officer you would oblige me extremely, and I should be oh so much happier, sailing away.'

  The Colonel obliged him extremely; but no one looking at Stephen's face as he stood in the Ringle's bows, watching eight horses draw a lumbering great coach up the hill behind Corunna, with a cavalry escort before and behind, and two hands waving white handkerchiefs, waving and waving until they were lost in the distance would have thought that he looked oh so much happier.

  'Now, sir,' said Reade, in an embarrassed compassionate voice as Stephen came into the cabin, 'we mean to cast off our moorings the moment this hulking great Portuguese gets out of the way; but I do not believe, sir, that you ever told me our next rendezvous if we did not find the Commodore at the Groyne.'

  'Did I not?' asked Stephen. He pondered, and pondered again. 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' he murmured, 'I have forgotten its name. The word is on the top back edge of my mind—it eludes me—petrels nest there: perhaps puffins—bats, in a vast great windy cave—some way out in the sea—islands—I have it: the Berlings! The Berlings it is, on my soul.'

  Chapter Six

  In the afternoon of Saturday, with the Berlings in sight on the larboard bow, the topgallant-sail breeze that had been bowling the Ringle along so handsomely since Cape Finisterre almost entirely deserted her, stunned perhaps by the roar of battle away in the south-west, to starboard.

  The schooner, cleared for action, packed on more and more canvas, slanting down into what air there was towards the dimness on the starboard bow. Dr Maturin, torn from the rail where he had been observing the clouds of disturbed, uneasy sea-birds as they drifted in wide circles about their distant rocks, was sent below to that dim, cramped triangular space in which he would have to treat the wounded, s
ingle-handed, if the Ringle could work south-west in time to join the fray, the prodigious fray, judging from the din of full broadsides from line-of-battle ships, no less.

  Mould, the oldest but the lightest hand aboard, a wizened sinner five feet tall, was at the masthead with a glass: the heady scent of powder was already drifting faint across the deck when he called, 'On deck, there. I can see over the smoke-band and the murk. It's only the squadron at target-practice. I see Bellona's broad pennant. I see Stately clear.'

  The kindly breeze revived as he spoke, sweeping aside the low-lying swathes of gun-smoke, revealing the entire force, now increased by two brigs and a schooner from Lisbon, and wafting the Ringle down at a fine pace towards her rendezvous.

  Reade hurried below to release the Doctor. 'It was more like a real battle, a fleet engagement, than anything I have ever heard,' he said. 'If you take my glass you will see that they have been firing both sides, at different sets of targets towed down the line. Both sides! Have you ever known such a thing, sir?'

  'Never,' replied Stephen, with the utmost truth. His action-station was in the cockpit or its equivalent: and although on certain clearly defined occasions when the drum had not beat to quarters he had been allowed to watch the officers, midshipmen and hands going through the great-gun exercises, he had never seen them going through the motions of fighting both sides of the ship at once. It rarely happened even in battle except when the engagement turned into a general mêlée, as it did at Trafalgar, and virtually never in practice, one of the reasons being the cost of powder. Government allowed a certain meagre ration, enough for only a trifling amount of practice with the guns actually firing: anything beyond this had to be paid for by the captain, and few captains were both thoroughly persuaded of the importance of gunnery and rich enough to buy the amount of powder needed to make a ship's company so expert that they could fire three well-directed broadsides in five minutes. Some, though like Thomas of the Thames reasonably well-to-do, felt that briskness in manoeuvre, shining brass, gleaming paintwork, well blacked yards and natural British valour would answer for all purposes, and their great-gun exercise amounted to nothing more than running the guns in and out in dumb-show, never using even the Government allowance: most of these officers had seen little action or none at all. Jack Aubrey, on the other hand, had seen more fighting at sea than most; and he, like many of his friends, was convinced that no amount of courage would beat an enemy of roughly equal force who had the weather-gage and who could fire faster and more accurately. Furthermore, he had seen the disastrous effect of not training the crew to fight both sides. Once, for example, when he was a passenger in HMS Java she had met the USS Constitution: at one point in the battle the American presented her vulnerable stern to the British ship, but the hands, who had been firing the starboard guns, had neither the wit nor above all the training to rake her effectively with those to larboard. The Constitution moved off almost unharmed, and although somewhat later the Java, full of spirit, tried to board her, it was no good. By the end of that December day the dismal Java was captured and burnt, while her surviving people, including Jack, were carried away prisoners to Boston.

  Now he had money enough for a great deal of powder; and now, determined to have a squadron that could deal with any enemy of equal force, he had been conducting a great-gun exercise of heroic proportions, all his ships ranged in line of battle and firing at targets passing on either side at a cable's length, well within point-blank range.

  As the Ringle approached the pennant-ship, lying to in the middle of the line, Stephen observed with some concern that although the surface of the ocean was as smooth as could be desired, with barely a ripple, its main body, the enormous liquid mass, was heaving with a long southern swell, a motion clearly visible among the boats along the Bellona's side, for the Commodore had summoned the captains of the Stately, Thames and Aurora, and their barges were rising and falling to a surprising degree. As he knew only too well, it would be difficult for any but a prime seaman to get aboard without disgrace; yet while he was still reflecting on the problem the Ringle glided under the Bellona's stern, ran gently up her larboard side and hooked on to her forechains.

  'Mr Barlow,' called Reade to a master's mate on the forecastle, 'A whip for the Doctor's dunnage, there. A stout whip, if you please,' he added with a certain emphasis.

  A stout whip it was; and Stephen's belongings having been made fast he was directed to sit on his sea-chest, holding the rope with both hands. 'Hold fast, sir, and never look down,' said Reade; and then, at the top of the swell, he called, 'Way oh. Handsomely now: handsomely.' Stephen and his possessions rose, swung inboard, and touched the deck with no more bump than would have cracked an egg. He thanked the hands, looked sharply at one of the familiar faces, said, 'Why, Caley . . .' and gently seized the man's left ear, an ear that he had sewn back after it had been partially torn off by a playful companion. 'Very good,' he said, 'you heal as healthy as a young dog,' and walked aft along the larboard gangway, meeting half a dozen nods and becks from former shipmates, for nearly all the Surprises who were not settled in Shelmerston had joined their captain in the Bellona.

  As he approached the quarterdeck he saw Captain Thomas of the Thames come out of the Commodore's cabin, looking furious: his face was an odd colour, the extreme pallor of anger under the tan making it resemble a mask. He was piped over the side with all due ceremony, making no acknowledgement whatsoever, in marked contrast to Duff of the Stately and Howard of the Aurora, who had set off in their barges immediately before him.

  Stephen noticed looks of intelligence and privy smiles among the officers assembled in formal array on the quarterdeck, but as soon as the Thames's boat had shoved off Tom Pullings turned from the entry port with a broad, candid, cheerful smile of a very different sort and hurried over, crying, 'Welcome aboard, dear Doctor, welcome aboard. We had not looked to see you so soon—what a charming surprise. Come and see the Capt—the Commodore. He will be so happy and relieved. But first let me name my second lieutenant—the premier is in the sick-list: not at all the thing—Lieutenant Harding, Dr Maturin.'

  They shook hands, each looking at the other attentively—shipmates could make or mar even a short commission—and to the civil 'How do you do, sir?' the other replied 'Your servant, sir.'

  This was the first time Stephen had seen Pullings in the infinitely covetted uniform of a post-captain, and as they walked aft he took notice of it: 'How well that coat becomes you, Tom.'

  'Why sir,' said Pullings with a happy laugh, 'I must admit I love it dearly.'

  They reached the Marine sentry and Pullings said, 'I will leave you here, sir, and bring my report of the rates of fire as soon as they are wrote out fair. There is not a moment to lose, because half the meaning of the scribbles on the slate is still in my head and the other half in Mr Adams's.'

  Stephen walked through the coach into the great cabin, smiling: but Jack sat right aft, staring out over the stern, both arms on his paper-covered desk; he sat motionless, and with such a look of stern unhappiness that Stephen's smile faded at once. He coughed. Jack whipped round, strong displeasure masking the unhappiness for an instant before he sprang up, as lithe as a much younger man: he seized Stephen with even more than his usual force, crying, 'God's my life, Stephen, how glad I am to see you! How is everything at home?'

  'All well, as far as I am aware: but I came post-haste, you know.'

  'Aye. Aye. Tell me about your run. You must have had leading winds all the way. The packet said you were still windbound in the Downs as late as last Tuesday—last Tuesday week, I mean. Lord, I am so happy to see you. Should you like some madeira and a biscuit? Sherry? Or perhaps a pot of coffee? What if we both had a pot of coffee?'

  'By all means. That villain in the Ringle, though no doubt a capital seaman, has no notion of coffee. None at all, at all, the animal.'

  'Killick. Killick, there,' called Jack.

  'What now?' asked Killick, opening the door of the sleeping-cabin. He added
'Sir,' after a distinct pause; and directing a wintry smile at Stephen he said, 'I hope I see your honour well?'

  'Very well, I thank you, Killick: and how are you?'

  'Bearing up, sir, bearing up. But we have great responsibilities, wearing a broad pennant.'

  'Light along a pot of coffee,' said Jack. 'And you must ship a cot for the Doctor.'

  'Which I just been doing it, ain't I?' replied Killick, but in a more subdued tone of grievance than usual, and not without an apprehensive look.

  'So tell me about your run,' Jack went on. 'I am afraid I cut you short, in my hurry of spirits.'

  'I shall not trouble you with my doings by land, apart from observing that the tender and her people behaved in the most exemplary manner, and that we put ashore at Shelmerston and then again at Corunna: but let me tell you that in spite of the strong and favourable wind that sometimes propelled us two hundred miles between one noon and the next, we saw . . .' He eagerly recited a list of birds, fishes, sea-going mammals (a pod of right whales among them), vegetables, crustaceans and other forms of life plucked from the surface or caught in a little trawl until he noticed a slackening in Jack's attention. 'Off Finisterre,' he went on, 'the breeze abandoned us for a while, and I may have seen a monk seal; but the wind soon answered our whistling and ran us down merrily until the Berlings came in sight and we heard the roaring of your guns. That excellent young man Reade hung out sails in all directions, so unwilling he was to miss the battle, as we supposed it to be; nor would he take them in when the breeze revived—the masts bent most amazingly. But, however, it turned out to be no more than the great-gun exercise on an heroic scale. I trust you found it satisfactory, my dear?'