Treason's Harbour (22 page)

'It had changed overnight and it has stayed there ever since, blowing hard; and if you look at the map you will see that to run SSE down the long narrow Gulf of Suez we absolutely have to have a leading wind. From time to time the Bimbashi tears his hair and flogs his men; from time to time the damp heat and the frustration make me feel that my little body is aweary of this great world; and from time to time the men (who are all perfectly aware of what we are about and who are all pirates at heart) get at me through the midshipmen or the officers or Killick or Bonden to let me know that they would be very happy to kedge the barky out if I should see fit, and be d?d to sunstroke and apoplexy. While such a wind is blowing I cannot conscientiously do so in this shallow unsheltered harbour, with its dog-leg channels, its sharp coral rocks and its poor holding-ground, but I may try if it lessens; though Heaven knows a man can scarcely walk the length of the ship without breaking into a muck-sweat, let alone engage in the very laborious task of warping a ship. Even the lascars can hardly bear it. In the meantime we do what we can by way of preparation - setting the guns in place, and so on - otherwise we sit gnashing our teeth. Mowett and Rowan are apt to quarrel: I am sorry to have to say so, but I am afraid there is no room for two nightingales in one bush. The only contented men are Stephen and Mr Martin. They spend hours bubbling away down there in their bell, sending up worms and little bright-coloured fishes and pieces of coral, and even eating their meals in it; or else they wander all day on the reefs, peering at the creatures in the shallow water and the birds - they tell me they have seen ospreys by the score. Stephen never has minded the heat, however excessive; but how Mr Martin supports it, even with his green umbrella, I cannot say. He is grown as thin as a crane, if you can imagine a crane that perpetually smiles. Forgive me, Sophie; here is Major Hooper, urgent to be on his way. With my dear love to you and the children, your most affectionate husband,

Jno Aubrey.'

When he had seen the Major off, Jack returned, gasping, to his cabin, where air without the least refreshment came tearing through the open scuttles. Far away, against a line of tall, bowing palms on the western shore, he saw Stephen and Martin carrying a fair-sized turtle between them. A boat came alongside: still another Arab visitor for Mr Hairabedian. Through the skylight overhead he heard Mowett say 'I love to linger near the leafless wood, Where cold and shrill the blasts of winter blow,' and for some reason this brought a picture of last night's moon before his eye- no longer the sickle of Bairam, but an odiously thick slice of melon in the sky, a fat moon that must shine on the galley well advanced in her voyage to Mubara. 'And yet we did not lose a minute, coming across the isthmus: I really cannot blame myself for that,' he reflected. But perhaps he should have handled the Egyptian more tactfully, or have found some cleverer, quicker way of getting into touch with the Turks in spite of him; he turned the possibilities over in his mind, but sleep came welling up through the accusations, softening them a little. 'The best-led mice gang oft astray,' said one side of his mind, and before the other had quite formulated the answer :Yes, but unlucky leaders are not the men to be. entrusted with a delicate, ill-prepared mission' he dropped off: though indeed the notion lingered deep, ready to come to life again.

He had acquired the ability to go fast asleep at any time early in his naval career and although years had passed since he kept a watch he still possessed it; he could still sleep on, however great the din and the discomfort, and it still needed some significant nautical disturbance to rouse him. A coir cable being dragged across the deck with shrill Indian cries was not enough, nor was the sound of his own enormous snoring (for his head had fallen back and his mouth had opened), nor was the smell of Turkish cooking that came eddying aft as evening fell. What woke him, and woke him completely, was a change in the wind: it had quite suddenly shifted two points; it was slackening and coming in gusts.

He went on deck, on to the unusually crowded little quarterdeck: his officers at once led the Turks and the Arab to the lee rail, uncomprehending, but meek aboard a ship. The windward side was cleared in a moment, and he stood there looking at the evening sky, the broken clouds high over Africa and the haze on the Arabian shore. The weather was on the change, he was sure; and that too was certainly the opinion of a number of the Surprise's forecastle hands, elderly men with an immense experience of the sea; they were as sensitive as cats to these alterations and they now lined the gangway, directing meaning glances at him.

'Mr McElwee,' he said, turning to the Company's pilot, 'what do you and the serang make of it?'

'Well, sir,' said Mr McElwee, 'I have not often been north of Jeddah or Yanbo, as I said, nor has the serang, but we both think it looks mighty like dropping for the night, with maybe an Egyptian coming on tomorrow.'

Jack nodded. The Egyptian wind, though by no means as favourable a breeze as could be wished in so narrow a channel as the Gulf of Suez, with its strong currents and its coral reefs, would at least be abaft the beam; and if the Niobe was as weatherly as she was said to be, and skilfully handled, it might carry her down into the relatively open sea. 'Well,' he said, 'I believe we may lay out a kedge, so that if this damned breeze has slackened enough by the height of flood, she may be warped out beyond the harbour mouth, not to lose a minute of the Egyptian, if ever it comes on to blow.'

'Doctor,' he said, as Stephen and Martin came aboard, having handed up box after box of coral and shells, and as the hawser crept out from the Niobe's bows, carried by the long-boat through the crowd of Arab dhows and djerms, 'we are half-promised an Egyptian wind.'

'Would that be the same as the dread simoon?'

'I dare say,' said Jack. 'I have heard it is most uncommon hot, even for these parts. But the great point is that it is westerly, and even a little north of westerly; and so long as it comes abaft the beam, it may blow as hot as it pleases.'

'As hot as it pleases,' he said again, when they were drinking tea in the cabin. 'It really cannot be much hotter, or nothing but crocodiles would survive. Have you ever known a heat like this, Stephen?'

'I have not,' said Stephen.

'Nelson once said he did not need a greatcoat - love for his country kept him warm. I wonder whether it would have kept him cool, had he been here? I'm sure it has no effect on me: I drip like Purvis's distilling machine.'

'Perhaps you do not love your country quite enough.'

'Who could, with the income-tax at two shillings in the pound, and captains docked an eighth of their prize-money?'

The first wafts of the Egyptian wind came a little after dawn. The Niobe was lying at single anchor well outside the harbour, having warped clear of all shipping in the night: the breeze had dropped to a dead calm during the middle watch, and even with all scuttles and hatches open it was stiflingly hot below; yet these first Egyptian wafts were hotter still.

Jack had taken a couple of cat-naps, but he was on deck at first light and he saw the wind move across the troubled, tide-rippled water with a great lifting of his heart, a feeling of liberation, of hope renewed. With so many and such willing hands the capstan fairly spun round, plucking the anchor up with scarcely a pause; and soon after the Niobe had got under way, casting as prettily as could be wished in spite of the cross tide, he found that although she could not compare with the Surprise in breeding and instant response nor in speed, she was a stiff, serviceable little ship, not much inclined to sag to leeward, at least when sailing large; and this was a great satisfaction to him. Yet there was something strange about the breeze: not only its extraordinary heat, like the breath out of an oven, nor its uneasy, unsettled gusting but something else that he could not define. The young sun blazed clear in the pure eastern sky, terribly strong already, but over there in the west there was a lowering murk, and all along the horizon, rising some ten degrees, an orange-tawny bar, too thick for cloud.

'I do not know what to make of it,' he said to himself. As he turned to go below for his first breakfast, the first wonderfully reviving cup of coffee - the genuine Mocha, straight from that interesting port - that he had already smelt, he caught the eyes of his four young gentlemen fixed thoughtfully upon him. 'Of course,' he reflected, 'they expect me to know what to make of it. A captain is omniscient.'

Stephen walked in, holding a small bottle. 'Good day to you, now,' he said. 'Do you know the temperature of the sea? It is eighty-four degrees by Fahrenheit's thermometer. The salinity I have not yet calculated, but suppose it to be extraordinarily high.'

'I am sure it is. This is an extraordinary place altogether. The glass has not dropped very much, yet... I tell you what, Stephen, I should take it kindly if you would ask Hassan what he thinks of the bar in the western sky. Since he spends much of his time roaming about the Arabian desert on a camel he must take notice of the local weather. But there is no hurry; let us finish our pot first.'

It was as well that there was no hurry, because the pot was huge and Stephen unusually prosy, on the subject of scorpions. A large number had been found below and the Surprises were hurrying about killing them. '... most illiberal- your scorpion never wantonly attacked- stung only if provoked- might cause a certain amount of discomfort, even coma, but was rarely lethal- it might almost be said never, except in the case of those whose hearts were out of order, and they were probably condemned in any case."

'What about poor Hairabedian?' asked Jack.

'He will be running about tomorrow, rather better for his rest,' said Stephen, and at this moment a squall struck the Niobe, laying her over almost on her beam ends. The coffee shot to leeward, though they ludicrously preserved their empty cups; and as the ship righted Jack recovered his feet, making his way through the tumble of chairs, table, papers and instruments. The moment he passed the cabin door he was enveloped in a tawny cloud of sand -sand flying, sand underfoot, sand grating between his teeth- through which he dimly saw a fine scene of confusion. Sailcloth was threshing wildly, the wheel, spinning round, had broken the helmsman's arm and flung him against the rail, the booms and the boats were all abroad, and a ghostly maintopmast staysail, blown almost out of its bolt-rope, streamed away to leeward. The situation was critical, though the present damage was not very grave; the breechings of the guns had held- had even one of the nine-pounders plunged through the other side in that monstrous lee-lurch the ship might have foundered directly - the sheets had instantly been started, preserving the masts, and two quartermasters were already at the wheel. What was much more serious was the crowd of horrified Turks: some were running about the forecastle and the waist in the swirling dust and sand, still more were swarming up the main and fore hatchways. Many of those on deck clung to the running rigging, blocking the seamen's efforts; and if more joined them it would be impossible to work the ship: another squall must lay her down, perhaps for good, certainly with great loss of life- the landsmen would be washed overboard by the score.

Mowett, Rowan and the master were there - Gill half naked. 'Drive them below," cried Jack, running forward with his arms spread and going 'Hoosh, hoosh,' as though he were herding geese. The Turks were furious fighters by land, but now they were at a loss, out of their element; many were sea-sick and all were terrified, disarmed. The total competence and authority of the four officers advancing so easily over the heaving deck daunted them. They stumbled and blundered to the hatchways and climbed or fell in heaps below. Hardly had Jack given the order 'Lay the hatches' which would keep them there, than he felt the vacuum in his ears that came a split second before the second squall. The blast laid the ship over, nor did she fully recover, for now the Egyptian had set in, blowing irregularly but hard and without a pause. As Jack made his way aft, his eyes almost closed against the sand, he had time to wonder whether people could breathe in such hot, thick air, and to thank his stars that he had not sent up topgallantmasts.

He could also have thanked them for a strong crew of able seamen and an entirely professional set of officers- Mowett and Rowan might be given to verse in the gunroom, but they were all hard tough driving prose on deck in an emergency. Yet even if he had had time he would probably not have done so, since he took seamanship for granted in those who belonged to the Navy, abhorring its absence as extremely discreditable if not downright wicked and praising only its highest flights: however, the question did not arise, because for almost all the twenty hours that followed he was wholly absorbed in preserving his ship and directing her course.

The first long, long stretch was taken up with reducing sail, dealing with such problems as securing the spars and the remaining boats, sending up preventer stays and braces and rolling tackles, providing the guns with double-frapped preventer-breechings, making good the damage aloft, and perpetually looking out for squalls, as far as that was possible in a twilight of sand flying through a haze of very finely-divided yellow dust, a haze so thick that the sun at noon showed like a red orange hanging there as it might have hung over London in November, a November with a temperature of a hundred and twenty-five in the shade.

Then at some point in the forenoon, when the sprung foretopmast had been fished and the Egyptian had settled into a steadier, less gusty stride, the balance changed: it was now less a question of survival than one of wringing every possible mile from the wind, of 'spoiling the Egyptian" as Jack said to himself, a wild glee having succeeded the intense gravity of those first hours, when a false move might have meant loss with all hands. There were few things that moved him more than driving a ship to the limit of her possibilities in a very strong blow, and now his great concern was finding just how much sail the Niobe could carry and where it should be set: the answer obviously varied with the force of the wind and the scend of the sea, and that variation itself was by no means simple, because of the strong and continually changing tidal streams in the gulf and its strange shifting currents.