The Ionian Mission Part 13

'Would he not like to take some refreshment in the gunroom?' asked Jack, seeing Ulusan bow and turn away.

'The Capitan-Bey says he might be tempted to drink wine and even spirits, forbidden to Mussulmans,' said Graham. 'He is better in the boat.'

In the cabin Jack was pleased to find that the Capitan-Bey could smile and even laugh. The extreme gravity of his hosts at Mesenteron had weighed upon his spirits, making an already serious matter positively funereal: furthermore Ismail and his advisers had always looked at the table when addressing him - a part of Turkish manners, perhaps^but disconcerting; and now, with Mustapha's shrewd, knowing, often amused eye fixed steadily on his he felt much more at home. They were curious orange-yellow eyes, and they looked small in that huge face: smaller still when Mustapha smiled. The red-dyed beard would part, showing a broad gleam of teeth, and the eyes would almost vanish in the luxuriant bristling hair. This happened more and more often as the afternoon wore on and it was found that Mustapha could quite easily be tempted to drink wine and even spirits.

They had been for a tour of the frigate, during which it had become evident that Mustapha, though a judge of a ship, was even more devoted to a gun. He was fascinated by the improvements that Jack had borrowed from Philip Broke of the Shannon, at least for his chasers, and he fairly gloated over the heavy carronades, the genuine smashers, that lined the Surprise's quarterdeck; for his ideal engagement was a furious battery at ever-diminishing range, followed by boarding.

'I love guns,' he said when they were back in the cabin, smoking the hubblebubble and drinking punch. 'They are not to be had, now that Venice is gone, and I need all I can get to take Kutali. I am delighted you have brought me so many.'

'And I should be delighted to give them to a fellow-seaman,' said Jack, smiling. 'But they are my master's guns and I must deliver them to the ally best suited for helping us to turn the French out of Marga. As I believe you know, two other gentlemen have proposed their services, and in justice I must hear what all those concerned may have to say.'

'I can tell you what Ismail has said,' cried Mustapha. 'He has said that I am an illiterate corsair, hand in glove with the French, not to be trusted for a moment. And Sciahan will tell you I am in league with Ali Pasha, plotting to rebel against the Sultan - not to be trusted for a moment, ha, ha, ha! But neither can say I did not conquer Djerba and pacify the Morea in a two years' campaign - a hundred towns and villages in flames! And neither can be of the least use in helping you to turn the French out of Marga: Ismail is a mere Egyptian eunuch, terrified by the sound and sight of battle, and Sciahan is too old for anything like war - negotiation is his line, and that will never answer with the French. Whereas once I hold Kutali, the thing is done! We attack from land and sea, while at the same moment all the Mussulmans in the town rise up. Nothing can withstand the shock - believe me, Captain, nothing can withstand the shock. Come and look at my ship: you will see what she is capable of: you will sec what kind of men I have aboard.'

'Hairy b.u.g.g.e.rs,' muttered Bonden, gazing up the side as his Captain went aboard the Torgud, welcomed by the clash of cymbals; and by this he meant not only bearded but savage, fierce, dark, pa.s.sionate, rough, fiery, vicious and tigerish. Jack had much the same impression, and he had more of a right to it since he saw the whole crew, the surprisingly numerous crew: they all had a certain family look although they were of many different races and colours, from shining black to the sour-cheese grey of Bcssarabians; they were presumably united by religion, certainly by their awe of the Capitan-Bey - defaulters in the Torgud were cut up for bait - and they visibly trembled before him. The officers all appeared to be Turks, and judging from the knowledgeable zeal with which they showed their great guns and small arms they understood the fighting part of their profession, while the way the ship had rounded served to prove that at least some of them were competent seamen; yet none seemed to have the slightest notion of order, discipline, or cleanliness, except as far as the guns were concerned. These were all bra.s.s, and they all gleamed n.o.bly in the declining sun; apart from that the Torgud appeared to possess no first lieutenant, no bosun, no captain of the sweepers. The rigging was knotted rather than spliced when repair was needed, the planking of the deck could not be seen at all for dirt, and between the guns lay little heaps of human excrement. Yet in spite of this the Torgud was evidently a formidable vessel, not unlike a larger, much more dangerous version of the pirate ships Jack had seen in the West Indies: he had little time for reflection however, because as Mustapha showed his ship he also expounded his plan of attack on Kutali, explained it with an exuberant vitality that called for the closest attention, particularly as Graham was sometimes at a loss for a sea-term. In essence the attack was to be a bombardment by shallow-draught gunboats armed with the cannon Jack would supply, and this would be followed by a general a.s.sault. Mustapha had nearly forty suitable caiques up and down the coast; they would open half a dozen breaches in the wall, and his men would carry the place by storm. He looked attentively at Jack, but Jack, having nothing to say about an attack on a town whose sh.o.r.e he did not know and whose defenders and fortifications he had never seen, merely bent his head politely. In any case, much of his mind was taken up by the extraordinary half-seen spectacle of the midships cannon. The middle gun in the long row of bra.s.s eighteen-pounders seemed to tower over its fellows in the strangest way; but its uncommonly large portlid was shut at the moment and the sailmaker had spread his work over much of its bulk.

'This is my heart's delight,' said Mustapha, waving the canvas away; and to his astonishment Jack beheld a thirty-six-pounder, an unheard-of, preposterous weapon for a frigate - even a first-rate line-of-battle ship carried no more than thirty-two pounders and those only on the lowest tier - and so ma.s.sive that it dwarfed its neighbours. And over against it, on the larboard side, there was its fellow, its necessary counterpoise.

'I have never seen such a beautiful gun,' cried Jack, examining the dolphins that twined round the King of Portugal's arms and the well-worn touch-hole. 'But do you indeed find they answer the weight and the confusion?' he asked, looking keenly at the reinforced deck and side and the triple ringbolts; and until they reached the cabin they discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the arrangement, the inconvenience of different calibres on the same deck, the extra weight so high in the ship and its effect on her roll in heavy weather, as opposed to the crippling effect of thirty-six pound shot hitting the enemy at a distance.

In the cabin itself, a singularly gorgeous room hung with crimson damask, the appearance of coffee broke the thread, and in any case it was evident that Jack was about to leave: he could not be persuaded to stay any longer, nor to visit the nearby port of Karia, because he had a rendezvous with his consort the Dryad. This being established Mustapha went over his plan of attack again, with a reasonably convincing account of the forces at his disposal, and once again he stated his opinion of Sciahan Bey and Ismail.

Sciahan's chief crime, apart from greed and avarice, was age, cold-blooded, incompetent age, and Jack had the impression that although Mustapha would certainly expel Sciahan from Kutali if he could, perhaps killing him in the process, he did not really dislike him. With Ismail it was quite a different matter: here there were detailed, persuasive charges of faithlessness, hypocrisy and disloyalty - Mustapha's voice grew even stronger, his eye more terrible: he called upon G.o.d to curse his children's children if ever he allowed that vile unmanly traitor to get the better of him.

Jack had seen some pa.s.sionate men, but none who seemed to swell so much, nor whose great clenched fist trembled so with rage, none whose eyes became more suffused with red. Clearly there was something very much more than compet.i.tion for the disputed town between Mustapha and Ismail: though on the other hand there was no doubt that Mustapha was also extremely eager to possess Kutali.

The Capitan-Bey boomed organ-toned, and in the barge alongside Bonden said, 'How their skipper does carry on, to be sure: like a bull in a barn.'

At this the portlid of the starboard thirty-six-pounder opened and a hairy, turbanned face peered out. 'Well, you'll know me again, mate,' observed Bonden, having been stared at for a full unwinking minute.

'Barret Bonden,' said the hairy face, 'you don't remember me.'

'I can't say as how I do, mate, behind all them whiskers.'

'Ezekiel Edwards, quarter-gunner in Isis when you was captain of the foretop. Zeke Edwards: ran when we was off of Tiberoon.'

'Zeke Edwards,' said Bonden, nodding his head. 'Yes.' Then, 'What are you doing in this barky? Was you took? Are you a prisoner?'

'No. Which I belong to her. Gunner's mate.'

Bonden considered him for a moment, and said, 'So you turned Turk, and grew a full set, and clapped a pudding-cloth round your head.'

'That's right, mate. Being I never was brought up religious; and being I was circ.u.mcised already, any gate.'

The other bargemen had been gazing steadily at Edwards with their mouths open; they now closed them and stared with wooden disapproval out to sea: but he had spoken with such an awkward, urgent, pleading tone, as though longing beyond expression to hear and utter Christian sounds, that Bonden replied. Rather severely he asked what Edwards was doing with that thirty-six-pounder - what a thirty-six-pounder was doing in a frigate, for Christ's sake, a long thirty-six-pounder?

This released a flood of words, a stumbling confidential rush with sc.r.a.ps of Greek and Turkish and lingua franca mixed with the burring West Country English, all delivered into Bonden's disapproving, half-averted ear. The guns were from Corfu, from the French general in Corfu; and he had let the skipper have them because why? Because they was Portuguese and did not take the French thirty-six-pound ball, nor any other b.l.o.o.d.y ball now made, that was why. But the Capitan-Bey did not care for that: he had marble round-shot made by the Greeks in the island of Paros, smooth as gla.s.s. The trouble was, they often cracked if not stowed very careful; and then they cost a mint of money. You could not blaze away with half a dozen rounds just to keep your hand in - you could not fling marble b.a.l.l.s about, not marble b.a.l.l.s at nineteen piastres a piece.

'Marble b.a.l.l.s,' said Bonden, obscurely feeling some reflection upon the Surprise and her plain iron round-shot. 'Marble b.a.l.l.s my a.r.s.e.'

'I never seen such a filthy mud-scow as this here in all my life,' remarked bow-oar, spitting to leeward. 'Don't they never wash down the heads?'

Edwards instantly grasped the implication and he cried out very humbly that he had not meant to top it the n.o.b nor to come it the heavy; he did not go for to make them believe the shot-locker was crammed with marble b.a.l.l.s -no, no, there was not but five for the starboard gun and four for t'other, one of them chipped. More he could not say, for now cymbals clashed, shrill drums beat and conchs brayed loud as Captain Aubrey made his farewells and stepped down into the barge with Professor Graham, sitting thoughtful and silent as they were rowed back in the twilight.

Thoughtful and silent again on this quarterdeck at dawn, with Marga almost vanishing on the starboard quarter: he levelled his telescope, took a last look at the rock-built citadel, the great Venetian mole, and resumed his pacing. Silent: partly because it had long been his habit to go up and down the windward side of whatever vessel he commanded as long as he could without disturbing the ship's routine, and partly because neither of his advisers was awake, they having discussed Mustapha and Ismail well into the middle watch. Thoughtful, because although Mustapha was a fine fellow in some ways, he was not likely to show much zeal in turning the French out of Marga if he was on such friendly terms with General Donzclot in Corfu: Bondcn's report had reached him through Killick with his first cup of coffee, and then Bonden had confirmed it himself.

As he turned his eye caught the flash of a sail in the offing, far beyond the Dryad: she had joined at nightfall and she was now keeping her station abreast of the Surprise, they being spread out in the faint hope of snapping up some vessel bound for the French in Corfu, or better still one from the French in Corfu to their friends in Marga. Automatically he pointed his telescope, but realizing that he could not possibly spare the time to chase anything at such a distance - it was only a little trabaccolo in any case - he shifted his gaze to the Dryad and found himself looking straight at Babbington, who was leaning on the quarter-rail with a very pretty young woman in a sort of pink, lacy garment. He was showing her something over the side, and they were both laughing very cheerfully.

Jack clapped his gla.s.s to. He remembered that Babbington, coming aboard to report, had muttered something about giving a lift to a respectable Italian matron, an officer's widow, from Cephalonia to Santa Maura - being compelled to keep her aboard, the wind not serving for Santa Maura and he being so unwilling to delay Captain Aubrey at the rendezvous. A matron could of course be no more than twenty and a widow could perfectly well be cheerful: but it would not do - it really would not do.

The next turn brought him face to face with something else that would not do. Young Williamson, the midshipman of the watch, was looking wretchedly peaked and ill again: the boy was not strong enough for a life at sea and Jack would never have taken him if he had not been d.i.c.k Williamson's son. He had wanted no first voyagers, no children who should not relieve the deck at four in the morning on an empty belly, and here he was, still answerable to their mothers for two of them at a time when he needed all his powers for infinitely more important problems than the moral and physical welfare of a pair of squeakers. He would invite the boy to breakfast and at the same time beg Stephen to look at him. In any case Stephen ought to be up by now: Cape Stavro was already looming on the starboard bow, and he must not miss the opening of Kutali Bay.

'Mr Williamson,' he called, and the boy gave a guilty start, 'pray go down to Dr Maturin's cabin, and if he is awake tell him with my compliments that we are about to open Kutali Bay, which is reckoned a prodigious fine spectacle. And perhaps you would give us the pleasure of your company at breakfast.'

While he waited for Stephen, and a long wait it was, Dr Maturin having ensured sleep at last by four successive doses, Jack watched the sh.o.r.e go by, a prodigious fine spectacle in itself, now that they were drawing in with the land - a steep-to sh.o.r.e of towering light-grey cliffs rising straight from deep water and backed by mountains, precipitous, jagged mountains reaching high up the sky with the early light cutting across them from a little south of east so that they stood out clear, range after range of them, seven deep, the vast forests green on the sunward side, the bald crags shining grey. Ordinarily Jack disliked being near any coast at all; he was a blue-water sailor, one who liked plenty of sea-room under his lee, fifty leagues or so; but here he had a hundred fathoms beneath his keel within gunshot of the land and in any case the weather had been unusually kind. It was now treating them to a topgallant zephyr a point or so before the beam that might have been specially ordained to carry them round the cape and into the bay: but whether it would waft them eastwards again to Kutali was doubtful; it had a somewhat languishing, dying air and perhaps they should be obliged to wait for the sea-breeze to set in to complete their voyage round the great peninsula.

In fact the zephyr dropped entirely while they were still at breakfast. But this was an unusually prolonged meal and there had been time not only for the Surprise to round the cape and reach the middle of the bay but for Dr Maturin to recover his humanity. He had begun the day in a very sullen, dogged, and unappreciative mood indeed, opposed to natural beauties of any kind; but now, led out, well-fed, well-coffee'd, to smoke his morning cigar and admire the view he was perfectly ready to admit that he had seen few more glorious sights than Kutali and its setting. The water of the bay was gently rippled in some few places but gla.s.s-smooth in others, and in the purest of these natural mirrors they could see the astonishing peaks that rose from the sea with the whole town at their feet - all this reversed, and superimposed upon the image stood ships and boats, most as it were suspended, hanging motionless, a few creeping across the surface with sweeps or sculls. The dead calm, the cloudless sky, the stillness of the ship and perhaps this sense of being on or even in a looking-gla.s.s gave an extraordinary impression of silence and people spoke unnaturally low.

The close-packed town itself had the appearance of a double cone - grey battlements, red roofs, white walls repeated in the mirror-image - until a chance air destroyed the reflection. This did not affect the walls of the upper town or the citadel, but with its double vanishing the lower town's ramparts suddenly shrank to half its height. It no longer looked very formidable, and Jack saw that Mustapha's plan of battering it with gunboats was perfectly feasible.

Although at first sight Kutali looked compact, rising in one triangular ma.s.s from the sea up the mountainside, it was in fact built in three parts: the lowest straggled out on either side of the fortified harbour and here the wall had been spread too far, too thin. It was vulnerable, and as far as Jack could see, looking steadily through his telescope, the defences of the middle town would not stand any very determined a.s.sault either. But, he reflected, looking up at the heavily fortified upper town, the Christian town with its church towers showing above the battlements, even a small battery of cannon up there, even three or four twelve-pounders, well plied, would make the attack impossible, by sinking the gunboats as they came within range. There was no need for ma.s.sive fortifications below, so long as the sea and the lower ground was commanded by artillery.

Mustapha swore that the Christians had only two guns, old and honeycombed, and some mangonels, but that even if they had a dozen he should still carry out his attack on Sciahan, because the Christians would not interfere in a quarrel between Mussulmans: and that might very well be so, thought Jack, now surveying the harbour as a naval base - a fine roomy naval base, with fresh water just at hand, deep-water repairing docks, and any amount of timber, capital Valona oak.

'That is the Christian town up there,' said Graham at his side. 'You will perceive that no mosque has been built within the walls. A mixed mercantile community occupies the middle town, and mariners, ship-builders and so on the sea-sh.o.r.e. The Turks live mostly in the suburb to the right, on the far side of the stream, and you can make out the governor's kiosk beyond what I take to be the ruined temple of the Pelasgian Zeus. Yes: I see Sciahan's banner. He is an alai-bey, the equivalent of a brigadier; he therefore displays a single horse-tail.'

Stephen was about to say 'A galley is putting off from the strand,' but as he, Jack, Graham and Pullings were all standing on the forecastle, gazing steadily in that direction, he saved his breath.

'Thirteen guns for a brigadier, sir?' asked Pullings.

Jack paused, focused his telescope with the utmost care. 'That is no brigadier,' he said at last. 'No brigadier I have ever seen, one-tailed or two. I believe it is a Greek parson, the kind they call a pope in these parts.'

The Surprises' reception of a pope, a square-topped, black-hooded Orthodox pope, was less certain than their reception of brigadiers, but they carried it off well enough, and in the cabin those chiefly concerned with his entertainment very soon lost their Sunday expressions when it appeared that Father Andros was not only the representative of the Christians of Kutali but also one of the Bey's political advisers and his emissary on. this occasion. The Bey was unwell, and although he would be overjoyed to see Captain Aubrey as soon as he was recovered the need for dispatch was so great that he had asked Father Andros to wait upon the Captain with his best compliments and to lay the position before him, at the same time conveying the Bey's specific requests and his corresponding propositions. By way of credentials Father Andros pa.s.sed Jack a beautifully written doc.u.ment with a seal to it, saying in an aside to Graham, 'I bring you the greetings of Osman the Smyrniot.'

'Is he in Kutali?'

'No. He was called to lannina, to Ali Pasha, the day you saw Ismail.'

'This is a most elegant letter,' said Jack, pa.s.sing the doc.u.ment on to Graham. 'But pray tell the gentleman that he could bring no better credentials than his cloth and his countenance.'

It was clear that Killick shared his Captain's favourable impression of Father Andros (who was indeed a fine manly-looking priest) because at this point he brought in a decanter of Jack's very best madeira, the kind with the yellow seal. Father Andros too could be tempted to drink wine, but even if it had been much later in the day it would obviously have been no use offering him spirits; nor was he much given to smiles or laughter. His business was too serious for either, and he laid it out in a direct, methodical, and, Jack would have sworn, reasonably candid way.

Sciahan's claim to Kutali was perfectly justified by Turkish law and custom and it would no doubt be vindicated by the Sultan's irade in the course of time, but Father Andros would not go into that: he would confine himself to the immediate practical issues. It was understood that the British Admiral wished to use Kutali as a base for his attack upon the French in Marga, and as a place of refuge and supply for his ships in the Ionian Sea; and that in exchange for the base he offered a certain number of cannon, providing these cannon were also used against the French.

Marga could be attacked only from the heights behind the town, and to reach these heights one necessarily had to pa.s.s by Kutali: and at Kutali alone could Marga's aqueduct be cut. Both Ismail Bey and Mustapha would have to fight exceedingly hard for Kutali, because apart from his own troops Sciahan would have the backing of the Christians, who were extremely unwilling to be ruled by either Mustapha or Ismaii, both being not only notoriously rapacious but also bigoted Mussulmans, while Mustapha, who was in practice very little removed from a common pirate, was odious to the whole mercantile cla.s.s, the shipowners and the mariners, Mussulmans and Christians alike; so that in the unlikely event of a victory the winner's few surviving men would be of very little use against the French, even if Ismail or Mustapha ever kept his word and joined in the attack, which Father Andros begged leave to doubt extremely. It also followed that neither Ismail nor Mustapha could count on any support whatsoever from the Christians of Marga, an essential point if the attack were to succeed at once, rather than drag out in a long siege that would give the French party in Constantinople time to intervene. Most of the Margiotes were Christian. Sciahan Bey, on the other hand, was already in possession of Kutali. He had continued the mild, almost imperceptible rule of the former vali, leaving the Christians their own courts and the possession of the citadel: he was on such good terms with the various communities, the Albanians, Vlachs and Greeks, that they had guaranteed him six hundred and eighty fighting men, many of them Mirdite Ghegs. Indeed he was the ideal ally for the English Admiral: his military reputation reposed on twenty-three distinct campaigns, two of them in Syria and Egypt in conjunction with the British, whom he esteemed, against the French, whom he loathed. He was a true Turk, a man of his word; he was not a descendant of Egyptian slaves or Algerian renegades, nor a man who would receive the cannon and then discover fresh needs or reasons for declining to attack the French. He invited Captain Aubrey to come ash.o.r.e, to view his troops and to tour the city with Father Andros, seeing its strengths and its admitted weaknesses for himself.

'Come, he cannot say fairer than that,' said Jack. 'Killick, my barge.'

'This coast is familiar to you, I believe,' said Stephen to Graham as they walked up through the busy town behind Captain Aubrey and Father Andros.

'I have not been just here before,' said Graham, 'but I have visited Ragusa and Cattaro, which are not unlike, and some of the inland parts.'

'Then no doubt you can tell me what these cheerful souls in short white gathered petticoats and red caps and such a quant.i.ty of weapons may be.'

'They are Tosks, southern Albanians. My good friend Ali Pasha is a Tosk. He is a Mussulman of course; but many Tosks, perhaps most in these parts, are Orthodox Christians. Observe the deference with which they treat this worthy priest.'

It was quite true: as the worthy priest led the way with an elastic, bounding step up the steep, crowded, central street or rather flight of stairs the people fell away on either hand, bowing, smiling, pushing mules, a.s.ses and children against the wall.

'Yet not all are quite so respectful,' remarked Stephen a little later. 'The person in the doorway there, with the moustachioes of the world and a pair of pistols and a curious sword and two daggers in his belt - the person in crimson pantaloons and a short gold-laced jacket, is secretly biting his thumb, in a gesture of contempt or defiance.'

'He is a Gheg, from the north,' said Graham. 'Sad fellows, much given to murder and rapine. I dare say he is a Romanist or a Mussulman: the curious sword is a yataghan. Now there is a Gheg who is certainly a Romanist - the fellow in the long white tunic with a red sash and white trousers. Do not look too pointedly: they are very apt to take offence, and as you see he carries a perfect a.r.s.enal. He is a Mirdite, an entirely Catholic tribe of Ghegs: there is a large colony of them in the neighbourhood, though their home is in the northern highlands.'

'They must feel at home here, then,' said Stephen. 'This town is built for the chamois and her kind, or the true mountain Capricorn.'

The street, growing somewhat steeper, turned abruptly to the left, so that now as they climbed the strong sun beat upon their backs; and still Father Andros strode on, his black robe billowing out behind as he pointed out the various quarters, Venetian, Greek, Jewish, Armenian and Vlach, all separately fortified in the days of the republic.

Apart from a few hours in Malta and at Mesenteron Jack had not set foot on land for months, and his boots were killing him. So was his uniform coat, put on to review the troops in the Maidan far below, and so were his breeches, his sword-belt and his neckcloth. The younger Jack would have climbed on, blind and gasping, till he burst: now, after a decent interval of suffering, the present Captain Aubrey cried 'Hold hard. Hold hard for a moment - you will kill your allies.'

Andros led them to a square with a fountain under an immense nettle-tree with a smooth grey trunk, and as he sat recovering in the green shade, drinking ice-cold retsina brought from a nearby house, Jack mused upon his use of that word 'allies'.

It was a busy square, with a market at its far end by the church, and people of half a dozen races walked to and fro across it, most of the men armed, many of the women veiled. They were all intensely curious but all, even the children, remarkably discreet: yet at one point Stephen noticed a tall, martial man leave a group of Catholic Ghegs and come deliberately towards them, twirling his moustache with a hand adorned with a magnificent amethyst: he had two silver-mounted pistols in the belt of what looked very like a ca.s.sock and a musket or perhaps a fowling-piece - no, a musket -over his shoulder, a pectoral cross showing beneath its b.u.t.t. Stephen was aware of a tension, and he noticed that Andros and the stranger timed their salutes with the utmost exactness, so that neither was half a second before the other.

'This is the Catholic Bishop of Prizren, who accompanies part of his Mirdite flock,' said Father Andros.

Jack and Graham rose and bowed: Stephen kissed the Bishop's ring and they conversed in Latin for a while, the Bishop being very urgent to know whether it was true that the King of England was about to be converted and whether the British Admiral might be induced to guarantee the independence of the republic of Kutali. Stephen could satisfy them on neither point but they parted on the kindest terms, and it was observable that the morose Ghegs looked more favourably upon the party now that it was known that at least one member was of the right way of thinking.

This was particularly evident when they reached the citadel, which at this time of day was guarded by the Ghegs alone, a proud, haughty, dark and sullen band that blossomed into smiling humanity when one of the many accompanying children told them the news. But neither children nor other followers were admitted beyond the gate, and beyond the gate Father Andros' lively flow of talk ceased entirely. His face was graver than ever as he led them up the winding path to the ultimate platform, a half-moon battery that took its rise in the living rock on either hand, curving out to dominate the sea, the lower town and its approaches. As the path mounted, crossing and recrossing the precipitous rock-face, Jack counted the embrasures up there: twenty-one of them, all filled; more than enough guns to deal with a powerful squadron, if reasonably well handled. Yet at the last turning, at the last iron wicket, Father Andros hesitated. 'We arc perfectly candid, as you see,' he said, unlocking the gate at last. 'Sciahan Bey has repeatedly said that he relies entirely upon the honour of an English naval officer.'

The remark was not well received. 'If he is so sure he need scarcely say it once, let alone keep up a perpetual harping on the subject,' reflected Jack, and Stephen said 'This is a clumsy form of blackmail' to himself, while the whole tone of Graham's translation conveyed disapproval. Andros however was far too agitated to notice: he took them into the battery, and once the, small group of gunners who manned it had stood clear Jack saw the cause of his emotion: all the guns but three were made of painted wood and of the others two had had their trunnions beaten off, so that they could not be pointed with any sort of accuracy, while the third, an archaic bra.s.s piece, had once been spiked, and the person who bored out its touch-hole had made a sad botch of it. Mustapha could bring in his gunboats at high noon if he chose and batter away at the lower walls to his heart's content: there was nothing in Kutali to stop him.

'These two we use for firing salutes,' said Andros, 'to deceive the world in general. The third we dare not touch.'

'Has the Bey no field-pieces?" asked Jack.

'Only one, and it throws no more than a three-pound ball. He keeps it in his camp. If it were brought up here people might suspect the real state of affairs.'

Jack nodded, and leaning out over the parapet he considered the possibility of splicing four cables an-end and winching up cannon made fast to well-greased travellers, directly from the sh.o.r.e. After all, an eighteen-pounder , ' weighed no more than his bower anchors, and half a dozen would make this place perfectly impregnable: but getting even one or two up those impossible, narrow, twisting, ladder-like streets would be a labour of weeks.

The hold-fast this end and of course the prodigious tension would be the main difficulties... but they would deal with that problem when they came to it: Tom Pullings could always be relied upon to do wonders in the line of seamanship.

'A romantic prospect, is it not?' said Father Andros. His anxiety seemed to have diminished, as though he had read Jack's mind, and he spoke quite easily, smiling for perhaps the first time since they came ash.o.r.e.

'Eh?' said Jack. 'Why, I suppose it is.' He straightened and took his bearings: Cape Stavro ran out to the southwest, the long promontory with Marga at its southern base and Kutali at its northern, the two separated by thirty miles of sea but only three of land. Yet those three were so mountainous that it was not easy to see how the journey could be made. 'Where is the aqueduct that goes to Marga?' he asked.

'You cannot see it from here,' said Andros. 'But I can easily show it to you. It is no distance at all, and there is a wild romantic view from the crag above it. I am aware that English travellers are partial to wild romantic views.'

'Pray ask him what he means by no distance at all,' said Jack.

'Not an hour by the goats' path,' said Graham after the translation. 'But he says that we could take horse and go by the smooth way, if you do not mind missing the wild romantic view.'

'I am afraid that we are not here to indulge ourselves in wild romantic views,' said Jack. 'Duty requires that we should take horse.'

The smooth way led them between the mountains over a firm springy sward, up and down and down again to a gra.s.sy saddle, where the priest dismounted and said 'Here.'

'Where?' cried Jack, gazing about for a n.o.ble series of arches marching across the landscape.

'Here,' said the priest again, thumping a limestone slab half-buried in the turf. 'Listen.' And bending their heads in the silence they could hear water running underground. The spring was on Mount Shkrel and a gently-sloping covered channel carried it all the way to the heights behind Marga: 'You can sec it, like a green road following the curves of the hillside, where it plunges straight down, and I will show you many places where it can easily be cut.'

Looking down on Marga Jack felt inclined to say that he would not be in that commanding officer's shoes with his water cut off and a battery opening upon him from such a height: for he had no doubt that although guns and even carronades were notoriously awkward things to carry across country, above all mountainous country, he could move a competent number over this firm dry turf, keeping to the channel as it followed, or very nearly followed, the contour-line, if once he could get them up to the citadel. But he never liked to tempt fate either by land or sea, and he only observed 'that perhaps they should be getting back now; he for one was so h.e.l.lish peckish that he could eat an ox and then call for more.'

They rode back therefore, and at a fine pace, the horses eager for their stables, the men for their mangers; and on the way they met a Turkish officer. He and Father Andros exchanged a few private words - the language incomprehensible but not the tone of satisfaction - and the priest announced with what little spontaneity he could summon that the Bey, having recovered from his indisposition, would be happy to invite Captain Aubrey to a... 'It is an unusual term, Albanian in origin,. I believe,' said Graham. 'Perhaps it should be translated as a snap, a slight or hasty meal.'

A more accurate version would have been fat-tailed sheep stewed with saffron, preceded by three made dishes and followed by three more. During part of the feast, so that Graham should have leisure to eat, Sciahan spoke through a Moldavian dragoman, telling Jack about the Syrian campaign in 1799, when he and Sir Sidney Smith repelled Buonaparte from Acre, and then about his manoeuvres with the Naval Brigade in the days that led up to the battle of Aboukir. Sir Sidney was somewhat too showy to qualify as Jack's favourite public character, but sincere and reasoned praise of the Navy, above all from a fighting man as scarred and battered as the Bey, was quite another matter, and Jack looked upon him with great complacency. Though indeed he would have liked his host in any case, a small, compact, grey-bearded man with great natural dignity, direct, and apart from his diplomatic illness and his sending of Father Andros so that the position should be put to Aubrey by a fellow-Christian, devoid of artifice. He was much more what Jack had expected of a Turk: a plain man, and one that he could trust. Towards the end of the meal Sciahan said, 'I am happy to learn from Father Andros that you have seen the state of Kutali. I understand that your Admiral wishes to be able to use the port for his ships and that he wishes us to help him expel the French from Marga. If he will give me the cannon I and the Kutaliotes will do our part.'

'Very well,' said Jack. 'I shall send my consort to Cephalonia for the guns as soon as the wind turns into the north.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Matins and lauds, prime, terce, s.e.xt, nones, vespers and compline: at each of the canonical hours and often between them, prayers for a north wind rose from the churches of Kutali, prayers far more fervent than Jack or his advisers had imagined at first. The Kutaliotes loathed and dreaded Ismail Bey, but they loathed and dreaded Mustapha even more; they knew him directly or by reputation as an exceedingly violent cruel man, subject to huge, ungovernable rages; and few of the Greeks had not lost relatives in the burning villages or devastated countryside of the Morea. And it was Mustapha whom they all looked upon as the most likely attacker, he being sea-borne and immensely active. One measure of their dread was their kindness to the sailors ash.o.r.e and their eager cooperation when it was understood that the officers wished to settle the true line for an enormous rope running from the mole to the citadel, a rope that must necessarily sag but that must nevertheless have a clear path between its supports. The officer chiefly concerned, Mr Pullings, or the Maiden as the Kutaliotes called him because of his mild face and gentle manners, had but to hint that a wall, outhouse, chimney, dovecote might be in the way for it to vanish, plucked down if not by its owners then by his neighbours and the rest of the community.

The prayers for a north wind were not answered at once, which was just as well, since it gave Captain Aubrey time to write his dispatch for the Dryad to carry to the Commander-in-Chief, a long and detailed account of his proceedings, together with a request for more Marines for the final a.s.sault, at least two sloops for diversionary actions and to prevent reinforcements and supplies being thrown into Marga from Corfu, and for money to enroll three troops of Mirdites and one of Moslem Ghegs for three weeks at nine Argyrokastro piastres a calendar month, they to find themselves in arms and victuals: Jack had little hope of the sloops, but it was thought that he.could rely on the money, just as he could be sure that the Dryad would bring back the officers and men of the prize-crew, perhaps with news of the Bonhomme Richard's condemnation and sale, and with any letters from home that might have arrived in their absence. It also allowed time for his furious quarrel with Professor Graham not indeed to die away nor yet to be composed, since each maintained his original position, but at least to reach a stage where they could disagree with the outward appearance of civility.

The quarrel had begun at Sciahan's table, when Graham choked over his stuffed vine-leaves on hearing Jack say 'Very well. I shall send for the guns.'

'But for that vile pragmatical Moldavian dragoman those words would never have been conveyed,' he cried as soon as they were alone. 'I should have refused to interpret such an extreme indiscretion.' An angry, loud-breathing pause, and he burst out 'You had all the advantages a negotiator could desire: and without consultation, nay, apparently without the least reflection you took it upon yourself to throw them away. Throw them away.'

He developed his theme at considerable length: even if Captain Aubrey had not seen fit to consult with his advisers on the att.i.tude to be adopted to Sciahan Bey he must surely have seen that he was in a position to insist upon the most favourable terms. Before committing himself in any way he could have required a detailed agreement, a properly established treaty, with security for the observation of its terms. The Bey would certainly have given one of his nephews as a hostage and the various Kutaliote communities would have done the same. In all negotiation, and a fortiori all Oriental negotiation, each side was expected to extract all possible profit from the balance of forces: if either did not do so it was because there was some hidden weakness ? a plain unconditional acquiescence in a demand must necessarily be taken as the greatest proof of weakness. And quite apart from the hostages and the guarantees for the free use of the port there were innumerable other aspects that should have been gone into before any agreement was reached: for example, Sciahan and his advisers, who were intelligent men, accustomed to business, would undoubtedly have examined the possibility of disarming Mustapha by offering him compensation for the loss of Kutali in the form of a share of the territory of Marga, to be acquired by both Sciahan and Mustapha according to the terms of an offensive and defensive alliance that would also strengthen both against Ismail. Fortunately it was not too late; Captain Aubrey's ill-judged remark was in no way binding; it could be explained as a mere feast-time formula of politeness and the real negotiations could begin between the advisers on both sides.

Jack replied coldly that he regarded his words as wholly binding, that he was convinced that he and Sciahan understood one another, and that in any event the responsibility lay with the Captain of the Surprise. That was the last cool remark in the discussion, which presently grew not only warm but even personal. Graham wished to hear no more of this parrot-cry of responsibility: if an invaluable opportunity was lost the country through frowardness and ignorance it was of little or no comfort to an injured public to fasten the responsibility upon some particular one of its servants. It was the duty of those engaged in warfare, and above all in the political side of warfare, to consider the situation with the impartiality of a natural philosopher watching the action of spirits of salt upon hartshorn, of the electric fluid on a dead frog's thigh; all sentiment and personal preference must be laid aside; and other purely objective and informed opinion must be sought. Throughout this inauspicious day however Captain Aubrey had been clearly guided by his personal likes and dislikes and by the fact that these people called themselves Christians; he had made up his mind on sentimental grounds. This had been evident from the moment they set foot on sh.o.r.e until the moment they left and it was of no use for Captain Aubrey to prate about respect and discipline. Professor Graham was not one of Captain Aubrey's subordinates - the cruel and b.l.o.o.d.y lash which he had seen, with bitter regret, so disgracefully used upon this very ship, was not for him - and even if he were a subordinate, that would not prevent him from doing his duty or protesting, officially and with the utmost vehemence, against this ill-considered course of action. Nor was it of any use for Captain Aubrey to look big and talk loud; Professor Graham was not a man to be bullied. If, like some other military forms of life, Captain Aubrey was a being that confused superior force with superior reason, that was Captain Aubrey's affair: nothing would prevent Professor Graham from telling the truth, calmly and without raising his voice. Volume of sound was in no way related to volume of veracity. Captain Aubrey might speak violently, if he chose; it made no difference to the truth. If Captain Aubrey were to turn his cannon - the ultima ratio regum, and of other bullies - on Professor Graham, the truth would remain unaltered. No, said Professor Graham, now quite hoa.r.s.e from bellowing, he did not suppose that he possessed a monopoly of wisdom - the remark he might observe in pa.s.sing was wholly irrelevant and as illiberal as if Professor Graham had referred to Captain Aubrey's remarkable bulk or to his lack of education - but in this particular case an impartial observer comparing Professor Graham's not inconsiderable knowledge of Turkish history, language, literature, policy, and customs with the encyclopedic ignorance and presumption of those who contradicted him, might be tempted to think so.

Furthermore... At this juncture Stephen broke in and maintained a rapid, vapid flow of talk, refusing to be interrupted until the blessed beating of the drum enabled him to lead Graham away undefeated to the gunroom, where amidst a silent consternation (for both gentlemen had been tolerably audible, the cabin bulkheads being not much above ordinary match-boarding in thickness, whereas even nine-inch plank would scarcely have sufficed to keep so pa.s.sionate a disagreement in) he savagely dismembered a pair of Kutaliote fowls.

In the course of this disagreement Jack had suffered from his usual want of eloquence (well-chosen words came fairly pouring out of Graham) and from the fact that he had not had the support he expected from Stephen. 'I really think you might have stood up for me a little more,' he said. 'I should have taken it friendly, was you to have flashed out a piece of Latin or Greek, when he checked me with my bulk.'

'Well, brother, you had already let fall some remarks about meagre wizened bookworms: by that time you were both calling names, which is the end of all discourse. Earlier, when you were conversing like Christians rather than roaring like Turks, I did not intervene because I thought there was substance in Graham's contention.'

'Do you think I did wrong? In negotiations of this kind, and with men like Sciahan, the natural spontaneous word may do better than any amount of tortuous haggling and formal treaties.'

'I think you should have consulted Graham beforehand - he is after all an eminent authority on Turkish affairs and you have wounded him extremely by not doing so, and I think he may have been right about Mustapha. The more I hear of the Capitan-Bey and the more I reflect upon the situation, the more I am persuaded that he is less concerned with the possession of Kutali than with keeping Ismail out of it, and more generally with doing Ismail in the eye, as the seamen say. I hear accounts of his obsessive hatred for the man on all hands; and I think that if you had not committed yourself so thoroughly to Sciahan you might have been wise to take this into account. After all, it may be held that in war there is neither Turk nor Christian nor moral consideration.'

'A war like that would not be worth fighting,' said Jack.

'And yet the Dear knows war is not a game,' said Stephen.