Patrick O'Brian - The Mauritius Command

"He may do," said Stephen. "These young fellows are made of steel and a particularly resilient leather. So that is Africa." He looked greedily at the shore, the known haunt of the aardvark, the pangolin, the camelopard; of birds without number, roaming at large amidst a flora of extraordinary wealth, headed by the ostrich. "And that," pointing towards a remote headland, "is the all-dreaded Cape of Storms itself, I make no doubt?"

"Not exactly," said Jack. "The Cape is far astern: I am sorry you did not see it. We came round precious close while you was busy. But before that you did see the Table Mountain, did you not? I sent a messenger."

"Yes, yes. I felt most obliged to you, in spite of the unchristian hour. It might also be compared with Ben Bulben."

"Curious, ain't it? And now here on the larboard bow--no, the larboard--you have Simon's Bay, a sweet anchorage. And there's Raisonable, wearing the flag."

"Would that be a line-of-battle ship?" asked Farquhar. "A most imposing vessel."

"I doubt any sixty-four would ever lie in the line nowadays,'said Jack. "In any case, the Raisonable was built fifty years ago, and if she fired a full broadside she might fall to pieces; but I am glad she looks imposing. Then comes Sirius, a much more powerful ship in fact, although she has but one tier of guns; thirty-six eighteen-pounders, much the same broadside weight of metal as ours. Then another frigate, do you see? Nereide thirty-six; but only twelve-pounders. Then that odd little brig-of-war."

"Pray, sir, why are they not at sea?" asked Farquhar. "As I understand it, those and a smaller vessel called the Otter are almost all we have to guard the Indian trade. I ask out of mere curiosity."

"Oh," said Jack, "this is the tail-end of the hurricane season up there. They could hardly be blockading the Mauritius in the hurricane season. They are probably in to refit and to take in stores--nothing for them up there, two thousand miles to the north . . . Mr Johnson, I believe you may begin to reduce sail."

His eyes were fixed to his glass: the Boadicea had made her number and he was watching for the masterattendant's boat to put off. There it was, just leaving the pier. Although the frigate was now under fore and main topsails alone, still she glided in, heaved on by the moderate south-east swell and the making tide, and the shore came fast towards him. The moment he had the Admiralty House square on he would begin his salute; and while he waited for that moment to come he had the strangest feeling that at the first gun England and his whole voyage south would vanish into the past.

"Carry on, Mr Webber," he said, and as he spoke the nine-pounder bawled out its respects with a tongue of fire in a cloud of smoke.

"Fire one," said the gunner; and the echoes came hurrying back from the mountains. "Fire two. Fire three . . . " By the seventeenth gun the great bay was alive with crossing reverberations, and before they had died away a puff of smoke appeared on the Raisonable's side, followed a second later by the deep report. Nine guns she fired, the reply due to a captain, and after the ninth the Boadicea� signal- midshipman, young Weatherall, piped, "Flag signalling, sir." Then his voice broke to a harsh bass as he went on, "Captain repair aboard flag."

"Acknowledge," said Jack. "Lower away the gig. Where's my coxswain? Pass the word for my coxswain."

"I am sorry, sir," said Johnson, blushing. "Moon is drunk."

"Damn him," said Jack. "Crompton, jump into the gig. Mr Hill, are these all my papers? Every last one?'. Clasping the packet of sealed, canvas-covered documents to his bosom he ran down the side, caught the heaving gig on the height of its rise, and said, "Shove off."

It was many, many years since he had last been here, a midshipman, an oldster, in the Resolution, yet how exactly he remembered it all; there were a few more civilian houses in the village at the bottom of the bay, but everything else was just the same--the steady beat of the surf, the mountains, the men of- war's boats crossing to and fro, the hospital, the barracks, the arsenal: he might himself have been a lanky boy, returning to the Resolution after catching Roman-fish off the rocks. He was filled with a pleasurable excitement, with countless memories, yet at the same time with an apprehension that he could not define.

"Boat ahoy?" asked the Raisonable.

"Boadicea," replied the acting coxswain in a voice of brass; and then more quietly he said, "Rowed of all." The gig kissed against the tall flank of the flagship, the sideboys ran down with their scarlet man- ropes, the bosun started his call, and Jack was piped aboard. As he took off his cocked hat he realized with a shock that the tall bowed white-haired figure who answered his salute was the Admiral Bertie he had last seen in Port of Spain as the lithe, lively, wenching captain of the Renown; and some part of his busy mind said to him, beneath all the rest, "Perhaps you are not so very young yourself, either, Jack Aubrey."

"Here you are at last, Aubrey," said the Admiral, shaking his hand. "I am very happy to see you. You know Captain Elioff

"Yes, sir; we were shipmates in the Leander in ninety-eight. How do you do, sir?"

Before Eliot could reply with anything more than an extension of the friendly smile that he had worn ever since Jack's face appeared, the Admiral went on, "I dare say those papers are for me? Come along; let's have a look at them in the cabin." Splendour; opulence; carpets; a portrait of Mrs Bertie, looking plump and comfortable. "Well," he said, wrestling with the outer covers, "so you had a tedious passage of it: but did you have any luck on your way down? They used to call you Lucky Jack Aubrey in the Mediterranean, I remember. God damn these seals."

"We saw barely a sail, sir; but we did have a little brush off the Dry Salvages, and retook the old Hyaena."

"Did you? Did you, indeed? Well, I am heartily glad of it . . ." The papers were free now, and as he glanced through them he said, "Yes. I have been expecting these. We must take them along to the Governor at once. But you have a politico aboard, I see? A Mr Farquhar? Ile must come too: I shall send my barge, by way of compliment; you cannot be too careful with these political gents. You had better order some cool clothes, too; it is a twenty mile ride to Cape Town. The Governor will not object to nankeen trousers and a round jacket." He gave his orders and called for a bottle of wine. "This is the right Diamant of the year one, Aubrey," he said, sitting down again. "Too good for you young fellows but you did retake the old Hyaena

I was a midshipman in her. Yes." His washed-out blue eyes looked back over forty-five years, and he observed, "That was in the days before carronades." Returning to the present he drank his wine, saying, "I trust your luck will hold, Aubrey: you need it, on this station. Welt, and so we shall have to fag over that damned mountain, a wearying ride in this infernal dust--dust everywhere, rain or shine; a whole nation of swabbers would never come to an end of it. I wish we did not have to go. If it were not for the political side, I should get you to sea the minute you had your water aboard. The situation is far worse than ever it was before you left England--far worse than when these orders were written. The French have snapped up two more Indiamen, this side of the Ten Degree channel, the Europe and the Streatham: homeward-bound Indiamen, worth a mint of money."

"Lord, sir, that is very bad," cried Jack.

"Yes, it is," said the Admiral, "and it is going to get even worse unless we bring it up with a round turn, and smartly at that. That is what we must do: it is feasible, and it must be done. Oh, yes, it is feasible, with a certain amount of initiative . . . and maybe I should add good fortune too, though luck don't bear talking about." He touched wood, considered for a while, and then said, "Listen, Aubrey, before your Mr Farquhar comes aboard--before we start getting entangled in political considerations--I shall lay the position before you as clearly as I can. There are four French frigates based on Mauritius and Reumon, in addition to the force they had there last year: they can use Port Louis or Port South-East in Mauritius and Saint-Paul in Reunion, and separately or in pairs they can range out as far as the Nicobars and beyond--the whole Indian Ocean. You can't catch them out there; we can't convoy all the Eastern trade--we do not possess the ships; and you can't blockade them for ever. So you must either destroy them in detail in their home waters or eventually you must take their bases away from them. Now with this in mind, we have seized and garrisoned Rodriguez with part of the Fifty-Sixth and some Bombay sepoys, for your water in the first place, and in the second as a base for the reinforcements that are supposed to come from India in time. There are only about four hundred men on the island at present, but we hope for more next year--it is a question of transports. You know Rodriguez?"