The Mauritius Command (20 page)

"She is making a steady nine knots," said Jack, coming below after quarters.

"How happy you make me, Jack," said Stephen. "And you might make me even happier, should you so wish, by giving me a hand with this. The unreasonable attitude, or lurch, of the ship caused me to overset the chest."

"God help us," cried Jack, gazing at the mass of gold coins lying in a deep curve along the leeward side of the cabin. "What is this?"

"It is technically known as money," said Stephen. "And was you to help me pick it up, instead of leering upon it with a stunned concupiscencc more worthy of Danae than a king's officer, we might conceivably save some few pieces before they all slip through the cracks in the floor. Come, come, bear a hand, there."

They picked and shovelled busily, on all fours, and when the thick squat iron bound box was full again, Stephen said, "They are to go into these small little bags, if you please, by fifties: each to be tied with string. Will I tell you what it is, Jack?" he said, as the heavy bags piled up.

"If you please."

"It is the vile corrupting British gold that Buonaparte and his newspapers do so perpetually call out against. Sometimes it exists, as you perceive. And, I may tell you, every louis, every napoleon, every ducat or doubloon is sound: the French sometimes buy services or intelligence with false coin or paper. That is the kind of thing that gives espionage a bad name."

"If we pay real money, it is to be presumed we get better intelligence?" said Jack.

"Why, truly, it is much of a muchness: your paid agent and his information are rarely of much consequence. The real jewel, unpurchasable, beyond all price, is the man who hates tyranny as bitterly as I do: in this case the royalist or the true republican who will risk his life to bring down that Buonaparte. There are several of them on La Reunion, and I have every reason to believe there are more on the Mauritius. As for your common venal agents," said Stephen, shrugging, "most of these bags are for them; it may do some good; indeed it probably will, men rarely being all of a piece. Tell me, when shall you be able to set me down? And how do you reckon the odds at present?"

"As to the first," said Jack, "I cannot say until I have believe they are looked into Port-Louis. The odds? I still about evens for the moment. If they have gained the Minerva, we have gained the Magicienne. You will tell me that the Minerva is the heaviest of the two, and that the Magicienne only carries twelve-pounders; but Lucius Curtis is a rare plucked "un, a damned good seaman. So let us say evens for the moment. For the moment, I say, because the hurricane-season is coming, and if they lie snug in port and we outside, why, there is no telling how we shall stand in a few weeks" time."

During the night they brought the wind aft as they went north about Mauritius, and when Stephen woke he found the Boadicea on an even keel; she was pitching gently, and the urgent music that had filled her between decks these last days was no longer to be heard. He washed his face perfunctorily, passed his hand over his beard, said "It will do for today," and hurried into the day-cabin, eager for coffee and his first little paper cigar of the day. Killick was there, gaping out of the stern-window, with the coffee- pot in his hand.

"Good morning, Killick," said Stephen. "Where's himself?"

"Good morning, sir," said Killick. "Which he's still on deck."

"Killick," said Stephen, "what's amiss? Have you seen the ghost in the bread-room? Are you sick? Show me your tongue."

When Killick had withdrawn his tongue, a flannelly object of inordinate length, he said, paler still, "Is there a ghost in the bread-room, sir? Oh, oh, and I was there in the middle watch. Oh, sir, I might a seen it."

"There is always a ghost in the bread-room. Light along that pot, will you now?"

"I durs'nt, sir, begging your pardon. There's worse news than the ghost, even. Them wicked old rats got at the coffee, sir, and I doubt there's another pot in the barky."

"Preserved Killick, pass me that pot, or you will join the ghost in the bread room, and howl for evermore."

With extreme unwillingness Killick put the pot on the very edge of the table, muttering, "Oh, I'll cop it: oh, I'll cop It."

Jack walked in, poured himself a cup as he bade Stephen good morning, and said,

"All in what?"

"All the Frenchmen are in harbour, with their two Indiamen and the Victor. Have not you been on deck? We are lying off Port-Louis. The coffee has a damned odd taste."

"This I attribute to the excrement of rats. Rats have eaten our entire stock; and I take the present brew to be a mixture of the scrapings at the bottom of the sack."

"I thought it had a familiar tang," said Jack. "Killick, you may tell Mr Seymour, with my compliments, that you are to have a boat. And if you don't find at least a stone of beans among the squadron, you need not come back. It is no use trying Nereide; she don't drink any."

When the pot had been jealously divided down to its ultimate dregs, dregs that might have been called dubious, had there been the least doubt of their nature, they went on deck. The Boadicea was lying in a splendid bay, with the rest of the squadron ahead and astern of her: Sirius,

"I am afraid they are all in."

Nereide, Otter, the brig Grappler which they had retaken at St Paul's, and a couple of fore-and-aft- rigged avisoes, from the same source: to leeward the Windham Indiaman, with parties from each ship repairing the damage caused by the blow and the violence of the enemy, watched by the philosophical French prize-crew. At the bottom of the deep curve lay Port-Louis, the capital of Mauritius, with green hills rising behind and cloud-capped mountains beyond them.

"Shall you adventure to the maintop?" asked Jack. "I could show you better from up there."

"Certainly," said Stephen. "To the ultimate crosstrees, if you choose: I too am as nimble as an ape."

Jack was moved to ask whether there were earthbound apes, as compact as lead, afflicted with vertigo, possessed of two left hands and no sense of balance; but he had seen the startling effect of a challenge upon his friend, and apart from grunting as he thrust Stephen up through the lubber's hole, he remained silent until they were comfortably installed among the studding sails, with their glasses trained upon the town.

"You have the white building with the tricolour flying over it?" said Jack. "That is General Decaen's headquarters. Now come down to the shore and a little to the right, and there is the Bellone: she is swaying up a new foretopmast. Another foot--he holds up his hand--he bangs home the fid: neatly done, most seamanlike. Inside her lies the Victor. Do you see the French colours over ours? The dogs; though indeed she was theirs before she was ours. Inside again, the French colours over the Portuguese: that is the Minerva. A very heavy frigate, Stephen; and no sign of her having been roughly handled that I can see. Then comes the Venus, with the broad pendant, alongside the sheer hulk. They are giving her a new mizen. Now she has been handled rough- bowsprit gone in the gammoning, headrails all ahoo, not a dead- eye left this side, hardly; and very low in the water; pumps hard at it: I wonder they managed to bring her in. Yet it was early in the year for that kind of blow: she must have been in the heart of it, the Indiaman on the edge, and the Magicienne quite outside, for Curtis never even struck his top-gallant masts."

"Your hurricano has a rotatory motion, I believe?"

"Exactly so. And you can be taken aback just when you think you have rode it out. Then over to the right you have the Manche and a corvette: the Criole, I believe. A very tidy squadron, once they have put the Venus to rights. What a match it would be, was they to come out and fight their ships as well as that gallant fellow at St Paul's fought his. What was his name?"

"Feretier. Do you suppose they mean to come out?"

"Never in life," said Jack. "Not unless I can amuse them--not unless I can make their commodore believe we are no longer in the offing, or only one or two of us. No: it looks like Brest or Toulon all over again: steady blockade until we are down to salt horse and Old Weevil's wedding-cake. We used to call it polishing Cape Sicilie in the Mediterranean. But at least it means that I can send you down to La Reunion with the Grappler, if you really have to go: she can convoy the Windham that far, in case of the odd privateer, and be back the next day. It is barely thirty leagues, and with this steady wind... Forgive me, Stephen, it is time for my captains. There is Clonfert's gig putting off already, with his damn-fool boat's crew. Why does he have to make such a raree-show of himself?"

"Other captains dress their boat's crew in odd garments."

"Still, there is such a thing as measure. I do not look forward to this meeting, Stephen. I shall have to call for an explanation--they will have to tell me how the Bellone got out. However, it will not be long. Shall you wait for me here?"

The conference was longer than Jack had expected, but Stephen, cradled in his top as it swung fore and aft on the long even swell, scarcely noticed the passage of time. He was warm through and through, so warm that he took off his neck-cloth; and while his eye dwelt on the motions of the seabirds (noddies, for the most part), the routine work on the deck below, the repairs carrying on aboard the Windham, and the boats moving to and fro, his mind was far away on La Reunion, following a large number of schemes designed to overcome the French reluctance to becoming British by means less forthright, and less murderous, than a yardarm-to yardarm engagement with both broadsides roaring loud. He was therefore almost surprised to see the Commodore's large red face heave up over the edge of his capacious nest; while at the same time he was concerned to see its heavy, anxious expression, the comparative dullness of that bright blue eye.

"This is a damned awkward harbour for a close blockade," observed the Commodore. "Easy enough to slip out of, with the wind almost always in the south-east, but difficult to enter, without you are lucky with the sea breeze and the tide--that is why they use St Paul's so often--and difficult to bottle up tight in the dark of the moon. Still, come down into the cabin, if you would like a wet: Killick has discovered a few pale ancient beans that will just provide our elevenses."

In the cabin he said, "I do not blame them for letting the Bellone slip between them and the cape; and the Canonniere was gone before ever they reached their stations. But I do blame them for falling out over it. There they sat like a couple of cross dogs, answering short and glaring at one another. It was Pym's responsibility as the senior captain, of course; but whose fault it was in fact I could not make out. All I am sure of is that they are on wretched terms. Clonfert seems to have a genius that way, but I am surprised at Pym, such an easy, good-natured fellow. However, I have invited all captains to dine, and let us hope that will smooth things over. It is a miserable business, these rivalries in a squadron. I though I had got rid of them with Corbett."

Although this dinner, whose main dishes were a fourhundred-pound turtle and a saddle of mutton from the Cape, was eaten in a humid ninety degrees, it did restore a semblance of civility, if not more. Pym was no man to keep up a resentment, and Clonfert could command the social graces; they drank wine together, and Jack saw with relief that his entertainment was going fairly well. Curtis of the Magicienne was a lively, conversable man, and he had much to tell them about the French squadron and its depredations in the Company's far eastern settlements: Hamelin, their commodore, was a savage, Jacobin fellow, it seemed, though a good seaman, while Duperre of the Bellone had a fine, swift-sailing ship, and he fought her with great determination; and the French crews were in a surprisingly high state of efficiency. Curtis's account carried the dinner over the first formal stage, and soon there was plenty of animated talk; although indeed Clonfert addressed almost all his conversation to his neighbour, Dr Maturin, and the two young commanders, Tomkinson of the Otter and Dent of the Grappler, did not feel it proper to open their mouths except to admit calipash and calipee, fat-tailed sheep and Cape Madeira.

"You and Clonfert got along very well together," observed Jack, when his bloated guests had gone. "What did you find to talk about? Is he a reading man?"

"He reads novels. But most of the time we spoke of his exploration of these coasts. He has charted many of the inlets, rowing in with his black pilot; and he has a surprising fund of information."

"Yes. I know. He outdoes Corbett in that, I believe. He has real abilities, if only... What now?"

"All ready, sir," said Bonden.

"Show me the pockets."

"Number seven canvas, sir, double-sewn," said Bonden, spreading his jacket and displaying an array of pouches. "With flaps."

"Very good. Now stow these away, and button "em up tight."

As he received the little heavy bags Bonden's visage took on a glassy, know nothing look: he said no word; he extinguished the gleam of intelligence in his eye. "There we are," said Jack. "And here is a chit for Captain Dent. He will ask you if you can make out the leading-marks for the cove where Wasp put the Doctor ashore, and if you can not--mark me, Bonden, if you are not dead certain of both marks and soundings--you are to say so, whether they think you a Jack-pudden or no. And Bonden, you will take great care of the Doctor. Hammer his pistol-flints, d'ye hear me, and do not let him get his feet wet."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Bonden.

A few minutes later the boat pulled away; Bonden, though unnaturally stout in his close-buttoned jacket, sprang up the side of the Grappler and hauled Stephen aboard; and the brig headed south-west, followed by the Indiaman.

Jack watched them until they were hull-down, and then he turned his gaze to the shore, with its fortifications sharp and clear against the bright green of sugar-cane. He could almost feel the answering gaze of the French commanders training their telescopes on the squadron, particularly that of Hamelin, his equivalent on the other side; and as he gave the orders that would set the long blockade in motion he turned over the possibilities of amusing them and of bringing them out to fight.