O'Brian Patrick - Aub-Mat 06 - The Fortune of War

The Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian

CHAPTER ONE

The warm monsoon blew gently from the east, wafting HMS Leopard into the bay of Pulo

Batang. She had spread all the sails she could, to reach the anchorage before the tide

should turn and to come in without discredit, but a pitiful show they made - patched, with

discoloured heavy-weather canvas next to stuff so thin it scarcely checked the brilliant

light - and her hull was worse. A professional eye could make out that she had once been

painted with the Nelson chequer, that she was a man-of-war, a fourth-rate built to carry

fifty guns on two full decks; but to a landaman, in spite of her pennant and the dingy

ensign at her mizen-peak, she looked like an unusually shabby merchant ship. And

although both watches were on deck, gazing earnestly at the shore, the extraordinarily

bright-green shore, and breathing in the heady scent of the Spice Islands, the Leopard's

crew was so sparse that the notion of her being a merchant-man was confirmed:

furthermore, a casual glance showed no guns at all; while the ragged, shirt-sleeved

figures on her quarterdeck could hardly be commissioned officers.

These figures all gazed with equal intensity down the bay, to the green-rimmed inlet where

the flagship rode, and beyond it to the spreading white house that had been the Dutch

governor's favourite wet-season residence: a union flag flew over it at present. As they

gazed a signal ran up on a second flagstaff to the right.

'They desire us to heave out the private signal, sir, if you please,' said the signal-

midshipman, his telescope to his eye.

'Make it so, Mr Wetherby, together with our number,'

said the Captain; and to his first lieutenant, 'Mr Babbington, round-to when we are abreast

the point and start the salute.'

The Leopard glided on, the wind singing gently in her rigging, the warm, still water

whispering down her side: otherwise a total silence, the hands bracing her yards without a

word as the breeze came more abeam. And in the same silence the shore contemplated

the Leopard's number.

She was abreast of the point; she came smoothly to the wind, and her single carronade

began to speak. Seventeen feeble puffs of smoke, and seventeen little bangs like damp

squibs over the miles of deep blue sea; when the last faint yelp had died away, the

flagship began her deep, full-throated reply, and at the same time another hoist ran up on

shore. 'Captain repair to flag, if you please, sir,' said the midshipman.

'Barge away, Mr Babbington,' said the Captain, and walked into his cabin. Neither their

landfall nor the presence of the flag was unexpected, and his full-dress uniform was laid

out on his cot, scrubbed and brushed to remove the stains of salt water, iced seaweed,

antarctic lichen and tropical mould until it was threadbare in some places and strangely

felted in others; yet the faded, shrunken blue gold-laced coat was still honest broadcloth,

and as he put it on he broke into a sweat. He sat down and loosened his neckcloth. 'I shall

get used to it presently, no doubt,' he said, and then, hearing the voice of his steward

raised in blasphemous, whining fury, 'Killick, Killick there:

what's amiss?'

'Which it's your scraper, sir, your number one scraper. The wombat's got at it.'

'Then take it away from him, for God's sake.'

'I duresn't, sir,' said Killick. 'For fear of tearing the lace.'

'Now, sir,' cried the Captain, striding into the great cabin, a tall, imposing figure. 'Now, sir,'

- addressing the

wombat, one of the numerous body of marsupials brought into the ship by her surgeon, a

natural philosopher - 'give it up directly, d'ye hear me, there?'

The wombat stared him straight in the eye, drew a length of gold lace from its mouth, and

then deliberately sucked it in again.

'Pass the word for Dr Maturin,' said the Captain, looking angrily at the wombat: and a

moment later, 'Come now, Stephen, this is coming it pretty high: your brute is eating my

hat.'

'So he is, too,' said Dr Maturin. 'But do not be so perturbed, Jack; it will do him no harm, at

all. His digestive processes -,

At this point the wombat dropped the hat, shuffled rapidly across the deck and swarmed

up into Dr Maturin's arms, peering at close range into his face with a look of deep

affection.

'Well, I can keep it under my arm, together with my reports,' said the Captain, picking up a

bundle of papers and carefully fitting them round his gold-laced hat to conceal the tear.

'What now, Mr Holles?'

'Barge alongside, if you please, sir.'

The Leopard in fact possessed no barge: nothing more than a little clinker-built jolly-boat,

patched and pieced until scarcely an original plank was to be seen. It was rated barge for

the occasion, but it was so small that the Captain's bargemen (once ten of the most

powerful Leopards, all dressed alike in Guernsey frocks and varnished hats) amounted to

no more than two, his coxswain Barrett Bonden and an able seaman by the name of

Plaice:

still, this was the Royal Navy, and the jolly-boat, like the Leopard's deck, had been sanded

and holystoned to a state of unearthly lustre, while the bargemen themselves had done all

that naval ingenuity could devise in the article of whole duck trousers and white sennit

hats. Indeed, the Leopard herself took on an almost naval appearance for a moment as

her captain came on deck: the Marine officer

and his few remaining men had put on their dim pink or purple coats, once a uniform

scarlet and they stood as straight as their own ramrods while the Captain went down the

side to what remnant of ceremony the Leopards could provide.

'Aubrey!' cried the Admiral, rising as the Captain was shown in and taking him by the

hand. 'Aubrey! By God, I am glad to see you. We had given you up for dead.' The Admiral

was a stout, thickset sailor with a Roman emperor's face that could and often did look very

forbidding; but it was now suffused with pleasure, and again he said, 'By God, I am glad to

see you. When you were first reported from the look-out I thought you must be Active, a

little before her time; but as soon as you was hull-up I recognized the horrible old Leopard

- I sailed in her in ninety-three - the horrible old Leopard come back from the dead ! And

tolerably clawed about, I see. What have you been at?'

'Here are all my letters, reports, returns, and statements of condition, sir,' said Jack

Aubrey, laying his papers on the table, 'from the day we left the Downs until this morning. I

am truly sorry they are so tedious long, and I am truly sorry to have taken such a time in

bringing you the Leopard, and in such a state, at that.'

'Well, well,' said the Admiral, putting on his spectacles, glancing at the heap, and taking

them off again. 'Better late than never, you know. Just give me a brief account of what you

have been at, and I will look through the papers later.'

'Why, sir,' said Jack skiwly, collecting his mind, 'as you know, I was directed to come out

by way of Botany Bay, to deal with Mr Bligh's unfortunate situation there:

then at the last moment it was thought fit to put a number of convicts aboard, and I was to

carry them out as well. But these convicts brought the gaol-fever with them, and when we

were about twelve degrees north of the line and becalmed for weeks on end, it broke out

in a most shocking

fashion. We lost more than a hundred men, and it lasted so long I was obliged to bear

away to Brazil for provisions and to land the sick. Their names are all here,' he said,

patting one of the sheafs. 'Then, a few days out of Recife, and shaping our course for the

Cape, we fell in with a Dutch seventy-four, the Waakzaamheid.'

'Just so,' said the Admiral, with ferocious satisfaction. 'We were threatened with her - a

goddam nightmare.'

'Yes, sir. And being so short-handed and out-gunned, I avoided an engagement, running

down to about 41° South, a long, long chase. We shook her off at last, but she knew very

well where we were bound, and when we turned north and west for the Cape some time

later, there she was again, to windward; and it was coming on to blow. Well, sir, not to be

tedious, she ran us down to 43° South, the wind rising and a very heavy following sea; but

by getting hawsers to the mastheads and starting our water we kept ahead, and a shot

from our stern-chasers brought her foremast by the board, so she broached-to and went

down.'

'Did she, by God!' cried the Admiral. 'Well done, well done indeed. I heard you had sunk

her, but could scarcely credit it - no word of the circumstances.' He could see it all now: he

knew the high south latitudes well, the enormous seas and the winds of the forties, the

instant death of any ship that broached-to. 'Well done indeed. That is a great relief to my

mind. Give you joy of it with all my heart, Aubrey,' he said, shaking jack's hand again.

'Chloe, Chloe there,' - raising his voice and directing it through a partially open door.

A slim honey-coloured young woman appeared: she was wearing a sarong and a little

open jacket that revealed a firm and pointed bosom. Captain Aubrey's eyes instantly fixed

upon this bosom: he swallowed painfully. He had not seen a bosom for a very long while

indeed. The Admiral had, however, and with no more than a benign glance he called for

champagne and koekjes. They came at once on

trays, borne by three more young women of the same mould, tithe, smiling, cheerful; and

as they served him Captain Aubrey noticed that they brought with them a waft of

ambergris and musk; perhaps of cloves too, and nutmeg. 'These are my cooks, by land,'

observed the Admiral. 'I find they answer very well, for country dishes. Well, here's to you,

Aubrey, and your victory: it ain't every day a fifty-gun ship sinks a seventy-four.'

'You are very kind, sir,' said Jack. 'But I am afraid that what I have to tell you next is not so

pleasant. Having started all our water bar a ton or so, I stood south and east for floating

ice: there was no point in beating back a thousand miles to the Cape, and with the wind

steady in the west I hoped to push straight on to Botany Bay as soon as we had

completed our water. We found the ice further north than I had expected, a very large

island of it. But most unhappily, sir, we had scarcely filled more than a few tons before the

weather grew so thick that I had to call in the boats; and then in the fog we struck stern-

first upon the ice-mountain, beat off our rudder and started a butt under the larboard run.

The leak gained prodigiously in spite of fothering-sails, and it was then, sir, that the guns

were obliged to be thrown overboard, together with everything else we could come at.'

The Admiral nodded, looking very grave.

'The people behaved better than I had expected: they pumped until they could not stand.

But when the water was well above the orlop, it was represented to me that the ship must

settle, and that many of the people wished to take their chance in the boats. I told them we

must try one more fothering-sail, but meanwhile I should have the boats hoisted out and

provisioned. But I very much regret to say, sir, that a short while after this some hands

broke into the spirit-room: and that was the end of all order. The boats left in a deplorable

condition. May I ask, sir, whether any of them survived?'

'The launch reached the Cape - that is how I knew

about the Dutchman - but I have no details. Tell me, did any officers or young gentlemen

go with them?'

Jack paused, twirling his glass in his fingers. The girls had left the door open, and in the

courtyard beyond he saw five tame cassowaries hurry across on tiptoe, as intent as hens

and very like them; but hens five feet tall. This sight scarcely brushed his conscious mind,

however: he said, 'Yes, sir. I had directly given my first lieutenant leave to go; and my

words to the men certainly implied permission.' He was aware that the Admiral was

watching him from under a shading hand, and he added, 'I must say this, sir: my first

lieutenant behaved in a most officerlike, seamanlike manner throughout, I was perfectly

satisfied with his conduct: and the water was knee-deep on the orlop.'

'Hm,' said the Admiral. 'It don't sound very pretty, though. Did any other officers go with

him?'

'Only the purser and the chaplain, sir. All the other officers and young gentlemen stayed,

and they behaved very well indeed.'

'I am glad to hear it,' said the Admiral. 'Carry on, Aubrey.'

'Well, sir, we got the leak under some sort of control, rigged a steering-machine and bore

away for the Crozets. Unhappily we could n9t quite fetch them, so we proceeded to an

island a whaler had told me of, that a Frenchman had laid down in 49°44' South -

Desolation Island. There we heeled the ship and came at the leak, completed our water,

took in provisions - seals, penguins, and a very wholesome cabbage - and fashioned a

new rudder from a topmast. For want of a forge we were unable to hang it; but fortunately

an American whaler put in, that had the necessary tools. I am sorry to have to report, sir,

that at this point one of the convicts managed to get aboard the whaler, together with an

American I had rated midshipman; and they escaped.'

'An American?' cried the Admiral. 'There you are - all of a piece! Damned rascals -

convicts themselves, for the

most part, piebald mongrels for the rest - they lie with black women, you know, Aubrey; I

have it on good authority that they lie with black women. Disloyal - hang the whole lot of

them, the whole shooting-match. And so this fellow you had rated midshipman deserted,

and seduced an Englishman too, into the bargain. There's American gratitude for you! All

of a piece - we protected them against the French till sixty-three, and what did they do? I'll

tell you what they did, Aubrey; they bit the hand that fed them. Scoundrels. And now here

is your American midshipman luring one of your convicts away. A fellow condemned for

parricide, or gross immorality, or both, I make no doubt -birds of a feather, Aubrey, birds of

a feather.'

'Very true, sir, very true; and if you touch pitch, you cannot very well get it off again.'

'Turpentine will remove pitch, Aubrey: Venice turpentine.'

'Yes, sir. But to do the fellow justice - and I must say he did us justice during the

pestilence, acting as surgeon's mate - it was a female American prisoner, a privileged

prisoner, berthing alone, that he went off with, an uncommonly handsome young lady, Mrs

Wogan.'

'Wogan? Louisa Wogan? Black hair, blue eyes?'

'I did not notice the colour of her eyes, sir; but she was an uncommonly handsome

woman; and I believe her name was Louisa. Did you know her, sir?'

Admiral Drury went a dusky red - he had just happened to meet a Louisa Wogan - an

acquaintance of his cousin Vowles, the junior lord of the Admiralty - an acquaintance of

Mrs Drury - no possible connection with Botany Bay

- a very common name: mere coincidence - not the same woman at all - besides, now that

the Admiral came to recollect, his Mrs Wogan's eyes were yellow. However, they would

not go into all that now: Aubrey might carry on with his account.

'Yes, sir. So having shipped the new rudder, we proceeded to Port Jackson - to Botany

Bay. Two days out

we caught sight of the whaler, far to windward; but I was advised - that is to say, I

considered it my duty not to chase, in view of the fact that• Mrs Wogan was an American

citizen, and that in the present state of tension, taking her off an American vessel by force

might lead to political complications. I suppose, sir, that they have not declared war on

us?'

'No. Not that I have heard of. I wish they would: they do not possess a single ship of the

line, and three of their fat merchantmen passed Amboyna last week - such prizes!'

'To be sure, a prize is always welcome, sir. We proceeded, then, to Port Jackson, where

we found that Captain Bligh's problems had already been dealt with, and that the

authorities could not accord us a single gun, nor any sailcloth, and precious little cordage.

No paint, neither. So despairing of getting anything out of the military men in charge - they

seemed to have taken against the Navy since Mr Bligh's time in command - I discharged

our remaining convicts and proceeded to this rendezvous with the utmost despatch. That

is to say, considering the state of the ship under my command.'

'I am sure you did, Aubrey. A very creditable feat, upon my soul, and very welcome you

are, too. By God, I thought you had lost the number of your mess long ago -lying

somewhere in a thousand fathoms and Mrs Aubrey crying her pretty eyes out. Not that

she gave you up, however: I had a note from her not a couple of months ago, by Thalia,

begging me to send some things on -books and stockings, as I remember - to send them

on to New Holland, because you were certainly detained there. Poor lady, thought I, she

has been knitting for a corpse. Such a pretty note; I dare say I have it still. Yes,' said he,

rummaging among his papers, 'here we are.'

The sight of that familiar hand struck Jack with astonishing force, and for a moment he

could have sworn he heard her voice: for this moment it was as though he were in the

breakfast-parlour at Ashgrove Cottage, in

Hampshire, half the world away, and as though she were there on the other side of the

table, tall, gentle, lovely, so wholly a part of himself. But the figure on the other side of the

table was in fact a rather coarse rear-admiral of the white, making a remark to the effect

that 'all wives were the same, even naval wives; they all supposed there was a penny post

at every station where a ship could swim, ready to carry and fetch their letters without a

moment's delay. That was why sailors were so often ill-received at home, and blamed for

not writing oftener: wives were all the same.'

'Not mine,' said Jack; but not aloud, and the Admiral went on, 'The Admiralty did not give

you up, either. They have given you Acasta, and Burrel came out months and months ago

to supersede you in the Leopard; but he died of the bloody flux, together with half his

followers, like so many people here; and what I shall do with Leopard I cannot tell. I have

no guns here but what I can take from the Dutch, and our balls, as you know very well,

don't fit Dutch guns. . . and without guns, she can only be a transport. Should have been

turned into a transport these ten years past - fifteen years past. But that is nothing to do

with the present case: what you will have to do, Aubrey, is to get your dunnage ashore as

quick as you can, because La Flèche is due from Bombay. Yorke has her. She just

touches here, the time to pick up my despatches, and then she flies home as quick as an

arrow. As quick as an arrow, Aubrey.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Flèche is the French for an arrow, Aubrey.'

'Oh, indeed? I was not aware. Very good, sir. Capital, upon my word. Quick as an arrow - I

shall repeat that.'

'I dare say you will, and pass it off as your own, too.

And if Yorke don't delay, if he don't hang about in the

Sunda Strait, whoring after prizes, you should still have

the monsoon to carry you right across - a famous passage.

Now give me a quick idea of the state of your ship. Of

course, she must be surveyed, but I should like to have a general notion at once. And tell

me just how many people you have aboard - you would scarcely credit how hungry I am

for men. Ogres ain't in it.'

There followed a highly technical discussion in which the boor Leopard's shortcomings

were candidly exposed

- the state of her futtocks, her deplorable knees - a discussion from which it appeared that

even if the Admiral had had the guns to arm her, she could hardly bear them, her timbers

being so strained, and the rot having spread forward from her stern to so shocking a

degree. This discussion, though melancholy, was perfectly amicable: no harsh words were

heard until they reached the subject of followers, the officers, young gentlemen, and

hands who, by the custom of the service, accompanied a captain from one command to

another. With a false air of casualness, the Admiral observed that in view of the

exceptional circumstances he proposed retaining them all. 'Though you may take your

surgeon with you,' he said. 'In point of fact I have had several orders to send him back by

the first ship; and he is to report to Mr Wallis, my political adviser, at once. Yes: you may

certainly take him with you, Aubrey; and that is a very great indulgence. I might even

stretch a point and allow you a servant, though La Flèche could certainly supply any

number you may need.'

'Oh, come sir,' cried Jack. 'My lieutenants - and Babbington has followed me since my first

command - my midshipmen, and all my bargemen, in one fell sloop? Is this justice, sir?'

'What sloop, Aubrey?'

'Why, as to that, sir, I do not mean any specific vessel:

it was an allusion to the Bible. But what I mean is, that it is the immemorial custom of the

service.. .'

'Am I to understand that you are questioning my orders, Mr Aubrey?'

'Never in life, sir, Heaven forbid. Any written order you choose to honour me with, I shall of

course execute

at once. But as you know better than I, the immemorial custom of the service is that...'

Jack and the Admiral had known one another off and on for twenty years; they had spent

many evenings together, some of them drunken; their collision therefore had none of the

cold venom of a purely official encounter. It was none the less eager for that, however,

and presently their voices rose until the maidens in the courtyard could clearly make out

the words, even the warm personal reflections, direct on the Admiral's part, slightly veiled

on Jack's; and again and again they heard the cry 'the immemorial custom of the service'.

'You always was a pig-headed, obstinate fellow,' said the Admiral.

'So my old nurse used to tell me, sir,' said Jack. 'But surely, sir, even a man with no

respect for the immemorial customs of the service, an innovator, a man with no regard for

the ways of the Navy, would condemn me, was I not to stand by my officers and

midshipmen, when they stood by me in a damned uncomfortable situation - was I to let my

youngsters go off to captains that do not give a curse for their families or their

advancement, and desert a first lieutenant who has followed me since he Was a reefer,

just when I have a chance of getting him on. One stroke of luck with Acasta, and

Babbington is a commander. I appeal to your own practice, sir. The whole service knows

very well that Charles Yorke, Belling, and Harry Fisher followed you from ship to ship, and

that if they are commanders and post-captains now, it is thanks to you. And I know very

well that you have always taken good care of your youngsters. The immemorial custom of

the service...'

'Oh, f - the immemorial custom of the service,' cried the Admiral: and then, appalled at his

own words, he fell silent for a while. He could, of course, give a direct order; though a

written order would be an awkward thing to have shown about. But then again, Aubrey

was not only in the right, but he was also a captain with a remarkable fighting

reputation, a captain who had done so well in prize-money that he was known as Lucky

Jack Aubrey, a captain with a handsome estate in Hampshire, a father in Parliament, a

man who might end up on the Board of Admiralty, too considerable a man for off-hand

treatment: besides, the Admiral liked him; and the Waakzaamheid was a noble feat. 'Oh

well, a fig for it, anyhow,' he said at last. 'What a sullen, dogged fellow you are to be sure,

Aubrey. Come, fill up your glass. It might get a little common good nature into you. You

may have your mids for all I care, and your first lieutenant too; for I dare say that if you

formed them, they would wrangle with their captain on his own quarterdeck, every time he

desired one of them to put the ship about. You remind me of that old Sodomite.'

'Sodomite, sir?' cried Jack.

'Yes. You who are so fond of quoting the Bible, you must know who I mean. The man who

wrangled with the Lord about Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, that's the name! Beat the

O'Brian Patrick - Aub-Mat 06 - The Fortune of War

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