Authors: Patrick O'Brian
They were sailing almost directly before the wind -
not Surprise’s best point of all, but one that nearly did away with any strong
sense of motion; and the perfect regularity of the slight following swell added
much to the dreamlike impression. Time scarcely existed, except for the
succession of bells, and in spite of their martial appearance the remarkably
well-fed crew tended to stare at the even, deserted coast as it passed slowly
by quite close at hand, and doze. There was little sound from the ship at this
gentle pace, and Naseby, shut up in the hold, could bç heard howling from
boredom.
Jack, the
master and Stephen were in the bows, the master holding an azimuth compass. ‘It
is my impression,’ said Jack, ‘that when we round this point we shall be in a
shallow bay whose farther side overlooks Ragusa Vecchio. What do you say,
Doctor? You have been here twice.’
‘If it has a low island in the middle of it,
swarming with terns at this time of the year, then I am sure you are right,’ said
Stephen, ‘since even from half-way up the further slope the tower of the ruined
castle - the very top of it - can be seen.’
‘My instrument is not as accurate as I could wish,’
said Mr Woodbine, ‘but I am inclined to agree with you.’
The two ships rounded the point, and there before
them, to starboard, lay a shallow bay with a low island in the middle; and even
from here the coming and going of innumerable birds could be made out, while
Stephen, borrowing the Commodore’s telescope without so much as a ‘by your
leave’, and resting it on the cathead, named the species: ‘Gull-billed...
Caspian, what joy! Another .
Sandwich... many, many common terns, dear creatures
little tern... black... I believe, yes, I believe he must be a white-winged
black tern. I am amazed.’ He turned to share his amazement, but found that he
was alone. Boats were already lowering down from both ships, and the Royal
Marines, their muskets gleaming and their red coats brilliant in the sun, were
about to embark.
The boats pulled away, loaded to the gunwales -
Pomone’s pinnace had ludicrously muffled its oars - steering for the shore
immediately below the point where the tower of the ruined castle just broke the
even skyline.
They landed their men - scarcely more than a ripple
on the strand - and then as the boats made for the northern tip of the bay,
Jack made sail to recover them and so stood on. Five minutes later Ragusa
Vecchio came into view, a decayed straggling village north of the ruined
castle; and at the bottom of the bay the frigate in question, with the two
Algerian vessels. Boats passing to and fro over the smooth water: the fine
topgallant breeze still at southsouth-west.
Surprise and Pomone both beat to quarters. Jack
ordered colours to be hoisted and said to the master, ‘Mr Woodbine, lay me
twenty-five yards from her larboard bow and then back topsails. Doctor, be so
good as to stand by to translate.’
There was great activity aboard the French frigate,
and they seemed to be casting off their moorings. The polacre had already won
her single anchor and her companion was slipping her cable.
The Surprise sailed between them and the Frenchman, backed two of her topsails and lay there rocking
gently.
Jack hailed the Frenchman with the usual cry of the
sea, ‘What ship is that?’ his words echoed by Stephen Maturin.
A remarkably handsome young man on the quarterdeck- post-captain’s uniform and cocked hat,
which he raised - replied, ‘Ardent, of the Imperial Navy.’
At this there was a universal and singularly
impressive cry of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ from the Ardent’s company.
‘My dear sir,’ Jack went on, returning the salute,
‘France is now ruled by His Most
Christian Majesty Louis XVIII- by my
master’s ally. I must ask you to hoist the appropriate colours and accompany me
to Malta.’
‘It grieves me to disappoint you, sir,’ said the
Ardent’s captain, now very pale with anger, ‘but it would be contrary to my
duty.’
‘It grieves me to insist, but if you do not comply
we shall be obliged to use force.’
During this time, lengthened by the need for translation,
the Algerians had been making short boards: they now lay on the Surprise’s
larboard bow and quarter and their people were shrieking orders or advice.
‘Port-lids, both sides,’ called Jack.
The gun-crews had been waiting for the word, and
now the red-painted lids all flew up as one, while two
seconds later the guns ran out with a deep echoing thump.
The same happened aboard the Frenchman. ‘Messieurs
les Anglais,’ called the Ardent’s captain, ‘tirez les premiers.’
Who in fact fired the first shot was never decided,
for once there had been a chance explosion aboard the polacre-settee, both
sides went to it as fast as ever they could, a most enormous shattering din
that echoed from the castle and the mole, gunfire that covered the immediate
shore with a dense cloud of white smoke shot through and through with stabbing
orange jets of flame.
At first Surprise’s fire was rather slow - she had
not enough hands to fight both sides at once: but very soon the slightbuilt
Algerines found they could not bear the weight of her shot and they retreated
out of range.
At first the roar of gunfire on the Ardent’s side
had been much increased by the shore-batteries, firing eighteenpounders; but
even in the tumult of battle the Surprises caught the rapid decline, and those
with the odd seconds to spare nodded to one another, smiling, and said, ‘The
Jollies.’
And scarcely had the Marines silenced the last of
the batteries’ guns than three well-directed shot, fired from Surprise’s
aftermost guns on the downward roll, pierced the
Ardent’s side, striking her light-room. There was a small explosion, the
beginning of a fire, and then some seconds later a second explosion, enormously
greater. A vast column of smoke and flame shot into the sky, darkening the sun.
The aftermost third of the frigate was wholly
shattered: the wreckage sank directly and the rest followed in a slow hideous
lurch, settling on the bottom with only her foretopmast showing. Yet even
before she had settled the sea was torn and lashed by falling debris - her whole
maintop with several feet of the mast, many great spars, scarcely broken,
countless blocks and unrecognizable great smouldering lumps of timber: most of
it fell somewhat inshore, but smaller pieces were still raining down minutes
later, some trailing smoke.
‘Avast
firing,’ cried Jack in the unnatural deafened silence that followed. ‘House the
guns. Mr Harding, lower what boats we have left’ - the launch on the booms was
pierced through and through - ‘and bid Pomone come within hail.’
He ran below, where Stephen was just straightening
after having placed a splint on a torn and broken arm that Poll was quickly,
expertly bandaging. ‘The Doctor will soon put you right, Edwardes,’ he said to
the patient, and drawing Stephen aside he asked him privately how urgent he
thought their mission to Spalato. ‘Of the very first urgency,’ said Stephen.
Jack nodded. ‘Very well,’ said he. ‘What is our damage?’
‘Harris shot dead with a musket-ball. Six
splinterwounds, one dangerous; and two men hurt by falling blocks.’
A very, very modest
butcher’s bill.
Jack said a word to each of the men waiting to be treated and returned to the
deck. Pomone had already come abreast. ‘Captain Vaux,’ he called, ‘have you
suffered much?’
‘Very little, sir, for such a brisk turn-to, short though
it was. Four powder-burns; one gun overset, four pair of shrouds cut and damage
to the running rigging. Some men hurt by falling blocks and timber. But our
boats are all sound.’
‘Then pray lower them down. Pick up what survivors you
can and recover our Marines. Land the prisoners at Ragusa- the new Ragusa up the coast - and then
follow me to Spalato without the loss of a minute.’
During the later part of their voyage to Spalato,
rendered tedious by capricious winds varying from a furious bora, shrieking
down from the north and blowing the foretopmast staysail from its boltrope to
very gentle breezes right aft that often died away to a flat calm, and by the
hazardous nature of the Dalmatian coast with its many islands, not to say vile
reefs, Stephen spent much of his time aloft, at the topmast cross-trees. With
practice he had grown used to the climb to the maintop, though nobody liked to
see him make the attempt, however smooth the calm; and he asserted that he
could certainly rise even higher, to the cross-trees, with perfect safety. This
however was never countenanced, and Jack required John Daniel to accompany the
Doctor if ever he showed an inclination to view anything from a greater height
than the carriage of a bow-chaser.
Daniel had sailed these waters in a ship belonging
to Hoste’s squadron and once he had overcome his shyness he not only told
Stephen the names of the various headlands, promontories and islands but also
described some of the actions in which he had taken part, often giving an exact
account of the number of round-shot fired and the weight of the powder
expended.
Stephen liked the young man, open, friendly and
candid, and one day, as they were sitting up there, he said, ‘Mr Daniel, I
believe you attach a particular importance to number?’
‘Yes, sir, I do. Number seems to me to be at the
heart of everything.’
‘I have heard others say so: and one gentleman I
knew in India told me that there was a
very special quality in primes.’
‘To be sure,’ said Daniel, nodding. ‘They give one
great pleasure.’
‘Can you explain the nature of that pleasure?’
‘No, sir: but I feel it strongly.’
‘Number as the perception of quantity is no doubt a
pitifully limited aspect of its true nature; but how many feet, would you say,
is it from here to the deck?’
‘Why, sir,’ said Daniel, glancing down, ‘I should
reckon a hundred and twelve. Or shall I say a hundred and thirteen, which is prime?’ He looked at Stephen’s face, expecting the pleasure
he felt himself; but Stephen only shook his head.
‘There are some unfortunates to whom music brings
no sort of delight: I fear that I am excluded not only from the joy of prime
numbers and surds but from the mathematics as a whole. I could wish it were
otherwise. I should like to join the company of mathematicians, of people like
Pascal, Cardan...’
‘Oh, sir,’ cried Daniel, ‘I am no mathematician in
that glorious sense. I just like to play with numbers - fix the ship’s position
from a quantity of observations, with as small a cocked hat of error as
possible, calculate the rate of sailing, the compound interest on ten pounds
invested at two and three quarters per cent a thousand years ago, and games
like that.’
‘In an early bestiary,’ said Stephen after a long
pause, ‘an antiquarian of my acquaintance once showed me a picture of an
amphisbaena, a serpent with a head at each end. I forget its moral significance
but I do remember its form - its immensely enviable power of looking fore and
aft’ - he slightly emphasized the nautical term and went on, ‘All this bell I
have been twisting and turning like a soul in torment, trying to make out the
Pomone behind and the Ringle, God bless her, together with the fabled city of
Spalato in front. My buttocks are a grief to me.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Daniel. ‘I believe I could suggest
a solution, was you to tell me which you had rather see first.’
‘Oh, Ringle without a
doubt.’
‘Then I will turn about, facing aft; and should
Pomone heave in sight before sunset, or whenever you choose to go down on deck,
I will give you the word. But before I turn let me beg you to look at Brazza
again, the big island well beyond the point of Lesina: then to the left of
Brazza you have some low-lying land: and when we are a little closer you will
see a narrow passage between it and Brazza. Indeed, you could see it now, with
your glass.’
‘So I can: very dark and very narrow.’
‘Well, from the way he is trimming sail, I believe
Mr Woodbine means to take us through in spite of the wind abeam. He knows these
waters uncommon well. It is not
very long, thanks be, and we are a weatherly ship: and when
you are through, there is Spalato right before you.’
There indeed was Spalato right before them, the
horrors of the very dark and very narrow passage forgotten and the setting sun
casting an indistinct but wonderfully moving glory on the enormous rectangle of
Diocletian’s palace.
And before Surprise was
wholly clear of the channel the immense voice of the lookout at the
foremasthead called, ‘On deck, there. On deck. Ringle fine on the starboard bow.’
Jack instantly gave a series of orders: before she
reached the open water the frigate was under bare poles, riding to a kedge in
the gentle outward current. By the time Ringle was alongside and Reade aboard
Surprise with Dr Jacob, darkness had fallen, and fireflies could be seen
drifting across the strait.
Jack took them both below, but Jacob was bleeding
so profusely from a wound that he had contrived to inflict upon himself as he
came up the side, probably on a shattered length of the gunwale, that Stephen
had to lead him away, send his breeches to be soaked in cold water at once, sew
up the gash, and then ask Poll to bandage it and to find a pair of clean duck
trousers that would fit. While this was doing, Jacob asked, ‘You did not
receive my dispatches, I suppose?’
‘Never a one. Have the Brotherhood’s
messengers left?’
‘Three days ago. Your friends in Kutali received me
nobly and told me a great deal: let me summarize. In the very first place the
Sheikh of Azgar has promised the sum required for the mercenaries: the news
came more than a week ago. The Russians and Austrians are still dawdling -
there is said to be suspicion, ill-will, on both sides. Zeal among the Moslem
Bonapartists reached a feverish point when a pilgrim back from one of the
Shiite shrines in the farther Atlas reported seeing the gold being weighed out
in the presence of Ibn Hazm as he passed through Azgar. The heads of the
Brotherhood met in a Moslem village, resolved all difficulties to do with
personal dislikes and rivalries and appointed five of their most considerable
members, two of them influential figures in Constantinople. They are riding by the
pashas’ relays to Durazzo and there they will take one of Selim’s fast-sailing
houarios for Algiers. There they are to beg the
Dey to transport the money, the treasure, promised by the Sheikh. It may be
possible to intercept them between Pantellaria and Kelibia.’