Book 6 - The Fortune Of War Page 31

  'I am glad of that,' said the clerk, with no evident sign of pleasure. 'I have wrote it three times already, correcting the expressions, and there is a mort of work at a stand—complete-book, quarterly account and slop-book, all to be finished and wrote fair before we reach Halifax. Well, sir, what now?' He had no teeth, and as he fixed his testy, red-rimmed eyes on his Captain so he munched his gums, bringing his nose and chin close together in a way that had daunted post-captains before Broke was born.

  'Well, Mr Dunn,' said Broke in a tone that lacked its usual authority. 'I should like you to look through the Printed Instructions or any other papers that may occur to one of your great experience, for information on marriage at sea in the absence of a chaplain, the powers of the captain, and the due forms to be observed.'

  The clerk sniffed, took out his spectacles, wiped them, and peered at Jack; then, seeming to change his mind about some tart reply, walked out, muttering, 'Marriage . . . marriage . . . God preserve us all.'

  'I inherited him from Butler when they gave me Druid,' said Broke, 'and have suffered under him ever since. It is much the same with my bosun. He served under Rodney, and we were shipmates in Majestic when I was a squeaker: he taught me how to make a midshipman's hitch, and he used to cuff me when I got it wrong. He was quite bald even then. They lead me a sad dance of it, between them; and if it were not that they know their duties through and through . . . however, we must get this letter off.'

  The Captain Broke who emerged on to the quarterdeck with the letter in his hand did not look as though any man on earth could tyrannize over him, nor as though any subordinate could lead him a dance, however old: slim, self-contained, and as it were invulnerable. He glanced eagerly at the land, automatically at the sky and the set of his sails, and turned to the American. 'Here is the letter, Captain Slocum, if you will be so good,' he said. 'All is ready, I believe, Mr Watt?'

  'Yes, sir. The gentleman's boat is alongside, with his men and his dunnage already in it.' Leaning over the rail he added in a powerful voice, 'Mind the paintwork, there.'

  'Good morning to you then, Captain,' said Slocum in a harsh nasal drawl, putting the letter away and preparing to leave. 'I reckon we may meet again, maybe a little later today; and I dare say my owners will be overjoyed to see you.' His face, with its sardonic expression and unwinking hostile gaze, vanished below the rail. The boat shoved off, hoisted its sail, and sped away close-hauled on the brisk north-westerly breeze, over the bright blue sea.

  They watched it grow smaller in the distance, the sail shining in the brilliant day. Fine on the larboard bow lay Cape Cod, on the starboard quarter Cape Ann, and on the beam, right down at the bottom of the enormous bay, Boston and Chesapeake.

  The master, or rather the acting-master, a young man named Etough, was the officer of the watch to him the Captain gave orders that brought the Shannon round in the track of the boat, following it in slowly under top sails alone Then he said, 'Mr Watt, would you care to breakfast with me?' and looking about among the young gentlemen on the quarterdeck he chose a lean midshipman and added, 'Mr Littlejohn, do you choose to join us?'

  'Oh yes, sir, if you please,' said Mr Littlejohn, who had smelt the Captain's bacon this last five minutes, and whose soul was ravished away by the thought of the eggs that might accompany it—the midshipmen's berth had been on short allowance this many a day. The breakfast was indeed magnificent. The steward, aware of Captain Aubrey's appetite and willing to do his ship honour, had broken out almost all his remaining stores: the third part of a Brunswick ham, kippered herrings, pickled salmon, seventeen mutton chops coming hot and hot, besides eggs, a kind of toasted scone, and two pots of orange marmalade, small beer, tea, and coffee as the Doctor had recommended it to be made. There was little conversation, however: Broke was silent and withdrawn, and by long-established naval tradition his first lieutenant could not speak without being spoken to. Yet this did not apply to Jack, and he addressed a few remarks to Mr Watt; but he was on the wrong side for the lieutenant's good ear, and after one or two attempts he confined himself to Littlejohn. 'Are you any kin to the Captain Littlejohn of the Berwick?' he asked.

  'Yes, sir,' said the youth, quickly swallowing, 'he was my father.'

  'Ah,' said Jack, wishing he had asked some other question. 'We were shipmates once, long ago, in Euterpe: a thorough seaman. I do not suppose,' he said, considering Littlejohn's age, his lack of emotion, and the year the French took the Berwick, 'I do not suppose you remember him very clearly?'

  'No, sir: not at all.'

  'Could you eat another chop?'

  'Oh yes, sir, if you please.'

  Jack thought of his own boy, still in coats: some day, would George reply to the same question in the same words, with the same decent but unmoved gravity, and continue eating with the same undiminished appetite?

  'I am sorry to cut breakfast short, gentlemen,' said Broke, after a just-decent interval, 'but I hope we shall have a great deal to do today.' He stood up and they followed him out.

  A certain odd nervous tension was evident on the crowded quarterdeck too; and indeed throughout the frigate men moved quietly, rarely speaking, often glancing far over the bay where Slocum's boat had vanished or at their Captain.

  'Mr Etough,' said Broke, 'colours and best pennant, if you please, and lay her for Boston lighthouse.'

  The Shannon's ordinary pennant came down on deck for the first time for months, a frayed, windworn and now rather stubby object, although it was the mark of a King's ship in commission: the replacement soared up to the main-royal truck and there broke out, one of the Shannon's rare luxuries, a long, long sapphire-coloured silk affair that streamed over her quarter, high above, while at the same time a worn blue ensign appeared at her mizzen-peak and an equally shabby union at the jack-staff. The breeze had slackened, backing a little westward, and the frigate, as close to the wind, as she would lie, scarcely made good two knots against the ebbing tide.

  'Masthead, there,' called Broke, 'what do you make of the boat?'

  The look-out's voice came down, 'It ain't in yet, sir; no, not by a long chalk.'

  Almost imperceptibly the shore came closer, more distinct; the arms of the bay thrust very slowly further out to sea, so that Cape Ann crept towards the Shannon's beam, bearing north by west, then past each several shroud to north by west a half north, and due north itself.

  In the dim light of the curtained master's cabin Stephen said very softly, 'How are you feeling now, Villiers?'

  No reply, no pause in the even breathing: she had gone to sleep at last, and with the quietness of the ship, the smoothness of the motion in this untroubled water, her whole person had relaxed. Her fists were no longer clenched; her face had lost the fierce, obstinate look of resistance; and although it was still pale it was no longer deathly. Her gruel had done her good; she had washed in what little water the Shannon could afford her; and above all she had done her hair: it streamed up, pure black on the pillow, showing the boyish fluting of her neck and an ear whose formal perfection surpassed that of any shell he had ever seen. He contemplated her for a while and then slipped out.

  As he stood on the maindeck, blinking against the brilliance of the day, bemused, deep in his own thoughts, impeding the busy men, the captain of the maintop, a former patient of three ships ago, took him gently by the elbow, and saying, 'This way, sir. Clap on with both hands, now', guided him up the ladder to the quarterdeck.

  Here he joined the purser, the surgeon, and the clerk, who welcomed him, told him that they were lying to off the lighthouse, that there on the port bow were the Graves and then the Roaring Bulls, and that today they had great hopes of—their words ceased abruptly as Captain Broke desired Mr Wallis, the second lieutenant, to carry a glass up to the masthead and tell him what he saw.

  Young Wallis sprang on to the hammock-cloths and ran up the ratlines as though up an easy flight of stairs, up and up; and from the jacks his voice floated down into the listening silence. 'On deck, there. Sir, Chesape
ake is out in the road. At single anchor, I believe. She has had royal yards crossed.'

  'Where is the boat?'

  'Sir?'

  'Where is Slocum's boat?'

  'Still this side of the Green Island, sir,' called Wallis after a searching pause, and the silence fell again, broken by the sounding of seven bells in the forenoon watch.

  'If she is in the outer road and if she has crossed her royal yards, she is most certainly coming out. She will win her anchor at slack water and sail on the first of the ebb,' said Mr Dunn, munching his gums with satisfaction. He had the Printed Instructions under his arm, and a sheaf of papers folded into the book, but his whole being was directed landwards, to the burial rather than to the marriage service.

  'To what do you refer?' asked Stephen.

  'Why, the Chesapeake, of course,' they cried, and the purser added, 'Constitution won't be ready for sea this month and more.'

  They fell to a close discussion of the state of the tide, the steadiness of the wind, and the new double-breeching of the carronades. Although Stephen's acquaintance with these theoretically non-combatant gentlemen had been short, he had already observed that they were even more martial than the rest—Dunn the clerk and Aldham the purser had commanded parties of small-arms men at quarters, blazing away themselves like fury, each with two loaders, and the surgeon had bitterly lamented that his post below the waterline always kept him from any action except the occasional boat-expedition ' but even so Stephen was surprised by their steady flow of technicalities, their keen appreciation of the finer points, their heartfelt longing for violence and bloodshed.

  Their flow was cut off short by another hail from the masthead. 'Sir, they are shipping the capstan-bars.' A pause. 'She drops her foretopsail. Main and mizzen. Some trouble with her anchor.'

  'A foul anchor won't take Lawrence long,' muttered Jack.

  'He is coming out,' said Broke, turning to his officers with a smile. 'Mr Etough, we will dispense with the noon observation. Strike eight bells and let the hands go to dinner at once.'

  All hands were prepared for this. The aged bosun already had his call to his lips as the Marine hurried past him to strike the bell—a sound almost invariably followed by the enormous hullaballoo of cooks bawling out mess numbers, men running and roaring with mess-kids, sailors beating on their plates and banging tables, but on this occasion strangely muted. It was as strange as the calmness with which the Shannons received their Captain's statement to his first lieutenant, made loud and clear, that today grog would be cut by half, to be made up some other time.

  Having made this announcement, Broke hailed the masthead again for news of the boat: it was still well short of the Chesapeake. 'It is not my challenge that is bringing him out, then,' he said to Jack, 'but rather a desire for your company.' After a few moments he said, 'I am going aloft. I wish you could come with me, but I do not suppose you can use your arm.'

  'For the masthead, no,' said Jack, 'but I can manage the maintop, through the lubber's hole.'

  They crossed the deck, and Dunn moved forward to intercept them. 'For this marriage, sir,' he said, 'I am afraid it is within your competence, and it seems that banns are not required at sea. Here are all the references, and I have marked the book of Common Prayer.'

  'I really cannot attend to a marriage now, Mr Dunn,' said Broke. 'I am going aloft. But now I come to think of it, the lady must be moved. We are likely to clear for action very soon, and she must be moved. Mr Watt, tell me the state of the forepeak.'

  'Well, sir, now that the pigs are all gone, it is pretty salubrious, apart from the rats and cockroaches.'

  'Then as soon as the men have finished their dinner, let it be prepared. It may be sprinkled with eau de Cologne—there is an unopened bottle in my quarter-gallery—and a cot may be slung.' Then raising his voice, 'Mr Wallis, come down and wait for us in the top. Easy does it, Jack,' he said, as his cousin began to climb like an ungainly three-armed spider.

  Between them Broke and Wallis heaved his sixteen stone into the sighting-top, and Broke carried on to the masthead, running aloft like a boy. Wallis passed Jack his telescope, arranged a studdingsail for him to sit on, and observed that 'it must be devilish awkward, with only one arm.'

  'Oh, as for that,' said Jack, 'I am perfectly all right on deck. After all, Nelson boarded the San Nicolas and then the San Josef with only one eye, and won the Nile with only one arm. Will you leave me your glass, Mr Wallis? Thankee.'

  The young man vanished: Jack glanced about the top—a spacious, convenient top, with a stouter armour of red-covered hammocks wedged into the netting between the stanchions than he had seen in a frigate, and two one-pound swivel-guns a side—and then settled to focusing the telescope, a difficult task with the fingers of his right hand only just peeping from the bandage and the sling.

  The blur grew clearer: a cautious twist, and there was the Chesapeake, sharp and clear among a crowd of small craft. Jack could not see her forecastle—an island was in the way—but at the masthead Broke had a perfect view, and he called down. 'Anchor's apeak—they pawl and back—' At this moment the American frigate fired a gun, dropped her topgallantsails, and sheeted them home. 'Anchor's aweigh,' called Broke. 'He plucked it up in fine style.'

  Now the Chesapeake cleared the island, full into Jack's sight, and he could see the hands laying aloft to rig out the studdingsail booms. The breeze was as fair as it could be, and as soon as Lawrence was clear of the last turn in the channel, clear of the light, he would set them on either side. Already the yachts and small craft had spread all the sail they possessed, the breeze being lighter in with the shore.

  On the Shannon's deck the hour of grog had arrived: the fife was squeaking 'Nancy Dawson', the master's mate stood by the tub, ladling the half-rations; but this high point of the seaman's day lacked all its wonted fire. The hands tossed off their half pints, barely savouring the rum, and hurried on to the forecastle and the starboard gangway and into the foremast rigging to stare at the Chesapeake: the whole watch below was high aloft.

  Broke remained at his masthead for a while, saying nothing, watching with passionate intensity: Jack, having already seen the Chesapeake at much closer quarters, swept the harbour with his glass, and the town. He saw the Asclepia, and picked out his very window; the broad straight street running up to the State House, the Street with the hotel in it; and he searched among the distant shipping for the Arcturus before returning to the frigate and her attendant crowd of boats. And now here was Broke, running down the topmast shrouds.

  'Well, Philip,' said he, smiling, 'your prayers are answered.'

  'Yes,' said Broke, 'but was it right to pray for such a thing?' He spoke very gravely, yet his face was lit up, almost transfigured. 'Come, let me give you a hand past the futtocks.'

  On deck again, and Broke said to the officer of the watch, 'Course due east, Mr Falkiner; and we may keep under an easy sail.'

  The backed topsail filled, the Shannon turned smoothly, brought the wind right aft, and stood out to sea. She had hardly gathered way before the Chesapeake rounded the lighthouse and set studdingsails aloft and alow, and they sheeted home together, while at the same moment her royals flashed out over all, a pretty piece of seamanship. From the Shannon's deck she was hull-down, and indeed the lower part of her courses could not be seen except upon the rise; she was about ten miles away and even with royals and studdingsails abroad she would not be able to make much more than six or seven knots with this breeze, even with the ebbing tide. There was plenty of time to draw her right out into the offing, beyond the capes, where there was all the sea-room in the world.

  Plenty of time, and since the Shannon made a clean sweep fore and aft almost every day at quarters—since the cabin furniture was so sparse and so contrived that it could be struck down into the hold in a very few minutes, while the officers' bulkheads and canvas screens vanished even sooner—and since she always had enough ammunition on deck for three broadsides, it seemed that there might be little to
do to fill those necessary hours. Yet in even the most zealous ship there was a world of difference between clearing for action with a purely ideal enemy and preparing for battle with a large, formidable frigate that could actually be seen, that had the weathergage, and that showed every sign of a determination to close as soon as possible. Apart from anything else, no officers made their wills or wrote what might be their last letters home before quarters, whereas many, including both Jack and his cousin, now determined to do so as soon as they had the leisure. And then there was all the bosun's work, puddening and chaining the yards, and the gunner's, filling more cartridge, rousing up more shot, grape, round and canister; to say nothing of the wetting and sanding of the decks, the rigging of splinter-netting overhead, the spreading of damp fearnought screens over the ways to the magazine, the placing of scuttle-butts of water for the men to drink between bouts; while as far as the surgeons were concerned, all instruments were to be thoroughly overhauled, and in many cases sharpened. And before the galley fires were put out, there was also the minor question of the officers' dinner. Jack was already longing for his, but when Broke proposed a last tour of the guns he walked along with him and the gunner and the first lieutenant without more than a private murmur.

  As he had expected, not even the keenest eye could find anything amiss, but he was glad when, on reaching the forecastle, Broke asked him whether he had any suggestions to make. 'Since you ask me,' he said, 'I should like to see slow-match as well as flint-locks. Your locks can miss fire—scatter the priming—a match whipped across can save the shot. And I believe you cannot afford to waste a single shot with the gentleman over the way,' nodding towards the distant, but not so very distant Chesapeake, now under topgallant studdingsails as well—'Besides, it is the old way; and I like old ways as well as new.'

  The gunner coughed approvingly, and Mr Watt, who had caught the remark, said, 'Aye, indeed. The fathers that begot us.'

  Broke considered, and then said, 'Yes. Thank you, cousin: we must certainly not waste a single shot. Mr Watt, let it be so—but Lord, I am forgetting. How does the forepeak come along?'