a little west of St Matthews (most of the places had English names) where either the Ramillies or one of her boats would meet her, bringing the Brittany pilot and Stephen’s colleague; for tomorrow was the dark of the moon, the time for the landing in Dog-Leg Cove.
Although the very slowly falling glass foretold dirty weather in the near future, Jack felt reasonably confident that he should be able to carry out his plan, which was to beat steadily up and down between the Black Rocks and the Saints by day, as usual, and at nightfall, after the turn of the tide, to double back and run through the Raz de Sein with the current, dropping Stephen as near to the cove as he dared and then to stand off and wait for the boat, anchored south of the lie de Sein: twelve-fathom water and good holding ground. But first, of course, there was the essential rendezvous, and with the log heaved every glass or sometimes more often and the lead going steadily they sailed west by north with the wind one point free, the fog streaming across the binnacles and the storm lantern.
When by their very close and concordant reckoning they were well beyond the Iroise Passage the breeze strengthened, veering northwards, and presently it became obvious that even close-hauled they could not reach the channel through the islands they had hoped for: Jack therefore wore ship and set a necessary but most disagreeable course that would bring them close to the southern fringe of the Black Rocks and their outliers –
not always accurately charted.
This held until four bells in the middle watch – low tide
–
when the infernal breeze wavered, grew uneasy, utteFed some violent gusts and hauled a full point forward, with every sign of doing worse. Before it could come frankly into the north-east and head him, Jack Aubrey changed course yet again and stood right across the mouth of the Passage du Four, which had no more than seven fathoms in some places. The Bellona drew six. On and on, the three men
entirely closed upon their continually developing calcu
lations, all based on the frequent reports of the ship’s pro-
gress, their informed estimate of her leeway under this trim and with this wind, the ebb and flow of the tide, the force of local currents, the occasional dive into the master’s sea-cabin abaft the wheel where by a dim light a chart as accurate as present knowledge would allow was spread out, and on their own sense of the sea, intuitive, pragmatical, hardly to be reduced to words.
‘I wonder whether the others hear and feel that wicked grind and crack as we strike a reef,’
said Jack to himself. ‘Probably.’ He had felt it this last glass and more as they drew nearer and nearer to St Matthews, now perhaps no more than a few cables’ length away in the north-east. Then aloud, ‘Mr Woodbine, do you smell anything?’
Pause. ‘No, sir.’
Captain Aubre’y, in a carrying voice: ‘Back the main topsail: start the sheet right forward, there.’ To the man at the wheel, ‘Down with the helm.’
The way came off the Bellona: she lay there, heaving in the fog; and a voice some way on her starboard bow called, ‘The ship ahoy. What ship is that?’
‘Bellona,’ replied Harding.
Relief, coupled with the intensity of Woodbine’s unspoken question, moved Jack to say, ‘It is low tide, of course; and I caught a waft of the rotting kelp.’
When the Ramillies’s boat had set both its passengers aboard he left orders for the officer of the watch – the course due south was safe for the next few hours – told Harding and the master to get some sleep, and walked softly into the cabin he was sharing with Stephen.
‘Is all well?’ asked Stephen.
‘Yes. Your man is aboard, and I have put him in the coach. The bosun is looking after the pilot. I am afraid I woke you.’
‘Not at all, at all. Will you not turn in?’
‘It scarcely seems worth it; but perhaps I shall.’
For once his deep-founded habit of going to sleep at once
abandoned him. He lay awake for two bells and the first strokes of a third, working out the letters he was to send to Geoghegan’s parents: as a captain he had had to do this several times. It was never easy, but this time the words would scarcely come at all.
The cleaning of the deck before sunrise no longer woke Stephen, but the piping up of hammocks and the sound of bare feet just overhead did so quite abruptly. He stared about, collecting himself, and without surprise he saw Jack come in, pink and obviously new-shaven, even in this dim light. ‘Good morning to you, my dear,’ he said. ‘What of the day?’
‘Good morning, Stephen. I trust you slept? It has cleared a little, but you still cannot see a hundred yards; and we have barely more than steerage-way. Do you choose to trim yourself? The sea is smooth, and I can put a famous edge on your razor if you would like it. And there is your
your guest. He will breakfast with us, no doubt.’
‘Oh,’ said Stephen, passing a hand over his jaw. ‘I will do admirably for a day or two: until Sunday, indeed. In any
case, I know Mr Bernard well.’
Mr Bernard, Inigo Bernard, came from Barcelona, where his family, considerable ship-builders and ship-owners, had been engaged in trade with English merchants for some generations: he had been educated in England and he spoke the language perfectly, yet like his family he remained deeply Catalan – Catalan to the extent of bitterly resenting the Spanish oppression of his country and of supporting the clandestine movement for autonomy if not downright independence; and it was this that had first brought him and Stephen Maturin together. Yet in much the same way as Stephen he had early decided that the French invasion -most particularly atrocious in Catalonia – required him to ally himself with any of the forces that opposed the enemy:, in his case with the Spanish government. He had been more fortunate though by no means less enterprising than Maturin as an active member of his secret movement, and his name was to be found on no official lists of rebels or subversive
elements; he was therefore able to join one of the Spanish intelligence services particularly concerned with naval matters. And when the Spaniards changed sides on the unfortunate advice of the Prince of Peace and became subservient to Buonaparte he was very well placed for passing information, above all naval information, to his friend. Even now that Spain was whole-heartedly at war with France once more, their collaboration had its advantages, and the two of them were now engaged on a joint mission; for the French side was by no means a united whole, but contained many people with divided loyalties, to say nothing of double agents.
He presented himself for breakfast in the great cabin as trim and properly dressed as his host, which made a good impression, and the meal passed off well, though in a rather formal manner: Jack, in these circumstances, was perfectly discreet and Bernard was far from expansive, confining himself to generalities and well-received observations about the beauty of the ship and above all of the truly splendid cabin.
After this Jack left them alone, except for dinner, spending much of his time with Harding and even more with the bosun, reinforcing the ship against the expected blow; though he reserved some hours for Yann, marking the Bellona’s charts according to his expert advice and listening to what he had to say about these waters.
‘Soon, perhaps the day after Wednesday,’ said Yann (he had difficulty with Thursday, though on the whole he was quite fluent), ‘it will settle in the south-west and blow horrid.
But I don’t have to tell you about preventer-stays, sir,’ he added, looking with pleasure at the Bellona’s rigging. And
after a pause he said, ‘I wonder them buggers’ – nodding towards Brest – ‘did not try for it when the wind was in the north-east: it was true north-east for a pair of hours after you picked us up. Plenty of time for a frigate to have come down the Goulet and away by the Iroise, ni vu ni connu. Or a fast ship of the line, for that matter: like their Romulus.’
‘Tell me, Yann,’ said Jack, ‘if it stays as thick as this, will you undertake to carry the ship through the Raz? With no moonlight at all?’
‘As thick as this, sir? I should be happier in a frigate or a sloop than in a heavy great seventy-four, as thick as this:
I could do it, because the ebbing tide dashes up so white on the Vieille that I could barely miss it, knowing where to look, since I was a boy.’ He held his hand, flattened, low down, to show his height when first he saw the Vieille. ‘But never make yourself bad blood, sir: it will not stay as thick as this.’