Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

'To be sure,' said Stephen, thinking of their work on the tapir, now a mere skeleton, 'I was very busy last night. But you too would walk far up the mountain-side without gasping if you did not eat so much. You were much better, physically, when you were poor and wretched. What do you weigh now?'

'Never mind.'

'At least another stone and a half, perhaps two stone, God be with us. You fellows of an obese and sanguine habit are always on the verge of an apoplexy, particularly in this climate. Will you not omit suppers, at least? Suppers have killed more than Avicenna ever cured.'

'The reason I came sweating up this infernal hill,' said Jack, 'was to tell you that Fox summons us both to a conference this evening. The Sultan returns tomorrow night, only a week after his appointed time, and we are to have our audience the day after.'

On the way down he told Stephen how the ship was faring, and how the stores laid in at Anjer, especially the great quantities of Manila cordage, were now being put to use, together with a detailed, perhaps a little too detailed, account of the restowing of the hold to bring her slightly by the stern. 'Just half a strake or so, you understand, nothing flash or outlandish or showing away. It pleased me very much indeed. But,' shaking his head and looking melancholy, 'there was something else that did not please me nearly so well. Having advised with Fox, I called all hands aft and told them that we were here to settle a treaty between the King and the Sultan, and that the French were here too for the same purpose: that the French foremast jacks had gone ashore in droves and had given great offence by getting drunk, fighting, offering to kiss honest young women, and touching their bare bosoms, and that they and their ship had been packed off to Malaria Creek. So, said I, the Dianes were not going to be given liberty except on promise of good behaviour, and even then only in small numbers at a time and with very little pay advanced. It was for their country's good, I said, only for their country's good. And I had thought of ending with God save the King or Three cheers for the King; but somehow by the time I had finished it did not seem quite suitable. A sullen, dogged set, upon my word: nothing but sour looks and wry faces. Even with Killick and Bonden it is nothing but Yes, sir or No, sir - never a smile. But then I am no orator. The Surprises might have worn it without oratory, because they know me; but not these swabs. They want to be ashore tumbling a wench and be damned to their country's good.'

'It is after all a very powerful instinct, perhaps the strongest of them all... I know your objections to having women aboard, but in this case, providing young Reade and Harper and perhaps Fleming were sent on shore, I cannot see that any very grave moral harm is likely to ensue.'

'Would you look after them?'

'I would not. But of Fox I have no doubt at all. He would sell his soul for this treaty, or tend to the needs of a whole orphanage.'

'I shall ask him.'

'Good evening, gentlemen,' said Fox. 'How kind of you to come. May I offer you some East India ale? It has been hanging down the well in a basket, and it is almost cold.' He poured it out and went on, 'As you know, we are to have our audience of the Sultan the day after tomorrow, and as it is possible that I may be called upon to address his council immediately after the formal proceedings, I should be grateful for any observations that may strengthen our case. You know the position. The French offer a subsidy, guns, ammunition and skilled ship-builders: we offer a subsidy, I hope larger than the French, subsequent protection and some trading concessions, admittedly of no great importance; and there is always the implicit threat of what we might do after the war is over. The trouble is that one single Indiaman taken would be exceedingly damaging to us and more immediately profitable than any subsidy I am empowered to offer: and in these parts the outcome of the war seems by no means as certain as I could wish.'

'Well, sir,' said Jack, 'as far as these ships are concerned - and this is the only matter on which I am qualified to speak - you could point out that although the Malays are capital hands at building proas and smallcraft - I have indeed ordered a new pinnace - they have not the slightest notion of what we call a man-of-war, a real ship capable of bearing the weight of a deck of guns and the strain of firing them. And although the French shipwrights may understand their trade, they must necessarily be used to working oak and elm; and they for their part would not have the slightest notion of these East Indies woods. Then you might tell them that although a proa can be run up in a week or so, a ship, a square-rigged ship, is quite another thing. In the first place it needs a proper yard, a dock, a slip; then, to take the example of a seventy-four, the hull alone needs the seasoned timber - the seasoned timber, mind - of some two thousand trees of about two ton apiece, with forty-seven shipwrights working a twelvemonth. Even a frigate like ours calls for twenty-seven skilled hands to build her in a year. And when the ship is built at last the men have to be taught to manage an unfamiliar rig and to handle the guns so that they are more dangerous to the enemy than to themselves - no easy task. The whole thing seems to me a scheme concocted in an office by a parcel of landsmen, if it is looked upon as one that will give quick returns.'

'Those are most valuable figures,' said Fox, writing them down. 'Thank you very much indeed. But Paris may also have had in mind the potential threat that would compel us to weaken our forces elsewhere. A potential threat often has effects far beyond... but I am not to be teaching you about strategy or tactics,' he said with a smile. 'Doctor, can you add a shot to my locker?'

'I have little definite to say at present and I do not propose to trouble you with surmises,' said Stephen. 'But I will observe that at least some of the shipwrights are impressed Spaniards, likely to run away to the Philippines as soon as ever they can; that at least some of the proposed French guns are said to be honey-combed: while at least some of the powder suffered extremely from wet during the voyage and from the gunner's negligence in omitting to invert the barrels in due sequence. That is all I have to report; but if I might be allowed a suggestion I should say that by way of setting off Ledward's undoubted advantage in already having met the Sultan - having hunted with him and perhaps prepossessed him in his favour- it might be useful to invite His Highness to visit the ship the very next day and see the great guns fired. A thundering discharge of whole broadsides and the visible destruction of floating targets would both divert him and give him some notion of our capabilities.'

'Yes, indeed. I shall certainly propose it to the Vizier at once: a very good idea in every way.' He poured out more ale, already flat and tepid, and said, 'Now, unless anything else occurs to either of you, let me say something about our clothes for the audience: splendour is everything on these occasions, and I have half the Chinese tailors in Prabang working on garments for our attendants. The officers are perfectly correct in their full dress and my suite and I are properly provided, while the Marines, of course, could not do better. But I was wondering, Captain, whether your bargemen might not escort you, carefully turned out, together with your officers and midshipmen of course. And then my dear Maturin, what about you? A black coat, even a very good black coat, would hardly answer the purpose here.'

'If it is splendour that is required, and if cloth and craftsmen are to be had, I shall go in my robes as a doctor of medicine, with scarlet gown and scarlet hood.'

And it was in a scarlet, or at least a Chinese red, gown and hood that he paced through the eastern gateway of the palace at Jack's side: a fairly rapid pace, because rain, furious tropical rain, was threatening, and the envoy had only one plumed hat. As fast as dignity allowed the mission and all belonging to it advanced across the open space before the moat and the inner wall, forty feet high and twelve thick, built by the Sultan's Javanese ancestors. They made a brave show, headed by the envoy on a state horse in silver-studded crimson harness led by grooms wearing sarongs and turbans made of cloth of gold; and the crew of the Diane's barge in new white broad-brimmed sennit hats with ribbons, brass-buttoned blue jackets, snowy duck trousers, black shoes with genteel bows, and serviceable cutlasses by their sides were particularly remarked. On through another courtyard with the Sultan's men blowing trumpets and beating drums, and as the first warm heavy drops splashed down, into the palace.