Partly for professional reasons and partly because of an entirely natural absence, Stephen had long ago assumed the privilege of silence at table; and now from the shelter of this silence he watched James Dillon with particular attention. It was the same small head, held high; the same dark-red hair, of course, and green eyes; the same fine skin and bad teeth – more were decaying now; the same very well-bred
air; and although he was slim and of no more than the average height, he seemed to take up as much room as the fourteen-stone Jack Aubrey. The main difference was that the look of being just about to laugh, or of having discovered a private joke, had quite
vanished – wiped out: no trace of it. A typically grave, humourless Irish countenance now.
His behaviour was reserved, but perfectly attentive and civil – not the least appearance of sullen resentment.
They ate an acceptable turbot – acceptable when the flour-and-water paste had been scraped off him – and then the steward brought in a ham. It was a ham that could only have come from a hog with a long-borne crippling disease, the sort of ham that is reserved for officers who buy their own provisions; and only a man versed in morbid anatomy could have carved it handsomely. While Jack was struggling with his duties as a host and adjuring the steward ‘to clap on
to its beakhead’ and ‘to look alive’, James turned to Stephen with a fellow-guest’s smile and said, ‘Is it not possible that I have already had the pleasure of being in your company, sir? In Dublin, or perhaps at Naas?’
‘I do not believe I have had the honour, sir. I am often mistaken for my cousin, of the same name. They tell me there is a striking resemblance, which makes me uneasy, I confess; for he is an ill-looking fellow, with a sly, Castle-informer look on his face. And the character of an informer is more despised in our country than in any other, is it not? Rightly so, in my opinion. Though, indeed, the creatures swarm there.’ This was in a conversational tone, loud enough to be heard by his neighbour over Jack’s ‘Easy, now . . . wish it may not be infernally
tough.. . get a purchase on its beam, Killick; never mind thumbs…’
‘I am entirely of your way of thinking,’ said James with complete understanding in his look.
‘Will you take a glass of wine with me, sir?’
‘With all my heart.’
They pledged one another in the sloe-juice, vinegar and sugar of lead that had been sold to Jack as wine and then turned, the one with professional interest and the other with professional stoicism, to Jack’s dismembered ham.
The port was respectable, however, and after the cloth was drawn there was an easier, far more comfortable atmosphere in the cabin.
‘Pray tell us about the action in the Dart,’ said Jack, filling Dillon’s glass. ‘I have heard so many different accounts
‘Yes, pray do,’ said Stephen. ‘I should look upon it as a most particular favour.’
‘Oh, it was not much of an affair,’ said James Dillon. ‘Only with a contemptible set of privateers – a squabble among small-craft. I had temporary command of a hired cutter – a one-masted fore-and-aft vessel, sir, of no great size.’ Stephen bowed. ‘- called the Dart.
She had eight four-pounders, which was very well; but I only had thirteen men and a boy to fight them. However, orders came down to take a King’s Messenger and ten thousand pounds in specie to Malta; and Captain Dockray asked me to give his wife and her sister a passage.’
‘I remember him as first of the Thunderer,’ said Jack. ‘A dear, good, kind man.’
‘So he was,’ said James, shaking his head. ‘Well, we had a steady tops’l libeccio, made our offing, tacked three or four leagues west of Egadi and stood a little west of south. It
came on to blow after sundown, so having the ladies aboard and being short-handed in any case, I thought I should get under the lee of Pantelleria. It moderated in the night and the sea went down, and there I was at half-past four the
next morning. I was shaving, as I remember very well, for I nicked my chin.’
‘Ha,’ said Stephen, with satisfaction.
‘- when there was a cry of sail-ho and I hurried up on deck.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ said Jack, laughing.
‘- and there were three French lateen-rigged privateers. It was just light enough to make them out, hull-up already, and presently I recognized the two nearest with my glass. They carried each a brass long six-pounder and four one-pounder swivels in their bows, and we had had a brush with them in the Euryalus, when they had the heels of us, of course.’
‘How many men in them?’
‘Oh, between forty and fifty apiece, sir: and they each had maybe a dozen musketoons or patareroes on their sides.
And I made no doubt the third was just such another. They had been haunting the Sicily Channel for some time, lying off Lampione and Lampedusa to refresh. Now they were under my lee, lying thus -, he drew in wine on the table
– ‘with the wind blowing from the decanter. They could outsail me, close-hauled, and clearly their best plan was to engage me on either side and board.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jack.
‘So taking everything into consideration – my passengers, the King’s Messenger, the specie, and the Barbary coast ahead of me if I were to bear up – I thought the right thing to do was to attack them separately while I had the weather-gage and before the two nearest could join forces:
the third was still three or four miles away, beating up under all sail. Eight of the cutter’s crew were prime seamen, and Captain Dockray had sent his cox’n along with the ladies, a fine strong fellow named William Brown. We soon cleared for action and treble-shotted the guns. And I must say the ladies behaved with great spirit: rather more than I could have wished. I represented to them that their place was below – in the hold. But Mrs Dockray was not going to be told her duty by any young puppy without so much as an epaulette to his name and did I think a post-captain’s wife with nine years’ seniority was going to ruin her sprigged muslin in the bilges of my cockleshell? She should tell my aunt –
my cousin Ellis – the First Lord of the Admiralty -bring me to a court-martial for cowardice, for temerity, for not knowing my business. She understood discipline and subordination as well as the next woman, or better; and “Come, my dear,” says she to Miss Jones, “you ladle out the powder and fill the cartridges, and I will carry them up in my apron.” By this time the position was so – ‘he redrew the plan. ‘The nearest privateer two cables’ lengths
away and to the lee of the other: both of them had been firing for ten minutes with their bow-chasers.’
‘How long is a cable?’ asked Stephen.
‘About two hundred yards, sir,’ said James. ‘So I put my helm down – she was wonderfully quick in stays – and steered to ram the Frenchman amidships. With the wind on her quarter, the Dart covered the, distance in little more than a minute, which was as well, since they were peppering us hard. I steered myself until we were within pistol-shot and then ran for’ard to lead the boarders, leaving the tiller to the boy. Unhappily, he misunderstood me and let the privateer shoot too far ahead, and we took her abaft her mizen, our bowsprit carrying away her larboard mizen shrouds and a good deal of her poop-rail and stern-works. So instead of boarding we passed under her stern: her mizen went by the board with the shock, and we flew to the guns and poured in a raking broadside. There were just enough of us to fight four guns, with the King’s Messenger and me working one and Brown helping us run it out when he had fired his own. I luffed up to range along under her lee and get across her bows, so as to prevent her from manoeuvring; but with that great spread of canvas they have, you know, the Dart was becalmed for a while, and we exchanged as hot a fire as quickly as we could keep it up.
But at last we forged ahead, found our wind again and tacked as quickly as we could, right athwart the Frenchman’s stem – quicker,
indeed, for we could only spare two hands to the sheet and our boom came crack against her foreyard, carrying it away -the falling sail dowsed her bow-chaser and the swivels. And as we came round there was our starboard broadside ready, and we fired it so close that the wads set light to her foresail and the wreckage of the mizen lying there all over her deck. Then they called for quarter and struck.’