Blue At The Mizzen Part 11

'Good G.o.d, yes: but I was in a hurry; and as you know I have never been afraid of cracking on: so I took the Strait. Some people say it is dangerous and prefer to creep round by the Horn; but I don't mind a little danger, and I took the Strait. At one point just after the Second Narrows, when we were very nearly close-hauled, the wind began to back before we were handsomely round the cape and with tears in his eyes the master begged me to put into the sheltered bay. But "No," said I, "in for a penny, in for a pound", and we rounded the point with barely a fathom to spare.'

'Well done, well done,' said Jack, feeling that it was required of him; and for a while Lindsay stood relishing his feat and murmuring 'In for a penny, in for a pound'. But then one of the circling crane-like birds dropped a t.u.r.d on his hat: he wiped it fairly clean with a piece of sea-wrack, and then went on in a more matter-of-fact tone, 'I was in a hurry, of course, as you will understand; and I got here in very good time. I have already looked at almost all my bases, almost the whole of my command - Concepcion, some of the smaller island places, Talcahuana, and now this. But I must tell you, Aubrey,' he went on, after a significant pause, ' I must tell you that the discipline, sense of order, and indeed elementary cleanliness, to say nothing of seamanship, are not what we could wish: that is one of the many reasons why I am so happy to have a man like you - of your reputation - under my orders.'

'What you say is particularly kind and flattering,' said Jack after a considering pause and a glance at the wholly impa.s.sive Maturin, 'but I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding. As a post-captain on the active list, on detached service, I am under the orders of the Admiralty and of n.o.body else on earth.'

Lindsay reddened, and after two false starts he said, 'I am commander-in-chief of the Junta's naval forces, and as such...'

'How do you mean, Junta?'

'The combination of authorities that make up the Republic.'

'The republic of the whole country?'

'The entirety - apart from a few dissident northern bases near the Peruvian frontier that will soon be liberated. And as such,' he went on, resuming his official voice, 'it is within my power to press your men and impound your vessel.'

'Gentlemen,' said Dr. Maturin in a voice that expressed neither authority nor impatience but that did stress the need to speak in a lower, more adult tone and to abandon rhetoric, 'it is surely time to sit in the shade; and although tea can scarcely be hoped for, yet coffee may well be had, or mate. There is an agreeable awning at no great distance.'

'The gentleman, as I believe I said before, is my political adviser,' observed Jack. Lindsay bowed again, and said that coffee, iced coffee, was indeed to be had under the awning.

It was with evident relief that they descended from this near crisis and sat in the shade, called for their coffee and talked for a while like ordinary human beings, discussing common acquaintances, the few ships still in commission and the fate of officers, particularly junior officers, flung on sh.o.r.e and living there on half-pay. Then Stephen, having found that Lindsay was somewhat less foolish than he had appeared at an earlier stage, laid out the position (or a chosen part of the position) as it was seen in London. Government was in favour of Chilean independence: it did not much care for some of the members of the southern junta or group of juntas and had not committed itself to anything resembling recognition; it was on better terms with those in the north, and there had been a certain indirect intercourse, a certain understanding. But if any vexation, let alone any violence, were offered to a ship even remotely connected with the Royal Navy, the effects on Chilean independence would be disastrous, disastrous: whereas a more or less tacit co-operation in suppressing Spanish privateering or the like, to say nothing of Peruvian invasion, would have entirely the opposite effect. Sir David was no doubt perfectly aware of Surprise's force, her fighting reputation, her superbly well-trained crew: her prime and ostensible function was hydrographical - above all surveying - but in the course of her activities she might well have many and many a chance of helping the infant republic to full and acknowledged independence. If Sir David would make all these facts clear to the many influential men with whom he was in contact, he would do both countries a very great service indeed.

They parted with expressions of good will and a.s.surances on Lindsay's part of the most wholly discreet cooperation in case of need; and when they were separated by a decent stretch of ground Jack said, 'How can that young man have been so bubbled, so wildly deluded, as to think that I had come out to join him? I am deeply puzzled. For as you have observed, he is not altogether a fool: yet he really believed what he was saying. And to believe that even in peace-time a post-captain quite high on the list and not reduced to actual beggary should consent to act in such a wholly unauthorised caper - and to serve under him... it pa.s.ses imagination.' 'Certainly I can advance not a shadow of official approval or qualified a.s.sent, no instant solution, no convincing hypothesis at all. But a line runs - or rather limps, for I do not think I have it right: "Jockey of Norfolk be not so bold, For d.i.c.kon thy master is bought and sold."'

A few yards farther and he said, 'I have had a certain experience of juntas and I must say that quite often those combinations for a common aim bring out the worst in men, they generally having private ends in far greater ma.s.s than the common aim. And Jack, it is my belief that you too have been bought and sold, some considerable member of the northern junta that first approached you having defected to the south and having transferred your services, as he might those of a common mercenary, to his new friends. But I speak very much at random and must submit my notions to Jacob's vastly superior local knowledge and connexions. I hope to see him in Santiago: but meanwhile we have done no harm.'

CHAPTER NINE.

'My dear Sir Joseph,' wrote Stephen, 'how I wish I had the words to express my admiration at the celerity of your message and at your very particular kindness in sending down to Dorset for as much as the ladies concerned could write while the chaise was turned round. The celerity of course owed a great deal to Mr. Bridges' ingenuity together with his profound knowledge of Andean pa.s.ses, and to the most uncommon physical powers of his Indian runners, but even more to the network of republican Masonic lodges that found us here rather than at our southern port. Yet the kindness was yours alone and I thank you very heartily, enclosing the briefest of all brief replies. Now as for the actual posture of affairs here in Santiago and the rest of Chile, the varying composition of the juntas (roughly one for each considerable stretch of territory) and their convictions, to say nothing of their desire for power, makes any prediction so tentative in my present state of knowledge that it is scarcely worth writing down; yet I will say that O'Higgins, the Supreme Director, appears to be losing popularity, together with San Martin, whereas the Carrera brothers and Martinez de Rozas are certainly increasing theirs. When I have been here a little longer and have spent more time with the invaluable Dr. Jacob, I shall send you a more considered, better-informed account of the shifting, almost impenetrable political scene: but for the moment I shall close, if I may, with my sincerest thanks for the increased grant, and a few words on our naval affairs. The first of these words is a little discouraging, since it must state that His Catholic Majesty's heavy frigate, renamed O'Higgins, of no less than fifty guns, is now found to have become wholly unserviceable, through age and decay: and the republican ports are very short of all naval stores. On the other hand, Captain Aubrey and Sir David Lindsay have reached a working agreement: and Surprise is now lying off a small port in Chiloe, which is still held by the royalists, who have a considerable base there as well as two or three of moderate size. But the port in question is a commercial harbour in which a notorious Spanish privateer has taken refuge - a vessel that Surprise means to board and take by night at slack water, so that if the wind should fail, the ebb will bring her out. Aubrey is attended by three republican sloops, which, says he, know nothing of their trade but are pitifully willing to learn: each has an experienced RN master's mate or senior midshipman to help them. And Heaven knows the Republic has a very great and urgent need of sailors who possess at least the rudiments of their calling, when the naval force of Peru is considered, with their thirty-two gun, quite new frigate, others somewhat older but serviceable, several ship-sloops and brigs, manned by a body of competent professional officers and seamen, and commanded, in effect, by a viceroy perfectly loyal to his king and bitterly resentful of the royalist defeat at Chacabuco. The Peruvian army may be discredited, but this most certainly does not apply to the Peruvian navy: and while the Spaniards still hold the southern base of Valdivia and those on the important northern island of Chiloe, the new republic's trade, its sea-borne trade, is in constant danger, and swarms of privateers, under royalist licence or no licence at all, take whatever ships they can overtake and overwhelm.

'Now until I have the honour of writing more fully, after consultation with Dr. Jacob, I shall just append a provisional list of the juntas of which I have personal knowledge, encode the whole, and end, with the utmost grat.i.tude, dear Sir Joseph, Your humble, obedient, and most affectionate servant, S. Maturin'

Before encoding the whole, however, S. Maturin looked at the two sc.r.a.ps of paper that had come with Blaine's message: one addressed to him, the other to Jack. Unfolding his own he read, with infinite tenderness, 'from two very close friends at Woolcombe, with their dearest love. Brigid and Christine', but hearing someone at the door, he thrust it secretly into his bosom.

The sound at the door was of course Jacob: unlike many orthodox Masons he had no strong prejudice against these somewhat irregular republican lodges in Chile; but he did deplore their loquacity.

'At least,' he said, sitting down heavily and taking snuff, 'I did learn that the younger O'Higgins, the one you were so friendly with in Peru, will be here tomorrow.'

'Ambrosio? Yes, I did like him, and could wish to see him again. A deadly shot, and a not inconsiderable botanist. Would it be sensible to invite him, do you think?'

Jacob considered, took more snuff, and said, 'It would be noticed, of course: particularly if we went to Antoine's. But I do not think it would do any harm. Rather the reverse.'

'Then I shall invite him. Never was a more permeable frontier. We have a reasonable number of agents there, I believe?'

'Tolerable, tolerable... we could certainly do with more.'

'See if you can find a couple of reasonably intelligent, reasonably truthful men with some nautical experience to keep an eye on the state of naval preparation in Callao. There are rumours of unusual activity. Amos: forgive a personal question, I beg, but do you put crumbled coca-leaves into your snuff?'

'No. I have more respect for the septum of my nose. I keep to mere tobacco. It is not so good, admittedly; but it revives me after the dreary meetings. And as you see," -tapping it - 'my septum is intact.'

'Long may it remain so. For my part I prefer to chew, or swallow. In moderation, in moderation, of course. Should you like to cast an eye over my synthesis of your information on the juntas and their political colour?'

'Certainly.'

'And I shall encode my piece for Whitehall, and then, with the blessing, we can dine. The day after tomorrow, having seen young O'Higgins, I mean to go down to Valparaiso: Captain Aubrey should be back by then. Will you come?'

'I had rather stay, if you do not mind. Two or three agents will be coming here from Lima.'

As Stephen rode down on a fine smooth-paced dapple-grey mare he turned a towering shoulder of rock and there was the ocean before him, an enormous, magnificent sea stretching to the horizon, and beyond the horizon, if his memory served, to China, Krim Tartary and the countries beyond: but here, close at hand - relatively close at hand - was the dear Surprise, unmistakable with her towering thirty-six-gun frigate's mainmast, and accompanied, which was by no means unusual, by a prize, a moderate ship-rigged privateer, now with drooping ears and in her turn accompanied by three republican sloops. These little vessels, though new to the game, knew enough about the ways of the prize-court to remove everything of value aboard, whether it was screwed down or not; and even from this distance they could be seen swarming over the side with their booty, like a body of ants.

At this early stage, when the foreigners - and nothing could have been more foreign in Chile than Jack Aubrey, fair-haired, red-faced, ma.s.sive, his officers and most of the hands - were looked upon as valued, welcome allies, it was a pleasure to walk about Valparaiso, with smiles, bows and cheerful cries - Merry Christmas! Good night! - on every hand, and when he had confided the mare to a stable that she obviously knew and liked, Stephen walked into the Capricorno with a mild satisfaction if not complacency, instantly succeeded by open astonishment as he recognised Dobson and his shipmates sitting at a punch-bowl, all delighted by his surprise. They made him sit down with a variety of delights. 'I had no idea you would be so far north already,' he said.

'Oh, the Isaac Newton can be induced to go at an astonishing speed; and having a professional master and his mate, who knew her very well on the Lisbon run, we can even sail by night, you know.'

'There is that amiable young man of the schooner, Mr. Reade,' said another Fellow, interrupting his account of a dicotyledonous plant unknown to science. 'Let us be mute, and see his amazement.'

The amazement reached their highest expectations, and they sat William Reade at the top of the table. 'Tell me, sir,' said Stephen's neighbour in a low voice, nodding towards William's hook, 'does the young gentleman ever feel the effects of electricity, of static electricity?'

'I do not believe so, sir,' said Stephen. 'But then there is a considerable amount of insulation between the steel and his flesh, you know.' A pause, and he went on, 'I am wonderfully ignorant of the whole subject: is there yet a general theory of electricity - electricity, what it is?'

'Not that I know of. Its effects can be seen and measured, but apart from that and some pretty wild unsubstantiated statements I do not think we yet know the ABC. Though Lankester may - he has done a great deal of work recently with copper wire in coils. Mr. Lankester..."

'Well, Aubrey,' cried Mr. Dobson, 'welcome ash.o.r.e. All we need now is Noah, Neptune, and a couple of tritons, ha, ha, ha,' and he called for another bowl of punch.

Punch or no, they listened very attentively to Jack's brief play-by-play account of boarding the privateer from the landward side while Surprise's few mortars, briskly served, p.o.o.ped up various lights into the seaward sky, varied with flashes and shattering bangs.

This really finished the day. After a somewhat rambling and hazy supper, three or four Fellows were led up to bed, and the rest sat under the starlit sky, sobering themselves with the iced juice of various fruits.

'What was the damage aboard?' asked Stephen as they walked back to the mare's agreeable inn.

'Extraordinarily little,' said Jack. 'Nothing that dear Poll could not deal with. Those fellows, those Chiloe privateers, knew nothing about action: they sailed their ship quite well, but as for fighting her... On the other hand, our young fellows really pleased me - our Chileans, I mean. They handled their craft quite well on the way over, and they boarded her like good 'uns, cutla.s.s in hand."

'Shall you ride back tomorrow? I have two men to see, and then I am away.'

'I do not think so. Since I speak no Spanish, I am not much use in Santiago, now that I have done the civil thing, with your help, by all the proper authorities. No. Down here I can really accomplish something, according to our agreement with the Supreme Director: they have good yards, decent craft up to a hundred tons or so, and at this time of year the breezes are reasonably steady and kind; and above all the eager young men learn very quick. Harding and Whewell speak a little Spanish, so do a few of the petty officers and hands, but the great thing is that most of them grasp the idea from good will and example. A rolling hitch is not all that simple, the first time: but I only had to show Pedro once, and he did it again and again, laughing with pleasure and asking my pardon for laughing.' 'I am heartily glad to hear what you say, my dear. We may have great need of young men that can tie a hitch... but as for laughter, open, audible laughter, I quite agree with your Pedro. There is something curiously offensive about it: above all when it is not truly amused, deeply amused. A parcel of excited young women screeching aloud and agitating their persons and limbs is enough to make one retire to a monastery. Our Fellows did not present a very elevating spectacle.'

'I did notice some of the Spaniards looking rather grave, and I did regret the last bowl of punch. Yet on the other hand, ours is an eminently respectable society: the Proceedings are known all over the learned world, and the men of the Isaac Newton, however bibulous on occasion, carry recommendations to the government, foreign office and universities of whatever country they visit. I do a.s.sure you, Stephen, that our connexion with them, with the Society as a whole in its most sober and learned mood, is a singular advantage to us.'

'My dear, I am entirely in agreement with you, no other Fellow more: yet even so, I could wish they would not laugh; or at the least, if they are truly amused, that they would laugh like men rather than eunuchs.'

'Oh, dear Jack,' he said, pausing at the door, 'I had almost forgot a note for you in Sir Joseph's packet.' He pa.s.sed it over, a more substantial letter than his own, and written very small.

It was some time before Stephen came back to their inn, for he had found the small Catalan colony in Valparaiso dancing their native sardana in the square outside St Vincent's and he walked in smiling, the familiar music still running in his head.

But the smile was wiped clean away by the sight of Jack so reduced with sorrow, deeply unhappy, red-eyed and bent.

Stephen had often deplored the tendency of the English to display their feelings - their emotional weakness - but now looking sharply at his friend he saw something quite out of the common run: and indeed Jack stood up, blew his nose, and said, 'Forgive me, Stephen: I do beg pardon for this disgraceful exhibition: but Sophie's letter quite bowled me over.' He held up the almost transparent pages. 'She is so brave and good - never a harsh word, nor a hint of complaint, even though the girls have been really ill and Heneage Dundas is not quite pleased with George's conduct in Lion. She brought the whole place so alive, Stephen - I could see it all, courtyard, stables, library, farm-land and common. And she said such kind things about Christine and your Brigid:... Lord, it quite unmanned me. Strutting about on the other side of the world, leaving everything to them... I had no idea how attached I was.'

Stephen took his pulse, pulled down his eyelid, and said, 'It is very, very hard: but in the first place you are to consider that the dear west wind will waft us through the Strait, and then, which is not improbable, if you accompany the squadron, it will almost take us to the Cape. And there with the liberation of Chile behind you, you may bring Sophie down and any others you choose, to a delightful healthy country, new sights and admirable wine - Sophie dearly loves her gla.s.s, G.o.d bless her. And as a physician I do a.s.sure you, Jack, that we must sup extremely well, on thick beef-steaks, with a large amount of burgundy (I know where Chambertin is to be had), and then a soothing draught to take to bed.'

The next morning, having fondly visited both men-of-war - how very much at home he felt in either - having greeted all his old shipmates, and they reminding one another of cruel hard times - how the Doctor had declined a gravid seal's burden - and having conferred with Poll and Maggie about their cheerful, well-bandaged patients, he rode away.

With the dusty town behind him he struck into the main Santiago road, almost deserted that day. Up and up on the fine-pacing mare, and quite soon he reached that stretch of fissured, apparently soilless shoulder of rock so remarkably studded with the small, extraordinarily spiny cactus locally called the lion's cub. It took them an hour and more to round this vast ma.s.s and reach the farther stretches where the winding road rose and fell through almost barren ground - barren, except for some botanical wonders; and, for so bare a countryside, remarkably well populated by birds of prey, ranging from a minute shrike to the inevitable condor. The rise took up at least nine tenths of the way, a steady, inevitable rise with every now and then a descent so steep that he dismounted and took the bridle. And all the way along this prodigious highway through the mountains, whether he rode or whether he walked, there before him, at various distances, sometimes diaphanous, occasionally sharply focused and clear, he saw not indeed Christine but various aspects of her: and the miles went by unnoticed, until the mare stopped at the usual resting-place and turned her mild gaze upon him, with a hint of reproof.

On the next stretch they pa.s.sed through an invisible barrier into a thinner, cooler air, and there were his - not illusions: perceptions might be the better word - of Christine again, clearer and sharper now, particularly as she moved across a dark wall of rock. A tall, straight, lithe figure, walking easily and well: he remembered with the utmost clarity how, when she was reading or playing music or training her gla.s.s on a bird, or merely reflecting, she would be entirely apart, remote, self-contained; and then how she would be wholly with him when he moved or spoke. Two strikingly different beings; and the delight in her company, as he delighted even in the memory of it, seemed to him essential happiness, fulfilment. Of course he was a man, quite markedly so, and he would have liked to know her physically: but that was secondary, a very remote stirring compared with gazing at this phantasm - this now remarkably clear and sharply-defined phantasm against the rock-face.

He had gathered that she was respected but not particularly liked in the colony, where her most uncommon beauty seemed to pa.s.s if not unnoticed then at least sometimes unadmired. In a crowded gathering he had heard a conventionally pretty woman say 'I can't think what they see in her', referring to the group of young and middle-aged men who rarely moved far from where she was standing.

In Stephen's long-considered opinion the most striking thing about her was the change from a perfectly well-bred woman, little given to personalities or colonial chit-chat, reserved but not at all woundingly so - the remarkable transition to warmth and sympathetic exchange with someone she liked. When this took place her whole physical att.i.tude altered with it: at no time did she ever hold herself stiffly, but now there was a suppleness in her whole stance; and Stephen, who had watched her more closely than he had watched the rarest of birds, could tell by a minute change in her complexion whether she was going to like her companion or not. 'Besotted I may be,' he said aloud, 'but that spontaneous confidentiality...'

He did not finish even the thought, because at a corner immediately ahead appeared the leader of a mule-train, an aged animal with a hat on her head, accompanied by a man who in an enormous roaring voice that echoed in the chasm, desired Stephen and his mare to step aside into the appointed nook.

Isobel, the mare, knew exactly what to do, which was just as well, since Stephen was so deep in his own discourse, so intent on his wonderfully convincing (though distant) illusion, he had not noticed for the last quarter of a mile that they had been walking on the edge of a sheer, a truly appalling, precipice, the road having been cut across the face of a cliff.

'Go with G.o.d,' called the man at the head of the train as he pa.s.sed, and those at the end blessed Stephen too -comforting in so very lonely and inhuman a spot. But when they were round the corner and plodding steadily upwards in the fading light through the now much narrower valley, his illusion, (always a perfectly silent illusion), was no longer there. No searching, no effort of the imagination could call it up: what is more, the nature of the landscape had changed. One more sharp turn and directly before them there was the dip in the skyline that showed the high pa.s.s, and well below it, on a smooth, almost domestic slope, the lanterns of their inn.

A frosty morning, and they crossed the pa.s.s, coming to a much more populated road, somewhat tedious and commonplace: another inn, with even poorer food. Up and down: up and down: no illusions, alas; but towards the end of a weary day, Santiago. Isobel, rubbed down and filled with a fine warm mash, could go to sleep in her accustomed stable, her head drooping: and Stephen returned to his hotel, where he found Jacob in an unusual state of agitation. 'So you have come back,' he cried.

'I could not agree more,' said Stephen. 'Pray help me off with these boots.'

The boots off, with a final gasping heave, Jacob said, 'Unless these two new agents lie in their teeth - and I could swear they are independent, each ignorant of the other's enquiries - there is anxious news from both Lima and Callao. The viceroy has decided on invasion, to be preceded, with the full consent and approval of the naval staff, by an attack on Valparaiso.'

Stephen nodded, and Jacob went on, 'But this, above all the naval part, requires more stores than they possess, and the people concerned - the various boards - are running up and down buying rope, canvas, gunpowder and so on. Fortunately for us, many of those involved, the manufacturers of rope, canvas and gunpowder, have either, as you may well imagine, raised their prices or concealed their wares until the prices shall have reached to what they suppose their limit.'

'Can such things be?' asked Stephen. 'But in any case, before sending off post-haste to warn poor Captain Aubrey, I must be fed. I smelt the homely scent of an olla podrida as I came up the stairs. I have eaten my fill of fried guinea-pigs between here and Valparaiso and back again and I tell you most solemnly that I absolutely must be fed.'

'Well, if your G.o.d is your belly, I suppose you must worship it,' said Jacob; but he did touch the bell.

Within moments the fragrant olla, which stood perpetually simmering, perpetually renewed, on the rim of the kitchen hearth, reached the eager table.

Repletion came at last, and Stephen pushed back his chair: from an inner pocket he drew the pouch in which he kept his coca leaves, the lime and the necessary outer wrapping. He had no particular urge to chew coca at this moment, but he knew how a meal as substantial as that which he had just eaten dulled the mind. He desired that his wits should be as sharp as possible, and while he carefully dosed his proportions he said to his friend, 'Amos, when you used coca in considerable quant.i.ties, did you observe a difference in reaction according to alt.i.tude? I know that porters in the Peruvian Andes, when they have to carry a heavy burden over a very high pa.s.s, will increase the dose to a surprising degree. They seemed to take no harm and I supposed that physical energy, physical endurance and freedom from hunger was all they sought and all they derived. But have any other effects come to your attention?'

'Not in the north: no - apart from compulsive habituation, of course. But as you know there are many sorts of coca: down here they use the Tia Juana. And here, in the case of asthmatic patients or those afflicted with migraine there have been reports of hallucinations, their strength and frequency varying with the height - not with exertion, but with alt.i.tude.'

Stephen separated the ingredients of his little packet into their different compartments, and said, 'Thank you, dear colleague; but I do not like the notion of a vegetable providing my beatific vision: if it chooses to sharpen my intelligence, to allow me to multiply seven by twelve, well and good: but the sacred emotions, no. Amos, we must go down to Valparaiso directly, though I quite dread seeing that road again.'

'If only you could overcome your prejudice against the mules, as I have said many times before, I could show you a quicker, easier road. True, there are a few very steep pa.s.sages that only a goat or a mule could venture upon without dread, but you can always leap down after they have shown you the way.'

'Then let us call for excellent mules, with an equivalent number of muzzles, and a warranted muleteer.'

It so happened that Stephen was on a particularly kind and amenable mule whose good will he increased with a piece of bread at each halt; but even she grew excited and inclined to caper as they came down into Valparaiso. The place was filled with soldiers; and the cries and acclamations very soon made it evident that Bernardo O'Higgins, the Supreme Director, was in the town with his powerful escort of picked troops, many of whom had been at the decisive battle.

They led their mules and the muleteer to their hotel by back ways, and there they met a profoundly discontented Killick, who s.n.a.t.c.hed their baggage from the muleteer with a suspicious look and who told them that the d.a.m.ned place was crammed with b.l.o.o.d.y soldier-officers and he had only kept the Doctor's room by force, while the poor Captain had had to give up his drawing-room to an effing colonel, on the grounds that the effing colonel spoke English. Which Surprise was in the port, admired by all hands, and Captain Aubrey had taken General O'Higgins across the bay in Rin-gle, and if they survived they were all going to have dinner aboard Surprise tomorrow, gents.

The word tomorrow sent such a gust of impatience racing through Stephen's mind that he missed some of Killick's later information, but later the more phlegmatic, less-concerned Jacob pa.s.sed it on: Lindsay was at sea, protecting republican trade from privateers; and about four hundred of the troops were going on to Concepcion, which should make Valparaiso less wh.o.r.eson crowded and noisy.

The people of the hotel were making up a bed in Stephen's little room and Killick was angrily trying to put clothes away in inadequate cupboards when the door opened: Stephen looked in, thought that anything would be better than this and retired. Almost at once he met an officer who stopped, bowed, and said, 'Dr. Maturin y Domanova, I presume? Allow me to present myself: Valdes. I used sometimes to come to Ullastret, to hunt the boar, and I believe we may call kin.'

'Why, you must be the Cousin Eduardo, of whose English my G.o.dfather was so proud, so rightly proud! I am delighted to see you.'

'And I to see you, Cousin Stephen.' They embraced, and Stephen suggested that they should go down into the patio and drink to their better acquaintance under the vine.

In the daylight Stephen saw that his new cousin was a colonel, and one who had obviously seen a good deal of service: a soldier, but a thoroughly civilised soldier, who was now speaking of Jack Aubrey in terms of the highest, almost enthusiastic praise...' such a fine fellow: don Bernardo took to him at once, and at this moment they are tearing about the bay in a schooner..."

'Well done, cousin: it was long, long before I learnt to call it - to call her - a schooner.'

'Ha, ha,' said the colonel with evident satisfaction. 'But tell me, I beg, how does one say Director supremo in English?'

'There you have me,' said Stephen. 'Director-general smells of commerce, and Protector of that villain Cromwell. Perhaps Head of State?'

They exchanged alternatives, but neither was satisfied by the time Jack and the Supreme Director himself came in, a fine-looking man, obviously of Irish extraction, followed by several officers. He and Stephen were old friends, and the conversation carried on, still in English. After the first civilities - immense delight in Ringle's sailing qualities on O'Higgins' part, compliments on the Chilean soldiers' past deeds and present civility on Stephen's - the conversation continued and Stephen said, 'Sir, I have just come down from Santiago, on a mule, on a mule, sir, on the quick but perilous road or rather path, through La Selva, because I had some information that I thought should be conveyed to you with the utmost rapidity.'

O'Higgins studied his face, looked round the patio, and said, 'Let us walk on the battlements. Please come with us, Captain Aubrey. And you too, Colonel: but first be so good as to place sentries to ensure the privacy of our conversation.'

From the high battlements they could see Surprise and the schooner looking quite beautiful, excellently lit by a declining sun: Surprise being t.i.ttivated to a truly remarkable extent, for the Supreme Director was to dine aboard her tomorrow.

They paced along four abreast, and Stephen told the essence of his news: the Peruvian viceroy's decision to invade, crossing the frontier with horse and foot once the Peruvian navy had destroyed the Chilean men-of-war in Valparaiso - the embarra.s.sment of Lima and Callao where stores were concerned - the strong probability that they would seek them in Valdivia.

'Thank you very much indeed, Doctor,' said O'Higgins. 'This thoroughly confirms the less reliable, less precise intelligence that has reached me.'

'Sir,' said Jack Aubrey, 'may I suggest an immediate reconnaissance? The wind serves admirably and in all likelihood it will bring us back. I have rarely seen a more promising breeze.'

'Dr. Maturin,' said O'Higgins, 'did your informants speak of the Peruvian navy's state of preparedness?'

'Not directly, sir,' said Stephen, 'but by implication, and by the already soaring prices, it is clear that their only heavy frigate, the Esmeralda, of I think fifty guns, is by no means ready to take the sea. As for the smaller craft, I gather that they are even more dilapidated.'

The Supreme Director considered, and said, 'If I know anything of those people in Lima they will be circulating minutes and memoranda from ministry to ministry for at least ten more days. We have the time. Dear Captain Aubrey, if I may I will come aboard you to dine, as you so kindly suggested: and while we are eating, let the ship move gently, almost imperceptibly, round the southern headland and then sail with all diligence for Valdivia, to come off the port rather before sunset, so that we may look into it with the light behind us. I shall bring what we have in the way of charts, drawings and plans.'

'Very good, sir,' said Jack, unable to conceal his satisfaction.

It was a curious dinner, much commented upon. As far as the ship's crew were concerned, it started naturally enough, before dinner, with the ship and all her people being brought to an even more unnatural state of cleanliness and, where possible, of polish. It was natural too that the great man's approach should be marked by a roaring of guns that did not leave a single bird on the water: and that the side should be dressed as he was piped aboard: but even at that early point there was something odd in his being brought out by the Captain's barge, together with a colonel, who made a proper soldier's job of coming aboard; and it was odder still when, well on into the cabin's dinner the order came to get the barge aboard and start unt.i.ttivating the ship, stowing the beautifully ornamented man-ropes and getting everything back into sea-going order.

'I tell you what, Maggie,' said Poll Skeeping to her particular friend, 'I think there's something fishy going on.'

'The minute I saw Joe Edwards and his mates unpicking those man-ropes, with the gentlemen still at table, nowhere near their port even, I smelt a rat.'

To keep so very complex an ent.i.ty as a man-of-war functional, all hands and most of the gear must be able to face a great number of widely differing events, circ.u.mstances, emergencies very quickly indeed; and in a man-of-war so highly worked up as the Surprise, with a crew of right seamen, this could usually be done smoothly. But virtually all sea-borne emergencies have a certain pattern, a sequence, however disagreeable; and once that pattern is very grievously upset, confidence dwindles. The unpicking of those man-ropes did much more harm than the raising of the barge to its usual place on deck - in itself most unusual, reprehensible, but not downright insane, or even worse, unlucky.

As Jack's dinner carried on with its agreeable progress, the decanters making their steady round, most of the frigate's people spoke of their uneasiness, usually confiding in their tie-mates, the friends to whom they would entrust their pigtails for combing and replaiting, but sometimes to others, quite far removed even by watch, with whom they had a particular sympathy. These friendships were by no means uncommon, but few were as improbable or as wholly unequal as that which had sprung up between Horatio Han-son and Awkward Davies - awkward, not because of his uncouth motions but because of his truly awful rage if crossed. They were working together on a new log-line and a new sounding-line, placing the marks with the extreme accuracy required for exact navigation.

'Sir,' asked Davies, in a low and anxious tone, 'did you ever see a man-rope stowed, unpicked and stowed, when guests were still aboard?' They were certainly still aboard, their voices, eagerly discussing the politics of juntas, could be heard quite clearly where the new log-line lay.