'Nor you would not have seen us, sir,' said William Reade, 'but for an uncommon blessing. We could make no headway at all—turned and turned just in sight of Algiers, losing ground on every tack the last day or so; but a corsair galley came racing out full before the wind, her lateens hare-eared on either side; and she was carrying Dr Maturin and his slaves, and Dr Jacob.'
'Doctors,' said Jack, shaking their hands, 'how very glad I am to see you. Come back to the ship with me, and we will all have dinner together—some guests are coming, among them the Admiral, and we have been preddying her fore and aft.'
'Mona,' said Stephen, 'make your bob to the Commodore: Kevin, make your leg.'
Jack bowed to each in return, and said, 'These are your slaves, I presume?'
'Just so,' said Stephen. 'May I be allowed to take them with us and confide them to Poll?'
'Of course you may,' said Jack. 'William, if you bring Ringle alongside, I think it would be better than in and out of boats.'
It was very like a home-coming, and as he gazed about the spotless deck, the impeccable exactitude of the yards and the gleaming paint, to say nothing of the extreme brilliance of every piece of metal that could be induced to shine, Stephen felt that he might have been aboard the frigate fresh from Sepping's yard and Madeira, lying within the New Mole and waiting for the visit of the Commander-in-Chief and Lady Keith, rather than on a vessel that had undergone a battering so severe that she very nearly went down with all hands. It was true that Jack Aubrey looked twenty years older and quite thin, that the traces of extreme hard labour and fatigue were evident on most of the faces—the smiling faces—that he saw, and that the grey, bowed figure that approached, touched his hat, and said, 'I give you joy of your return, sir,' remained unrecognized until he spoke.
'Killick,' he cried, detaching himself from Mona and shaking his hand, 'I hope I see you well?'
'I ain't complaining, sir; and you look tolerable spry, if I may take the liberty. Which I have laid out your decent clothes in the bed-place.'
'Must I change?'
'You would never wish to bring discredit on the barky, with all that filth.' Killick pointed to some odd patches of rifle-oil here and there. 'The Admiral is dining aboard.'
Stephen bowed to the inevitable and said, 'Killick, please do me another kindness and take these children to Poll with my compliments—beg her to wash, brush and rig them in a suitable manner, feed them on whatever is appropriate, and above all be very kind and gentle with them. They do not speak any English yet, but Geoghegan will interpret.'
'Kind and gentle, sir?' He sniffed, and added, 'Well, I shall give the message.'
Stephen explained all this to the children: but he doubted that they, with so many new and extraordinary experiences, sights, so many strange people, even partially understood his words. However, they did each give Killick a hand and followed him to the after hatchway, from which they cast back a wan and anxious look.
He found Jack and Harding looking most attentively at the new accommodation-ladder, shipped for their illustrious guests. 'Jack,' he said, 'forgive me, but I must have a word with you. You will excuse me, Mr Harding?'
In the cabin he went on, 'I have been bursting with my news—there was not a single fit moment aboard the Ringle. As, you know very well, one of the prime objects of our voyage was, to prevent gold reaching the Adriatic Muslims.' Jack nodded. 'The then Dey agreed not to let it pass by way of Algiers: but he has been murdered and betrayed: the gold is now aboard a very rapid vessel in the port of Arzila—is now or very soon will be aboard. This vessel, a galley, as I recall, is to attempt the passage of the Strait by night with a favourable wind. Is it reasonable that we should lie here, inactive? I knew the facts in Algiers, and it almost killed me, being unable to tell you because of that cruel south wind, and the days passing, passing.'
'How well I, understand your pain, dear Stephen,' said Jack, laying a hand on his shoulder. 'But you must recollect that these same southerly gales have been blowing elsewhere, even far west of the Canaries. They have kept almost all shipping on the west coast of Spain and Portugal in port, and even stout, new-built ships of the line did not attempt the Strait and its wicked lee-shore until last Monday. Your Moorish galley or xebec would never, never have ventured out in such seas. Take comfort, brother. Drink up a little glass of gin to restore your appetite, and enjoy your dinner. The Admiral is coming, and his politico, and your friend Mr Wright—he has often asked after you.'
'You relieve my mind wonderfully, Jack.' Stephen sat breathing deeply for a while: he looked so pale that Jack poured his gin at once, added a squeeze of lemon, and urged him to get it down in little sips before he changed.
Before the glass was empty someone knocked at the cabin door. It was Simpson, the ship's barber, with a fresh white apron and jug of hot water. 'Simpson, sir,' he said. 'Which Killick thought the Doctor might like a shave.'
Stephen ran his hand over his chin, as men will do on such occasions—even Popes have been known to make the same gesture—and he acquiesced. It was therefore a smoothed, brushed, and quite well-dressed Dr Maturin who stood there on deck, just before the appointed hour, behind the Commodore, his first lieutenant and the officer of the Royal Marines, all equally smooth and all in their splendour, blue and gold for the sailors, scarlet and gold for the soldiers. As the more conscientious clocks of Mahon prepared to strike the hour, Admiral Fanshawe stepped from a coach, followed by his secretary and political adviser; and before he set foot on deck, hats flew off, the bosun sounded his call and the Marines presented arms with a perfectly simultaneous crash.
Some time after this, an aged, shabby gentleman wearing the clothes of another age and followed by two porters carrying a copper tube wandered hesitantly towards the accommodation-ladder: mounting it with some difficulty, he said to the officer of the deck, 'Sir, my name is Wright: Captain Aubrey was so kind as to invite me, but I fear I may be a little late.'
'Not at all, sir,' said Whewell. 'May I show you the way to the cabin, and unburden your men? Wilcox, Price, come and take this tube, will you?'
'You are too kind,' said Mr Wright, and he followed Whewell aft. But the two porters would not be unburdened: they carried right on with their tube, entering the already somewhat crowded great cabin with their tube and thrust it across the table, regardless of cloth, glasses and silver, saying loud and clear, 'One and fourpence, sir, if you please.'
'Eh?' cried Mr Wright, from the midst of his conversation with the Commodore and Dr Maturin.
'One and fourpence, or we carry it away.'
Harding whipped round the table, gave them half a crown and in a low, very, very vicious tone desired them to get out of the ship. Killick and his mate Grimble, together with the more presentable gun-room servants, smoothed the snowy cloth, rearranged the glasses and silver and watched as Mr Wright, wholly unconscious of inconvenience, untimeliness and fuss, unsealed one end of the tube, gave the other end to the Commodore to hold, and withdrew the gleaming narwhal's horn, perfect in its curves and spirals, without a hint of repair. 'I cannot detect the slightest join,' cried Stephen. 'It is a masterpiece. Thank you, sir: thank you very much indeed.'
All this, to the bitter grief of the Commodore's cook, had delayed the beginning of dinner quite shockingly; but in time they were all seated. Jack at the head of the table, Admiral Fanshawe on his right, then Reade, the Marine officer, the Admiral's secretary, Harding at the foot, then Stephen with Mr Wright next to him; then came the Admiral's political adviser and lastly Dr Jacob—a pretty large party for so small a frigate, but with the table set athwartships and the guns trundled into the coach and the sleeping-cabin it could be done. And done it was, with great success: the news of the horn's perfect restoration, of its being in an even finer state of beauty than before—Mr Wright, with his delicate burrs and buffs having given it the gleam of fine old ivory—spread rapidly through the frigate: the ship's luck was aboard again. Killick's unattractive, shrewish face beamed once more, his mess
mates (he had very nearly been expelled from their society) smiled, winked and nodded at him in the cabin and slapped him on the back as he travelled to and from the galley.
Good humour is a charmingly infectious state anywhere, particularly aboard a ship that has recently had a very rough time of it and that is now in port, moored fore and aft. Conversation at table very soon rose to a fine volume of sound, and Mr Wright had to strain his quavering old voice to give Stephen an account of the many mathematical calculations and even advanced physical studies in a current of strongly-flowing water, to determine the effect of the narwhal horn's spirals and tori on the animal's progress, all to no effect—to no effect yet: but so important a process must have a function, almost certainly a hydrodynamic function, and either plodding science or one of those beautiful intuitions—or perhaps Mr Wright should say sudden illuminations—would give the solution. Harding and the Admiral's secretary agreed very well; and although the Royal Marine found it difficult to get beyond 'An uncommon fine day, sir' to William Reade on his left, they somehow discovered that they had both been at Mr Willis's school together when they were little boys; and from that moment on, except when common good manners required that they should say something to their other neighbours or drink a glass of wine with an acquaintance on the other side of the table, it was a series of 'Old Thomas and the mad bulldog, of how kindly the maids would hand out yesterday's cold suet pudding from the back windows of the kitchen, of the famous thrashing Smith major had given Hubble'. The Admiral had known Jack time out of mind, and they had a great deal of naval news and recollection to exchange, while Jacob and the politico got along reasonably well together, once they had established a neutral ground which they could speak with no fear of compromising anybody at all and where no unguarded word could do harm.
'God love us,' said Joe Plaice, taking his ease on the quarter-deck, a little abaft the wheel, 'what a din they do make, to be sure. You would think it was the snuggery of the William at Shelmerston of a Saturday night.'
'Never mind, mate,' said his cousin Bonden, 'the port decanters are just putting on the table, and once they have drunk the King, they will be quieter. They have eaten two whole sucking-pigs, which weigh on the stomach.'
There was indeed a pause after all present had murmured 'God bless him' and drunk their wine; and when the talk had regained a moderate pitch Jacob said to the politico, 'I believe my colleague is anxious to have a word with you.'
'And I with him, as you may imagine: we have had hardly any news from the other side since the sea went mad.'
In a reasonably subtle manner which other people—their neighbours and the servants standing behind their chairs—would not understand, they arranged for a private meeting somewhat later in the day: but their professional cunning was cast away entirely, when the party came to an end and the Admiral quite openly asked Stephen to come with him and speak about his experiences on the Barbary coast and the present state of affairs in Algiers itself.
This he did, in as plain and straightforward manner as he could, and Admiral Fanshawe listened gravely, with close attention, never interrupting. 'Well,' he said when Stephen had finished, 'I am sorry for Omar Pasha: he was a likeable ruffian. But that is one of the risks a Dey must run: and from the political point of view I think the Commander-in-Chief will think that we gain from the change. Ali Bey has always been more in our favour than otherwise, and many English merchantmen have had reason to be grateful for his moderation, and indeed his kindness on occasion. But I am afraid you must have had but a weary time of it, over there.'
'Well, sir, that too is one of the risks of my calling: and I did see some very glorious spectacles in the Atlas. The only thing I really did regret, and regret most bitterly, was the spectacle of Surprise's tender trying in vain to beat against that shocking wind when I needed so desperately to bring my news to Mahon. Yet even that extreme vexation of spirit faded when Captain Aubrey assured me that the same blast must necessarily have confined the Moorish galley to her port, so that my anguish had no real basis.'
'It was a shocking blast indeed. All the East India and Turkey ships were blocked in Lisbon, and Lord Barmouth only just managed to get into Gibraltar.'
'Lord Barmouth, sir?'
'Why, yes: he has superseded Lord Keith, and it is to him that you will have to address your report.'
'Lord Barmouth,' cried Stephen, startled out of his usual equanimity. 'Oh yes. I remember Lady Keith telling Captain Aubrey that her husband did not wish for a long tenure, but that they should retire to a house near the Governor's cottage until the weather in England grew more tolerable. But I had not expected it so soon. Nor had I expected Lord Barmouth.'
'You are displeased, Dr Maturin?' asked the Admiral, smiling.
'I beg pardon, sir,' said Stephen. 'I have not the slightest right to an opinion on the matter: but I did know that Lord and Lady Keith had a long-standing friendship for Captain Aubrey, and I had hoped that the Admiral would do everything possible and impossible to reinforce his scattered squadron, to make the capture of the Arzila galley more probable.'
'Oh, I am sure that Lord Barmouth will do his utmost,' said Admiral Fanshawe. 'But as you know, the forces at his disposal are precious thin on the ground. Still,' he said, rising after a pause, 'I do wish you the best of success; and at least you have a fair wind for your voyage.'
Chapter Nine
This was the kind of sailing that Stephen liked: with a gentle breeze a little north of east the Surprise, with her tender under her lee, made a steady four and a half knots under all plain sail or a trifle less, with a pitch and roll that he scarcely noticed. At first he had wondered at the absence of kites—of royals, studdingsails in all their interesting variety—and the frigate's placid advance had vexed him to the soul, until reflection told him that Jack Aubrey understood his profession as well as any man afloat, that he was perfectly well acquainted with the relative positions of Arzila and Gibraltar, and that his plans must take the moon into consideration—no corsair commanding a galley ballasted with gold was going to attempt the passage of the Strait when she was full or anything like it. Yet still it grieved his unreasoning part (no inconsiderable part of the man) when topgallants were taken in at the setting of the watch
This evening he had come on deck for a breath of fresh air, leaving the sick-bay (rather fuller than usual with the diseases often produced by so much shore-leave and by some cases of military fever) in Jacob's care, and he sat on a coil of rope right forward. He could hear the children hooting and screeching in the maintop, for the midshipmen and the hands indulged them extremely: they were picking up an extraordinary amount of English, and so far they had done themselves no serious injury. Yet as he sat there pondering his mind was very much less concerned with them than with the new Commander-in-Chief at Gibraltar. Admiral Lord Barmouth—his family name was Richardson—had been a famous frigate-captain, with several brilliant actions to his credit. Jack Aubrey was now a famous frigate-captain, and one or two of his actions were perhaps even more brilliant. Early in his career Jack had served under Captain Richardson as a master's mate in the Sybille: they had disagreed from time to time, never seriously but enough for Captain Richardson not to ask Jack to follow him when he moved to his next command, a heavy frigate in which, with a consort of almost equal force, he destroyed a French ship of the line on the coast of Brittany. Jack was sorry not to have been present at the battle, but that did not prevent him from taking young Arklow Richardson aboard a command of his own and even rating him, in his turn, master's mate—a senior midshipman. Yet in young Arklow all the sides of his father (now Lord Barmouth) that Jack had disliked were reproduced on a larger and more offensive scale; in the severe naval discipline of the time even a master's mate could be rude, cruel and tyrannical, and Arklow made full use of his opportunities. To some extent a captain is obliged to support his officer, and reluctantly Jack reproved, stopped grog or imposed some other small punishment.
But presently it became obvi
ous that Arklow had no intention of attending to his captain's often strongly-worded advice: more than that, there was not a single able seaman aboard who did not see that Arklow differed from his father in being no sailor. When this was established beyond a doubt Jack got rid of him; but he did so in such a tactful manner that the youth, the very well-connected youth, was very soon a lieutenant. Then he was given command of a vessel of his own, where he could flog as much as he chose: not unnaturally his people mutinied, and the case against the young man was so flagrantly obvious that he was never employed again.
Barmouth did not openly hold this against Jack Aubrey—they were members of the same club in London and they exchanged civil words when they met; but the powers of a Commander-in-Chief were very wide indeed, and if Surprise reached Gibraltar in anything but perfect condition, Barmouth might very well order another, wholly undamaged frigate to undertake the interception of the galley.
Indeed, Surprise had not been wholly surveyed and passed at Mahon: how this had come about Stephen could not tell for certain, but he supposed that Admiral Fanshawe, who was aware of the urgency and who was very fond of Jack, had taken his word for the frigate's perfect health. This supposition was much reinforced by the quite unusual activity of the carpenter, his mates and crew, who were busy all day and even after lights-out in the filling-room, right forward and far down, and in the forepeak, hammering, sawing, fitting and driving great wedges. Stephen had pointed out that this was not all that could be wished for, so near the sick-berth; but observing Jack's embarrassment, his uneasy and probably false assertion 'that it was nothing, and anyway it would soon be over', he had not pressed the subject, the more so since Jacob happened to be with them at the time, tuning a fiddle he had bought in Mahon, so that they might attempt Haydn in D major.