The Commodore (5 page)

The drizzle increased to downright rain. He returned from these very happy speculations - he was a man unusually gifted for happiness when happiness was at all possible: and now it was flooding in from every side - and told Abhorson to cheer up, for it could not last long, coming down so hard. The horse was moving with a dogged, sullen pace, but he moved his ears as though there were at least some communication, and Jack twisted round to get at the cloak roiled up behind the saddle.

As he did so a blackbird shot across the road right under the horse's nose, cackling loud. Abhorson gave a violent sideways leap, a turning leap that threw Jack with perfect ease - a heavy, heavy fall, Jack's head hitting the stone that marked his boundary.

Chapter Two

'Good morning to you,' said Stephen. 'My name is Maturin, and I have an appointment with Sir Joseph Blaine.'

'Good morning, sir,' replied the porter. 'Pray be so good as to take a seat. James, show the gentleman into the second waiting-room.'

This was not that famous place, looking out over the court and so through the screen into Whitehall, in which generation after generation of naval officers had waited, usually in the hope of promotion or at any rate of an appointment to a ship, but a far smaller, far more discreet little room with only one chair in it; and Stephen had barely had time to sit down before the inner door opened. Sir Joseph, a portly man with a pale, glabrous and usually anxious, work-worn face, hurried in, smiling, looking thoroughly pleased. He took both Stephen's hands, crying 'Why, Stephen, how very, very happy I am to see you! How are you, my dear sir? How do you do after all these countless miles and days?'

'Very well, I thank you, dear Joseph; but I wish I could see you less pale and harried and overworked. Do you sleep? Do you eat at all?'

'Sleep is difficult, I must confess; yet I still eat tolerably well. Will you join me this evening at Black's? Do join me, and you will see: I always sup on a boiled fowl with oyster sauce and a pint of our claret.'

'I shall happily watch you,' said Stephen, 'but for my own part I have already bespoke turbot and a bottle of Sillery.' He felt in his pocket and went on, 'Pray accept this offering.' He passed over a dirty handkerchief, and eagerly unwrapping it. Sir Joseph cried 'Eupator ingens! How very kind of you to remember - a splendid specimen indeed - such generosity - I wonder you can bear to part with him.' He set the creature down, gazed at it and murmured 'So now at last I am the possessor of the noblest beetle in creation.'

The door opened again and a severely official face said 'The gentlemen are beginning to arrive, Sir Joseph.'

'Thank you, Mr Heller,' said Sir Joseph. 'I shall be with them before the striking of the clock.' The door closed. 'The Committee, of course,' he said to Stephen. He wrapped the beetle very carefully in his own handkerchief, gave back the first, and went on 'Now I must speak to you as a public servant: the First Lord bids me tell you that a small squadron is intended for Captain Aubrey. He is to hoist a broad pennant and cruise off the west coast of Africa to protect our merchantmen and discourage the slave-trade. The slavers are of many nationalities, they carry a large variety of protections and they may be accompanied by men-of-war; so clearly he needs not only an eminent surgeon but also a linguist and a man steeped in political intelligence; and it is hoped that these characters may be united in the same amiable person. Yet there is the possibility of certain eventualities and since I know that - without its affecting our friendship in any way - there are subjects on which we are not wholly in agreement, I think it proper to ask, if I may, where your heart would lie if the French intended another descent on Ireland. Believe me, this is a question primarily designed to preserve you from the possibility of a painful state of indecision and reserve.'

'No indecision at all, my dear. I should do everything in my power to take, sink, burn or destroy them. The French, with their present horrible system, would be utterly intolerable in Ireland - look at Switzerland, look at the Italian states . . No, no, no, as you are aware, I do very strongly feel that each nation should govern itself. It may be said that the Irish have not been very good at it - the annals make the saddest reading in the world, and an O'Brien, no less, Turlough O'Brien, King of Thomond, sacked Clonmacnois itself. But that is not really to the point: my own house may be unswept in places, but it is my own, and I will thank no stranger for putting it in order: least of all if he is an ugly, false, impious thief of a black Corsican.'

'Thank you, Stephen,' said Sir Joseph shaking his hand. 'I did so hope that that was what you would say. Now we must go and meet the Committee.'

'You know what I have to tell them, sure?'

'Yes, yes. I feel for you extremely.'

It was clear from the atmosphere of the Committee meeting that its other members were also aware of his mission's outcome - indeed, in its broadest outlines the outcome was perfectly obvious, since Peru was still part of the Spanish empire, but he nevertheless gave them a succinct account, to which most of them listened intelligently, asking a few pertinent questions in the course of his narrative and rather more when he had finished.

After he had dealt with the points they raised,Mr Preston of the Foreign Office, who had been taking notes throughout, said 'Dr Maturin, may I beg you to listen to this very brief summary I have been making for the minister and to correct any mistakes I may have committed?' Stephen bowed, and Preston went on, 'Dr Maturin, appearing before the Committee, stated that after the ship in which he was travelling, a hired vessel, his own property, duly licensed as a letter of marque, had left Sydney Cove, her commander received instructions to proceed to Moahu, where two or perhaps three rival factions were at war. He was to ally himself with the most amenable, ensure his supremacy and annex the island before pursuing his course for South America. This was accomplished, and shortly afterwards an American privateer was captured...'

'Forgive me, sir, if I interrupt you at this point,' said Stephen. 'I am afraid I must have expressed myself badly. The ship in question, the ship in which I was then embarked, was the Nutmeg of Consolation, not my Surprise, which we met by appointment off the Salibabu Passage and in which we sailed on to Peru. The Nutmeg was provided by the Governor of Java, to replace the frigate Diane, in which the late Mr Fox and I had the happiness of concluding a treaty with the Sultan of Pulo Prabang...' There was a general murmur of approval at this, and Mr Preston looked at Stephen with an unofficial and even affectionate smile.'... and the conflict in Moahu was between the island's legitimate queen and a discontented chief aided by some white mercenaries and a Frenchman called Dutourd, a wealthy visionary who wished to set up a democratic paradise at the cost of slaughtering those who disagreed with him and who had bought, armed and manned a ship in America to effect this purpose. In this case morality and expediency happily coincided: the Nutmeg defeated the discontented chief and captured both Dutourd and his ship. But there was no question of annexation. The queen entered into an alliance with King George III, gratefully accepting his protection, no more. And as for the American privateer, the Franklin as Monsieur Dutourd called her, it appeared that she did not in fact enjoy that status, Dutourd having omitted to take out letters of marque, so that his capturing British whalers made a pirate of him: this at all events was the opinion of the Surprise's commander, who decided to carry him back to England so that the question might be settled by the proper judges.'

'Thank you, sir. I shall make all this clear,' said Mr Preston, writing fast. Then he went on with his abstract, dealing with Stephen's encounter with the resident agent in Lima, his very successful conversation with high ecclesiastics and military men, particularly General Hurtado, all of them committed to independence and many to the abolition of slavery; the escape of the captured Dutourd, his contacts with the French mission engaged on a similar but much less successful, much less wellfunded errand; his denunciation of Stephen as a British agent; and the cry of 'foreign gold' raised by the opponents of independence, a cry, which, taken up by the hired mobs, made Stephen's exactly-timed scheme, based on the temporary absence of the viceroy, quite impossible, since General Hurtado refused to act, and Hurtado alone could move the necessary troops.

'It must have been the cruellest blow,' observed Colonel Warren, the head of army intelligence.

'It was, indeed,' said Stephen.

'Had Dutourd any reason to suppose that you were in fact a British agent?' asked another member.

'He had not. But I was obliged to speak French when I was treating his wounded men after they had been captured; presently he almost certainly remembered meeting me in Paris; and intuition, coupled with very strong personal dislike and a desire to do harm no doubt did the rest - it was an accusation that would have passed unnoticed, disregarded in any other climate, but once the anti-independentists had seized upon it, public opinion changed entirely.'

After a silence the representative of the Treasury said 'It is my duty to observe that very large sums of money in various forms were placed at Dr Maturin's disposal, and to ask him whether it was possible to preserve any part, such as the easily transportable drafts and bonds that had not yet been exchanged.'

'It is not without a certain complacency that I can tell the gentleman,' said Stephen, 'that the gold, which was to have been parcelled out among the various regiments on Wednesday had Hurtado not cried off on Tuesday, remains, apart from a few hundred pounds' worth of douceurs, in the hands of our agent in Lima; while the paper obligations, bonds and the like are now aboard the little vessel that brought me up to the Pool, in a case under the immediate eye of her captain.' Certain members of the Committee were unable to conceal a book of intense satisfaction, and Stephen perceived that some other costly scheme would now once more be possible. He added, 'As for the gold, our agent in Peru is of opinion - and I entirely agree with him, for what my view is worth - that it would be far more usefully employed in the kingdom of Chile, where Don Bernado O'Higgins had such a following. Finally I may observe that our agent has shipping interests, and can undertake to remove the cumbrous metal.'

'Speaking of cumbrous metal,' said Blaine, as they walked down Whitehall together, 'you could do me such a kindness, if you mean to return to Shelmerston in the tender; and with this brisk wind settled in the north-east she would carry you there quicker and in much more comfort than a coach. No changing, either.'

'Please to name the service in question.'

'It is the carrying of a statue I have promised a friend in Weymouth; an impossible object for a waggon, but a mere trifle for a ship.'

Stephen, extremely unwilling not to post straight down to Barham and Diana, stopped a passing hackney-coach, and with his hand on the door-handle he asked 'What would it weigh, at all? This is only a very little small thin sharp-bodied vessel.'

'In the nature of three ton, I suppose; a little small thin porphyry Jove.'

'Listen, my dear: may I say by all means - very happy - unless Captain Pullings says it must necessarily plunge through the schooner's bottom? I am on my way to see Mrs Broad in the Liberties of the Savoy - you remember Mrs Broad of the Grapes?'

'Certainly: my best compliments to her, if you please.'

'And from the Grapes it is no distance at all to the Pool.'

'Until this evening, then,' called Blaine, withdrawing hastily to the wall as a coach and four came cantering up, spraying filth wide on either hand.

Mrs Broad and Stephen were old friends. He kept a room up one pair of stairs the year round, even when he was in another hemisphere; he had a cupboard for his skeletons and presses for all manner of things that he might need - instruments, specimens, books, the unfinished manuscript of a work in lithotomy, a large number of old letters and used envelopes with notes on the back - when he was in London, and shc was thoroughly used to his ways as well as Padeen's, who acted as his servant on shore, wearing breeches with silver buckles, of which he was inordinately, sinfully proud. She had known the Doctor for so long and in such difficult circumstances that nothing surprised her very much: it had been bears in the coal-hole and laundry before now, and badgers rescued from a baiting in the farther outhouse, as well as some very odd dissections indeed; and the suggestion of two little girls did not worry her particularly, however black and Popish they might be. She wept to hear how and why they had been taken from their native island; but having wiped her eyes she comforted Stephen's apprehensions by saying 'Lord bless you, Doctor, they will be happy enough here. We have every colour in the Liberties, black, grey, brown and yellow, everything except perhaps bright blue; and they can run about in the churchyard or watch the traffic in the Strand. But oh dear me, sir, what will you think of me? I have never asked after Mrs Maturin. How does your good lady do, sir? And Miss Brigid, bless her?'

'I have not seen them yet, Mrs Broad. I had to come straight up from the chops of the Channel in the tender, while Captain Aubrey went ashore. But I may go down in the tender tomorrow: the wind sits perfectly; or I may take a chaise.'

'Well, at least you will have supper here, and sleep in your room. Lucy and I have been airing it ever since Padeen came and made us understand you was not far off. "Clo' clo' clo'," he said, the way he had, poor fellow; and seeing me look stupid, Lucy cried "He means the Doctor is near at hand", and we all laughed. Oh dear me, how we laughed. And we put warm, lavendered sheets on the bed.'

'Sup I cannot, Mrs Broad, for I am pledged to Sir Joseph Blaine, who sends you his compliments: but sleep I will, most happily. It would be best to give me the front-door key, for I may be late. But now I must run down to the Pool.'

He walked into Black's, and there was Blaine, standing in front of the hall fire with his coat-tails over his elbows and his bottom exposed to the blaze. 'Captain Pullings says she can very well manage three tons,' said Stephen, 'but since he must sail on the turn of the tide he wonders very much how you will get your image aboard in time.'