It was the welcome shrilling pipe and the thunder of feet on deck that woke Dr Maturin at last: he was therefore at table before anyone else, being no more particular about washing, brushing and shaving than the monks of the Thebaid. On the quarterdeck Jack led the way aft to the master’s day cabin, followed by Tom, the first lieutenant and the master himself, and as they went the sun broke through the eastern clouds.
‘Good morning, Commodore,’ said Stephen, already deep in eggs and the ship’s butcher’s capital bacon. ‘Good morning, Tom. Here’s a pretty state of affairs. I have madly overslept, I have missed my morning rounds, the coffee is almost cold, and there are people running about crying “Oh, oh, the enemy is upon us. What shall we do to be saved?” Can this be true, my dears?’
‘Only too true, alas,’ said Jack, hanging his head very dolefully. ‘And I am sorry to tell you that they are within thirty miles, or even less.’
‘Never mind, Doctor,’ said Tom. ‘The Commodore has a plan that will confound their politics.’
‘Would he be prepared to reveal it? To lay it forth in terms suited to the meanest understanding?’
‘Let me finish my mutton chop, and gather my wits,’ said Jack, ‘and I am your man.
. . Well’ he said, wiping his mouth at last, ‘what I have to offer is all very theoretical, very much the air: naturally, until we know the enemy’s force. But I start with three assumptions: first, that he is in search of the missing seventy-four; second, that he will not come to action, encumbered as he is with transports, if he can possibly avoid it; and third, that this north-wester, providential for him at the moment but uncommon in these waters, will back into the much more usual south-west – much more important by far, for my plan –
by nightfall or a little later.’
Tom nodded and said ‘That’s right.’
‘So supposing all these things to be true, I steer somewhat east of east-north-east, keeping him under observation if only this weather stays clear, with Ringle lying say ten miles off – an ordinary object, unsuspicious, a small American privateer: there are dozens of the same build and rig – with Laurel
repeating. Then, once the French commodore is well south of us – Tom, give me the bread-barge, will you?’ He broke a biscuit, cleared a space on the table, and said
‘Weevils already? Here, the large piece with the reptile lurking inside, is the rendezvous.
This is us, standing gently east. Here are the French, over our horizon and with no frigates scouting out:
they are heading for the rendezvous. When they get there, which they should do today with this leading wind, when they get there and find no seventy-four, they turn about and steer for Ireland. By this time, in all likelihood, the wind will have backed into the south of south-west, another leading wind for them. Yes, but here we are’ – tapping a piece of biscuit – ‘and once they have repassed the parallel of the point we first saw them – once
they are to the north of us, why then we have the weather-gage! We have the weathergage, and in principle we can bring them to action whether they like it or not.’
‘That is very satisfactory,’ said Stephen, considering the pieces of biscuit. ‘And eminently clear. But -‘ shaking his head – ‘it is an odious necessity.’
Stephen’s dislike for killing his fellow-men often embarrassed Jack, whose profession it was, and he quickly added ‘Of course, that is only the ideal course of events.
A thousand things could throw it out – the wind staying in the north-west or dropping altogether, some busy dog of a privateer who sees us and reports our presence, a reinforcement, the arrival of the other ship of the line, a storm that dismasts us. . . and in any event my predictions may have a strong touch of Old Moore about them…’
‘If you please, sir,’ said yet another midshipman, addressing his captain, ‘Mr Soames’s compliments, and Laurel signals two ships of the line, probably seventy-fours, two frigates in company, a frigate or corvette a league ahead, and four transports, two of them far astern.’
‘Thank you, Mr Dormer,’ said Tom Pullings. ‘I shall come and look at her presently.’
He beamed at Stephen, and when the boy had gone he said ‘I don’t believe there is anything at all of Old Moore in the Commodore’s prediction, sir. I believe we have them . .
‘Hush, Tom,’ said the Commodore. ‘There’s many a slip, twixt the cup and the sip, you know.’
‘How true, sir,’ said Tom, touching the wooden breadbarge. ‘I nearly said something very improper.’ He stood up, returned thanks for his breakfast, and hurried back to the quarterdeck.
In the main, Jack’s forecast was sound enough, but so were his reservations. The wind backed south-south-west earlier than he had expected, so that the French squadron had to beat up, tack upon tack, for their rendezvous; then the Commodore Esprit-Tranquil Maistral, a survivor of the enormous expedition destined for Bantry Bay in ’96 with no less than seventeen of the line and thirteen frigates, decided to wait for the seventy-four from America until the fourteenth, a particularly lucky day; and even then not to set sail until the most auspicious hour, which was half-past eleven, so that with a thick, dirty night, with a brave topgallant wind on the larboard quarter that bowled them along at a fine rate, he and his ships very nearly ran clear.
During this time, if a space filled with such anxiety could be called a time, the Bellona and her fellows had been edging steadily westwards so as to fetch the Frenchman’s wake as he proceeded north-north-east for Ireland in three or four days, and they filled the interval with the innumerable tasks always waiting to be done in a ship at sea, and fishing over the side, with moderate success.
The position at which the squadron would lie to, somewhat to the south and east of the point the French were expected to reach in three days at the most, had been given to the Laurel and the Ringle; but in almost twice that space of time, ocean drift, dirty weather and human fallibility deprived the figure of much of its meaning, and it was only when Maistral had been at sea since the fourteenth, that the Ringle came tearing close-hauled through a very heavy sea and a black squall at seven bells in the morning watch to bellow and roar that the French had been seen hull-down in the north-east steering north-east, half an hour after sunset yesterday.
For the last day and a half Jack Aubrey had spent almost all the time on deck or at the masthead, saying very little,
eating less, pale, withdrawn. Now he breathed again; and now the steady process of cracking on began – preventer backstays, braces, shrouds and stays to enable the ship to bear the press
:T of foul-weather canvas that the people were spreading with suchgoodwill.
But it required all this burst of furious seamanlike energy, all this urgent driving of the ship and encouragement of the squadron to prevent him slipping back into bitter self-reproach for having come so near to failure through over-confidence in his own judgment.
Much of this activity, once the Bellona was in racing trim, was devoted to the Thames. He spent a whole day aboard her, showing them quite kindly how to wring an extra knot or even an extra two or three fathoms out of her; but although there was some improvement he had to admit that even when he had done his best she was still slow for a frigate: nothing would cure her but radical measures. It did not appear to him that her hull was particularly ill-formed, but it was quite certain that she could sail no better with her present trim. To take advantage of her lines, she had to be at least a foot and a half by the stern; yet solely to improve her looks, her hold, her ballast, water, stores, everything, had been stowed so that her masts were bolt upright, perpendicular for pretty. The smartest ship on the station, with her yards squared by the lifts and braces and her masts at right angles with the sea, said Thomas: Prince William had often commended her appearance. Jack concealed his opinion of Prince William’s judgment of a man-of-war, but said that when they were in the Cove of Cork they would try to bring her by the stern a trifle and make comparative trials; he then said good day, leaving the frigate in a better mood. He had scarcely returned to the Bellona before the Thames, in her zeal, carried away her foretopgallant mast.
Nevertheless, on the second morning, towards the end of the forenoon watch, the low sky cleared a little and the French sails showed, faint white glimmers on the north-east horizon. Jack contemplated them from the masthead for some considerable time, gathering a general sense of their sailing qualities; and coming down at last he met with Killick’s disagreeable, disapproving face. ‘Now, sir,’ he said, in that familiar whine,