The fortune of war, page 9
Bonden stood up, and as he did so the breeze caught his long loose hair, covering his face. He turned to windward to blow it back, stiffened, stared, and said to Jack, 'A sail, sir, right on the starboard beam.'
No discipline on land or sea could withstand this. As Jack stood up, so did every other soul in the boat. The cutter took a wild weather-lurch and very nearly shipped a sea. 'Sit down, you God-damned lubbers,' cried Jack -a loud, inhuman sound.
They sat down at once, for they had seen all that mattered, a ship on the northern horizon, topsails up. Jack stood on the midships thwart, steadied himself, and looked long and hard with his glass. The light was perfect: three times on the rise he saw her hull. 'Probably an Indiaman,' he said. 'Bonden, Harboard, Raikes, sit on the larboard gunwale. Ready about.'
The distant ship was sailing on the opposite tack, something south of east, with the wind at north, making six or seven knots. He put the boat about and steered a course to intercept her. The question was, could he do so before nightfall? The sudden tropical nightfall with no twilight to prolong the day?
Could he urge the cutter through the sea so as to get within view of the look-outs before the sun went down? It would be a near-run thing. The same thought was in every mind, and many an eye glanced at the sun. The men on the weather-gunwale leaned out to make the boat more stiff; and already the other hands were dashing water against the sail so that no breath of air should pass through it and be lost.
'Killick,' said Jack, 'do what you can by way of a staysail with handkerchiefs, ditty-bags, anything at all.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
The precious bags were handed over without a murmur; knives slit their seams; some men twisted rope-yarn into thread, others sent needles running through and through a cruel task, since the sailmakers and their mates could not take more than an occasional glance at the ship.
'Mr Babbington,' said Jack again, 'spread out the powder in my flask to dry.' There was little need for this in so blazing hot a boat, but he wanted to be quite certain of a signal at the last extremity.
Their courses were slowly converging; now even without standing up the men in the cutter could see the ship's black chequered hull as she rose. And a kind of parched cheer went up as the tiny new sail, a particoloured triangle, climbed the stay and all hands felt the very slightly greater thrust. But God, the sun was sinking so - every time they looked astern, a handsbreadth lower -and though no man spoke, they felt that the breeze was sinking too.
The lively run of water down the side was dying away. There was no need for anyone to lean out to keep the boat stiff to the wind, for wind there was almost none. Yet she was well within a mile - maybe a mile and a half - and still on their larboard bow. She had not crossed them yet; she was not going from them yet. The distance would still diminish till she crossed, and the look-outs must see them any moment now.
Jack stared at the sea, the sky, sinking sun, the uncertain signs of wind. 'Out oars,' he said, naming the strongest men. 'We must make a dash for it.'
Another half-mile and the most careless look-out could not miss them. Another half-mile and they would be within hail - within the sound of pistol-shot. And the sun was still clear of the sea.
'Stretch out, stretch out,' he cried, right into the labouring stroke-oar's agonized, contorted face. They stretched out: and now the water raced foaming down the side. The ship came nearer fast, and right ahead he could see men moving on her deck. Had they no look-out at all? 'Stretch out, stretch out.
'In oars and face about. Now all together hail. One, two, three ahoy!'
'Ahoy, ahoy, the ship ahoy.'
The ship let fall her topgallants, sheeted home: she gathered way, her bow-wave increasing with her speed. The sea's blue darkened fast with the setting of the sun.
'Ahoy, ahoy.' Jack fired both pistols, a fine ringing crack. 'Ahoy, oh Christ ahoy; the ship ahoy,' quite desperate now. The ship crossed the cutter's bows at half a mile, her bow-wave rising much whiter now, her wake stretching far.
Every second the distance grew. 'Ahoy, ahoy!' tearing their throats in fury; and the quick darkness spread. Stars beyond the ship: she lit her stern-lantern, a top-light; and the top-light moved fast away among the stars.
Silence, but for the painful gasping of the men who had pulled so hard, rowing their hearts out, and for the dry sobs of the youngest reefer. The rowers lay in the bottom of the boat. One of them, a big, heavy-boned man named Raikes, stopped breathing for a moment; Stephen leant over him, massaging his chest and throwing water on his face. After a while he revived, and sat there, bowed, without a word.
'Do not be downhearted, shipmates,' said Jack at last. 'She is carrying a top-light, as you see. That proves we are in the track of shipping. Now I shall serve out supper, and shape course for land. I will lay any man ten guineas to a shilling we see a ship or land or both tomorrow.'
'I will not take you, sir,' said Babbington, as loud as his racked voice could speak. 'It is a certainty.'
A little after moonrise Stephen woke. Extreme hunger had brought on cramps in his midriff again and he held his breath to let them pass: Jack was still sitting there, the tiller under his knee, the sheet in his hand, as though he had never moved, as though he were as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar and as unaffected by hunger, thirst, fatigue, or despondency. In this light he even looked rock-like, the moon picking out the salient of his nose and jaw and turning his broad shoulders and upper man into a single massive block. He had in fact lost almost as much weight as a man can lose and live, and in the day his shrunken, bearded face with deep-sunk eyes was barely recognizable; but the moon showed the man unchanged.
He saw that Stephen was awake, and a white flash appeared as he smiled. He leant forward, patted Stephen's shoulder, and pointed north. 'Ducking,' was the only word he uttered - all his parched tongue could do.
Stephen followed his pointing arm, and there to windward he saw no stars, but a prodigious blackness, shot with inward lightning.
'Soon,' said Jack. And half an hour later he brought out an inarticulate bellow near enough to 'All hands' to rouse those that could be roused. Raikes, the big quarter-gunner belonging to La Fl�e, was dead; and the other rowers were likely to follow him quite soon unless they had some relief. He had died with a startled gasp, and uncomprehending stare, as supper was serving out, and they had not put him over the side, although no man had yet spoken of eating his body.
'Sail,' croaked Jack. 'Funnel: kid.'
Abruptly the northern breeze veered due south: a pause on the uneasy sea while the darkness raced across the sky. The first drops fell as hail, great hail-stones that drew blood; and then, driving from the north once more the sheets of rain came down, filling their open, offered mouths, washing their upstretched arms, their burnt, salt-crusted bodies. 'Quick, quick,' cried Jack, much louder now, as he directed the flow of water from the horizontal sail into the kid and every other receptacle they possessed. But he need not have troubled; long after they were filled the rain went on, pouring down so that they could hardly breathe as they wallowed in the pure luxury, absorbing it at every pore, pouring down with a universal hiss and roar so that they even had to bail it out, throw the precious stuff over the side to keep afloat.
It was while they were bailing that Babbington called out 'Oh!' and then, 'It's something soft'. This was the first of a shower of flying squids, hundreds and hundreds of them that passed all round and over the boat, some hitting the men and falling into the fresh water in the bottom of the boat, glowing with a faint phosphorescent light, coupling in an intricacy of arms. Too many for any call to share. The men hunted them down, scrabbling fore and aft, scrabbling under the dead man's legs, and ate them alive.
The darkness was gone; the moon shone out again and in the north the stars were brighter still. Stephen found that he was cold, even shivering; his belly was like a filled sack, heavy, as if it were a foreign body. 'Here, sir,' said Forshaw in his ear. 'Here's my jacket. Stretch out on the thwart and take a caulk. It will be dawn in an hour or two. And now we can hold out for another week at least; you will be quite all right.'
Dawn: the first light rising to the zenith. A pure sky over a sea swathed in white, swirling mists, mists filled with changing dream-like shapes, some in the form of clouds. Then all at once the sun's upper limb; then the whole sun itself, flattened like a lemon, but a lemon of enormous, blazing power that rounded as it climbed, dispelling the mists with its horizontal rays. And there, where the mists had been, lay not one ship but two, directly to leeward, two miles away.
The nearer had backed her foretopsail to speak the other; and yet it was terribly like a mirage. No one uttered any distinct, firm word until Jack had put the boat before the wind and they were running down at four or five knots on a true, steady breeze. There was no chance that the ship could escape them - for ship she was: no mirage could hold so still so long - and almost no chance that they had not already been seen, since the ship was a man-of-war, her pennant streaming in the wind. Nationality unsure, for her colours, British, French, Dutch, Spanish, or even American, were blowing from them - a hint of blue, no more - but in any case a present Paradise. Yet no man dared tempt fate: they sat rigid, staring with all their force across the sea, willing the boat on. Total silence until Jack handed the tiller to Babbington, crept stiffly forward with his glass, and almost instantly said, 'Ours.
Blue ensign. Java, by God, Yes, Java. I should have known her anywhere. T'other's a Portuguese.'
A hum of talk: Java - all the Leopards who had served with Jack before knew her well; she had been the French Renomm� taken off Madagascar, a fine plump thirty-eight-gun frigate.
'They have seen us,' said Jack. He had the officer of the watch in his objective glass, and the officer, telescope levelled, was looking straight at him.
The question arose, should they now slip Raikes over the side? It seemed more proper, in a way - it was bad luck to keep a corpse aboard - Java might still fill her topsail and away. Besides, he had swollen shockingly; and although no one mentioned it, part of his left thigh had been eaten in the night: the squids were a thin unsubstantial fare, to fill such an enormous hunger. No, said his shipmates from La Fl�e: no, now they had got him so far, he should have a parson. It should be done right, with a hammock and two round-shot, and the words read over him.
'Quite right,' said Jack, 'But cover him decently for now. And, Doctor, I will trouble you to put on your apron.'
In the last thousand yards, when they could see the Java's side lined with watching figures, they suddenly became self-conscious. Tie-for-tie pairs formed, plaiting pigtails: the officers plucked at what clothing they possessed and fingered their beards.
Nearer, and nearer still; and at last the hail 'What are ye?'
In the sudden gaiety of his heart, now that the last tension was gone, Jack thought of facetious replies, such as 'The Queen of the May' or 'The Seven Champions of Christendom'; but this would not do, not with a corpse aboard. He called out, 'Shipwrecked mariners,' let fly the sheets, and brought the boat kissing up against the Java's side.
No side-boys, no bosun's call for Captain Aubrey this time; but seeing the state of the cutter's crew the officer sent a couple of powerful men down with man-ropes, and one of these said to Jack, 'Can you get up the side, mate?'
'I believe so, thankee,' said Jack, springing for the cleats. His head felt very strange when he stood up, but he felt that at all costs he must go aboard correctly - the point of honour was concerned. Fortunately the Java had a fine tumblehome - her sides sloped steeply in from near the waterline - and with a couple of heaves and the help of the roll he was on the quarterdeck, the unusually crowded quarterdeck. He straightened, though his knees trembled beneath him - reaction was fast setting in - touched his hat to no particular person but rather to that august sweep of deck, concentrated his gaze on the advancing officer, and said, 'Good morning, sir. I am Captain Aubrey, late of Leopard, and I should be obliged if you would inform your captain.'
The young man's face expressed wonder, astonishment, perhaps incredulity, but before he could speak a small round brisk man stepped from the group of figures somewhat aft and cried, 'Aubrey? By God, so it is - I did not recognize you - thought you was lost a great while since-how come you here? - Your Excellency - 'to a tall figure in white just behind him - 'allow me to name Captain Aubrey of the Navy - General Hislop, Governor of Bombay.'
Jack's head swam, but he managed a civil bow, a 'Your servant, sir', and a kind of smile at the Governor's words knew your father delighted most interesting occasion' Then unable to recall the name of the familiar face before him, he said, 'Captain, may my men be seen to? They are quite knocked up My surgeon will need a bosun's chair And we have a corpse with us Pray tell me, have you any news of boats from La Fleche?'
No news alas, and Captain Lambert - for Lambert was his name - having given orders, urged Jack to come below. 'Come, take my arm. A glass of brandy...'
'I will just see my people aboard,' said Jack. He would have given the world to sit on the. carronade-slide just by him, but he stood there while the Leopards and the Flitches reached the deck; he introduced his officers; and he even noticed that the Javas made a poor fist of hoisting the boat on deck. When he reached the cabin, and when Captain Lambert was calling for 'a glass of brandy, there, and mince pies; but only small ones, d'ye hear me, only small ones,' he was obliged to steer his way, half-blind, to the quarter-gallery, and there he fell. 'The fall very nearly came before the pride,' he said to himself as he half-lay, half-reclined there - no room to measure his unusual length - wonderfully comfortable and relaxed. And much later, 'What did he mean by mince pies? Lambert is his name, Harry Lambert: he had Active in the year two: cut out the Scipion: married Maitland's sister. Mince pies. Why, of course: it must be Christmas in a day or two.'
It was indeed, and in spite of the enormous sun the Java's galley turned out puddings and pies in prodigious quantities, enough for well over four hundred men and boys with healthy appetites and for twelve whose lust for food was barely human. She was a fine dry quick-sailing weatherly ship, with plenty of headroom between decks, and she would have been called roomy, by naval standards, if she had carried only the normal complement for a thirty-eight-gun frigate; but she was bound for Bombay, and she had the new Governor aboard, with his numerous suite; and as though that were not enough, drafts for the Cornwallis, Chameleon, and Icarus had been joined to them, so that where three hundred men could have turned and breathed and fed with something like ease, four hundred could not - on punishment days there was scarcely room to swing the cat effectively - and the accommodation of twelve more presented serious difficulties. Difficulties in the matter of volume, not of victuals; the Java was a well-found ship, her lower depths still crammed with sheep, swine and poultry in addition to her ordinary stores, and although her captain was known to be poor, she had a comparatively wealthy gunroom, and the catering-officer at once ordered a massacre of geese, ducks, sucking-pigs.
Yet in spite of the season and the rich smell of festivity, there was no Christmas spirit in the ship at all. Stephen's first impression was that she was the gloomiest vessel he had ever known. Her people were kind, none kinder: they re-rigged their guests in the most open-handed way: the tallest lieutenant provided clothes for Captain Aubrey, and Captain Lambert provided the marks of splendour due to his rank, while the Java's surgeon gave Stephen his best coat and breeches, to say nothing of the anonymous linen that appeared in his cabin. But there was no merriment aboard, and when, after a long night's perfect sleep, a shave, a visit to his worst sunburns in the sickbay, and a turn on deck, Stephen made acquaintance with the gunroom as a body at breakfast he thought them a strangely mumchance crew: never a smile, never a single one of those flights of naval wit, flabby puns, traditional jokes, proverbs, saws, to which he was accustomed and which he now so curiously missed. It was not that they were short of talk; on the contrary, there was a great deal of conversation; but it was all dogged, glum, declamatory, indignant, or angry. It was all highly professional, too, and it seemed to him that he had only exchanged the boredom of La Fl�e for a greater boredom still, since here too it was all about the navy of the United States, and here there were twice as many men at table.
'Oh for women at sea to obviate the eternal crosscatharpings,' he said to himself, 'to do away with the grumlinfuttocks, and to inject a little civilization, even of an equivocal nature, even at the risk of moral deviation.'
He was the first of the Leopards to appear, and apart from offering him coffee, tea, mutton chops, bacon, eggs, soused herrings, cold pie, ham, butter, toast and marmalade, and seeing to his comfort, few people spoke to him.
He was obviously still much reduced by his ordeal; he was thought to be deaf; and their surgeon had told them that he was not to be excited - 'He has an ugly livid countenance that argues some damage to the heart.'
The master did ask him what he thought of the President, but he replied, 'A most unfortunate choice, sir. No bottom, weak, easily blown from side to side.'
'Indeed, sir?' cried the master: and several other officers paid close attention.
'He may be a tolerable Hebrew scholar; he may have genteel insinuating manners and a handsome wife; he may overflow with private virtues. But there is the evil corrupting love of power, the consuming lust for office-'
'I was referring to the ship, sir, to the frigate President.'
'Oh, as for the ship, I am not qualified to form any opinion, at all.'
The master turned to his neighbour, who had something to offer on the subject of scantlings, as they were understood in the United States; so, as neither Babbington nor Byron was yet afoot, Stephen escaped the American navy by swallowing his breakfast in a few quick snaps, in spite of his colleague's warning 'not to eat too much - to chew every mouthful forty times', took a couple of pinches of fortifying snuff, returned to the deck, and asked for news of Captain Aubrey. Captain Aubrey too was still asleep; and pleasantly enough the words were uttered in a little above a whisper, in spite of the hullaballoo that filled the ship from stern to stern.
