Blue At The Mizzen Part 13

'I believe so.'

Jack rang the bell, said, 'Pa.s.s the word for Mr. Harding,' and to the lieutenant he said, 'Mr. Harding, there will be no sh.o.r.e-leave whatsoever this evening; and if any boats approach, they are to be denied admission. And I am going aboard the packet.'

'But sir,' cried Jacob, 'I have been too hasty - first I should have said that Colonel Valdes is marching his troops back from Concepcion and messengers have already been sent to the Supreme Director.'

'Even so,' said Jack, 'I shall carry on with my plan.' He left them there, went on deck and dropped down into the packet. 'Gentlemen,' he said to the company of Fellows, 'may I beg for five minutes of your time?'

They all murmured agreement, and Austin Dobson invited him below. 'Am I right in supposing that you are now heading for Panama?'

'We are indeed,' said Dobson. 'Sclater and Bewick' - nodding towards the two ornithologists - 'are eager to cross the isthmus quite soon, there being the possibility of no fewer than three s.h.i.+ps leaving for England in the third week of the month, and they would like a few days with the terns on the Pacific side.'

'In that case, dear colleagues," said Jack, 'you can, if you choose, do me and Maturin an essential service. You are all acquainted, I believe, with the very delicate state of this country and the likelihood of O'Higgins being overthrown and the consequent anarchy and an inevitable Peruvian invasion?' They nodded; and an entomologist murmured, 'Those vile juntas."

'At the moment it is nip and tuck: or touch and go. But I mean to sail for Callao tonight with the intention of cutting out the Peruvians' fifty-gun frigate Esmeralda, of carrying her back to Valparaiso and of manning her with picked men from the Chilean navy trained by poor Lindsay and myself. That should put the balance of power more strongly on the republican side, even before the return of O'Higgins and the troops from Concepcion.'

'Certainly,' said an astronomer, 'but, my dear sir and colleague, we are men of science, not of war.'

'Just so,' said Captain Aubrey, 'but as scientists you are accurate observers: you will very soon make out whether the battle is won or lost; and the first of my two requests is that you will send the result, either way, to the Admiralty with the utmost dispatch. And as scientists you will understand the importance of my second: our brother, Stephen Maturin, has left all his collections at our inn in Valparaiso. I, and this s.h.i.+p, have incurred the enmity of the local authorities: I dare not let him go ash.o.r.e. You under the aegis of the Royal Society may do so without fear: you may sup agreeably at the Antigua Sevilla, gather his belongings, and so join Surprise and her tender, the schooner Ringle, just a mile off the harbour at midnight.'

CHAPTER TEN.

It was a strikingly beautiful morning in November: but a November morning some twelve degrees south of the equator has few a.s.sociations with Guy Fawkes or bonfires. The dear topgallant breeze had chased away any hint of mist the night might have left and this was a light-filled day with a deep blue sky from horizon to horizon - a transparent air that allowed small details to be seen a great way off, and although when the sun reached his zenith - the exact height to be measured by every soul aboard who could command a s.e.xtant, quadrant or backstaff - his warmth might be troublesome, but euphroes were already at hand for the awnings that would moderate his zeal, and while the bosun and his mates were laying out the intricacies of their lines, fore and aft, Jack Aubrey stood leaning on the elegant taffrail of the Surprise, gazing somewhat eastward of her wash at the boat pulling towards her from the vessel registered as Isaac Newton but universally called the Lisbon packet, that having been her vocation before her owner (as unlucky in cards as he was in love) sold her to a penurious entomologist who, having inherited a prodigious fortune, indulged himself and his colleagues of the Royal Society in an equally prodigious voyage. One of the friends sailing with him, the foremost European authority on voles, was also in holy orders: and this being Sunday he was coming aboard the frigate to officiate and perhaps to read a sermon.

'He will not be disappointed,' observed her captain, having glanced forward and aloft at the snowy canvas, in charming contrast with her yards, gleaming with Mr. Harding's blacking - though to be sure the sails were somewhat given to flapping now that Surprise had started her sheets to allow the boat to catch up. But the person to whom the remark was addressed gave no more than a brutish grunt, clapped his telescope to, and said, 'He is only an aberrant frigate-bird. Those curious marks were certainly the excrement of some companion.'

Jack was on the edge of a witty reply, but before he could both formulate and utter it the boat was alongside: the guest had to be received with due ceremony and led below to drink a gla.s.s of sherry and to put on the rolled-up surplice that was handed up after him. Yet since the Reverend Mr. Hare had by now been afloat for so many thousand miles it was reasonable to suppose that he might like to have some of the new-rigged Surprise's perfections pointed out: but Jack might as well have addressed his words to a vole, for Hare was as insensible to the blacking as he was to the unusual cut of the flying jib. In fact he quite dreaded reading his sermon, and once below he gulped down his sherry and looked wistfully at the decanter.

However, when he came on deck again into the presence of the scrubbed, new-shaven, neatly-clad s.h.i.+p's company with their officers sweating in formal broadcloth under the torrid sun, the familiar cry of 'Jews and Roman Catholics fall out' comforted him and he walked with an a.s.sured, sea-manlike step to the small-arms chest that served as a lectern. The Jews and Roman Catholics did not in fact fall out any more than the various kinds of Muslim, the Orthodox Christians, or the plain wicked heathens. The congregation looked grave, and even blank; but they grew more cheerful when Mr. Hare (an aspiring author) began his hesitant reading of a neighbour's sermon based upon a text from Job: 'Oh that my words were now written, oh that they were printed in a book'. Then came some familiar hymns, in which Poll Skeeping and Maggie Tyler, who knew the words, distinguished themselves, and a psalm, which Awkward Davies sang in a strikingly true ba.s.so profundo.

Mr. Hare dined in the cabin with the Captain, of course, the first lieutenant and the surgeon, dined remarkably well, Valparaiso's victuals and livestock still being plentiful, and the chief supplier having thrown in a score of prime guinea-pigs by way of compliment, while the exceptionally good Chilean wine positively encouraged excess. Not that Parson Hare needed any encouragement in his heartfelt relief at having delivered his sermon without a single blunder: indeed, it could not truthfully be said that the wine was his undoing - the blame for that, if one is to censure unsteady gait and a certain garrulity, must be ascribed to the United States' rum, some bottles of which had survived the wicked cold and the even more wicked seas off the Horn. Jack Aubrey was not much given to censure, apart from instances of poor seamans.h.i.+p, being too conscious of his own faults in that direction (more than once he had been obliged to be wheeled aboard in a barrow), but when it was time for leave-taking he said that he and Stephen would see their guest home, not only to greet their fellow-members of the Royal Society but also to view the packet, and to ask her master about her behaviour under various combinations of sail in given winds.

It was too reasonable to be refused, and when the Surprise was heaved to so that the Isaac Newton could come closer, all three went on deck. The frigate's hands had been particularly gratified by the presence, the temporary presence, of an undoubtedly certificated parson, an admirable preacher, and as he took his seat in the bosun's chair, a kindly device that would raise him from the deck, swing him out over the side and so lower him into the boat without any exertion or ability on his own part, a disorganised cheer arose, gaining in unity and volume as the barge pulled over to the packet, where Hare's s.h.i.+pmates, aware of his weakness, had already rigged another chair to bring him aboard.

'What an obliging fellow your master is,' said Jack, coming back into Dobson's cabin after his inspection of Isaac Newton. 'He answered all my questions like a right seaman - he has in fact sailed with several friends of mine, renowned as taut captains - and he told me many interesting things about Magellan's Strait, too. What is more he said that you had spoken a barquentine which had touched at Callao, where there were two other fair-sized merchantmen, one from Boston, the other belonging to Liverpool, as well as the Esmeralda, moored over on the man-of-war's side. Now that brings me to the favour I have to ask of you.'

'I should be very glad to hear it,' said Dobson, looking at him earnestly.

'It is my intention to stand into Callao, wind and weather permitting, fairly late in the evening of tomorrow or the next, and then endeavour to cut her out. We shall enter not disguised but with a peaceable, mercantile appearance, carry her by boarding in the dark and if possible carry her out. I shall take all the hands Ringle can spare, but leave her enough to bring the outcome to you, lying off the port: she will also bring out a written account, a dispatch, and you would oblige me extremely by confiding it to your friends bound for England, begging them to deliver it to the Admiralty.'

'I shall certainly do that, and I am sure I can answer for my friends. Crossing the isthmus to the Atlantic coast in only a moderate day's ride, and I know they can expect no less than three s.h.i.+ps ready to sail to the Pool of London.'

'G.o.d give them a good wind, and us a happy dispatch.'

'Amen, amen, amen.'

'For if it is even moderately happy, I should very much like my superiors to have it before they have completed the new South African squadron.'

Most s.h.i.+ps have a Killick or two aboard, but naval history records none with a more intense, persistent curiosity and want of scruple in employing his talents - so long as he was the only soul in the s.h.i.+p's company to know what the authorities, above all his captain, meant to do, the means were of no consequence; and they ranged, of course, from listening behind doors to the reading, lips in motion, of obviously extremely private letters. But this time he was disappointed; and if he had so low and false an opinion of his lower-deck s.h.i.+pmates, a seasoned band of fighting seamen, as to suppose them ignorant of the destination of the iron b.a.l.l.s they had spent hours upon, chipping the iron off them and restoring their perfectly spherical appearance and thus their power to fly straight, then he deserved to be.

On Wednesday evening, the Surprise, looking as much like a merchantman as she decently could without culpable falsity, sailed into Callao with little abroad but her topsails and a jib, leaving Isaac Newton hull-down in the west and Ringle about a mile off the coast, there to wait for a signal, though most of her able hands had already been drafted to help serve the frigate's guns.

With no appearance of haste, therefore, they glided in just before the top of the tide, her very young master steering her into battle according to naval custom.

'Lay me for her larboard broadside, Mr. Hanson,' said Jack. 'And then bring her up when we are beam to beam.'

Already the Surprise's larboard watch were preparing the boats for launching: they were equipped with cutla.s.ses, pistols and sometimes, as in Davies' case, with a terrible boarding-axe. Gently the frigate began her left-hand turn. The captains of the starboard guns kept them on their target with iron levers until Jack, taking the distance and the angle to be just so, gave the order 'From forward aft, fire as they bear'. And to Hanson, 'Back the fore and main topsails.'

After the first three unanswered, murderous broadsides they hammered one another with shocking speed and ferocity, the Esmeralda replying very nearly shot for shot at first. But then, before the way was off her, Jack gave the order to fill the sails and put the helm hard over, bringing the fresh gun-crews into the most violent action. The Peruvians' rate of fire diminished, as well it might with four of her twelve-pounders dismounted.

For nearly two minutes she was silent, for a shocking accident in the magazine meant that the guns could not be reloaded. Almost at the beginning of this ghastly pause Jack cried 'Boarders away', and leapt down into his barge. The larboard boats came round and up the Peruvian's side as Jack's band made their way on to her deck, Awkward Davies uttering his horrifying roar.

The Peruvians were now attacked before and behind, and although they rallied again and again they were not used to this kind of battle, whereas the Surprises were: and use makes master. Gradually the most part of the Esmeraldas were forced to escape below. But now the light was fading fast and now the inexplicably silent artillery in the fortress guarding the naval port opened fire, each heavy gun shooting out a great tongue of flame.

Jack's uniform had necessarily caught the Peruvian officers' attention and for some time - as far as time can be reckoned in such encounters - he had been extremely busy. Yet even so his eye, the practised eye of a predator, had caught the hoists of coloured lights rising to the mast-heads of the two merchantmen in the harbour - position lights, obviously agreed upon beforehand.

He backed out of the fray and roared for his c.o.xswain. 'Take any of the bargemen and any boat and pull like fury back to the s.h.i.+p. Tell Mr. Whewell from me to hoist coloured lights instantly and move the s.h.i.+p about. Cut along.' He raced back into the dense mob fighting two and three deep, fighting all round the main hatchway and a pistol bullet struck him in the left shoulder at very close range, knocking him flat, while a dark-faced man with a fixed devilish grin pa.s.sed a sword clean through his thigh.

The next moment Dark Face was utterly destroyed by a blow from Awkward Davies, an appalling blow: young Hanson, unhurt so far, stood over Jack until he could pluck out the sword and the two dragged him back to the Peruvian's shattered side. There, although for the moment he was unable to move he saw with satisfaction that the gunners up there were now confused, firing at everything. He also saw with great relief but no very great surprise that the only Peruvians who had not gone below were now surrendering. He called to a group of Ringles he knew well and told them to stand by to unmoor. They stared at him with the wild, half-mad look of men who were or who just had been fighting to the death; and he hailed one of them. 'Mr. Lewis, get these men to stand by to unmoor. And if you can lend me a cravat or a large handkerchief to tie up my leg I should be obliged.'

But now some of the forward gunners there, gathering his intention, redoubled their fire. Fortunately it was not very accurate, and some were still concentrating on the Boston and Liverpool s.h.i.+ps. Even so, if the Esmeralda were to be cut out at all, it would have to be done quickly. Helped by a seaman called Simon he got to his feet and staggered to the starboard bow and the mooring: the frigate was very strangely made fast to the mole by a cable, a remarkably stout cable. He bawled 'All hands to loose topsails', fell forward and saw young Hanson, with an absurdly curved but obviously very sharp scimitar cutting away at the enormous rope while Davies levered it taut with a gunner's handspike. Hack, hack, a deep breath and a third blow with all his strength. The cable parted, and the s.h.i.+p, feeling the growing force of the ebb, swung free and moved a little way from the mole.

Joy and even a certain strength flooded into Jack's being. 'Hands loose topsails,' he cried. 'All hands there.' Then hoa.r.s.ely, 'Thank you, Horatio: you are a very good fellow. Now take her out, will you?'

Take her out he did, the s.h.i.+p being hit once or twice but not seriously: out beyond the sheltering mole and into the darkness; and Jack felt a charming ease rise through the pain of his wounds, a pain that did not die away until he lost consciousness as they handed him down into his own sick-bay.

He was aroused not by the piping of All Hands just before eight bells in the middle watch, nor by the bosun's mates bawling 'Starboard watch ahoy! Rise and s.h.i.+ne: rouse out there! Starboard watch oh!', nor by the dread sound of eight bells, nor yet by the noises of cleaning the decks with water, sand, and holystones, then swabbing them dry. What woke him from an unimagined depth of sleep was Stephen's whispered explanation of the mangled state of his shoulder: 'The bullet struck the buckle of his sword-belt, do you see, flattening both metal and leather entirely, but leaving the bone intact.'

'I see the crown deeply imprinted in his flesh. Yes, indeed. Surely he is beyond all reason fortunate, when you consider that his thigh was also transpierced without a single important artery being severed,' replied Jacob.

'Gentlemen, a very good morning to you,' said Jack out of the immense happiness that was welling in his full consciousness. 'Is Esmeralda under our lee? Have we made a decent offing?'

Somewhat taken aback, they said that she was; and that the sh.o.r.e could not be seen.

'Give you joy,' said Jack. He vented his own, a bubbling exaltation, in a croak of laughter, and said, 'Pray give me something to drink: I am horribly dry.' Stephen held a jug to his lips and he drank like a thirsty horse.

They looked at him with a certain disapproval, and both felt his pulse. 'It is scarcely reasonable,' said Jacob, aside. 'But then he always was a full-blooded man.' And much louder, 'Give you joy of your victory, sir: give you joy.'

'G.o.d bless you, my dear,' said Stephen, gently shaking his hand. 'It was a n.o.ble feat. But tell me, Jack, do you feel much pain?'

'Not lying on my back: not to stop me sleeping - Lord, how I slept! Now I am aware of my shoulder, and the bandage on my leg is a trifle tight. But G.o.d help us, after such a thrust it ain't surprising. Tell me, could I be fed? Just a little thin gruel, if you like, but something to set me in train: I have a most important letter to write.'

'Fed?' they cried automatically; but then Stephen, who had known Jack's iron const.i.tution for many years, said, 'Thin gruel will not set you a-going. An egg, beaten up with milk, should make a splendid dispatch.'

'Lord, how well that went down,' said Jack some minutes later. 'Killick, pa.s.s the word for Mr. Harding.'

'Which he is aboard the prize, sir,' said Killick, exulting. 'But we will hail her.'

'Of course you will. Stephen, pray heave me up. I cannot dictate an official letter lying flat on my back. You have already washed my face, I find. Thank you. Killick, there: pa.s.s the word for Mr. Adams.' And when his clerk came in, 'Mr. Adams, a good morning to you. I am about to write an official letter, so let us have excellent paper, excellent pens, and right black ink - Mr. Harding, there you are.'

'I will take my leave,' said Jacob. 'Once again, sir, many, many congratulations.'

'Thank you very much - Stephen, pray do not stir. Mr. Harding, a very good morning to you. How does Esmeralda swim?'

'Like a swan, sir: very easy indeed.'

'Not much damage?'

'Well, her larboard upper works are tolerably battered, her mizzen shot half through just under the top and I have had to strike three guns down into the hold: and I am afraid the fore part of her magazine is a wreck. But she is dry - no damage beneath the water-line - and with single-reefed courses and topsails she goes along very well.'

'I am very happy to hear it. Now I have to write the official letter, so please let me have the butcher's bill for both sides and the usual details. You are happy to sail her to Valparaiso, I take it?'

'Oh Lord, yes: and all the way home, with some moderate patching, if you choose. But I am afraid their losses, with that dam - that horrible explosion in the magazine, were very heavy. Yet the officers are a decent lot: most of them wounded, and very grateful to Dr. Jacob for his care. And the hands are much the same now: their bosun and the carpenter's mate - the carpenter himself was killed - have done what can be done to her mizzen until she can go alongside a sheer-hulk. Our losses were fairly light; but there were some good seamen who will be sadly missed. I thought you would need it, sir, so I have scribbled an exact list on our side, and just approximate numbers on theirs: though I did put their captain's name.'

'Thank you very much, Mr. Harding. I shall get my letter off as soon as I can, to Panama with the packet and so straight to London. Is there anyone you would particularly wish to be mentioned?'

'Well, sir, there was Linklatter, carpenter's crew, who made us fast to her bows at the cost of his arm; and of course there was Mr. Hanson who stood over you when you were pistolled by the main hatchway and who gave some shrewd blows: but I daresay you remember that.'

'Indeed I do, though I was half-stunned for a moment. And I shall certainly remember Linklatter. Thank you, Mr. Harding. By the way, where is Ringle lying?'

'About half a mile on our larboard quarter, sir.'

'And the packet?'

'Perhaps another half mile beyond her.'

'I could not ask better.' And when Harding was gone, 'Stephen, I should not like to lose a moment having this letter fair-copied, so I shall say it slowly, deliberately; and if you hear anything that is low or bad grammar or just plain wrong, pray hold up your hand and we will mend it before Adams has time to write it down.'

'Brother,' said Stephen after a moment's hesitation, 'you have reflected upon the peculiar difficulties of this letter, sure?'

'Oh, this is not the first I have wrote, you know: dear me, with guardian angels hovering about me like a pack of rooks I have been blessed with occasion to write a dozen at least, some of them printed in the Register. They are difficult, of course, and there are certain forms you have to learn: I generally begin with a usual and quite proper opening: Sir (or My Lord, as the case may be), it is with the greatest satisfaction that I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that.... and so on, always taking care to get your position, your lat.i.tude and longitude, just so.'

A pause, and Stephen said, 'My dear, you are forgetting that this is not an ordinary matter for the Board. You, in command of Surprise, formerly a vessel belonging to the Royal Navy, brought her here on a hydrographical expedition with the added, but I think not expressed, condition that you should help the independent and republican Chileans to form a navy. It is true that some one of the many juntas appointed Lindsay, but since his death I think it can be a.s.sumed that you command what naval force there is to be commanded: and it is surely to the rulers of this country that your letter should be addressed - to don Ber-nardo O'Higgins, the Director Supremo, or his successor. After all, as I understand it, you mean to take the Esmeralda back to Valparaiso: and the possession of that very considerable man-of-war, together with what the Chileans already possess, absolutely guarantees the independence of their country. Everything depended on naval superiority: and now it is ours.' With infinite concern he had been seeing Jack age before his eyes: it was not that he grew pale - he could not have been much paler - but all the living joy had drained out of his face; and now it was that of the Jack Aubrey of seventy or even more. 'Never grieve, brother,' Stephen went on. 'The essence of the matter is unchanged: only the appearance has seemed to alter. All this has been entirely in line with the Ministry's intentions: but they cannot yet be publicly expressed, far less avowed in print. Believe me, Jack, the Admiralty will be as pleased with this victory as if it had been won over an acknowledged enemy; and I do not doubt that they will take as much notice of your recommendations, while I am very sure that the Supreme Director, on hearing the more than happy outcome will absolutely a.s.sert that you did not exceed local orders given in a great emergency - Peru was actively preparing to invade the country. Dear Jack, I know about these things. Let me write a private letter to Sir Joseph, send it over by our brethren in the packet, and then a Spanish piece, announcing the Chilean victory that confirms the country's independence to San Martin and O'Higgins, thanking them and their colleagues for their directions and their unfailing support. This, when you have signed it, will go racing on before us to Valparaiso.'

Jack smiled - a smile that was neither forced nor constrained but that betrayed an immense weariness - and said, 'I do beg your pardon, Stephen. My wits were astray and I was forgetting my real status: I should be most grateful if you would write both. And in Sir Joseph's letter, if you think proper, pray mention Horatio's conduct: after all he did unmoor Esmeralda and sail her out under very heavy fire.'

'I shall do that. And my Valparaiso letter will go by Ringle, with all her amazing speed, for if I do not mistake, we and our prize must carry on at this sober pace. But Jack, my dear, you have lost a terrible lot of blood; your mind is sadly agitated - far more agitated than the situation warrants -and it is my considered opinion that you must eat as large a quant.i.ty of chicken soup as you can hold, and then take the comfortable draught that I shall mix you while the bird is preparing.'

All this time the Surprise had been filled with the innumerable sounds of a s.h.i.+p being brought back to a state of high perfection, having been battered out of it, the continuous thump of caulkers' mallets all along the frigate's engaged side being the most obvious of the great variety: surprisingly great, since a good half of the s.h.i.+p's company were aboard the crippled prize, which had been hit very hard not only in the naval battle but also by the fortress's thirty-six-pounders. And it took Stephen some little time to find Killick, who was furtively smoking on the seat of ease: but when, with some vexation of spirit, Stephen at last had the nouris.h.i.+ng broth in preparation, he and Jacob set themselves to composing and encoding the singularly difficult letter to Sir Joseph.

At something very near the most critical point a knock on the door almost wrecked their tense concentration. 'Beg pardon, sir,' said Killick, timidly now, although he was backed by Maggie Tyler. 'Which Poll says the broth is ready.'

'Very well,' said Stephen, darting a furious look at him. 'Maggie, as soon as it is cool enough, spoon it into the Captain until he can take no more. No forcing him, however: do you hear me, there?'

'Yes, sir,' whispered Maggie, aghast. 'And he is to take this draught' - holding up a purple phial. 'Three teaspoons; and count sixty after the first and second.'

'Sixty it is, sir. As much as he can hold, then the draught: three teaspoons, and count sixty between the doses.' She had never seen either doctor look so very severe, and she bobbed a double courtesy as she backed out, treading on Killick's feet.

Another hour of intense concentration; and since they used a particular ink that could neither be effaced nor altered nor blotted, another hour of increasing squalor, then, when both were satisfied and neither had quarrelled (which, where an encoding is concerned, says a very great deal) Stephen thankfully sealed the frail sheets and carried them first to the cabin for Jack's wavering signature ('Only half of him there at all, the poor dear soul,' said Stephen to himself) and then on deck. 'Mr. Whewell," he said to the officer of the watch, 'I should like to go aboard Isaac Newton, if possible -the Lisbon packet - and it does not seem worth troubling Ringle, particularly as the Captain wishes her to make for Valparaiso as fast as ever she can sail.'

'Why, sir, we will lower down the blue cutter in a trice - she is easily the best sailer we have. Mr. Hanson, the blue cutter, if you please. Doctor, may I ask how the Captain does? The people are right uneasy.'

'I do not think they need to be. He was indeed dreadfully knocked about yesterday, particularly on the head and shoulder, and he lost a power of blood; but he has eaten well, and I think he is now asleep. Or very soon will be.'

'Thank G.o.d,' said Whewell: and several hands within hearing distance nodded with grave satisfaction.

Even before he had begun to think of himself as part of the Navy (and that, because of strange but extensive areas of physical, mental and spiritual incompetence had been a very long period ) - even before his acceptance of a life as gregarious as that of the honey-bee, Stephen Maturin had had a respect for the service and a kind of puzzled affection for sailors, particularly when they were aboard their own s.h.i.+ps, those extraordinary hollow dwellings, sometimes as beautiful as they were comfortless. But never had he been so impressed as he was now, when a war-battered vessel, not a full day away from her b.l.o.o.d.y victory, produced and lowered down a trim, spotless cutter at no more than three words from the officer and two notes from the bosun's pipe, stepped her mast and sent a boy running up the side to guide him down into the stern-sheets, the cus.h.i.+oned stern-sheets.

'Where away, sir, if you please?' asked the c.o.xswain.

'The Lisbon packet - but tell me, how is your William?' 'Well, sir, he copped it good and hearty, something cruel; but Dr. Jacob hopes to save the leg. Mind your head, sir: we are going about.'

The Isaac Newton's master altered course to close the cutter and within a few minutes Stephen was aboard, clutching his bosom with maniac force lest the papers that had cost so much and that carried so much should escape during his frog-like progress over the gap between the cutter and the packet: he was safe, but he gasped for a while before handing the wrapper to Dobson, his very old friend and, as an entomologist, a familiar of Sir Joseph Banks. Then, though he very earnestly wished them on their way - particularly Sclater and his friend, who were to traverse the isthmus and take s.h.i.+p at Chagres on the Atlantic coast - he received their very hearty congratulations and gave them a brief account of the action, as far as it could be made out from the surgeons' station in the c.o.c.kpit.

Back aboard the frigate Stephen went straight below to his invalids: Jack, of course, was still asleep, and would be for a good while yet, if poppy and h.e.l.lebore retained any virtue, but what was much more to the point was that his face had recovered a little something of its youth and happiness -at least it was no longer mortally stricken - while his shoulder, though an undeniably hideous bruise, showed no signs of infection, nor yet did his leg, which was distinctly less swollen. Stephen remembered how once he had spoken of Captain Aubrey's power 'of healing like a young dog'; but under the influence of a certain piety or perhaps of mere sea-borne superst.i.tion he brushed the thought aside and hurried into the sick-bay to confer with Jacob, Poll and Maggie - satisfactory upon the whole - and so on to the cabin, where he threw himself into the composition of his letter to the Chilean authorities with great zeal and conviction.

'A very fine letter indeed, dear colleague,' said Jacob. 'Even if I could suggest any change, which I cannot, since it seems to me that you have summed up the situation admirably well, insisting upon the imminence of the Peruvian invasion, the urgency of the Director Supremo's request and the wholehearted support of your political advisers. But even if I could suggest any changes, I say, I should not, because I know how you long to send Ringle away to Valparaiso, and any recopying for the sake, let us say, of a mere subjunctive, would fret your spirit intolerably. Let us seal the letter, direct it to San Martin, and send it off without the loss of a minute.'

'What a good creature you are, Amos,' said Stephen, shaking his hand. 'Pray warm the wax.' And a few minutes later he said, 'Mr. Harding, the Captain is still fast asleep. In his condition, sleep, quietness and rest are of the very first importance and I should be most unwilling to disturb him. Yet the news of the victory should reach Valparaiso as soon as possible, and I am willing to take the fullest responsibility for desiring you to put a letter addressed to the Chilean authorities there aboard Ringle and directing Mr. Reade to deliver it as soon as ever he can.'

'The letter is of course agreed between you and the Captain?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then I shall make Ringle's number at once.'

It was a joy to see the schooner come swiftly, smoothly under Surprise's lee, the stiff breeze being in the west-northwest, pick up the message, repeat the orders, and pelt away southwards under such a press of canvas that she was hull-down before Stephen left the deck.

By all accounts the reception of the news in Valparaiso had been ecstatic - music and dancing all day and all night, speeches, more speeches, heroic drinking on the part of the Royal Navy and some Indians from the inland parts, widespread allegations of unchast.i.ty. But the beautiful west winds that Jack Aubrey had so often praised as being perfect for the Strait of Magellan and that had indeed brought Ringle down at such a pace, often touching fifteen knots watch after watch, soon turned foul: dead foul. When they were trying to beat round Cape Angamos the prize lost her mizzen with its top and everything above, which delayed them horribly.

Still, they did arrive to a fair amount of popular enthusiasm, to official speeches by the score, and of course to splendid dinners: and it was while he was preparing for one of these, said to be the last before Carrera's departure, that Jack's ill-temper, his invalid's ill-temper, worried Stephen extremely, as the possible sign of a late-developing complication from one or other of his wounds. He had been extremely active, getting up long before Stephen and Amos thought wise, and throwing himself into the repair of Esmer-alda, the refurbis.h.i.+ng of O'Higgins and Lindsay's Asp, and the fitting-out of the little squadron of sloops in which he and some of his officers trained the abler young Chileans, a singularly agreeable band. This time he meant to take them on at least part of his surveying of the Chonos Archipelago; but that depended very much on how his plans for the evening went.

Extremely active, and now he was extremely tired, as well as somewhat irritable, not to say cross-grained: he was much thinner, he walked with a stick, and he was more snappish than his oldest s.h.i.+pmates could remember. 'I do wish you would stop pressing the G.o.d-d.a.m.ned place,' he said to Stephen, who was dressing the leg again before he put his breeches on. 'It is h.e.l.lish tender..." He checked himself. Stephen took no notice: he was wholly intent upon searching for proof of the deep infection that he dreaded and that he had seen before in just such a wound; but finding neither confirmation nor disproof he bound up the gash again, whipping the bandage round and crosswise with a wonderful dexterity. 'I could not do that,' said Jack when it was finished. 'Thank you very much. I am sorry I called out just now. You are a forgiving creature, Stephen... I am afraid I need a good deal of forgiving these days, you know. Of course, I am out of sorts, in spite of our battle, with many good men lost, old s.h.i.+pmates, and the frigate so knocked about. But what really worries me, Stephen, is the discontent. The hands have not been paid: the prize-money has not been shared out: and the men will not be able to afford a sailor's pleasure, and you know what that is as well as I do - indeed almost certainly better, from the sick-berth. They know it is dangerous, but they do love it, and if they cannot have it they grow chuff, rough and - pushed too far, downright mutinous.'

'I know very well what you mean.'

'You do, do you?' asked Jack, looking at him intently but asking no questions. 'Yes: and the other officers have seen signs of it. If we were well-found and at sea, I should not worry, but we are likely to be ash.o.r.e, off and on, for a fair while; and Jack ash.o.r.e is often an a.s.s. Apart from anything else he can desert: furthermore, as well as many well-tried old s.h.i.+pmates we have some right hard men aboard. We are all right for stores for the next few weeks, and I have told Adams to hand out two dollars a head: but when stores and dollars are gone...'

'I could wish you did not have this dinner,' said Stephen. 'But you will go easy with the wine, will you not?'