The Mauritius Command Page 7

  "An able, dashing man, I believe?"

  "Oh," said Jack, gazing beyond Stephen's head at the Boadicea, a lovely sight on the lonely sea, "the Agamemnon's wardroom was crowded, she wearing a flag; so I hardly knew him. But he has made quite a reputation for himself since those days."

  Stephen sniffed. He was perfectly aware of Jack's dislike for saying anything unpleasant about a former shipmate, and although he honoured the principle in theory, in practice he found it somewhat irritating.

  Jack's acquaintaince with Lord Clonfert had in fact been brief, but it had left its mark. They had been ordered away with the boats to take, burn or destroy a privateer lying far up a broad, shallow creek, out of range of the Agamemnon's guns, an estuary lined with mangroves, whose unbuoyed channels through the mudbanks presented many interesting problems of navigation, particularly as the boats had to advance against the fire of the privateer and of some guns planted on the shore.

  Clonfert's boats took the north channel, Jack's the southern; and by the time for the final dash across the open water where the privateer was moored Clonfert's were grouped behind a spit of land somewhat nearer to the ship than Jack's. Jack emerged from the narrow channel, waved his hat, gave a cheer, urged his men "to stretch out now, like good "uns" and steered straight for the enemy's starboard mainchains through the heavy smoke, convinced that Clonfert's party would board on the other side. He heard the answering cheer, but it was the cheer of spectators rather than of participants: Clonfert's boats did not intend to stir. Jack realized this in the last fifty yards, but he was committed and it was " too late to do anything but race on. The privateersmen fought hard: they killed several Agamemnons, among them a midshipman to whom Jack was much attached, and wounded many more. For some minutes it was doubtful who should drive whom over the side--a cruel, bitter little action, vicious hand-to-hand murder in the fading light--and then the French Captain, flinging his empty pistols at Jack's head, leapt the rail and swam for it, followed by most of his remaining men. It was not the safety of the shore that he was seeking, however, but the second battery of guns that he had mounted there; and these he turned straight on to the ship, to sweep her deck with grape at point-blank range. Although Jack had received a shrewd rap on the head, his wits were about him still, and before the first discharge he had cut the cables and let fall the foretopsall to the nascent land-breeze, so that there was already way upon her when the fire began. With the luck that never deserted him in those days he steered her through the one channel in which she would not ground, and the light air took her out; though not before the grapeshot had wounded another man, cut away the crossjack halliards, and scored him across the ribs with a wound like a blow from a red-hot poker, knocking him flat into a pool of blood. They picked up the other boats and returned to the Agamemnon, Clonfert taking over.

  Jack was scarcely conscious of going up the side. He grieved extremely for the boy who had been killed; his mind was dulled by pain and by the fever that followed so quickly in that climate; and Clonfert's eager explanation--"he was right up against a mudbank--he was pinned down by the shore-battery--it would have been suicide to move--he was in the very act of landing to take it from behind when Aubrey made his gallant dash"--seemed to him uninteresting and unimportant. Later, when he was fit for duty again, it did seem to him a little strange that the official letter should have omitted his name and have given Clonfert quite so much credit; though indeed Clonfert was senior to him at that time; and then again half a dozen privateersmen, unable to swim, had taken refuge below, where they had had to be overcome after Clonfert's taking over. But by that time Clonfert had exchanged into the Mars; and Jack, homeward-bound in the Agamemnon, soon forgot the incident, retaining only an inward conviction that Clonfert was either singularly muddle-headed and unenterprising or that he was somewhat shy. None of the other officers in the wardroom offered an opinion--their silence was significant--and in the turmoil of the succeeding years Jack would scarcely have remembered Clonfert but for the noise he made sometimes in the newspapers, as when he was cast in damages for criminal conversation with Mrs Jennings, or on the occasion of his court-martial for striking another officer on the quarterdeck of HMS Ramillies, and sometimes more creditably in the Gazette. His court-martial had led to his being dismissed the service, and although after some time he had been reinstated by order in- council he necessarily lost seniority: on the other hand, during the interval he took service with the Turks, and the experience proved uncommonly useful when, as a king's officer once more, he attached himself to Sir Sydney Smith. He was with that somewhat flamboyant gentleman at Acre when Smith forced Buonaparte to retire, and in other creditable actions, mostly on shore; and Smith praised him highly in his public letters: indeed Clonfert and the Admiral agreed well together--they were both seen walking about London wearing Oriental robes--and it was due to him that Clonfert was made a commander, his present rank. Jack was well aware that Gazettes might suppress truth and suggest falsehood, but he knew that they could not possibly invent victories such as the destruction of a Turkish squadron or the spiking of the guns of Abydos; and on these occasions it occurred to him that he might have been mistaken about Clonfert's want of courage. The reflection did not linger, however: quite apart from the fact that Clonfert was not a man whom Jack had taken to, he was a follower of Smith; and Smith, though dashing, was a vain, showy man who had given Nelson much uneasiness in the Mediterranean. Jack's admiration and respect for Nelson was such that his opponents could find no friend in Captain Aubrey. His mind ran on to admirals, their rivalries., the ill effect of these rivalries, the problems of high and necessarily remote command.

  "Why, brother, what a study you are in," said Stephen. "We shall certainly row clean through my weed, if you go on at this unconsidered pace. Pray, what is in your mind? Dread of the French, no doubt?"

  "Certainly," said Jack, shipping his oars, "they make my heart die within me. But what concerns me most, as we get nearer to the Cape, is the possibility of a pendant, and what comes with it."

  "I do not understand you--a little to the left, if you please; I believe I see a cephalopod among the wrack. He is gone, the thief. Row gently, joy, and I shall trail my little net. I do not understand you: the ship has a perfectly good pendant at this moment; surely you must have noticed it." He nodded towards the Boadicea, from whose masthead dropped the long streamer that showed she was in commission.

  "What I mean is the broad pendant." Stephen looked stupid. "The broad pendant, Stephen, that shows you are a commodore: and what comes with it is high command. For the first time you are as who should say a flag, an admiral; and you have an admiral's responsibilities of command."

  "What of it, my dear? To my certain knowledge you have always exercised command efficiently: I doubt I could have done much better myself. You say belay, and he belayeth. What more can you desire, for all love?" Stephen spoke with only a small part of his attention: all the rest was concentrated upon the cephalopod, though indeed he did murmur something about commodores--he remembered them perfectly--the chief Indiaman of the fleet that had succoured them so providentially after their affray with Monsieur de Linois had been called the commodore.

  "Why, don't you see," cried Jack, his mind fixed upon this question of command, "it has always been the command of a single ship. You are bred up to it--it comes natural. But high command is something you come to suddenly, with no experience. There are captains under you; and handling the captains of a squadron, each one of them God the Father of his own quarterdeck, is a very different matter from handling a ship's company under your own eye. You can rarely choose them and you can rarely get rid of them; and if you do not handle them right, then the squadron is inefficient, and there's the devil to pay with tar. A good understanding is more important than I can tell you. Nelson could do it as easy as kiss my hand . . . the band of brothers, you know . . . "His voice trailed away, and as he watched Stephen grubbing among the weed he thought of cases where admirals or commodores had lacke
d the Nelson touch: a melancholy list--bitter ill-feeling, indecisive actions, golden opportunities thrown away for lack of support, strict obedience to the letter of the Fighting Instructions, courts-martial, and above all the enemy roaming about , the sea unchecked. "Corbett's reputation is sound enough, so is Pym's," he said almost to himself, and then louder, "But now I come to think of it, Stephen, you should know all about Clonfert. He is a countryman of yours, an eminent chap, I dare say, in Ireland."

  "Sure, it Is an Irish title," said Stephen, "but Clonfert is as much an Englishman as you are yourself. The family name is Scroggs. They have some acres of bog and what they call a castle near Jenkinsville in the bleak north--I know it well; anthea foetidissima grows there--and a demesne south of the Curragh of Kildare, forfeited Desmond land; but I doubt he has ever set foot on it. A Scotch agent looks after what rents he can rack out of the tenants."

  "But he is a peer, is he not? A man of some real consequence?"

  "Bless your innocence, Jack: an Irish peer is not necessarily a man of any consequence at all. I do not wish to make any uncivil reflection on your country--many of my best friends are Englishmen--but you must know that this last hundred years and more it has been the practice of the English ministry to reward their less presentable followers with Irish titles; and your second-rate jobbing backstairs politician, given a coronet of sorts and transplanted into a country where he is a stranger, is a pitiful spectacle, so he is; a flash Brummagern imitation of the real thing. I should be sorry if the Irish peers, for the most part of them, were Irishmen. Apart from certain naval lords, that the ministry dare not have in the English House, they are a shabby crew, upon the whole, out of place in Ireland and ill at ease in England. I do not speak of your Fitzgeralds or Butlers, you understand, still less of the few native families that have survived, but of what is commonly called an Irish peer. Clonfert's grandfather, now, was a mere--Jack, what are you about?"

  "I am taking off my shirt."

  "To swim so soon after dinner, and such a dinner? I cannot advise it. You are very corpulent; full of gross, viscous humours after these weeks and months of Poirier's cooking. And now we are come to the point, my dear, it is my clear duty to warn you against gule, against ungoverned appetite . . . a brutish vice, inductive mainly to the sin of Eve . . . bulimy, bulimy . . . dinners have killed more men than ever Avicenna healed . . . " he prosed away while Jack took off his trousers. "So you are determined on your bathe?" he said, looking at his naked companion. "Will you let me see your back, now?" He ran his fingers over the dull-blue scar and asked, "Do you feel it, these days?"

  "Just a trifle, this morning," said Jack. "But otherwise, from the time we cleared the Channel until yesterday, never a twinge. A swim," he said, slipping over the side and plunging deep into the pure blue water with his long yellow hair streaming out behind him, "is the very thing for it," he continued, rising to the surface and blowing hard. "God, it is so refreshing, even though it is as warm as milk. Come on, Stephen, bathe while you may. For tomorrow we reach the cold current setting north, the green water and the westerlies, I trust; you will have your mollymawks, and your pintadoes and maybe your albatrosses, but there will be no more swimming till the Cape."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ever since the Boadicea had made her landfall all hands had been in a state of feverish activity, putting the last touches to her beauty: now It was almost over, and she stood into False Bay with a fair breeze rounding her studdingsails and wafting the reek of fresh paint along with her. The only stage still to obscure her spotless black and white Nelson checker was that occupied by the carpenters" mates, applying carmine with anxious care to the lips, cheeks and bosom of the opulent though insipid British queen.

  Jack, already fine in his best uniform, stood by the starboard rail of the quarterdeck with Mr Farquhar beside him. A little farther forward the gunner blew on his slow-match by the brass nine-pounder: all the other guns were housed, ranged with the perfection of the Guards on parade, their breeching pipeclayed. Seymour was a conscientious first lieutenant, and the deck was a pleasure to behold--the gleaming pallor of the wood, the ebony of the seams new-paid with pitch, the falls precisely flemished, a series of exact helices that no man dared disturb, the few pieces of brass the captain would permit blazing in the sun, no speck of dust to be seen from stem to stern, the hen coops, the surviving swine struck down into the hold together with the goat, which, in the general silence, could be heard bleating angrily for its long overdue tobacco. The general silence, for all hands were on deck in their Sunday frocks, and they gazed earnestly, mutely at the shore, upon which people could now be seen walking about--walking about on dry land, among trees!--most of them perceptibly black: the only sounds to be heard, apart from the goat, were the bark of the master conning the ship from the forecastle, the ritual answers of the timoneer, the chant of the leadsman in the chains: "By the mark, fifteen: by the mark, fifteen: and a half, fifteen: by the deep, sixteen: and a half, fifteen', and the conversational voice of the Captain as he pointed out various objects to his guest.

  "That flat rock is what we call Noah's Ark, and far over there is Seal Island- the Doctor will like that. And beyond the Ark where you see the white water is the Roman Rock: we shall pass between the two. Indeed, we shall open Simon's Bay at any minute now. Mr Richardson, pray see if the Doctor has finished--whether he can come on deck--he would be sorry to miss all this. Yes, there we are," he went on, with his telescope to his eye as the inner harbour came into full view. "Raisonable, do you see? The two-decker. Then Sirius: Neriede laying inside her, a very pretty berth: then a brig I cannot make out at all. Mr Seymour, what do you make of the brig with her topmasts on deck?" At this point Stephen appeared, blinking in the strong light, wiping his bloody hands on a woollen nightcap and looking squalid. "Ah, there you are, Doctor," cried Jack. "Have you finished sawing up poor young Francis? How is he coming along? Prime, I dare say?" Francis, until today the most popular topman in the ship, endeavouring to gild the Boadicea� maintopgallant truck, had lost his hold, making a most spectacular fall from that giddy eminence, missing the deck (and certain death) by the grace of the frigate's roll, but grazing her number twelve portlid with such force as to play havoc with his thoracic cage and above all to smear the bleeding paintwork, the grass-combing bugger.

  "He may do," said Stephen. "These young fellows are made of steel and a particularly resilient leather. So that is Africa." He looked greedily at the shore, the known haunt of the aardvark, the pangolin, the camelopard; of birds without number, roaming at large amidst a flora of extraordinary wealth, headed by the ostrich. "And that," pointing towards a remote headland, "is the all-dreaded Cape of Storms itself, I make no doubt?"

  "Not exactly," said Jack. "The Cape is far astern: I am sorry you did not see it. We came round precious close while you was busy. But before that you did see the Table Mountain, did you not? I sent a messenger."

  "Yes, yes. I felt most obliged to you, in spite of the unchristian hour. It might also be compared with Ben Bulben."

  "Curious, ain't it? And now here on the larboard bow--no, the larboard--you have Simon's Bay, a sweet anchorage. And there's Raisonable, wearing the flag."

  "Would that be a line-of-battle ship?" asked Farquhar. "A most imposing vessel."

  "I doubt any sixty-four would ever lie in the line nowadays,'said Jack. "In any case, the Raisonable was built fifty years ago, and if she fired a full broadside she might fall to pieces; but I am glad she looks imposing. Then comes Sirius, a much more powerful ship in fact, although she has but one tier of guns; thirty-six eighteen-pounders, much the same broadside weight of metal as ours. Then another frigate, do you see? Nereide thirty-six; but only twelve-pounders. Then that odd little brig-of-war."

  "Pray, sir, why are they not at sea?" asked Farquhar. "As I understand it, those and a smaller vessel called the Otter are almost all we have to guard the Indian trade. I ask out of mere curiosity."

  "Oh," said Jack, "this is the tail-end
of the hurricane season up there. They could hardly be blockading the Mauritius in the hurricane season. They are probably in to refit and to take in stores--nothing for them up there, two thousand miles to the north . . . Mr Johnson, I believe you may begin to reduce sail."

  His eyes were fixed to his glass: the Boadicea had made her number and he was watching for the masterattendant's boat to put off. There it was, just leaving the pier. Although the frigate was now under fore and main topsails alone, still she glided in, heaved on by the moderate south-east swell and the making tide, and the shore came fast towards him. The moment he had the Admiralty House square on he would begin his salute; and while he waited for that moment to come he had the strangest feeling that at the first gun England and his whole voyage south would vanish into the past.

  "Carry on, Mr Webber," he said, and as he spoke the nine-pounder bawled out its respects with a tongue of fire in a cloud of smoke.

  "Fire one," said the gunner; and the echoes came hurrying back from the mountains. "Fire two. Fire three . . . " By the seventeenth gun the great bay was alive with crossing reverberations, and before they had died away a puff of smoke appeared on the Raisonable's side, followed a second later by the deep report. Nine guns she fired, the reply due to a captain, and after the ninth the Boadicea� signal- midshipman, young Weatherall, piped, "Flag signalling, sir." Then his voice broke to a harsh bass as he went on, "Captain repair aboard flag."

  "Acknowledge," said Jack. "Lower away the gig. Where's my coxswain? Pass the word for my coxswain."

  "I am sorry, sir," said Johnson, blushing. "Moon is drunk."

  "Damn him," said Jack. "Crompton, jump into the gig. Mr Hill, are these all my papers? Every last one?'. Clasping the packet of sealed, canvas-covered documents to his bosom he ran down the side, caught the heaving gig on the height of its rise, and said, "Shove off."