‘Wilkes and liberty,’ cried someone, drunker than most.
‘There are merchantmen crying out for hands, weeping for hands. Eight pound a month, all found, free tobacco and prime victuals. I am going home.’ A good deal of hallooing followed this, but Higgs’ enormous voice drowned it with the cry ‘There ain’t no martial law.
We are not slaves.’
‘We are not slaves,’ cried the others, stamping the ground with a rhythmic stress.
This falling apart of the frigate’s crew, this disintegration of a community, was of course the darkness that he had kept back through the dinner and his happy evening with Isobel and Queenie. It could not but have been there, Jack being of the sea briny, deeply aware of its motions and of the motions of those who sailed upon it. He had been conscious of the hands’ discontent even before it was formulated: naturally, with the war over, they wanted to go home and have a good time. But he was not going to lose his ship or his voyage if he could help it.
They were a motley lot, the present Surprises: the Admiral had had to bring her up to war-time strength when Jack was given his squadron, and no captain in his senses was going to hand over his best men: some of the unhappy pressed objects that came across were more fit for a charitable foundation than a man-of-war, but most were of the lower, more stupid, least-skilled kind of seafaring man, good for hauling on a rope, but little else: natural members of the afterguard. Now, however, full of life, full of gin and admiration for Higgs, they were forming up behind him, and within moments they were marching into the town, all bawling ‘There ain’t no martial law.’
‘Can it be true, Captain Aubrey?’ asked a voice just behind him. ‘Can it be true that there ain’t no martial law?’
‘Mr. Wright? How very pleasant to see you. As for the state of the law, in this case as in almost all others, I am profoundly ignorant: but if I were at home, as a magistrate I should feel inclined to read the Riot Act.’
They walked along behind the seamen: and when the cry about slavery was suddenly cut short by the sight of an immense fire at the crossroads – two whole carts and countless empty barrels – with people dancing round it anticlockwise – Jack said, ‘I know that Maturin would be very sorry not to see you. I cannot invite you to the ship, she having been sadly damaged in a collision. But he and I are to sup together at the Crown, and we should be delighted if you were to join us.’
‘The Crown? Very happy indeed. As it happens I am staying at the George, and I shall have to call in there first . . . and if you will forgive me, sir, this lane takes me to the side courtyard, avoiding the crowded square.’
‘So it does,’ said Jack. ‘So it does: then shall we say about ten o’clock? Maturin and I will come and fetch you, the streets being so full of people.’
Jack Aubrey, a tall, solid and even massive figure in his post-captain’s uniform – gold epaulettes broaden a man wonderfully, particularly by firelight – made his way easily enough through the revolving throng and pushed on towards the Surveyor’s office, where, if he did not find any of the senior officials present, he meant to leave a note: but at the turning into Irish Town his way was blocked by so compact a mass of people and by such an enormous discordant volume of sound that even his sixteen stone could not advance: and very soon he was blocked from behind as well. In the middle there was a furious battle going on, between Cano-puses and Maltas as far as he could make out, while on the right hand a determined body of seamen were breaking into a large wine-shop defended by an equally determined body of well-armed guards; while over on the far side it was clear that a brothel – quite a well-known brothel – had been taken by storm, and its naked inhabitants were trying to escape over the roof, pursued by yet more determined sailors.
Standing there, wedged, unable to advance or retreat, coughing with the smoke of various fires, he reflected on his hitherto conviction that soldiers and sailors were, upon the whole,
quite different creatures. ‘And perhaps they are, too: yet perhaps drink, in very large quantities, may make the difference less evident.’
At this moment a heart-stirring blast of trumpets away on the right cut through the animal bawling and shrieking in the middle and within minutes a large, perfectly disciplined and resolute body of troops with fixed bayonets emerged at the double from three streets, clearing the place with wonderful speed and efficiency: they were followed by mere constables and the like, who seized obvious malefactors and dragged them, bound, to a mule-cart used for night-soil.
Jack walked across the silent square, saluted now and then by soldiers: blessed ordinariness seemed to have descended upon Gibraltar (though there were still distant fires and what was probably far thunder rather than a raging mob) and it became almost perfect when the few porters and junior clerks in the Surveyor’s office declared that none of the higher officials had been in the building for the last three hours. A fine ordinariness in the hospital, too, where Jack sat on a bench outside, drinking an iced mixture of wine, orange and lemon juice through a straw and watching Arcturus growing clearer every minute.
‘Oh Jack, how I hope you have not been waiting long. The infernal whores never told me you were there, and I have been exchanging the smallest of small talk this age and more.
Brother, you are low in your spirits.’
‘Yes, I am. I had a delightful dinner – dear old Mr. Wright was there: we are to fetch him at the George this evening to sup with us – and a Colonel Roche, one of Wellington’s ADCs, gave me such an account of the battle – how I wish you had heard him. But as I walked back I came close to a bunch of Surprises: and I tell you what it is, Stephen – the Surprises as a ship’s company no longer exist: I fear the new drafts and above all this ill-timed and excessive prize-money have destroyed it. How I wish our Marines had not been taken from us.’ He fell silent. Then after a while he said, ‘I had thought of speaking to the officers and asking each how many in his division he could count on. I had thought of mustering the people and telling those who wished to carry on with me to move over to the starboard rail, the others to larboard. I thought of many things: but the position in naval and civil law as far as Surprise is concerned, and my powers aboard her, is deeply obscure and I shall do nothing before I have spoken to Lord Keith tomorrow morning.’
‘I am sure that is wise,’ said Stephen, seeing that Jack did not intend to go on. ‘The law is a terrible thing to be entangled with. I shall rejoice in Mr. Wright’s company, however. We fetch him at the George, I believe you said?’
‘Yes: and I shall take Killick and Grimble to protect him from the press.’
But at the George the people of the house stood aghast. ‘You are a doctor, sir, I believe?’
asked Mrs. Webber. Stephen agreed. ‘Then please would you step up and see him? The poor old gentleman was knocked down and robbed by three drunken sailors at our very door. Webber took a horse-pistol to one, but it would not fire. Still, our men did bring him in and carry him up. This way, sir, if you would be so kind.’
When Stephen came down again he said, in answer to Jack’s enquiring look, ‘A few bruises and a grazed elbow, but nothing broken, I am happy to say. But for a very aged man, the emotional, the spiritual disturbance is almost the equivalent of a broken limb for
a lively youth. Yes: he is certainly over eighty – he was elected to the Royal before either of us was breeched – and the ancient, when they are not wholly self-absorbed . . .’
Killick stood swaying in the doorway, but seeing that the Doctor was not likely to stop for some time, he burst in with ‘Which Mrs. Webber says would the old gentleman like a little thin gruel? A caudle?’ His voice was heavy and slurred, but a sense of what was proper in a post-captain’s steward kept him more or less upright, and when he had received and understood Stephen’s reply, he said, ‘Then I shall tell Grimble to cut along to the Crown and call for your supper to be set on table in half an hour: which I must go and fetch your clean nightshirts.’