– ‘and look, look, Stephen,’ cried Jack, ‘the audacious reptile has flashed out a skyscraper-do you see? The fore-and-aft affair above everything: take my glass and you will make out its sheet. Did you ever see the like, Bonden?’
‘Never, sir. But once when I was aboard Melpomene in the doldrums we spread a sail above the royal: though it being square we called it a moonsail.’
This prodigious spread brought Hamadryad within pistolshot of the little Surprise before dusk. She clapped her helm a-lee, swung round in an elegant curve, spilt the wind from her sails, furled her wings, and sent her captain across the narrow lane in his barge, as neat and trim as the Channel fleet. ‘My dear Hen, how do you do?’ cried Jack, receiving him on the quarterdeck with a hearty shake of his hand. ‘You know Dr Maturin and all my officers, I believe?’ Captain Dundas made his round of civilities. ‘Come below,’ said Jack,
‘and let us have a whet – you must be mortal parched after such a frantic spread of cloth.
What did you make?’
‘Only a span above eight knots, even with all our washing hung out to dry,’ said Dundas, laughing. ‘But it did please our topmen.’
‘It certainly amazed all ours – amazed and impressed. Sherry, or a draught of right Plymouth gin?’
‘Oh, gin, if you please. Two of our victuallers were stove on the Berlings in that shocking southerly blow and we have not had a drop since then – they happened to be carrying it all. Did the wind reach as far as you?’
‘Yes: and as far as Alexandria, I believe: a truly wicked blast. But tell me, Hen’ –
pouring him a stiff tot and speaking with an affectation of casual unconcern that deceived neither of his friends – ‘what has Lord Barmouth in the way of frigates?’
‘None at all,’ said Dundas. ‘Some battered seventy-fours, a sixty-four-gun ship, some indifferent sloops, and of course the flag. But Hamadryad was the last of the frigates. The rest have been sent to Malta and eastwards: though indeed he is to be reinforced in two or three weeks, or perhaps earlier. They too were much delayed by the weather, carrying the C-in-C’s new wife, and had to put back into Lisbon.’
Jack drank his own sherry with satisfaction and they sat down to a remarkably copious supper. Picking up his fork he said, ‘Did you say that Lord Barmouth was remarried? I heard nothing about it.’
‘He was, though. To Admiral Horton’s remarkably handsome young widow. It is her absence that makes him crosser than usual.’
Jack nodded vaguely, and in the pause between the pair of fowls and the sucking-pig he asked, ‘Did you wait on Lord Keith?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Dundas. ‘I had a message for him from my father; but I should have gone in any case. I have a great respect for the Admiral.’
‘So have I. How was Lady Keith?’
‘As lovely, and kind, and learned as ever: she was good enough to ask me to dinner, and she and the chaplain of one of the seventy-fours prattled away about some peculiarities of the Hebrew used in the Jewish community on the Rock.’
‘Do they indeed use a colloquial Hebrew?’ asked Stephen. ‘I had always supposed that they kept to their archaic Spanish.’
‘From what I gathered they spoke Hebrew wLen Jews from remote countries appeared – countries where Arabic or Persian took the place of Spanish. Rather as those more learned than I am use Latin when they are in Poland or, God preserve us, Lithuania.’
‘As I remember,’ said Jack, ‘they meant to stake a house somewhere near the Governor’s cottage.’
‘Just so: Ballinden. It is a little higher up, but somewhat closer to the town. A charming place, with a prodigious view of the Straits and a fine garden kept by a Scorpion: perhaps rather large for them and I am afraid the apes are a nuisance at times. But they both seem very happy there.’
‘Bless them,’ said Jack, raising his glass. ‘They were both most uncommon kind to me.’
Pudding came on almost as soon as they had drunk the Keiths’ health, a fine honest naval pudding of the kind that Jack and Dundas loved, and to which Stephen (unlike Jacob) had become inured. ‘Thank you very much,’ said Dundas, refusing a second piece, ‘and I am afraid I must . . .’ Before he could utter the words ‘tear myself away’ the Surprise’s bell struck eight times, the cabin door opened and the midshipman in charge of Captain Dundas’ barge said, ‘Sir, you told me to ..
‘Very true, Simmons,’ said Dundas. ‘Jack, thank you many, many times for a splendid supper; but if I do not speed on my way, I shall be flogged round the fleet.
Gentlemen’ – bowing to Stephen and Jacob – ‘your servant.’
All was over, the table cleared, all but for the brandy. Jacob had said good night, and a curious silence filled the cabin.
‘Seeing Dundas hurry off in such a dutiful, truly naval fashion,’ said Stephen, ‘puts me in mind of an indiscreet question that I have often been tempted to ask you: and since after all I too am essentially concerned in our voyage, I shall venture upon it now. If Heneage Dundas is in danger of being flogged round the fleet for dillying and dallying on his way, may you not run the same risk, when at last your snail’s pace brings you to Gibraltar and the Commander-inChief, who is not your very closest friend?’
‘Stephen,’ said Jack, ‘I dare say you have noticed that the moon changes both her shape and her hours of rising and setting from time to time?’
‘Indeed I have – a most inconstant orb. Sometimes a mere sickle facing left, sometimes right; and sometimes, as I have no doubt you have observed yourself, no moon at all. The dark of the moon! I remember you once landed me on the French coast at just such a time. Yet I am no great lunarian:
a priest in the County Clare explained her motions to me, but I am afraid I did not fully retain his words.’
‘He did persuade you that it was a regular process – that the changes could be foretold?’
‘I am sure he did, at least to his own satisfaction.’
‘It is the case, I do assure you, Stephen: and the very first appearance of the new moon at certain seasons is of the utmost consequence to Jews and Muslims. Now you are aware that the commander of the Arzila galley must be either the one or the other – almost certainly a Muslim – and in any case a sailor. Furthermore he is presumably a sailor in his right mind, so wind and weather permitting he must necessarily pass through the Strait at the dark of the moon or as near as ever he can get to it, a night that he can foretell as well as we can. So seeing that both he and I think alike, I hope to give him the meeting somewhere south of Tarifa.’
‘To be sure, that puts a different complexion on the matter.’
‘Furthermore, I have no wish to lose any spars by cracking on, nor to lie there day after day under the eye of a Commander-in-Chief who dislikes me. He is a very distinguished sailor, I fully admit; and his reputation as a fighting captain was very high indeed; yet as a flag-officer he has been less fortunate . .. It is very odd, but there is something about the Admiralty board-room table that has a sad effect on some of those who sit there, sensible men who can club-haul their ship off a roaring lee-shore or take a huge Spanish beauty like the Santisima Trinidad and remain perfectly civil and unassuming until this point, this board-room table. It is not invariable, but I have served under some who, on becoming a Sea-Lord, above all First Sea-Lord, who s’uddenly swell up into creatures of enormous importance, who have to be approached on hands and knees, and addressed in the third person. No. Lord Barmouth will have a monuwent in the Abbey with a great many fine actions engraved upon it; but he is perfectly capable of doing a dirty thing, and I should rather make my obeisance a very short time before the dark of the moon and then go about my business, looking as much like a distressed merchantman as possible.’
It was a good plan; it kept the ship from the wear and tear of a hurried passage, so that (apart from other considerations) she should be entirely ready for the eagerly-expected meeting. But it was based on the false assumption that the Commander-in-Chief should be sitting in Gibraltar.
He was in fact exercising the vessels under his command, the ships of the line to port, the sloops and minor craft to starboard, in line abreast; and well behind them sailed a numerous convoy of merchantmen.