to pay their faltering duty: Jack had been a very dreadful figure aboard, at least to those of Sarah’s and Emily’s age.
‘Well, sir,’ said Mrs Broad, when they had padded barefoot upstairs, back to bed, ‘I never thought to have seen them so abashed. In the street or in the bar they will answer, and very sharp too, if anyone is at all what you might call jocular. But I warrant you, you will have the finest John Dorys in Billingsgate: they are the best market hands you can imagine, kind and civil and well-liked, but not to be put upon for a moment, no, not if it is ever so. But tell me, sir’ – this to Stephen – ‘do your foreign gentlemen speak English?’
‘Sure, two of them are fairly fluent; and although the third can barely ask his way, the others can keep up a conversation.’
They could indeed, if the conversation were not too demanding; and when they were seated at a table in Stephen’s private room they were particularly civil to Jack, whose sea-going reputation they knew well and whose words they followed with close attention; but their knowledge of the language did not enable them to discuss the fine points of the scheme (they were there in fact to assess Captain Aubrey’s size and moral capacity) and this they left to Garcia and Stephen, they begging Jack’s pardon for their Spanish. All three guests were very well-bred men, somewhat dark but rather good-looking than otherwise; and although their complaisance slightly exceeded that usual in England, they had strong faces. They were clearly not men to be trifled with; and although they could not be induced to drink more than one glass of the excellent Meursault, nor eat more than a trifle of the good honest suet pudding, Jack found them pleasant company, and when they parted they shook hands in the friendliest way, Garcia saying, with an earnest look, ‘Very happy.’
‘I hope you got along as well with your man as I did with my two,’ he said, when the Chileans had been put into a hackney-coach. ‘I found them very decent creatures.’
‘Yes: Garcia and I were in complete agreement – we had
discussed it in some detail long before, in Santiago, you know. We shall have to put something in writing for the sake of our masters but in essence it is what I outlined to you earlier on: you will survey and chart their coasts in Surprise, sailing early next year – there is to be a six months grace on either side and of course you are free at any time if England should go to war. You will help them to build up and train a small navy; and if the Peruvians, having declared their independence, attack Chile, you will defend the country.
You will however be absolved from all duty towards them in the event of a war that involves England with any foreign power. Just exactly what your status will be with respect to the Admiralty I am not yet quite certain:
we shall not know that until we have appeared before the Committee, but I am reasonably certain that you will be given indefinite leave in your present rank and that you will be lent to the Hydrographic Department. When your survey is complete or whether you consider your task is done, you may return, to be reinstated with no loss of seniority. You will perceive that this gives you an opportunity for service and distinction when all other captains, candidates for flag-rank, are sitting idly on shore or, at the most, drilling their ships in the peaceful inglorious Mediterranean.’
‘Stephen,’ said Jack, stopping in the street outside St James’s Palace, ‘I am infinitely obliged to you. I could not ask more – no, not half as much.’ He walked on, almost under
the wheels of a carriage and pair that swore most horribly, the whip crackled about his ears. ‘But Surprise will certainly need strengthening for the Horn. How glad I am to know about Seppings’ son. And oh how I hope the Committee and the Admiralty will look as though they love me, in spite of everything.’
‘At the Committee you will have mostly friends or at least well-inclined neutrals: it is not a body in which Lord Stranraer has much influence if any at all. You might be well advised, on Monday, to dress very soberly and well, to say nothing unless you are directly addressed and then to keep your answers clear and short, short; and at all times to look both intelligent and attentive, but never cynical or amused.’
This was a Friday evening and they found Black’s almost empty; after a trifling supper of Welsh rabbit and a distracted game of backgammon or two they went early to bed, Jack saying as they parted, ‘If you are a tenth part as anxious as I am about the Committee and the Admiralty, I cannot tell how we shall pass Saturday and Sunday.’
They spent Saturday in fact at Greenwich, at the great naval hospital, calling on former shipmates, ancient or crippled or both, dining with the officers and returning to London with the tide for yet another concert; while on Sunday, Stephen having attended Mass with the little girls and Jack having walked down to the Queen’s Chapel, they hired two mild old grey mares (sisters) and rode up to Hampstead, exploring the Heath and revisiting their old haunts.
On Monday morning Jack’s anxiety cut his appetite, and he ate nothing but a piece of toast. ‘I wonder at your insensibility,’ he said, watching sausages, bacon, fried egg disappearing from Stephen’s plate, the yolks being wiped up with bread.
‘It is strength of mind rather than insensibility,’ said Stephen. ‘I am perfectly aware that this interview may make the essential difference between your being either blued or yellowed in the fullness of time; but I bear the trial with a manly fortitude.’
‘I hesitate to correct so heroic a creature – such prodigious constancy of mind – but you will allow me to observe the “blued”, in the sense of being made a flag-officer of the blue squadron, though plausible, is not used in the service. “Yellowed”, I am sorry to say, is employed only too often.’
‘I cannot recommend more than one cup of coffee,’ said Stephen. ‘Two, in a subject of a nervous temperament, may well bring about an untimely sense of urgency, a need that cannot be satisfied, or relieved, however imperative.’
They walked silently along Whitehall: Jack was not at ease in his civilian clothes; nor, indeed, in his mind.
‘Listen, brother,’ said Stephen, laying his hand on Jack’s
sleeve as they turned the decisive corner. ‘In this meeting, five of the members are my friends. They are benevolently inclined towards you, as I have said. Of the others none to my knowledge is in any way hostile; and all are aware of your reputation as a sailor. This
is really not going to be a serried interrogation: the important people there already know all they need know; and this official meeting, like so many other official meetings, is very largely to endow what has already been decided with unanimous official approval.’
So it appeared. The discussion was directed by Sir Joseph Blame and an intelligent man from the Foreign Office, and as the talk moved from one end of the table to the other, some members having to be told the same thing twice in slightly different forms, so Jack’s mind relaxed. He continued to look as intelligent as was convenient, and attentive; but it was clear to him that the three or four men who really understood were in favour of the scheme and that although the Treasury dragged his feet, he would soon be drawn along with the current. The few questions Jack was asked by any but the Hydrographer (who was clearly on his side) could be answered very easily and clearly: this he did, but much of the confused talk between departments escaped him. He did not much regret the loss.
‘And Captain Aubrey thoroughly understands the position?’ asked the chairman, who did not seem to have total confidence in Jack’s political sense by land.
‘He does, sir,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘Dr Maturin has explained it all, at proper length.’
‘Then in that case, gentlemen,’ said the chairman, ‘since we are all in agreement I believe we may terminate the session, leaving the rest to the Treasury, the Hydrographer, and the procurements officer. And for my part let me wish Captain Aubrey a calm, prosperous voyage and a happy return.’
The Admiralty, the next day, did not at first promise to be nearly so grave a trial, partly because the building was so very familiar and partly because Jack was in naval uniform in the most naval of all surroundings. He was to ask for Sir Joseph Blame, and as soon as he uttered the name the porter’s stony face, worn to inhumanity by perpetually denying the First Lord to the countless officers who wanted to see him, almost smiled and he said,