Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

While Jack was considering this he heard the rattle of stones on the path above, and a man with a bong rod went down past him. The man cabled out in Malay as he went by and Jack replied with an amicable hoot that seemed to satisfy both this fisherman and the one who followed him a little later; but a third man stopped and looked back. Jack saw that although he was as brown as an islander he was in fact a European, a Frenchman, no doubt.

'Captain Aubrey, sir, I believe?' he said, smiling.

'Yes, sir,' said Jack.

'You will not remember me, sir, but my name is Dumesnib, and I had the honour of being presented to you aboard the Desaix. My uncle Guillaume Christy-Pabli� commanded her.'

'Pierrot!' cried Jack, his look of cold reserve changing to open pleasure as he recognized the little fat midshipman in the bong-legged lieutenant. 'How very glad I am to see you. Come and sit down. How is your dear uncle?'

The dear uncle, in a ship of the line, had captured Jack and his first command, the Sophie, a small brig-rigged sloop, in the Mediterranean, as long ago as 1801; he had treated his prisoner very handsomely and they had become friends, a friendship ripening all the more easily since Christy-Palli� had English cousins and spoke their language well. His nephew Pierre had spent the peace at school in Bath, and he spoke it even better. They exchanged news of all their former shipmates - Uncle Guillaume was now an admiral (which Jack knew very well) but he was pining at an office desk in Paris - and it was clear that Christy-Pabbiere had followed Jack's career as closely as Jack had followed his. Dumesnil spoke, without the least animosity, of the dismay and admiration with which they had both received the news of Jack's cutting out the Diane, and went on, 'I saw you of course at the Sultan's audience, and I have seen you once or twice when I went to look at the poor Diane from Prabang: of course it would have been improper to make any gesture, but I did hope you might repay the compliment and come to look at the poor Corn�e. I know some of your people have done so, and from just this very place.'

'To be sure, it does give a most capital view,' said Jack, and there was a significant pause.

'Well, sir,' said Dumesnil, somewhat embarrassed, 'I don't know whether you have ever careened a ship with neither wharf nor hulk?'

'Never. That is to say never anything bigger than a sloop. Frightful things might happen - masts, futtocks .

'Yes, sir. And frightful things have happened. I do not mean the slightest criticism of my captain or my shipmates - these things were more in the line of acts of God - but I may say that the ship cannot possibly float before next spring tide, is very likely not to float until the spring-tide after that, and in fact may not float until next year. I tell you this in the hope that you will not attempt cutting her out, so that we knock one another on the head to no good purpose: two line-of-battle ships anchored in the bay and heaving till their cables and their capstans broke could not bring her off that infernal bank. You might as well try to cut out the Cordouan bight.'

Dumesnil was no more specific about the 'frightful things' than this, though Jack suspected a hopelessly wrung mainmast and several sprung butts at the least, but he did go on to speak of other miseries: the growing hostility of the people of Ambelan; the desertion, in two different Philippine vessels, of most of the Spanish craftsmen and many foremast hands; and of the frigate's extreme poverty: for weeks they had been living, cabin, gunroom and all, on ancient ship's provisions, because the money had been mismanaged and the purser could scarcely afford even the cheapest kind of rice. Credit had always been in indifferent health, and now it was stone dead; no bills on Paris could be attempted to be discounted with the Chinese merchants, even at ninety per cent. 'Fortunately,' he said, laughing, 'there are always these beautiful fish, the padangs. They cruise along in twos and threes just behind the break of the wave when the tide is making, and they take a feather or a shaped piece of bacon-rind, just like the bass at home. See how they are pulling them out!'

So they were. Four or five silver flashes along the line of rocks: and it was nearly high water.

'Pierrot, my dear fellow,' said Jack, standing up, 'you must run down, or you will lose your tide, and I cannot say worse to a sailor. I will send you over a little present by one of our Malays; but don't forget to sign the chit so that I know you have had it. There are a lot of goddam thieves about in these islands, you know.'

'Oh sir, that is extremely kind of you, but I cannot take anything from an officer who is technically an enemy. And I never meant to speak of our poverty in any sense of...

'Quelle connerie, as your uncle would say. I didn't accept anything from him, did I? Oh no. By no means. Not at all. Only fifty guineas and a whole series of the best dinners I have ever ate. It was the same with the Americans when they took us: Bainbridge of the Constitution fairly loaded me with dollars. Don't be an ass, Pierrot. Send me word if you can think of a discreet neutral place where we can meet, or failing that, let me hear from you the minute peace is signed. Your uncle knows my address. God bless you, now.'

'Well, Stephen,' he said, 'there you are, back from your Godforsaken steps and all alive, I am happy to see. What buck to find you aboard. Have you abandoned your bawdy-house? Have the girls all proved poxed? Or have you turned evangelical? Ha, ha, ha, ha!' He sat down, wheezing and wiping his eyes. Stephen waited until he had had his laugh out, no small matter, since mirth in Jack Aubrey fed upon what it laughed at.

'What a rattle you are, to be sure,' he said at last.

'Forgive me, Stephen, but there is something so infinitely comic in the idea of you being a Methody, haranguing the girls, handing out tracts.... Oh...'

'Control yourself, sir. For shame.'

'Well. If I must. Killick! Killick, there.'

'Which I'm a-coming, ain't I?' - this from a certain distance; and as the cabin door opened, 'This is the best I can do, sir. Lemon barley-water made of rice, and boo-warm at that; but at least the lemon is shaddocks, which is close on.'

'Bless you, Killick. That last three hours' pull in a clock calm was thirsty work.' He engulfed a couple of pints, broke into an instant sweat, and said, 'I had such a pleasant encounter yesterday evening. Do you remember when Christy-Palliere in the Desaix captured us in the year one?'

'Faith, I shall not easily forget it.'

'And do you remember his nephew, a little round fat-faced boy cabled Pierrot?'

'I do not.'

'No. You were with their surgeon all the time, an ill-looking yellow-faced - that is to say a very learned man, I am sure. Anyhow, there he was, young Pierrot, all those years ago; and there he was again yesterday, a long thin lieutenant, much the same in essence - amazing good English, too. We talked for a great while, and he told me not to try cutting out his ship, because she could not swim until the spring-tide after next, if then. They have heaved her down, you know, and what has happened to her futtocks and top-timbers.... however, since the spring-tide after next coincides with our second rendezvous with Surprise - the first is already past - that knocks my idea of waiting for her in the offing on the head. Though I do not suppose Fox will have finished his negotiations even by then, unless he and the Sultan spread more canvas: in any case, it was no more than a general notion."

'As for the negotiations, my dear,' said Stephen, 'I believe you may be - how shall I put it? May be mistaken, bald by the lee. There have been some surprising developments since you sailed away. Shall we take a turn in my little boat? I will row, you being somewhat worn.'