The Ionian Mission (40 page)

   'You mean, prove the tree by its eating.'

   'No, no, Stephen, you are quite out: eating a tree would prove nothing. And then you might ask him, had he ever seen many poltroons in the Navy?'

   'I am not quite sure what you mean by poltroons.'

   'You might describe them as something that cannot be attempted to be tolerated in the Navy—like wombats,' he added, with a sudden recollection of the creatures Stephen had brought aboard an earlier command. 'Mean-spirited worthless wretches: cowards, to put it in a word.'

   'You are unjust to wombats, Jack; and you were unjust to my three-toed sloth—such illiberal reflections. But leaving wombats to one side, and confining ourselves to your poltroons, Graham might reply that he had seen a good many bullies in the Navy; and for him, perhaps, the two are much the same.'

   'But they ain't, you know. They ain't the same thing at all. I thought they were once, when I was a youngster in the
Queen
, and I stood up to a tyrannical brute, quite sure he would prove a barnyard cock and turn shy. Lord, how he did bang me up and down,'—laughing heartily at the recollection—'and when I could no longer hear or see or keep my feet he stood over me with a cobbing-board . . .' For some minutes he had been watching a remote whirl of activity at the foot of the nearer castle, between the gatehouse and the shore, and now he broke off to say, 'They are launching a boat at last, a caique with an awning.' He reached for his telescope. 'Yes. It is something official: I see an old gentleman with a beard being lifted in by two blackamoors. Killick, pass the word for Professor Graham. Tell Mr Gill with my compliments that he is to be brought down by both master's mates together. Lord, what a set of lubbers'—nodding towards the distant boat—'They have fouled a tree-trunk. Now they have jibed, God help them. There will be plenty of time before we have to put on our coats.'

   This was the opinion of the quarterdeck as well. All those officers who were not on duty went back to their game of shove-groat in the gun-room: a great competition had been going on since Malta, and although the prize of twelve and sixpence seemed trifling since the capture of the
Bonhomme Richard
, they still played with the greatest eagerness, as careless of the glorious sky, the perfect sea, the spectacular Ionian shore, and even of Pyrrhus and the Dalmatian pelicans as they had been in some sunless convoy, far out in the drizzling German Ocean. Pullings glanced at his perfect decks, the white-gloved sideboys and the new-covered manropes ready to bring the visitor aboard, the powdered and pipe-clayed Marines prepared to stamp and clash by way of martial compliment, the bosun and his mates waiting with their shining silver calls, and then hurried below himself, to shove a groat, emerging only when the caique was within hailing distance. On deck Gill, the officer of the watch, had everything well in hand: in the cabin below Killick had arranged cushions in the Oriental manner under Professor Graham's direction, and had lit the hubblebubble laid in for the purpose at Valetta—tobacco-smoke rose from the cabin-skylight, and the afterguard breathed it in greedily.

   The caique upset all natural calculations by suddenly darting round to the larboard mainchains at the last moment; but the Navy, accustomed to the wild vagaries of foreigners, dealt with the situation directly, facing about and providing a mirror-image of the proper ceremonies, bringing the old gentleman aboard without a feather of the splendid aigrette in his turban being ruffled.

   He was led to the cabin, where Jack welcomed him, Graham acting as the interpreter: his only function was to invite Captain Aubrey to dine with the Bey, and to apologize for the lateness of the invitation—the Bey had been hunting in the marshes and the news of the frigate's arrival had not reached him for a great while: he was desolated; he lay in ashes.

   'What was the Bey hunting?' asked Jack, who was interested in these things and who in any case felt that some polite conversation might compensate for Killick's lukewarm version of sherbet and the plain Navy twist in the hubblebubble, neither of which seemed quite to the company's taste.

   'Jews,' said Graham, relaying the question and the answer.

   'Pray ask the Effendi whether the pelicans nest here,' said Stephen, after the slightest pause. 'I am aware that the Turks have a great kindness for the stork, and never molest her; perhaps their humanity may extend to the pelican, there being a superficial resemblance.'

   'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Pullings, coming in, 'but the caique has sunk alongside. We have made it fast to the tyes, head and stern, and the crew are aboard us.'

   'Very good, Mr Pullings: I dare say they would like something to eat—anything but swinesflesh, you know. Tell them No porco, pas porco. And let the barge be lowered down: I am going ashore. Mr Graham, please convey the sad news to the Effendi, and tell him our carpenters will probably be able to repair the damage.'

   The old gentleman did not seem much moved. He said that it was clearly God's will, and that he for his part had never put to sea without a disaster of some kind. Indeed, the contrary would surprise him.

   'Then let us hope that the Effendi will be surprised on his return voyage,' said Jack, 'for it is clear he must make it in my barge.'

Thursday, at sea

'. . . so I took the old gentleman ashore, telling my bargemen to row dry, and as luck would have it we shipped not a drop all the way,' wrote Jack in his letter home, 'though navigation in that choked-up harbour, with whole trees aground or floating, was neither beer nor yet skittles. But, however, Bonden knew that our honour depended on it, and he brought us alongside the jetty in great style: there I was pleased to see that they had spread out a perfectly beautiful blue carpet with a close pattern of rosy flowers, just the size to fit the breakfast parlour at home. Standing in the middle of it was Ismail Bey, the ruler of these parts, who welcomed me very civilly and led me to an uncommon fine horse, a bright bay stallion of rather better than sixteen hands, to carry me the three hundred yards into the castle. We passed through several courts, and in the last, which was full of orange-trees trimmed neat, they had spread an awning and laid the table—a precious short-legged table I may say, but since there were no chairs, only cushions raised on a low bench, it was just as well—and a pleasant thing was that through an empty gun-embrasure opposite my place I could see the dear
Surprise
, exactly framed.

   'We sat down six: the Bey and I, his vizier and Professor Graham, and his astrologer with Stephen. The Bulbuljibashi, the keeper of the nightingales, and the Tournajibashi, the keeper of the cranes, had been brought to tell Stephen about pelicans, but they were not admitted to the table. We had no plates or knives or forks (though we each had a tortoiseshell spoon) and dinner was not served quite in our way either, there being no removes, but dishes following one another separately, to the number of thirty-six, not counting the sweetmeats. Each came in to the sound of kettledrums, brought by black men who put them down on a monstrous fine gold salver nestling in an embroidered cushion in the middle of the table: then we all reached out and took lumps with our fingers, unless it was very soft, when we used our spoons. One of the dishes was a roasted lamb with a pudding of bright yellow rice in its belly, and the Bey seized it by the legs, tearing it very neatly to pieces for us. Graham was a great help, keeping up a fine flow of talk in Turkish and telling us how to behave: you would have laughed to hear him say, every so often and without looking at Stephen, 'Feed the keeper of the nightingales—feed the keeper of the cranes', and Stephen would gravely put a piece into the waiting mouth behind. And sometimes he would say, in Killick's very words, 'Captain A, your sleeve is in your dinner,' which I am afraid it often was, a uniform coat not being designed for plunging wrist-deep into a common dish. But apart from that it was a forbiddingly grave and solemn meal, with scarcely a smile from start to finish. We drank only water until the end, when we reached coffee, which was poured into odd little china cups without handles that stood in gold stands all set with diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Mine was all emeralds, and I was incautious enough to admire it: Ismail at once ordered it to be put up in a box and carried to the barge, and it was only Graham's firmly and repeatedly stating that for people of our nation this was a most inauspicious day for giving or receiving presents that saved the situation. For indeed it would never have done to lay myself under an obligation to the Bey: although he is in so much favour with our embassy in Constantinople and although he certainly has smooth, obliging, caressing manners, I found him a disagreeably oily gentleman—not my idea of a Turk at all and indeed Graham tells me that he is the grandson of a Greek apostate, while his mother was Egyptian—and it would not have answered at the end of the feast, when most of the company was dismissed and we came to talk about the real point of our meeting. I will not trouble you with the details of our negotiations, but will only observe, that although my profession requires me to suffer for my King and country, the agony of sitting cross-legged with one's breeches buckles grinding into one's very bone, is, after the first three hours, far, far beyond the call of duty. In any case, I must resume our conversation for the Commander-in-Chief, and to write it out twice would be tedious indeed, particularly as it was so unsatisfactory.'

This was only the second instalment of a new letter, since he had posted the last in Malta, and he ran over it from the beginning—the extraordinary luck of having
Surprise
, with a hand-picked crew, if only for this single cruise—the delightful little prize—not a floating Golconda, not a
Santa Brigida
, not a capture that would do away with all the difficulties at home, but at least one that would give him room to turn around: and Sophie was to buy herself a new pelisse, a fine new tippet—Babbington and the Grecian women—the noble coast-line of Epirus. And he felt a certain twinge as he reread the lines in which he desired his daughters to find out Epirus on the map, and his son to read about Pyrrhus in Gregory's
Polite Education
, 'for it would be a great shame, was George to be found ignorant of Pyrrhus when he grew up': Jack had never been a hypocrite until he became a father, and even now it did not come easy.

   Then he considered the paper he was to write, the memorandum of his conversation with Ismail Bey. The conclusion was plain enough: if the British guns were to be paid for by effective action against the French in Marga, Jack thought he could take them to a better market. Ismail seemed to him, and to his advisers, much more a politician than a warrior: he had no coherent military plan for taking Kutali, still less Marga, but seemed to think that the town must necessarily fall into his hands as soon as he had the cannon. Nor could he be brought to state the exact number of troops he would bring to the two operations: 'there would be a great many, far more than would be needed; he would have been delighted to show them, parading in the square, but two regiments and most of his best officers were away, putting down rebels in the north, while thousands of men were dispersed along the frontiers. But if Captain Aubrey would give him a little notice before he next came to Mesenteron, there would be a magnificent review: Captain Aubrey would see a splendid body of men, devoted to the British cause, burning to see the downfall of the French, and perfectly equipped, except in the article of guns.' Much of this sounded false, and all the falser for coming over in translation, separated from the significant looks and gestures that accompanied the original words: one of Jack's few certainties was that the Bey's notion of urgency and even of time itself was quite unlike his own.

   But by far the greater part of Ismail's discourse was concerned with his excellent relations with the British embassy and with the characters of Mustapha and Sciahan, his rivals for the possession of Kutali. They were a sad pair, it seemed, in whom wickedness and greed struggled with ineptitude and cowardice for the mastery: they would of course endeavour to deceive Captain Aubrey, but Captain Aubrey would instantly perceive that the first was nothing but an illiterate corsair, scarcely better than a pirate, a person whose word no man relied on, while the second was a man of doubtful loyalty to the Sultan, completely under the influence of the notorious Ali Pasha of Iannina, and as impotent in the field of battle as he was in the harem: and both were devoted to Napoleon.

   Graham had warned him of the slowness of Oriental negotiation, and of the different standards of acceptable duplicity; he had also said that Ismail's vizier, coming to ask what present Captain Aubrey would expect for his good offices in this affair, had offered the professor a personal commission of eight hundred and forty piastres for each gun delivered. It was not an encouraging beginning, and perhaps the other Beys would be much the same: it was not impossible that the embassy was right, and that Ismail was the depressing best of the bunch. 'Come in,' he said in a low, dispirited voice, and Elphinstone, a midshipman, walked in, trim and shining. 'Good morning, sir,' he said. 'You wished to see me?'

   'Oh, Mr Elphinstone: yes. You have three men down in the defaulters' list. Two are trifling cases and five-water grog for a couple of days will deal with them, but you bring Davis up on a serious charge, a flogging charge. If nobody speaks up for him and if he cannot convincingly deny it, I must give him at least a dozen, though I very much dislike seeing men beaten. Do you like seeing men beaten?'

   'Oh no, sir; but is it not necessary for discipline?'

   'Some people think so, and with some men perhaps it is; but I have known commanders go a year and more without any flogging, taut commanders of crack ships.'

   'Davis answered, sir: he answered very rudely when I told him to strop the block again—said something about me "still shitting yellow" which made the others laugh.'

   'Davis is a special case. He is a little odd and he has always been allowed rather more leeway than the others. He was at sea long before you were born, and although he is still not very good at stropping a block nor serving a cable he has other seamanlike qualities that will no doubt occur to your mind. He is enormously strong, for one thing; he is always the first to board and he is a most terrifying sight on the enemy's deck: mad bulls ain't in it. But I was forgetting, you have yet to see that kind of service. That is all I have to say for the moment, Mr Elphinstone: good day to you. Pray give my steward a hail as you go by.'