‘Cacafuego? Cacafuego? I have never heard of her. So at least she cannot be a ship of the line How is she rigged?’
Stephen paused ‘I am ashamed to say I did not ask,’ he said ‘But from the satisfaction with which her name was
pronounced, I take her to be some prepotent great argosy’
‘Well, we must try to keep out of her way and since she knows what we look like, we must try to change our
appearance. It is wonderful what a coat of paint and a waist-cloth will do, or even an oddly patched jib or a fished
topmast – by the way, I suppose they told you in the boat why we were compelled to maroon you?’
‘They told me about the frigates and your boarding the American.’
‘Yes: and precious stuff it was, too. There were no such people aboard – Dillon searched her for close on an hour. I was just as glad, for I remembered you had told me the United Irishmen were good creatures, on the whole – far better than those other fellows, whose name I forget. Steel boys, white boys, orange boys?’
‘United Irishmen? I had understood them to be French. They told me the American ship had been searched for some Frenchmen.’
‘They were only pretending to be Frenchmen. That is to say, if they had been there at all, they might have pretended to be French. That is why I sent Dillon, who speaks it so well.
But they were not, you see; and in my opinion the whole thing was so much cock. I was just as glad, as I say; but it seemed to upset Dillon most strangely. I suppose he was very eager to take them: or he was very much put out at our cruise being cut short. Ever since then however, I must not bore you with all that. You heard about the prisoners?’
‘That the frigates had been so good as to give you fifty of theirs?’
‘Merely for their own convenience! It was not for the good of the service at all. A most shabby, unscrupulous thing!’ cried Jack, his eyes starting from his head at the recollection.
‘But I dished ’em, though. As soon as we were done with the American we bore away for the Amelia, told her we had drawn a blank and made our signal for parting company; and a couple of hours later, the wind serving, we landed every man jack on Dragon Island.’
‘Off Majorca?’
‘Just so.’
‘But is not that wrong? Will you not be reproved -courtmartialled?’
Jack winced, and clapping his hand to wood he said, ‘Pray never say that ill-conditioned word. The mere sound of it is enough to spoil the day.’
‘But will you not get into trouble?’
‘Not if I put into Mahon with a thundering great prize at my tail,’ said Jack, laughing. ‘For now we may just have time to go and lie off Barcelona, do you see, if the wind is kind – I had quite set my heart upon it. We shall just have time for a quick stroke or two and then we must bear away for Mahon with anything we may have caught, for we certainly cannot spare another prize-crew, with our numbers so reduced. And we certainly cannot stay out much longer, without we eat our boots.’
‘Still and all .
‘Never look so concerned, dear Doctor. There was no specific order as to where to land them, no order at all; and, of course, I’ll square the head-money. Besides, I am covered: all my officers formally agreed that our shortage of water and provisions compelled us to do so – Marshall and Ricketts and even Dillon, although he was so chuff and pope-holy about it all.’
The Sophie reeked of grilled sardines and fresh paint. She lay fifteen miles off Cape Tortosa in a dead calm, wallowing on the oily swell; and the blue smoke of the sardines
she had bought out of a night-fishing barca-longa (she had bought the whole catch) still hung sickeningly about her ‘tweendecks; her sails and rigging, half an hour after dinner.
The bosun had a large working-party slung over her side, spreading yellow paint over the neat dockyard black and white; the sailmaker and a dozen palm-and-pricket men were busy at a long narrow strip of canvas designed to conceal her warlike character; and her lieutenant was pulling round her in the jolly-boat to judge of the effect. He was alone, except for her surgeon, and he was saying
everything. I did everything in my power to avoid
it. Everything, breaking all measures. I altered course, I shortened sail – unthinkable in the service – blackmailing the master to do so; and yet in the morning there she lay, two miles away under our lee, where she had no conceivable right to be. Ahoy, Mr Watt! Six inches lower all round.’
‘It was just as well. If any other man had gone aboard they might have been taken.’
A pause, and James said, ‘He leant over the table, so close I had his stinking breath in my face, and with a hateful yellow look he poured out this ugly stuff. I had already made up my mind, as I said; yet it looked exactly as though I were yielding to a vulgar threat. And two minutes later I was sure I had.’
‘But you had not: it is a sick fancy. Indeed, it is not far from morose delectation: take great care of that sin, James, I beg. As for the rest, it is a pity you mind it so. What does it amount to, in the long run?’
‘A man would have to be three parts dead not to mind it so; and quite dead to a sense of duty, to say nothing of.
Mr Watt, that will do very well.’
Stephen sat there, weighing the advantage of saying ‘Do not hate Jack Aubrey for it: do not drink so much:
do not destroy yourself for what will not last’ against the disadvantage of setting off an explosion; for in spite of his apparent calm, James Dillon was on a hair-trigger, in a state of pitiful exacerbation. Stephen could not decide, shrugged, lifting his right hand, palm upwards, in a gesture that meant ‘Bah, let it go,’ and to himself he observed, ‘However, I shall oblige him to take a black draught this evening – that at least I can do – and some comfortable mandragora; and in my diary I shall write “J D, required to play Iscariot either with his right hand or with his left, and hating the necessity (the absolute necessity), concentrates all this hatred upon poor JA, which is a remarkable instance of the human process; for, in fact, JD does not dislike JA at all – far from it.”
‘At least,’ said James, pulling back to the Sophie, ‘I
do hope that after all this discreditable shuffling we may be taken into action. It has a wonderful way of reconciling a man with himself: and with everybody else, sometimes.’
‘What is that fellow in the buff waistcoat doing on the quarterdeck?’
‘That is Pram. Captain Aubrey is dressing him as a Danish officer; it is part of our plan of disguise. Do not you remember the yellow waistcoat the master of the Clomer wore? It is customary with them.’
‘I do not. Tell me, do such things often happen, at sea?’
‘Oh, yes. It is a perfectly legitimate ruse de guerre. Often we amuse the enemy with false signals too – anything but those of distress. Take great care of the paint, now.’
At this point Stephen fell straight into the sea – into the hollow of the sea between the boat and the side of the sloop as they drew away from one another. He sank at once, rose just as they came together, struck his head between the two and sank again, bubbling. Most of the Sophie’s people who could swim leapt into the water, Jack among them; and others ran with boat-hooks, a dolphin-striker, two small grapnels, an ugly barbed hook on a chain; but it was the brothers Sponge that found him, five fathoms down (heavy bones for his size, no fat, lead-soled half-boots) and brought him up, his clothes blacker than usual, his face more white, and he streaming with water, furiously indignant.
It was no epoch-making event, but it was a useful one, since it provided the gun-room with a topic of conversation at a moment when very hard work was needed to maintain the appearance of a civilized community. A good deal of the time James was heavy, inattentive and silent; his eyes were bloodshot from the grog he swallowed, but it seemed neither to cheer nor yet to fuddle him. The master was almost equally withdrawn, and he sat there stealing covert glances at Dillon from time to time. So when they were all at table they went into the subject of swimming quite exhaustively – its rarity among seamen, its advantages (the preservation of life: the pleasure to be derived from it, in suitable climates: the carrying of a line ashore in an emergency), its disadvantages (the prolongation of death-agonies in shipwreck, in falling overboard unseen: flying in the face of nature – had God meant men to swim, etc.), the curious inability of young seals to swim, the use of bladders, the best ways of learning and practising the art of swimming.