Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

Another two hundred steps and Jacob turned off righthanded. ‘There is the consulate,’ he said, pointing to a considerable house with a garden full of date-palms. ‘Should you like to draw breath again before going in?’

Stephen felt in his pocket for the ministerial letter, heard the reassuring crackle, and said, ‘Never in life: let us not lose a minute. Boy, will you wait here, sitting in the shade of a palm-tree?’

He and Jacob walked through the side-door obviously intended for business, and in the office they found a young man sitting with his feet on the desk. ‘Who the Devil are you?’ he asked. ‘And what do you want? Distressed British subjects, I suppose.’

‘My name is Maturin, Dr Stephen Maturin, surgeon in HMS Surprise, and I wish to see the consul, for whom I have a letter and a verbal message.’

‘You can’t see the consul. He is sick. Give me the letter and tell me the message,’ said the young man; but he did not take his feet off the desk.

‘The letter is from the Ministry and can be delivered only into the consul’s own hands. The message is equally private. If you wish you may show him my card: and he will decide whether to receive me or not.’ He brought out a card, pencilled some words on the back, and laid it on the desk. The young man changed colour and said, ‘I will speak to her ladyship.’

‘Dr Maturin,’ she cried, running in - a remarkably handsome woman of thirty-five or so. ‘You will not remember me, but we met in Sierra Leone, when Peter was on poor Governor Wood’s staff - we dined on opposite sides of the table - of course you shall see him - you will not mind his being in bed, I am sure - it is the hip-gout and he suffers most cruelly...’ Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Dear Lady Clifford, I remember you perfectly. You wore a pearl-grey dress and as Mrs Wood observed it became you wonderfully. May I present my colleague, Dr Jacob? He has more experience than I of sciatica and related diseases and he may have seen similar cases.’

‘How do you do, sir?’ said Lady Clifford, and she led them upstairs to a sadly tumbled bedroom.

‘Dr Maturin, I do apologize for receiving you like this,’ said the consul, ‘but I dare not get up: the fit has just died away, and I fairly dread waking it...’ He gave Jacob a civil but enquiring look. Stephen explained his presence and the Ministry’s total confidence in him; he then passed the letter he was carrying. Sir Peter smiled kindly at Jacob, said, ‘Forgive me,’ to Stephen, and broke the seal. ‘Yes,’ he said, putting the letter by, ‘it is perfectly clear. But, my dear sir, I believe you have come to a totally new situation. Have you had news from Algiers since the beginning of April?’

Stephen cast his mind back and after a moment’s thought said, ‘We have not. Between this and Durazzo we touched only at Pantellaria, where they had nothing to tell us, good or bad, only that no houario had passed or touched there - that no houario could have survived the furious wind that struck us. Nor did we speak any ship, though Commodore Aubrey may even now be conferring with some one of the captains he sent to convoy the eastern trade... and, sir, before going any further may I carry out one part of my duties? The Commodore desired me to ask you whether, if he were to stand in, perhaps with part of his squadron, and salute the castle, whether the salute would be returned?’

‘Oh Lord, yes: no sort of doubt about it, after the way he has been playing Old Harry in the Adriatic.’

‘Then may I beg you to lend me a servant to show our ship’s boy down to the mole? He is to carry the message to the Commodore, but this is the first time he has ever left Stow on the Wold - he sees wonders on every hand, and I fear he may utterly lose his way.’

‘Certainly. I shall send one of my guards, a discreet greybearded Turk,’ said the consul. He rang, and when the guard answered he bade him take the boy down to the mole with the note The salute will be answered which Stephen wrote on a piece of paper.

‘Oh, good Lord,’ said the consul, carefully lying back on his pillows, ‘we have heard such tales here of Frenchmen joining you, of Frenchmen being sunk - Algerines shockingly battered - shipyards going up in flames by the score - the only corsairs at sea are those from very far east: all ours are penned up in the inner harbour. But to go back to the matter in hand: if you have had no recent news from here you cannot know that the situation is wholly changed and that my influence with the Dey no longer exists. He was strangled by the janissaries, and some days later they elected their current Agha, Omar Pasha, as the new Dey. I hardly know him. His mother was a Turk, and he speaks Turkish and Arabic with equal fluency and some Greek - illiterate in all three, but by reputation a man of very strong character and intelligent: and indeed he would not have been chosen otherwise.’

‘What you tell me is very disturbing. Pray, have you any news of the Allies’ progress?’

‘As I understand it, the Russians and Austrians are still muddling very slowly along, still separated by great stretches of mountain, river and bog: and by strong mutual distrust.’

‘Do you think, sir, that a meeting with the new Dey could be arranged as soon as possible? Perhaps tomorrow?’

‘I am afraid not. Nor even in the near future. The Dey is hunting the lion of the Atlas, his favourite pursuit; and the Vizier, if not actually with him - for the pursuit of the lion is not to his taste - will be at the nearest oasis of comfort.’

‘Consul,’ said Stephen, after a considering pause, ‘does it seem to you reasonably prudent for a usurper to go gadding after lions within a few weeks of winning power and so leaving his capital open to the enemies and rivals that his usurpation must necessarily have brought into being?’

‘It seems unlikely, even absurd; but Omar is a case apart. He was brought up among the janissaries - he knows them through and through - and although he is illiterate he was a particularly successful head of what might be called the former Agha’s intelligence service. I am of opinion that he has made this journey into the Atlas to learn who among the janissaries are likely to form parties in his absence. He has informants everywhere and I am persuaded that when he judges the moment right he will silently return, summon a body of those devoted to his interest and take off a score of ambitious heads.’

Jacob had taken no part in the conversation other than by nods and smiles that showed his keen attention: but at these last words he uttered a most emphatic ‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Can you tell me, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘how much influence the Vizier may possess?’

‘My impression is that it is very great. He was the equivalent of the present Dey’s chief of staff and his main support, a highly intelligent and literate man with highly-placed connexions in Constantinople. Although, as you are aware, the deys have long since thrown off all but a purely nominal allegiance to the Sublime Porte, the Sultan’s titles, orders and decorations have a very real value here, particularly to men like Omar: and quite apart from that Hashin has a wide acquaintance with the chief men in the Muslim states of Africa and the Levant. He is also, I may add, fluent in French.’

‘In that case,’ said Stephen, ‘it seems to me that Dr Jacob and I should make our way into the Atlas with the utmost dispatch, if not to the Dey himself. .

‘An approach to the Dey himself without official standing or former acquaintance would be contrary to local etiquette: may I advise a call on the Vizier?’

‘Then to the Vizier, to do what can be done to prevent this shipment, which might well be fatal to our cause. Is he incorruptible, do you think?’