Patrick O'Brian - The Mauritius Command

Jack laughed aloud with pleasure, and then observed that they must be getting back to the house--the boy from the Crown was waiting for an answer. "I shall have to give that wretched woman a lift," he added. "You cannot refuse a brother-officer's wife, the wife of a man you know; but Lord, how I wish I could get out of it. Come, let us walk in."

"I cannot advise it," said Stephen. "Sophie would detect you instantly. You are as transparent as a bride. Stay here till I desire Sophie to make your joint reply to Lady Clonfert: you cannot be seen until you have your orders."

"I shall go to the observatory," said Jack.

It was here that Stephen found him some minutes later, with his telescope trained on the Portsmouth road. "Sophie has answered," said Stephen, "and every woman in the house is now scrubbing the parlour and changing the lace window-curtains; they turned me out with very little ceremony, I can tell you."

The promised rain began to fall, drumming briskly on the copper dome: there was just room for them both, and there they crouched in silence for a while. Beneath the bubbling current of his pure joy, Jack longed to ask whether Stephen had in some way arranged Captain Loveless's tenesmus; but although he had known Stephen intimately these many, many years, there was something about him that forbade questioning. Presently, his mind sobering, he reflected on the Indian Ocean, on the fine blue-water sailing with the southeast trade-wind, the perilous inshore navigation among the coral reefs surrounding La Reunion and Mauritius; on the typical Admiralty decision to send one frigate to counterbalance four; on the immense difficulty *of maintaining even a blockade, above all in the hurricane months, let alone that of landing upon those islands, with their few harbours (and those fortified), their. broad reefs, the perpetual heavy surf on their inhospitable shores; on the question of water, and on the nature of the force likely to oppose him. To oppose him, that is to say, if ever he reached the station. Furtively stretching out to touch a piece of wood, he said, "This hypothetical squadron, Stephen, have you any idea of its strength, and what it might have to deal with?"

"I wish I had, my dear," said Stephen. "The Nereide and the Sirius were mentioned, to be sure, together with the Otter and the possibility of another sloop; but beyond that everything is nebulous. Vessels that Admiral Bertie had at the time of his latest despatches, dated more than three months ago, may very well be off Java by the time the squadron is actually formed. Nor can I speak to what Decaen may have had in Mauritius before this reinforcement, apart from the Canonniere and possibly the Semillante they range so wide. On the other hand I can tell you the names of their new frigates. They are the Venus, Manche, Bellone and Caroline."

Venus, Manche, Bellone, Caroline," said Jack, frowning. "I have never heard of a single one of "em."

"No. As I said, they are new, quite new: they carry forty guns apiece. Twenty four pounders, at least in the case of the Bellone and the Manche: perhaps in the others too."

"Oh, indeed?" said Jack, his eye still to his telescope. The rosy glow in his mind had strange lurid edges to it now. Those were in fact the French navy's most recent, very heavy frigates, the envy of the British dockyards. Buonaparte had all the forests of Europe at his command, splendid Dalmatian oak, tall northern spars, best Riga hemp; and although the man himself was the merest soldier, his ship-builders turned out the finest vessels afloat and he had some very capable officers to command them. Forty guns apiece. The Nereide had thirty-six, but only twelve-pounders: Boadicea and Sirius, with their eighteen-pounders, might be a match for the Frenchmen, particularly if the French crews were as new as their ships; but even so, that was a hundred and sixty guns to a hundred and ten to say nothing of the broadside weight of metal. Everything would depend on how those guns were handled. The other forces at the Cape hardly entered into the line of count. The flagship, the ancient Raisonable, 64, could no more be considered a fighting unit than the antique French Canonniere: he could not offhand recall the smaller vessels on the station, apart from the Otter, a pretty eighteen-gun ship-sloop: but in any case, if it came to a general action, the frigates alone must bear the brunt. The Nereide he knew of, the crack frigate of the West Indies station, and in Corbett she had a fighting captain; Pym he knew by reputation; but Clonfert of the Otter was the only captain he had ever sailed with . . . Across the round of his objective-glass travelled a purposeful Marine, mounted on a horse. "0 blessed form," murmured Jack, following him behind a haystack with his telescope, "he will be here in twenty minutes. I shall give him a guinea." All at once the Indian Ocean, the Mauritius command, took on a new, infinitely more concrete reality: the characters of Admiral Bertie, Captain Pym, Captain Corbett and even Lord Clonfert assumed a great practical importance: so did the immediate problems of a new command. Although his intimacy with Stephen Maturin did not allow him to ask questions that might be judged impertinent, it was of such a rare kind that he could ask for money without the least hesitation. "Have you any money, Stephen?" he said, the Marine having vanished in the trees. "How I hope you have. I shall have to borrow the Marine's guinea from you, and a great deal more besides, if his message is what I dearly trust. My half-pay is not due until the month after next, and we are living on credit."

"Money, is it?" said Stephen, who had been thinking about lemurs. There were lemurs in Madagascar: might there not be lemurs on Reunion? Lemurs concealed among the forests and the mountains of the interior? "Money? Oh, yes, I have money galore." He felt in his pockets. "The question is, where is it?" He felt again, patted his bosom, and brought out a couple of greasy two pound notes on a country bank. "That is not it," he muttered, going through his pockets again. "Yet I was sure--was it in my other coat? did I perhaps leave it in London?--you are growing old, Maturin--ah, you dog, there you are!" he cried triumphantly, returning to the first pocket and drawing forth a neat roll, tied with tape. "There. I had confused it with my lancet-case. It was Mrs Broad of the Grapes that did it up, finding it in a Bank of England wrapper that I had--that I had neglected. A most ingenious way of carrying money, calculated to deceive the pick-pocket. I hope it will suffice."

"How much is it?" asked Jack.

"Sixty or seventy pound, I dare say."

"But, Stephen, the top note is a fifty, and so is the next. I do not believe you ever counted them."

"Well, never mind, never mind," said Stephen testily. "I meant a hundred and sixty. Indeed, I said as much, only you did not attend."

They both straightened, cocking their ears. Through the beating of the rain came Sophie's voice calling, "Jack! Jack!" and rising to a squeak as she darted into the observatory, breathless and wet. "There is a Marine from the port admiral," she said between her gasps, "and he will not give his message except into your own hands. Oh, Jack, might it be a ship?"

A ship it was. Captain Aubrey was required and directed to repair aboard HMS Boadicea and to take upon himself the command of the said vessel, for which the enclosed order was to be the warrant: he was to touch at Plymouth, there to receive on board R.T. Farquhar, Esquire, at the Commissioner's office, and any further orders that might be transmitted to him at that place. These stately, somewhat inimical documents (as usual, Captain Aubrey was to fail not, at his peril), were accompanied by a friendly note from the Admiral, asking Jack to dine with him the next day, before going aboard.

Now that direct action was legitimate, it burst forth with such force that Ashgrove Cottage was turned upside-down in a moment. At first Mrs Williams clung tenaciously to her scheme for changing the parlour curtains, clamouring that it must be done--what would Lady Clonfert think?--and protesting that she should not be overborne; but her strength was as nothing compared with that of a newly appointed frigate-captain burning to join his ship before the evening gun, and in a few minutes she Joined her daughter and the distracted maid in brushing uniforms, madly darning stockings and ironing neck-cloths, while Jack trundled his sea-chest in the attic and roared down to know where was his neat's-foot oil, and who had been at his pistols? adjuring them "to bear a hand," "to look alive', "to lose not a minute below there', "to light along the sextant-case'.