The Wine-Dark Sea Page 4

  'Good morning, gentlemen,' said Stephen from the companion-ladder. 'What is this I hear about an island?' He was looking indescribably frowzy, unwashed, unshaved, no wig, old bloody shirt, bloody apron still round his waist; and it was clear that even he felt it improper to advance to the holy place itself.

  'Let me steady you,' said Jack, stepping across the heaving deck. Stephen had dipped his hands but not his arms, and they looked like pale gloves against the red-brown. Jack seized one, hauled him up and led him to the rail. 'There is the island,' he said. 'But tell me, how is West? And are any of the others dangerously hurt?'

  'West: there is no change, and I can do nothing until I have more light and a steadier basis. As for the others, there is always the possibility of sepsis and mortification, but with the blessing I think they will come through. So that is your island. And God help us, look at the sea! A rolling, heaving graveyard. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Whales: seven, no eight, species of shark: scombridae: cephalopods . . . and all parboiled. This is exactly what Dr Falconer of the Daisy told us about—submarine eruption, immense turbulence, the appearance of an island of rock or cinders, a cone shooting out flames, mephitic vapours, volcanic bombs and scoriae—and I never grasped what was happening. Yet there I had the typical lacerated wounds, sometimes accompanied by scorching, and the evidence of heavy globular objects striking sails, deck, masts, and of course poor West. You knew what was afoot, I am sure?'

  'Not until we began knotting and splicing at first light,' said Jack, 'and when they brought me some of your bombs—there is one there by the capstan must weigh fifty pound—and showed me the cinders the rain had not washed away. Then I saw the whole thing plain. I think I should have smoked it earlier if the island had blazed away good and steady, like Stromboli; but it kept shooting out jets, quite like a battery of mortars. But at least I was not so foolishly mistaken about the Franklin. There she lies, right under our lee. You will have to stand on the caronnade-slide to see her: take my glass.'

  The Franklin was of infinitely less interest to Dr Maturin than the encyclopaedia of marine life heaving on the swell below, but he climbed up, gazed, and said, 'She is in the sad way altogether, with no masts at all. How she rolls! Do you suppose we shall be able to catch her? Our sails seem somewhat out of order.'

  'Perhaps we shall,' said Jack. 'We should have steerage-way in about five minutes. But there is no hurry. She has few hands on deck, and those few cannot be called very brisk. I had much rather bear down fully prepared, so that there can be no argument, no foolish waste of life, let alone spars and cordage.'

  Six bells, and Stephen said, 'I must go below.'

  Jack gave him a hand as far as the ladder, and having urged him 'to clap on for dear life' asked whether they should meet for breakfast, adding that 'this unnatural hell-fire sea would go down as suddenly as it had got up.'

  'A late breakfast? I hope so indeed,' said Stephen, making his way down by single steps and moving, as Jack noticed for the first time, like an old man.

  It was after this late breakfast that Stephen, somewhat restored and by now reconciled to the fact that the dead marine animals were too far altered by heat, battering and sometimes by great change of depth to be valued as specimens, sat under an awning watching the Franklin grow larger. For the rest, he and Martin contented themselves with counting at least the main genera and rehearsing all that Dr Falconer had said about submarine volcanic activity, so usual in these parts; they had little energy for more. The wind had dropped, and a squall having cleared the air of volcanic dust, the sun beat down on the heaving sea with more than ordinary strength: the Surprise, under forecourse and main topsail, bore slowly down on the privateer, rarely exceeding three knots. Her guns were loaded and run out; her boarders had their weapons at hand; but their earlier apprehensions had died away entirely. The chase had suffered much more than they had; she was much less well equipped with stores and seamen; and she made no attempt to escape. It had to be admitted that with scarcely three foot of her main and mizzen masts showing above deck and the foremast gone at the partners her condition was almost desperate; but she could surely have done something with the wreckage over the side, still hanging by the shrouds and stays, something with the spars still to be seen in her waist, something with her undamaged bowsprit? The Surprises looked at her with a certain tolerant contempt. With the monstrous seas fast declining the galley fires had been lit quite early, and this being Thursday they had all eaten a pound of reasonably fresh pork, half a pint of dried peas, some of the remaining Moahu yams, and as a particular indulgence a large quantity of plum duff; they had also drunk a quarter of a pint of Sydney rum, publicly diluted with three quarters of a pint of water and lemon-juice, and now with full bellies and benevolent minds they felt that the natural order of things was returning: the barky, though cruelly mauled, was in a fair way to being shipshape; and they were bearing down upon their prey.

  Closer and closer, until the capricious breeze headed them and Jack steered south and west to run alongside the Franklin on the following tack. But as the Surprise was seen to change course a confused bawling arose from the Franklin and a kind of raft was launched over her side, paddled by a single man with a bloody bandage round his head. Jack let fly the sheets, checking the frigate's way, and the man, heaved closer by the swell, called, 'Pray can you give me some water for our wounded men? They are dying of thirst.'

  'Do you surrender?'

  The man half raised himself to reply—he was clearly no seaman—and cried, 'How can you speak so at such a time, sir? Shame on you.' His voice was harsh, high-pitched and furiously indignant. Jack's expression did not change, but after a pause in which the raft drifted nearer he hailed the bosun on the forecastle: 'Mr Bulkeley, there. Let the Doctor's skiff be lowered down with a couple of breakers in it.'

  'If you have a surgeon aboard, it would be a Christian act in him to relieve their pain,' said the man on the raft, now closer still.

  'By God . . .' began Jack, and there were exclamations all along the gangway; but as Stephen and Martin had already gone below for their instruments Jack said no more than 'Bonden, Plaice, pull them over. And you had better pass that raft a line. Mr Reade, take possession.'

  Ever since this chase began Stephen had been considering his best line of conduct in the event of its success. His would have been a delicate mission in any event, since it presupposed activities contrary to Spanish interests in South America at a time when Spain was at least nominally an ally of the United Kingdom; but now that the British government had been compelled to deny the existence of any such undertaking it was more delicate by far, and he was extremely unwilling to be recognized by Dutourd, whom he had met in Paris: not that Dutourd was a Bonapartist or in any way connected with French intelligence, but he had an immense acquaintance and he was incurably talkative—far too talkative for any intelligence service to consider making use of him. Dutourd was the man on the raft, the owner of the Franklin, and the sequence of events that had brought about their curious proximity, separated by no more than twenty feet of towline, was this: Dutourd, a man of passionate enthusiasms, had like many others at the time fallen in love with the idea of a terrestrial Paradise to be founded in a perfect climate, where there should be perfect equality as well as justice, and plenty without excessive labour, trade or the use of money, a true democracy, a more cheerful Sparta; and unlike most others he was rich enough to carry his theories into something like practice, acquiring this American-built privateer, manning her with prospective settlers and a certain number of seamen, most of the people being French Canadians or men from Louisiana, and sailing her to Moahu, an island well south of Hawaii, where with the help of a northern chief and his own powers of persuasion, he hoped to found his colony. But the northern chief had misused some British ships and seaman, and the Surprise, sent to deal with the situation, destroyed him in a short horrible battle immediately before the Franklin sailed in from a cruise, a private ship of war wearing American colours. The chase
had begun in what seemed another world; now it was ending. As the crowded boat rose and fell, traversing the last quarter of a mile, Stephen derived some comfort from the fact that during his earlier years in Paris he had used the second half of his name, Maturin y Domanova (Mathurin, spelt with an h but pronounced without it, having ludicrous associations with idiocy in the jargon of that time) and from the reflexion that it was much easier to feign stupidity than wisdom—although it might be a mistake to know no French at all he did not have to speak it very well.

  'Bring the raft against the chains,' called Reade.

  'Against the chains it is, sir,' replied Bonden; and looking over his shoulder he pulled hard ahead, judging the swell just so. The raft lurched against the Franklin's side, and she was so low in the water that it was no great step for Dutourd to go aboard directly. Two more heaves and Bonden hooked on. Dutourd helped Stephen over the shattered gunwale with one hand while with the other he swept off his hat, saying, 'I am deeply sensible of your goodness in coming, sir.' Stephen instantly saw that his anxiety had been quite needless: there was no hint of recognition in the earnest look that accompanied these words. Of course, a public man like Dutourd, perpetually addressing assemblies, meeting scores, even hundreds of people a day, would not remember a slight acquaintance of several years ago—three or four meetings in Madame Roland's salon before the war, at a time when his republican principles had already caused him to change his name from du Tourd to Dutourd, and then two or three dinners during the short-lived peace. Yet himself he would have known Dutourd, a curiously striking man, more full of life than most, giving the impression of being physically larger than he was in fact: an animated face, an easy rapid flow of speech. Upright: head held high. These thoughts presented themselves to his mind while at the same time he registered the desolation fore and aft, the tangle of sailcloth, cordage and shattered spars, the demoralization of the hands. Some few were still mechanically pumping but most were either drunk or reduced to a hopeless apathy.

  Martin, Reade and Plaice boarded the Franklin on three successive swells, Bonden fending off; and in a high clear voice Reade, taking off his hat, said, 'Monsieur, je prends le com-mandement de ce vaisseau.'

  'Bien, Monsieur,' said Dutourd.

  Reade stepped to the stump of the mainmast: Plaice lashed a stray studding-sail boom to it and amid the heavy indifference of the Franklin's crew they hoisted British colours. There was a modest cheer from the Surprise. Dutourd said 'Gentlemen, most of the wounded are in the cabin. May I lead the way?'

  As they went down the ladder they heard Reade call to Bonden, who had an extremely powerful voice, telling him to hail the ship and ask for the bosun, his mate, Padeen and all the hands who could be spared: the prize was near foundering.

  On the starboard side of the cabin a dozen men lay side by side and another was stretched out motionless on the stern-window locker; in this heat they were suffering terribly from thirst. But the ship had such a heel to larboard that on the other side there was a wretched tangle of living and dead washing about with every roll: screams, groaning, a shocking stench and cries for help, cries for rescue.

  'Come, sir, take off your coat,' said Stephen. Dutourd obeyed and the three of them pulled and lifted with what care they could. The dead they dragged to the half-deck; the living they laid in something like an order of urgency. 'Can you command your men?' asked Stephen.

  'Some few, I think,' said Dutourd. 'But most of them are drunk.'

  'Then tell them to throw the dead overboard and to bring buckets and swabs to clean where the dead men lay.' He called to Bonden out of the shattered stern-window, 'Barret Bonden, now. Can you heave up the little keg till Mr Martin and I can catch a hold on it?'

  'I'll try, sir,' said Bonden.

  'We shall have to move this man,' said Stephen, nodding at the figure lying on the locker. 'In any case he is dead.'

  'He was my sailing-master,' said Dutourd. 'Your last shot killed him, his mate and most of the crew. The other gun burst.'

  Stephen nodded. He had seen a raking shot do terrible damage; and as for a bursting gun . . . 'Shall we ease him out of the window? I must look to these men at once.'

  'Very well,' said Dutourd, and as the rigid corpse slid into the sea so Bonden called, 'On the rise, sir; clap on,' and the keg came aboard. Martin started the bung with a serving-mallet: he had only a filthy can to serve it out, but in this unnatural parching heat neither filth nor can was of the least account, only the infinitely precious water.

  'Now, sir,' said Stephen to Dutourd, 'a pint is all, or you will bloat. Sit here and show me your head.' Beneath the handkerchief, dried blood and matted hair, there was a razor-like cut along the side of his scalp, certainly a piece of flying metal: Stephen clipped, sponged and sewed—no reaction as the needle went in—clapped a bandage over all and said, 'That should answer for the moment. Pray go on deck and set your men to pumping more briskly. They may have the other breaker.'

  Stephen was thoroughly accustomed to the consequences of a battle at sea and Martin moderately so, but here the usual gunshot and splinter wounds and the frightful effects of a bursting gun were accompanied by the unfamiliar wounds caused by volcanic eruption, worse lacerations than they had seen in the Surprise and, since the Franklin had been closer to the vent, much more severe burning. They were both dog-tired, short of supplies, short of strength and of breath in the stifling heat of the cabin, and it was with relief that they saw Padeen arrive with lint, tow, bandages, splints, all that an intelligent man could think of, and heard Mr Bulkeley wind his call, ordering the Franklins to the pumps. They might not have understood the bosun's French, but there was no mistaking his rope's end, his pointing finger and his terrible voice. Jack had sent Awkward Davies over with Padeen, as well as the bosun and all the expert hands he could spare—Davies was biddable with Stephen—and with these two very powerful men to lift, hold and restrain, the medicoes dealt with their patients each in turn.

  They were taking a leg off at the hip when Reade came below: averting his ashy face he said, 'Sir, I am to carry the Franklin's master back to the ship with his papers. Have you any message?'

  'None, thank you, Mr Reade. Padeen, clap on, now.'

  'Before I go, sir, shall I get the bosun to unship the companion?'

  Stephen did not hear him through the patient's long quavering scream, but a moment later the whole framework overhead was lifted off and the fetid room was filled with brilliant light and clean, almost cool sea-air.

  From the first Jack Aubrey had disliked all that he had heard of Dutourd: Stephen described him as a good benevolent man who had been misled first by 'that mumping villain Rousseau' and later by his passionate belief in his own system, based it was true on a hatred of poverty, war and injustice, but also on the assumption that men were naturally and equally good, needing only a firm, friendly hand to set them on the right path, the path to the realization of their full potentialities. This of course entailed the abolition of the present order, which had so perverted them, and of the established churches. It was old, old stuff, familiar in all its variations, but Stephen had never heard it expressed with such freshness, fire and conviction. Neither fire nor conviction survived to reach Jack in Stephen's summary, however, but the doctrine that levelled Nelson with one of his own bargemen was clear enough, and he watched the approaching boat with a cold look in his eye.

  The coldness grew to strong disapproval when Dutourd, coming aboard in the traditional manner with the side-men offering him hand-ropes, failed to salute the quarterdeck. He had also failed to put on a sword to make his formal surrender. Jack at once retired to his cabin, saying to Pullings, 'Tom, pray bring that man below, with his papers.'

  He received Dutourd sitting, but he did not tell Killick to place a chair for the gentleman, while to Dutourd himself he said 'I believe, sir, that you speak English fluently?'

  'Moderately so, sir: and may I use what fluency I possess to thank you for your humanity to my people? Your surgeon
and his assistant have exerted themselves nobly.'

  'You are very good, sir,' said Jack with a civil inclination of his head; and after an enquiry about Dutourd's wound he said 'I take it that you are not a seaman by profession? That you are not very well acquainted with the customs of the sea?'

  'Scarcely at all, sir. I have managed a pleasure-boat, but for the open sea I have always engaged a sailing-master. I cannot describe myself as a seaman: I have spent very little time on the sea.'

  'That alters the case somewhat,' thought Jack, and he said 'Please to show me your papers.'

  Dutourd's most recent sailing-master had been an exact and orderly person as well as a taut skipper and an excellent seaman, and Dutourd handed over a complete set wrapped in waxed sailcloth.

  Jack looked through them with satisfaction; then frowned and looked through the parcels again. 'But where is your commission, or letter of marque?'

  'I have no commission or letter of marque, sir,' replied Dutourd, shaking his head and smiling a little. 'I am only a private citizen, not a naval officer. My sole purpose was to found a colony for the benefit of mankind.'

  'No commission, either American or French?'

  'No, no. It never occurred to me to solicit one. Is it looked upon as a necessary formality?'

  'Very much so.'

  'I remember having received a letter from the Minister of Marine wishing me every happiness on my voyage: perhaps that would answer?'