Patrick O'Brian - The fortune of war

Dubreuil walked in, followed by the tall Pontet-Canet. Stephen recognized Dubreuil at once - he had after all watched the man in and out of the embassy at Lisbon, and from a maid's window opposite the ministry in Paris, although he was almost certain that Dubreuil knew nothing of him except by description. Dubreuil made a distant bow, which Stephen returned: Pontet-Canet asked him how he did. There were no introductions, and the Frenchmen, having received an envelope, retired.

'Did you notice that man?' asked Johnson. 'The small, unnoticeable man? You might not think so, but he is the most devilish creature. They had an agent on the Canadian border who thought it more profitable to be paid by both sides: they brought him down here, and what they did to him I will not even attempt to describe, although you are a medical man. The sight of the body, I do assure you, haunted me for weeks. They have notions I cannot possibly approve, although they may be efficacious, and it was a gross violation of our sovereignty; but in these critical times we cannot be as rigid with our French colleagues as I could wish. However, let us meet tomorrow: there are certain formalities to do with Captain Aubrey's exchange that we can deal with - I am sure he should not be worried in his present lamentable condition - and when you have slept upon it, I hope you will not object to my consulting you on a few points of purely European politics.'

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stephen was aware of Johnson's motives: they were tolerably obvious, for all love, obvious and tolerably clumsy. The man was not an artist, though the avoidance of any hint of material reward was a good stroke, and the mention of Catalonia was better still. What he did not know was just how much certainty Johnson and Dubreuil possessed. The Catalans might have been no more than a lucky shot in the dark: there had been a good many shots of one kind and another after dinner, sometimes directed towards regions utterly remote from Stephen's battlefield, such as Moscow, Prussia, and Vienna. A great deal would depend on what Johnson had learnt from Jack.

Their interview had been present to his mind through out this afternoon with Diana, sometimes strongly present, sometimes no more than a cold worrying ghost or shadow far in the background, far behind her words, and now as he hurried back to the Asclepia he turned Johnson's account of it over in his mind. A true account, he was sure, no man could have invented the golden calf nor the phantom admiral The implications of that Admiral Crichton made him feel colder still, and he increased his pace.

There you are, Stephen,' said Jack I am glad to see you Did they give you a decent dinner? We had a Lenten dish of cod and beans.

'Excellent, I believe Yes, excellent, with a capital Hermitage Diana sends you her love'

'Why, that was kind in her, I am sure indeed we are cousins, after all And now, since I know where she is, I shall send her all proper acknowledgments for her goodness in writing to Sophie. Her - that is to say, Mr Johnson came to see me this afternoon. It seems that he is a great man under government in these parts: Choate was quite impressed.'

'How did you go along with him?'

'Surprisingly well. I was pretty reserved and distant to begin with, but he explained that the whole business had fallen into the wrong hands in the first place: he had looked into the matter of the brig, the Alice B. Sawyer, and he agreed that since the positions did not coincide it was nonsense to say that Leopard had brought her to - there had been a foolish mistake somewhere in the Department and he knew the man who would put it right.'

'Did he speak of your exchange?'

'Not particularly. He seemed to take it for granted that once the mistake was put right it would go through in the normal way, and I did not press him. I gathered that he was too great a man to look after the details. No: after we had dealt with the brig we mostly talked about Nelson - he is a great admirer of Lord Nelson - and the schooner he has down in the Chesapeake, one of those fast American schooners, I take it, that can lie so close to the wind, but even more about you. He thinks the world of Doctor Maturin.'

'Does he, indeed?'

'Yes, and he said such handsome things about your birds and your learning, your Latin and Greek; and not to be behindhand I added your French like a Frenchman's, and your Spanish and Catalan too, not to mention the outlandish languages you picked up in the East.'

'Brother,' said Stephen to himself, 'you may have dished me with your kindness.'

'He lamented that he never could contrive to speak the French,' continued Jack, 'and so did I, and we puzzled for a while over a paper someone had sent him from Louisiana: without boasting, I may say that I made out more of it than he did. By the way, what does Pong mean?' writing it on a piece of paper.

'I believe it means a peacock.'

'Not a bridge?'

Stephen shook his head. 'Oh well, never mind. Let us cross that peacock when we come to it. Then he was curious to know how you came to speak the Catalan, such an out-of-the-way sort of tongue; but knowing that there were some things you had rather keep under hatches, I said to myself, "Jack," I said, "tace is the Latin for a candle," and left him none the wiser. I can be diplomatic, when I choose.'

Nothing but Jack's diplomacy by land had been wanting to complete the picture: nothing could more effectually have fixed Johnson's attention on the one point that might determine Dubreuil in his identification. Yet on the other hand, the only Frenchmen who knew about Stephen's activities in Catalonia, who knew them at first hand and who knew him by sight if not by name, could (as dear Jack would put it) tell no tales. All was not lost, by any means: he might yet remain Dr S. Anon, a mere ornithologist.

'Jack,' he said, 'I am obliged to you for your good opinion, but in principle, my dear, you might avoid applauding what you are so kind as to call my parts to strangers when we are abroad; it might lead them to think that I was intelligent - even over-intelligent In our service, on the other hand, you may say whatever you please: the more the better.'

'Lord, Stephen,' cried Jack, 'have I done wrong? I was diplomatic, as I say, as deep and mute as - why, anything you like to name'.

'No, no I merely threw it out as a general observation Tell, what news from the sea today?'

'Shannon looked into the port before breakfast, as I was telling you when you ran off, and finding President and Congress gone she sent her consort, probably Tenedos, away into the offing. Then Evans dropped in, bringing one of their officers, Lawrence, who had the Hornet when she sank our Peacock. He has Chesapeake now.'

'What kind of a man is he? Like Bainbridge?'

'No. Quite a different sort, much more open and unreserved - younger, too: about our age. I liked him extremely. To tell the truth, I liked him much more than Johnson, because although Johnson was so civil about you and a very gentlemanlike creature altogether, there was something I did not really care for: he was not the sort of man I should like to serve with, nor under, whereas I should be happy to ship with Lawrence. He brought a message from young Mowett, taken in Peacock and wounded, but doing well in New York.'

They talked of Mowett, a most engaging young man with a literary turn, and Stephen recited some of his verse:

While o'er the ship the gallant boastwain flies,

Like a hoarse mastiff through the storm he cries,

Prompt to direct the unskilful still appears,

The expert he praises, and the timid cheers:

Still through my pulses glides the kindling fire

As lightning glances on the electric wire.

'What a memory you have,' said Jack. 'Like a...'

'Bull of Bashan?'

'Just so. Then after that Mr Herapath very kindly came and sat with me for a while after he had seen his sister. He told me what sad dogs the Republicans were, little better than mere democrats, and how he had fought for the King under General Burgoyne. He is a fine old boy, and he has promised to look in tomorrow, bringing me - here's Shannon,' he said, reaching for his telescope. 'See, she is just clearing the long island. Now he will put his helm down, to avoid the shoal. There is a nasty shoal just off the point; Herapath pointed it out to me; but by now Broke knows that channel like the palm of his hand. There: he rises tacks and sheets - they will all be on tiptoe for the word - prettily done! She stays in her own length, nimble as a cutter. She is all alone now, with only Chesapeake to watch, Constitution being laid up; so we need not expect to see her throw out any signals.'