Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

They made good progress, and although the topsails had to be double-reefed on reaching the wholly unprotected Passage de Fromveur it was clear that the wind was diminishing. On the other hand, the monstrous sea it had worked up on the far side of the island was if anything greater still, in spite of the heavy rain, by the time they reached the squadron, lying-to off the Stiff Bay in the north-east; and when Jack, in response to the flagship's Captain repair aboard, made his way down into his wildly heaving barge he missed his footing for once and with his boat-cloak flying about his ears he fell plump into the water swirling about the boat's bottom. Much more water joined it on the way across, and it was a damp Jack Aubrey that stood waiting for his interview with the Admiral aboard the Charlotte. A long wait; and although Charles Morton, her captain, was civil enough Jack knew perfectly well that a man who was very much out of favour, who had just received a reprimand, a severe reprimand, was a dangerously infectious leper, above all in a ship governed by Stranraer; and he inflicted neither his remarks nor his presence on any of the officers about him.

When he was taken into the Admiral's cabin he found that the Captain of the Fleet was also present, sitting at Stranraer's side behind a long table set athwartship, with the Admiral's secretary and a clerk at the larboard end. 'Good evening, my lord,' he said. 'Good evening, sir.'

'Good evening, Captain Aubrey,' said the Admiral. 'Sit down. Now what have you to say about these French frigates you allowed to slip past you?'

'I have only to say that I very much regret any Frenchman should have got out of Brest.'

'Then you admit they went by?'

'I must have expressed myself badly, my lord. I expressed nothing but regret at what is said to have taken place: I acknowledged no sort of responsibility.'

'Where was your ship at sunset on the twenty-seventh?'

'Two cables north of the Men Glas, my lord, waiting for the tide.'

'Then how do you explain the fact that two frigates could leave the Goulet de Brest, run out by the Iroise and be seen a league north of the Ile de Sein three quarters of an hour later without they passed astern of you, almost within hail, certainly in sight?'

'I do not explain it at all, my lord. But I will assert that there was a lookout at each masthead and of course on the fo'c'sle, able seamen of known reliability.'

'So you deny the possibility of the Frenchman's getting past unseen?'

'I do not deny it. The weather was uncommon thick at times that afternoon and night - the pilot had to feel his way along past the Basse Vieille by the flash of surf - and it is not impossible that she passed unseen. What I do deny is the possibility of her doing so through the fault or negligence of any of my people.'

'So you Blaine it all on the weather, do you?'

'If Blaine there should be, I should certainly lay it on the fog, my lord.'

The Admiral looked at Calvert, the Captain of the Fleet and the officer principally concerned with discipline. 'What do you say?'

Calvert, a cold, withdrawn man, tall for a sailor and thin, looked dispassionately at Jack for a moment and said, 'In cases of this kind there is much to be said for gathering all the available objective evidence. Not only does the ship in question keep a logbook with remarks on the weather but there are also the officers' and midshipmen's journals. If this should ever become an important disciplinary matter -if there should be the least question of anyone asking for a court martial - they would certainly have to be looked at.'

Stranraer considered. The clerk mended his pen. 'Oh, I do not think it will come to that,' said the Admiral at last.

'If Captain Aubrey will solemnly declare that his ship was in a state of full preparedness on the twenty-seventh I shall rest content.'

Jack made the declaration. Stranraer stood up, saying, 'Then let us leave it at that.'

'Certainly, my lord. But if you will allow me, I have a request to make: a request for leave.'

'Leave?' cried Stranraer. 'Not more leave, for God's sake? Parliamentary leave again?'

'No, my lord, for urgent private affairs.'

'No. That really will not do. If every officer or seaman for that matter, were to go home every time there was an urgency in his private affairs we should never be able to man the fleet. It is not a sudden death, I trust?'

'No, my lord.'

'Then let us hear no more about it. Ours is a hard service, as you know very well; and this is wartime.'

Certainly it was a hard service, and neither Admiral Stranraer nor the autumnal gales had the least intention of making it any less so. The squadron was drilled, and most rigorously drilled, in all weathers short of a close-reefed topsail blow. Towards the end of the day boats would be seen carrying apprehensive captains across to the flag to hear the Admiral's candid opinion of their seamanship: his notion of drill was curious, rather like that of the army of an earlier age, when precision of button, pipeclay and movement counted for almost everything, together with evolutions such as counter-marches which had very little to do with war, an activity that might easily spoil a uniform. Lord Stranraer had little use for gunfire. He would certainly have grappled with the French had they come out, but during his very frequent drills the great guns generally lay idle, shining wherever polish was in any way appropriate and housed with perfect regularity. It was something like the West Indian discipline transported to the Channel, where it made even less sense than it had in the Caribbean.

Although he was constantly forming and reforming the line of battle, with the rear becoming the van and the van becoming the rear, combat itself did not really seem to interest the Admiral. He had in his youth been concerned in a certain number of actions, in which he had not behaved with discredit, but he pinned all his faith in the moral force of a large, intact fleet, impeccably expert in all possible manoeuvres and professionally far in advance of any possible rival, a body that would silently impose its will.

However, these drills did at least keep Jack Aubrey very fully occupied indeed. He was extremely unwilling to have his ship and by inference his ship's company picked out for harsh signals - Bellona's number showing clear aboard the flag or the repeating frigate followed by keep your station or make more sail or some telegraphic remark such as look alive or do you need assistance - and since Bellona's crew, though a very fair body for the purpose of fighting the ship, at present included more than a fair share of landmen, and (which was even more important) had never at any time been worked up to this kind of stop-watch performance in anything but gunnery, he and his officers had to do their very utmost to anticipate the next order, a wearing task and one in which they were not always successful. The Bellona's barge therefore often joined those who were summoned aboard the flag at the end of the exercise to be told their faults by their rough-tongued admiral.

Jack did not enjoy these sessions but they did not touch him deeply even when the strictures were deserved, which with such a crew as his was sometimes inevitable, because his mind was in a very curious state of hurry, confusion and distress. Except when it was taken up with the day-long task of making his ship give as good an account of herself in a highly competitive series of operations, often in heavy weather, his mind ran on that letter and on the stranger who had written it. Innumerable possibilities came crowding, and an immense sadness alternated with a perhaps still greater frustration which took the form of a longing for battle.

This was clearly obvious to those that knew him well, and even the Captain of the Fleet, not an exceptionally percipient man, handled him with care aboard the Charlotte. On his own quarterdeck he awarded no punishment - there was little need - but occasionally he would clap his jaws shut on some intended rebuke; and this had an effect far more marked than any blasphemous roar.