since the action with the Cacafuego, and all at once Mr Daiziel observed that the frigate’s rigging was full of men, all carrying their hats and facing the Sophie.
‘Mr Babbington,’ he said in a low voice, in case he should be mistaken, for he had only seen this happen once before, ‘tell the captain, with my duty, that I believe Amelia is going to cheer us.’
Jack came blinking on deck as the first cheer roared out, a shattering wave of sound at twenty-five yards’ range. Then came the Amelia’s bosun’s pipe and the next cheer, as precisely timed as her own broadside: and the third. He and his officers stood rigidly with their hats off, and as soon as the last roar had died away over the harbour, echoing back and forth, he called out, ‘Three cheers for the Amelia!’ and the Sophies, though deep in the working of the sloop, responded like heroes, scarlet with pleasure and the energy needed f or huzzaying proper – huge energy, for they knew what was manners. Then the Amelia, now far astern, called ‘One cheer more,’ and so piped down.
It was a handsome compliment, a noble send-off, and it
gave great pleasure: but still it did not prevent the Sophies from feeling a strong sense of grievance – it did not prevent them from calling out ‘Give us back our thirty-seven days’ as a sort of slogan or watchword between decks, and even above hatches when they dared –
it did not wholly recall them to their duty, and in the following days and weeks they were more than ordinarily tedious.
The brief interlude in Port Mahon harbour had been exceptionally bad for discipline. One of the results of their fierce contraction into a single defiant ill-used body was that the hierarchy (in its finer shades) had for a time virtually disappeared; and among other things the ship’s corporal had let the wounded men returning to their duty bring in bladders and skins full of Spanish brandy, anisette and a colourless liquid said to be gin. A discreditable number of men had succumbed to its influence, among them the captain of the foretop (paralytic) and both bosun’s mates. Jack disrated Morgan, promoting the dumb negro Alfred King, according to his former threat – a dumb bosun’s mate would surely be more terrible, more deterrent; particularly one with such a very powerful arm.
‘And, Mr Dalziel,’ he said, ‘we will rig a proper grating at the gangway at last. They do not give a damn for a flogging at the capstan, and I am going to stop this infernal drunkenness, come what may.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the lieutenant: and after a slight pause, ‘Wilson and Plimpton have represented to me that it would grieve them very much to be flogged by King.’
‘Of course it will grieve them very much. I sincerely hope it will grieve them very much.
That is why they are to be flogged. They were drunk, were they not?’
‘Blind drunk, sir. They said it was their Thanksgiving.’
‘What in God’s name have they got to be thankful about? And the Cacafuego sold to the Algerines.’
‘They are from the colonies, sir, and it seems that it is a feast in those parts. However, it is not the flogging they object to, but the colour of the flogger.’
‘Bah,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll tell you another man who will be flogged if this goes on,’ he said, bending and peering sideways through the cabin window, ‘and that is the master of that damned packet. Just give him a gun, Mr Daiziel, will you? Shotted, not too far from his stern, and desire him to keep to his station.’
The wretched packet had had a miserable time of it since leaving Port Mahon. She had expected the Sophie to sail straight to Gibraltar, keeping well out in the offing, out of sight of privateers, and certainly out of range of shore batteries. But although the Sophie was still no Flying Childers, in spite of all her improvements, she could nevertheless sail two miles for the packet’s one, either close-hauled or going large, and she made the most of her superiority to work right down along the coast, peering into every bay and inlet, obliging the packet to keep to the seaward of her, at no great distance and in a very high state of dread.
Hitherto, this eager, terrier-like searching had led to nothing but a few brisk exchanges of fire with guns on shore, for Jack’s harsh restrictive orders allowed no chasing and made it almost certain that he should take no prize. But that was an entirely secondary consideration: action was what he was looking for; and at this juncture, he reflected, he would give almost anything for a direct uncomplicated head-on clash with some vessel about his own size.
So thinking he stepped on deck. The breeze off the sea had been fading all the afternoon, and now it was dying in irregular gasps; although the Sophie still had it the packet was almost entirely becalmed. To starboard the high brown rocky coast trended away north and south with something of a protrusion, a small cape, a headland with a ruined Moorish castle, on the beam, perhaps a mile away.
‘You see that cape?’ said Stephen, who was gazing at it with an open book dangling from his hand, his thumb marking the place. ‘It is Cabo Roig, the seaward limit of Catalan speech: Orihuela is a little way inland, and after
Orihuela you hear no more Catalan – ’tis Murcia, and the barbarous jargon of the Andalou.
Even in the village round the point they speak like Morescoes – algarabia, gab ble-gabble, munch, munch.’ Though perfectly liberal in all
other senses, Stephen Maturin could not abide a Moor.
‘There is a village, is there?’ asked Jack, his eyes bright ening.
‘Well, a hamlet: you will see it presently.’ A pause, while the sloop whispered through the still water and the landscape imperceptibly revolved. ‘Strabo tells us that the ancient Irish
regarded it as an honour to be eaten by their relatives – a form of burial that kept the soul in the family’
‘ he said, waving the book.
‘Mr Mowett, pray be so good as to fetch me my glass. I beg your pardon, dear Doctor: you were telling me about Strabo.’
‘You may say he is no more than Eratosthenes redivivus, or shall I say new-rigged?’
‘Oh, do, by all means. There is a fellow riding hell for leather along the top of the cliff, under that castle.!
‘He is riding to the village.’
‘So he is. I see it now, opening behind the rock. I see something else, too,’ he added, almost to himself. The sloop glided steadily on, and steadily the shallow bay turned, showing a white cluster of houses at the water’s edge. There were three vessels lying at anchor some way out, a quarter of a mile to the south of the village: two houarios and a pink, merchantmen of no great size, but deeply laden.
Even before the sloop stood in towards them there was great activity ashore, and every eye aboard that could command a glass could see people running about, boats launching and pulling industriously for the anchored vessels. Presently men could be seen hurrying to and fro on the merchantmen, and the sound of their vehement discussion came clearly over the evening sea. Then came the rhythmic shouting as they worked at their windlasses, weighing their anchors: they loosed their sails and ran themselves straight on shore.
Jack stared at the land for some time with a hard calculating look in his eye: if no sea were to get up it would be easy to warp the vessels off – easy both for the Spaniards and for him. To be sure, his orders left no room for a cutting-out expedition. Yet the enemy lived on his coastwise trade -roads execrable – mule-trains absurd for anything in bulk -no waggons worth speaking of – Lord Keith had been most emphatic on that point. And it was his duty to take, burn, sink or destroy. The Sophies stared at Jack: they knew very well what was in his mind, but they also had a pretty clear notion of what was in his orders too
– this was not a cruise but a piece of strict convoy-work. They stared so bard that the sands of time ran out. Joseph Button, the marine sentry whose function it was to turn the half-hour glass the moment it emptied and to strike the bell, was roused from his contemplation of Captain Aubrey’s face by nudges, pinches, muffled cries of ‘Joe, Joe, wake up Joe, you fat son of a bitch,’ and lastly by Mr Pullings’ voice in his ear, ‘Button, turn that glass.’
The last tang of the bell died away and Jack said, ‘Put her about, Mr Pullings, if you please.’