The Reverse of the Medal (14 page)

Right forward, just as the ship was reaching the height of her rise, the gunner let fly. At almost the same moment an extraordinarily violent gust split the Surprise's maintopsail.

The men leapt to the sheets, halliards, buntlines and clewlines and the moment he gave the order the flapping, cracking, streaming sailcloth was gathered into the top, there to be mastered, unbent and sent down -they laid aloft as though they were on a millpond with never a breeze at all. At the same time the bosun, the sailmaker and their mates were rousing out a number two canvas topsail and manhandling the awkward, unwieldy mass up through the fore hatchway.

It was a most uncommonly rapid, skilful, efficient, seamanlike operation, almost without words, certainly without loud, harsh, angry words, and in the midst of his intense frustration Jack was aware of it: but rapid though it was it still took time, and there was the Spartan fleeting away into the thick grey weather ahead. The sun, such as it was, would soon be gone; the moon would not rise until the changing of the watch, and little light would she give even then.

His only hope was to crack on. The gale, now stronger still, came roaring in just before the quarter, the Surprise's favourite point of sailing, and he was almost sure that the gust that had wrecked the topsail marked the end of the wind's backing. He was almost sure that it would now blow steadily, though very hard.

He might be wrong; the wish might be father to the thought; but whether or no it was his only chance. On the other hand, was he going to run the ship on to the rocks of Ushant? He had not been able to fix his position at noon, and at this pace they must have run off a great deal of the distance. But then with singular clarity his mind presented him with a dead reckoning since the last observation; they were closing with the land, yet even at this rate they could not raise it before midnight. With his eye fixed on the faint and dwindling privateer far over the white-torn sea he cried 'Fore topgallantsail'!

It was only a comparatively small sail, but its sheeting home and hoisting fairly made the frigate stagger; its force came on to her just as she was reaching the crest of a wave and she changed step like a horse on the point of shying. Once she had recovered her smooth swooping pace Jack stepped forward, laid his hand on the cablet sustaining the foremast, nodded, and called 'Maintopgallant. Cheerly, now.'

She was already under single-reefed topsails, and these two, so high, added immensely to their thrust. She was clearly gaining on the Spartan. But she was not gaining fast enough. At this rate the Spartan would run into the safety of darkness before she could be laid aboard: and now there was no possibility of distant gunfire for anything but a ship of the line - both swell and speed were now so much greater that green seas swept the forecastle every other heave.

'Lifelines fore and aft,' said Jack. 'What?'

'Come on now, come on, sir,' cried Killick in a very angry whine. 'Ain't I called out fifty times? Come into the cabin.' His indignation gave him such moral superiority that Jack followed him, stripped off his sopping coat and shirt and put on dry, with tarpaulin hat and jacket over all Returning, he took Honey's speaking-trumpet and roared, 'Stand by for the studdingsails.'

The men stood by, of course, but they looked aft and they looked at one another with significant expressions; this was cracking on indeed.

Yet even foretopmast and lower studdingsails did not satisfy him. Although the Surprise was now making very close on thirteen knots, with her larboard cathead well under water and her lee rail hardly to he seen for the rushing foam, while her bow-wave flung the spray a good twenty yards and her deck sloped at thirty-five degrees, he still called for the spritsail course. It was an odd, rather old-fashioned sail, slung under the bowsprit and masking the chasers, but it had the advantage of reefing diagonally, so that its leeward corner was hitched up out of the sea and its windward half gave just that additional impulse Jack longed for.

Both ships had their battle-lanterns lit between decks by now, and both raced on through the rain and the spin-drift in a dim glow. But when the Spartan began throwing her guns overboard bright orange squares appeared as her ports opened, opened again and again, for her leeward guns had to be manhandled across to be heaved out on the windward side, a shocking task in such a sea. Her boats were jettisoned too, lightening her still more; but for all that the Surprise was now running a full knot faster than the chase and Jack felt confident that he should have her if only he could keep her in sight for half an hour. Yet there was murk ahead, and frequent squalls, the certainty of an impenetrable night. He sent the sharpest eyes in the ship into the foretop and stood at the weather rail, as tense as he had ever been, watching the Spartan, her white wake, the suffused light from her stern-window, and the low dark cloud sweeping up from the south-south-west. Five minutes. Her last two guns went over. Ten minutes more at this same tearing pace or even faster and she was not a quarter of a mile ahead; but nor was the dark broad squall. She faded, faded, and suddenly she dowsed all her lights, disappearing entirely. For a moment her wake could still be seen, and then that too was gone. The rain swept in, flat on the driving gale.

'She's hauled her wind,' roared the foretop; and the squall parting, there she was again, the faintest unlit ghost in the dimness, five points off her course. 'I have her now,' said Jack. But now the squall clearing farther still showed a great ship nearer by far, a three-decker wearing an admiral's top-lantern, and more ships beyond her. And as the three-decker fired, sending a ball across the Surprise's forefoot, Jack realized that he was in the midst of the Channel fleet, and that the Spartan had slipped through them for Brest, unseen in the squall. He shot up into the wind, lowering his topsails on the cap, and made the private signal, together with his number and the words Enemy in the east-northeast.

The three-decker replied 'Captain repair aboard flag,' and carried on her course.

Jack had read the signal before it was reported to him. He looked at the greyness where the Spartan had been. He looked at the mountainous sea between him and the flagship - a pull of half a mile into the teeth of the gale -and caught Mowett's shocked and anxious eye. He opened his mouth, but discipline was too strong, too deep-rooted, and he shut it again.

'Your barge, sir?' asked Mowett.

'No,' said Jack. 'The blue cutter. She is more seaworthy. She may swim.'

CHAPTER FOUR

'Sweetheart,' wrote Jack Aubrey to his wife, dating his letter from the Crown, 'The last farewells are over and the Surprises are a ship's company no more, but only two or three straggling bands of sailormen making holiday on shore: I can hear the forecastle division, the oldest soberest seamen in the ship, kicking up Bob's a-dying, a prodigious great din three streets away, at the Duncan's Head; but most of the rest are already speechless. Saying goodbye to so many old shipmates was painful, as you may imagine, and I should be tolerably low in my spirits, were it not for the thought that I shall be seeing you and the children in a few days' time. Not quite as soon as I could wish, because as we were lying here at single anchor, waiting for our signal and the tide, the Lisbon packet came tearing out under a press of sail in that showing-away fashion that packets have - anything for speed - and instead of shaving our stern close, absolutely ran into it. We screeched, of course, and fended her off with swabs and anything that came to hand, but even so she did so much damage that I have been kept busy having it put right ever since. I have not even had time to tell you of my meeting with the Admiral. I came aboard him after as disagreeable a pull as any I can remember and without asking me how I did or whether I should like to shift my clothes or even dry my face he told me I was a reckless mad lunatic, rushing into the midst of a fleet at that wild pace with studdingsails aloft and alow and why had I not saluted the flag? Could not I see it? Could not I see a three-decker, forsooth? Had I no lookout? Were lookouts no longer sent to the masthead in the modern Navy? "There were two, my lord," said I, but in a very meek, submissive tone.

"Then, said he, they were both to be flogged, with one dozen strokes from me and another dozen from him; and as for me, I might consider myself reprimanded, severely reprimanded."

"And as for this alleged privateer," he went on, "I dare say it was only some trumpery merchantman; you young fellows are always whoring after merchantmen. The moment you are given a command you go whoring after merchantmen - after prizes. I have seen it time, time and again, and the fleet left without frigates. But since you are here, you might as well make yourself useful to your King and country." I was rather pleased with the "young fellows", but less so when it appeared that my usefulness might take the form of leading an attack by fireships on the harbour of Bainville, which I happen to know uncommonly well. I do not like fireships: the plan seemed to me ill-conceived, with not nearly enough attention paid to the coast batteries and the very strong run of the tide, and with little likelihood of the fireships' crews being able to get away. No one who has been in a fireship can expect any quarter: if he is taken he is either knocked on the head directly or put up against a wall and shot a little later; that is why they are always manned with volunteers. I am sure that all the Surprises would have volunteered, but I very much disliked the idea of their being captured and I was just as pleased when it was represented that if I were given the command it would mean my being put over the heads of several men senior to me on the post-captains' list. At the council the point was made several times with great eagerness and warmth and those who made it said that Lord Keith had preferred me again and again in the Mediterranean, while even these last few months I have been given a cruise that many frigate-captains would have given their eye-teeth for and that had no doubt brought me in great wealth (how I wish it had). True, I have spent less time on shore than most men, and few have had such luck; but I was surprised to find how much jealousy it had caused.

I had no idea I had so many enemies, or at least ill-wishers, in the service. But, however, the scheme was dropped, and my usefulness came down to conveying the Admiral's sister to Falmouth. She had been ordered to sea by her physicians for a shortness of breath; but as Stephen observed, the cruise had very nearly cured her of every disease in Buchan's Domestic Medicine by cutting off her breath entirely: the poor lady was sea-sick from the first word to the last, and was grown quite pitifully thin and yellow.

'Stephen himself left for town this morning, treating himself to a chaise so that he could set Parson Martin down somewhere far off the main road. I wish I could give you a better report of him. He seems anxious and unhappy. At first I thought he might be worrying about money, but not at all - our agent has been as brisk as a bee with having our prizes condemned and paid for. Besides, when he told me of his godfather's death he observed that he had inherited from him; I do not suppose it is anything out of the way, but Stephen has always been content with very little. I am afraid he grieves for the old gentleman, but. even more than that I believe he is most painfully anxious about Diana. I have never seen him so uneasy in his mind.' Jack thought of telling Sophie the rumours about Stephen's infidelity that had been current in the Mediterranean, but after a moment he shook his head and went on,

'I shall be sending you Killick, Bonden and perhaps Plaice with most of my dunnage by the slow coach, which leaves tomorrow: I shall have to stay a little longer, to make sure of leaving the ship as I could wish (there is some hope of her going into ordinary rather than to the breakers) and to see some inquisitive gentlemen from the Admiralty and Navy Board; yet even so I may be in town as soon as Stephen, or even sooner, if this sweet south-wester holds. Harry Tennant has Despatch, and he promises me a lift. She is acting as the cartel for the moment - you remember the cartel, that brought us back from our captivity in France? and she is very fast sailing large, though a slug on a bowline. It will only be touch and away at Calais, and then from Dover the London mail will whirl me up. I shall have to see the lawyers first to find how things stand - a proper flat I should look, was I to post down to Ashgrove and instantly be arrested for debt, if any of the cases have been decided against us. And for the same reason, since the ship's arrival will have been reported in the papers these many days past, I shall stay at the Grapes, and not come down till Sunday; but if you would like me to bring anything down, please write to me at the club; they are more used to letters there, and will not tidy them away among the dish-covers.' The Bunch of Grapes was a small, comfortable, old-fashioned inn that lay within the liberties of the Savoy, so its customers were out of reach of their creditors all the week, as they were throughout the kingdom on Sundays. Jack had spent a considerable time here, ever since he had grown rich enough to be a worthwhile prey for land-sharks, and Stephen kept a room all the year round, as a base, retaining it even after his marriage with Diana, they being an odd, semi-detached couple.

'But I believe I may say that Sunday is certain - as certain as anything can be, that has to do with the sea - and I cannot tell you how I long for it. After so long a time we shall have so very, very many things to say to one another.' He stood up and walked over to the window: it commanded a fine view of Telegraph Hill, where the vanes of the semaphore were in continual motion, information travelling to London and back at an extraordinary pace. The Admiralty would have known of the Surprise's arrival the very day she made her number, far out in the offing; and by now, perhaps, they would have made up their minds what to do with her. But he hoped that she might be laid up in ordinary, in reserve, rather than be sold out of the service: so long as she was whole there was hope.

'She would make a perfect cartel, for example,' he reflected on Tuesday, sitting alone in the great cabin of the Despatch as she ran fast up the Channel with the wind at west-south-west. 'Far, far better than this wallowing tub. She has everything to recommend her, beauty, speed, grace; at ten miles you cannot mistake her. Such waste - the pity of it all. But if I go on like this, battering my head against a brick wall, I shall go out of my mind - run melancholy mad.'

He did go on thinking about her however, and the more objective part of his mind offered the reflexion that although there was something to be said for speed, recognizability was no virtue in a cartel, or at least not in the particular cartels that plied between France and England this war. Since Buonaparte had decreed that there should be no exchange of prisoners these were scarcely cartels at all in the usual sense; nor had they much evident reason for existing. Yet to and fro they went, sometimes carrying envoys from one side or another with proposals or counterproposals, sometimes eminent natural philosophers such as Sir Humphry Davy or Dr Maturin, invited to address one or another of the academies in Paris or the Institut itself, sometimes objects to do with science or natural history captured by the Royal Navy and sent back by the Royal Society, to whom the Admiralty submitted them, and sometimes (though far more rarely) specimens travelling the other way, but always carrying the newspapers from either side and elegantly dressed dolls to show London just how fashions were developing in France. Discretion was their prime virtue, and on occasion their passengers spent the voyage in different cabins, being landed separately by night. This time the Despatch, met by a pilot-boat in Calais road, lay at an empty wharf until four in the morning, when Jack, dozing in a hammock slung in Tennant's dining-cabin, heard three sets of people come aboard at half-hour intervals.

He was reasonably familiar with the ways of a cartel, because he and Stephen had travelled in the Despatch's predecessor on one of the rare occasions when the convention was abused: they had been prisoners in France and Talleyrand had engineered their escape so that Stephen, whom he knew to be an intelligence-agent, might take his private proposals for betraying Buonaparte to the English government and the French court in exile at Hartwell. He was therefore not at all surprised when Tennant asked him to stay below while the other passengers disembarked in a secluded part of Dover harbour, far from the traffic of the port - far too from the customs office, through which Jack would have to pass. It did not matter as far as duty was concerned, since his valise had nothing customable in it, but it did mean that the people before him would probably take up all the places on the London coach, both inside and out, and possibly all the post-chaises too: in the present decayed state of the town there were very few.

'Come and have dinner with me at the Ship,' said Jack, as the Despatch tied up at the customs wharf and sent a brow across. 'Prodgers has a damned good table d'h�'

'Thankee, Jack,' said Tennant, 'but I must run straight up to Harwich on this tide.'

Jack was not altogether sorry for it. Harry Tennant was a prime fish, but he would go on and on about the Surprise's miserable fate - doomed to be firewood - no hope of reprieve in these cases - oh the cruel waste - the dispersal of such a fine ship's company - Jack's officers probably on the beach for good - never get another ship - Tennant's uncle Coleman fit to hang himself when his Phoebe went to the knacker's yard - it certainly hastened his death.

'Carry your bag for you, sir?' piped a voice at his elbow, and looking down he saw to his astonishment not a little confident blackguard barefoot boy of the usual knowing kind but a nervous little girl in a pinafore, her face blushing under its dirt. 'Very well,' he said. 'To the Ship. You take one handle and I will take the other. Clap on tight, now.'

She clapped on with both hands, he lengthened his arm and bent his knees, and so they made their uneasy way up through the town. Her name was Margaret, she said; her brother Abel usually carried the gentlemen's bags, but a horse trod on his foot last Friday; the other great boys were quite kind, and would let her have his place till he was better. At the Ship he gave her a shilling, and her face dropped. 'That's a shilling,' he said. 'Han't you ever seen a shilling?' She shook her head. 'It's twelve pennies,' he said, looking at his change. 'You know what a tizzy is, I dare say?'

'Oh yes. Everybody knows what a tizzy is,' said Margaret rather scornfully.

'Well, here are two of 'em. Because twice six is twelve, do you see.'

The child yielded up the unknown shilling, solemnly received the familiar sixpences one after another, and all at once her face beamed out like the sun coming from behind a cloud.

Jack walked into the dining-room: he was sharp-set, being used to the old-fashioned naval meal-times, but a waiter said 'Not for half an hour yet, sir. Would you like something to drink in the snug while you are waiting?'

'Well,' said Jack, 'I should like a pint of sherry, but let me have it here, by the fire, and then I shall not lose a minute when dinner is put on the table. I am so sharp-set I could eat an ox. But first, can you get me a place on the London coach, inside or out?'

'Oh no, sir. They was all took half an hour ago.'

'What about a post-chaise, then?'

'Why, sir, what with things being so stack, we don't do 'em any more. But Jacob here,' nodding towards the only bearded waiter Jack had ever seen in a Christian country, 'will step across to the Union or the Royal, and see what they have in their yards: he has already been there for another gent.'

'Aye, pray let him do that,' said Jack, 'and he shall have half a crown for his pains.'

'On reflexion,' he said to himself, drinking a first contemplative glass of sherry, 'he is not quite a waiter, either. He is no doubt an hostler that helps in the dining-room from time to time; and is therefore entitled to a beard.'

Dinner came in at last, immediately pursued by a troop of hungry gentlemen; the first of these, a lean, clever-looking man in a fine black coat with gold buttons, took a chair next to Jack and at once troubled him for the bread; he began to eat it with something as near avidity as good manners would allow, but said no more: a reserved gentleman, perhaps a chancery lawyer with a pretty good practice, or something of that kind. On the other side of the table sat a middle-aged merchant with his broad-brimmed hat squarely on his head who eyed Jack first through his spectacles and then without them until he had finished the broth and herb-pudding with which the meal began and then said 'Friend, hast ever a leathern convenience?'

'I am sorry, sir,' said Jack, 'but I do not even know what a leathern convenience is.'

'Why, I thought thee was a Friend, from thy dress, with no sinful pride.' Jack was indeed dressed very simply - his civilian clothes had suffered cruelly under both tropics and even more between them - but he had not supposed he was quite so sinless as to be remarked upon. 'A leathern convenience,' went on the merchant, 'is what the profane call a machine drawn by an horse: a chaise.'

'Well, sir,' said Jack, 'I have no convenience yet, but I hope to have one soon.'

The hope was scarcely uttered before it was dashed. The bearded servant, passing a dish of parsnips between Jack and his black-coated neighbour, said to the latter,

'The Royal's shay will be waiting for you after dinner, sir, in our yard, just behind.' And to Jack, 'I'm sorry, sir, but that was the last one. There ain't another in the town.' Yet even while he was speaking, the Quaker's neighbour, a flash, auctioneer-looking fellow, cried 'That's all goddam humbug, Jacob. I spoke for the Royal's shay first. It's mine.'

'I think not,' said Jack's neighbour coldly. 'I have already paid for the first stage.'

'Nonsense,' said the flash-looking fellow. 'It's mine, I tell you. And what's more,' - addressing the Quaker -'I'll give you a lift, old Square-toes.' He started up and hurried out of the room, calling 'Jacob, Jacob!'

This made something of a scene, and people stared, but with the eager satisfaction of hunger up and down the table and the inn-keeper's steady carving, sending along more beef, more mutton, more roast pork with a little crackling, calm soon returned, and with it more rational, connected thought. There were few men who relished wit more than Jack Aubrey, either in himself or others, and he was turning parsnips, butter and soft words over in his mind in the hope that something brilliant might come of it when his neighbour addressed him again. 'I am sorry you are disappointed of your chaise, sir; but if you choose to share mine, you are very welcome. I am going to London. May I trouble you for the butter?'

'You are very kind indeed, sir,' said Jack. 'I should be most uncommon obliged - particularly wish to be in London today. Allow me to pour you a glass of wine.'

They naturally fell into conversation: it was a conversation of no very great importance, bearing chiefly on the weather, the strong likelihood of rain later in the day, the appetite engendered by sea-air, and the difference between the true Dover sole and upstarts from the German Ocean, but it was pleasant, harmless and friendly. It nevertheless succeeded in angering the spectacled man, who directed indignant looks across the table and left them at the time of cheese, beating his chair upon the floor in a very marked manner and stalking off to join the flash cove in the doorway.

'I am afraid we have displeased the Quaker,' observed Jack.

'I do not believe he is a Quaker at all,' said Black Coat quietly after a pause in which some of their neighbours farther down the table also left. 'I know many respectable people - Gurneys and Harwoods - who are Friends. They behave like reasonable beings, not like characters on the provincial stage. Those peculiarities of dress and language are quite exploded among them, I understand; they have been laid aside these fifty years and more.'

'But why should he wish to pass for a Quaker?' asked Jack.

'Why, indeed? Conceivably to profit from their reputation for honesty and plain-dealing. But the heart of man is unsearchable,' said Black Coat with a smile, picking up a leather folder that leaned against his chair, 'and perhaps he is only pursuing some illicit amour, or escaping from his creditors. Now, sir, if you will forgive me, I shall collect my bag.'

'But will you not stay for the coffee?' cried Jack, who had ordered a pot.

'Alas, I dare not,' said Black Coat. 'It disagrees with me. But do not hurry, I beg. My inner man is already somewhat disturbed, and I shall retire for longer than it will take you to drink two or even three pots of coffee. Let us meet at the chaise in say a quarter of an hour. It will be in that deserted-looking yard behind the kitchen, where the Ship used to keep its carriages.'

In fourteen minutes Jack Aubrey walked into the yard, carrying his valise. Even before he turned the corner he heard a strange bawling, wrangling din, and the moment he reached the gateway he saw the Quaker and the flash cove grappling with his friend, while the little post-boy clung to the horses' heads, rising clear from the ground at every plunge and shouting as loud as his faint breathless treble would allow. The flash cove had knocked Black Coat's hat down over his eyes and was busy throttling him: the Quaker, giving awkward kicks whenever he could, was tugging at the leather case that Black Coat clung to with all his might.

Jack might be slow conceiving a joke but he was exceedingly brisk in action. He ran at top speed from the gateway, launched his sixteen stone in a flying leap upon the flash cove's back, cracked his head upon the cobbles and sprang up to deal with the Quaker. But the Quaker, surprisingly nimble for his years and bulk, was already flying fast, and Black Coat, extricating himself from his hat, caught Jack's arm and cried 'Let him go, let him go, if you please. Pray let him go. And this drunken ruffian too,' - for the flash cove was getting to his knees. 'I am infinitely obliged to you sir, but pray let there be no scandal, no outcry, no noise.' People from the Ship's kitchen were at last beginning to congregate and stare.

'No constable?' asked Jack.

'Oh no, no: let us have no public notice of any kind, I beg,' said Black Coat very earnestly. 'Pray let us get in. You are not hurt? You have your baggage. Let us get in at once.'

For some time, indeed until the post-chaise was out of Dover and well on the open London road, Black Coat dusted his clothes, rearranged his cravat, and smoothed the papers in his wrenched and battered case. He was clearly very much shaken, although in reply to Jack's inquiries he said he was 'only a little bruised and scraped - nothing in comparison of a fall from a horse.' But a little past Buckland, with the horses going easy and the chaise running smoothly along, he said, 'I am infinitely obliged to you, sir. Infinitely obliged, not only for your rescuing me and my possessions from those scoundrels but also for letting the matter drop. If the constable had been called, we must have been delayed; and far worse than that, there must have been a great deal of troublesome noise, a scandal. In my position I cannot afford the least breath of scandal or public notice.'

'To be sure, scandal is a damned unpleasant thing,' said jack. 'But I wish we had tossed them into the horse-pond.'

There was a silence, and after a while Black Coat said 'I owe you an explanation.'