The Mauritius Command (23 page)
He did not know Lambert at all, a recently-promoted young man, but he liked the look of him--a small round jolly sailor with a capable air--and he fairly loved him when he took a paper from his pocket and said, "These are my officers" reports, sir, made as we were standing in. Purser: provisions for nine weeks in full,, of all species, except rum: of that, only thirty-nine days. Master: one hundred and thirteen tons of water; beef very good, pork sometimes shrinks in the boiling; the rest of the provisions very good. I should add, sir, that we watered, wooded, and tortolsed at Rodriguez. Gunner: eighteen rounds of powder filled; plenty of wads; forty rounds. Carpenter: hull in good state; knees of the head supported by two cheeks; masts and yards in good state; pretty well stored. Surgeon: in the sick list, three men, objects for invaliding; portable soup, fifty-seven pounds; other necessaries to the 19th of next month only. And as for my people, sir, we are only sixteen short of complement."
"Then I take it you can sail at once, Captain Lambert?"
"The moment we have won our anchors, sir, unless you wish me to slip. Though I should be happy to take in a little powder and shot, and some greenstuff: my surgeon is not quite happy about his lime-juice."
"Very good, very good, Captain Lambert," said Jack, chuckling. "You shall certainly have your powder and shot. Never trouble with that damned yard at this time of night: I have more than we can safely stow, from St Paul's, and my gunner will have to disgorge the surplus. And you may have six of our bullocks that are waiting on the beach. As for your greenstuff, my purser has an excellent unofficial man on shore, will rouse you out any quantity in half an hour. Mr Peter, be so good as to prepare a letter to the Admiral, to go at once: Mr Richardson is our best jockey, I believe--tell him to never mind the lions and tigers on the road; they are all gammon, for the most part. Then, an order for Captain Lambert--proceed to sea on the ebb, rendezvous off Port-Louis, copies of private signals, alternative rendezvous at Rodriguez after the--let me consider--the seventeenth. And let all captains come aboard. Killick, pass the word for the gunner, and bring a bottle of the Constantia with the yellow seal. The yellow seal, d'ye hear me?"
Between the signing of papers and the interview with the reluctant gunner they drank their bottle, the best bottle in the ship, and the captains began to arrive: their coxswains could be heard answering the sentry's hail in quick succession: "Nereide', "Sirius', "Otter', "Magicienne'.
"Now, gentlemen," said the Commodore, when they were all assembled, "when can your ships proceed to sea?"
If it were not for Pym's vile newfangled iron tanks, the Sirius could be ready in a couple of days: if it had not been for the yard's incomprehensible delay over the long-promised iron horse, the Otter might say the same. "Nereide will be ready for sea in thirty six hours said Clonfert, smiling with intent at Captain Pym: but the smile changed to a look of surprised vexation when Curtis said, "The Magicienne can sail this minute, sir, if I may have leave to water at Flat Island. We are no more than thirty ton shy."
I am delighted to hear it, Captain Curtis," said Jack. "Delighted. Magicienne and lphigenia will proceed to PortLouis with the utmost dispatch. Mr Peter will give you your orders; and with this wind you might be well advised to warp out into the fairway to catch the first minute of the ebb."
They received their orders; they warped out into the fairway; and dawn saw the two frigates beating out of the bay, to vanish, close-hauled, round the Cape of Good Hope by the time the cabin's breakfast of eggs and muttonham came aft in a cloud of fragrance. Shortly afterwards Captain Eliot arrived with a formal order from the Admiral directing the Commodore to convene his court-martial, and a letter in which he congratulated Jack on this splendid accession of force at Rodriguez, from which the country might confidently expect wonders in a very short time indeed, particularly as for the next few weeks the squadron would have the use of the Leopard. The horrible old Leopard.
Jack changed into his full-dress uniform; the ominous union flag broke out at the Boadicea's peak; the captains gathered; and with Mr Peter acting as deputy judge-advocate they set about the unpleasant business of trying poor Captain Woolcombe for the loss of the Laurel of twenty-two guns, captured by the Canonniere--the Frenchman's last fight--off Port-Louis before Jack came to the Cape: for until this time a sufficient number of senior officers had never been in Simon's Town long enough for the court to be formed, and poor Woolcombe had been under nominal arrest ever since he had been exchanged. Everyone knew that in the circumstances, with the Canonniere in sight of her home port, carrying an enormous land-based crew and mounting more than twice the number of far heavier guns, no blame could be attached to the Laurel's captain; everyone knew that there must be an honourable acquittal- everybody except Woolcombe, for whom the issue was far too important for any certainty whatsoever and who sat throughout the long proceedings with a face of such anxiety that it made the members of the court very thoughtful indeed. Each of them might find himself in the same position, faced perhaps with ill-disposed judges, differing from him in politics or service loyalties or bearing him some long-nourished grudge: a court of amateur lawyers, from whose decision there was no appeal. Illogically, perhaps, since they themselves had framed the verdict, every member of the court shared in Woolcombe's glowing relief when the judge-advocate read it out, and when Jack handed back the captain's sword with an elegant if somewhat studied formal speech. They were happy with Captain Woolcombe, and the sentences for some of the desertions and embezzlements that followed were quite remarkably light. Yet for all that the sentences took a great while to reach: the stately process went on and on. In his own ship a captain could deal with any delinquent foremast hand so long as the offence did not carry the death-sentence, but he could not touch any officer holding a commission or a warrant; they had to come before the court; and at times it seemed to Jack, on the boil with impatience to get to sea, to make the most of the situation before the French knew of the forces on La Reunion, that no warrant officer in the squadron had found any better use for his time than getting drunk, overstaying his leave, disobeying, insulting, and even beating his superiors, and making away with the stores entrusted to his care. Indeed, a steady diet of courts-martial gave a most unpleasant impression of the Royal Navy: crime, oppression? complaints of illegal conduct, sometimes justified, sometimes fabricated or malicious (one master charged his captain with keeping false musters, on the grounds that he had a friend's son on the ship's books when in fact the young gentleman was at school in England, a perfectly normal practice, but one which would have wrecked the captain's career if the court had not performed some singular acrobatics to save him), brawling in the wardroom, against officers, evidence of long-standing ill-will; and all the bloody violence of the lower deck.
Between these grim sessions the presiding judge turned sailor again, and he drove on the refitting of his ships, fighting a most determined battle against obstruction and delay. But having all the time in the world, the dock-yard won hands down; they had gauged his needs and his impatience quite exactly, and he had not only to bleed borrowed gold at every vein, but even to thank his extortioners before the last sack of thirty-penny nails and ten-inch spikes came aboard. These actions took place at dawn and dusk, for at dinner-time the president of the court necessarily entertained the other members.
"Pray, Commodore, do you not find passing sentence of death cut your appetite?" asked Stephen, as he watched Jack carve a saddle of mutton.
"I cannot say I do," said the Commodore, passing Captain Woolcombe a slice that dripped guiltless blood. "I don't like it, to be sure; and if the court can possibly find a lesser offence, I think I should always give my vote for it. But when you have a straightforward case of cowardice or neglect of duty, why, then it seems to me plain enough: the man must be hanged, and the Lord have mercy on his soul, for the service will have none. I am sorry for it, but it don't affect my appetite. Captain Eliot, may I help you to a little of the undercut?"
"It seems to me perfectly barbarous," observed Stephen.
"But surely, sir," said Captain Pym, "surely a medical man will cut off a gangrened limb to save the rest of the body?"
"A medical man does not cut off the limb in any spirit of corporate revenge, nor in terrorem; he does not make a solemn show of the amputation, nor is the peccant limb attended by all the marks of ignominy. No, sir: your analogy may be specious, but it is not sound. Furthermore, sir, you are to consider, that in making it you liken the surgeon to a common hangman, an infamous character held in universal contempt and detestation. And the infamy attaching to the executioner arises from what he does: the language of all nations condemns the man and a fortiori his act: which helps to make my point more forcibly."
Captain Pyrn protested that he had not intended the least reflection upon surgeons--a capital body of men, essential in a ship, and on shore too, no doubt: he would not meddle with analogies any more; but still perhaps he might adventure to say that it was a hard service, and it needed a hard discipline.
"There was a man," remarked Captain Eliot, "who was sentenced to death for stealing a horse from a common. He said to the judge, that he thought it hard to be hanged for stealing a horse from a common; and the judge answered, "You are not to be hanged for stealing a horse from a common, but that others may not steal horses from commons.
"And do you find," asked Stephen, "that in fact horses are not daily stolen from commons? You do not. Nor do I believe that you will make captains braver or wiser by hanging or shooting them for cowardice or erroneous judgment. It should join the ordeal of the ploughshare, floating or pricking to prove witchcraft, and judicial combat, among the relics of a Gothic past."
"Dr Maturin is quite right," cried Lord Clonfert. "A capital execution seems to me a revolting spectacle. Surely a man could be..
His words were drowned in the general flow of talk that Stephen's word "shooting" had set going; for Admiral Byng had been shot to death on his own quarterdeck. Almost everybody was speaking, except for Captain Woolcombe, who ate in wolfish silence, his first meal without anxiety; and the names of Byng and Keppel flew about.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cried Jack, who saw the far more recent Gambler and Hervey and the unfortunate engagement in the Basque roads looming ahead, "let us for Heaven's sake keep to our humble level, and not meddle with admirals or any other god-like beings, or we shall presently run foul of politics, and that is the end of all comfortable talk."
The noise diminished, but Clonfert's excited voice could be heard carrying on, the possibility of judicial error, and the value of human life--once it is gone, it cannot be brought back. There is nothing, nothing, so precious."
He addressed himself to his neighbours and to those sitting opposite him; but none of the captains seemed eager to be the recipient, and there was the danger of an embarrassing silence, particularly as Stephen, convinced that two hundred years of talk would not shift his kind, bloody-minded companions an inch, had taken to rolling bread pills.
"As for the value of human life," said Jack, I wonder whether you may not over-estimate it in theory; for in practice there is not one of us here, I believe, who would hesitate for a moment over pistoling a boarder, nor think twice about it afterwards. And for that matter, our ships are expressly made to blow as many people into kingdom come as possible."
"It is a hard service, and it requires a hard discipline," repeated Pym, peering through his claret at the enormous joint.
"Yes, it is a hard service," said Jack, "and we often call our uniform buttons the curse of God; but a man--an officer--enters it voluntarily, and if he don't like the terms he can leave it whenever he chooses. He takes it on himself--he knows that if he does certain things, or leaves them undone, he is to be cashiered or even hanged. If he has not the fortitude to accept that, then he is better out of the service. And as for the value of human life, why, it often seems to me that there are far too many people in the world as it is; and one man, even a post-captain, nay'smiling--"even a commodore or a jack-in-the-green, is not to be balanced against the good of the service."
"I entirely disagree with you, sir," said Clonfert.
"Well, my lord, I hope it is the only point upon which we shall ever differ," said Jack.
"The Tory view of a human life. "began Clonfert.
"Lord Clonfert," called Jack in a strong voice, "the bottle stands by you." And immediately afterwards, aiming at bawdy, in which all could share, and quickly attaining it, he spoke of the striking increase--the potential increase--in the population of the colony since the squadron's arrival: "a single member of my midshipmen's berth has already contrived to get two girls with child: one brown, the other isabella- coloured." The others turned with equal relief to similar accounts, to reminiscences of burning wenches in Sumatra, at Port au-Prince, in the Levantine ports; to rhymes, to conundrums; and the afternoon ended in general merriment.
The Nereide, her topgallantmasts and her new gig on board at last, left Simon's Town for Mauritius that evening: and as they stood watching her out of the bay, Stephen said to Jack, "I am sorry I started that hare; it gave you some uneasiness, I am afraid. Had I recollected, I should not have asked it in public, for it was a private question--I asked for information sake. And now I do not know whether the public answer was that of the Commodore or of the plain, unpendanted Jack Aubrey."
"It was something of both," said Jack. "I do in fact dislike hanging more than I said, though more for myself than for the hanged man: the first time I saw a man run up to the yardarm with a night cap over his eyes and his hands tied behind his back, when I was a little chap in the Ramillies, I was as sick as a dog. But as for the man himself, if he has deserved hanging, deserved it by our code, I find it don't signify so very much what happens to him. It seems to me that men are of different value, and that if some are knocked on the head, the world is not much the poorer.