‘Well done, well done!’ cried Jack.
‘It was high time,’ said James, ‘for the other privateer had been coming up fast. By something like a miracle our bowsprit and boom were still standing, so I told the captain of the privateer that I should certainly sink him if he attempted to make sail and bore up directly for his consort. I could not spare a single hand to take possession, nor the time.’
‘Of course not.’
‘So here we were approaching on opposite tacks, and they were firing as the whim took them – everything they had. When we were fifty yards away I paid off four points to bring the starboard guns to bear, gave her the broadside, then luffed up directly and gave her the other, from perhaps twenty yards. The second was very remarkable, sir. I did not think four-pounders could have done such execution. We fired on the down-roll, a trifle later than I should have thought right, and all four shot struck her on the waterline at the height of her rise – I saw them go home, all on the same strake. A moment later her people left their guns – they were running about and hallooing. Unhappily, Brown had stumbled as our gun recoiled and the carriage had mangled his foot most cruelly. I bade him go below, but he would have none of it – would sit there and use a musket – and then he gave a cheer and said the Frenchman was sinking. And so he was: first they were awash, and then they went down, right down, with their sails set.’
‘My God!’ cried Jack.
‘So I stood straight on for the third, all hands knotting and splicing, for our rigging was cut to pieces. But the
mast and boom were so wounded – a six-pound ball clean through the mast, and many deep scores – that I dared not carry a press of sail. So I am afraid she ran’ clean away from us, and there was nothing for it but to beat back to the first privateer. Luckily, they had been busy with their fire all this time, or they might have slipped off. We took six aboard to work our pumps, tossed their dead overboard, battened the rest down, took her in tow, set course for Malta and arrived two days later, which surprised me, for our sails were a collection of holes held together with threads, and our hull not much better.’
‘Did you pick up the men from the one that sank?’ asked Stephen.
‘No, sir,’ said James.
‘Not corsairs,’ said Jack. ‘Not with thirteen men and a boy aboard. What were your losses, though?’
‘Apart from Brown’s foot and a few scratches we had no one wounded, sir, nor a single man killed. It was an astonishing thing: but then we were pretty thin on the ground.’
‘And theirs?’
‘Thirteen dead, sir. Twenty-nine prisoners.’
‘And the privateer you sank?’
‘Fifty-six, sir.’
‘And the one that got away?’
‘Well, forty-eight, or so they told us, sir. But she hardly counts, since we only had a few random shots from her before she grew shy.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Jack, ‘I congratulate you with all my heart. It was a noble piece of work.’
‘So do I,’ said Stephen. ‘So do I. A glass of wine with you, Mr Dillon,’ he said, bowing and raising his glass.
‘Come,’ cried Jack, with a sudden inspiration. ‘Let us drink to the renewed success of Irish arms, and confusion to the Pope.’
‘The first part ten times over,’ said Stephen, laughing. ‘But never a drop will I drink to the second, Voltairian
though I may be. The poor gentleman has Boney on his hands, and that is confusion enough, in all conscience.
Besides, he is a very learned Benedictine.’
‘Then confusion to Boney.’
‘Confusion to Boney,’ they said, and drank their glasses dry.
‘You will forgive me, sir, I hope,’ said Dillon. ‘I relieve the deck in half an hour, and I should like to check the
quarter-bill first. I must thank you for a most enjoyable dinner.’
‘Lord, what a pretty action that was,’ said Jack, when the door was closed. ‘A hundred and forty-six to fourteen; or fifteen if you count Mrs Dockray. It is just the kind of thing Nelson might have done – prompt – straight at ’em.’
‘You know Lord Nelson, sir?’
‘I had the honour of serving under him at the Nile,’ said Jack, ‘and of dining in his company twice.’ His face broke into a smile at the recollection.
‘May I beg you to tell me what kind of a man he is?’
‘Oh, you would take to him directly, I am sure. He is very slight – frail – I could pick him up (I mean no disrespect) with one hand. But you know he is a very great man directly There is something in philosophy called an electrical particle, is there not? A charged atom, if you follow me. He spoke to me on each occasion. The first time it was to say, “May I trouble you for the salt, sir?”
– I have always said it as close as I can to his way ever since – you may have noticed it.
But the second time I was trying to make my neighbour, a soldier, understand our naval tactics – weather-gage, breaking the line, and so on – and in a pause he leant over with such a smile and said, “Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them.” I shall never forget it: never mind manoeuvres – always go at ’em. And at that same dinner he was telling us all how someone had offered him a boat-cloak on a cold night and he had said no, he was quite warm – his zeal for his King and country kept him warm. It sounds absurd, as I tell it, does it not?
And was it another man, any other man, you would cry out “oh, what pitiful stuff” and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm; but with him you feel your bosom glow, and – now what in the devil’s name is it, Mr Richards? Come in or out, there’s a good fellow. Don’t stand in the door like a God-damned Lenten cock.’
‘Sir,’ said the poor clerk, ‘you said I might bring you the remaining papers before tea, and your tea is just coming up.’
‘Well, well: so I did,’ said Jack. ‘God, what an infernal heap. Leave them here, Mr Richards. I will see to them before we reach Cagliari.’
‘The top ones are those which Captain Allen left to be written fair – they only need to be signed, sir,’ said the clerk, backing out.
Jack glanced at the top of the pile, paused, then cried, ‘There! There you are. Just so.
There’s the service for you from clew to earing – the Royal Navy, stock and fluke. You get into a fine flow of patriotic fervour – you are ready to plunge into the thick of the battle –
and you are asked to sign this sort of thing.’ He passed Stephen the carefully-written sheet.
His Majesty’s Sloop Sophie
at sea
My Lord,
I am to beg you will be pleased to order a Court Martial to be held on Isaac Wilson (seaman) belonging to the Sloop I have the honour to Command for having committed the unnatural Crime of Sodomy on a Goat, in the Goathouse, on the evening of March 16th.
I have the Honour’ to remain, my Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient very humble servant
The Rt. Hon. Lord Keith, K.B., etc., etc.
Admiral of the Blue.
‘It is odd how the law always harps upon the unnaturalness of sodomy,’ observed Stephen. ‘Though I know at least two judges who are paederasts; and of course barristers What will happen to him?’
‘Oh, he’ll be hanged. Run up at the yard-arm, and boats attending from every ship in the fleet.’
‘That seems a little extreme.’
‘Of course it is. Oh, what an infernal bore – witnesses going over to the flagship by the dozen, days lost. . . The Sophie a laughing-stock. Why will they report these things? The goat must be slaughtered – that’s but fair – and it shall be served out to the mess that informed on him.’
‘Could you not set them both ashore – on separate shores, if you have strong feelings on the moral issue – and sail quietly away?’
‘Well,’ said Jack, whose anger had died down. ‘Perhaps there is something in what you propose. A dish of tea? You take milk, sir?’
‘Goat’s milk, sir?’
‘Why, I suppose it is.’
‘Perhaps without milk, then, if you please. You told me, I believe, that the gunner was ailing. Would this be a convenient time for seeing what I can do for him? Pray, which is the gun-room?’
‘You would expect to find him there, would you not? But in fact his cabin is elsewhere nowadays. Killick will show you. The gun-room, in a sloop, is where the officers mess.’