The Letter of Marque

by Patrick O'Brian

  Jack studied the log-boards, whistling quietly to himself, and then he said to the officer of the watch, 'Mr West, at eight bells we will wear and stand south-east a half east under easy sail.' After a turn or two he fetched his fighting-sword, a heavy cavalry sabre, from the cabin, stood swishing it for a while, and carried it forward to the armourer for a shaving edge.

  'Now, Doctor,' said Davidge, 'do you choose to have a bout?'

  'I should be very happy,' said Stephen, throwing his cigar-butt into the sea, where it gave a momentary hiss.

  'These are Angelo's particular patented pride,' said Davidge, when they were ready, with their coats folded on the capstan and their neckerchiefs loosed. 'They fasten over the point, doing it no harm, so that you can use your real sword. Far, far better than any form of button.'

  'Glory be,' said Stephen.

  They saluted and stood poised for a moment, with minute, scarcely perceptible threatening movements of point or wrist; then Stephen, tapping twice with his foot like a torero, flew straight at Davidge with inconceivable ferocity. Davidge parried and they whirled about one another, their swords clashing now high, now low, their bodies now almost touching, now at double arm's length.

  'Hold hard,' cried Stephen, leaping back and raising his hand. 'My breeches band is destroyed. Martin, pray do up the buckle, will you, now?'

  The buckle made fast, they saluted again, and again after the reptilian stillness Stephen leapt in, crying 'Ha! Ha!' It was the same parry, the same whirling and clashing with swords darting so fast that only the swordsmen could follow them—the same stamping feet and heavy gasping breath as they lunged, the same extraordinary agility—but then came a check in the rhythm, a subtle flaw, and there was Davidge's sword in the hammock-netting.

  He stared at his empty hand for a moment, deeply shocked, but quickly, in the general cheering, he put what face he could upon it and cried 'Well done, well done! I am a dead man—one more of your corpses, no doubt.'

  Then, having recovered his sword and found that it was unhurt he said 'May I look at yours?' Stephen passed it; Davidge turned it about and weighed it and looked closely at its guard and grip. 'A spring quillon?' he asked.

  'Just so. I catch my opponent's blade here; the whole thing is a matter of timing and leverage.'

  'It is a murderous weapon.'

  'After all, swords are for killing. But I thank you very heartily, sir, for this exercise; you are complaisance in person.'

  Eight bells struck: at once there was the cry 'All hands wear ship', and the Surprise began the long smooth turn that brought her head to south-east a half east, and she travelling smoothly towards the point where her course would intersect that of Babbington's squadron standing out to sea. The sun would set in the last dog-watch, and everyone knew that this was the last leg before they stepped into the boats for the long pull round Cape Bowhead. Although some of the younger topmen, little more than boys, skylarked in the upper rigging, following-my-leader from truck to truck and back by the crosstrees to the jib-boom strap, the atmosphere aboard was grave. Jack and Stephen both made the arrangements usual before action and gave the documents to Pullings; all the officers in the ship had done this quite often—it was a matter of course before battle—and yet today it seemed something more than a conscientious precaution, more than a formal bow towards fate.

  The bells followed one another; the sun sank until it was below the foreyard; hands were piped to supper.

  'At least everything does not have to be struck down into the hold,' said Stephen to himself, fixing a score in Diana's music-stand-writing-desk. He swept some deep harsh chords that made the stern-windows rattle and then began feeling his way through a piece new to him, a Duport sonata. He was still in the andante, his nose almost touching the score, when Jack came in and said 'Why, Stephen, you are sitting in the dark. You will ruin your eyes if you go on like that. Killick. Killick, there. Bear a hand and strike a light.'

  'The sun has set, I do suppose.'

  'It will do so, from time to time, they tell me. The breeze has freshened and we are under staysails alone.'

  'Is that a good thing?'

  'It means that if any busy fellow wandering about on Cape Bowhead in the middle of the night should chance to see us looming faintly in the darkness, he will take us for some little fore-and-aft affair of no consequence. I am going to shift my clothes.'

  'Perhaps I should do the same. I must certainly attend to the revolving pistol Duhamel gave me, a most deadly weapon too. I grieve for poor Duhamel still, a man of such amiable parts. By God, I had almost forgotten this,' he cried, clapping his hand to his breeches pocket. He hurried down to Pullings' cabin and said 'Tom, pray attach this to the little packet I gave you, if God forbid you have to deliver it. And pray take great care of it for the now—never out of your pocket at all—it is a prodigious great jewel of a thing.'

  'I will keep it here in my fob,' said Pullings. 'But I am sure you will have it back before morning.'

  'I hope so, honey, I hope so indeed. Tell me, now, what would it be proper to wear on such an occasion?'

  'Hessian boots, loose pantaloons, a stout frieze jacket, sword-belt, and a line round your middle for pistols. Oh Lord, Doctor, how I wish I were going with you.'

  Back in his own cabin, Stephen turned over his meagre wardrobe for the nearest equivalents that he could find, with only moderate success; he also, but in this case with greater success, turned over the question of whether the present conjuncture allowed him to depart from his rule and take an extra dose, not indeed as a soporific—very far from it—but as a means of doing away with illogical purely instinctive uneasiness and thus of enabling his mind to deal more freely with any contingencies that might arise in the new situation. If instead of his tincture he had those blessed coca leaves he had encountered in South America, there would have been no possible doubt: they unquestionably stimulated the entire system, bracing the sinews and tautening the nerves; whereas it had to be admitted that the tincture had a tendency, a very slight tendency, to induce a more contemplative frame of mind. But he had eaten or rather chewed all his coca leaves long since, and there remained the fact that in emergencies the tincture had always answered—its virtues far outweighed its slight disadvantages—and in any event the external stimulation that this kind of encounter must necessarily produce would more than counteract any very trifling degree of narcosis. The Diane's destination made it certain that she would have an important agent aboard; it was of the first consequence that he should be taken; to omit any step that might increase the chances of doing so would be wrong indeed; nothing was weaker than supposing a necessary contradiction between duty and inclination.

  He finished his glass of laudanum with pleasure though without the fullest satisfaction, and sat down to the exact, methodical loading of his revolving pistol, while Killick and his mates fussed about the great cabin shipping deadlights. By the time he came on deck it was quite dark. To the south-east the squadron could be seen standing out to sea, stern-lanterns and gun-ports brilliant, in line ahead on the starboard tack: and beyond the ships, well beyond them, the steadily repeated flash of the Bowhead light.

  All the officers were on the quarterdeck, silently gazing at the ships: Jack stood by the windward rail, alone, with his hands behind his back, swaying to counteract the pitch and roll. There was no gleam aboard, apart from the binnacle-glow, and there was not much from the sky, the old moon in her last day having set and the haze obscuring all but the brightest stars, and they a mere blur: an uncommonly dark night. Although the shore was still a great way off it seemed natural for those few who spoke to do so in undertones. Killick's disagreeable nasal voice could be heard wrangling with the captain's cook far down in the bowels of the ship: 'Just you make your fucking patty now, like I said, mate, and I will make my toasted cheese last minute, while you beat up a egg in marsala. The Doctor said he was to be preserved from what we call the falling damps; but he won't come down before we've picked up the boats.'
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  Killick was right. Nothing but the Day of Judgment would have moved Jack Aubrey from the rail before he had the squadron's boats in tow. From time to time he called 'Look out afore, there' to the man in the crosstrees, and once the man hailed the deck 'I think I seen a light go down the side of Tartarus.'

  Half an hour passed, the line of ships coming closer, closer, until Jack, filling his lungs, called 'Tartarus ahoy.'

  'Surprise' came the answer. 'Boats will cast off directly and pull south-west. Will you show a glim?' Jack opened his dark-lantern for a moment and he heard the order 'Boats away'. And then, as they passed on opposite tacks another voice, Babbington's, 'God bless you, sir.'

  The squadron carried straight on, and presently lanterns, shaded from the still-distant coast, could be seen in the boats. Low, urgent cries as the boat-keepers in the Surprise's train of six made the newcomers fast, and Jack called over the taffrail 'Boat commanders come aboard.' With his eyes so accustomed to the dark he could see them quite well by the reflected light from the compass: a brawny master's mate of about thirty from the Tartarus and the bosuns of the other three, thoroughly experienced seamen of the kind he knew and esteemed. They named their ships and the number of men embarked; from their answers to his questions it was clear that they understood what they were there to do and from the look of them there was a fairly strong probability that they would do it.

  'Did all hands have a good supper before leaving the ship?' he asked. 'If not, they can be fed here. In such a business a full belly is half the battle.'

  'Oh yes, sir,' they said. Fresh pork had been served out, and in the Tartarus, figgy-dowdy.

  'Now, sir, if you please,' said Killick's querulous, hard-used voice just behind him, 'your patty is ready, and the toasted cheese will go to ruin if not ate up hot.'

  Jack considered the distant shore, nodded, and walked below. Stephen was already there, sitting by the light of a single candle. 'This is not unlike being on a stage and waiting for the curtain to go up,' he observed. 'I wonder whether actors have the same sense of distorted time, a present that advances, to be sure, but only like the shadow on a dial, imperceptibly: and even then it may go back.'

  'Perhaps they do,' said Jack. 'They tell me that stage feasts are all made of cardboard—cardboard sausages, cardboard legs of mutton, cardboard ham, cardboard goblets they make believe to drink in. By God, Stephen, this is the most famous Strasburg pie. Have you had any?'

  'I have not.'

  'Let me give you a piece.'

  Ordinarily opium so cut Stephen's appetite that after a considerable dose he took little pleasure in meals, but this time he said 'It is uncommonly good,' and passed his plate for more. Then came the toasted cheese, and with it they shared a bottle of Hermitage; they were both very fond of wine and they both knew that this might be the last bottle they would drink. If that should prove the case, then at least it would be a noble close, for it was a fine great generous wine in the prime of life, one that could stand being tossed about at sea: they drank it slowly, not saying much but sitting there in a companionable silence in the candle-light while the ship moved steadily inshore.

  Bells had not been struck this last hour and more, but Jack heard the wheel being relieved at the end of the spell. He finished his glass, and with the wine still savouring in his gullet brought out an azimuth compass of his own design: he said to Stephen, 'I am going to take our bearings.'

  Far astern the squadron could still be seen, though by now it was much more subdued, lights out having sounded very soon after their meeting: and right ahead the tall Cape Bowhead loomed up, a blacker blackness some three miles away. Every two minutes the headland vanished as the beam from the lighthouse came to the full, blinding the observer; but when it had passed away there was time for night-vision to return and for the speckling of lights on shore to be made out, together with something of the shape of the coast north-north-east of Cape Bowhead. Presently the white line of surf would show all along, especially at the foot of the headland, for there was a considerable swell, and now the tide was on the make. He knew the lie of the land very well, having an excellent visual memory and having gone over and over his chart, and he knew that in half an hour he would be able to shape his course for the anchorage he had in mind, the good holding ground quite close in where the frigate would be sheltered from the fire of the guns that protected the vulnerable isthmus.

  'Mr Pullings,' he asked in the silence, 'is the anchor a-cock-bill?'

  'Yes, sir: with a spring from right aft.'

  'Then let it be lowered inch by inch to the hawsehole: then we can let it go without a splash. I am going to look at the boats.'

  He gave the quartermaster his compass and walked aft. He was as much at home in the Surprise as he was at Ashgrove—perhaps more so—and he went over the taffrail and down the stern ladder without a thought. He made his way along the train of boats to the Tartarus's launch: 'What cheer, Tartaruses,' he said in a low voice. 'What cheer, sir,' they all replied, quite as softly. He felt their muffled thole-pins and said 'Good, very good. Now we shall be putting off presently, so remember, not a word, not a word, and pull soft. When you are cast off, lie on your oars, put on your armbands and be ready to stretch out like heroes when I hail, but not a moment before.'

  'Ready, aye ready, sir,' they murmured.

  The Dolphins, the Camels and the Vultures had the same greeting, the same message, and they too seemed deeply impressed with the need for silence. When he was aboard again he began to take his bearings: he could see the surf now, and with the flap of his hat shielding his eyes the travelling beam of the light was a great help. He stood at the con, giving quiet directions to the helmsman, and as the lines of bearing came true he reduced her spread of canvas, so that she ghosted in on the tide of flood with no more than foretopmast and main staysails, the gentle wind abaft her starboard beam. In dead silence they passed under the tall lighthouse cliff so close inshore that they were on the very edge of the breakers, so close that men held their breath; and even when they were past the bulge of the headland they had the steady beat of surf within pistol-shot to larboard. Now they were under the shadow of the cliff and even the dispersed light of the beam did not reach them; but it did light the hill, the vital shielding hill this side of the fort. He started the sheets and murmured 'Stand by to let go.' The Surprise drifted on with the tide; again the beam swept round and lit the hill; she was exactly where he wanted her and he said, 'Let go, there,' quite loud. The anchor plunged silently into eighteen fathom water; they veered away in a fair scope of cable with half-words and gestures, and then, the anchor having gripped, they heaved upon the spring until her broadside bore on the isthmus, where several lights were to be seen, the most southerly parts of the town.

  Jack looked at his watch by the light of the binnacle and said 'Blue cutter's crew away.' They had been gathered on the starboard gangway this half hour and they filed by him with the bosun; then the red cutter from the larboard gangway with the gunner; after them, from alternate gangways, the pinnace, with Davidge, the gig, with West, the jolly-boat, with Beattey the carpenter, and lastly his own launch's men. As Bonden passed, Jack took him by the arm and said in a low voice, 'Keep very close to the Doctor when we board.' Then he went below, where Stephen was playing chess with Martin by the glittering candle with his sword on the table in front of him. 'Will you come with me?' said Jack. 'We are on our way.'

  Stephen stood up, smiling, and put his sword-belt over his shoulder; Martin fastened it behind, an expression of very great concern upon his face. Jack led the way up to the quarterdeck, aft to the taffrail, where Pullings and Martin followed to wish them God-speed, and over on to the stern-ladder. The boats had already formed in the long linked line that the captain's launch was to lead; and as Jack reached it, the last of the cutting-out party, Bonden shoved off and Jack murmured 'Give way.'

  At first they had to row against the tide, the swell and the moderate breeze, but zeal made nothing of it for the first thre
e quarters of an hour; by this time they were off the point of Bowhead, well clear of the breakers, pulling strongly with an even stroke, never a creak from rowlock or pin, never a sound but a strangled cough. From Bowhead, Jack looked out to sea: no squadron. Babbington would be moving quietly in.

  Along the face of the cape and even more when they bore eastwards the tide was with them: Jack checked their speed which was growing impetuous, and passed the word back down the line to change rowers.

  Another twenty minutes and the far side of the port was beginning to open, with a fair glow of light over it. It increased quite fast and now the whole northern side, the well-lit bottom of the bay, and, of infinitely greater consequence, the breakwater, could be seen. Nearer, nearer, rowing soft; and round the breakwater a small light, bobbing about and closing with them fast. Perhaps it was only a fishing-boat going out for the night. Jack opened his dark-lantern.

  'Ohé, du bateau,' called the boat.

  'Ohé,' replied Stephen, Jack's hand on his shoulder. 'La Diane, où ce qu'elle se trouve à presént?'

  'Au quai toujours, nom de Dieu. T'es Guillaume?'

  'Non. Etienne.'

  'Ben. Je m'en vais. Qu'est-ce que tu as Ià?'

  'Des galériens.'

  'Ah, les bougres. Bon. Au plaisir, eh?'

  'Au plaisir, et je te souhaite merde, eh?'

  They pulled on, their stroke a little less steady; and now the breakwater, with lights shining from the embrasures of its rampart at the landward end, was full in view. And there was clearly a party going on in the rampart—singing, laughter, music of a sort. Jack took the tiller from Bonden's hand: he felt the current—the ebb had just begun—and he bore over, giving the breakwater as wide a berth as he dared for the sandbank on the other side. No challenge for the launch. No challenge for the next boat, no challenge for the third: no challenge at all. They were through, into the port: perhaps into the trap. And speaking quite distinctly over the laughter from the rampart Jack said to Bonden, 'Stand by with the blue light.' He was himself standing up and in the suffused glow he could make out something of the quay, with the shipping moored along it: quietly they moved a little closer and it was almost clear—a brig, some other craft, the Diane, and two merchantmen. Still closer, just paddling now, and the object ahead of the Diane could be seen to be two gunboats, now moored abreast.