‘That cannot have been four bells,’ said Stephen, looking up from his plate with an attentive ear.
‘I believe it was, though,’ said Jack, who had now reached marmalade and his second pot of coffee.
‘It was benevolent in you to wait, brother,’ said Stephen. ‘I take it kindly.’
‘I hope you got some sleep, at all events,’ said Jack.
‘Sleep? And why should I not sleep, at all?’
‘As soon as the idlers were called we made enough din to raise the dead, getting the chasers aft and opening the portlids. I doubt they had been opened when she was weighed from the bottom of the sea, they were so cruelly tight. Painted in too, of course, right across the upper counter for pretty, so they could not be seen. I thought it would have broken Fielding’s
heart as we beat and thumped them into some sense of their duty; but he looked a little less wretched when we had the guns in place. The breeching and the tackles hide some of the scars. And so you slept through it all: well, well.’
Stephen frowned and said ‘I cannot conceive what you hope to gain by placing them there, and ruining our parlour, our music-room, our one solace on the ocean’s bosom. But then I am no great sailor.’
‘Oh, I should never say that: oh not at all, not really,’ said Jack. ‘But if you like I will explain them by telling you about my plan of attack, if anything that depends upon one probable surmise but countless unknowns can be called a plan.’
‘I should be very happy to hear it.’
‘As you know, we hope to catch the Cornélie watering at Nil Desperandum, in the cove on the southern side: a not unreasonable hope, since watering there is a very slow business and she needs a great deal for the next leg of her voyage. In the best of cases I should run in, looking like a Dutch merchantman in need of water too and of course wearing Dutch colours: I should run in under shabby topsails, and with luck I should come close alongside, whip up the ensign, give her a broadside and board her in the smoke. It should
not be a very difficult boarding: if she had even a small party ashore our numbers would be about equal, and then there is the immense advantage of surprise. But that is the best of cases, and I must provide for others. Suppose for example she lies awkwardly or suppose I miss the channel – in short, suppose I cannot run close alongside, then I must turn about, since I cannot engage her broadside to broadside at any distance, not with carronades against her long eighteen-pounders. Turn and entice her out, for I have no fear of her not chasing: I know she is short of stores – in fact she is probably very, very short. Her being out of water so soon makes it seem likely that she left Pulo Prabang in a great hurry.’
‘Nothing could be more probable than a quarrel in those circumstances. The Frenchmen had lost all credit.’
‘So, do you see, I am sure of her chasing us: and I am sure of being able to outsail her both by and large. The Dutchman
assured me she could not come within seven points close-hauled; and she is wretchedly equipped for a breeze abaft the beam. She was so short of sailcloth that they took mere rags from the Alkmaar as better than what they had. My plan is to make her think we are trying to escape – the usual lame-duck tactics – and so lead her through the Salibabu Passage by night, disappear behind the second island at the far end, sending a well-lit boat ahead, and come out as she passes by. Once. she is past we have the weather-gage, and it would be strange if we did not lay her alongside in a matter of a glass or two.’
‘Would she indeed chase all night in these dangerous parts?’
‘Oh, I think so. Salibabu is a deep-water passage, much better known than the South China Sea; and in any case her captain is a bold enterprising man – he heaved his ship down at Pulo Prabang, which I should scarcely have dared to do -and as I say, he is desperately short of stores. He has an enormous tract of ocean to sail across: and would risk anything to seize a well-found ship, man-of-war or not. Furthermore his course lies through the Passage: it does not take him an inch out of his way. I am so sure of his attempting us that I have shifted the chasers aft, as you see. He will certainly pepper us as we run and I should like to be able to reply. You will say that a nine-pounder’ – looking affectionately at Beelzebub, his own brass chaser – ‘will not carry away a frigate’s foreyard or even foretopsailyard at the distance I intend to keep, which is profoundly true; but there is always the lucky shot that severs a lift or a backstay, causing sad confusion. I remember when I was a boy in the West Indies a six-pounder fired from the forecastle that cut the chase’s peak-halliards, a valuable schooner that was going from us like smoke and oakum – down came her mainmast, and of course we snapped her up. To be sure, that works both ways; and the French are sometimes devilish clever at pointing their guns.’
‘On the perhaps rather wild supposition that the Cornélie is limited to the four barrels she took from the Alkmaar, how long would the peppering last?’
He regretted his question as soon as he had asked it; and indeed Jack answered rather coldly. ‘Four barrels would allow iao shots from a nine-pound chaser, or four eighteen-pounder broadsides if the bow gun were left out, which it often is.’ But at this point a somewhat haggard Fielding came in to report progress.
‘How are the hands taking it?’ asked Jack.
‘There was a certain amount of reluctance here and there, as you noticed yourself, sir,’
said Fielding, ‘but now they all seem won over to the idea, and some of the younger topmen have to be restrained rather than encouraged. A proper rag-fair she looks forward: Irish pennants, slush over the side, the heads enough to make a mad-house blush.’
‘I will come as soon as the Doctor has finished his cup,’ said Jack. ‘I promised him he should be amazed.’
‘I am with you now,’ said Stephen, starting up. ‘Pray lead on.’
‘There,’ said Jack as they all three stood at the quarterdeck barricade, facing forward.
There were several other officers on the leeward side and they too watched Stephen’s face attentively.
‘Where am Ito look?’ he asked.
‘Why, everywhere,’ cried both Jack and Fielding.
‘It seems much the same to me,’ said Stephen.
‘Oh for shame,’ cried Jack amidst a general sound of disapproval. ‘Do not you see the loathesome deck?’
‘The rope-yarns hanging about in the rigging?’ asked Fielding.
‘The loose reef-points?’ asked the master, moved beyond discretion.
‘The fag-ends of rope everywhere?’
‘There is a blue patch on this near topsail that may not have been there yesterday,’ said Stephen, anxious to please. ‘And perhaps the sail itself is less bright than usual.’ This had no success however: pursed lips, shaken heads, mutual looks of intelligence; while behind him an involuntary growl burst from the quartermaster at the con. ‘Perhaps I had better occupy myself with what I am more competent to judge,’ he said. ‘I shall take my morning rounds. Do you choose to accompany me, sir?’
Jack ordinarily visited the sick-berth with the surgeon, to ask the invalids how they did – an attention that was much appreciated – but this morning he excused himself, adding ‘You were no doubt misled by our not having shifted the other sails; but it will be clearer after dinner.’
Even before dinner the change was somewhat more evident. Stephen came on deck in time to see the taking of the sun’s altitude as it crossed the meridian. He had been present at this ceremony times without number, but he had rarely seen it carried out so earnestly –
every sextant and quadrant the
•
Nutmeg possessed was in action and all the midshipmen stood elbow to elbow along her starboard gangway – and never with the ship in such a condition. The tide of squalor had flowed aft, almost reaching the holy quarterdeck, and even the most unobservant eye could not fail to notice the grimy, patched
topsails (the most striking contrast to the brilliant sunlit white of the courses, topgallants and royals, and their own spotless studdingsails), the carefully dulled brass, the uneven ratlines, the dirty buckets hung here and there in defiance of all decency, the general air of advanced seediness. Many of the hands had spent their time on line-of-battle ships, which called for sweepers almost every glass and which never, never resorted to practices of this kind; and at first they looked upon the deliberate profanation with horror. But gradually they had been won over, and now, with the enthusiasm of converts, they daubed her sides with filth, almost to excess.