Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

'Yes,' said Jack. 'I was up with him all last night, and should be this night were it not for the Sultan's visit tomorrow. Such an endearing little pale golden body as he peeps out - he is easily my favourite. But I shall still have him almost all night, once the Sultan is done with.'

'Shall you, though?' said Stephen, looking at his friend's pleased, well-fed face, rather more florid than usual from the Sultan's wine; and after a pause, 'Brother, can we be talking of the same thing?'

'I should hope so,' said Jack, smiling. 'Jupiter is in opposition, you know. Nobody could have missed his splendour.'

'No, indeed: a very glorious sight. And Ganymede is connected with him, I collect?'

'Of course he is - the prettiest of the satellites. What a fellow you are, Stephen.'

'How well named. But I meant another Ganymede, the Sultan's cup-bearer. Did you notice him?'

'Well, yes, I did. I said to myself, Why, damn my eyes, there is a girl. But then I remembered that there would be no girls at a feast like that, so I returned to my excellent haunch of venison, no bigger than a hare's, but uncommon well-tasting. Why do you call him Ganymede?'

'Ganymede was Jupiter's cup-bearer; and I believe their connexion, their relations, their friendship, would now be frowned upon. But I use the name loosely, as it is so often used: I mean no reflexion upon the Sultan.'

Chapter 7

Forgive me for bursting in on you at this time of day,' said Stephen, 'but I am in sad need of the Malay for mercury sublimate, strontium nitride and antimony.'

'Pedok and datang for the first and last,' said van Buren, 'but I am afraid strontium is not yet known in these parts. Has it any therapeutic value?'

'None that I know of. Fireworks are what I have in mind, and it gives a noble red.'

'As for that, there are no less than three Chinese cracker makers on the other side of the river, and they have the whole spectrum at their command. Lao Tung is said to be the best. I would come with you, but as I said in my note I am away at noon, and I must finish this creature before I go.'

'Of course. Lao Tung: many thanks indeed. We are to receive the Sultan this evening, on the occasion of Princess Sophia's birthday, and it occurred to me that a brilliant royal salute in her honour would not only give pleasure but would emphasize the mission's loyalty as opposed to Ledward's open treason and make an evident contrast between on the one hand a set of men who deserted first their king and then their republic and who now support a vile usurper and on the other a set who have consistently supported the hereditary principle, which must surely appeal to a ruler by divine right. Fox agrees. By the way, am I right in supposing that His Highness is a paederast?'

'Oh yes. Did I not mention it? Perhaps I never thought of anything so obvious: such things are as usual here as they were in Athens. The present favourite is one Abdul - I have rarely seen a man so besotted.'

'He is a pretty youth, sure. But that to one side: I had a most satisfactory meeting with the Pondicherry clerk in the night.'

'Duplessis' Pondicherry clerk?'

'Just so: Lesueur is his name. Wu Han's young man, to whom he is deeply in debt, brought him in the darkness, and we soon came to an agreement. He has an importing and exporting house in Pondicherry, where his family still lives, and in exchange for our good word with the Company, our protection for the future and a certain amount of present money he undertook to give me what information he could. He sent these this morning. They are the rough draught of Duplessis' official journal, which Lesueur writes out fair.'

Van Buren put down his scalpel, wiped his hands and took the sheaf of paper. He read intently, and after a page or two he said, 'I see that our contact is looked upon as purely scientific.'

'Yes. Fox wanted to come and see you to talk about the Buddhist temple at Kumai, but I pointed out that a visit by the envoy might compromise the position. Aubrey too was anxious to be introduced... which reminds me, I have an appointment with him for twenty minutes after nine o'clock,' said Stephen, looking at his watch. 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it is quarter to ten. He is a raging lion if he is kept waiting even as little as half an hour. I wish you both a very good journey - God bless. I will show you the papers again - forgive me. Oh dear, oh dear.'

Jack, with the purser, the purser's steward, Killick and Bonden were at Liu Liang's at Stephen's recommendation, laying in stores for the Diane's reception that evening, served by Liu Liang himself. They had waited for Stephen eleven minutes at the landing-place and had then made their way to Liu Liang's by a route that led them through the hog-market, escorted by a cloud of ribald children, and they greeted him with a reserved severity, pursed lips and significant looks at their watches, or in default of watches, at a Chinese clepsydra by the dried medicinal serpents. Liu Liang, however, was as welcoming as could be, and once the stores were laid in, he sent an assistant to show the way to the firework-maker.

Jack and Stephen made the journey by themselves, Mr Blyth and the others returning to the ship. They crossed the bridge and followed the guide up a street leading away from the river, shops on one side, and open drains with many small black nimble pigs in the middle, the long wall of the French envoy's compound on the other; and a hundred yards ahead they saw Wray and Ledward walking arm in arm. As soon as he saw them Wray let go; he darted across the street, leaping the gutter and hurrying blindly into a clothes shop. Ledward walked on, his face set and tense. Stephen glanced at Jack: no apparent awareness, only a remote gravity. Ledward deviated slightly from his course, giving the wall, and they passed.

The pedok, the datang and substances warranted to give a brilliant red and a brilliant blue were weighed out and packed in small cotton bags, each labelled with a coloured twist. There was little conversation on the way down to the sea, but as they walked out along the crater-rim - charmingly fresh after the close, damp and very smelly heat of Prabang - Stephen said, 'What do you feel about those two?'

'Only disgust.'

'You would not kick Ledward, for example?'

'No. Would you?'

Stephen paused and said, 'Kick him? No.... on reflection, no.' Some minutes of silent walking on the soft crumbled lava and then as they passed the stunted tree by which he had met Lesueur, the Pondicherry clerk, he said, 'Were there a white stone anywhere at hand, I should use it to mark this day. I brought off what may prove a useful stroke, in my own line.'

'I am heartily glad of it,' said Jack; and stopping to fill his powerful lungs he put up one hand as a speaking-trumpet and hailed 'Diane, ahoy!' Watching the boat put off he added, 'No white stones - all as black as your hat - but at least we can break out a case of Hermitage: I am sure it will not mind the heat.'

Stephen, his heart and belly aglow with the Hermitage, spent the later afternoon with Mr White the gunner in the forward magazine and the filling-room, fairly cool below the water-line, measuring, weighing, and trundling the deadly little barrels to and fro.

'I do assure you, Master Gunner,' he kept repeating, 'it can do your guns no harm. The Captain has used the same mixture before, broadside after broadside - I saw it with my own eyes - from the stock of a pyrotechnician deceased, and sure it did his guns no harm. Besides, it is only for the salute. We shoot at the targets with your best long-distance red largegrain.'

'Well, I don't know, I'm sure,' said Mr White once more, privately conveying a little antimony out of the scales, 'but if chemicals, Chinese chemicals! don't honeycomb a gun, what does? And a gun honeycombed with chemicals - Chinese chemicals at that! - is liable to burst.'