HMS Surprise. Patrick O’Brian
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meet you in the pratique boat or tell my cousin what he must do – meet you in any case, deal with what formalities there may be and tell you what we have managed to arrange. You have said guides – certainly: other lines of retreat, yes. I must consult.’
‘You take this to be a feasible plan, I collect?’
‘Yes. To get in, yes. To get out – well, you know the harbour as well as I do. Guns, batteries all the way for four miles. It is the only plan, however, with so little time. It would be terrible to run in, and then to arouse suspicion by some little nonsense that my friends could tell you in a moment. You are unwilling to put me ashore, are you not?’
‘No, sir. I am no great politician or judge of character, but my friend is: I am happy to stake my head on his choice.’ Sending for the officer of the watch he said, ‘Mr Fielding, we shall run in. To Cala Blau?’ – looking at Maragall, who nodded. ‘To Cala Blau. All sail she will bear; blue cutter to be ready at a moment’s notice.’ Fielding repeated the order and hurried out, calling, ‘Watch, watch, about ship,’ before he was past the sentry. Jack listened to the running feet for a moment, and said, ‘While we stand in, let us go over the details. May I offer you some wine – a sandwich?’
‘Four bells, sir,’ said Killick, waking him. ‘Mr Simmons is in the cabin.’
‘Mr Simmons,’ said Jack in a harsh, formal voice. ‘I am taking the gunboat into Port Mahon at sunset. This is an expedition in which I shall ask none of the officers to come with me; I believe none is intimately acquainted with the town. I should like those of the launch’s crew who choose to volunteer, but it must be represented to them, that this is an expedition in which – it is an expedition of some danger. The pinnace is to remain at the cave at Cala Blau from the coming midnight until the following sunset, when, unless it receives orders, it is to rejoin the ship at the rendezvous I have marked here. The launch at Rowley’s Creek, with the same orders. They are to be victualled for a week. The frigate will stand off and on to windward of Cape Mola, having sent them in, and close with the land at dawn under French colours, remaining out of gunshot, however; I hope to join her at that time or during the course of the day. If I do not appear by six o’clock she is to proceed to the first rendezvous without loss of time; and after cruising twenty-four hours there, to Gibraltar. Here are your orders; you will see that I have written clearly what I now repeat – there is to be no attempt whatsoever at any rescue. These orders are to be followed to the letter.’ The idea of these good, brave, but essentially unenterprising and unimaginative men plunging about an unknown countryside, with the frigate a prey to the Spanish gunboats or the great batteries of St Philip’s or Cape Mola made him repeat these words. Then, after a slight pause and in a diffident tone, he said, ‘My dear Simmons, here are some personal papers and letters that I will trouble you with, if I may, to be sent home from Gibraltar in the event of things going amiss.’
The first lieutenant looked down, and then up again into Jack’s face; he was profoundly troubled, and he was obviously seeking for his words. Jack did not wish to hear them: this was his own affair – he was the only man aboard, apart from his followers, who knew Port Mahon backwards, above all the only one who had been in Molly Harte’s garden and her music-room; and at this pitch of cold tension he wanted no gestures of any kind, either. He had no emotion to spare for anyone else. ‘Be so good, Mr Simmons, as to speak to the launch’s crew,’ he said with a trace of impatience. ‘Those who wish to come will be taken off duty; they must rest. And I should like a word with my coxswain. The gunboat is to come alongside; I shall go into her when I am ready. That will be all, Mr Simmons.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Simmons. He turned in the door and paused, but Jack was already busy with his preparations.
‘Killick,’ he said, ‘my sword is dull from yesterday. Take it to the armourer; I want it shaving-sharp. And bid him look at my pistols: new flints. Bonden, there you are. You remember Mahon?’
‘Like the palm of my hand, sir.’
‘Good. We are taking the gunboat in this evening. The Doctor is in prison there, and they are torturing him. You see that book? It has their signals in it: check the gunboat’s flags and lanterns and see everything is there. If not, get it. Take your money and warm clothes: we may end up in Verdun.’
‘Aye aye, sir. Here’s Mr Simmons, sir.’
The first lieutenant reported that the entire launch’s crew had volunteered: he had taken them off duty. ‘And, sir,’ he added, ‘the officers and men will take it very unkind indeed if some of them may not come along – if you will not pick from them. I do beg you will not disappoint me and the whole gun-room, sir.’
‘I know what you mean, Simmons – honour their feelings – should feel the same myself. But this is a very particular, hey, expedition. My orders must stand. Is the gunboat alongside?’
‘Just ranging up on the quarter now, sir.’
‘Let Mr West and his mates check her rigging before I go aboard, in half an hour. And the launch’s crew are to be provided with red woollen hats, Mediterranean style,’ he said, looking at his watch.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Simmons in a flat, dead, wretched tone. Half an hour later Jack came on deck in a shabby uniform and Hessian boots, a cloak and a plain cocked hat. Glancing at the sky he said, ‘I shall not return to the ship until after Port Mahon, Mr Simmons. At eight bells in the afternoon watch, pray send the launch across. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, sir.’
They shook hands. Jack nodded to the other officers, touched his hat, and they piped him down the side.
As soon as he was aboard the gunboat he took the tiller and sent her racing away down to leeward with the fresh breeze on her larboard quarter. The island rose in the south, headland after headland stretching away, and he brought her up in a long sweet curve. She was not one of the regulation Toulon gunboats, or the heavy Spanish creatures that swept out from Algeciras every time there was a calm, creeping over the still water; she was not one of those port-bound floating carriages for a single heavy gun, or he would never have brought her away, but a half-decked barca-longa with a long slide that allowed her gun to be run in and stowed against her short thick forward-raking mast – a vessel perfectly capable of running down the Mediterranean, and of sweeping in and out of any port.
She was no fairy, though. As he brought her up and up into the wind the tiller was hard under his hand, and he felt the weight of that gun forward. Yet once she was close up, right up, pointing even closer than five, she held her course, never offering to fall to or gripe, but shouldering the short seas bravely; and the spray came whistling aft.
This was the sort of thing he understood. The immense lateen on its curving yard was not so familiar as a square rig nor a cutter, but the essence was the same, and he was like a good horseman riding a well-spirited horse from another stable. He put the gunboat through all her paces – unspectacular, but dogged, firm and sure – tracing great curves round the frigate, weaving to and fro until the sun sloped far westwards.
He brought her under the Lively’s lee, signalled for the launch, and went below. While the red-hatted crew came aboard he sat in the late captain’s cabin, a low triangular cupboard aft, studying the charts and the signal-book: not that he had much need of either – the Minorcan waters were home to him, and the rows of flags and lights were sharp in his mind – but any contact with the ship at this point meant a waste of that particular strength he should need in a few hours’ time. In a few hours, if only the dropping glass and the ugly look of the sky did not mean a full gale of wind.
Bonden reported all hands present and sober, and he went on deck. He was completely withdrawn: he shook his head impatiently at the ragged, spontaneous cheer, put his helm astarboard and bore away for the eastern cape. He saw Killick lurking there against his orders, looking sullen, with a basket of food and some bottles, but he looked beyond him for the quartermaster, handing over the tiller and giving him the course to steer; and then he began his steady pace to and fro, gauging the progress of the wind, the speed of the gunboat, the changing lie of the land.
The shore went by a mile to starboard,