The Letter of Marque (12 page)

They sat drawing their specimens by the light of the great stern window, and when Killick came in Stephen said to him, 'Pray, Killick, what is the general situation?'

'Well, sir,' said Killick, 'as far as I can see, we might as well pack up and go home. Here we are, plying to windward as hard as ever we can, toiling and moiling, all hands about ship every other glass; and what do we gain? Not above a mile's southing in the hour. And if the wind gets up, if we have to take our topgallants in, we shall lose ground. The barky is a very weatherly ship, but even she makes some leeway; and if it comes on to blow right chronic, even she must lose some southing.'

'Yet surely," said Martin, 'If this wind holds us back, it must do the same for the Azul'

'Oh,' cried Killick with a kind of howl, 'but don't you see the Azul as she calls herself is sailing west? Not south like we, but west? Sailing from Cadiz to St Michael's? So she has this wind on her beam, on her beam' - pointing to the ship's side to make his meaning clear - 'so there are those buggers with their sheets hauled aft, standing there with folded arms, spitting to leeward like the lords of creation, making six or seven knots as easy as kiss my hand, bearing off our lawful prize ..." Indignation choked him.

Yet it was this same Killick who stood by Stephen's cot the next morning, Wednesday morning, with a shining face, shaking the ropes on which it hung and repeating 'Captain's compliments and should the Doctor like to see a glorious sight? Captain's compliments and should the Doctor like to see ..."

As Stephen slipped from his cot he observed that the deck was tilted by at least twenty-five degrees: leaning cautiously against the bulkhead he stepped into his breeches, huddled on a disgraceful old greatcoat, and emerged blinking into a brilliant day.

The Surprise was lying right over, white water all along her lee-rail and spouting high from her cat-head; the strong breeze was a little too far forward for studding-sails to set, but with Jack Aubrey's old practice of sending up cablets and light hawsers as extra preventer-stays, she nevertheless had topgallants abroad, and she was tearing along at a splendid rate - happy seamen all along the windward gangway, laughter on the forecastle.

'There you are, Doctor,' cried Jack. 'Good morning to you. Ain't it charming? The breeze veered in a black squall soon after you had turned in, and began to blow from west by south in the morning watch; and I believe it may haul north of west. But come with me - mind your step.' He led him still blinking and heavy to the taffrail and said 'There. That's what I woke you up for."

At first Stephen could not make it out: then he realized that the near sea to leeward was filled, filled with whales: an immense school of sperm whales travelling in one direction, passing above, below, round and amongst a school of right whales travelling in the other. Everywhere he looked there were huge dark forms rising, blowing, sometimes lying awash, more often diving again almost at once, often showing their enormous flukes above the surface as they did so. Some were so close he could hear their breath, their strong, almost explosive outward breath and their heaving inspiration.

'Lord, Lord,' he said at last. 'What a splendour of creation.'

'I am so glad you saw them,' said Jack. 'In five minutes time it would have been too late.'

'How I wish I had sent to tell Martin.'

'Oh, he was about already. He is in the mizentop, as you see.'

So he was, the intrepid soul, and they waved their pocket handkerchiefs to one another; and as he put his away Stephen looked covertly at the sun. It was on the left hand, not far above the horizon; the ship was therefore racing down towards the longed-for south, and he could safely say, 'I give you joy of your propitious wind.'

'Many thanks,' said Jack, smiling but shaking his head. 'It is certainly better late than never at all. Let us go and drink our coffee.'

'You have but little hope, I am afraid,' said Stephen in the cabin, balancing his cup as well as he could.

'Not very much, I confess. But if the wind does haul northerly, and if it only holds true, there is just a chance we may run off the distance. If nothing carries away,' he added, touching the table-top.

Nothing had carried away by the midday observation, when it was found that the Surprise had made eighty-seven miles of southing, almost all of it since the morning watch. The wind, though slightly less strong, was still veering, and a little after dinner-time the first weather studdingsails appeared. All hands watched how they set with the keenest attention; and shortly afterwards, when the log was heaved, the report 'Ten knots and three fathoms, sir, if you please,' was greeted with a satisfied chuckle all along the weather gangway to the forecastle.

The ship was filled with reviving, ebullient hope: only Padeen did not share it. In the morning Stephen had poulticed him, no more, hoping to deal with a possible impostume by that means; he had fed Padeen soup with a spoon at noon, renewing the poultice; but now in the afternoon watch the pain grew worse, and Padeen, rising from his hammock, went to the medicine-chest, dosed himself with laudanum, and stood considering the bottle, a long, thin dropping-flask with marks on its side. Having pondered between the spasms of pain, he put the bottle under his jacket and walked to Mr Martin's cabin: there was nobody in this part of the ship, but even if there had been he would have passed unnoticed, since he looked after Mr Martin just as he looked after the Doctor. Here he took Martin's bottle of brandy, filled the laudanum to its former mark, topped up the brandy with water, and replaced the bottles in their lockers and himself in his hammock. He was quite alone, not only because most of the hands were taking such pleasure in the frigate's course, but also because the cry 'Sail ho!' from the masthead had brought all those who were busy elsewhere up from the store-rooms, the cable tiers or the manger at the run.

The sail was already visible from the deck, some five miles to leeward, yet with the Surprise having so much canvas spread and with the forecastle so regularly swept by green water, it was not easy to get a clear view of her, even from the tops; but perched high on the main jack-crosstrees above the top-gallantsail - a post familiar to him from his youth, when he was a midshipman in this same ship - Jack had the whole ring of the horizon at his command. The stranger, though ship-rigged, was quite certainly not the Spartan: apart from anything else she was much too far north. In spite of her Spanish colours she was most probably British, square-sterned and British-built: most probably a West-Indiaman. She had been crowding on sail ever since they caught sight of one another, and now, as he watched, her mizen topmast carried away and she was brought by the lee in a horrible flurry of canvas.

If she chose, the Surprise could bear up and be alongside her in half an hour; but even if there had been an equal chance of her being lawful prize, that half-hour was too precious to be spared. He shook his head, swivelled about on the jacks and trained his glass northwards. The Merlin had been in sight in the forenoon watch; at present there was not so much as a nick in the horizon.

He returned to the deck, the slender topgallant shrouds bending under his weight, and as he stepped from the hammock-cloth to a carronade and so to the quarterdeck, the ship's company gazed silently at his face. He walked over to the binnacle, looked at the compass, and said 'Very well thus. Dyce and no higher." The course was not to be altered. There was a certain sigh, a sort of rueful acquiescence - a general sound not unlike the expiration of two or three whales fairly close at hand - but nowhere a hint of disagreement or discontent.

As the afternoon wore on the wind lost rather more of its strength, but it also veered still farther, steadying at north-west by west, almost on her quarter; and as it moderated so the Surprise spread more canvas: studdingsails alow and aloft, royals, the rarely-seen but useful spritsail topsail, all the jibs that would set and a cloud of staysails. It was a noble spectacle, filling all hands with pleasure as something excellent in itself, not only as a means to an end. Jack was contemplating skysails when the sun, slanting westwards to a deep cloudbank away to starboard, made it clear that this would never do. Far from it: a great deal must be taken in before the watch was set, so that no sudden force of wind should oblige him to call all hands in the middle of the night; for although the breeze seemed firmly settled in the north-west, it might very well change in strength. A quiet night was of the first importance. All hands had been hard at it ever since last week's thundering blow began, and although in general their spirits were still high this was by no means the same thing as a three-day chase with the enemy in sight, which could keep men going without food or rest; and he saw evident signs of exhaustion. His own coxswain, for example, looked grey and old. The foremast jacks had little enough sleep as it was, without having that little broken during their watch below; and this was more than ever true before an engagement.

The likelihood of an engagement tomorrow had never been anything but small and now it was smaller still; yet only a fool would reduce it even more, reduce it to the vanishing-point, after so much pains and such a glorious run. But then again there was such a thing as being too cautious by half: for the chance to have any existence at all the Surprise must be present somewhere to windward between St Michael's and St Mary. 'All these things have to be balanced against one another,' he said inwardly as he paced fore and aft; and the result of his balancing was that the Surprise sailed into the night with her topgallants abroad, whereas ordinarily she would have furled them and would have taken a reef in her topsails. She had done remarkably well today, and if she made no more than a steady five knots during the night she would still run off her two hundred miles from noon to noon: by daylight he should have his landfall on the starboard bow, the high rocky eastward tip of St Michael's.

'Jack,' said Stephen, looking up from his ruled paper as the cabin door opened, 'I have just finished transposing a Sammartini duo for violin and 'cello. Should you like to try it after supper? Killick promises us pease pudding from the galley, followed by his own toasted cheese.'

'Is it long?'

'It is not.'

'Then I should be very happy. But I mean to turn in early.

Since Tom is away in the schooner, I shall take the middle watch.'

Like many sailors Jack Aubrey had early acquired the habit of going to sleep almost as he put his head on his pillow; but this night he remained at least in part awake. It was not that his mind was torturing itself again with detailed memories of his disgrace, nor with the long-lasting and potentially ruinous law-suits that hung over him, but rather that, physically and mentally very tired indeed, he skimmed along the surface of the immediate present; he listened to the sound of the water against the ship's side and that composite, omnipresent voice that came from the wind in the taut rigging and from the play of the hull, while at the same time, and more consciously, he traced the pattern of the music they had played, occasionally drifting away but always hearing the bells in due succession and always aware of the state of the wind. It was a strange state, very rare for him, almost as restful as sleep and much nearer quiet happiness than anything he had known since his trial.

He was up and dressed when Bonden came to call him and he went straight up on deck. 'Good morning, Mr West,' he said, looking at the gibbous moon, clear in a small-flecked sky.

'Good morning, sir,' said West. 'All's well, though the breeze slackens a little. You are an uncommon good relief, sir.'

'Turn the glass,' said the quartermaster at the con; and Plaice, recognizable from his wheeze, padded forward and struck eight bells.

While the watches changed Jack studied the log-board. The wind had not varied a single point in direction, though as he knew very well it had decreased and readings of under six knots were more usual than those over.

It was a warm night, though the breeze was north of west, and walking aft to the taffrail he saw with pleasure that the wake was luminous, a long phosphorescent trail, the first he had seen this year.

He heard the usual reports: six inches of water in the well - very moderate indeed after such a blow; but she had always been a dry ship. And the latest heave of the log: almost seven knots. Perhaps the wind was picking up.

The watch could scarcely have been more peaceful: no call to touch sheet or brace, no movement but the helmsmen, the quartermasters and the lookouts spelling one another, the heaving of the log, the striking of the bell. Now and then a man might go forward to the head, but most remained gathered there in the waist, a few talking in low tones but most choosing a soft plank for a doze.

Jack spent the greater part of it gazing at the hypnotic wake as it spun out mile after mile, or watching the familiar stars in their course. The breeze did freshen from time to time and once he was able to chalk seven knots two fathoms on the board, but it was never enough for any change of sail, nor did it alter this faintly moonlit, starlit, dreamlike sailing over the dark sea except by adding a certain deep satisfaction.

He handed over to Davidge and the starboard watch at four in the morning, gave orders that he was to be called with the idlers, went below and plunged straight into his usual profound sleep.

At first light he was on deck again. The breeze was much as he had left it, though somewhat more westerly, the sky clear, except for cloud and haze to starboard. The idlers had already gathered round the pumps - a frowsty, squalid group, not yet washed or brushed - and well clear of the horizon to larboard the newly-risen Venus in her pale blue heaven looked all the purer by contrast. Having bade the quarterdeck good day, Jack said 'Mr Davidge, let us merely swab the decks this morning, and flog them dry. Then, with the idlers at hand - for pumping will not take them ten minutes - I believe we may start making sail.'

That was one of the advantages of a crew of this kind: with the emphatic exception of the surgeon and his mate all the idlers, the men who did not stand a watch, were very able seamen as well as being highly skilled in their particular line -the sailmaker and his mates, the armourer, the gunner's mates, the carpenter's crew, the cooper and all the rest of the specialists. Another advantage, reflected Jack Aubrey as he made his way up the weather rigging to the maintop and beyond, climbing easily, without hurry, scarcely thinking of his lofty path any more than a man going upstairs to the attic at home -another advantage was the hands' singular eagerness to please, not out of imposed discipline, but to avoid being turned away - something quite unknown in his life at sea. In an hour or so hammocks would be piped up, and they would be stowed in the nettings, properly rolled, in five or six minutes, without driving, oaths or rope's ends: not many King's ships could say as much.