‘Boat pulling off, sir,’ called the man in the top. And two minutes later, ‘On deck, on deck there! Another boat, sir. Firing on the first one.’
‘All hands to make sail,’ cried Jack, and the Polychrest woke to urgent life. ‘Fo’c’sle, there; cast loose two and four. Mr Rolfe, fire on the second boat as I run inshore. Fire the moment they bear – full elevation. Mr Parker, tops’ls and courses.’ They were half a mile off, well out of range of his carronades, but if only he could get under way he would soon shorten it. Oh, for just one long gun, a chaser.
The supplementary orders came thick and fast, a continuous, repetitive, exasperated clamour. ‘Lay aloft, jump to it, trice up, lay out, lay out – will you lay out there on the maintops’ yard? Let fall, God damn your – eyes, let fall, mizen tops’l. Sheet home. Hoist with a will, now, hoist away.’
Christ, it was agony: it might have been an undermanned merchantman, a dung-scow in pandemonium:
he clasped his hands behind his back and stepped to the rail to prevent himself running forward to sort out the confused bellowing on the fo’c’sle. The boats were coming straight for him, the second firing two or three muskets and a spatter of pistols.
At last the bosun piped belay and the Polychrest began to surge forward, lying over to the wind. Keeping his eye on the advancing boats he said, ‘Mr Goodridge, lay her in to give the gunner a clear shot. Mr Macdonald, your marksmen into the top – fire at the second boat.’
Now the sloop was really moving, opening the angle between the two boats: but at the same time the first boat began to turn towards her, shielding its pursuer from his fire. ‘The boat ahoy,’ he roared. ‘Steer clear of my stern -pull a-starboard.’
Whether they heard, whether they understood or no, a gap appeared between the boats.
The forward carronades went off – a deep crash and a long tongue of flame. He did not see the fall of the shot, but it had no effect on the following boat, which kept up its excited fire. Again, and this time he caught it, a split-second plume in the grey, well short, but in the right direction. The first musket cracked out overhead, followed by three or four together. A carronade again, and this time the ball was pitched well up to the second boat, for the Polychrest had moved two or three hundred yards: it must have ricocheted over their heads, for it damped their ardour. They came on still, but at the next shot the pursuing boat spun round, fired a last wanton musket and pulled fast out of range.
‘Heave her to, Mr Goodridge,’ said Jack. ‘Back the mizen tops’l. The boat, ahoy! What boat?’ There was a gabbling out there on the water, fifty yards away. ‘What boat?’ he hailed again, leaning far over the rail, the rain driving in on his face.
‘Bourbon,’ came a faint cry, followed by a strong shout, ‘Bourbon’ again.
‘Pull under my lee,’ said Jack. The way was off the
Polychrest, and she lay there pitching and groaning. The boat touched alongside, hooked to the mainchains, and in the glow of the battle-lanterns he saw a body crumpled in the stern-sheets.
‘Le monsieur est touché,’ said the man with the boat-hook.
‘Is he badly hurt – mauvaisement blessay?’
‘Sais pas, commandant. Il parle plus: je crois bien que c’est un macchabée a present. Y a du sang partout. Vous voulez pas me faire passer une élingue, commandant?’
‘Eh? Parlez – pass the word for the Doctor.’
It was not until they had got his patient into Jack’s cabin that Stephen saw his face. Jean Anquetil, a nervous, timid-brave, procrastinating, unlucky young man: and he was bleeding to death. The bullet had nicked his aorta, and there was nothing, nothing he could do: the blood was pumping out in great throbs.
‘It will be over in a few minutes,’ he said, turning to Jack.
‘And so, sir, he died within minutes of being brought aboard,’ said Jack.
Admiral Harte grunted. He said, ‘That is everything he had on him?’
‘Yes, sir. Greatcoat, boots, clothes and papers: they are very bloody, I am afraid.’
‘Well, that is a matter for the Admiralty. But what about this death-or-money boat?’
So that was the reason for his ill-humour. ‘I sighted the boat when I was on my station, sir; there were fifty-three minutes to go before the rendezvous, and if I had borne down I must necessarily have been late – I could never have beaten back in time. You know what the Polychrest is on a bowline, sir.’
‘And you know the tag about workmen and their tools, Captain Aubrey. Anyhow, there is such a thing as being
too scrupulous by half The fellow was never at the rendezvous at all: these foreigners never are. And in any case, half an hour or so. . . and it positively could not have been more, even with a crew of old women. Are you aware, sir, that Amethyst’s boats picked up that Deal bugger as he was running into Ambleteuse with eleven hundred guineas aboard? It makes me mad to think of it. . . made a cock of the whole thing.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. The Amethyst was cruising under Admiralty orders, Jack reflected; the flag-officer had no share in her prize-money; Harte had lost about a hundred and fifty pounds, he was not pleased ‘However,’ went on the admiral, ‘it is no use crying over spilt milk. As. soon as the wind gets out of the south I am taking the convoy down You will wait here for the Guinea men to join, and the ships in the list Spalding will give you: you are to escort them as far as the Rock of Lisbon, and I have no doubt on your way back you will make good this little mess Spalding will give you your orders you will find no cast-iron rigid rendezvous’
By morning the wind had shifted into the west-north-west, and the blue peter broke out at a hundred foretopmastheads: boats by the score hurried merchant captains, mates, passengers and their relatives from Sandwich, Walmer, Deal and even Dover, and many a cruel extortionate bargain was struck when the flagship’s signals, reinforced by insistent guns, made it clear that time was short, that this time was the true departure Towards eleven o’clock the whole body, apart from those that had fallen foul of one another, was under way in three straggling divisions, or rather heaps. Orderly or disorderly, however, they made a splendid sight, white sails stretching over four or five miles of grey sea, and the high, torn sky sometimes as grey as the one or as white as the other. An impressive illustration of the enormous importance of trade to the island, too; one that might have served the Polychrest’s midshipmen as a lesson in political economy and on the powers of the
average seaman at evading the press – there were some thousands of them there, sailing unscathed from the very heart of the Impress Service.
But they, in common with the rest of the ship’s company, were witnessing punishment.
The grating was rigged, the bosun’s mates stood by, the master-at-arms brought up his delinquents, a long tally charged with drunkenness – gin had been coming aboard from the bum-boats, as it always did – contempt, neglect of duty, smoking tobacco outside the galley, playing dice, theft. On these occasions Jack always felt gloomy, displeased with
everybody aboard, innocent and guilty alike: he looked tall, cold, withdrawn, and, to those under his power, his nearly absolute power, horribly savage, a right hard horse. This was early in the commission and he had to establish an unquestioning discipline; he had to support his officers’ authority. At the same time he had to steer fine between self-defeating harshness and (although indeed some of these charges were trivial enough, in spite of his words with Parker) fatal softness; and he had to do so without really knowing three quarters of his men. It was a difficult task, and his face grew more and more lowering. He imposed extra duties, cut grog for three days, a week, a fortnight, awarded four men six lashes apiece, one nine, and the thief a dozen. It was not much, as flogging went; but in the old Sophie they had sometimes gone two months and more without bringing the cat out of its red baize bag: it was not much, but even so it made quite a ceremony, with the relevant Articles of War read out, the drum-roll, and the gravity of a hundred men assembled.
The swabbers cleaned up the mess, and Stephen went below to patch or anoint the men who had been flogged
– those, that is to say, who reported to him. The seamen put on their shirts again and went about their business, trusting to dinner and grog to set them right: the landsmen who had not been beaten navy-fashion before were much