The Ionian Mission Part 11

'Killick is in a horrid pa.s.sion, I am sorry to say,' wrote Jack, 'and will not be comforted until we are back in a ship of the line. For my part I do not care if I never see a ship of the line again: after these months of close blockade, a well-found frigate seems the ideal command to me, and I may say the same for all my officers. I am to dine with them today, and we are to have a grand poetic contest, a kind of sweepstake, to be judged by secret ballot. Killick,' he called, 'rouse out a gla.s.s of bitters, will you? And have one for yourself while you are about it.' The gunroom's dinner was earlier than Jack's usual hour, and he wanted to do honour to their feast.

'Which there ain't none left, sir,' replied Killick, pleased for the first time that day. 'Don't you remember the case dropped into the hold in consequence of the orlop-scuttle had been shifted, which they never told us, and was stove: so there ain't none left - all wasted, not even tasted, all gone into the bilge.'

'All wasted Not even tasted All gone into the bilge,' he repeated in a lugubrious chant.

'Oh well,' said Jack, 'I shall take a turn upon the quarterdeck: that will answer just as well.'

It answered even better. The hands had already eaten their dinner and drunk their grog but the midshipmen's berth was rounding out their pease-pudding and pig's trotters with toasted bloaters, laid in at Valetta, and the smell eddying aft from the galley brought water to his mouth. Yet the bloaters were not really necessary: happiness always gave Jack Aubrey an appet.i.te and at present he was filled with irrational glee, a glee that redoubled as he stood on that familiar quarterdeck, so much nearer to the sea than the Worcester's, and surveyed the n.o.ble spread of canvas that was urging the Surprise eastwards to her meeting with the Dryad at nearly three knots in a breeze so faint that many ships would not have had steerage-way, while at the same time he felt her supple lift and yield to the southern swell, a more living motion than that of any other ship he knew.

His was largely an irrational happiness and entirely on the surface: he had only to move down one layer in his mind to meet his very real distress for Admiral Thornton, one more for the shocking disappointment of the battle that had escaped them - a battle that might have ranked with St Vincent or the Nile and which would almost certainly have made Tom Pullings a commander (a move particularly near to Aubrey's heart) - another layer still for his own deeply worrying failure at Barka: and if he sank farther there were always his legal and financial worries at home and his anxiety about his father. The newspapers in Malta had spoken of General Aubrey's being returned for no less than two const.i.tuencies at once; and it appeared that the old gentleman was now twice as loquacious. He spoke against the ministry almost every day, and he was now doing so entirely in the more extreme Radical interest, alas, a real embarra.s.sment to the ministry. And there was not much room for rational glee if Jack looked forward, either, but rather the prospect of an exceedingly difficult situation in which diplomacy rather than hard fighting would be called for, a situation in which he could rely on no support from his chief, a situation in which a mistaken choice might bring his naval career to an end.

Yet gleeful he was. The tedium of blockade on short commons in a heavy, ill-contrived ship that might publicly disgrace herself at any minute was behind him, at least for the immediate future; the wearisome and in some ways painful transfer, the paper-work and the wrangling with the authorities in Malta was over; the Worcester, that walking corpse, was the dockyard's corporate anxiety, not his; and although he had left the oratorio behind him he had also left the mumps, that fell disease. He had dispersed his more useless midshipmen and all his youngsters but for two, Calamy and Williamson, for whom he felt a particular responsibility. And he was aboard a thoroughbred frigate, a ship he knew through and through and that he loved entirely, not only for her amiable qualities but because she was part of his youth ? quite apart from the fact that he had commanded her in the Indian Ocean, where she had behaved quite beautifully, he had served in her long, long ago, and even the smell of her cramped and awkward midshipmen's berth made him feel young again. She was rather small (few smaller left in the service), she was rather old, and although she had been very much strengthened, almost rebuilt, in the Cadiz yard, it would never, never do to take her across to meet the heavy Americans; but he had found to his delight that her refitting had not altered her sailing qualities in the least - she was astonishingly fast for those who knew how to handle her, she could come about like a cutter, and she could eat the wind out of any ship on the station. For this kind of mission, and for the eastern Mediterranean in general, she was everything he could ask (except in broadside weight of metal), above all as he had had the most uncommon good fortune of being able to give her a crew of hand-picked seamen, in which even the afterguard could hand, reef and steer. There were still many who had not sailed with him before the Worcester, but a surprising proportion of the frigate's two hundred men had done so - all the first and second captains of the guns for example, and nearly all the petty officers - and wherever he looked he saw faces he knew. Even when they were not old shipmates he could put a name to them and a character, whereas in the Worcester far too many had been anonymous. And he observed that they looked remarkably cheerful, as though his own good humour had spread: certainly they had just had their grog, and the weather was fine, and this was a peaceful make-and-mend afternoon, but even so he had rarely seen a more cheerful crew, particularly the old Surprises. 'A surprising proportion of old Surprises,' he said to himself, and chuckled.

'The skipper's luck is in,' murmured Bonden, as he sat on the gangway, embroidering Surprise on the ribbon of his sh.o.r.e-going hat.

'Well, I hope so, I'm sure,' said his heavy cousin Joe. 'It's been out long enough. Get your great a.r.s.e off of my new shirt, you wh.o.r.eson lobster,' he said mildly to his other neighbour, a Marine.

'I only hope it's not come in too hearty, that's all,' said Bonden, reaching out for the solid wooden truck of number eight gun's carriage.

Joe nodded. Although he was a heavy man he perfectly grasped the meaning of Bonden's 'luck'. It was not chance, commonplace good fortune, far from it, but a different concept altogether, one of an almost religious nature, like the favour of some G.o.d or even in extreme cases like possession; and if it came in too hearty it might prove fatal - too fiery an embrace entirely. In any event it had to be treated with great respect, rarely named, referred to by allusion or alias, never explained. There was no clear necessary connection with moral worth nor with beauty but its possessors were generally well-liked men and tolerably good-looking: and it was often seen to go with a particular kind of happiness. It was this quality, much more than his prizes, the perceived cause rather than the effect, that had made the lower deck speak of Lucky Jack Aubrey early in his career; and it was a piety at the same old heathen level that now made Bonden deprecate any excess.

Captain Aubrey, staring out over the weather-rail, smiling as he recalled the simple fun he had had in this same ship as a boy, heard the crunch of the Marine drum-mers's boots coming aft. He cast a last automatic glance at the dog-vane, said 'Very well Dyce' to the helmsman, went below for his best neckcloth, and put it on while the drum beat Roast Beef of Old England; then bending low under the beams he walked into the gunroom just as Pullings took up his station at the door to welcome him.

'Come, this is altogether snugger and more homely,' said Jack, smiling at the friendly faces, eight of them tight-packed round the gunroom table; and homely it was for those brought up in sea-going slums, though perhaps a little snugger than could have been wished, since each had his servant behind his chair and since the day was uncommonly warm and still, with no air coming below. The fare was homely too, the main dish being the roast beef of Old Calabria, a great piece of one of those Italian buffaloes known as grey friars in the Navy and shipped to Malta when they were quite past work; and this was followed by figgy-dowdy.

'Now that is what I call a really good basis for literature,' said Jack, when the cloth had been drawn, the King's health drunk, and fresh decanters set upon the table. 'When is the sweepstake to begin?'

'Directly, sir,' said Pullings. 'Thompson, pa.s.s round the voting-papers, place the ballot-box, collect the stakes, and hand along the gla.s.s. We have agreed, sir, that each gentleman is to limit himself to a four-and-a-half-minute gla.s.s; but he may explain the rest of the poem in prose, speaking quick. And we have agreed, sir, that there is to be no applause, nor no cat-calls, for fear of influencing the vote. It is all to be as fair as Habeas Corpus.'

'Or Nunc dimittis,' said the purser. But although Mr Adams had been very active in framing the rules, he and others turned shy at the last moment, and the pearly nautilus pa.s.sed round for the stakes held only a half-guinea, an a.s.sortment of English silver, and three pieces of eight, the contribution of the remaining compet.i.tors, Mowett, Rowan, and Driver, the new Marine officer shipped at Malta, a very ample, pink, amiable young man with weak eyes and a way of chuckling to himself. His powers were as yet unknown to the gunroom. They drew lots, and Rowan began. 'Now, gentlemen,' he said, speaking quick and in prose, 'this is part of a poem about the Courageux, Captain Wilkinson, running plumb on to the Anholt reef by night, wind at south-west, double-reefed topsails and forecourse, making eight knots. Turn the gla.s.s.' Pullings turned the sand-gla.s.s and without the slightest change of tone or pace or the least concession to the conventions of recital Rowan went straight on, his jolly round face beaming on the company, 'Dismal was this, many did despair That her dissolution was very near; She thumped heavy, and masts did play That in their obedience to the prow, would jump away.

Awful the grinding noise of keel and heel With an unusual motion made the crew to reel, The rudder being most oppressed and bound But soon it got released and went to the ground.

Sail first being set to press her over the reef, But striking harder without relief "Twas instantly chewed up and fasted again anew With willingness and zeal by her gallant crew.

At last the deleterious order to prepare To throw the cannon overboard. Oh what despair!

The officer of the third post ventured to state Oh n.o.ble chieftain pray hesitate!

('I happened to have the watch, sir,' he said in an aside to Jack.) Remember Sire, said this self same third, With due submission, pray let me be heard, Your own experiences of its baleful effects As often tried and as often made wrecks.

Guns lying together on the sand equal to rocks annoy The bottom of the bark, they may soon destroy; And now it's blowing a gale of wind, what hopes Impossible to save our lives could we get out the boats.

Stand fast, the bold commander said, 'Tis true The wind has shifted for us. Set topsails anew Square sails set and braced all aback. See hence The wonderful care of Almighty's Providence.'

In spite of the rules there was a distinct murmur of approval at the ship's coming off, for it was clearly understood from Rowan's expression, and indeed from his presence among them, that the Courageux had come off; but there was an even more distinct expression of scepticism about the third lieutenant's words to his captain, Wilkinson being a testy gentleman: Rowan felt this, and observed, 'The piece about n.o.ble Chieftan is poetic, you understand.'

'I never thought you would bring her off in time,' said Pullings. 'There were not above three grains of sand left. Next.'

Mowett took a draught of port, turned a little pale, and said, 'My piece is a fragment too, part of something in the epical line in three cantos about people sailing in these waters or to be more exact somewhat more easterly, off Cape Spado. They run into dirty weather, furl topsails, send down topgallant yards, and then reef courses; and this is a description of the manoeuvre. But it is preceded by a simile that I rather flatter myself - by a simile that would fall into place better if I went back to Now to the north, from Afric's burning sh.o.r.e, A troop of porpoises their course explore but I doubt I could get all that in and it may seem a little strange without but anyhow here goes.' He nodded to Pullings to turn the gla.s.s, and with his eyes fixed on the falling sand he began in a hollow moaning voice, 'Tossed on the tide she feels the tempest blow And dreads the vengeance of so fell a foe As the proud horse, with costly trappings gay, Exulting, prances to the b.l.o.o.d.y fray, Spurning the ground, he glories in his might, But reels tumultuous in the shock of fight; Even so, caparisoned in gaudy pride, The bounding vessel dances on the tide.'

He looked quickly round for some reaction to his simile: he saw nothing but deep, universal stupidity, but this may only have been the reserve called for by the rules. In any case he hurried on to ground where everybody would-be more at home: 'Fierce and more fierce the southern demon blew, And more incensed the roaring waters grew.

The ship no longer can her topsails spread, And every hope of fairer skies is fled.

Bowlines and halyards are relaxed again, Clewlines hauled down, and sheets let fly amain; Clewed up each topsail, and by braces squared, The seamen climb aloft on either yard.

They furled the sails, and pointed to the wind The yard by rolling tackles then confined.

While o'er the ship the gallant boatswain flies, Like a hoa.r.s.e mastiff through the storm he cries: Prompt to direct th'unskilful still appears; Th'expert he praises, and the fearful cheers.

Now some to strike topgallant yards attend: Some travellers up the weather-backstays send; At each masthead the top-ropes others bend.

The youngest sailors from the yards above Their parrels, lifts, and braces soon remove: Then topped an-end, and to the travellers tied, Charged with their sails, they down the backstays slide.

Their sails reduced, and all the rigging clear, Awhile the crew relax from toils severe.

But then it gets worse,' said Mowett, 'and the sun goes down - I skip the sunset, such a shame - I skip the moon and stars - The ship no longer can her courses bear; To reef the courses is the master's care: The sailors, summoned aft, a daring band!

Attend th'enfolding brails at his command.

But he who strives the tempest to disarm Will never first embrail the lee yardarm.

So to windward, and obedient to command, To raise the tack, the ready sailors stand.

The sheet and weather-brace they then stand by, The lee clew-garnet and the buntlines ply.

Thus all prepared - Let go the sheet! he cries.

Impetuous -'

'Time,; cried Pullings.

'Oh, Tom,' said Mowett, sinking in his chair, his afflatus gone.

'I am sorry, old fellow,' said Pullings, 'but fair's fair, you know, and the Royal Marines must have their whack.'

Mr Driver, always pink, was now the colour of his uniform coat; but whether this was port, or confusion, or the heat, could not yet be determined. He gave the gunroom to understand that his poem was not a fragment; oh no, not a piece of anything larger, if they understood him, but a whole, complete in itself, as he might say. By listening attentively they gathered that it was a cove thinking of getting married - advice to this cove from a knowing friend, a deep old file that had seen a thing or two in his time - but Mr Driver chuckled so extremely and spoke in so low and b.u.mbling a voice, hanging his head, that they missed almost everything until 'Her person amiable, straight, and free From natural or chance deformity.

Let not her years exceed, if equal thine; For women past their vigour soon decline: Her fortune competent; and, if thy sight Can reach so far, take care 'tis gathered right.

If thine's enough, then hers may be the less: Do not aspire to riches in excess.

For that which makes our lives delightful prove, Is a genteel sufficiency and love."

'Very good," cried the purser as he wrote on his voting paper. 'Tell me, sir, what would you reckon a genteel sufficiency; supposing, I mean, a man only had his pay?'

Mr Driver laughed and wheezed and at last brought out 'Two hundred a year in the Funds, at her own disposal.'

'No remarks, gentlemen, if you please,' said Pullings, shaking his head at Professor Graham, who was obviously about to speak. 'No remarks before the voting.' He pa.s.sed round the ballot-box, a s.e.xtant-case on this occasion, set it down filled in front of Jack, and said to Graham, 'I cut you short, sir: I beg your pardon.'

'I was only going to observe that Captain Driver's poem reminded me of Pomfret's To his Friend Inclined to Marry.'

'But it is Pomfret's To his Friend,' said Driver, surprised: and amidst the general outcry he could be heard to say, 'My guardian made me get it by rote.'

Battered on all sides, he appealed to Jack: 'How could a man have been expected to guess that it was to be original poetry? Original poetry, for G.o.d's sake! He had supposed it was to be a prize for elegant delivery.'

'Had it been a prize for elegant delivery,' said Jack, 'I dare say Mr Driver would have borne the bell away; but as things are he must be scratched and given back his stake; and the ballots in his favour do not count. As for the remaining compet.i.tors,' he said, examining the votes, 'I find that Mr Rowan carries the day as far as poetry in the cla.s.sical manner is concerned, whereas Mr Mowett wins for poetry in the modern style. The prize is therefore divided into two equal halves or moieties. And I think I do not misinterpret the company's sentiments when I urge both gentlemen to enter into contact with some respectable bookseller with a view to the publication of their works, both for the gratification of their friends and for the benefit of the service.'

'Hear him, hear him,' cried the rest of the gunroom, beating on the table.

'Murray is the man,' said Graham, with a significant look. 'John Murray of Albemarle Street. He has an excellent reputation; and I may observe for the credit of the booksellers that his father, who founded the shop, was the son, the legitimate son, of a lieutenant in the Marines.'

Mr Driver did not seem at all pleased. He said that if a cove had a son with no talent of any kind and no presence or personal beauty then the cove was quite justified in putting him to a shop: the family was not obliged to take notice of him after he grew up, unless he made himself an estate or at least a more than usually genteel competence. And anyhow a bookseller was not a common shopkeeper: many that Driver knew could read and write, and some spoke quite pretty.

'Just so,' said Graham, 'and this Mr Murray is a particularly well-conducted example; furthermore, he is comparatively free from the sordid parsimony that has brought the Trade, as it is emphatically called, so unenviable a reputation. I am told that he gave five hundred pounds, Five Hundred Pounds, gentlemen, for the first part of Lord Byron's Childe Harold.'

'Heavens,' said Stephen, 'What would the adult Harold have fetched entire?'

'Childe is an archaic term for a young man of good family,' said Graham.

'I should not expect so much,' said Rowan, 'not being a lord; but I should like to see my piece in print.'

In the evening, when the frigate was sailing very slowly into a mist that rose from the warm surface of the sea, a mist deeply tinged with rose from the setting sun, Jack said, 'I cannot tell you how happy I am to be in the dear Surprise again.'

'So I see,' said Stephen, 'and I give you joy of it.' He spoke a little shortly: the end of his 'cello bow had just come to pieces in his hand, and irritation was boiling up within. In Malta he had lain ash.o.r.e, and Maltese bedbugs, fleas and mosquitoes had bitten him extremely, so that even now he itched from head to foot, and felt far hotter than he found agreeable. He was not positively malignant however, and he considered his friend attentively. Had Jack made some amorous conquest in Valetta, or rather (Jack being less enterprising than Babbington) had some odious wench led him by guile, by gentle force, to a pagan altar, persuading him that it was he the conquering hero? No, the look was not quite right for that: it had nothing of male self-complacency. Yet it was some heathen state of grace, he was sure; and when Jack, tucking his fiddle under his chin, struck out a strange leaping phrase and then began to improvise upon it he was surer still.

What with his self-taught technique and various wounds Jack could never be a very good player, but this evening he was making his fiddle sing so that it was a joy to hear. It was a wild, irregular song, expressing glee rather than any respect for rules, but a glee that was very, very far from being puerile; and contemplating Jack as he played away there by the stern-window Stephen wondered that a sixteen-stone post-captain, a scarred and battered gentleman with an incipient dewlap, could skip with such subtle grace, could possess such gaiety, could conceive such surprisingly witty and original concepts, and could express them so well. The dinner-table Jack Aubrey, delighted with a pun, was a different being: yet the two lived in the same skin together.

The 'cello bow was mended; the violin improvisation ended with an elfin shriek trilling up almost beyond the limit of human hearing; and they set to their old well-paced Scarlatti in C major, playing on into the middle watch.

'Will William Babbington have remembered my mastic, I ask myself?' said Stephen as they parted. 'He is a worthy young man, but the sight of a smock drives all other considerations from his mind; and Argostoli is renowned not only for mastic but also for handsome women.'

'I am sure he will have remembered it,' said Jack, 'but I doubt we meet him in the morning. Even we are making barely two knots, and that poor misbegotten rig, that Dutch tub of a Dryad is no use in light airs. Besides, if this mist don't clear tomorrow we may be becalmed altogether.'

Stephen had the utmost faith in Jack as a weather-prophet, a mariner and a sea-pope; but it so happened that his bites and the lack of air (the Worcester's luxurious twenty square feet had made him forget the dank unventilated crib under the Surprise's waterline) prevented him from sleeping - he was on deck at first dawn, when the pale mists were thinning and the handpumps wheezing up the water of the ritual scouring; and when the lookout called 'Sail ho! Sail on the larboard bow,' he looked in the right direction, saw the sail in question looming vaguely, but not so vaguely that he could not tell she was a brig, and said 'Fallible, fallible, Jack Aubrey. I shall have my mastic after all.' With this he walked forward, scratching himself; he picked his way among the sand and water sprinklers and pa.s.sed the mate of the watch, who, perched on a carronade with his trousers rolled against the wet, was staring at the ghostly brig. Stephen said, 'There is Mr Babbington; perhaps he will come to breakfast,' but the youth, still staring, only answered with a vacant laugh. Stephen walked on as far as the starboard forechains, took off his nightcap and nightshirt, stuffed them under the dead-eyes, scratched himself industriously for a while, crept out on to the projecting shelf, and holding his nose with his left hand, crossing himself with his right, dropped with tightly-shut eyes into the sea, the infinitely refreshing sea.

He was not a powerful swimmer; indeed by ordinary standards he could hardly be called a swimmer at all, but with infinite pains Jack had taught him to keep afloat and beat his way through the water as far as fifty and even sixty yards at a time. His journey along the ship's side from the forechains to the boat towing astern was therefore well within his powers, particularly as the ship herself was in gentle forward motion, which made his relative progress towards the boat so much the faster.

It was without the slightest apprehension, then, that he plunged, although he had never done so alone before; and even as the bubbles rushed past his ears he thought 'I shall say to Jack "Ha, ha: I went a-swimming this morning," and watch his amazement.' But as he came to the surface, gasping and clearing the water from his eyes, he saw that the ship's side was strangely far from him. Almost at once he realized that she was turning to larboard and he struck out with all his might, uttering a howl each time a wave lifted his head well clear of the water. But all hands had been called and there was a great deal of piping and shouting and running about on board the Surprise as she continued her turn, packing on sail after sail as she did so; and since all those who had a moment to look away from the task in hand stared eagerly to larboard, it was only by a singular piece of good fortune that John Newby, turning to spit over the starboard rail, caught sight of his anguished face.

From about this point the exact sequence of events escaped him: he was conscious of swallowing a great deal of seawater, and then of sinking for a while, and then of finding that he had lost his direction as well as his strength and what little buoyancy he ever had, but soon he seemed to be in a perpetual agitated present in which things happened not in a given order but on different planes. The enormous voice that cried 'Back the foretopsail' high above his head, the renewed sinking into the depths, dark now from the shadow of the hull, the rough hands that grasped his ear, elbow and left heel, dragging him over the gunwale of a boat, and the midshipman's anxious 'Are you all right, sir?' might all have been contemporary. It was not until he had pondered for a while, gasping in the sternsheets, that occurrences took to following one another, so that 'Stretch out, stretch out, for G.o.d's sake' preceded the thump of the boat against the ship's side and the call for a line to be handed down; but he was quite himself by the time he heard, not without anxiety, bow-oar's confidential murmur to his neighbour of 'He won't half cop it, if the skipper misses of this prize, by reason of his topping it, the grampus.'

Bonden, almost speechless with indignation, bundled him up the side, and plucking at him like an angry nanny would have urged him below; but Stephen dodged under his arm and walked forward to where Captain Aubrey was standing by the larboard bow-chaser with Pullings and the gunner, while the gun's crew trained the beautiful long bra.s.s nine-pounder on the flying brig, now half a mile away and under a perfect cloud of canvas. All but Jack looked quickly away, adopting wooden, vacant expressions, as he came up and said, 'Good morning, sir. I beg your pardon for causing this disturbance. I was a-swimming.'

'Good morning, Doctor,' said Jack, with a cold glance. 'I was not aware that you were in the sea until the boat was beside you, thanks to Mr Calamy's presence of mind. But I must remind you that no one is allowed to leave the ship without permission: furthermore, this is not a proper dress in which to appear on deck. We will speak of this matter at a more suitable time: at present I desire you will go to your cabin. Master Gunner, lend the Doctor your ap.r.o.n, lay me the roundest shot in this garland, load with three and a quarter pound and two wads, and let us try the range.'

In his cabin Stephen heard the gun open a deliberate, careful fire. He felt cold and depressed: on his way below he had met nothing but disapproving looks, and when he called for his servant there was no reply. If it had not been for this vile prize - for the possibility of this vile prize - if it had not been for their greed, their grovelling cupidity -he would have been surrounded with loving care; he would have been caressed on all hands, and congratulated on his escape. Wrapping himself in a blanket he dropped into an improbable doze, then deeper, deeper, into a profound insensibility from which he was shaken, violently shaken, by Peter Calamy, who told him in a shrill bellow that 'old Borrell had cut her maintopsail halyards away at a thousand yards - all came down with a run - Lord, how they had roared! She was alongside now, and the Captain thought he might like to have a look at her.'

Ever since Dr Maturin had treated him for mumps, Calamy had grown very fond of him: this affection expressed itself by an odd confidential address - when, for example, Mr Calamy was to dine in the cabin he would take Stephen aside early in the day and say 'What's going to be for pudding, sir? Oh come on, sir, I'm sure you know what's for pudding,' - and by the a.s.sumption that in many respects he was the older of the two, an a.s.sumption much strengthened by this morning's events. He now compelled Stephen into quite formal clothes: 'No, sir; breeches it must be. The Captain may only be wearing trousers, but after this morning breeches and a frilled shirt is the least that can be expected.'

It was in something not very far from full dress, therefore, that Dr Maturin regained the deck, a deck now crowded with benevolent, smiling faces. 'There you are, Doctor,' said Jack, shaking his hand. 'I thought you might like to see our prize before I send her away."

He led him to the side and they looked down on the captured brig, not indeed the Dryad nor anything resembling the Dryad except in the possession of two masts, but a genuine flyer, long and narrow, with a very fine entry, towering masts and a bowsprit of extraordinary length with a triple dolphin-striker, the Bonhomme Richard, that well-known blockade-runner. 'Whether we should have caught her by the end of the day, with the breeze freshening, I do not know,' said Jack, 'but Mr Borrell here made sure of it with a ball that cut away her topsail halyards at a thousand yards. Such a pretty shot.

'It was mostly luck, sir,' said the gunner, laughing with delight.

'As you will recall,' said Jack, 'the halyards are the ropes that haul the yards up, so when they are cut the yards fall down. Unless they are well puddened, of course, which was not the case,' he added.

'There is a great deal of blood on the deck,' said Stephen. 'Did the falling yard crush many of her men?'

'Oh no. She had already been taken by Greek pirates, their boats pulling aboard her in a dead calm. They killed most of her people - that is where the blood comes from - just keeping her master and a few others for ransom.'

'Greek pirates, alas?' said Stephen. He had an infinite respect for ancient Greece; the cause of Greek independence was very near to his heart; and in spite of all the evidence to the contrary he liked to think of modern Greeks in an amiable light. 'I dare say they are very rare.'

'Oh Lord, no: in these waters and eastward any caique that sees a smaller one turns pirate directly, unless the other is from the same village or the same island, just as everything from the Barbary Coast turns corsair whenever the chance offers. In spite of the Turks they haunt this channel, since it has all the shipping from the Levant to the Adriatic ports. These fellows came up on the Frenchman in their felucca without a sign of hostility - they hailed one another, and pa.s.sed the time of day, her master tells me - and then in the night, when it fell dead calm, they carried him with their boats, as I say. And when the yard came down they took to these same boats again and pulled away like fury, keeping the Frenchman between our guns and them. Do you choose to step over? It is an interesting sight.'

The b.l.o.o.d.y deck was neither new nor interesting, nor were the pillaged cabins and quarters below, but Jack led him down and down into the hold, dim in spite of the open hatches, and extraordinarily aromatic, almost unbreathably scented.

'They had begun breaking bulk, the G.o.dd.a.m.n fools,' said Jack; and as his eyes grew used to the twilight.

Stephen saw that they were walking on nutmegs, cinnamon, cloves and turmeric, spilt from torn bales. 'Is it all spice?' he asked, pausing by the extraordinary pungency of a cracked pot of musk.

'No,' said Jack. 'The master tells me that the spice was only his last lading, at Scanderoon: the chief of the cargo is indigo, with a few casks of cochineal. But what those vermin were after,' he said, referring to the Greeks and leading Stephen along the shadowy hold through slanting pillars of scented, dust-filled sunlight, 'and what I am delighted to say they did not have time to carry to their infernal boats, was this.' They turned the corner of a carefully-stowed wall of indigo bales, ducking under the sh.o.r.es, and there in a recess lay a heap of silver, a deep sloping heap of pieces of eight and Maria Theresa dollars that had spilled from an open tilting chest. By the light of lanterns two strong ship's boys, guarded by the sergeant of Marines and the master-at-arms, were shovelling it into canvas bags: the boys' faces gleamed with sweat and satisfied desire. They and their guardians beamed on the Captain.

'That will make a pleasant little distribution,' observed Jack; and as he led the way back to the Surprise, handing Stephen carefully along the cat-walk set up for the bags of dollars, he pointed out the flying Greeks. Their boats had reached the felucca, and it was sailing away eastwards under its two lateens, helped by its long, heavy sweeps.

'Shall you pursue them, so?' asked Stephen.

'No. If I caught them I should have to carry them back to Malta to be tried, and I cannot spare the time. If I could deal with them in the Turks' brisk fashion, it would be different; and in any case I shall give them a gun or two if ever we come within range, which is precious unlikely,' said Jack, and he called, 'Pa.s.s the word for Mr Rowan.' For much of the rest of the watch he was taken up with the prize and with giving Rowan, the prize-master, very serious advice about his course and conduct. Then, just after eight bells, 'Where away?' he called, in answer to the lookout's cry of a sail.

'Broad on the starboard beam, sir. A brig, ha, ha, ha.'

It was rare for merry laughter to accompany replies in a ship under Captain Aubrey's command, but this was an uncommon day, and in any event it was clear from the lookout's satirical tone and his mirth and from the brig's bearing that this must be the unfortunate Dryad - unfortunate in that a slightly earlier appearance would have earned her a share in this fine plump prize. If she had even been on the horizon during the chase she must have shared, and the Surprises, to a man, were heartily glad that she had been delayed. 'You will get your mastic at last,' said Jack, laughing too. 'But poor Babbington will be as blue as a Barbary ape. Still, he has only himself to blame: I always told him as a boy to waste not a minute, ha, ha, ha. Mr Pullings, when the clerk is ready, we will muster by the open list.'

This was not a regular day for mustering: the Surprises had neither clean shirts nor shaved faces, and although some made an effort to look trim, replaiting their pigtails and putting on their best blue jackets, most came straight from their work on the prize's damaged rigging. They all looked very cheerful however, and at the bosun's pipe they formed their usual irregular ma.s.s on the larboard side of the quarterdeck and along the gangway in a high state of expectant greed, for it was seen that Mr Ward, the Captain's clerk, had taken up his station by the capstan rather than just forward of the wheel and that there were several sailcloth bags at his feet, and all those who had sailed with Captain Aubrey before knew his habit of circ.u.mventing the Admiralty courts and their long, long delays.

'Silence fore and aft,' called Pullings: and turning to Jack he said 'All present, clean and sober, sir, if you please.'

'Thank you, Mr Pullings,' said Jack. 'Then we will muster by the open list.' He raised his voice: 'Listen, men: there was some silver in the Frenchman, so rather than wait six months for the prize-court, we will have a first distribution now. Carry on, Mr Ward.'

'Abraham Witsover,' called the clerk, and Abraham Witsover pushed his way out of the throng, crossed the deck, saluted his captain, had his name checked on the roll and received, paid down on the capstan-head, twenty-five dollars, the equivalent of three months' pay, which he put into his hat, moving over to the starboard gangway, chuckling to himself. It was necessarily a long muster, though a satisfying one, and before it was over the Dryad had drawn so close with the freshening breeze that even without his telescope Jack could see what looked very like a group of women right aft.

With his telescope he saw that it was quite certainly women, cl.u.s.tered about the Dryad's captain. Another parcel, somewhat larger, stood near the mainmast, presumably surrounding the Dryad's officers, while a female crowd lined the rail as far as the bows, among the hands. He had known women put off to a man-of-war coming into port in such numbers that the ship would settle a strake under their weight, but such proportions as this -more women than foremast jacks - he had never beheld, even in the most licentious ships and on the West Indies station: and this was at sea, on active service!

The last man crossed the deck: the clinking ship's company was dismissed, and Jack said to the signal-midshipman, 'To Dryad: Captain repair aboard at once.' He then turned to Rowan and said, 'You may part company as soon as I hear from Captain Babbington whether the transports are in Cephalonia or not; then you will not lose a moment of this beautiful leading breeze. Here he is. Captain Babbington, good day to you. Are the transports in Cephalonia? Is all well?'

'Yes, sir.'