‘Corruption, sir?’ cried Jack. ‘I love the word. Ever since my very first command I have corrupted any dockyard or ordnance or victualling board officer who had the shadowiest claim to a traditional present and who could help get my ship to sea a little quicker and in slightly better fighting-trim. I corrupted as far as ever my means allowed me to, sometimes borrowing for the purpose; I do not think I seriously damaged any man’s character, and I believe it paid hands down, for the service, for my ship’s company and for me. If only I knew the ropes here, or if I had my putser or clerk, both experts in the matter at a lower level, I should do the same in Batavia, saving your respect, sir, and do it on a far larger scale, being far better provided now than I was then.’
‘It is a pity none of our Indiamen are due for a couple of months. Their captains understand the matter perfectly well. Yet even so, I think that if my clerk of the works had a word with the superintendent something might come of it. Of course neither you nor I can appear, and I certainly cannot use official funds; but unofficially I will do anything in my power to help you get away as soon as possible. I deplore the necessity for oiling wheels that should run of themselves, but I recognize its existence, especially in this part of the world; and in the case of the Nutmeg I am willing to give all the support I can.’
‘I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir; and if by means of your worthy clerk I can learn roughly the cost of the solution,
I shall do my best to raise it with what I have here. And if I
cannot, there may be some commercial house that will accept
a draught on London.’
‘Who do you bank with, Aubrey?’
‘With Hoare’s, sir.’
‘You did not change, like poor Maturin?’
‘No. No, by God,’ said Jack, striking his fist into his palm. ‘That was the worst day’s work I ever did in my life, and I curse the day I ever told him about Smith and Clowes. For my part I had a few thousand with them for convenience; but all the rest I left with Hoare’s.’
‘In that case Maturin’s friend and mine, Shao Yen, will accommodate you.’
Shao Yen did so accommodate Captain Aubrey, and the various guilds concerned were so thoroughly persuaded to abandon their ancient practices for a while that within thirty-six hours the ship swarmed with eager workers, including all the Nutmegs who could find standing space Jack and his officers
had often, very often had to drive a crew – Fielding was uncommonly good at it, and Crown was no laggard – but never before had they to urge such restraint, to beg their men not to over exert themselves in this damp, unhealthy weather, or to run such risks up there. Those Nutmegs, the afterguard and their like, who had no highly technical duties to perform, painted ship, supervised from a distance by Bennett, that most unlikely survivor from the battle, who hovered in a skiff, calling ‘Half an inch more below the gun-sill’ as the Nutmeg assumed the Nelson chequer, in Jack Aubrey’s opinion the only pattern for a man-of-war, and one whose exact paint he found in plenty at Batavia; for although the Royal Naval presence was now reduced to a single lieutenant and a score of clerks and ratings, a very considerable squadron had been in the port and might well come back again. A wealth of supplies, most of them captured, had therefore been left; and from this wealth Jack Aubrey fitted out the Nutmeg, wandering at large
•
in All Baba’s cave, or rather caves, for the vast selection of new cables was kept well away from the gunpowder in its vaulted
stores: everything in its place, everything a sailor’s professional heart could long for.
He had long since decided that if he met the Cornélie, his only chance (unless Stephen’s unsavoury plot had succeeded) was flight or battle at close quarters. With her twenty nine-pounders, the Nutmeg could not play at bong bowls with the French thirty-two-gun eighteen-pounder frigate, particularly if the French guns were as well pointed as French guns usually were; but if he could engage yardarm to yardarm, and if he were armed with thirty-two-pounder carronades, he could throw in a broadside of 320 pounds as opposed to 90 pounds and board her in the smoke.
Carronades, then, and he and the gunner and his mates walked up and down in the dim storehouse behind the ordnance wharf, amazed at the wealth before them, amazed at their liberty of choice (for the Governor had given Captain Aubrey a free hand), and almost unable to make up their minds as they hurried from piece to piece, testing them for smooth perfection of bore. There was a sort of hurried anguished joy in the final choosing of the twenty smashers; and then there was also the frightful question of the roundshot, since carronades, as opposed to long guns, allowed very little windage and required an almost perfect sphere for anything like accuracy, even at their short range. Each ball weighed thirty-two pounds; each carronade called for a very great many (there had to be quantities for practice, all hands being so much more used to the poor Diane’s great guns); and between them they must have rolled many, many tons along the dusty floors and through the testing hoops.
But with all their virtues – light weight, light charge, small crew, great murdering-power –
carronades were awkward bitches. They were so short that even when they were fully run out their flash would sometimes fire the rigging, above all if they were traversed; and then again they heated easily, jumped and broke free. So since Jack designed the Nutmeg primarily as a carronade-vessel (though he retained his old brass nine-pounder and another long gun very like it as chasers), he spent hours with all those concerned making the
ports exactly suitable for the short, stocky, rebellious creatures and ensuring that no rigging led close by their mouths however far they were traversed. Furthermore, at shocking cost in douceurs to the Dutch, he set a band of brilliant Chinese carpenters to work, changing the ordinary carronade-slides to those with an inclined plane to absorb much of the recoil.
And this was not his only extravagance. ‘What is the use of being almost rich,’ he asked Raffles – Stephen being elsewhere
– ‘if you cannot dash away on occasion?’
On this particular occasion he dashed away to a most surprising extent in sails – sails for every weather from wanton zephyrs to what might be expected off the Horn – and in cordage: best Manila almost everywhere, above all in the standing rigging, for which he maintained that nothing could exceed that costly rope in its three-strand shroud-laid form.
All this, and his search for a carpenter, purser, clerk and two or three capable young men for his midshipmen’s berth (Reade and Bennett, though full of good will, could not go
•
aloft, nor were they up to a night watch in heavy weather), meant that he saw little of Stephen, who, with his surviving patients well on the mend, spent much of his time with Raffles, either in the citadel or at Buitenzorg, the Governor’s country retreat, where his gardens and most of his collections were to be found, pored over, commented upon.
Shortly after the Chinese carpenters came aboard Stephen was on his way to Buitenzorg on a hot rain-threatening morning, and he stood pondering by his horse, a pretty little Maduran mare, while Ahmed patiently held her head. Was it worth carrying a large, heavy, imperfectly waterproof cloak rolled behind the saddle, with the possibility of being both wet and stifled if the weather broke, or was the wiser course to risk a thorough soaking – wet through and through but comparatively cool? Perhaps it might not rain at all. While he was weighing these considerations he saw Sowerby approaching with an oddly hesitant step, sometimes stopping altogether. Eventually he came within hail, took off his hat and called
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Good morning to you, sir,’ replied Stephen, putting his
foot in the stirrup. In spite of the gesture Sowerby came on and said ‘I was about to leave this letter for you, sir. But now that I have the happiness of the meeting, I hope I may be allowed to acknowledge your magnanimity by word of mouth:
His Excellency tells me that I owe your recommendation to my appointment – my appointment to your recommendation.’
‘Faith,’ said Stephen, ‘you owe me little thanks: I was shown papers put forward by the various candidates – I thought yours by far the best, and said so: no more.’
‘Even so, sir, I am profoundly grateful; and as an esteem of my token I trust you will permit me to name a nondescript plant after you. But I must not detain you – you are on your way.