Book 6 - The Fortune Of War Page 32

  'It is as trim and trim as we could make it, sir. It is not an abode of angels, like the master's cabin, but at least it smells as sweet as—as sweet as new-mown hay.'

  'I must wait upon the lady,' said Captain Broke, glancing at the Chesapeake and then at the sun. 'Pass the word for Doctor Maturin. Doctor Maturin, how good of you to come: is Mrs Villiers well enough to receive me, do you think? I should like to pay my respects, and explain that she has to be removed into the forepeak, as we may very shortly be in action.'

  'She is considerably better today, sir,' said Stephen, 'and would, I am sure, be glad of a short visit.'

  'Very well. Then pray be so kind as to let her know that in fifteen minutes' time, I shall do myself the honour of waiting on her.'

  The guns were finished; the officers were gone to their dinner in the gun-room; Broke tapped on the cabin door. 'Good afternoon, ma'am,' he said, 'my name is Broke, in command of this ship, and I am come to ask you how you do, and to say, that I fear we must ask you to change your quarters. There may be a certain amount of noise presently—indeed, an action—but I beg you will not be alarmed. You will be in no danger in the forepeak, and the noise will be much less; I regret it will be dark and somewhat cramped, but I trust you will not have to stay there long.'

  'Oh,' said she, with great conviction, 'I am not at all frightened, sir, I assure you. I am only so sorry to be a burden—a useless burden. If you will be so kind as to give me your arm, I shall go along at once, and be out of the way.'

  She had had time to change, to prepare herself, and when she stood up in her travelling-habit she looked more than usually elegant. Broke led her forward through lines of transfixed seamen, all of whom, after one quick, astonished glance, stared straight out through the open gun-ports: forward, then down and down to the forepeak, well under the waterline. It was a small three-cornered space, airless, reeking of eau de Cologne, and the dim light of a hanging lantern showed that a numerous party of rats had already joined the cockroaches on the cot. 'I am afraid it is worse than I had thought,' he said. 'I shall send a couple of hands to deal with the rats.'

  'Please, please,' she cried, 'do not trouble yourself for me. I can deal with rats. And Captain Broke,' she said, taking his hands, 'just let me wish you victory. I am sure that you will win. I put my whole trust in the Navy.'

  'You are very, very kind,' he said with deep feeling. 'Now I shall have an even greater motive for doing all I can.'

  'Jack,' he said, returning to the cabin, where Captain Aubrey was already deep into a sea-pie, 'you never told me Mrs Villiers was so beautiful.'

  'She is a handsome woman, to be sure,' said Jack. 'Forgive me for starting, Philip; I was so damned sharp-set.'

  'Handsome? She is much more than that—perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, although she was so pale. Such grace! And above all, such spirit! Never a question, never a complaint—walked straight into that foul forepeak, alive with rats, and only wished us victory. She puts her whole trust in the Navy, she said. Upon my life, that is a fine woman. I do not wonder at your friend's impatience. The kind of woman a man would be glad to fight for. I shall be proud to call her cousin.'

  'Aye,' said Jack, thinking of Mrs Broke, 'Diana has the spirit of a thoroughbred: moves like one, too.'

  Broke was silent for a while, prodding at his sea-pie and then at the fried remains of yesterday's suet pudding, covered with purple jam. 'I am going to shift my clothes directly,' he said. 'None of my uniforms would fit you, I am afraid, but some of the officers are about your size: I will send to the gun-room.'

  'Thankee, Philip,' said Jack, 'and if you could find me a pretty heavy sabre, that would be even more to the point: or anything with real weight and an edge. For the rest, a brace of ordinary boarding-pistols will do.'

  'But your arm, Jack? I had only thought of asking you to look after the quarterdeck guns. Their midshipman is away in that unlucky prize—how I regret it!'

  'I will lend a hand there or anywhere else with all the pleasure in the world,' said Jack, 'but if it comes to boarding or repelling boarders, it stands to reason I must have a go. I shall get Maturin to bind my arm tight in. My left is as good as ever it was—better, indeed—and I can look after myself pretty well.'

  Broke nodded. He had a grave, contained look; most of his being was far away with all the innumerable responsibilities of a commander, responsibilities whose crushing weight Jack knew so well and whose absence he felt so clearly now; but he dealt with various small immediate problems before the meal ended—among other things, he sent the mate of the hold and a hand named Raikes, once a professional rat-catcher, into the forepeak. Then, the steward having brought an armful of clothes from the gun-room, they changed, Broke helping Jack with his awkward arm.

  'Before we make a clean sweep,' he said, 'shall we exchange the usual letters?'

  'Yes, certainly,' said Jack. 'I was about to suggest it.' He sat down at Broke's desk and wrote:

  Shannon

  off Boston Light

  Sweetheart,

  I hope and trust we shall be in action with the Chesapeake before the day is out. I could not wish for more, my dear: it has been a sad weight on my heart all this time.

  But should I be knocked on the head, this is to bring you and the children my dearest, dearest love. And you are to know, a man could not die happier.

  Your affectionate husband,

  Jno Aubrey

  He sealed it, handed it across, and Broke gave him his. They walked on to the quarterdeck without speaking: all the officers were there, and all had changed their uniforms, some, like Broke and his midshipmen, in the modern style of round hats and Hessian boots, some, like Jack, in the traditional gold. lace, white breeches and silk stockings; but all wore finer clothes than usual, as a mark of respect for the enemy and for the occasion. And they were all gazing steadily astern where the Chesapeake, coming down with a fair wind and an ebbing tide, was well clear of the now distant land, hull-up, and throwing a fine bow-wave.

  The senior Marine lieutenant, a tall, burly young man, came up to Jack with two swords. 'Would either of these answer, sir?' he asked.

  'This will do admirably,' said Jack, choosing the heavier. 'I am very much obliged to you, Mr Johns.'

  'On deck there,' hailed the look-out. 'She's hauling her wind.'

  She was indeed. The distant Chesapeake, turning, turning until her studdingsails would barely set, showed her long side, fired a gun, and filled again. She was clearly inviting the Shannon to shorten sail and try the issue now, in this present stretch of sea. Many of the yachts and pleasure boats were still with her, or not far behind.

  'Very well,' said Broke. 'Mr Watt, let us finish clearing the ship: there is little to be done, I believe.'

  'Stephen,' said Diana, as he came into the forepeak with a can of soup, 'what is happening? I did not like to trouble Captain Broke, but what is happening? Are they chasing us? Will they catch us?'

  'As I understand it,' said Stephen, crumbling biscuit into the soup, 'Captain Broke has sailed right into Boston harbour, directly challenging the Chesapeake, and now both ships are moving out into the open sea for the battle by common consent. It is not really a question of pursuit.'

  'Oh,' she said, and absently she took three spoonfuls of the soup. 'Lord above,' she said, 'what is this?'

  'Soup. Portable soup. Pray take a little more; it will rectify the humours.'

  'I thought it was luke-warm glue. But it goes down quite well, if you don't breathe. How kind of you to bring it, Stephen.' She ate on until a cockroach fell into the can from a beam above, when Stephen took the pot and put it down among the other cockroaches on the deck.

  They were sitting side by side on the cot and Diana linked her arm through his: she was not given to demonstrations of affection and perhaps she had no great store of affection to demonstrate—an unaffectionate creature, upon the whole, though passionate enough in all conscience—and the gesture startled him. 'Perhaps I spoke too soon when
I said we had got clean away,' she said. 'I should have touched wood—clung to it. Tell me, Stephen, what are our chances?'

  'I am no sailor, my dear, but the Navy lost the last three of these encounters, and as I understand it the Chesapeake has a far more numerous crew than our ship. On the other hand, the two are almost exactly matched in guns, which was not the case in the former actions, and Jack expresses great satisfaction with his cousin's attention to gunnery; while as far as I can judge, Mr Broke seems a most capable, energetic commander. Perhaps our chances may be nearly even: not that my opinion is worth a straw.'

  'What will they do to us if we are taken? I mean you and me and Jack Aubrey?'

  'They will hang us up, my dear.'

  'I am sure Johnson is in that ship,' said Diana, after a silence.

  'I dare say you are right,' said Stephen, his gaze fixed on the beady eye of a rat in the far corner, gleaming in the lantern-light. 'He is a passionate man, and he has a great deal to pursue.' He drew out a pocket-pistol and shot the rat as it advanced upon the soup. 'I brought these for you,' he said, taking the other from his left-hand pocket. 'And here are the little shot and powder flasks: I advise a quarter charge, no more. Picking off the rats as they appear will occupy your mind, besides diminishing the nuisance.'

  'By God, Maturin,' cried Diana, 'you could not have had a better thought.' She dropped his arm, reloaded the smoking pistol and rammed home the wad. 'Now I need not be afraid,' she said, her eyes as fierce and proud as a falcon's.

  It was the first time since he reached America that he saw the woman he had loved so desperately and he walked aft with his mind unsettled: aft to the cockpit, where the assistant-surgeons and the ship's barber were arranging their instruments. The Shannon's surgeon himself was still on the quarterdeck, so keen was his delight in the prospect of a battle, and he was unlikely to be with them much sooner than the first casualty.

  Jack came below to have his arm bound in, and Stephen, knowing that argument would be of no use in this case, chose three bandages of unusual length and a kidney-dish and took him aside. As the folds of the cingulum mounted to Jack's barrel-like chest, binding the dish firmly over his heart and his arm over that, he asked after Diana.

  'She is very well, I thank you,' said Stephen. 'I took her a little biscuit and some portable soup from my colleague's comforts, and she found it went down gratefully. Her mind is occupied with the rats—I lent her our pocket-pistols—and with the forthcoming action. She is much restored: her physical courage was never affected at any time.'

  'I am sure it was not,' said Jack. 'She always had plenty of bottom—I mean, she was always game.' And then in a low voice, 'Broke was very much concerned at not being able to marry you today: he hopes to do so tomorrow.'

  Stephen only replied, 'When do you suppose it will start, at all?'

  'In something like an hour, I think,' said Jack. But when he returned to the quarterdeck he found that he had been out: the Shannon had hauled to the wind and reefed her topsails: the Chesapeake was coming up fast, with three ensigns abroad, and now her bow-wave spread high and wide.

  Broke called his men aft, and as he addressed them in his rather precise, formal voice, Jack saw that they listened with grave, fierce attention, some showing the emotion that their Captain concealed with a fair degree of success: there was evidently a total sympathy between them. The borrowed sword, hanging awkwardly at his right side, took Jack's mind off the brief address and in any case he was immediately behind the Captain; he only caught the words 'They have said that the English have forgotten the way to fight. You will let them know today there are Englishmen in the Shannon who still know how to fight. Don't try to dismast her. Fire into her quarters; maindeck into maindeck, quarterdeck into quarterdeck. Kill the men and the ship is yours . . . Don't cheer. Go quickly to your quarters. I am sure you will do your duty . . .' Jack did not catch all the words, but he did catch the answering growl of assent from the whole length of the crowded decks and gangways and it raised his heart like a trumpet-blast. A seaman on the starboard gangway, a former Guerrière, said, 'I hope, sir, you will give us revenge for the Guerry today?' And in this very particular atmosphere of freedom an old quartermaster spoke up, with a discontented look at the shabby blue ensign, the best the Shannon could do in the way of colours after so many months at sea, and said, 'Mayn't we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?' 'No,' said Broke. 'We have always been an unassuming ship.'

  The sand in the half-hour glass ran out: Boston was now twenty miles away. The glass was turned, eight bells struck, and Broke gave the orders that sent the Shannon slowly eastwards again, her foresail clewed up, her main topsail shivering: and so they ran, a good glass and more, the Chesapeake crowding sail in the Shannon's wake.

  Silence on the quarterdeck: silence fore and aft; only the quiet breeze in the rigging, and little of that with her sailing large, and the live water running along her side. And into this silence the voice of the midshipman at the masthead, reporting what every man could see the Chesapeake was taking in her studdingsails, royals, and topgallantsails. She was striking her royal yards down on deck

  Watt glanced at his Captain 'No,' said Broke, we will keep ours up. I do not trust this breeze—it may die away. Mr Clavering,'—to the midshipman high aloft—'you may come down now. And Mr Watt, you may heave to and beat to quarters'

  The Shannon turned, the way came off her, and as she lay there, gently heaving on the swell, the drum volleyed and thundered In a moment the men were at their stations, clustered in exact order round their familiar guns or in the tops or along the gangways, and the crowded quarterdeck thinned as the officers and midshipmen ran to their divisions, leaving only the master to con the ship behind the helmsman, the aide-de-camp midshipman, the first lieutenant, the Marine officers, and the Captain to direct all, with Jack a supernumerary behind him. The purser and the clerk, both wearing swords and pistols, were already with their small-arms parties.

  The Chesapeake was coming down fast, hauling her wind as she came and steering for the Shannon's starboard quarter. As well as her three ensigns she wore a large white flag at the fore with some marking upon it, apparently words. Broke raised his glass and read 'Sailors' rights and free trade'. He made no comment, but said to Watt, 'Let us have stopped ensigns at the mainstay and in the shrouds, ready to break out in case our colours are shot away.' Then he hailed the tops in turn, each under the command of a senior midshipman: 'Mr Leake, Mr Cosnahan, Mr Smith, is all well?' and each in turn replied, 'All's well, sir.'

  Closer, and the Chesapeake was still heading for the Shannon's starboard quarter. 'I hope to God he minds what Nelson said, and comes straight on,' thought Jack. 'Will he cross my stern, rake me, and range up a-larboard?' murmured Broke, staring fixedly for the least movement of her rudder. Then without shifting his gaze, loud and clear, 'Second captains and crews to the larboard guns. Flat on the deck if she rakes us: don't fire till she bears true.'

  A patter of bare feet as the larboard sections of the gun-crews ran to the other side, and then silence again, with the smoke from the match-tubs drifting across the deck. A quick low order and the Shannon's maintopsail filled, giving her a little way: then she shivered it and brailed up her driver, moving just enough to steer.

  The Chesapeake was not going to cross the Shannon's stern. Her wake was straight and true and now it was too late for her to turn. Lawrence had waived the advantage in order to bring his ship right into action in Nelson's way. 'Handsomely done,' said Jack, and Broke nodded. Watt said, 'That's what I like to see.' 'Starboard guns,' called Broke, and the men ran back: never a sound among them.

  Closer: and closer still. The words on the flag were quite clear now: yet at this angle not a broadside gun on either side would bear. Closer, closer than musket-shot. And at fifty yards the Chesapeake luffed to run up parallel with the Shannon and fight it out, both ships with the breeze a little before the starboard beam, the Chesapeake to windward.

  'Handsomely done,' said Jack ag
ain.

  Still this silence, and Broke called down through the cabin skylight to his coxswain, the captain of the aftermost starboard maindeck gun, 'Mindham, fire when you bear on the second maindeck port from her head. And Shannons, no cheering till it's over. Do not waste a shot.'

  The Chesapeake was ranging up, squaring her mainyard to check her way: her shadow, huge and ominous, fell across the Shannon, and in the silence Jack could hear the run of the water parting at her bow. He saw Lawrence plain, standing there on his quarterdeck, a tall figure in that same white coat. He took off his hat and waved it to him, but at that moment the Chesapeake gave three roaring cheers—a strangely British ring—and at the same time Mindham's gun spoke out. Splinters flew from the Chesapeake's side just abaft the second port. A split-second's pause in which Broke said, 'Half past five, Mr Fenn,' to his note-taking youngster, and Mindham's neighbour fired, together with the aftermost carronade of Jack's division, followed by the bow-gun and then a prodigious rolling broadside from the Chesapeake.

  From that moment on all was shattering din, the guns firing as fast as they could load, one broadside running into another, dense smoke from both ships sweeping over the Shannon's deck, the whole air and the smoke in it quivering with the huge incessant concussions, with the orange stabs of flame jetting through the darkness—the bright sun quite veiled—and the crackle of small-arms from the two opposed gangways and the tops, the high bark of the swivel-guns.

  The long waiting silence was utterly gone, the long tension—a kind of grave, quiet anxiety with each man very much alone—annihilated; and this was a continual enormously active present. Jack moved along behind the starboard quarterdeck carronades: there was little he could do as yet, for the crews were fighting their pieces beautifully, talking in quick jerked-out words, laughing, racing them in and out, sighting every shot with a quick, intent glance through the smoke at the pendulums that told them when the ship was on an even keel, cheering as the ball or grape or both went home. The confusion of noise was so tremendous that it was difficult to be sure, but he had the impression that Shannon was firing faster, truer than Chesapeake. The second captain of the aftermost carronade jerked round, staring straight at Jack: the fierce excitement was still blazing in his face but already his eyes were puzzled, astonished, wide. Jack dragged his body clear—a bar-shot had opened all his belly—and his mates ran the gun out, fired and sponged with no more than a single backward glance. Smashed blocks and stray rigging rained down on the netting overhead and splinters were flying inboard among the smoke in deadly swathes. The Chesapeake was hauling up a little to check her way, and in a gap through the smoke Jack saw her helmsman killed, her wheel smashed—her whole quarterdeck was strangely empty—had been from the very first broadside—and he no longer saw Lawrence at all.