Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

Jack's eye followed the boat with great approval, and as soon as it was at a proper distance he said to Richardson, the officer of the watch, 'Let us get under way.'

With the bosun piping All hands to unmoor ship, the frigate sprang to ordered life: she was fast to the chain-moorings laid down long ago for Dutch men-of-war and it took her little time to cast them off and spread her topsails to the moderate westerly breeze. She made her cautious way through the merchant shipping, some of it wonderfully stupid, and as six bells in the forenoon watch struck she cleared the harbour.

'Now that is the kind of visitor I really like,' said Jack, joining Stephen in the cabin. 'A man who knows just when to come and just when to go. They are wonderfully rare. We will drink a bottle of Latour to his health.' He took off his massive gold-laced coat and tossed it on to the back of a chair: it slipped off as the Diane heeled to the thrust of her topgallantsails, and Killick, appearing as though from a mouse-hole, snatched it up and carried it away muttering 'fling it about like it was old rags - best Gloucester broadcloth - brushed all over again - toil, toil, toil.'

'You look worn, brother,' said Stephen.

'To tell you the truth,' said Jack with a smile, 'I am rather worn. Wooding and watering at top speed is a wearing occupation, particularly when the hands are all so eager for liberty, to kick up Bob's a-dying on shore after so many months at sea. We did lose ten, not having time to comb though all the bawdy-houses or the backsides of godowns. Still, that does allow us to shift hammocks forward to make room for all these new servants - preposterous numbers of servants. And then again I believe we can look forward to less anxious sailing now. We are directly in the path of the Indiamen bound for Canton until we have to steer east a little south of the Line, and although the waters are dangerous, I have Muffitt's very careful charts as well as his directions. And Muffitt, you know, made the voyage more often than any other man in the Company's service: a better hydrographer, in my opinion, than Horsburgh or even Dalrymple.'

Jack Aubrey, however, was reckoning without his guests. The three necessary properties, designed to give the mission greater weight or at least greater bulk, were called Johnstone, Crabbe and Loder, a judge and two members of the council, who had reached their present rank by outliving and outsitting all competitors; and when the Diane, having made her way through the close-clustered Thousand Islands and having crossed the notorious Tulang shoal with three fathoms to spare, was approaching the Banka Strait, Johnstone met Stephen on the half-deck, the one coming, the other going. Stephen had never known a judge he liked: those few he had met or seen in court had been self-important prating men, unequal to their great authority; and Johnstone was a particularly unfortunate example. After a few insipid remarks he said, 'I too am very fond of music; nobody loves a tune better than I do. But I always say enough is as good as a feast; do you not agree? And I am one of those curious people that are no good unless they have a good night's sleep. I am sure the Captain does not know how permeable the cabin walls are, permeable to sound, I mean; but I hope I may rely upon you to be good enough to drop a hint, just a very gentle diplomatic hint.'

'As to your position that enough is as good as a feast, Judge, allow me to point out that it is contrary to the views of all good men from the earliest recorded times, said Stephen. Think of the feasts in Paralipomenon, in Homer, in Virgil they were neither prepared by fools nor eaten by them As for the rest, it is clear that you cannot know that I am Captain Aubrey's guest, or you would never have supposed that I could give him hints on how he should behave.'

Johnstone flushed with anger, said, 'Then I shall do it myself,' and turned away.

He did not do so at dinner, though he was obviously nerving himself for it and although his friends kept looking at him, but the news reached Jack that evening, when the frigate was threading the strait between Banka and Sumatra, less than ten miles broad in places. The breeze was awkward, coming now from one shore, now from the other, and although the spectacle of forests on either hand, separated by a stretch of sky-blue sea, was agreeable for the passengers - Stephen, in the maintop with a telescope, was very nearly sure he had seen a Sumatran rhinoceros - the continual tacking, the continual cry of the leadsman in the chains, sometimes calling less than five fathoms, and the continual possibility of uncharted shoals made it an active and uneasy passage for the seamen. At one point Jack hurried below to check a warning in Muffitt's papers, and while he was doing so he heard Killick in the farther cabin giving Bonden a lively description of Those Old Buggers and the way they carried on about the music. Apart from calling 'Avast, there,' he took no notice, being too deeply concerned with his rocks, but it had sunk into the depths of his mind and it rose up again after quarters, when the cabins had just been reassembled and his violin-case came up from the orlop. 'Killick,' he called. 'Go and see if His Excellency is at leisure for a visit.'

His Excellency was, and Jack went round at once. 'My dear Mr Fox,' he cried, 'I am so sorry. I had no idea we made such a din.'

'Eh?' said Fox, looking startled. 'Oh, the music, you mean. Please do not feel the least concern. It is true I have no ear for music, no appreciation at all, but I cope with the situation perfectly well with little balls of wax: all I hear through them is a kind of general hum, which I find rather agreeable than otherwise - soporific.'

'I cannot tell you how relieved I am. But your companions....'

'I do hope they have not been making a fuss, after all your kindness in arranging their quarters and their stores. They have little sense of what is fitting: they have none of them travelled in a man-of-war, only in Company's ships, where of course they are important people. I try to keep them in order, but they do not seem capable of understanding. One of them sent for Maturin this morning.... Has the ship stopped?'

'Yes. We have anchored for the night. I dare not go through the strait in the darkness, not carrying Caesar, or at least Caesar's representative, and all his fortunes.'

Jack Aubrey rarely turned a compliment, but Fox's unaffected, generous response really pleased him, the more so as it was unexpected. In fact he would not have dared go through the strait in any circumstances. It was a slow and anxious navigation, with strong, varying currents to add to the difficulty. The Old Buggers remained perfectly indifferent to all this, however: they might have been travelling in a coach on a well-traced road. They none of them ever tackled Jack directly, but they made Fielding's life quite unhappy. Fleming was reported to him for having prevented Loder from talking to the quartermaster at the con: he was told that it was extremely inconvenient to have their baggage struck down into the hold every evening, and that last time it happened Crabbe's pencil-case and a valuable fan had not been put back in the right place - it was at least half an hour before he could find them: and every evening in the strait, when the ship lay at anchor, Jack turned the hands up to sing and dance on the forecastle by way of a break after the arduous day, which was another cause for complaint. But the most usual grievance had to do with their servants, who were obliged to wait their turn at the galley and who were treated with coarse jocularity, even with obscene gestures and expressions

In any case Jack was far out of their reach He and the master spent much of their time in the foretop with azimuth compass and telescope at hand and a midshipman to hold their papers flat. They saw, noted and dealt with a number of hazards, and as the frigate was crossing the shoal that made leaving the strait so dangerous if the passage were missed - as she was in fact entering the South China Sea - they saw another peculiar to these waters. From an island to windward, laid down as Kungit by Horsburgh and Fungit by Muffit, came two large Malay proas. They had outriggers, and with the wind on their beam they came up very fast: presently it could be seen that their long slim hulls were crowded with men, surprising numbers of men even for such an enterprise.