The Thirteen-Gun Salute Read online

  'Delightful task, to teach the young idea how to shoot,' observed Stephen.

  'Oh no,' cried Standish. 'My duties were of a far higher order: I took them through Lily and the gradus. Another man came in and taught them fencing and archery and pistol-practice and that kind of thing.'

  Jack returned to his pen. 'But it is the music that particularly distresses me. Martin is not a gifted player, and Standish perpetually puts him right—shows him how his fingering is at fault and his bowing, and the way he holds his instrument, and his notion of the tempo, and his phrasing. He has already offered Stephen a few hints and I think that when he grows bolder he may do the same kind office by me. I was very much mistaken in supposing I could play second fiddle to such a man and I shall have to find some decent excuse. The music is indeed celestial (how such a man can so lose himself in it and play so well is beyond my comprehension) but I do not look forward to this evening's bout at all. Perhaps there will be none. The sea is getting up a little.'

  Jack paused, re-read the last page and shook his head. Sophie disliked fault-finding; it distressed her, and she had heard a very great deal of it when she was a girl. And fault-finding in a letter might well sound harsher than by word of mouth. He balled up the sheet and threw it into the waste-paper-basket, a mine of interest to Killick and those members of the crew who shared his confidence, and as he did so he heard Pullings cry 'Stand by to hand foretopgallant,' followed immediately by the bosun's call.

  There was no music that evening apart from some quiet rumbling over familiar paths by Aubrey and Maturin—an evenly-shared mediocrity—and an hour or so of their favourite exercise, which was improvisation on a theme proposed by one and answered by the other, which sometimes rose well above mediocrity because of their deep mutual comprehension, in this field at least. Standish sent his excuses—regretted that indisposition prevented him from having the honour, etc—and Martin in his double capacity of assistant surgeon and early acquaintance sat by the wretched purser's side, holding a bowl.

  There was no music when they reached the westerlies either, for they were blowing briskly with a little north in them, so briskly that the Surprise went bowling along under close-reefed topsails with the wind on her quarter at nine and even ten knots, wallowing at the bottom of her long roll and pitch in a way that did her little credit.

  This splendid breeze held day after day, only slackening when they were approaching the Berlings. Martin led Standish on deck to view them that evening—cruel jagged rocks far out in a troubled ocean and under a troubled sky, the horizon dark. The purser clung to the rail, looking hungrily at these first specks of land since Malin Head: his clothes hung loose about him.

  'I hope I see you in better trim, Mr Standish,' said Jack Aubrey. 'Even at this gentle rate we should raise the Rock of Lisbon by dawn, and if we are lucky with our tide you may eat your dinner in Black Horse Square. Nothing sets a man up like a good square meal.'

  'But before that,' said Stephen, 'Mr Standish would be well advised to eat a couple of eggs, lightly boiled and taken with a little softened biscuit, as soon as ever his stomach will bear them; then he may have a good restorative, roborative sleep. As for the eggs, I heard two of the gun-room hens proclaim that they had laid this morning.'

  They did indeed raise the Rock of Lisbon a little before the dawn of a brilliant sparkling clear morning with warm scented air breathing off the land; and at the same time they passed HMS Briseis, 74, a cloud of sail in the offing, obviously homeward bound from Lisbon and making the most of the stronger breeze out there. Jack struck his topsails as in duty bound to a King's ship and Briseis, now commanded by an amiable man called Lampson, returned the salute, at the same time throwing out a signal whose only intelligible word was Happy.

  But they were not lucky with their tide: breathing the warm scented air was certainly a delight to those that longed for land, but it prevented the Surprise from crossing the Tagus bar and she was obliged to anchor all through slack water and well beyond before the pilot would consent to take her in.

  In this lakelike peace Standish, who had eaten his two eggs the evening before and had spent a calm night, spent his time eating first three pints of portable soup, thickened with oatmeal, and then a large quantity of ham; this recovered his spirits wonderfully, and although he was still feeble he gasped his way into the maintop, where Stephen and Martin were to explain the operation of getting under way.

  Below them on the quarterdeck the pilot finished his account of how the Weymouth, relying on her own knowledge of the river, had been wrecked on the bar—just over there, three points on the starboard bow, not quite a mile away—with the words 'And all for the sake of the pilot's fee.'

  'That was very bad, I am sure,' said Jack. 'Were the people saved?'

  'A few,' said the pilot reluctantly. 'But those few were all horribly disfigured. Now, sir, whenever you please to give the word, I believe we may proceed.'

  'All hands unmoor ship,' said Jack, raising his voice to the pitch of an order, though every man had been at his station these ten minutes past, angrily willing the pilot to stop his prating, to stash it, to pipe down; and instantly the bosun sprung his call.

  'See,' cried Stephen, 'the carpenter and his crew put the bars in the capstan—they ship them, pin them and swift them.'

  'They bring the messenger to the capstan: the gunner ties its rounded ends together. What are they called, Maturin?'

  'Let us not be too pedantic, for all love. The whole point is, the messenger is now endless: it is a serpent that has swallowed its own tail.'

  'I cannot see it,' said Standish, leaning far out over the rail. 'Where is this messenger?'

  'Why,' said Martin, 'it is that rope they are putting over the rollers just beneath us in the waist, a vast loop that goes from the capstan to two other stout vertical rollers by the hawse-holes and so back.'

  'I do not understand. I see the capstan, but there is no rope round it at all.'

  'What you see is the upper capstan,' said Stephen with some complacency. 'The messenger is twined about the lower part, under the quarterdeck. But both the lower and the upper part are equipped with bars: both turn: both heave, as we say. See, they undo the deck-stoppers, or dog-stoppers as some superficial observers call them—they loosen the starboard cable, the cable on the right-hand side—they throw off the turn about the riding-bitts! What force and dexterity!'

  'They bring the messenger to the cable—they bind it to the cable with nippers.'

  'Where? Where? I cannot see.'

  'Of course not. They are right forward, by the hawse-holes, where the cable comes into the ship, under the forecastle.'

  'But presently,' said Stephen in a comforting tone, 'you will perceive the cable come creeping aft, led by the messenger.'

  John Foley, the Shelmerston fiddler, skipped on to the capstan-head; at his first notes the men at the bars stepped out, and after the first turns that brought on the strain, three deep voices and one clear tenor sang

  Yeo heave ho, round the capstan go,

  Heave men with a will

  Tramp and tramp it still

  The anchor must be weighed, the anchor must be weighed

  joined by all in a roaring

  Yeo heave ho

  Yeo heave ho

  five times repeated before the three struck in again

  Yeo heave ho, raise her from below

  Heave men with a will

  Tramp and tramp it still

  The anchor's off the ground, the anchor's off the ground

  'There is your cable,' said Martin in a very much louder voice, after the first few lines.

  'So it is,' said Standish; and having stared at it coming in like a great wet serpent he went on, 'But it is not going to the capstan at all.'

  'Certainly not,' said Stephen in a screech above the full chorus. 'It is far too thick to bend round the capstan; furthermore, it is loaded with the vile mud of Tagus.'

  'They undo the nippers and let the cable down the
main hatchway and so to the orlop, where they coil it on the cable-tiers,' said Martin. 'And they hurry back with the nippers to bind fresh cable to the messenger as it travels round.'

  'How active they are,' observed Stephen. 'See how diligently they answer Captain Pullings' request to light along the messenger, that is to say pull along the slack on that side which is not heaving in—'

  'And how they run with the nippers: Davies has knocked Plaice flat.'

  'What are those men doing with the other cable?' asked Standish.

  'They are veering it out,' answered Martin quickly.

  'You are to understand that we are moored,' said Stephen. 'In other words we are held by two anchors, widely separated; when we approach the one, therefore, by pulling on its cable, the cable belonging to the other must necessarily be let out, and this is done by the veering cable-men. But their task is almost over, for if I do not mistake we are short stay apeak. I say we are short stay apeak.' But before he could insist upon this term, better than any Martin could produce, and reasonably accurate, a voice from the forecastle called 'Heave and a-weigh, sir,' whereupon Jack cried 'Heave and rally' with great force. All the veerers ran to the bars, the fiddler fiddled extremely fast, and with a violent, grunting yeo heave ho they broke the anchor from its bed and ran it up to the bows.

  The subsequent operations, the hooking of the cat to the anchor-ring, the running of the anchor up to the cat-head, the fishing of the anchor, the shifting of the messenger for the other cable (which of course required a contrary turn), and many more, were too rapid and perhaps too obscure to be explained before Jack gave the order 'Up anchor' and the music started again; but this time they sang

  We'll heave him up from down below

  Way oh Criana

  That is where the cocks do crow

  We're all bound over the mountain

  to the sound of a shrill sweet fife.

  The ship moved easily, steadily over the water—the tide was making fast—and presently West, on the forecastle, called 'Up and down, sir.'

  'He means that we are directly over the anchor,' said Stephen. 'Now you will see something.'

  'Loose topsails,' said Jack in little more than a conversational voice, and at once the shrouds were dark with men racing aloft.

  He gave no more orders. The Surprises lay out, let fall, sheeted home, hoisted and braced the topsails with perfect unity, as though they had all served together throughout a long commission. The frigate gathered way, plucked the anchor from its bed and moved smoothly up the Tagus.

  'If you can bring her to one of the moorings in the middle reach in time for me to have dinner in Black Horse Square, you shall have an extra five guineas,' said Jack as he handed the ship over to the pilot.

  'By three o'clock?' said the pilot, looking at the sky and then over the side. 'I believe it may be done.'

  'Even earlier, if possible,' said Jack. He was an old-fashioned creature in some ways, as his hero Nelson had been; he still wore his hair long and plaited into a clubbed pigtail, not cut in the short modern Brutus manner; he put on his cocked hat athwartships rather than fore and aft; and he liked his dinner at the traditional captain's two o'clock. But tradition was now failing him; naval habits were beginning to ape those of the land, where dinner at five, six, and even seven was becoming frequent; and at sea most post-captains, particularly if they had guests, dined at three. Jack's stomach was even more conservative than his mind, but at present he had trained it to hold out with tolerable good humour until half past two.

  The hands had their dinner (two pounds of salt beef, one pound of ship's bread and a pint of grog) as soon as the ship was over the worst of the bar; the members of the gun-room had theirs at one (it smelt to Jack like uncommonly good roast mutton) and when Belem was clear on the larboard bow they came on deck, rosy and comfortable, to view the tower and Lisbon itself, white in the distance beyond.

  Jack went below to see whether a biscuit and a glass of madeira would quieten the wolf within, and there he found Stephen with an almanack and a small paper of calculations.

  'I dare say you are working out when we shall pick up the trades,' he said. 'Will you join me in a glass of madeira and a biscuit? We had a very early breakfast.'

  'With all my heart. But the trade winds I leave to you entirely: what I am looking for is the saint's day upon which my daughter will most probably be born. These things cannot be foretold to the day nor even to the week, so I shall have to spread my offerings pretty wide; but on the most likely, most physically orthodox day, what clouds of incense will go up! What mounds of pure beeswax! And in looking through this almanack I see that it was on Saint Eudoxia's day, when the Ethiopian Copts so strangely celebrate Pontius Pilate, that Padeen would have been hanged but for your great kindness. I shall have a Mass said for his intention as soon as we get ashore.'

  'It was no great kindness I do assure you. When I went they looked very grave because they thought I wanted a sinecure or a place at court for a friend, but when I said it was only a man's life they cheered up amazingly, laughed, told me the weather had been delightful these last days, and gave me the paper out of hand. But tell me, why are you so sure that Diana is going to be brought to bed of a girl?'

  'Can you imagine her being brought to bed of anything else?'

  Jack could perfectly well imagine it, but he had so often heard Stephen speak of his future delight in the company of this little hypothetical daughter that he only said, 'The pilot tells me there are no other men-of-war in the river, which is just as well—there is always a certain amount of awkwardness. He also tells me that the post office is shut today, which is an infernal bore. Have you any idea of what to order for dinner?'

  'Cold green soup, grilled swordfish, roast sucking-pig, pineapple and the little round marchpane cakes whose name escapes me with our coffee.'

  'Stephen, you will deal with the quarantine-officer, will you not?'

  'I have prepared a little douceur in this purse, which I must remember to transfer to the fine clothes Killick is laying out for me. And that reminds me, I must look out for a servant to replace Padeen at last. Killick will wither quite away if he has to go on looking after us both.'

  'I think any newcomer would wither away even quicker under the effect of his ill-will. He has grown so used to it since poor Padeen was sent away that he looks upon you as his own property, and he would resent anyone else. The only thing he would bear would be some lumpkin to stand behind you at dinner; with the best will in the world he cannot stand behind both of us at the same time and it drives him distracted. But why are you putting out fine clothes? It is only a tavern dinner at João's.'

  'Because I must call at the palace and ask for an audience with the Patriarch. On the way back I shall look in at my bankers' correspondent.'

  The dinner at João's had passed off very well, for although the port was in the Portuguese taste, somewhat thin, sharp and even astringent, the coffee was the best in the world; Dr Maturin's reception by the Patriarch himself had been kind and gracious beyond expectation; and now he was walking towards what English sailors called Roly Poly Square, where his bankers' Lisbon correspondents had their place of business. He was conscious of a sense of positive well-being; the sun shone upon the broad river and its countless masts; and he was happy for Sam. But he had a feeling that he was being observed. 'Those criminals, intelligence-agents and foxes who last, who survive to have offspring, develop an eye in the back of their heads,' he reflected; and when he had finished dealing with his letter of credit and some other matters he was not surprised at being accosted on the doorstep by a decent-looking man in a brown coat who took off his hat and said, 'Dr Maturin, I presume?'

  Stephen also took off his hat, saying, 'Maturin is indeed my name, sir.' But he showed no inclination to stop, and the other, hurrying along beside him, went on in a low urgent tone, 'Pray forgive me, sir, for this want of ceremony, but I come from Sir Joseph Blaine. He is just arrived at the Quinta de Monserrate, near Cintra,
and he begs you will come to see him. I have a carriage close at hand.'

  'My compliments to Sir Joseph, if you please,' said Stephen. 'I regret I am not at leisure to wait upon him, but trust I may have the pleasure of a meeting at either the Royal or the Entomological society when next I am in London. Good day to you, sir.' He said this in so decided a tone and with so very cold a look in his pale eyes that the messenger did not persist, but stood there looking wretched.

  'Damned villain,' said Stephen as he crossed the square and began to walk down the Rua d'Ouro. 'To come without even a pretence of credentials, supposing that I should hurry off into the hills and beg Taillandier to cut my throat'—Taillandier being the principal French agent in Lisbon, and usually much more professional in his methods.

  'Hola, Stephen,' called Jack from the other side of the street. 'Well met, shipmate. Come and help me choose some taffeta for Sophie. I want some so fine it will go through a ring. I am sure you understand taffeta, Stephen.'

  'I doubt there is a man in the whole of Ballinasloe that understands it better,' said Stephen. 'And if there is blue taffeta to be had, I shall buy some for Diana too.'

  They walked back to the quay carrying their parcels, and since Jack, not knowing how long they would be, had not taken his own gig ashore, they were about to hail a boat when a party of the Surprise's liberty men, gathering about the launch true to their hour, caught sight of them the whole breadth of the square away and roared out, 'Never waste your money on a skiff, sir. Come along o' we.'

  Jack went along o' they in the democratical corsair fashion quite happily, though he was just as glad that there were no serving officers in their formal barges to watch him: though in fact, apart from their first free, uninhibited invitation the Shelmerstonians were as prim and mute as any long-serving man-of-war's men throughout the crossing.