They drove down all four in Diana’s coach, with Kilbick and Bonden up behind – a sight that would have made London stare but that was usual enough around Portsmouth, Chatham and Plymouth – for after Jack had done his business with the Commissioner and had taken possession of the Diane they were to dine at the Crown and the women were to be shown the ship.
The Commissioner and Master Shipwright deeply relished anything in the secret line; they were as brisk and co-operative as could be – the confidential joiners’ work would be masked by the alterations necessary for the envoy and his people – and when Jack said he was going across to the Diane the Commissioner immediately offered his own barge to take him
The frigate was lying conveniently near at hand, Just this side of Whale Island, and it was clear that Captain Bushel was still removing his belongings boats were plying to and fro
‘Pull round her, will you? said Jack to the coxswain, for there was still some time to go Pull easy
He gazed at her with intense concentration, shading his eyes from the bright sunlight Trim, shipshape, prettier than he had remembered her: she must have a good first lieutenant. A trifle by the stern, perhaps, but otherwise he could not fault her.
Two leisurely circuits and he looked at his watch again ‘Larboard,’ he said, to avoid the awkwardness of the coxswain calling out Diane when her nominal captain was still aboard.
Up the side: man-ropes but no ceremony. He saluted the quarterdeck and every hat came off in reply, a simultaneous flash of gold.
‘Captain Bushel?’ he said, advancing with his hand held out. ‘Good afternoon, sir: my name is Aubrey.’
Bushel gave him a limp hand, a mechanical smile, and a look of hatred. ‘Good afternoon to you, sir. Allow me to name my officers.’
They came forward in turn: the first lieutenant, Fielding; the second, Elliott.
‘My third, Mr Dixon, has been removed, and is to be replaced as I understand it by a person of your choosing,’ said Bushel. Then the solitary Marine officer, Welby; Warren the master, a fine looking man; Graham the surgeon; the purser Blyth. They all booked gravely and attentively at him; and as he shook their hands he did the same by them. The little knot of midshipmen were not introduced.
As soon as it was over Bushel called out ‘My barge’. It was in fact already hooked on to the starboard main-chains, with white-gloved side-boys waiting by the gangway stanchions, and in a moment the farewell ceremony was in train. With a rhythmic stamp and clash the Marines presented arms, all the officers attended him to the side, and the bosun and his mates sprung their calls. In some ships the crew cheered their departing captain: in this case the Dianes only stared heavily, some chewing on their quids, others open-mouthed, all completely indifferent.
When the barge was at a proper distance Jack drew his order from his inner pocket and handing it to the first lieutenant said, ‘Mr Fielding, be so good as to have all hands called aft, and read them this.’
Again the calls howled and twittered: the ship’s company came flocking aft along the gangways and in the waist and stood there, silent, waiting.
Jack withdrew almost to the taffrail, looking down at this strangely familiar quarterdeck, which he had last seen flowing with blood, some of it his own. In a strong voice Fielding cried ‘Off hats’, and to the bareheaded crew he read ‘By the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland et cetera and of all His Majesty’s plantations et cetera. To John Aubrey, esquire, hereby appointed captain of His Majesty’s ship the Diane. By virtue of the power and authority to us given we do hereby constitute and appoint you captain of His Majesty’s ship the Diane willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge and command of captain in her accordingly, strictly
charging and commanding the officers and company belonging to the said ship subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective employments with all due respect and obedience to you their said captain, and you likewise to observe and execute as well the general printed instructions as what orders and directions you shall from time to time receive from us or any other your superior officers for His Majesty’s service. Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril. And for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given under our hands and the seal of the office of Admiralty on this fifteenth day of May in the fifty-third year of His Majesty’s reign.’
Chapter 5
‘Amen,’ said Captain Aubrey in a strong voice, echoed by two hundred and nine other voices, equally strong. He rose from the elbow-chair draped with a union flag, laid his prayer-book on the small arms-chest – decently covered with bunting like the carronades on either side – and stood for a moment with his head bowed, swaying automatically to the enormous roll.
On his right hand stood the envoy and his secretary: beyond them the forty-odd Royal Marines, exactly-lined rows of scarlet coats, white trousers and white cross-belts.
On his left the sea-officers, blue and gold in their full-dress uniforms, then the white-patched midshipmen, six of them, four quite tall; and beyond, right along the quarter-deck and the gangways, the foremast hands, all shaved, in clean shirts, their best bright-blue brass-buttoned jackets or white frocks, the seams often adorned with ribbon. The Marines had been sitting on benches, the officers on chairs brought from the gunroom or on the carronade slides, the seamen on stools, mess-kids or upturned buckets. Now they stood in silence, and there was silence all around them. No sound came from the sky, none from the great western swell; only the flap of the sails as they sagged on the roll, the straining creak and groan of shrouds and dead-eyes and the double breeching of the guns, the working of the ship, the strangely’ deep and solemn call of penguins, and the voices, far forward, of the pagans, Mahometans, Jews and Catholics who had not attended the Anglican service.
Jack looked up, returning from whatever ill-defined region of piety he had inhabited to the anxiety that had been with him since he first saw Inaccessible Island that morning, far
nearer than it should have been, in the wrong place, and directly to leeward. Three days and nights of heavy weather with low driving cloud had deprived them of exact observation; both he and the master were out in their reckoning, and this comparatively fine Sunday found them twenty-five miles south-east of Tristan da Cunha, which Jack had intended to approach from the north, touching for fresh provisions, perhaps some water, perhaps snapping up one or even two of the Americans who used the island as a base when they were cruising upon Allied shipping in the South Atlantic. A very slight anxiety at first, for although he had lain in his cot much later than usual – a long session of whist with Fox, and then half the graveyard watch on deck – and although Elliott, disregarding orders, had not sent to tell him until long after it had been sighted, the gentle air from the west was then quite enough to carry the ship clear of Inaccessible and up to the north-west corner of Tristan, where boats could land; and according to his reading of the sky the breeze would certainly strengthen before the afternoon. Yet even so, after hurrying through divisions he ordered church to be rigged on the quarterdeck rather than on the comparatively clement upper deck, so that he might keep an eye on the situation.
It was while they were singing the Old Hundredth that the breeze died wholly away, and all hands noticed that in the subsequent prayers the Captain’s voice took on a harder, sterner tone than was usual on these occasions, more the tone for reading the Articles of War. For not only had the breeze failed, but the great swell, combined with the westerly current, was heaving the ship in towards that dark wall of cliffs somewhat faster than he liked.
He looked up from his meditations, therefore, said to his second lieutenant (the first being tied to his cot with a broken leg), ‘Very well, Mr Elliott: carry on, if you please,’
glanced at the drooping sails, and walked to the starboard rail. At once the pattern broke to pieces. The Marines clumped forward and below to ease their stocks and their pipe-clayed belts; the seamen of the larboard watch repaired, in a general way, to their stations, while the younger, more vapid starbowlines, particularly the landsmen, went below to relax before dinner; but the older hands, the able seamen, stayed on deck, looking at Inaccessible as intently as their captain.