Patrick O'Brian - The Mauritius Command

Dawn found him still on deck, looking yellow and unshaved and more withdrawn than Stephen cared to see. La Reunion lay clear on the larboard bow, and the soldiers, coming sleepily on deck, were delighted to see it: they clustered on the forecastle, looking at the land with telescopes; and more than one cried out that he could find no surf upon the reefs, nothing but a little line of white. "They may not be so pleased in twelve hours" time," said Jack in a low voice, answering Stephen's inquiring look. "The glass has been sinking all through the night: still, we may be in before it comes on to blow." As he spoke he took off his coat and shirt, and then, having given his orders to Trollope, the officer of the watch, his breeches: from the rail he pitched head-first into the sea, rose snorting, swam along the line of boats that each frigate towed behind her, made his way back along them, and so went dripping below: the Boadiceas were perfectly used to this, but it shocked the redcoats, as savouring of levity. Once below and free of good mornings right and left, he went straight to sleep, with barely a pause between laying his long wet hair on the pillow and unconsciousness; and fast asleep he remained, in spite of the rumbling boots of a regiment of soldiers and the din inseparable from working the ship, until the faint tinkle of a teaspoon told some layer of his mind that coffee was ready. He sprang up, looked at the barometer, shook his head, dipped his face into a kid of tepid water, shaved, ate a hearty breakfast, and appeared on deck, fresh, pink, and ten years younger.

The squadron was coasting along just outside the reef, a reef upon which the sea broke mildly: three lines of rollers that a well-handled boat could manage easily enough.

"Upon my word, Commodore, the weather seems to serve our turn," said Colonel Keating; and then in a louder voice and waving his hat to a young woman who was gathering clams on the reef, "Boniour, Mademoiselle." The young woman, who had already been greeted by the three leading frigates, turned her back, and the Colonel went on, "How do you think it will stay?"

"It may hold up," said Jack. "But then again it may come on to blow. We must move smartly: you will not object to a very early dinner, at the same time as the men?"

"Never in life, sir. Should be very happy--indeed I am sharp-set even now."

Sharp-set he might be, reflected Jack, but he was also nervous. Keating set about his very early dinner with a decent appearance of phlegm, yet precious little went down his gullet. He had never had such an important command; nor had Jack; and in this waiting period they both felt the responsibility to a degree that neither of them would have thought possible. It affected them differently, however; for whereas Keating ate very little and talked a good deal, Jack devoured the best part of a duck and followed it with figgy-dowdy, gazing thoughtfully out of the stern-window as the not very distant landscape slipped by: far off, the harsh, precipitous mountains; nearer to, cultivated land, the occasional house: forest, plantations, a hamlet, and some carts creeping against the green. Their dinner did not last long: it was first interrupted by the report of two sail bearing east a half south--they later proved to be the leading transports, Fi~ite and Groper--and then cut short entirely by the appearance of the little town of Sainte-Marie before Jack had quite finished his first attack upon the figgy-dowdy.

Here the reef trended in towards the coast, and the squadron turned with it, heaving to at the Commodore's signal. Already the town was in a state of turmoil: people were running about in all directions, pointing, screeching audibly, putting up their shutters, loading carts. They had plenty to screech about, for there, right off their anchorage, where the fresh water of the stream made gaps in the coral, and well within gunshot, lay five ships, broadside on, with their ports open and a frightful array of cannon pointing straight at Sainte-Marie. Even worse, large numbers of boats with soldiers in them were rowing about, evidently determined to land, to take, burn, rase, and sack the town. The sergeant's guard from the little post

was lined up on the beach, but they did not seem to know what to do, and every man who could command a horse had long since galloped off to Saint Denis to give the alarm and to implore instant succour from the military there.

"This is going very well," said Colonel Keating some time later, as he watched the vanguard of the succour through his telescope. "Once their field-pieces are across the stream, they will have a devil of a time getting them back again. Their horses are quite done up already. See the company of infantry at the double! They will be pooped, sir, pooped entirely."

"Aye," said Jack. "It is very well." But his mind was more on the sea than on the land, and it appeared to him that the surf was growing: the rollers, perhaps from some blow far to the east, were coming in with more conviction. He looked at his watch, and although it wanted forty minutes of the stated time he said, "Make Sirius's signal to carry on."

The Sirius paid off heavily, filled, and bore away for Grande-Chaloupe, carrying close on a thousand men and the howitzers. As she moved off, her place was taken by the Kite, the Groper, and two other transports, increasing the alarm on shore.

The plan had been unable to allot any precise interval between the two landings, since obviously that must depend on the time the Sirius should take to pass Saint-Denis and reach the agreed point between that town and St Paul's; but they had hoped for something in the nature of two hours. With the failing breeze, however, it now looked as though at least three would be required: and all the while the surf was growing. The waiting was hard, and it would have been harder still if the newly-arrived French field- pieces, drawn up on a hill behind the post, had not seen fit to open fire. They threw no more than four- pound balls, but they threw them with striking accuracy, and after the first sighting shots one passed so close to Colonel Keating's head that he cried out indignantly, "Did you see that, sir? It was perfectly deliberate. Infernal scrubs! They must know I am the commanding officer."

"Do you not shoot at commanding officers in the army, Colonel?"

"Of course not, sir. Never, except in a melee If I were on land, I should send a galloper directly. There they go again. What unprincipled conduct: Jacobins."

"Well, I believe we can put a stop to it. Pass the word for the gunner. Mr Webber, you may fire at the field-pieces by divisions: but you must point all the guns yourself, and you must not damage any civilian or ecclesiastical property. Pitch them well up beyond the town."

With the great guns going off one after another in a leisurely, deliberate fire, and the heady smell of powder swirling about the deck, tension slackened. The soldiers cheered as Mr Webber sent his eighteen- pound balls skimming among the Frenchmen on their knoll, and they roared again when he hit a limber full on, so that one wheel sprang high into the air, turning like a penny tossed for heads or tails. But such an unequal contest could not last long, and presently the French guns were silenced: and all the time the swell increased, sending white water high on the reef and surging through the gap to break in great measured rollers on the strand.

Yet after the lull the breeze had strengthened too, with every sign of blowing hard before the night, and at length Jack said, "Sirius should be at Grande Chaloupe by now. I think we may move on."

Their move took them briskly past another shallow gap in the reef, where more fresh water broke the coral, and to another anchorage (though still indifferent) off the mouth of the Riviere des Pluies.

"This is it," said Colonel Keating, map in hand. "If we can go ashore here, the landing will be unopposed. It will be at least an hour before they can get round: probably more."