Master & Commander (22 page)

   The sun set over the starboard bow, the wind began to back into the north, blowing in gusts, and darkness swept up the sky from behind them: the polacre was still three-quarters of a mile ahead, holding on to her westward course. As the wind came round on to the beam they set staysails and the fore-and-aft mainsail: looking up at the set of the fore-royal and having it braced round more sharply, Jack could see it perfectly well; but when he looked down it was twilight on deck.

   Now, with the studdingsails in, the chase—or the ghost of the chase, a pale blur showing now and then on the lifting swell—could be seen from the quarter-deck, and there he took up his stand with his night-glass, staring through the rapidly gathering darkness, giving a low, conversational order from time to time.

   Dimmer, dimmer, and then she was gone: suddenly she was quite gone. The quadrant of horizon that had shown that faint but most interesting bobbing paleness was bare heaving sea, with Regulus setting into it.

   'Masthead,' he hailed, 'what do you make of her?'

   A long pause. 'Nothing, sir. She ain't there.'

   Just so. What was he to do now? He wanted to think: He wanted to think there on deck, in the closest possible touch with the situation—with the shifting wind on his face, the glow of the binnacles just at hand and not the least interruption. And this the conventions and the discipline of the service allowed him to do. The blessed inviolability of a captain (so ludicrous at times, such a temptation to silly pomp) wrapped him about, and his mind could run free. At one time he saw Dillon hurry Stephen away: he recorded the fact, but his mind continued its unbroken pursuit of the answer to his problem. The polacre had either altered its course or would do so presently: the question was, where would this new course bring it to by dawn? The answer depended on a great many factors—whether French or Spanish, whether homeward or outward bound, whether cunning or simple and, above all, upon her sailing qualities. He had a very clear notion of them, having followed her every movement with the utmost attention for the last few hours; so building his reasoning (if such an instinctive process could be called by that name) upon these certainties and a fair estimate of the rest, he came to his conclusion. The polacre had worn; she might possibly be lying there under bare poles to escape detection while the
Sophie
passed her in the darkness to the northward; but whether or no, she would presently be making all sail, close-hauled for Agde or Cette, crossing the
Sophie's
wake and relying on her lateen's power of lying nearer to run her clear to windward and so to safety before daylight. If this was so the
Sophie
must tack directly and work to windward under an easy sail: that should bring the polacre under her lee at first light; for it was likely that they would rely on their fore and mizzen alone—even in the chase they had been favouring their wounded mainmast.

   He stepped into the master's cabin, and through narrowed, light-dazzled eyes he checked their position; he checked it again with Dillon's reckoning and went on deck to give his orders.

   'Mr Watt,' he said, 'I am going to put her about, and I desire the whole operation shall be carried out in silence. No calls, no starting, no shouts.'

   'No calls it is, sir,' said the bosun, and hurried off uttering 'All hands to tack ship,' in a hoarse whisper, wonderfully curious to hear.

   The order and its form had a strangely powerful effect: with as much certainty as though it had been a direct revelation, Jack knew that the men were wholly with him; and for a fleeting moment a voice told him that he had better be right, or he would never enjoy this unlimited confidence again.

   'Very well, Assou,' he said to the Lascar at the wheel, and smoothly the
Sophie
luffed up.

   'Helm's a-lee,' he remarked—the cry usually echoed from one horizon to the other. Then 'Off tacks and sheets'. He heard the bare feet hurrying and the staysail sheets rasping over the stays: he waited, waited, until the wind was one point on her weather bow, and then a little louder, 'Mainsail haul!' She was in stays: and now she was paying off fast. The wind was well round on his other cheek. 'Let go and haul,' he said, and the half-seen waisters hauled on the starboard braces like veteran forecastlemen. The weather bowlines tightened: the
Sophie
gathered way.

   Presently she was running east-north-east close-hauled under reefed topsails, and Jack went below. He did not choose to have anything showing from his stern-windows, and it was not worth shipping the dead-lights, so he walked, bending low, into the gun-room. Here, rather to his surprise, he found Dillon (it was Dillon's watch below, certainly; but in his place Jack would never have left the deck) playing chess with Stephen, while the purser read them pieces from the Gentleman's Magazine, with comments.

   'Do not stir, gentlemen,' he cried, as they all sprang up. 'I have just come to beg your hospitality for a while.'

   They made him very welcome—hurried about with glasses of wine, sweet biscuits, the most recent Navy List—but he was an intruder: he had upset their quiet sociability, dried up the purser's literary criticism and interrupted the chess as effectually as an Olympian thunderbolt. Stephen messed down here now, of course—his cabin was the little boarded cupboard beyond the hanging lantern—and he already looked as though he belonged to this community: Jack felt obscurely hurt, and after he had talked for a while (a dry, constrained interchange, it seemed to him; so very polite) he went up on deck again. As soon as they saw him looming in the dim glow of the hatchway the master and young Ricketts moved silently over to the larboard side, and Jack resumed his solitary pacing from the taffrail to the aftermost deadeye.

   At the beginning of the middle watch the sky clouded over, and towards two bells a shower came weeping across, the drops hissing on the binnacles. The moon rose, a faint, lopsided object scarcely to be made out at all: Jack's stomach was pinched and wrung with hunger, but he paced on and on, looking mechanically out over the leeward darkness at every turn.

   Three bells. The quiet voice of the ship's corporal reporting all's well. Four bells. There were so many other possibilities, so many things the chase could have done other than bearing up and then hauling her wind for Cette: hundreds of other things . . .

   'What, what's this? Walking about in the rain in your shirt? This is madness,' said Stephen's voice just behind him.

   'Hush!' cried Mowett, the officer of the watch, who had failed to intercept him.

   'Madness. Think of the night air—the falling damos—the fluxion of the humours. If your duty requires you to walk about in the night air, you must wear a woollen garment. A woollen garment, there, for the captain! I will fetch it myself.'

   Five bells, and another soft shower of rain. The relieving of the helm, and the whispered repetition of the course, the routine reports. Six bells, and a hint of thinner darkness in the east. The spell of silence seemed as strong as ever; men tiptoed to trim the yards, and a little before seven bells the look-out coughed, hailing almost apologetically, only just loud enough to be heard. 'Upon deck. Deck, sir. I think him vos there, starboard beam. I think . . .'

   Jack stuffed his glass into the pocket of the grego Stephen had brought him, ran up to the masthead, twined himself firmly into the rigging and trained the telescope in the direction of the pointing arm. The first grey forerunners of the dawn were straggling through the drifting showers and low torn cloud to leeward; and there, her lateens faintly gleaming, lay a polacre, not half a mile away. Then the rain had hidden her again, but not before Jack had seen that she was indeed his quarry and that she had lost her maintopmast at the cap.

   'You're a capital fellow, Anderssen,' he said, clapping him on the shoulder.

   To the concentrated mute inquiry from young Mowett and the whole of the watch on deck he replied with a smile that he tried to keep within bounds and the words, 'She is just under our lee. East by south. You may light up the sloop, Mr Mowett, and show her our force: I don't want her to do anything foolish, such as firing a gun—perhaps hurting some of our people. Let me know when you have laid her aboard.' With this he retired, calling for a light and something hot to drink; and from his cabin he heard Mowett's voice, cracked and squeaking with the excitement of this prodigious command (he would happily have died for Jack), as under his orders the
Sophie
bore up and spread her wings.

   Jack leant back against the curved run of the stern-window and let Killick's version of coffee down by gulps into his grateful stomach; and at the same time that its warmth spread through him, so there ran a lively tide of settled, pure, unfevered happiness—a happiness that another commander (remembering his own first prize) might have discerned from the log-entry, although it was not specifically mentioned there:
½ past 10 tacked, 11 in courses, reefed topsail. AM cloudy and rain. ½ past 4 chase observed E by S, distance ½ mile. Bore up and took possession off, which proved to be
L'Aimable Louise
, French polacre laden with corn and general merchandise for Cette, of about 200 tons, 6 guns and 19 men. Sent her with an officer and eight men to Mahon.

'Allow me to fill your glass,' said Jack, with the utmost benevolence. 'This is rather better than our ordinary, I believe?'

   'Better, dear joy, and very, very much stronger—a healthy, roborative beverage,' said Stephen Maturin. ' 'Tis a neat Priorato. Priorato, from behind Tarragona.'

   'Neat it is—most uncommon neat. But to go back to the prize: the main reason why I am so very happy about it is that it bloods the men, as one might say; and it gives me room to spread my elbows a little. We have a capital prize agent—is obliged to me—and I am persuaded he will advance us a hundred guineas. I can distribute sixty or seventy to the crew, and buy some powder at last. There could be nothing better for these men than kicking up a dust on shore, and for that they must have money.'

   'But will they not run away? You have often spoken of desertion—the great evil of desertion'

   'When they have prize-money due to them and a strong notion of more to come they will not desert. Not in Mahon, at all events And then again, do you see, they will turn to exercising the great guns with a much better heart do not suppose I do not know how they have been muttering, for indeed I have driven them precious hard. But now they will feel there is some point in it If I can get some powder (I dare not use up much more of the issue) we will shoot larbowlines against starbowhnes and watch against watch for a handsome prize; and what with that and what with emulation, I don't despair of making our gunnery at least as dangerous to others as it is to ourselves. And then—God, how sleepy I am—we can set about our cruising in earnest. I have a plan for nightwork, lying close inshore but first I should tell you how I think to divide up our time. A week off Cape Creus, then back to Mahon for stores and water, particularly water. Then the approaches to Barcelona, and coastwise . . . coastwise . . .' He yawned prodigiously: two sleepless nights and a pint of the Aimable Louise's Priorato were bearing him down with an irresistible warm soft delicious weight. 'Where was I? Oh, Barcelona. Then off Tarragona, Valencia . . . Valencia . . . water's the great trouble, of course.' He sat there blinking at the light, musing comfortably; and he heard Stephen's distant voice discoursing upon the coast of Spain—knew it well as far as Denia, could show him many an interesting remnant of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Visigothic, Arabian occupation; the certainty of both kinds of egret in the marshes by Valencia; the odd dialect and bloody nature of the Valencianos; the very real possibility of flamingoes . . .

The
Aimable Louise's
ill wind had stirred up the shipping all over the western Mediterranean, driving it far from its intended courses; and not two hours after they had sent their prize away for Mahon, their first fine plump prize, they saw two more vessels, the one a barca-longa heading west and the other a brig to the north, apparently steering due south. The brig was the obvious choice and they set a course to cut her off, keeping closest watch upon her the while: she sailed on placidly enough under courses and topsails, while the
Sophie
set her royals and topgallants and hurried along on the larboard tack with the wind one point free, heeling so that her lee-channels were under the water; and as their courses converged the Sophies were astonished to see that the stranger was extraordinarily like their own vessel, even to the exaggerated steeve of her bowsprit.

   'That would be a brig, no doubt,' said Stephen, standing at the rail next to Pullings, a big shy silent master's mate.

   'Yes, sir, so she is; and more exactly like us nor ever you would credit, without you seen it. Do you please to look in my spy-glass, sir?' he asked, wiping it on his handkerchief.

   'Thank you. An excellent glass—how clear. But I must venture to disagree. That ship, that brig, is a vile yellow, whereas we are black, with a white stripe.'

   'Oh, that's nobbut paintwork, sir. Look at her quarterdeck, with its antic little break right aft, just like ourn—you don't see many of such, even in these waters. Look at the steeve of her bowsprit. And she must gauge the same as us, Thames measurement, within ten ton or less. They must have been off of the same draught, out of the same yard. But there are three rows of reefbands in her fore tops'l, so you can see she's only a merchantman, and not a man-of-war like we.'

   'Are we going to take her?'

   'I doubt that'd be too good to be true, sir: but maybe we shall.'

   'The Spanish colours, Mr Babbington,' said Jack; and looking round Stephen saw the yellow and red break out at the peak.

   'We are sailing under false colours,' whispered Stephen. 'Is not that very heinous?'

   'Eh?'

   'Wicked, morally indefensible?'

   'Bless you, sir, we always do that, at sea. But we'll show our own at the last minute, you may be sure, before ever we fire a gun. That's justice. Look at him, now—he's throwing out a Danish waft, and as like as not he's no more a Dane than my grandam.'