For his own part he had a couple of hours and more in which to contemplate dinner: but the pause was worse for his guests, Richardson and Seymour, because the gunroom ordinarily dined well before the cabin and the midshipmen’s mess even earlier, at noon itself.
However, it was a meal worth waiting for. jack’s cook Wilson
had excelled himself with a fish soup, made mostly of prawns bought from a passing proa, and a roast saddle of mutton, followed by a variety of puddings; and the pale sherry they drank throughout had not suffered at all from at least three crossings of the equator. How they got it all down in a temperature of eighty degrees in an almost saturated atmosphere, and they wearing stout broadcloth, was a wonder to Stephen: all three were now lashing into the baked rice pudding, he observed, the treacle tart, the boiled sago God preserve them, the Shrewsbury cakes, with every appearance of cheerful appetite. Though a discerning eye, very well accustomed to Jack Aubrey’s face, could make out that quite another mood underlay the Captain’s jovial manner.
‘It is a very odd thing,’ said Jack, ‘that all the people should be so very much surprised and delighted by the gained day. After all, ships have been carrying convicts to Botany Bay and coming home by the Horn these twenty years and more, and you would expect it to be a part of general knowledge. But I am glad there should be a feeling of holiday aboard; it chimes in with what I mean to do this afternoon.’
‘By your leave, sir,’ cried Killick, hurrying in with a great silver dish all ablaze – a flaming sugared omelette that he set down in front of Jack, the crowning glory of the feast and Wilson’s pride and joy.
It was not until they had eaten it all and had drunk the loyal toast and several others that Jack continued, ‘You will forgive me if I turn to service matters for a moment. I intend to rate Conway, Oakes and Miller midshipmen before the last dog. May I look to you to ease them into the berth, Mr Seymour? It can be an awkward business, coming aft.’
‘I should be very happy to do so, sir,’ said Seymour. ‘And Bennett and I could lend a hand with uniforms, until they can reach a proper tailor. We bought poor Clerke’s things when they were sold at the mast, and he was very well provided -three of everything.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Richardson, rising to his feet, ‘I am very glad indeed to hear your news; and though I must not presume to congratulate you on your choice, I believe I may say that it
will very much ease the work of the ship. And I may certainly thank you most heartily for my splendid dinner.’
The day declined, and the breeze with it; by the time the watch was mustered the Nutmeg was wafting along over a smooth, soup-warm sea with little more than steerage-way.
Nearly all hands were taking the somewhat fresher air on deck, and although it was too hot and clammy for dancing, there was singing on the forecastle. There was singing between decks too, in the midshipmen’s berth, where the three new young gentlemen were plying scissors, needle and thread to make their infinitely coveted uniforms fit.,
‘What do you say to some music, Jack?’ said Stephen, coming in with a partition in his hand. ‘It is long since we played, and I have just turned up the Clementi piece we used to enjoy in the Mediterranean.’
‘To tell you the truth, Stephen,’ said Jack, ‘I have not the heart for it. I should turn it into a God-damned dirge: I should turn anything into a God-damned dirge. I have been checking my calculations with the master and our figures agree very close. I have made a wrong decision. I should have waited at the mouth of the Sibutu Passage, lying-to off the island at its eastern end, so as to engage him at musket-shot and then yardarm to yardarm.’ He showed Stephen the great chart spread out over the table. ‘With the south-west monsoon he had to go north about Borneo, into the Sulu Sea and then steer south for the Sibutu Passage into the Celebes Sea, for no one in his senses would venture upon the Sulu Archipelago; and having passed through he would bear away for Salibabu. And there, if my plans had gone right, I should have been waiting for him. But my plans have not gone right: they were based on the regularity of the monsoon, and the monsoon has not been regular. The days of heavy weather that made us so slow and cautious in the Macassar Strait would have hurried him through the open Celebes Sea: but if I had steered straight for Sibutu instead of slanting eastwards in this miserable breeze under the lee of the high land, I believe I should have got there first. Whereas now I am convinced that he is through
and running fast for Salibabu. I might just possibly catch him before he gets there if the Cornélie is ill-found and a heavy sailor; but it would not do me much good if I did. The kind of engagement I look for is not a stern chase but a surprise attack at close quarters, boarding her in the smoke. Though it is a thousand, ten thousand to one I never see him at all. I am afraid these last few days of calm have wrecked me.’
‘But if the Cornélie sails through the Salibabu Passage, will she not run into Tom Pullings and the Surprise?’
‘In the first place Tom Pullings would have to be there.’
‘Is that unlikely?’
‘The odds against it are very long. Half a world between us and God knows what seas.
And then in the second place the Cornélie would have to keep right over on the north side of the channel, quite out of her way, to be seen even hull-down from Kabruang, where I hope Tom will be lying at anchor until the twentieth. And not only to be seen but to be recognized from a distance. For who would ever expect a Frenchman in these waters?
And even if these three improbabilities were overcome, would Tom leave his place of rendezvous for a chase that might lead him over two or three hundred miles of sea? Each
one is unlikely, and for all four to coincide . . . No, as far as I can see, our only hope is to crack on like smoke and oakum, to make all sneer again, and try to make up for those infernal days of lying to. We have, after all, a beautifully clean bottom.’
‘When you speak of a surprise attack and boarding in the smoke, are you not forgetting the possibility of her having no powder?
I had not forgotten it,’ said Jack coldly ‘No, I had certainly not forgotten it, though taking a ship in those circumstances would be about as creditable as To be sure, the possibility exists, but I cannot base any plan of attack upon it The only thing that is clear is that I must try to come up with him and then act accordingly – act in a seamanlike manner,’ he added,
smiling affectionately, for his tone could not but have been wounding He was very much on edge, as Stephen was perfectly aware
The morning watch found this cracking-on in progress, and
with all hands on deck after breakfast it was carried farther. Royal masts were sent up and their sails were set upon them, very fine and delicate canvas too; and since the wind, a good steady topgallant breeze, was now abaft the beam, studdingsails too made their charming appearance, four on the weather side of the foremast and two on the main, with a crowd of staysails; spritsail and spritsail topsail, of course, with all the jibe that would stand, a noble array. Presently skysails flashed out above the royals, and all hands watched the water rise high at the bows, sink to the copper abaft the forechains and then race hissing along her side, leaving a broad wake behind, stretching straight and true to the west by south.
Chapter Five
Miller, the uglier of the two resurrected midshipmen, had been commended for his piercing eyesight and his diligence as a lookout not only by Mr Richardson, his divisional officer, but by the Captain himself, and now he could scarcely be prised from the masthead. He had an immense respect for Captain Aubrey: Jack’s natural authority, his reputation as a fighting captain, and his power of lifting up or casting down played their part of course, but it was his cracking on that raised Miller’s respect to an enthusiastic veneration. In his five years at sea he had never seen anything like it; and his shipmates, some of whom had been afloat ten times as long, assured him he never would. And to be sure, Jack Aubrey, with a very sound, new-masted, new-rigged, clean-bottomed ship, drove the Nutmeg extremely hard now that he was in the deep waters of the Celebes Sea. He had good officers, a fairly good set of hands – they were not Surprises yet, but they were already far better than the common run – and a strong sense of frustration and guilt about his wrong