Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

The dinner consisted almost entirely of fish, many sorts of fish, all fresh, all remarkably good, accompanied by rice and luke-warm bottled ale. But it might have been boiled beef or bread-and-butter pudding for all the notice Fox and his companions took of it. Like their chief, the Old Buggers were beside themselves with flow of spirits and elation; but unlike him they were extremely noisy and loquacious. At the palace their long training had kept them silent, but now they let themselves go; this was the sort of victory they thoroughly understood, and they celebrated it in their own way, with a flood of words, words that grew louder and louder as the meal progressed, voices often talking together. An odd, unbuttoned meal even in its material aspects, with servants taking things away to pack them - waiting in working clothes - disappearing themselves, leaving the room strangely bare, rather as if they had been bailiff's men.

'Let us have no ceremony, gentlemen,' Fox had said on walking into the dining-room, and they had sat down as they pleased: the officials were clustered round Fox at the head of the table, the sailors at the foot, with Jack and Stephen at the far end. Four aside, Fox at the head, Welby, rather lost, at the bottom. No ceremony: the civilians took off their coats, loosened their cravats and breeches. They talked openly about the events of the last few days, and Loder was particularly eloquent on the subject of the subtlety of their campaign, the way the information had been conveyed to Hafsa, the success after several failures; their talk became freer still, with a cross-fire of wit about sodomy. Both Jack and Stephen glanced at Fox as the noise increased, but he merely looked down at his colleagues on either side with an amused condescension. It was only when Johnstone cried 'And all the French are buggered too' that he said, 'That will do, Judge,' in an authoritative tone, unheard before.

Since discretion had flown out of the window, Stephen thought that he too would leave. It was deeply painful to hear all the fundamental rules of intelligence, all the rules of even common good sense disregarded; and the details of this particular intelligence coup, as it might be called, were more painful still. In any case he was determined to take a proper leave of the van Burens and his Chinese friends, whether the ship sailed that day or not: there was no urgency whatsoever about the treaty - the situation had already been dealt with entirely. While he was waiting for the roar of laughter that would cover his retreat he listened to the officials' conversation: their flattery had now become so gross that he wondered how a man of Fox's undoubted parts could swallow it; but the envoy smiled on, only shaking his head gently from time to time. The expected flash came ('peppering for adultery in England would lead to a run on the commodity: a fortune might be made by cornering the market') followed by the expected roar, and with a nod to Jack he slipped out. He passed Loder pissing on the verandah, gave his scarlet robe to one of the Marines on guard and walked off. 'But I am glad, right glad,' he said, 'that Jack knows just how the poor brutes were betrayed, and by whom.' He walked rapidly on, passing a herd of buffaloes, and then he said, 'Such mediocrity at such a level - a judge, members of the legislative council - they order these things better in France.' But honesty made him pause, and he went on 'They would order these things better in an independent Ireland, however.'

Jack was obliged to stay, though he did not much care for his company nor for the note in Fox's voice when he called down the table, 'Tell me, Aubrey, just when does the tide turn this afternoon? I wish there to be no time lost getting this document home: no time lost or dawdled away.' The matter was offensive; the manner more so; and both Richardson and Elliott looked extremely nervous. Captain Aubrey was not the most long-suffering of men.

Yet the feast was winding to its end at last, with many a hoot and jibe about the penniless Frenchmen's plight. 'Though now I come to think of it,' said Crabbe, 'since Duplessis does not have to produce his subsidy, he may be able to pay his way home.'

'If you have no remark more intelligent than that, Crabbe, you had better keep your mouth shut,' said Fox. 'Going home in disgrace is far worse than starving here.'

'His Excellency is quite right,' said Johnstone. 'Far worse.' 'Beg pardon, sir,' said Crabbe, sinking his face into his beer.

A truly glorious dessert of fruit on three battered tin trays covered this awkward moment: and then at last came the decanters, those fingerposts towards an eventual release. They drank the King with a certain return of gravity; and then Fox, taking the silk-bound treaty from Ahmed's reverential hands, said, 'I drink to the fruit of our joint efforts: I drink to what I have signed in His Majesty's name.'

'Huzzay! Hear him, hear him!' cried the suite, a confusion of voices in which the sailors joined with a decent zeal.

'What I drink to,' cried Loder, standing up and leering at Fox, 'is to the Bath. The Most Honourable Order of the Bath.'

'Huzzay, huzzay! Hear him! Bottoms up!' cried the others, and while Fox looked down in smiling modesty they drank the sentiment.

They huzzayed their way on to knighthood with three times three; and after that they drank 'Baronetcy, a governorship and five thousand a year on the Civil List.'

Jack looked at Elliott, saw that he was pallid-drunk, caught Richardson's eye instead, rose and said, 'You will excuse us now, Excellency. We must go and prepare your way. Mr Richardson will accompany you to the barge in forty-five minutes. Mr Welby, the new pinnace will come for you and your men in half an hour.'

He took the bewildered Elliott by the arm and guided him out. Seymour, at the landing-place, reported the departure of the big proa and some smaller boats full of servants. Jack told him what to expect, suggested that Bonden should spread sailcloth over the sternsheet cushions, and walked Elliott off round the crater-rim, hailing the ship from his usual point.

'Mr Fielding,' he said, looking into the crowded waist, 'are all the mission's servants aboard?'

'All aboard, sir; and the last baggage-boat will shove off in a minute or so.'

'I am delighted to hear it. The new pinnace for the Marines right away, if you please; then I believe we may unmoor and ride at single anchor - indeed, creep to a kedge, with such quiet water and so little breeze. The envoy and his people should leave the hard in half an hour. Salute, of course, and everything man-of-war fashion. Pray let me know when they put off. I hope to sail with the first of the ebb. I trust to God the Doctor has not wandered off looking for centipedes,' he added in a lower voice, going below.

He took off his coat and lay on his cot. Killick peered at him through a crack in the door and shook his head sympathetically. The Diane was unmooring, and her captain listened to the familiar sequence, the click of the capstan-pawls, the cries of 'Light along the messenger, there', 'Heave and in sight' and the rest, but his mind was elsewhere. In most men, in perhaps all he had ever known, victory made them benign, expansive, affable, generous. Fox had been arrogant and hostile. He had also betrayed a meanness that must always have been subjacent, since its appearance caused no surprise: there had been and there would be no feast for the young gentlemen, the warrant officers, the foremast hands, no drinks, no address, telling the good news and acknowledging their part in the successful voyage. To be sure, it was not a very pretty victory: it scarcely called for the ringing of church bells and bonfires in the street. He regretted his ale; he regretted his port still more; yet even so he dropped off for some minutes and when Reade came with 'Mr Fielding's compliments and duty, sir, and the barge has put off: he says the breeze and high water are all you could wish,' he felt surprisingly fresh.