Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

PATRICK O'BRIAN

The Yellow Admiral

W.W. Norton & Company

New York * London

Chapter One

Sir Joseph Blaine, a heavy, yellow-faced man in a suit of grey clothes and a flannel waistcoat, walked down St James's Street, across the park, and so to the Admiralty, which he entered from behind, opening the private door with a key and making his way to the large, shabby room in which he had his official being.

He looked over the papers on his desk, nodded, and touched the bell. 'If Mr Needham is in the way, pray show him up,' he said to the answering clerk. He half rose as Needham appeared and waved him to a comfortable chair on the other side of the desk. 'Having finished with poor Delaney,' he said, 'we now come to another gentleman of whom we have no news: Stephen Maturin. Dr Stephen Maturin, perhaps our most valuable adviser on Spanish affairs.'

'I do not think I have heard his name.'

'I do not suppose you have: yet you and your people have quite certainly found his cipher at the foot of many a cogent report. When he is going up and down in the world on our behalf, as he so often does...' Sir Joseph stifled an 'or did' and carried on, 'he almost invariably sails with Captain Aubrey, whose name is no doubt familiar.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Needham, who wished to make a good impression on this formidable figure, but whose talents did not really lie in that direction. 'The gentleman who was so unfortunate at the Guildhall trial.' This reference to Captain Aubrey's stand in the pillory did not seem to be well received and to remedy the situation Needham added a knowing 'Son to the notorious General Aubrey.'

'If you wish,' said Sir Joseph coldly. 'Yet he might also be described as the officer who, commanding a fourteen gun brig, took a thirty-two-gun Spanish xebec-frigate and carried her into Mahon in the year one; who cut out the French frigate Diane in a boat-attack on the heavily guarded port of Saint-Martin; and who, most recently, returning with his squadron from a most active cruise against slavery in the Gulf of Guinea, utterly frustrated the French descent on the south of Ireland, driving a line-of-battle ship on the rocks, to saying nothing of... Yes, Mr Carling?' - this to a secretary.

'The pardons, sir, engrossed at last,' said Carling, laying them on Sir Joseph's desk. 'Those you asked for particularly are on top.' He made his usual ghost-like exit.

Sir Joseph glanced at their effective date, well before Maturin's departure for Spain, nodded and went on, 'To revert to Dr Maturin, for whom we here are particularly concerned, and on behalf of whom we should value any assistance your people can give us - one of these,' - holding up a parchment - 'refers to him. You probably know more about the late Duke of Habachtsthal than I do, the kind of men he privately mixed with, and the creatures he employed for some of his activities.'

'We have a very great deal of material. And the creatures, as you so justly call them, were the immediate cause of his self-murder.'

'Yes.' Blaine paused, and said, 'I will not make a long story of it, with circumstantial details, but only observe that he had conceived a hatred for Maturin, who had been the death of two of the friends in question, putting an end to their traitorous practices; and the creatures Habachtsthal employed about his revenge found out that before the Irish rising of ninety-eight he had been a friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, that he had committed some indiscretions in favour of Irish independence, and that with the help of hired Dublin informers and fresh evidence he might yet be taken up on a capital charge. Furthermore, he had brought back two transported convicts from Botany Bay before their time and without leave. Ordinarily I should have dealt with this situation much as you dealt with William Hervey's case; but with such high-placed and influential enmity, I dared not move for fear of making things even worse. Instead, I advised him to withdraw privately to Spain, together with his prot�s and his fortune, which was liable to forfeiture on such a charge. This he did, adding his little daughter to the company. Not his wife, who happened to be in Ireland- I believe there were certain difficulties, since accommodated. All this, you understand, was before the cruise in the Gulf...'

'Dr Maturin took part in the expedition?'

'Certainly. Not only was it his duty as the Bellona's surgeon but he is passionately opposed to slavery.' Needham pursed his lips and shrugged. 'He is also an eminent naturalist, one of our best authorities on comparative anatomy.' In more liberal company Sir Joseph might have spoken of the paper on pottos, with particular reference to their anomalous phalanges, that Dr Maturin had read to the Royal Society and the sensation it had caused among those capable both of hearing what he said and of appreciating the full import of what they heard: in the present circumstances he carried straight on. This meeting was wholly necessary from departmental and political points of view, and the files available to Needham might be of great and immediate value in spite of the man's limited intelligence; yet the interview was in no way congenial and Sir Joseph could not wish it prolonged. 'A few days before the returning squadron reached Bantry Bay, Habachtsthal killed himself: opposition no longer existed and I at once took the necessary steps, obtaining immediate consent for the pardon. I sent over an express telling him that all was well and that he might gather his family and wealth as soon as he chose. He came back to England, accompanied by his wife, and they both set off by the shortest route, Mrs Maturin being subject to the seasickness, with the intention of posting down to the Groyne to make arrangements for the transfer of his fortune- all in gold, by the way - to this country and then of picking up the proteges and the child at Avila.'

'Where is Avila?'

'In Old Castile. Eight days after he left we had information from one of our best agents that he had been denounced to the Spanish government as the prime mover in the Peruvian conspiracy - in the Peruvian attempt at declaring themselves independent of Spain.'

'Was there any truth in the denunciation?'

'Yes, there was.'

'Oh,' cried Needham, deeply impressed. And then, 'It very nearly succeeded, according to our information.'

'Very nearly indeed. A matter of a few hours and we should have been home, home hands down, but for a silly, busy, prating, enthusiastic fool, a prisoner of war who escaped from Aubrey's ship and ran up and down in Lima calling out that Maturin was a British agent - that the revolution was paid for by English gold. At the last moment the cry was taken up by the French mission, sent there on the same errand but with inadequate funds, and they made such a noise that the leading general cried off and Maturin had to leave the country. This wretched Dutourd reached Spain a little while ago - and they asked us for an explanation.'

'You denied everything, of course?'

Sir Joseph bowed. 'But it was clear they did not believe us. They clapped an embargo on his money in Corunna and they meant to seize him when he went to collect it. I sent warnings by three several agents and telegraphed Plymouth for the fastest cutter to take a message to our man in Corunna itself. We had a few reports of his passage, chiefly from military intelligence, the last being a dubious account of a wealthy pair with an escort travelling through Aragon in a coach and four: then nothing. Nothing whatsoever: all traces lost. And the Aragon report was geographically improbable, since it would have been right off his route. Then again, although Maturin is a wealthy man, an uncommonly wealthy man, he never gives that appearance, being habitually threadbare and always inconspicuous. Your people have some contacts in Spain that we do not as yet possess, and if they can throw any light whatsoever on the subject, we should be most grateful.'