Post Captain

  GOD SAVE THE KING

  'The figures I have ventured to put are merely for the form,' he said, looking into their faces as they read.

  'It is coming it a trifle high,' said Jack, writing sums that could be attempted to be believed. 'But I like it. I am obliged to you, Mr Scriven. Will you take it round to the Courier office and explain to them how it is to be printed? You understand these things admirably. They may strike off a hundred posters and two hundred as handbills, to be given out where the country waggons and coaches come in. Here is a couple of guineas. Stephen, we must get under way. There will still be light enough to check the new patent slides, and you have two drafts to sort out: pray do not reject anything that can haul a rope.'

  'You will like to meet the other officers,' he said, as they stood waiting for their boat. 'They may look a little rough, just at first. They have been led a devil of a dance with it, with this fitting-out, especially Parker. The man who was the first to be offered Polychrest dilly-dallied—could not be found, could not make up his mind—and Pullings, bless him, did not come until I was here. So it was all on Parker's shoulders.'

  He stepped into the boat and sat there silent, thinking about his first lieutenant. Mr Parker was a man in his middle fifties, grey, precise, strict, a great one for spit and polish and details of uniform—this had earned him Prince William's good word—and brave, active, conscientious; but he tired easily, he did not seem very intelligent, and he was somewhat deaf. Far worse, he had no sense of the men—his black-list was as long as his arm, but the real seamen took little notice of him—and Jack suspected that he had no sense of the sea either. Jack also suspected, more than suspected, that Parker's was the little discipline, the hazing discipline; that under Parker uncontrolled the Polychrest would be a flash ship, all paint outside and no order within, the cat in daily use and the crew sullen, unwilling and brutal—an unhappy ship, and an inefficient fighting-machine.

  It would not be easy to deal with him. There must be no discord on the quarterdeck; Parker must be seen to be in charge of the day-to-day running of the Polychrest, with no easy-going captain to undermine his authority. Not that Jack was in the least easy-going; he was a taut officer and he liked a taut ship, but he had served in one hell afloat, he had seen others, and he wanted no part of it.

  'There she lies,' he observed, nodding towards the Polychrest, a certain defensive note in his voice.

  'That is she?' said Stephen. A three-masted vessel—he hesitated to call her a ship, however—very trim, rather high in the water: shining black sides with a brilliant lemon streak broken by twelve portlids, also black; and above the lemon a line of blue, topped with white; gold scroll-work running into the blue from either extremity. 'She does not look so mighty strange to me, except that she seems to have both ends sharp, and no beak-head, in the sense of that dip, that anfractuosity, to which we are accustomed; but after all, the same remarks apply to the curragh in which Saint Brendan made his voyage. I do not understand what all the coil is about.'

  'His curragh stayed well? She sailed against wind and tide?'

  'Certainly. Did he not reach the Islands of the Blessed?'

  By Friday Jack's spirits were higher than they had been since he took his first command down the long harbour of Port Mahon and out to sea. Not only had Pullings brought back seven cross but able seamen from the Lord Mornington, but Scriven's poster had induced five youths from Salisbury to come aboard 'to ask for details'. And better was in store: Jack and Stephen were on deck, waiting to go to Pullings' feast, waiting in the grey fog until the unhandy crew, badgered by Mr Parker and harassed by the bosun, should succeed in getting the launch into the water, when a wherry came alongside, suddenly appearing through the murk. There were two men in it, dressed in short blue jackets with brass buttons down one side, white trousers, and tarpaulin hats; this with their long pigtails, gold earrings and black silk neck-cloths, made them look more like man-of-war's men than was quite right, and Jack stared down at them hard from the rail. To his astonishment he found himself looking straight into the face of Barret Bonden, his former coxswain, and another old Sophie, a man whose name escaped him.

  'They may come aboard,' he said. 'Bonden, come a-board. I am very happy to see you,' he went on, as Bonden stood beaming at him on the quarterdeck. 'How do you come along, eh? Pretty spry, I trust? Have you brought me a message?' This was the only rational explanation for the presence of a seaman, bobbing about on the crowded waters of Spithead as though the hottest press in years were a matter of unconcern: but there was no ship's name to the ribbon flying from the hat in Bonden's hand, and there was something about his delighted bearing that kindled hope.

  'No, your honour,' said Bonden. 'Which our Joe,'—jerking his thumb at his companion (Joseph Plaice, Bonden's cousin, of course: sheet-anchor man, starboard watch, elderly, deeply stupid, but reliable when sober, and a wonderful hand at a variant of the Matthew Walker knot, sober or speechless)—'said you was afloat again, so we come round from Priddy's Hard to enter volunteerly, if so be you can find room, sir.' This was as near an approach to open mirth as decency would allow.

  'I shall stretch a point for you, Bonden,' said Jack. 'Plaice, you will have to earn your place by learning the boys your Matthew Walker.' This flight was beyond Joseph Plaice, but he looked pleased and touched his knuckle to his forehead. 'Mr Parker, enter these men, if you please, and rate them Plaice fo'csle'man, Bonden my cox'n.'

  Five minutes later he and Stephen were in the launch, Bonden steering, as he had steered for Jack in many a bloody cutting-out expedition on the Spanish coast. How did he come to be at liberty at such a time, and how had he managed to traverse the great man-hungry port without being pressed? It would be useless to ask him; he would only answer with a pack of lies. So as they neared the dim harbour entrance Jack said, 'How is your nephew?' meaning George Lucock, a most promising youth whom he had rated midshipman in the Sophie.

  'Our George, sir?' said Bonden, in a low voice. 'He was in the York.' The York had foundered in the North Sea with the loss of all hands. 'He was only a foremast jack: pressed out of a Domingoman.'

  'He would have made his way,' said Jack, shaking his head. He could see that young man, bright with joy at his promotion, shining in the Mediterranean sun, and the flash of polished brass as he took the noon altitude with his sextant, that mark of the quarterdeck. And he remembered that the York had come from Hickman's yard—that there were tales of her having put to sea with timbers in such a state that no lanterns were needed in the hold, because of the glow of, rotten wood. At all events she was in no condition to meet a full gale, a North Sea widow-maker.

  These thoughts occupied him as they wove through the shipping, ducking under cables that stretched away to the great shadowy forms of three-deckers, crossing the paths of the countless boats plying to and fro, sometimes with outbursts of rage or wit from the licensed watermen—once the cry of 'What ho, the Carpenter's Mistake' floated from behind a buoy, followed by a burst of maniac laughter; and they brought his spirits low.

  Stephen remained perfectly mute in some dark study of his own, and it was not until they were coming in to the landing-stage that the sight of Pullings waiting for him lighted some cheerfulness in Jack's mind. The young man was standing there with his parents and an astonishingly pretty girl, a sweet little pink creature in lace mittens with immense blue eyes and an expression of grave alarm. 'I should like to take her home and keep her as a pet,' thought Jack, looking down at her with great benevolence.

  The elder Mr Pullings was a farmer in a small way on the skirts of the New Forest, and he had brought a couple of sucking-pigs, a great deal of the King's game, and a pie that was obliged to be accommodated with a table of its own, while the inn provided the turtle soup, the wine and the fish. The other guests were junior lieutenants and master's mates, and to begin with the feast was stiffer and more funereal than might have been wished; Mr Pullings was too shy to see or hear, and once he had delivered his piece about their
sense of Captain Aubrey's kindness to their Tom in a burring undertone whose drift Jack seized only half-way through, he set himself to his bottle with a dreadful silent perseverance. However, the young men were all sharp-set, for this was well past their dinner-hour, and presently the huge amounts of food they ate engendered talk. After a while there was a steady hum, the sound of laughter, general merriment, and Jack could relax and give his attention to Mrs Pullings's low, confidential account of her anxiety when Tom ran away to sea 'with no change of linen, nothing to shift into—not even so much as his good woollen stockings'.

  'Truffles!' cried Stephen, deep in the monumental pie, Mrs Pullings's particular dish, her masterpiece (young hen pheasants, boned, stuffed tight with truffles, in a jelly of their own life's blood, Madeira and calves' foot). 'Truffles! My dear madam, where did you find these princely truffles?'—holding one up on his fork.

  'The stuffing, sir? We call 'em yearth-grobbets; and Pullings has a little old spayed sow turns 'em up by the score along the edge of the forest.'

  Truffles, morells, blewits, jew's ears (perfectly wholesome if not indulged in to excess; and even then, only a few cases of convulsions, a certain rigidity of the neck over in two or three days—nonsense to complain) occupied Stephen and Mrs Pullings until the cloth disappeared, the ladies retired, and the port began to go round. By now rank had evened out: at least one young man was as grand, royal and spreading as an admiral, and in the vinous, candle-lit haze Jack's nagging anxiety about what the Polychrest would do in a capful of wind with all that tophamper, about her ballast, trim, construction, crew and stores dropped away, leaving him the cheerful lieutenant he had been not so very long ago.

  They had drunk the King, the First Lord ('O bless him, God bless him,' cried Pullings), Lord Nelson with three times three, wives and sweethearts, Miss Chubb (the pink child) and other young ladies; they had carried the elder Mr Pullings to his bed, and they were singing

  We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors,

  We'll range and we'll roam over all the salt seas,

  Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England:

  From Ushant to Scilly 'tis thirty-five leagues.

  We hove our ship to when the wind was south-west, boys,

  We hove our ship to for to strike soundings clear,

  Then we filled our main-topsail and bore right away, boys,

  And right up the Channel our course we did steer.

  We'll rant and we'll roar . . .

  The din was so great that Stephen alone noticed the door open just enough for Scriven's questing head: he placed a warning hand on Jack's elbow, but the rest were roaring still when it swung wide and the bailiffs rushed in.

  'Pullings, pin that whore with the staff,' cried Stephen, tossing his chair under their legs and clasping Broken-nose round the middle.

  Jack darted to the window, flung up the sash, jumped on to the sill and stood there poised while behind him the bailiffs struggled in the confusion, reaching out their staffs with ludicrous earnestness, trying to touch him, taking no notice of the clogging arms round their waists, knees and chests. They were powerful, determined fellows; the reward was high, and the mêlée surged towards the open window—one touch amounted to a lawful arrest.

  A leap and he was away: but the head tipstaff was fly—he had posted a gang outside, and they were looking up eagerly, calling out 'jump for it, sir—we'll break your fall—it's only one storey.' Holding on to the window he craned out, looking down the lane towards the shore—he could see the gleam of water—towards the place where by rights the Polychrests should be drinking Pullings' beer, sent to them together with the second sucking-pig; and surely Bonden could be relied upon? He filled his lungs and hailed 'Polychrest' in a tone that echoed back from Portsmouth and stopped the mild gossip in the launch stone dead. 'Polychrest!'

  'Sir?' came back Bonden's voice out of the dripping gloom.

  'Double up to the inn, d'ye hear me? Up the lane. Bring your stretchers.'

  'Aye-aye, sir.'

  In a moment the launch was empty. Stretchers, the boat's long wooden footrests, meant a row. The captain was no doubt pressing some hands, and they, pressed men themselves, did not mean to miss a second of the fun.

  The pounding of feet at the end of the lane, coming nearer: behind, the sway and crash of chairs, oaths, a doubtful battle. 'Here, here! Right under the window,' cried Jack, and there they were, a little wet mob, gasping, gaping up. 'Make a ring, now. Stand from under!' He jumped, picked himself up and cried, 'Down to the boat. Bear a hand, bear a hand!'

  For the first moment the gang in the street hung back, but as the head tipstaff and his men came racing out of the inn shouting 'In the name of the law! Way there, in the name of the law!' they closed, and the narrow lane was filled with the sound of hard dry blows, grunts, the crash of wood upon wood. The sailors, with Jack in the middle, pushed fast in the direction of the sea.

  'In the name of the law!' cried the tipstaff again, making a most desperate attempt to break through.

  '—the law,' cried the seamen, and Bonden, grappling with the bailiff, wrenched the staff from him. He flung it right down the lane, fairly into the water, and said, 'You've lost your commission now, mate. I can hit you now, mate, so you watch out, I say. You watch out, cully, or you'll come home by Weeping Cross.'

  The bailiff uttered a low growl, pulled out his hanger and hurled himself at Jack. 'Artful, eh?' said Bonden, and brought his stretcher down on his head. He fell in the mud, to be trampled upon by Pullings and his friends, pouring out of the inn. At this the gang broke and fled, calling out that they should fetch their friends, the watch, the military, and leaving two of their number stretched upon the ground.

  'Mr Pullings, press those men, if you please,' cried Jack from the boat. 'And that fellow in the mud. Two more? Capital. All aboard? Where's the Doctor? Pass the word for the Doctor. Ah, there you are. Shove off. Altogether, now, give way. Give way cheerly. What a prime hand he will make, to be sure,' he added in an aside, 'once he's used to our ways—a proper bulldog of a man.'

  At two bells that morning watch the Polychrest was slipping quietly through the cold grey sea, the cold grey air, for at midnight the wind had come a little east of south, and in order not to lose a minute (a ship could be windbound for weeks on end in the Channel at this season) Jack had given orders to unmoor, although the tide was making. A gentle breeze it was, not enough to dispel the fog or raise more than a ripple on the long oily swell, and the Polychrest could have carried a great spread of canvas; however, she was under little more than her topsails, and she ghosted along, with little more than a whisper of water the length of her side.

  The tall dark form of her captain, much larger in his foul-weather clothes, stood over on the windward side of the quarterdeck. At the sound of the log being heaved, the cry of 'Turn' and 'stop' and the thump of its coming aboard again, he turned. 'Mr Babbington, what do you have?' he called.

  'Two knots and a three fathom, if you please, sir.'

  Jack nodded. Somewhere out there in the darkness on the larboard bow there would be Selsey Bill, and presently he might have to tack: for the moment he had plenty of room—the persistent howling under the lee came from the horns of the inshore fishing-boats, and they were a good mile away. To seaward there was the thump of a gun every few minutes—a man-of-war bound for Portsmouth, no doubt, on the opposite tack—and the Polychrest's bow carronade answered regularly with quarter charges.

  'At least there will be four men who know how to handle one by morning,' he reflected.

  In a way it was unfortunate that this first acquaintance with his ship should come at a time when there was no horizon, when sea and air could not be told apart; but he was not sorry for it, upon the whole—it gained him some hours at least, it sent Gosport, its squalors and its possible complications far astern, and in any case he had been on fire to know how she handled in the open sea ever since he had set eyes on the Polychrest. She had the strange
st motion, a kind of nervous lift and shudder like a horse about to shy, as she rose to the swell, a kind of twist in her roll that he had never known before.

  Mr Goodridge, the master, could be seen in the glow of the binnacle, standing by the quartermaster at the con. He was a reserved, elderly man of great experience, once the master of a ship of the line, but broken for fighting with the chaplain and only recently put on the list again; and he was as intent upon the Polychrest's behaviour as his captain.

  'What do you make of her, Mr Goodridge?' asked Jack, walking over to the wheel.

  'Why, sir, for ardent griping, I have never seen the like.'

  Jack took the wheel, and indeed, even at the rate of sailing, there was a steady, powerful thrust against him: the Polychrest wanted to get her head right up into the eye of the wind. He let her have her way, and then, just before the sails began to shiver the griping stopped; the helm went dead under his hand, and her odd corkscrew motion changed its rhythm entirely. He could not make it out, but stood there puzzling as he gently eased the Polychrest back on to her course. It was as though she had two centres of rotation, two pivots: if not three . . . obviously jib, foresail and a reef in the mizzen topsail would keep her off, but that was not the trouble—that would not account for this sluggish helm, this sudden lack of response.

  'Three inches in the well, sir,' said the carpenter's mate, making his routine report.

  'Three inches in the well, if you please, sir,' said the master.

  'Ay,' said Jack. It was negligible: she had not had anything of a trial yet, no working in a heavy sea; but at least it proved that those strange sliding keels and the nameless peculiarity of her quickwork did not mean that the water poured straight in: a comfortable reflection, for he had misgivings. 'No doubt we shall find what trim suits her best,' he observed to the master and went back to the rail, half consciously trying to recreate his quarterdeck pacing in the little Sophie, while his mind, worn fine by Pullings' feast, by the prolonged turmoil of unmooring with a foul hawse and by the anxiety of getting under way in a crowded road, turned to the problem of the forces acting upon the vessel.