The Fortune of War

by Patrick O'Brian

  Jack lowered the glass and stared intently at the façade. A north-west breeze had sprung up while they were mending the trace and although the fog was still quite thick, between the drifting swathes he saw the lines of balcony across the front of the hotel. The coach came to a stop, not quite outside the door, but a little lower down the street. Jack stepped out, and said to Michael Herapath, 'You go in. See how the land lies, tell them we are here, and report back. You are all right, Herapath, are you not?'

  'Yes, sir,' said young Herapath.

  He went back along the sidewalk and into the hotel; and as the door opened light came out into the wispy fog and the singing grew louder: Marlbrouk ne revient plus.

  Jack walked along by the horses—the off-side leader was particularly restless and troublesome: the whole team seemed apprehensive and nervous and a cat crossing the street with a kitten in her mouth set them all capering—and from there he studied the hotel. His eye at once caught the workmen's pulley and its dangling rope: great possibilities there. Two men walked by and he busied himself with the trace as they glanced at the coach: Mr Herapath plucked his coat collar round his face and pulled his hat still further down. A third, walking briskly, muttering to himself. Mr Evans of the Constitution and a colleague, deep in conversation. One black woman with a large flat covered basket on her head.

  Mr Herapath found his tongue again, and talking half to himself, half to Jack as he stood near the step of the box, he kept up a continuous low stream of words: 'How long he is . . . I could have done it in half the time . . . always the same, dilly-dally, dilly-dally . . . we should have started far earlier, as I said . . . hush, there is a man crossing the street . . . I am not as young as I was, Captain Aubrey . . . these things are all very well for young men . . . how long he is, the God-damned fool of a boy . . . ain't it cold? My feet are like blocks of ice . . . you know, Captain Aubrey, I am a prominent citizen, a member of the town-meeting; anyone may recognize me. that was Reverend Chorley . . . it would be much wiser for me to sit inside the coach, if you will come up on the box.'

  'So I will,' said Jack. 'But first I shall just step along to the corner, so see what the angle gives.' His mind was running fast and clear; that singing indoors did not speak of any state of siege, nor of an ambush; the balcony might prove a gift of God, even with his injured arm—it was swelling most unpleasantly, and it had little strength, but still it would get him up. He had that fine contained feeling of going into action, heart beating high but well in hand, and the freshening breeze on his cheek as he stared up at Diana's shuttered window strengthened the impression: yet he kept his fingers crossed.

  Behind the shutter, sitting by a pair of candles burnt almost to the sockets as Stephen read in Johnson's book, they heard a knock.

  'Oh my God, it's Johnson,' whispered Diana.

  The knock again, and she called out in a high sharp voice, 'What is it?'

  'Mr Michael asks if Mrs Villiers can receive him,' said the ancient voice of the hotel porter, almost the only person still on duty.

  'Yes, yes. Ask him to come up.'

  Minutes, the minutes drew out, unnaturally long, and at last he was there. 'I am sorry to have been so long,' he said. 'I stood to watch the last French officers leave. They are just by the door, arguing and laughing: one at least is drunk. In a few minutes we may go. Captain Aubrey and my father are below, with the coach. I will go on to the landing, see them out, and tell you.'

  'We shall be ready,' said Stephen, springing up. 'Diana, pack some clothes.' He hurried back to Johnson's room, made a quick, accurate selection of papers—by the wavering light of his candle Dubreuil's waxy face, white in the open privy door, seemed to move, losing the awful gravity of death—returned and sat with them on his knee, a heavy pile.

  'Stephen,' whispered Diana, 'you said my diamonds were in Johnson's desk Is it open, then?'

  'It is. But do not go in there, Diana: you would see a very ugly sight'

  'Bah,' she said, 'I do not give a damn. They are mine I have earnt them'

  She came back, carrying the jewel-case, and her footsteps left a diminishing trail of blood. 'I mean,' she said, 'by receiving his horrible political guests, and translating . . .'

  He looked down. The Diana he had known could never have said the first words, or having by some impossibility said them, she would never, never have produced the explanation. She was obscurely aware of this: she said, 'I did not know you had anything to do with spying, Maturin.'

  'No more I have,' he replied. 'But I know the army intelligence officer in Halifax, and these papers may be useful to him.'

  Herapath put his head through the door. 'They are going out,' he said. 'They are in the outer lobby. Let us walk down.' He took Diana's small trunk and they went slowly down the stairs into the empty hall. The old porter was moving away from them, putting out the lights in the bar.

  At the same time the Frenchmen, moved by some freak, burst out into the street with a concerted whoop, waving their hats. The coach instantly surged into motion; it was already going fast by the time it passed Jack on the corner. The Frenchmen hallooed, running past him after the coach for a little way, and then, still calling out and laughing, they faded into the fog. The horses could be heard breaking from a trot to a gallop.

  Jack turned, saw his friends come out and stand, an uncertain group, looking right and left. He joined them as the light went out in the hall, and leading them round the corner he said, 'The horses bolted. Are there any Frenchmen left?'

  'No, sir,' said Herapath.

  'Cousin Diana, your servant. Stephen, how are you? Not hurt? Give me your bundle. Herapath, I am most uncommon obliged to you; by God, I am. Can you show us the way down to the harbour?'

  'The quietest way is by this lane,' said Herapath. 'It leads by my house. Will you step in, and rest, or take some—some refreshment?'

  'No, I thank you,' said Jack. 'The sooner aboard the better. But we must not hurry. We must walk naturally.'

  Their steps echoed in the empty streets, and as they went the moon came through, faint at first and then quite clear as the fog fled with the breeze, until she showed most of the time, gibbous, hunched, sailing away north-west among the higher clouds and shedding her spectral light. A few cats, a sleeping hog, and from the back of Herapath's low and squalid house the fretful crying of a child.

  'That is Caroline,' he said. He went in; the crying stopped; some time later he came out with a lantern, and by its light Stephen inspected Jack's wounded arm, bound it up and slung it with his neckcloth, taking the books and papers from him without a word.

  In five minutes they were on the deserted moonlit quay, walking along by the ships, which creaked and groaned as they rocked on the rising tide. Herapath led them aboard the Acturus, below, and to the bread-room. He opened the metal flap, and after a slight hesitation Diana climbed in, followed by Stephen: neither had said more than a few words since leaving the hotel and indeed the tension had mounted steadily from that point onwards.

  'There is a basket in there, behind you,' said Herapath, still speaking very quietly. 'I will bring you some more food tomorrow.'

  Diana spoke up, and spoke handsomely: she thanked Mr Herapath extremely, more than she could say, for this evening; she could not tell him how she admired his coolness. She begged he would kiss that dear child Caroline for her, and she hoped she might see him again after he had had a good night's rest—no man had ever earnt it better. And if it should cross his mind to bring a little milk, she would be so very grateful.

  Jack walked with him to the break of the quarterdeck, glanced at the sky, and said, 'Herapath, you have done nobly by us. Nobly, upon my honour. But we are not entirely out of the wood. There will be the devil's own hue and cry tomorrow, and I am not quite happy about your father. Do not suppose that I mean to make the least reflection upon him: after such kindness that would be a sad, shabby thing to do—base—contemptible. But he is an old gentleman: older than I had thought. And if they start to question him
, what with the shock of tonight, and the horses bolting, he might be led—you understand me?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Now we spoke of a boat, your father and I—I think it was before you came in—so that when time and tide allowed I could get the Doctor and Mrs Villiers clear away. But now it seems to me that this is the time; and the tide will suit the moment it has reached the full. On the other hand, your father is out of the way at this moment; and tomorrow may be too late. Can you find me one?'

  'There is Joe's boat alongside, sir. But it is only an old sawn-down scow he goes fishing in; it would never face the open sea, nor even a blow in the harbour. You could never reach Halifax in it, I am sure.'

  'Grant reached the Cape in the cutter. But I hope I shall not have to go so far. May we have a look at it?'

  Herapath crossed the deck to the starboard rail, found a rope and pulled: an ugly, slab-sided craft appeared from the gloom and ran alongside into the moonlight. A shrouded object lay fore and aft, and three cans gleamed in the moon like eyes. 'That must be his mast and sail,' said Herapath, 'and, those are his bait-pots. I can smell them from here.'

  Jack looked long and hard. 'At high water,' he said, 'I shall go into her and run out on the ebb. Will you not come with us, Herapath? I will rate you midshipman in any ship I command, and you could be the Doctor's assistant again. Things might be unpleasant for you in Boston.'

  'Oh no, sir,' said Herapath. 'That would never do: though I am obliged to you for your care of me. I have ties here . . . and then, you know, we are enemies.'

  'By God, so we are. I had forgot. I find it difficult to think of you as an enemy, Herapath.'

  'Shall I give you a hand, stepping the mast, sir? It would be awkward, with your arm.'

  The mast was stepped, young Herapath was gone. Jack stood there leaning on the rail, looking at the boat and out at the moonlit harbour, the vague looming of the islands and the powerful batteries. The tide flowed, perpetually mounting, the fenders strained and squeaked, and by imperceptible degrees the Arcturus's deck rose above the level of the quay. He kept a continual watch on the shifting currents, the swing of the small-craft and their buoys, the changing sky—the seaman was all alive—and all the time his ear was stretched, however illogically at this hour, for some clamour in the town, parties hurrying along the waterfront, searching the ships. He also weighed a number of alternative courses of action if the breeze and his forecasts should fail. And beneath all this his mind strayed far away: to England and Sophie of course, but also to Acasta, his promised command, and the possibility of a meeting that might set the balance more nearly right, and lift the black depression that had been with him ever since his first hour in the Java. Guerrière, Macedonian, and Java; it was more than a man could bear.

  Before this Stephen had called him a deeply superstitious man. Perhaps he was: he certainly had a strong belief in luck, as shown by various portents, some of them trivial enough, such as the presence of the star Arcturus overhead, and by a feeling, impossible to define, though a particularly steady confidence formed part of it, that told him when the tide was in his favour. He felt it now, and although from a primitive piety he dared not let the words form even in the remotest corner of his mind, he thought he should succeed.

  On the other hand, he felt there was bad luck with Diana, bad luck hanging about Diana. He did not wish to be below with her. She was unlucky; she brought bad luck. Although he was deeply grateful to her and although he liked the way she had borne up so far—no mincing, no vapours, no complaints—for himself he wished her away. For Stephen he could not tell. He had seen him so tormented by her and for her these last years, that he could no longer tell. Perhaps it was right that he should have her at last. In the dead silence of the middle watch, the graveyard watch, he believed he could just make out their voices, far below.

  But the long silence was coming to an end. The first Monday-morning wagons rumbled somewhere in the town, not a great way off, and far to the right he heard carts. The tide was very near the full; the flow had been diminishing this last half hour, and the small-craft—there were a great many of them, pleasure-boats, fishing-boats, and some yachts—no longer strained at their buoys. The moon was only a handsbreadth from her setting.

  'Joe,' came a voice from the darkness under the Arcturus's stern. 'Joe. Are youse a-going out?'

  'I ain't Joe,' said Jack.

  'Who are you, then?' asked the boat, now visible.

  'Jack.'

  'Where's Joe?'

  'Gone to Salem.'

  'Are youse a-going out, Jack?'

  'Maybe.'

  'You got any bait, Jack?'

  'No.'

  'Well, fuck you, Jack.'

  'And fuck you too, mate,' said Jack mildly. He watched the boat scull clear, hoist its sail, quietly swearing, and glide away on the slack water. Then he went below, groping along aft to the bread-room. He saw light showing through the joints in the hinged sheet, tapped, and heard Diana's low voice, 'Who is it?'

  'Jack,' he said, and the flap opened, showing Diana by the shielded lantern, with a pistol in her lap. The atmosphere was stifling, and the flame quite low. She put her finger to her lips and said, 'Hush. He has eaten everything in the basket, and now he is fast asleep. He had had nothing all day. Can you imagine that?'

  Some part of Jack's mind had also dwelt on breakfast, since his stomach had been calling out for some time, and he was conscious of a piercing disappointment. 'Well, he must wake up now. We are going into the boat: the tide is on the turn.'

  They tweaked and pulled him into a state of wakefulness and led him on deck, clutching his bundle.

  For a vessel of her size, the Arcturus had no great plank-sheer, but even so the dim boat was a long way down. 'Must we change ships?' he asked.

  'I believe we must,' said Jack.

  'Would it not be better to wait for the tide to rise and float the boat a little higher, a little nearer to the deck?'

  'Their relative positions would remain the same, I do assure you. Besides, the tide is already at the full. Come, Stephen, you have often jumped down into a boat deeper than that.'

  'I am thinking of Diana.'

  'Oh, Diana—she will skip down like a good 'un. You give her a hand over the side and I will receive her in the boat. Diana, where is your chest? Stephen, clap on to this line, and lower away handsomely when I give the word.' He swung over the rail, dropped to the mainchains, and with his left hand grasping a dead-eye he lowered himself into the boat, 'Lower away,' he called, and the little trunk came down. 'Now, Diana.' He guided her feet on to the chain-wale. 'Mind your petticoats and jump.'

  'Damn my petticoats,' said Diana, and jumped He received her full-pitch with his good arm 'No one could call you a light woman, Diana,' he said, setting her down among the bait-pots and the pervading reek of decaying squid, and then blushed in the darkness 'Come on, Stephen,' he called. There were wagons moving along the quay, and several lanterns, voices out on the harbour, bobbing lights.

  'Jack, have you a piece of string in your pocket? I cannot climb down without doing up my parcel.'

  'Poor lamb,' whispered Diana, 'he is still half asleep.' She sprang up the side like a boy, took off her shawl, wrapped the papers in it, tied the corners, and tossed it into the boat.

  'We shall get off some time, I suppose,' said Jack, more or less to himself, shipping the rudder. And when at last they were down, 'Diana, stow yourself right forward and do not get in the way. Stephen, there are the rowlocks: pull right ahead. Give way.' He shoved off; the Arcturus's side receded; Stephen made several effectual strokes.

  'Boat your oars,' said Jack. 'Clap on to the halliard—no, the halliard. God's death—haul away. Bear a hand, Stephen. Belay. Catch a couple of turns round the kevel—the kevel.'

  The scow gave a violent lurch. Jack dropped all, scrambled forward, caught two turns round the kevel and slid back to the tiller. The sail filled, he brought the wind a little abaft the beam, and the scow headed out to sea.
r />   'You are cursed snappish tonight, Jack,' said Stephen. 'How do you expect me to understand your altumal cant, without pondering on it? I do not expect you to understand medical jargon, without giving you time to consider the etymology, for all love.'

  'Not to know the odds between a halliard and a sheet, after all these years at sea: it passes human understanding,' said Jack.

  'You are a reasonably civil, complaisant creature on dry land,' said Stephen, 'but the moment you are afloat you become pragmatical and absolute, a bashaw—do this, do that, gluppit the prawling strangles, there—no longer a social being at all. It is no doubt the effect of the long-continued habit of command; but it cannot be considered amiable.'

  Diana said nothing: she had a considerable experience and she knew that if men were to be at all tolerable they must be fed. She was also feeling the first premonitory qualms of seasickness—she was a very bad sailor—and she dreaded what was to come.

  The cut-down scow looked an awkward lump of a boat, but in point of fact, once Jack had grown used to its ways, he found that it behaved quite well, apart from its obstinate griping and its quite extraordinary leeway: its bottom was perfectly flat, and it skidded sideways from the wind almost as fast and far as it travelled forward. There was plenty of sea-room, however, and as he had no need to fear shoal water in a craft that did not draw six inches he set its head for Point Shirley in order to weather the long island.

  They were not alone in the vast outer harbour: several other fishing-boats had put out, and now away to starboard, in the deep-water channel, lay the Chesapeake herself just looming into view. There were lights in her cabin—Lawrence was already up—and as Jack gazed the morning watch was called. More lights appeared in every scuttle and open half-port all along the berth-deck, and over a mile of water he could hear the voices of the bosun's mates, all the familiar din, so very like the ships he had served in.