The carpenter too was oddly reticent, as though there were something improper or even illegal about the work in the forepeak and its neighbourhood, a near-furtiveness that took refuge in technicalities—'We'm just setting the hawse-pieces and bollard-timbers to rights'—and Stephen was wondering how far down in the carpenter's chain of command this attitude reached when a small pair of calico drawers were flung dowh at his feet and Poll cried, 'No, sir: no for shame. There is that heathen Mona running about mother-naked but for her Algiers shirt: and she has thrown down her drawers—I have tried to teach her shame and so has Mrs Cheal; but it is no good. She just says "No English, ha, ha," lays aloft and throws her drawers to the wind.'
'I am very sorry for your trouble, Poll, my dear,' said Stephen. 'But I will tell you what I shall do. Barret Bonden is a good creature, and a capital hand with needle and thread. I shall beg him to make her a pair—two pair—of a number eight sailcloth trousers, tight at the top, broad down below and the seams piped with green. Once she has them on, she will never throw them off, I warrant you. The same for her brother Kevin too.'
Poll shook her head. 'When I think of all that good calico, the cutting, the measuring and the fine stitching—look at these flounces! I could find it in my heart to have her whipped and put in the black hole with biscuit and water.'
The trousers were indeed successful: in both cases they were a cause of sinful pride and they never came off, but hid the children's shameful parts day and night, except when they went to the head; furthermore they promoted such a degree of agility and daring that on any idle day, with light airs coming from all points of the compass—a make-and-mend day too, with most of the hands busy with thimbles and shears on the forecastle or in the waist of the ship—Kevin, on his way to the mainmasthead, discerned a sail in the west, bringing up a little breeze of its own. Partly out of mother-wit and partly because he could not remember the English for west, he climbed the remaining few feet and told Geoghegan, the lookout, who had been watching a couple of tunny-boats far astern, but who now hailed the deck. 'On deck, there. On deck. A sail three points on the starboard bow.' Then some time later, 'Frigate, sir, I believe.' Pause. 'Yes. Hamadryad; and she is making sail.'
'What joy,' said Jack to Stephen. 'That will be Heneage Dundas out of Gibraltar. I have not congratulated him yet on his new ship: we will ask him to supper—a pair of fowls, and there is still plenty of sucking-pig. Killick, Killick, there. Pass the word for Killick.' And when his steward arrived, with his invariable look of ill-usage and a denial of anything, anything at all that might be alleged against him, 'Killick, freshen some champagne, will you?'
'Which we ain't got none, your honour,' said Killick, barely containing his triumph. 'Not since the Admiral dined aboard. Oh dear me, no.'
'Some white Burgundy, then: and let it down in a net on a twenty-fathom line.'
There was no white Burgundy either; but Killick was capable of relishing a private victory too, and he only replied, 'A twenty-fathom line it is, sir.'
'Now, Mr Hallam,' said Jack to his signal midshipman, 'Once the usual signals have passed, pray invite Captain Dundas and Mr Reade to supper. Doctor, should you like to come up into the foretop to watch Hamadryad make sail?'
It was not really a very dangerous ascent, nor lofty, and Stephen had been known to go even higher, entirely by himself, but he had so often been found clinging by his fingernails to improbable parts of the rigging that Jack and Bonden exchanged a private look of thankful relief when they had successfully pushed and julled him up into the top through the lubber's hole.
Though the foretop was of no great height it gave them a splendid view of the western Mediterranean: they were a little late for some of the phases of Hamadryad's increase of sail, but still there were many delights to come: studdingsails aloft and alow on either side of fore and mainmast, of course, and even royal studdingsails, which was coming it pretty high, as Jack observed—then a skysail above the main-royal—'and look, look, Stephen,' cried Jack, 'the audacious reptile has flashed out a skyscraper-do you see? The fore-and-aft affair above everything: take my glass and you will make out its sheet. Did you ever see the like, Bonden?'
'Never, sir. But once when I was aboard Melpomene in the doldrums we spread a sail above the royal: though it being square we called it a moonsail.'
This prodigious spread brought Hamadryad within pistol-shot of the little Surprise before dusk. She clapped her helm a-lee, swung round in an elegant curve, spilt the wind from her sails, furled her wings, and sent her captain across the narrow lane in his barge, as neat and trim as the Channel fleet. 'My dear Hen, how do you do?' cried Jack, receiving him on the quarterdeck with a hearty shake of his hand. 'You know Dr Maturin and all my officers, I believe?' Captain Dundas made his round of civilities. 'Come below,' said Jack, 'and let us have a whet—you must be mortal parched after such a frantic spread of cloth. What did you make?'
'Only a span above eight knots, even with all our washing hung out to dry,' said Dundas, laughing. 'But it did please our topmen.'
'It certainly amazed all ours—amazed and impressed. Sherry, or a draught of right Plymouth gin?'
'Oh, gin, if you please. Two of our victuallers were stove on the Berlings in that shocking southerly blow and we have not had a drop since then—they happened to be carrying it all. Did the wind reach as far as you?'
'Yes: and as far as Alexandria, I believe: a truly wicked blast. But tell me, Hen'—pouring him a stiff tot and speaking with an affectation of casual unconcern that deceived neither of his friends—'what has Lord Barmouth in the way of frigates?'
'None at all,' said Dundas. 'Some battered seventy-fours, a sixty-four-gun ship, some indifferent sloops, and of course the flag. But Hamadryad was the last of the frigates. The rest have been sent to Malta and eastwards: though indeed he is to be reinforced in two or three weeks, or perhaps earlier. They too were much delayed by the weather, carrying the C-in-C's new wife, and had to put back into Lisbon.'
Jack drank his own sherry with satisfaction and they sat down to a remarkably copious supper. Picking up his fork he said, 'Did you say that Lord Barmouth was remarried? I heard nothing about it.'
'He was, though. To Admiral Horton's remarkably handsome young widow. It is her absence that makes him crosser than usual.'
Jack nodded vaguely, and in the pause between the pair of fowls and the sucking-pig he asked, 'Did you wait on Lord Keith?'
'Yes, I did,' said Dundas. 'I had a message for him from my father; but I should have gone in any case. I have a great respect for the Admiral.'
'So have I. How was Lady Keith?'
'As lovely, and kind, and learned as ever: she was good enough to ask me to dinner, and she and the chaplain of one of the seventy-fours prattled away about some peculiarities of the Hebrew used in the Jewish community on the Rock.'
'Do they indeed use a colloquial Hebrew?' asked Stephen. 'I had always supposed that they kept to their archaic Spanish.'
'From what I gathered they spoke Hebrew when Jews from remote countries appeared—countries where Arabic or Persian took the place of Spanish. Rather as those more learned than I am use Latin when they are in Poland or, God preserve us, Lithuania.'
'As I remember,' said Jack, 'they meant to stake a house somewhere near the Governor's cottage.'
'Just so: Ballinden. It is a little higher up, but somewhat closer to the town. A charming place, with a prodigious view of the Straits and a fine garden kept by a Scorpion: perhaps rather large for them and I am afraid the apes are a nuisance at times. But they both seem very happy there.'
'Bless them,' said Jack, raising his glass. 'They were both most uncommon kind to me.'
Pudding came on almost as soon as they had drunk the Keiths' health, a fine honest naval pudding of the kind that Jack and Dundas loved, and to which Stephen (unlike Jacob) had become inured. 'Thank you very much,' said Dundas, refusing a second piece, 'and I am afraid I must . . .' Before he could utter the words 'tear myself away' th
e Surprise's bell struck eight times, the cabin door opened and the midshipman in charge of Captain Dundas' barge said, 'Sir, you told me to . . .'
'Very true, Simmons,' said Dundas. 'Jack, thank you many, many times for a splendid supper; but if I do not speed on my way, I shall be flogged round the fleet. Gentlemen'—bowing to Stephen and Jacob—'your servant.'
All was over, the table cleared, all but for the brandy. Jacob had said good night, and a curious silence filled the cabin.
'Seeing Dundas hurry off in such a dutiful, truly naval fashion,' said Stephen, 'puts me in mind of an indiscreet question that I have often been tempted to ask you: and since after all I too am essentially concerned in our voyage, I shall venture upon it now. If Heneage Dundas is in danger of being flogged round the fleet for dillying and dallying on his way, may you not run the same risk, when at last your snail's pace brings you to Gibraltar and the Commander-in-Chief, who is not your very closest friend?'
'Stephen,' said Jack, 'I dare say you have noticed that the moon changes both her shape and her hours of rising and setting from time to time?'
'Indeed I have—a most inconstant orb. Sometimes a mere sickle facing left, sometimes right; and sometimes, as I have no doubt you have observed yourself, no moon at all. The dark of the moon! I remember you once landed me on the French coast at just such a time. Yet I am no great lunarian: a priest in the County Clare explained her motions to me, but I am afraid I did not fully retain his words.'
'He did persuade you that it was a regular process—that the changes could be foretold?'
'I am sure he did, at least to his own satisfaction.'
'It is the case, I do assure you, Stephen: and the very first appearance of the new moon at certain seasons is of the utmost consequence to Jews and Muslims. Now you are aware that the commander of the Arzila galley must be either the one or the other—almost certainly a Muslim—and in any case a sailor. Furthermore he is presumably a sailor in his right mind, so wind and weather permitting he must necessarily pass through the Strait at the dark of the moon or as near as ever he can get to it, a night that he can foretell as well as we can. So seeing that both he and I think alike, I hope to give him the meeting somewhere south of Tarifa.'
'To be sure, that puts a different complexion on the matter.'
'Furthermore, I have no wish to lose any spars by cracking on, nor to lie there day after day under the eye of a Commander-in-Chief who dislikes me. He is a very distinguished sailor, I fully admit; and his reputation as a fighting captain was very high indeed; yet as a flag-officer he has been less fortunate . . . It is very odd, but there is something about the Admiralty board-room table that has a sad effect on some of those who sit there, sensible men who can club-haul their ship off a roaring lee-shore or take a huge Spanish beauty like the Santisima Trinidad and remain perfectly civil and unassuming until this point, this board-room table. It is not invariable, but I have served under some who, on becoming a Sea-Lord, above all First Sea-Lord, who suddenly swell up into creatures of enormous importance, who have to be approached on hands and knees, and addressed in the third person. No. Lord Barmouth will have a monument in the Abbey with a great many fine actions engraved upon it; but he is perfectly capable of doing a dirty thing, and I should rather make my obeisance a very short time before the dark of the moon and then go about my business, looking as much like a distressed merchantman as possible.'
It was a good plan; it kept the ship from the wear and tear of a hurried passage, so that (apart from other considerations) she should be entirely ready for the eagerly-expected meeting. But it was based on the false assumption that the Commander-in-Chief should be sitting in Gibraltar.
He was in fact exercising the vessels under his command, the ships of the line to port, the sloops and minor craft to starboard, in line abreast; and well behind them sailed a numerous convoy of merchantmen.
This surprising armada was reported, bit by bit, from the masthead as the morning cleared, starting with the foremost division of sloops; and Jack had time to spread more canvas, much more canvas, to the north-east breeze before the hail came down: 'On deck, there. On deck: flag two points on the starboard bow.'
Fortunately the Surprise was in a high state of cleanliness—decks already dry from the swabbing—guns as neat as a paper of pins—all hands reasonably well turned out and necessarily stone-cold sober; but this did not prevent Harding, Woodbine and the Royal Marine officer from fussing about the ship or Killick from overhauling the rear-admiral's uniform that Jack wore, on formal occasions, as commodore.
The day cleared. The signal midshipman and his yeoman watched the almost continual stream of hoists running up aloft as Lord Barmouth put his fleet through a variety of manoeuvres and expressing a variety of comments, mostly unfavourable. At last Surprise's number appeared, together with Commodore repair aboard flag.
Bonden and his crew already had the barge clear for lowering down and the moment he saw Jack emerge from his cabin in the glory of number one scraper, presentation sword and a large quantity of gold lace he gave the word and the boat glided down, instantly followed by bargemen and a master's mate at the tiller. 'As soon as we are a cable's length away,' said Jack to Harding, 'start the salute: and I am sure you will never forget a couple of spares in case of a misfire.'
With this he ran down into the barge, and as usual Bonden shoved off, saying to his crew, 'Row dry, there; row dry.' And when they had pulled just a cable's length, the Surprise began her salute to the Commander-in-Chief, seventeen guns: for this was the first time she had met him in office. After the seventeenth Implacable replied, but hesitated slightly after the thirteenth as though doubtful of Jack's right to more, though his broad pennant was clearly to be seen—hesitated until some angry voice roared from the quarterdeck, when the remaining two were fired almost together.
The captain of Implacable, Henry James, an old shipmate, received Jack kindly as he came aboard: the Royal Marines presented arms, and the flag-lieutenant said, 'May I take you to the Commander-in-Chief, sir?'
'I am happy to see you, Mr Aubrey,' said Lord Barmouth, half-rising from behind his desk and giving him a cold hand.
'So am I, upon my word,' said Sir James Frere, the Captain of the Fleet, whose grasp was much more cordial.
'But I do not quite understand what you are doing in these waters. Pray sit down while you tell me.'
'My Lord, the previous Commander-in-Chief gave me a squadron with orders to proceed to the lonian and Adriatic and—having seen the trade on its way—to put an end to Bonapartist ship-building in those parts, to persuade some French ships to come over to the Allies and to take, sink, burn and destroy those who would not. An emissary from Sir Joseph Blaine also spoke of the Ministry's concern at reports of a Muslim confederacy's intention of preventing the junction of the Russian and Austrian forces marching westward to join the British and Prussian armies, or at least to delay it long enough for Napoleon's superior numbers to crush each of the Allied states separately. This move on the part of the Muslim group however required the enlistment of a large number of mercenaries; and they had to be paid. The money was to come from a Muslim state on the confines of Morocco, and it was expected to travel by way of Algiers: our intelligence people eventually put an end to that and it is now to come by sea, through the Straits, as I have told Lord Keith in repeated dispatches, not knowing that he had been superseded. Perhaps I should add that Sir Joseph also supplied my political adviser with a local expert, a gentleman perfectly fluent in Turkish and Arabic, who was of the greatest value: with his help we detached one French frigate, destroyed two others, and burnt a score of yards together with the ships they were building.'
'Yes,' said the Admiral. 'I have heard something of it; and I congratulate you on your success, I am sure . . . ('How he banged them about!' murmured Sir James.) Have you prepared a report?'
'Not yet, my Lord.'
'Then you can come back to Gibraltar with us and let me have it there as soon as possible. You
spoke of your political adviser and his colleague?'
'Yes, my Lord.'
'I should be obliged if you would send them both across to confer with my politico. And Aubrey, although Lord Keith gave you quite a handsome squadron, it has melted away, for convoy duty and the like. What is that schooner you have in company?'
'She belongs to my surgeon, sir, and she acts as our tender.'
'Well, she is a handsome little craft, but she don't amount to a squadron; so perhaps it would be more proper if you were to strike your broad pennant and revert to a private ship.'
Jack had intended to ask the Commander-in-Chief whether there was any news of the French or Allied armies, but these last words were so clearly meant to be disobliging that he merely took his leave. On deck, however, he found Implacable's captain, who said that although there were rumours of the wildest sort, such as a rising in Ireland and a French invasion of Kent, he had heard nothing authentic except for the soldiers' exasperation, frequently expressed, at the Russians' slowness.
Jack nodded with satisfaction and then said, 'Lord Barmouth has ordered me to send my surgeon and a politico across: they are amazingly gifted linguists and very learned men, but neither has much notion of coming up the side of a ship, and was you to rig a bosun's chair, I should take it kindly.'
Back in the Surprise he took off his finery, struck his broad pennant, told Harding to follow the flag into Gibraltar, and sent for the log-books. He and Adams were still establishing the bases of his report—obviously with great gaps that only Stephen and Jacob could fill—when they heard the boat's return, the anxious cries, and the children's piping 'Welcome aboard, dear Doctors, welcome oh welcome aboard!'
Coming below, Stephen looked attentively at his friend, deep in papers, and said, 'You are low in your spirits, brother.'
'Indeed I am. For your own ear alone, I am very much afraid that we are going to be baulked of our galley—pipped on the post—done brown. In my simplicity I told the Commander-in-Chief that she was coming up by the Straits and that I meant to intercept her. I let it be understood, that I was still acting on the orders given me by Lord Keith; but I fear I may be set aside and the chance given to some more favoured man.'