The Mauritius Command (22 page)

Turn and turn about they went, while the French remained obstinately at peace in their deep harbour, fitting themselves out anew to the last dump bolt; and turn by turn, when he was not away in the Nereide down the coast, Stephen moved into each departing ship. His limestone caves on Rodriguez fulfilled all their golden promise; Colonel Keating was kindness itself, providing fatigue-parties and draining a small marsh; and by the third turn Stephen was able to report that from the bones found in the mud alone he could almost promise Jack the sight of a complete skeleton of the solitaire within the next two months, while at the same time he might partially clothe it with feathers and pieces of skin found in the caves.

For the rest of the time it was plain blockade, inshore at night, off the capes by day, but never far, lest a Frenchman should slip out on the land-breeze, go north about in the darkness and bear away for the rich waters of the Indian Ocean, leaving the squadron a great way to leeward. Up and down, up and down, and all the time their thin canvas grew thinner in the tropical sun and the sudden prodigious downpours, their running rigging, incessantly passing through the countless blocks as they trimmed sail, gradually wasted away in those wisps called shakings, and the weed accumulated on their bottoms, while through the gaps in their copper the teredos thrust their augers through the oak.

Christmas, and an immense feast on the upper deck of the Boadicea, with a barrel of providently salted penguins from off the Cape serving as geese or turkeys, according to the taste and fancy of the mess, and plum-duff blazing faint blue under the awnings spread against the fiercer blaze of the Mauritian sun. New Year, with a great deal of ship-visiting; Twelfth Night, and the midshipmen's berth regaled the gun-room with a two-hundred-pound turtle--an unfortunate experiment, for it was the wrong kind of turtle: the shell turned into glue, and all who had eaten of the creature pissed emerald green; and now Jack began to consult his barometer every watch.

It was a handsome, heavily-protected brass instrument hanging in gimbals by the table on which they. breakfasted, and he was unscrewing its bottom when Stephen observed, "I shall soon have to think of another trip to La Reunion. This Mauritius brew is sad stuff, in comparison."

"Very true," said Jack. "But drink it while you may. Carpe diem, Stephen: you may not get another cup. I unscrewed this shield, because I thought the tube must have broke. But here is the quicksilver, do you see, lower than I have ever seen it in my life. You had better stow your bones in the safest place you can think of. We are in for an uncommon hearty blow."

Stephen swept the vertebrae he had been sorting into his napkin and followed Jack on deck. The sky was pure and innocent, the swell rather less than usual: on the starboard bow the familiar landscape lay broad and green under the eastern sun. "Magicienne is at it already," said Jack, glancing at the busy hands over the water, setting up double preventer-stays. "Nereide has been caught napping. Mr Johnson: squadron make sail; course due west; prepare for heavy weather." He turned his glass to Port Louis: yes, there was no fear of the French slipping out. They too could read a barometer, and they too were making all fast.

"Might this portend a hurricano?" asked Stephen privately in his ear.

"Yes," said Jack, "and we must have all the sea-room we can win. How I wish Madagascar were farther off."

They won forty miles of sea-room; the boats on the booms could scarcely be seen for frappings; the guns were double-breeched, bowsed up against the side until they made it groan; topgallantmasts were down on deck; storm canvas bent; spare gaskets, rolling-tackles, spritsailyard fore and aft--all that a great deal of activity and experienced seamanship could accomplish was done: and all under the same pure sun.

The swell increased long before a darkness gathered in the north. "Mr Seymour," said. Jack, "tarpaulins and battens for the hatchways. When it comes, it will blow across the sea."

It came, a curved white line racing across the sea with inconceivable rapidity, a mile in front of the darkness. Just before it reached them the Boadicea's close-reefed topsails sagged, losing all their roundness; then a tearing wall of air and water ripped them from their bolt-tops with an enormous shrieking howl. The ship was on her beam-ends, the darkness was upon them and the known world dissolved in a vast omnipresent noise. Air and water were intermingled; there was no surface to the sea; the sky vanished; and the distinction between up and down disappeared. Disappeared momentarily for those on deck, more durably for Dr Maturin, who, having pitched down two ladders, found himself lying on the ship's side. Presently, she righted and he slid down; but on her taking a most furious lee-lurch on wearing round, he shot across the deck, through all his remaining stock of Venice treacle, to land on hands and knees upon the other side, clinging to a suspended locker in the darkness, puzzled.

In time gravity reasserted itself; he climbed down, still mazed from the prodigious din and by his tumbles, and groped his way forward to the sick bay. Here Carol, nominally his assistant but in fact the virtual surgeon of the frigate, and the loblolly-boy had preserved their lantern, by whose light they were disentangling their only patient, a poxed member of the afterguard, whose hammock, twirling in the violent motion, had enveloped him like a cocoon.

Here they remained, hooting lugubriously to one another for a while. Rank had little significance in this pandemonium, and the loblolly-boy, an ancient man once sailmaker's crew and still good at sewing, told them in his shrill, carrying voice that in Jamaica as a boy he had known seven ships of the line founder with all hands in a blow not half as hugeous as this here. Presently Stephen shouted, "Come after, Mr Carol, and let us take all the lanterns we can find. The casualties will soon be coming down."

They crept aft through the darkness--deadlights shipped long since, and the air that came blasting down was charged with shattered water, not light--and to them were brought the injured men: one from the wheel, his ribs cracked by the flying spokes; a small, light reefer dashed by the wind against the hances, and now limp, insensible; Mr Peter, who had made the same plunge as Stephen, though less luckily; more ribs, some broken limbs. Then, as lightning struck the ship, three men quite dazed and one with a shocking burn, dead before they brought him below.

Bandaging, splinting, operating in a space that heaved through forty-five degrees in all directions and on chests that shifted and slid beneath them, they worked on and on. At one point a messenger from the quarterdeck came with the Commodore's compliments and was all well, together with something about "eight hours'; and then, much, much later, when the ship had been on a comparatively even keel for some time, with no new cases coming below and the last of the fractured clavicles reduced, there was the Commodore himself, streaming wet, in his shirt and breeches. He looked round, spoke to those casualties in any condition to hear him, and then in a hoarse voice he said to Stephen, "If you have a moment at any time, Doctor, you will find a curious sight on deck."

Stephen finished his bandage with a neat double turn and made his way up through the small hole in the canvas-covered hatch. He stood blinking in the extraordinary orange-tawny light, bracing himself against the flying air, as solid as a wall. "The lifeline, sir," cried a seaman, putting it into his hand. "Clap on to the lifeline for all love."

"Thank you, friend," said Stephen, gazing about him, and as he spoke he realized that the enormous universal roar had diminished: it was now slightly less than that of continuous battle at close quarters. The Boadicea was lying to under a scrap of mizen staysail, riding the tremendous seas nobly, shouldering them aside with her bluff bows: her fore and main topmasts had gone by the board; wild ropes by the score stretched horizontally aft from the wrecked tops, sometimes cracking as loud as a gun; her remaining shrouds were packed with scraps of seaweed and pieces of terrestrial vegetation--a palm-frond was clearly recognizable. But this was not the curious sight. From the drowned forecastle aft, and particularly on the quarterdeck, wherever there was the slightest lee, there were birds. Seabirds for the most part, but right by him a little creature like a thrush. It did not move as he approached it, nor even when he touched its back. The others were the same, and he looked into the lustrous eye of a bosun-bird within a few inches. In this unearthly lurid glow it was hard to make out their true colours or their kind, but he did distinguish a white-headed noddy, scarcely to be seen within five thousand miles of the Mauritius. As he was struggling towards it a sort of growl in the orange clouds immediately above overcame the general roar, and in a second it was followed by a thunder so intolerably vast that it filled all the air about him; and with the thunder a blaze of lightning struck the ship again. He was flung down, and picking himself up with a confused recollection of a triple stroke, of a forward gun having gone off, blasting out its portlid, he crawled below to wait for the wounded.

There were no wounded. Instead there appeared a piece of jellied veal, brought by Killick with the message that "the thunderbolt had made hay of the best bower anchor, but otherwise all was well; that unless they were taken aback in the next hour or so, the Commodore thought they might be through the worst of it; and that he hoped Dr Maturin might see better weather in the morning."

Having slept like a corpse through the middle watch, and having attended his urgent cases at first light, Dr Maturin did indeed see better weather when he came on deck. The sky was the most perfect blue, the sun delightfully warm, the gentle south-east wind refreshing: there was an enormous swell, but no white water, and apart from the desolation of the deck, the steady gush of the pumps, and the worn look of all hands, yesterday might have been a nightmare out of time. Yet there were other proofs: Mr Trollope, the second lieutenant, limped up to him and pointed out two ships of the squadron, far, far to leeward: the Magicienne, with her mizen gone, and the Sirius, with no topmast standing.

"Where is the Commodore?" asked Stephen.

"He turned in half a glass ago. I begged him to get some sleep. But before he went below he told me to take care to show you the best bower, a most amazing philosophical sight."

Stephen considered the fused, distorted metal, and said, "We seem to be heading south?"

"South-west as near as ever we can, with our compasses run mad because of the lightning; south-west for the Cape to refit. And don't we wish we may get there, ha, ha!"

CHAPTER SIX

There were no banquets at the Cape for Jack Aubrey; there were few kind words from the Admiral, either, although the Commodore had brought in all his squadron safe after one of the worst blows this last decade; and there were less, if less were possible, when an American barque arrived with the news that the Bellone, Minerve, and Victor were out--she had spoken them off the Cargados Garayos, standing north-east under a press of sail to cruise for Indiamen in the Bay of Bengal.

Not that Jack had any leisure for feasting in Cape Town or for comfortable chat with Admiral Bertie: it was an anxious, hurried time for him, with five ships to be refitted by a small yard with scarcely a spare frigate-topmast in it--supplies were expected from India--and no fit timber much nearer than Mossel Bay. A small, ill-furnished yard, and one governed by men of a rapacity that Jack had never seen equalled in all his long experience: the squadron was known to have done well for itself at St Paul's, and the yard was going to have a proper share come hell or high water, regardless of the fact that all this wealth depended on leisurely decisions to be taken far away at some future date--that the squadron had very little cash in hand, and could only take it up by bills at a usurious rate of interest. An anxious time, with the Frenchmen out; and one rendered more anxious still, as far as Jack was concerned, by a host of factors. By the steady obstruction of those in control of spars, cordage, paint, block, copper, iron-work, and the countless other objects the squadron cried out for. By the Admiral's apparent indifference to very gross corruption: Aubrey must be aware that dock-yard people were not plaster saints, observed Mr Bertie, nor yet choir-boys; these things should be settled as they were usually settled in the Navy; and for his part he did not give a straw how the Commodore set about it, so long as the squadron was ready for sea by Tuesday sennight at the latest. By the discovery that his own Mr Fellowes, seduced by the bosun of the Sirius and a desire to be rich now rather than at some later period when he might be dead, had not only looked upon the thunderstruck best bower as a perquisite, but had done the same by the kedge, fifty fathom of two-inch rope, and an unreasonable quantity of other stores--a court-martial quantity. By contention among his captains as to who should be served first from the meagre supplies whose existence the dock-yard could not conceal. And above all by the loss of one vessel carrying mail and by the arrival of another so thoroughly soaked by rain-storms under the line that all letters apart from those wrapped in waxed sailcloth had mouldered and partly coalesced; Sophie had never learnt to use waxed sailcloth, nor to number her letters, nor to send copies in another bottom.

Immediately after the arrival of this blotting-paper packet, Jack snatched an interval between visits to the masterattendant and the rope-walk and tried to disentangle the sequence with the help of such dates as "Friday" or "after church'. But this interval was also seized upon by Mr Peter, whose great sheaf of documents reminded Jack of his duty as a commodore: all that he had told the Commander-in-chief by word of mouth had to be cast into official, written form, carefully read over and considered. Very carefully, for although Jack was the least suspicious creature afloat, Stephen was not, and he had pointed out that it might be wise to regard Mr Peter as a functionary with loyalties on land rather than as a confidential ally. And then there was his duty as captain of the Boadicea: although his first lieutenant saw to the daily running of the ship, Mr Seymour was now exceedingly busy with the refitting, and in any case there were several things that necessarily fell to the captain. It was he who persuaded Mr Collins, now at eighteen the senior master's mate, that he was not absolutely required to marry the young lady who alleged that, as a direct consequence of Mr Collins" attentions, all her girdles were now too tight; still less to marry her at once. "A fortnight is not enough, in these affairs," he said. "It may be only an indigestion, a pound or two of beefsteak pudding. Wait until we come in from the next cruise. And until then, Mr Collins, I desire you will not leave the ship. Though indeed," he added, "was you to marry every girl you play love-tokens with, when ashore, the place would very soon come to look like Abraham's bosom."

It was he who patiently listened to an indignant, rambling account of sharp practice far away, delivered by Matthew Bolton, forecastleman, starboard watch, in his own name and in that of three mute companions unnaturally shaved and scraped. Bolton had refused Mr Seymour's help, on the grounds that as the Commodore had pulled him out of the sea when they were shipmates in the Polychrest, it obviously fell to him to do the same throughout the length of Bolton's natural life.

This was a logic that seemed convincing to Bolton, the first lieutenant and the Commodore; and when Jack had extracted the facts from the circumstantial details, a description of the grass-combing bugger that had tried this guardo-move, and an account of Mrs Bolton's state of health, he reached for a pen, and, watched very closely indeed by the four seamen, wrote a letter, which he then read out to them in a harsh, all-hands-to punishment voice that gave the utmost satisfaction:

"Boadicea,

Simon's Town

Sir,

Conformably to the wishes of the men named in the margin, late of the Nereide, and now on board of his Majesty's ship under my command, I acquaint you that unless the prize money due to them for Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, and received by you under their power of attorney, is forthwith paid, I shall state the case to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, with a request that their solicitor may be directed to sue for the same. I am, etc.

There," he said, "that will clap a stopper over his antics. Now, Bolton, if the Doctor is aboard, I should like to see him when he is at leisure."

As it happened the Doctor was not on board. He was half way between Cape Town, where he had left Mr Farquhar, and False Bay, sitting in a sparse grove of proteas in a dust-storm, clasping a loose portfolio of plants to be dried for his herbal, and dividing what attention he had left between a small flock of crested mouse-birds and a troop of baboons. Presently he came down to the harbour, where he washed away some of the dust at his usual tavern and received from the landlord (an obliging African of Huguenot descent) the foetus of a porcupine: and here, as he had expected, he found McAdam, sitting in front of a bottle that would have preserved the foetus almost indefinitely. Little of it had been drunk, however, and McAdam entertained him with a reasonable account of their patient's extraordinary activity and flow of spirits. Lord Clonfert, it appeared, was up well before dawn every day (a rare occurrence), inspiring all hands with a sense of extreme urgency; he had bleared Pym's eye over a couple of topgallant yards by means of a thumping bribe; and he was now negotiating with a known receiver of stolen goods for a gig. "Sure it will break his heart if he is not the first that is ready for sea," said McAdam. "He has set his soul on outdoing the Commodore."

"May we not in part attribute his activity to the roborative, stimulating use of coffee, and to the general soothing effect of mild tobacco, which has set his humours in equilibrio? Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified and opportunely taken, and medicinally used, but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, "tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul. Here, however, it is medicinally taken; and I congratulate myself upon the fact, that in your hands there is no question of tinkers" abuse."

The flying dust, the incessant wind, had made McAdam more gross than usual; he had never cordially liked Stephen's prescription of coffee and tobacco; and from his wavering, red-rimmed eye it seemed that he was meditating a coarse remark. Indeed, he began "A fig for... " but having belched at this point he reconsidered his words, fixed his gaze on the bottle, and continued, "No, no: you do not have to be a conjuror to see it is all emulation. If the one is your dashing frigate-captain, t'other will be your dashing frigate-captain to the power of ten, whether or no. He will outdo the Commodore though he burst."

It would not be difficult to outdo the Commodore in his present state, the creature, reflected Stephen as he walked into the cabin: riot, at least, in the article of speed. Captain Aubrey was completely surrounded by papers, including those of the courts-martial that were to be held over the next few days--the usual offences of desertion and violence or disobedience or both when drunk: but time-consuming--and upon them all he had laid out the mildewed sheets of his private correspondence.

"There you are, Stephen," he cried. "How happy I am to see you. What have you there?"

"An unborn porcupine."

"Well, there's glory for you. But Stephen, you are a rare one for making out a secret hand, I am sure. Would you help me try to find out the sequence of these letters, and perhaps even the sense?"

Together they pored over the sheets, using a magnifying-glass, intuition, crocus of antimony, and a little diluted copperas; but to small effect.

"I do make out that the Old Nonpareils we planted had three apples apiece, and that the strawberries failed," said Jack, "and she obviously heard from Ommaney, because here is the parlour chimney drawing fit to turn a mill, and a Jersey cow--the children have hair, and teeth, any number of teeth, poor little souls. Hair: with all my heart, though she does say it is straight. Straight or frizzled, "tis all one: they will look far better with some hair- Lord, Stephen, it must have been their hair I blew away, thinking it was shakings that had got into the cover." He crept about for some time and came up with a little wisp. "Very little shakings, however," he said, folding it into his pocket-book and returning to the letters. "Neighbours most attentive: here is another brace of pheasants from Mr Beach last Thursday. But in this one she says she is well, surprisingly well, underlined twice: says it again in what I take to be the last. I am heartily glad of it, of course, yet why surprisingly? Has she been ill? And what is this about her mother? Could the second word be palsy? if Mrs Williams has been sick, with Sophie looking after her, that might explain the surprisingly."

They pored again, and Stephen almost certainly deciphered a hare, a present from Captain Polixfen, eaten jugged on Saturday or Sunday or both; and something about the rain. All the rest was mere conjecture.

"I think old Jarvie was altogether wrong in saying that a sea-officer had no business to marry," said Jack, carefully gathering the sheets. "Yet I can see what he meant. I should not be unmarried for the world, you know; no, not for a flag; but you cannot conceive how my mind has been going back to Asligrove Cottage these days, when I should be thinking about getting the squadron to sea." He jerked his head over his shoulder and stared out of the scuttle for a while before adding, "These God damned courts-martial: and what to do about the land- sharks in the yard. To say nothing of the bosun and his infernal capers."

During supper he picked at his mutton, setting out the difficulty of dealing with Mr Fellowes: disposing of His Majesty's property was an immemorial practice among His Majesty's servants--if the objects were damaged it was almost legitimate by length of custom--and in the Navy it went by the name of cappabar. Pursers, carpenters, and bosuns stole most, having more to steal, and better opportunities; but there were limits, and Fellowes had not confined himself to damaged goods, nor to those of slight value. He had carried cappabar too high by far--the thing was flagrant--and Jack could bring him before a court-martial and have him broke tomorrow. It was Jack's duty to have him broke. On the other hand, it was also his duty to keep his ship in the highest possible fighting-trim: for that he needed a first-rate bosun: and first-rate bosuns did not grow on trees, at the Cape. First-rate bosuns were not twelve a penny. He grew a little heated on the subject, cursing Fellowes for a half-witted zany, a mad lunatic, a fling-it-down-the gutter sodomite; but his heart was not in it; his epithets lacked real warmth and inventiveness; and his mind was clearly still far away in Hampshire.

"Come," said Stephen, "if ever the Madras establishment fulfils its undertakings, and we move on La Reumon, which I begin to doubt, Mr Farquhar will be with us, and that will be an end to our music. Let us play my old lament for the Tir na n-Og; I too am mighty low, and it will serve as a counter-irritant. Like will be cured by like."

Jack said that he would be very happy to lament with Stephen until the moon went down, but with messengers expected from Cape Town and from every official in the yard, he did not expect they would reach any very high flow of soul before they were interrupted. In the event they had not even tuned their strings when Spotted Dick appeared, to state, with Mr Johnson's duty, that Iphigenia was off the point, had made her number, and was standing in.

With a brisk south-east wind and the making tide she had dropped anchor before moonrise, and the news that Captain Lambert brought drove all thoughts of England and of music from Jack Aubrey's head. The Iphigenia, that fine thirty-six-gun eighteen- pounder frigate, escorting a small fleet of transports, had reinforced Colonel Keating at Rodriguez to the extent of two regiments of European troops, two of Indian, and some auxiliaries: the numbers were fifteen hundred short of what had been hoped for, but the soldiers had done their best: they had kept very nearly to their time, and the definitive attack on La Reunion was now a possibility, though a hazardous one, above all if the French had moved fresh forces into the island. They would certainly have had time to remount their batteries.

The first thing to do was to find out what ships Governor Decaen had in Mauritius, and, if it could be done, to shut them up in their harbours. "Captain Lambert," he said, "what is the state of the Iphigenia?"