The Yellow Admiral (15 page)

'I have often heard them mentioned,' said Stephen. 'Always with strong disapprobation and even loathing.'

'Scylla and Charybdis ain't in it, with a strong southwester and a falling tide,' said Jack. 'Nor the Gorgonzola. And that's Penmark Head beyond. Lord, that must have been a rough wild night of it,' he added, to Harding.

'Indeed it was, sir,' said Harding. 'I never wish to see such another.'

'I do not suppose you do,' said Jack. 'Doctor, do you know about the Droits de I'Homme?'

'Few things are more familiar to me than that amiable fiction. I my youth I wrote several versions, each more liberal than the last In one I even included women, asserting that they were...'

The sailors smiled indulgently, and the purser said, 'He means the man-of-war, Doctor. A French seventy-four, It was in the days of high revolutionary fervour, in ninety-six or ninety-seven, when they gave ships names like that.'

'The time of Hoche's expedition to Ireland,' said Harding. 'That I remember,' said Stephen, with a chill about his heart: and then, feeling that something more was called for, 'Will you tell me about it, so?'

'Pray do,' said the Marine. 'I was in India at the time.'

'Well,' said Harding, collecting his thoughts, 'it began a little before Christmas of the year ninety-six, here in Brest. The French had gathered seventeen of the line, thirteen frigates, six brig-corvettes, seven transports and a powdership. We were aware of their motions, of course, although we could not tell where they were going, and Admiral Colpoys had a strong force off Ushant, while the inshore squadron was under Sir Edward Pellew in the Indefatigable, forty-four - you will remember, Doctor, that the Indefatigable was cut down from a two-decker, and she was a heavy frigate, carrying twenty-four-pounders - I was a master's mate in her at the time. And under him he had three other frigates and a lugger. The Frenchmen came out one afternoon with a kindly east wind, forty-four sail of them with something like twenty thousand soldiers aboard; and they steered for the Passage du Raz, to avoid Admiral Colpoys. But one struck on the Grand Stevenet just at the opening of the passage and others went out by the Iroise, their admiral having changed his mind quite late in the day, when dusk was falling: there was a shocking confusion of signals and lights and guns. But although Sir Edward sent to the Admiral and to Falmouth they were never intercepted: no, they sailed on through fog and foul weather to Bantry Bay, where they had a perfectly appalling time of it - gale after gale, with ships driving from their anchors and being blown out to sea, frigates pitching fo'c'sle under, foundering, impossible to land troops, food running out; and eventually most of them straggled back to France. There was a second rendezvous off the mouth of the Shannon. A few looked in, but only one stayed any length of time before seeing it was hopeless, and having found nobody at Bantry either she steered not for Brest like most of the others but for some point south, probably Rochefort. She was commanded by Commodore La Crosse, a right seaman, and we - Indefatigable and Amazon, 36, first saw her in thick weather about half past three in the afternoon of January 13th, when we were in 47�30'N, Ushant bearing north-east fifty leagues, a strengthening squally wind from the westward and a heavy swell. She was some way to the north-east of us and far from distinct, but presently we made out that she was a two-decker with no poop, her lower-deck gunports closed, obviously Les Droits de l'Homme, known for swimming low in the water. And while everyone on the quarterdeck had her in their glasses, a squall hit her, carrying her maintopsail braces and then her fore and main topmasts, which fell over her lee-guns. They cleared away very quick, expecting us to attack on that side, but when we were within hail and under close reefed topsails, Sir Edward hauled up to rake her. Yet she hauled up too and we exchanged broadsides -prodigious musketry on her part, from all the soldiers aboard. Then Sir Edward tried to cross her bows and rake her fore and aft: she foiled him again and did all she could to run us aboard. In avoiding her we showed our stern, but with her lower-deck gunports so near the surface and the very heavy roll of the ship with so little to steady her -courses and mizen topsail was all she could spread - she did no great damage. Presently, when it was near full dark, Amazon came pelting up, fired her larboard broadside into the Droits's quarters at pistol-shot and then steered to cross her stern and give her the other. Again the Droits clapped her helm over, which brought us both on her less damaged leeward side; and we all blazed away until half past seven, still running south-east, the wind having backed a point or two. Then we and the Amazon shot ahead to knot and splice and fill more powder - we had the legs of her, of course, with our topmasts standing. An hour later we were at it again, lying on her bows, one each side, and yawing to rake her by turns, while she did much the same - she still steered very quick - giving us some hard knocks and trying to board. About half past ten she cut away her wounded mizen, and rather later we hauled off to secure our masts, their rigging being much shattered; but apart from that the fire barely slackened until something after four in the morning, when the moon breaking through the clouds showed land close on board and all three ships hauled as near to the wind as ever they could to avoid it. Yet just before dawn there were breakers white on the lee bow. We wore ship, heading northwards: and when day broke, there was the land again, very close ahead and on the weather bow, with breakers to leeward - wore ship to the southwards in twenty fathom water. And then, just after seven, there we saw her - there she lay, the Droits de l'Homme, right in with the land, broadside up with the tremendous surf beating clean over her. Just there,' he said, pointing, deeply moved by the strength of his recollections, 'just there, beyond that tall pointed rock At least six hundred dead, they say I will not go into the horrors of war,' he said with an embarrassed smile, conscious of having talked too much 'Anyhow, Doctor, you know much more about them than I do The Amazon had gone ashore too, but farther along, farther in, and almost all her people were saved The wind was right on the land, the tide was making, and there was nothing, nothing we could do for the Droits de l'Homme We had four foot of water in the hold.

We just managed to claw off, though we shoaled water terribly at one point and though our people were so utterly exhausted they could scarcely haul the mainsheet aft We lay off for a while, putting the ship into some sort of order, while the surgeon and his mates looked after our wounded and the cook got at least something for the hands to eat And although the sea remained very high, the sky soon cleared over the Penmarks and the land inshore It was that which made me think of the Droits de l'Homme in the first place, this same very curious greenish light over the reef and land, all along from the cape itself to St Gu�l�do you see? It is always taken to foretell heavy weather; and we certainly had a cruel time of it for the next week or ten days.'

'Mr Harding spoke of a week or ten days, did he not?' asked Stephen.

'I believe so,' said Jack. 'May I trouble you for the marmalade?'

'Oh, I beg pardon,' cried Stephen as the ship gave a furious lee-lurch and the jar flew from his hand.

'Killick. Killick, there. Swab and a damp cloth. And then another pot of marmalade.'

'Not again?' said Killick. 'Not a... again? The same yesterday, the same on Thursday and that was with the poor bloody milk-jug too. All the forenoon watch on my poor bloody knees... floor cloth never be itself again.' This in a mutter: in a louder voice from beneath the table, 'Which there ain't no more orange marmalade neither.'

When at last he had gone away, Jack said, 'Fortunately it was only a common old pot, not that splendid Irish cut-glass affair you so kindly gave us. Yes, he did mention ten days; but only in a manner of speaking, you know. These blows never go by the calendar.'

'When this present tempest slackens, perhaps we shall have a post. I quite long to hear from Woolcombe: and indeed from London and Ballinasloe. I had been led to believe that one of the very few advantages of the Brest blockade was that it allowed the sufferers frequent supplies of fresh food and mail.'

'To be sure it is better in that line than say the New Holland station, but only in summer. Your informant, the man who led you into this high state of indignation, must have been thinking of the summer, not the season of equinoctial gales or the even more dreadful turning winter storms. But do not despair. The glass is rising quite evenly: so is the humidity. Tomorrow night, or the next, which is the dark of the moon, we may have one of the fogs this bay is so famous for, particularly as the wind is sure to fall indeed, it is less already. Steady rain, like this, often deadens both wind and sea. When you have finished breakfast, will you not put on a Magellan jacket and take a turn on deck?'

'I will not. In the first place because I dislike getting wet, and in the second because I must complete my account of our sick-berth, which Dr Rutherford wished to recommend for universal adoption: and of course there are my medical notes.'

'Yes, indeed. When you reach any height at all, you spend more time scratching paper than anything else. When I have done with the reefers, Mr Edwards and I must attend to the fair-writing of the log; and I have a score of returns to look over and sign. But after dinner if it calms enough for you to sit to your 'cello, let us work our way through the new Benda piece.'

'By all means. Is there any more coffee in that pot?'

There was, and having poured it Stephen said, 'I was talking to that boy Geoghegan, and I find that I know some of his relations in the Spanish service - his grandmother was a FitzGerald. Will I tell you why he finds it so difficult to coil down a rope in a way that pleases his mentors?'

'Is it not just natural inborn vice?'

'It is not. Like many of his nation he is a ciotog, a lefthanded man; and left to himself he will always coil a rope against the way of the sun.'

'Then clearly he cannot be left to himself...' Jack prosed on about the need for exact uniformity in the service - for all ropes to run smooth - on the dreadful results, in an emergency, of the contrary practice - and when he paused for a piece of toast Stephen said, 'And there are degrees of left-handedness, some quite insuperable, others to be corrected if that is the right term, though usually at a cost, sometimes very great, to the soul. The harp of Brian of the Tributes, High King of Ireland and an unpersuadable man, carries the melody in the left hand; and this boy's oboe, made by his father, a skilful gentleman from a length of bog-oak, is the mirror image of the usual instrument. Would it be improper, do you think, to ask him to play with us? He blows the purest note.'

'Indeed I love an oboe: it has nothing of the clarinet's cloying sweetness. But as for your boy... He seems a modest, well-bred young fellow, to be sure ... Yet I knew a reefer in the West Indies who was amazingly good at chess- could beat anyone. The Admiral, a pretty good player, invited him, and was beat time and again. He laughed; but it did not end happy. The boy got above himself, talked too much, gave himself airs, made himself so unpopular in the cockpit and was kicked so very often that he had to be transferred. But I will take particular notice of young Geoghegan at nine o'clock; and if it can properly be done, we might try.,

At nine o'clock the Bellona's young gentlemen who were not on duty attended in the Captain's fore-cabin washed pink, brushed smooth, and properly dressed, together with Mr Walkinshaw, the schoolmaster. 'Good morning, sir,' they cried, leaping up at the Captain's entrance, 'Good morning, sir,' some gruff, some still shrill, some wavering horribly a full octave. Jack desired them to sit down. Ordinarily, each by order of seniority, would have shown up his workings, that is to say his estimate of the ship's position, determined by observation of the sun's height at noon or by double altitudes, by dead reckoning, and on occasion by a certain amount of copying from their more gifted mess-mates. But the weather of the last days had been such that no observation was possible and Jack only required Mr Walkinshaw to lead them through Pythagoras once again, calling upon each in turn to rehearse the theorems upon which this most elegant, satisfying and wholly convincing argument was based. In his youth Jack had been wretchedly taught -mere rule of thumb at the best - and it was only quite late that the beauty of Pythagoras and Napier's Bones had been revealed to him, lighting a love of the mathematics that had burned steadily ever since; and he hoped that repeated exposure to them both might do the same for his youngsters. Generally speaking it had answered for one or two boys in each commission, which would probably not have happened if he had relied on ship's schoolmasters.

The man he had at present, Mr Walkinshaw, was better than most; he knew a fair amount about mathematics and navigation, and he was generally sober; but like most of his kind he had very little authority. He messed with the midshipmen in the cockpit, he was little better paid than they, the regulations gave him no status in the ship, and he would have had to be an exceptional man to acquire one by force of character. Mr Walkinshaw had not managed to do so, and his lessons were far quieter, more orderly and useful when the Almighty was present, listening most of the time, interposing on occasion, learning a great deal about the boys.

Today his eyes rested more often on Geoghegan than the others: again he noticed his awkward, cramped left-handed manner of writing, his modest way of answering a question, his smile when he was told that the answer was right - a smile that would have been enchanting if he had been a girl. 'He is too pretty for his own good, too pretty by far,' Jack reflected. 'He would be an odious little beast was he aware of it. Fortunately he ain't. Mr Dormer,' he said to a young gentleman whose attention seemed to be wandering, 'pray define a logarithm.'

Dormer blushed, straightened himself, and said, 'A logarithm, sir, is when you raise ten to the power that gives the number you first thought of.'

After a few more answers of this kind Jack desired Mr Walkinshaw to return to his remarks on the principles of spherical trigonometry and leafed through the rough copy of the Bellona's logbook that his clerk was to write fair later in the day, when the diminished sea might make fair writing more nearly possible.