Treason's Harbour (36 page)

'Sure, Bevis of Hampton is nothing to him. And this is the gentleman we are to operate upon? I am glad of it. I have always found that a man in high spirits heals quicker than another; and although this wandering ball does not sound the gravest of interventions, it is as well to have all the chances on our side.'

'Yes, to be sure,' said Thomas doubtfully. 'And perhaps I should have operated earlier, when he was so cheerful; but these last days he has been very low - a deep surly melancholy - like to hang himself - because some busy fool acquainted with Valletta gossip like the rest of us saw fit to tell him he was a..." Thomas paused and gave Stephen a meaning look. 'To tell him his wife had not been quite discreet. You will know what I mean; and with whom. But I hope this little blood-letting may bring resignation with it: after all, the same misfortune has befallen many another man, and most survive it.'

Thomas's meaning eluded Stephen, a fact that left him perfectly indifferent. He said, 'Have you prepared him at all?'

'Yes: three drachms of mandragora on an empty stomach.'

'Mandragora,' began Stephen with some contempt, but a Marine servant coming in cut him short.

'Mr Fielding's compliments,' said the Marine, 'and why ben't he to be cut? Says, he has been waiting in the sickbay this last glass and more.'

'Tell him we shall be there directly,' said Mr Thomas. 'What have you against mandragora, colleague?'

'Nothing at all,' said Stephen. 'Is it Mr Charles Fielding that you have been speaking of? Lieutenant Charles Fielding, of the Navy?'

'Why, yes. I said so, do you not recall? Charles Fielding, the husband of the lady with the dog that is so fond^of Captain Aubrey. So you had not smoked it? You had not gathered my meaning? How droll. But hush, not a word.'

They walked into the sick-bay and there, standing in the strong light from the grating overhead and looking out of the scuttle was a tall dark heavy man who might have stepped straight from the picture in Laura's bedroom: he was even wearing the same striped pantaloons. Mr Thomas made the usual introductions and Fielding replied with a civil 'How do you do, sir' and a bow, but it was clear that he paid no real attention. It was clear too that either Mr Thomas's mandragora or his own rum had had a considerable effect; his voice was thick and his words somewhat confused. Stephen had never known any man come cheerfully to the surgeon's table, chest or chair; even the bravest recoiled from the deliberate incision suffered in cold blood, and most sailors added what they could to the official dose. Yet Mr Fielding had not run to extremes, as did many patients who had the means; he was completely master of himself, and when he had taken off his shirt he submitted to having his arms tied - 'For was you to make a sudden involuntary start, we might plunge a knife into an artery, or sever an important nerve' - with a good grace, and sat there looking set and dogged, his jaw clenched tight.

The ball was deeper than Thomas had supposed and although while they worked on his back Fielding uttered no more than a grunt or two, by the time it was out he was breathing deep and sweating profusely. When they had sewn him up and released his arms Thomas looked into his face and said 'You must stay here quietly for a while. I will send the loblolly-boy to sit with you.'

'I should be happy to sit with Mr Fielding,' said Stephen. 'When he is recovered I should very much like to hear of his escape from the French.'

Coffee, hot and strong, recovered Mr Fielding fairly soon. After the second cup he reached over to his coat, took a slice of cold plum-duff from the pocket and devoured it out of hand. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'but I have been so hungry these last months that I have to keep a bite about me.' Then raising his voice for the loblolly-boy he told him to bring the case-bottle from his cabin. The loblolly-boy was an aged, authoritarian creature, of great medical standing on the lower deck, and since spirits were forbidden in the sick-bay he hesitated, looking at Stephen; but Fielding's dark face instantly took on a still darker, extremely dangerous expression and his voice the ring of a hard-horse driving lieutenant, the kind whose blow might follow an order in a split second - he was clearly a man of very strong passions. The case-bottle appeared, and having offered it to Stephen, Fielding swallowed first one stiff tot and then another. 'That must be all for the present,' said Stephen, taking it away. 'We cannot afford any further loss of blood. You are very much reduced. Yours was a long and very trying journey, I have no doubt.'

'As a straightforward ride it would not have amounted to any very great distance,' said Fielding. 'I dare say a courier might do it in less than a week.But as we travelled, hiding by day and creeping along by night, generally through by lanes or over wild country and often losing our way, it took well over two months. Seventy-six days, to be exact.' He spoke without much interest and broke off as though he were not going to continue. They sat in silence for some minutes, the frigate rocking gently and the reflection of the sunlit sea shimmering on the deck-head. Two and a half months, thought Stephen: that almost exactly coincided with the first of the letters that had made Laura so uneasy, the first of the forged letters. 'But as for the hardships,' said Fielding at length, 'yes, it was a trying journey. Rarely anything to eat but what we could poach or steal, and not even that in the high mountains. And then the wet and the cold... Wilson died when we had a two-days' snowstorm in the Trentino, and Corby's foot was so frostbitten that he could only hobble after that. I was lucky, I suppose.'

'If it is not disagreeable to you, I should very much like to hear even the shortest account of your escape,' said Stephen.

'Very well,' said Fielding. He had been in the penal fortresss of Bitche, he said, a place reserved for unruly prisoners-of-war or those who had tried to escape from Verdun, and most of the time he had been in solitary confinement, because during his attempt he had killed a gendarme. But a fire in part of the castle and the subsequent repairs had brought him into the same cell as Wilson and Corby, and since this was a time of considerable disorganization - the commander of the fortress had just been replaced - they decided to try again. In their earlier attempts they had all three separately tried to reach the Channel or the North Sea ports, and now they meant to go the other way, eastwards for Austria and so to the Adriatic. It had to be done quickly, while the workmen and their materials were still in the castle, and Corby, who was the most senior, a natural leader and a man fluent in German, abandoned the usual caution and told many of the other officers that the three of them were going to escape. Some were very helpful indeed, providing sketch-maps, a pocket spy-glass, a fairly accurate compass, a little money, and above all pieces of cloth or line to add to their own. While the other prisoners created a disturbance in the inner bailey late one dark and threatening evening the three went over the outer wall, and once they were clear their friends pulled the rope up and hid it. They had a whole night's start and they made for the Rhine as fast as they could go, aiming for the bridge of boats that carried the road over to Rastatt. They did not reach it until nearly noon, far later than they had hoped; but there they had an extraordinary stroke of luck. While they lay in a little wood, watching the bridge-end to see how the sentries behaved, they saw a religious procession pass along the lane below them, a procession formed of separate groups several hundred strong, carrying green branches and singing. The banners in front began to cross the bridge, and the sailors, cutting themselves some greenery, slipped down the bank into the lane and joined the throng, singing as well as they could and looking fervent. Few people took any notice of them - it was a gathering of several villages - and if anyone spoke Corby answered while the others sang. They crossed the bridge with still another troop chanting behind them, and Corby went on into the town, where he bought pumpernickel and dried beef. At this time they looked quite respectable, with their good blue coats stripped of all distinguishing marks; but coming back Corby was questioned, fortunately by a very simple, easily-impressed, easily-deluded young conscript, from whom he learnt that three English officers were being pursued. They therefore kept strictly hidden in the woods for the next week or so, never moving until it was dark; and by the end of that time, what with foul weather, hard lying, and slipping and falling in the mud of a hundred streams, they looked like thoroughly suspicious vagrants. They had a razor, and they kept fairly clean; but it was no good - all dogs barked at them, and if by chance they passed any countrymen Corby's greeting would meet with a startled, uneasy stare. They dared not approach any village. And so the long, slow march south and east went on, far slower than they had expected; and they lived on what they could find - raw turnips from the fields, potatoes, green corn, a very little game - week after week, until they became very feeble, particularly as they had rain almost all the time. They were sometimes hunted, one or twice by gamekeepers but nearly always because they had raided farmyards or because patrols had heard of their presence, and Fielding spoke of their perpetual fear, the fierce, hunted expressions that soon became habitual, almost fixed, and their savage hatred not only for their pursuers but for anyone who might possibly betray them: once they were very near killing a couple of children who stumbled on their hiding-place. He said that this hatred overflowed into their relations with"one another, making their disagreements very dangerous and, if possible, increasing the utter joylessness of the last weeks of their journey; and he spoke with feeling that Stephen would never have expected from his lowering, apparently insensitive face.

'I wonder you could stand it," he observed, when Fielding reached the point where they found that they had lost their way, and that after two days of toiling over bare mountain with no food at all they looked down into a valley and saw not the Austrian post they had expected but the tricolour flying in French-occupied Italy: a narrow treeless valley with a fort on a rise in the middle and no village, no isolated farms, no herdsman's summer chalets, and no possibility of retreat.

'As far as I was concerned,' said Fielding, 'I was buoyed up by - by a particular sentiment, and I should have walked twice as far, if my feet had held out. I believe the same applied to the others, and when I think of all the hardships they bore in vain, upon my honour, I see no justice in the world. It is not to be believed that both their wives were whores.'

'What happened to Mr Corby?'

'He was killed - murdered. We were chased by a cavalry patrol only three days before the end, when we were on the sea-coast, in sight of ships. He could not run, and the troopers fairly hacked him to pieces, though he was unarmed. I got into a marsh, into deep reeds and water up to here.' He paused, and then in a flat voice he said 'I was the only one left. I brought them no luck. Except from the professional point of view perhaps it would have been better if I had stayed in Bitche; and even from that point of view... in any event, I shall not hurry back to Malta for a ship.' At this point Fielding was talking almost wholly for himself, yet even so Stephen felt that some response was necessary. He said, 'I had the honour of being introduced to Mrs Fielding, and she was so very kind as to invite me to her musical evenings.'

'Oh yes,' said Fielding. 'She is a great musician. Perhaps that was the trouble. I cannot make out God save the King on a penny whistle.'

Captain Aubrey and Captain Cotton of the Nymphe had been midshipmen together, and not even midshipmen but youngsters, entered on the old Resolution's books as captain's servants- squeakers, of no use to man or beast. They had used little ceremony at the age of twelve, nor had they grown much more formal with one another as they rose in rank; and now Jack, having led his friend below, was surprised to see a constrained, furtive, awkward, hangdog expression on his face. 'Why, Harry,' he said, 'what ails thee? Art sick? Art vexed?'

'Oh no,' said Captain Cotton with an artificial simper. 'Not at all.'

'What is it then? You look as if you have been found out keeping a false muster, or comforting the King's enemies.'

'Well, to tell the truth, Jack - to tell you the honest truth, the fact of the matter is, I have some damned unpleasant news for you. Charles Fielding, that was a prison at Verdun and then at Bitche - Charles Fielding, that was at one time third of the Nymphe and then second of the Volage, has escaped. We picked him up off Cape Promontore some days ago, and he is aboards us at this moment.'

'Escaped, has he?' cried Jack. 'Upon my word, I honour him for it! Escaped from Bitche! Bless me, what a stroke. I am most heartily glad of it. But tell me, what is your bad news?'

'Why,' said Cotton, turning red and looking more embarrassed still, 'I thought - everybody said - it was generally supposed that you and Mrs..."

'Oh, because of that damned dog?' said Jack, laughing. 'No, no. There was nothing in it - all nonsense, alas -mere silly Valletta gossip. No, no, on the contrary: I should be very happy to take him back to her. We turn round tomorrow, so let him come across any time before we sail and I will give him the quickest passage to Malta that is to be had. I shall write him a note directly,' he said, turning to his desk.

The answer to his note came over from the Nymphe shortly before Stephen walked into the great cabin. 'There you are, Stephen,' said Jack. 'I suppose you know that Laura's husband has escaped, and is aboard the Nymphe?'

'I do,' said Stephen.

'Well, here is a damned thing,' said Jack, 'it seems that some God-damned fool has told him I was his wife's lover. Cotton was here just now, and he said so. I instantly denied it, of course, and to make my denial utterly convincing I sent over straight away, offering to carry Fielding to Valletta at once: he could not be there for a month otherwise. I had no time to consult you,' he said, looking anxiously into Stephen's face, 'but in any case it was necessary - it was the least I could do - and it had to be done immediately. I offered him my dining-cabin, which I thought pretty handsome; but here is his answer.'