Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

'Our new allies are little help, I collect?'

'Not at sea. The Swedes and the Russians may be very good soldiers, but it is the sea that decides the issue here. Besides, at this juncture you can scarcely call Bernadotte an ally at all. As you know, he is a slippery customer, a fellow that could give Judas a hint or two; and at present his chief aim is to take our subsidies in order to lay hold of the unoffending Norway. In any case the Swedes have little in the way of a working navy, nor have the Russians. That is to say, they possess some ships, but they do not know how to manage them. Ever since the English officers withdrew when those countries became our enemies, they have been quite incapable of handling them: and in addition to that, they are desperately slow and stupid. There was a Russian admiral at the meeting, and he suggested that we should starve them out. It was represented to him that they had six months' victuals in the place. Starve them out with a close blockade, says he again, in his execrable French. Starve them out with a six months' close blockade, when we did not possess the ships to do it and when every day is of prime importance! When a week might change the whole face of the northern war! However, not all foreigners are fools. We have a brilliant young Lithuanian, a cavalry officer seconded to us from the Swedish service, and he has provided us with a great deal of fresh intelligence that will I trust enable us to have another go, if you will allow me that low expression, another go with a clearer view of the situation.'

'Be so kind as to outline your clearer view.'

'It is very curious. In the last weeks there have been violent changes, caused by differences between the groups on the island. I believe the details are in that yellow folder beside you, if you will be so good. Yes,' he said, putting on his spectacles, 'here they are. I remember the last time you asked me about these groups, these organizations, I could not tell you; but there they are - now I have them. The Catalan force on the island was made up of three main bodies, the Lliga, the Confederacio, and the Germandat.' Stephen nodded: he knew them well. 'The Lliga, the Confederacio, and the Germandat - you will forgive my pronunciation, Maturin - each under its own leader, and they under the command of a French colonel of artillery. This colonel was called away to the siege of Riga, and in the confusion of events he was not immediately replaced: great dissensions broke out on the island, and the leader of the most powerful group took advantage of the colonel's absence to assume command and to send the officers who disagreed with him to the mainland, where they have been drafted into the Spanish Legion. He now refuses to place himself under the orders of the colonel's replacement, a Major Lesueur, on the grounds of Lesueur's inferior rank and of some alleged irregularity in his appointment by Macdonald. He has written to General Oudinot, stating that as a lieutenant-colonel - I fancy he promoted himself - he would rather die than submit to the affront: we have his letter.'

'Pray, Sir Joseph, what is the name of the now dominant group and of its commander?'

'The group is the Germandat,' said Sir Joseph, passing the letter, 'and you will make out his name better from the signature than from my attempt at pronouncing it; he writes like a cat, in any case.'

Ramon d'Ullastret i Casademon. In some degree Stephen had expected it: the word Germandat had already raised his heart, and perhaps a half-conscious sight of the handwriting had prepared him; but even so he stared at that familiar yet fantastic signature, his godfather's signature, for a long moment before it became real to him, before phantasm and reality could coincide.

'You know the gentleman?' asked Blaine.

It would have been strange if Stephen had not known him. The relationship was taken very seriously in the Catalonia of his childhood and he had spent many, many days in his godfather's house. En Ramon was a hero to him then: a most fervent patriot, one who traced his descent, in the female line, from Wilfred the Shaggy and who refused to speak Spanish unless he was, as he put it, abroad, that is to say in Aragon or Castile; a passionate hunter as much at home on the mountain or in the forest as any other predator, and one to whom the boy Stephen owed his first wolf, his first bear, his first imperial eagle's nest, to say nothing of the desman and the genet; an accomplished horseman; an untiring orator. The heroic light faded somewhat as Stephen advanced in years: En Ramon's pride was seen to contain a fair proportion of vanity; to a more objective eye his eager desire for pre-eminence, to lead rather than to be led, showed as something of a hindrance to the cause of Catalan autonomy; and a truer judgment detected more than a little headstrong foolishness in his godfather. But for all that Stephen retained a lively affection for him; his harmless delight in finery, his stickling for precedence, and even his more serious flaws did not amount to a great deal when they were compared with his courage, his delicate sense of honour, his generosity, and his unvarying kindness to his godson. Stephen could see him, pacing up and down the cold hall at Ullastret, his long knight of Malta's cloak sweeping from side to side as he declaimed a poem about the siege of Barcelona in his grandfather's time, when the Catalans and the English under Lord Peterborough routed the Spaniards, a poem which might have been more impressive, though it would certainly have been less touching, if the often-repeated Peterborough had not so consistently rhymed with mugger. 'I know him,' he said with a smile. 'How is his garrison usually supplied?'

'Sometimes from Danzig, more often from farther down, by Danish vessels. We took one of them very recently - the day the dispatches were sent - but its only cargo was wine and tobacco; I am afraid they are in no need of munitions or essential food. Their store-houses are crammed with biscuit and salt provisions, and they have all the fresh water they could want. At a pinch they could hold out well over six months.'

'Wine and tobacco may not be essential,' observed Stephen, 'but they are a wonderful comfort to the Mediterranean mind. Now this, I take it, is a plan of the fortification itself?'

'Just so. And these are the emplacements. We owe the maps to the young Lithuanian I mentioned just now, a very active fellow and one of the most remarkable linguists I have met. He speaks all the Baltic languages, and although he admits that his Esthonian and Finnish leave something to be desired, his English is well-nigh perfect, and so as far as I can judge is his French. He is an engaging creature and I am sure you would find him useful: that is to say, if you will consent to go, after this inauspicious beginning. It is true that the undertaking is by no means as straightforward as I had supposed.'

'Oh, clearly I must go,' said Stephen. 'There can be no question of that. Indeed, I have already taken the liberty of mentioning this possibility to my friend Aubrey: that is why I was so late - I stopped at his house for the purpose. I had much rather sail with him; I had much rather have him in the background than any stranger. He is a man of great experience, which as you so rightly observed is essential for an operation of this kind, a Ulysses by sea, whatever he may be by land; and he is at present both willing and able to go with me.'

'I am sure we are very much obliged to you, dear Maturin,' said Sir Joseph, shaking his hand. 'Very much obliged indeed. As for Aubrey, he would be ideal, always providing we can get round the difficulties of rank; sea-officers, you know, are wonderfully tenacious of their prerogatives, and the vessel we had in mind was only a sloop - but that is a mere detail. I am sure it can be dealt with.'

'Tell me,' said Stephen, after a silence, 'did Ponsich impose any conditions when he agreed to go to Grimsholm?'