The Ionian Mission (38 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   'They had begun breaking bulk, the goddamn fools,' said Jack; and as his eyes grew used to the twilight Stephen saw that they were walking on nutmegs, cinnamon, cloves and turmeric, spilt from torn bales. 'Is it all spice?' he asked, pausing by the extraordinary pungency of a cracked pot of musk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   'Yes, sir.'

   'Mr Rowan, report to the Commander-in-Chief, with my duty, that the transports are in Cephalonia, and that all is well. You need not mention the fact that you saw one of the squadron crammed with women from head to stern; you need not report this open and I may say shameless violation of the Articles of War, for that disagreeable task falls to your superiors; nor need you make any observations about floating brothels or the relaxation of discipline in the warmer eastern waters, for these observations will naturally occur to the Commander-in-Chief without your help. Now pray go aboard our prize and proceed to Malta without the loss of a minute: not all of us can spare the time to dally with the sex.'