Patrick O'Brian - H.M.S. Surprise

Here was Bonden with the last party, doubling across the square. ‘Did you hear that, sir? Them buggers are at it.’

‘Silence, you God-​damn fool,’ he said, very low.

The clock whirred and struck: three. Maragall appeared from the shadows. ‘Come on,’ said Jack, ran from the square to the alley in the corner, up the alley, along the high blank wall to where a fig-​tree leaned over the top. ‘Bonden, make me a back.’ He was up. ‘Grapnels.’ He hooked them around the trunk, whispered ‘Land soft, land soft, there,’ and dropped into the court.

Here was the garden house, its windows full of light: and inside the long room three men standing over a common rack; one civilian at a desk, writing; a soldier leaning against the door. The officer who was shouting as he leant over the rack moved sideways to strike again and Jack saw that it was not Stephen spreadeagled there on the ground.

Behind him there was the soft plump of men dropping from the wall. ‘Satisfaction,’ he whispered, ‘your men round the other side, to the door. Java Dick - that archway with the light. Bonden, with me.’

The bubbling shriek rose again, huge, beyond human measure, intolerable. Inside the room the strikingly handsome youth had turned and now he was looking up with a triumphant smile at the other officers. His coat and his collar were open, and he had something in his hand.

Jack drew his sword, opened the long window: their faces turned, indignant, then shocked, amazed. Three long strides, and balancing, with a furious grip on his hilt, he cut forehand at the boy and backhand at the man next to him. Instantly the room was filled - bellowing noise, rushing movement, blows, the thud of bodies, a shout from the last officer, chair and table crashing down, the black civilian with two seamen on top of him, a smothered scream. The soldier shooting out of the door - an animal cry beyond it; and silence. The demented, inhuman face of the man on the rack, running with sweat.

‘Cast him off,’ said Jack, and the man groaned, shutting his eyes as the strain relaxed.

They waited, listening: but although they could easily hear the voices of three or four soldiers arguing on the ground floor and someone whistling sweet and true upstairs, there was no reaction. Loud voices, didactic, hortatory, going on and on, unchanged.

‘Now for the house,’ said Jack. ‘Maragall, which is the guard-​room?’

‘The first on the left under the archway.’

‘Do you know any of their names?’

Maragall spoke to the men with the handkerchiefs. ‘Only Potier, the corporal, and Normand.’

Jack nodded. ‘Bonden, you remember the door into the front patio? Guard that with six men. Satisfaction, your party stays in this court. Java, yours each side of the door. Lee’s men come along with mc. Silence, silence, eh?’

He walked across the court, his boots loud on the stones and soft feet padding by him: a moment’s pause for a last check and he called out ‘Potier.’ in the same instant, like an echo from up the stairs came the shout ‘Potier’, and the whistling, which had stopped, started again, stopped, and ‘Potier!’ again, louder. The argument in the guardroom slackened, listening; and again, ‘Potier!’

‘J’arrive, mon capitaine,’ cried the corporal; he came out of the room, still talking into it before he closed the door. A sob, an astonished gasp, and silence. Jack called ‘Normand,’ and the door opened again; but it was a surly, questioning, almost suspicious face that craned out, slammed the door to at what it saw.

‘Right,’ said Jack, and flung his sixteen stone against it. The door burst inwards, shuddering as it swung; but there was only one man left this side of the crowded open window: they hunted him down in one quick turn. Shrieks in the courtyard.

‘Potier,’ from above, and the whistling moved down the stairs, ‘qu’est-​ce que ce remue-​mŽnage?’

By the light of the big lantern under the arch Jack saw an officer, a cheerful, high-​coloured officer, bluff good humour and a well-​fitting uniform, so much the officer that he felt a momentary pause. Dutourd, no doubt.

Dutourd’s face, about to whistle again, turned to meredulity: his hand reached to a sword that was not there.

‘Hold him,’ said Jack to the dark seamen closing in. ‘Maragall, ask him where Stephen is.’

‘Vous tes un officier anglais, monsieur?’ asked Dutourd, ignoring Maragall.

‘Answer, God rot your bloody soul,’ cried Jack with a flush of such fury that he trembled.

‘Chez le colonel,’ said the officer.

‘Maragall, how many are there left?’

‘This person is the only man left in the house: he says Esteban is in the colonel’s room. The colonel is not back yet.’

‘Come.’

Stephen saw them walk into his timeless dream: they had been there before, but never together. And never in these dull colours. He smiled to see Jack, although poor Jack’s face was so shockingly concerned, white, distraught. But when Jack’s hands grappled with the straps his smile changed to an almost frightened rigour: the furious jet of pain brought the two remote realities together.

‘Jack, handsomely, my dear,’ he whispered as they eased him tenderly into a padded chair. ‘Will you give me something to drink, now, for the love of God? En Maragall, valga’m Deu,’ he said, smiling over Jack’s shoulder.

‘Clear the room, Satisfaction,’ said Jack, breaking off- several prisoners had come up, some crawling, and now two of them made a determined rush at Dutourd, standing ghastly, pressed into the corner.

‘That man must have a priest,’ said Stephen.

‘Must we kill him?’ said Jack.

Stephen nodded. ‘But first he must write to the colonel- bring him here - say, vital information - the American has talked - it will not wait. Must not: vital.’

‘Tell him, sir,’ said Jack to Maragall, looking back over his shoulder, with the look of profound affection still on his face. ‘Tell him he must write this note. If the colonel is not here in ten minutes I shall kill him on that machine.’

Maragall led Dutourd to the desk, put a pen in his hand. ‘He says he cannot,’ he reported. ‘Says his honour as an officer -,

‘His what?’ cried Jack, looking at the thing from which he had unstrapped Stephen.

Shouting, scuffling, a fall on the way up.

‘Sir,’ said Bonden, ‘this chap comes in at the front door.’ Two of his mates propped a man into the room. ‘I’m afraid the prisoners nobbled him on the way up.’

They stared at the dying, the dead colonel, and in the pause Dutourd whipped round, dashed out the lamp, and leapt from the window.

‘While trying to escape,’ said Stephen, when Java Dick came up to report. ‘Oh, altogether too - too - Jack, what now? I cannot scarcely crawl, alas.’

‘We carry you down to the gunboat,’ said Jack.

Maragall said, ‘There is the shutter they carry their dead suspects on, behind the door.’

‘Joan,’ said Stephen to him, ‘all the papers that matter are in the press to the right of the table.’

Gently, gently down through the open streets, Stephen staring up at the stars and the clean air reaching deep into his lungs. Dead streets, with one single figure that glanced at this familiar cortege and looked quickly away: right down to the quays and along. The gunboat: Satisfaction’s party there before them, ready at the sweeps. Bonden reporting ‘All present and sober, sir, if you please.’ Farewell, farewell, Maragall: God go with you and may no new thing arise. The black water slipping by faster, faster, lipping along her side. The strangled chime of a clock among the neat bundles of loot under the half-​deck. Silence behind them: Mahon still fast asleep.