Aub-Mat 08 - The Ionian Mission

  The role of Hamlet came to the senior master’s mate by right, and Ophelia had obviously to be Mr Williamson, the only young gentleman with a tolerable face who could sing and whose voice had not broken; but the other parts were distributed by lot, and that of Polonius fell to Mr Calamy.

  He often came to Stephen to be heard his words and he was adjuring him neither to borrow nor to lend, to dress soberly but very rich, and to have little or nothing to do with unfledg’d companions in a high breathless chant with no punctuation when the signal midshipman came below with the Captain’s compliments to Dr Maturin, ‘and if he were at leisure, would like to show him a surprise on deck.’

  It was a gloomy day with a low grey sky, spitting rain from the south-south-east, the squadron close-hauled under treble-reefed topsails, beating up to keep their offing; yet there was an extraordinary cheerfulness on the quarterdeck. Pollings, Mowett and Bonden on the leeward side were beaming all over their faces and talking away as though they were in a tavern: to windward Jack stood with his hands behind his back, swaying to the Worcester’s cumbrous lift and roll, his eyes fixed upon a ship some five miles away.

  ‘Here is my surprise,’ he said. ‘Come and see what you make of her.’

  For many years Jack, Pollings and Mowett had made game of Dr Maturin in the nautical line; so, more discreetly, had Bonden, Killick, Joseph Plaice and a variety of other mariners, foremast hands, midshipmen and officers. He had grown wary, and now, staring long, he said, ‘I should not like to commit myself, but at a casual glance I should take it to be a ship. Conceivably a man-of-war.’

  ‘I am altogether of your opinion, Doctor,’ said Jack.

  ‘But will you not look through this glass, to see whether you can make out even more?’

  ‘A man-of-war, with little doubt. But you need not be afraid, with all this powerful fleet around you; and in any case, I perceive it has only one row of guns -a frigate.’ Yet even as he spoke there seemed something familiar about that distant ship, racing towards them with a broad white bow-wave on either side, and she growing larger every minute.

  ‘Stephen,’ said Jack in a low, happy tone, ‘she is our dear Surprise.’

  ‘So she is too,’ cried Stephen. ‘I recognize that complexity of rails in front - I recognize the very place I slept on summer nights. God love her, the worthy boat.’

  ‘It does my heart good to see her,’ said Jack. She was the ship he loved best, after the Sophie, his first command: he had served in her as a midshipman in the West Indies, a time he remembered with the liveliest pleasure, and years later he had commanded her in the Indian Ocean; he knew her through and through, as beautiful a piece of ship-building as any that had been launched from the French yards, a true thoroughbred, very fast in the right hands, weatherly, dry, a splendid sailor on a bowline, and a ship that almost steered herself once you understood her ways. She was old, to be sure; she had been much knocked about in her time; and she was small, a twenty-eight-gun frigate of under six hundred tons, little more than half the weight of the thirty-six and thirty-eight-gun ships that were usual now, to say nothing of the recent heavy frigates built to match the Americans: indeed, she was scarcely a frigate at all to modern eyes. But she had teeth for all that, and with her speed and quickness of turn she could take on ships of far greater bulk: she had even had one perilous brush with a French ship of the line, giving almost as good as she got. If Jack were ever enormously rich, and if she were sold out of the service, there was no other ship in the Royal Navy he would sooner buy, as the most perfect yacht in existence.

  Her present captain, Francis Latham, had made no important changes: she still had that towering thirty-six-gun frigate’s mainmast and the doubled travelling-backstays that Jack had endowed her with. And although he might have a most unfortunate reputation as a man who could not maintain discipline, Latham handled her well. She was under topgallants and full topsails with windward studdingsails on the main and fore: it looked dangerous, but it was a trim that suited the Surprise and she was running her ten or even eleven knots without the least risk to her spars.

  The combined speed of the squadron and of the frigate brought them together at a splendid pace, yet to those who so longed for post and for news of home and the war by land the formalities of her making her number, making the private signal, and heaving to the wind to salute the flag with seventeen guns seemed exceedingly tedious. The flagship returned the civility with a quick, barking thirteen and immediately afterwards threw out a signal requiring the Surprise to strike her topgallantmasts: it was said that the Admiral had rather lose a pint of blood than a spar, and certainly he hated to see any ship endanger masts, yards, cordage or canvas when these might be needed for the supreme effort at some unknown moment - tomorrow, perhaps.

  The Surprise, looking stumpy with topmasts alone, ran under the Admiral’s stern. Her captain was seen to go aboard him in a barge containing five sacks, presumably of mails: the dispatches would be the sailcloth packet he held in his hand. Now the time dragged more painfully still, even though there was the diversion of another sail seen on the blurred southern horizon, a puzzling sail, until the clearing weather showed it to be two, a sloop and a Spanish victualler. Those who possessed watches looked at them; others came aft on various pretexts to peer at the sand in the half-hour glass; the Marine in charge gave it a privy jerk to hasten the sand in its fall. Endless surmises, vain conjectures as to the cause of the delay: the general opinion was that Captain Latham was being told that he was the kind of officer who should never sail without a store-ship in company; that he knew as much of seamanship as the King’s attorney-general; and that the Admiral would not trust him with a boat in a trout-stream. But just at the one moment when the signal-midshipman had taken his eye from the flagship’s mizen-peak twenty voices all around him uttered a meaning cough, and turning he saw the hoist break out: ‘Boyne, a boat and a lieutenant to repair aboard the flag. Defender, a boat and a lieutenant to repair aboard the flag,’ and so it ran, hoist after hoist, until at last the Worcester’s turn came round. Throughout the squadron the boats splashed down and pulled double-banked at racing speed for the Admiral, returning with infinitely welcome post and the scarcely less welcome newspapers from home.

  Apart from the watch on deck, the Worcesters retired to what privacy they could find in a man-of-war, where those who could read learnt something of that other world they had left, and those who could not had it spelled out to them. Jack was far more favoured than the majority in this respect as in most others, and inviting Stephen to come and share a pot, he walked into his great after-cabin, where each could have a corner and an easy chair to himself. He had a fine comfortable packet of letters from Sophie: all was well at home, apart from the chicken-pox and Caroline’s teeth, which had been obliged to be filed by a dentist in Winchester; a strange blight had struck the roses, but on the other hand his new plantation of oaks was shooting up amazingly. They had seen a good deal of Diana, who was often driven down by Captain Jagiello, to whom Mrs Williams, Sophie’s mother, was absolutely devoted, declaring that he was the handsomest man she had ever beheld, and so beautifully rich; and their new neighbour, Admiral Saunders, was most kind and attentive - all their neighbours were kind and attentive. And there were laboriously-written notes from the children themselves hoping that he was quite well; they were quite well: and each told him it was raining and that Caroline had had her teeth filed by a dentist in Winchester. But .the whole packet was domestic, from the first letter to the last: not a single word, good or bad, from his lawyers. Having read his home-letters over again, smiling as he did so, he pondered over this silence: a favourable omen or not? He took a guinea from his pocket, tossed it, missed his catch and sent the coin flying across to the table where Stephen was dealing with his correspondence, some cheerful, ill-spelt scrawls from Diana, describing a very active social life in London and observing, in a casual aside, that she had been mistaken about her pregnancy; some miscellaneous communications, mostly of a sci
entific nature; a note from the Admiral enclosing a friendly, even an affectionate letter to ‘my dear Maturin’ from Sir Joseph Blaine, his chief in Intelligence, together with two reports and a coded despatch. He had digested the reports and he was reading one of the unscientific communications when the guinea landed on the coded dispatch. On the face of it the letter in his hand called for no deciphering: in plain terms and an obviously disguised hand an anonymous correspondent told him that he was a cuckold and that his wife was deceiving him with a Swedish attache”, Captain Jagiello. He nevertheless hoped to make out the writer’s identity, to break the code, as it were; there were few English men or women who would have spelt his name with an h, although it was usual in France; and he had already picked out some other significant details. The letter, and the puzzle, amused him: the malignancy and its transparent covering of righteous indignation were perfect of their kind and but for his ingrained sense of secrecy he would have shown it to Jack. In the event he did no more than return the guinea with a private smile.

  They exchanged the essence of their family news and then Stephen observed that he intended leaving for Spain in the morning: ‘The Admiral tells me that as soon as the victualler shall have discharged its cabbages, onions and tobacco, it will carry me to Barcelona.’

  ‘Lord, Stephen,’ cried Jack, his face falling, ‘So soon? Damn me, I shall miss you.’

  ‘We shall soon meet again, with the blessing,’ said Stephen. ‘I expect to be in Mahon before very long.’

  In the momentary silence they both heard the sentry hail an approaching boat and the boat’s reply ‘Dryad’, signifying that the Dryad’s captain was coming aboard.

  ‘Damn him,’ said Jack, and in answer to Stephen’s questioning look, ‘She is that slab-sided sloop that came in with the victualler while we were reading our letters, a horrible old little lumpish round-sterned Dutch tub, captured about the time of the Spanish Armada and madly over-gunned with her fourteen twelve-pounders. I do not know who has her now. However,’ he said, standing up, ‘I suppose I must do the civil: do not stir, Stephen, I beg.’

  Within seconds he was back again, strong pleasure shining in his face, and before him he urged a small, compact, round-headed officer, as pleased as himself, a gentleman who had served under him as a first-class volunteer, midshipman and lieutenant and who was now, largely because of Jack, a commander, the captain of that lumpish ill-looking tub the Dryad.

  ‘William Babbington, my dear,’ cried Stephen, ‘I am delighted to see you, joy. How do you do?’

  The Dryad’s captain told them how he did with all the ease and freedom and detail of a long and intimate acquaintance, a friendship as close as the difference in their ages would allow - a difference that had grown less important with the passing of the years. Having drunk half a pint of madeira, having made all proper enquiries after Mrs Aubrey, the children, and Mrs Maturin, and having promised to dine aboard the Worcester tomorrow (weather permitting) in the company of his old shipmates Pullings and Mowett, he sprang to his feet at the sound of three bells. ‘Since Dryad is to be attached to the squadron,’ he said, ‘I must wait on Admiral Harte. It would never do to put a foot wrong with him. I am deep enough in his bad books already.’

  ‘Why, William, what have you been at?’ asked Jack. ‘You can hardly have vexed him in the Channel?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Babbington. ‘It was not really a service matter. Do you remember his daughter Fanny?’

  Both Jack and Stephen had a vague recollection of a thickset, swarthy, hirsute, spotted girl: their hearts sank. From his earliest youth, from a shockingly precocious age, Babbington had pursued the fair; and that was well enough, perfectly in the naval tradition; but although an excellent seaman, he lacked discrimination by land and he reckoned almost anything clothed in a skirt as one of the fair. Sometimes he attacked ravishing creatures with success, though surrounded with rivals, for in spite of his stunted form women found his cheerfulness, his singular charm and his unfailing ardour agreeable; but sometimes he set about angular maidens of forty. During his brief stay in New Holland he had enjoyed the favours of a she-aboriginal and in Java those of a Chinese lady of fifteen stone. Miss Harte’s swarthiness, acne and hair would be nothing to him. ‘... so finding us in this posture, do you see, he cut up most uncommon rough and forbade me the house. And rougher still when he found she took it somewhat to heart, and that we corresponded. Said, if I was looking for a fortune I might go and try my luck with French prizes, and that I might kiss his breech too -she was meat for my master. Surely, sir, that was a pretty illiberal expression?’

  ‘Kissing his breech, do you mean, or meat for your master?’

  ‘Oh, kiss my breech is in his mouth every day, perfectly usual: no, I meant meat for my master. In my opinion that was low.’

  ‘Only a scrub would say it,’ said Stephen. ‘Meat -pah! Suff on him.’

  ‘Precious low,’ said Jack. ‘Like an ostler.’ And then, considering, ‘But how could you be taxed with fortune-hunting, William? You do not have to live on your pay and you have expectations; and surely the lady had never been looked on as an heiress?’

  ‘Oh Lord yes she is, sir: a twenty-thousand-pounder at least. She told me so herself. Her father inherited from old Dilke, the money-man in Lombard Street, and now he aims very high: they are arranging a match with Mr Secretary Wray.’

  ‘Mr Wray of the Admiralty?’

  ‘That is the man, sir. If Sir John Barrow don’t recover - and they all say he is at the last gasp, poor old gentleman - Wray will succeed as full-blown Secretary. Think of that by way of influence for a man in the Rear-Admiral’s position! I believe he got them to order Dryad to the Mediterranean to get me out of the way. He can keep an eye on me here while they are haggling about the dowry: the marriage will come off the minute the writings are signed.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  As far as creature comforts were concerned, Jack Aubrey was far, far better off than anyone else in the Worcester. He had privacy, he had space: as well as the great cabin in which he took his ease or entertained or played his fiddle and the stern-gallery in which he took the air when he chose to take it alone rather than on the thickly-populated quarterdeck, he had a dining-cabin and a sleeping-cabin, the fore-cabin where he taught his youngsters and attended to his paper-work, and quarter-galleries as lavatory and place of ease. He had his own steward and his own cook, a great deal of room for his private livestock, provisions and wine, and enough in the way of pay and allowances for a provident single man to lay in an adequate supply.

  It was ungrateful in him to be discontented, as he admitted in the long rambling letter that he wrote day by day to Sophie - a letter, or rather an instalment of the letter, in which he described Stephen’s departure. Ungrateful and illogical: he had always known that the Navy was given to extremes and most of the extremes he had experienced himself, beginning with that truly startling lack of space that had faced him early in his career when an angry captain disrated him, so that from one day to the next he was no longer a midshipman but a foremast hand, a common sailor required to sling his hammock on the Resolution’s lower deck at the regulation fourteen inches from his neighbours’. Since the Resolution was a two-watch ship, with half her people on deck when the other half were below, in practice these fourteen inches increased to twenty-eight; but even so Jack’s bulky neighbours touched him on either side as they all rolled together on the swell, part of a carpet of humanity, some hundreds strong, unventilated, unwashed apart from hands and faces, given to snoring, grinding their teeth, calling out in their short troubled sleep, never more than four hours at a time and rarely so much. Disrating was a rough experience and it had seemed to last for ever, but it was of great value, teaching him more about the men and about their attitude towards officers, work, and one another than he could ever have learnt on the quarterdeck: teaching him a very great many things, among them the value of space.

  Yet here he was with space to be measured by the rod, pole or pe
rch rather than by the square inches of the midshipmen’s berth or the square foot of his days as a lieutenant - space and even headroom too, a point of real importance to a man of his height and a rare privilege in ships designed for people of five foot six. He had space and to spare; and he did not appreciate it as he should have done. One of the troubles was that it was uninhabited space, since by another of the Navy’s rules of extremes he now ate and lived quite alone, whereas on the lower deck he had dined in the company of five hundred hearty eaters and even in his various gunroom and wardroom messes with a dozen or so - never a meal alone until he reached command; but from that time on never a meal accompanied, except by express invitation.

  He did of course invite his officers quite often, and although in the present anxious unsettled state of his affairs he dared not keep the lavish table of earlier, richer days, it was rare that Pullings and a midshipman did not breakfast with him, while the officer of the forenoon watch and a youngster or a Marine would often share his dinner: and the wardroom entertained him once a week. Breakfast and dinner, then, were reasonably companionable; but Jack dined at three, and since he was not a man who turned in early that left a great deal of time, far more than the concerns of a ship on blockade could fill, a ship with a thoroughly efficient first lieutenant, plying to and fro off Toulon, all decisions taken by the flag.