words came from the quarterdeck they sang and laughed as they won the anchor and made sail, in tearing high spirits; for this was the last leg and they had a fair wind for the Lizard. Wives and sweethearts and paying off - Fiddler’s Green in sight at last!
The heaviness in the cabin was not a gloom, but rather a weary turning back to common life, to a commonplace life without much meaning in it - certainly no brilliant colour. Stephen checked the sick-?bay and had a long session with M’Allister over their books; in a week or so the ship would be paid off, and they would have to pass their accounts, justifying upon oath the expenditure of every drachm and scruple of their drugs and comforts for the last eighteen months, and M’Alister had a morbidly tender conscience. Left to himself, Stephen looked at his private stock of laudanum, his bottled fortitude: at one time he had made great use of it, up to four thousand drops a day, but now he did not even draw the cork. There was no longer any need for fortitude: he felt nothing at present and there was no point in artificial ataraxy. He went to sleep sitting in his chair, slept through the exercising of the guns and far into the middle watch. Waking abruptly he found light coming under his door from the great cabin, and there he found Jack, still up, reading over his remarks for the Admiralty hydrographer: innumerable soundings, draughts of the coastline, cross-?bearings; valuable, conscientious observations. He had become a scientific sailor.
‘Jack,’ he said abruptly, ‘I have been thinking about Sophie. I thought about her on the mountain. And it occurs to me - the simplest thing: why did we not think of it before? - that there is no certainty whatsoever about the courier. So many, many miles overland, through wild countries and desert; and in any case the news of Canning’s death must have travelled fast. It may have overtaken the courier; it must certainly have affected Canning’s associates and their designs; there is every reason to believe that your message never reached her.’
‘It is kind of you to say that, Stephen,’ said Jack,
looking at him affectionately, ‘and it is capital reasoning. But I know the news reached India House six weeks ago.
Brenton told me. No. They used to call me Lucky Jack Aubrey, you remember; and so I was, in my time. But I am not as lucky as all that. Lord Keith told mc luck has its end, and mine is out. I set my sights too high, that’s all. What do you say to a tune?’
‘With all my heart.’
With the rain coming down outside and the hanging lamp swinging wide as the sea got up, they soared away through their Corelli, through their Hummel, and Jack had his bow poised for Boccherini when he brought it screeching down on the strings and said, ‘That was a gun.’
They sat motionless, their heads up, and a dripping midshipman knocked and burst in. ‘Mr Pullings’s compliments, sir,’ he said, ‘and he believes there is a sail to leeward.’
‘Thank you, Mr Lee. I shall be on deck directly.’ He snatched up his cloak and said, ‘God send it is a Frenchman. I had rather meet a Frenchman now than - ‘ He vanished, and Stephen put the instruments away.
On deck the cold rain and the freshening south-?wester took his breath away after the air of the cabin, where the tropical heat, stored up under the line, still seeped from the hold, He came up behind Pullings, who was crouched at the rail with his glass. ‘Where away, Tom?’ he said.
‘Right on the quarter, sir, I reckon, in that patch of half moonlight. I caught the flash, and just for a moment I thought I saw her putting about. Will you take a look, sir?’
Pullings could see her tolerably well, a ship under top-?sails three miles off, standing from them on the starboard tack - a ship that had signalled to some unseen consort or convoy that she was going about; but he was attached to his captain, he was distressed by his unhappiness, and he wished to offer him this small triumph.
‘By God, Pullings, you are right. A ship. On the starboard tack, close-?hauled. Wear, clew up topsails, fetch her wake, and see how near she will let us come. There is no hurry now,’ he muttered. Then raising his voice, ‘All hands wear ship.’
The pipes and the roaring bosun’s mate roused the sleeping watch below, and some minutes later the Surprise was running down to cross the stranger’s wake under courses alone, almost certainly invisible in this darkness. She had the wind two points free and she gained steadily, creeping up on the stranger, guns run out, shielded battle-?lanterns faintly glowing along the main-?deck, bell silenced, orders given in an undertone. Jack and Pullings stood on the forecastle, staring through the rain: there was no need for a glass now, none at all; and a break in the cloud had shown them she was a frigate.
If she was what he hoped she was, he would give her such a broadside in the first moment, and before the surprise was over he would cross under her stern and rake her twice, perhaps three times, and then lie upon her quarter. Closer, closer: he heard her bell; seven bells in the graveyard watch, and still no hail. Closer, and the sky was lightening in the east.
‘Stand by the clew-?lines,’ he called softly. ‘Bellow, mind your priming.’ Still closer: his heart was pounding like a mallet. ‘Let fall,’ he cried. The topsails flashed out, they were sheeted home in an instant and the Surprise surged forward, racing up on the stranger’s quarter.
Shouts and bellowing ahead. ‘What ship is that?’ he roared into the confusion. ‘What ship is that?’ And over his shoulder, ‘Back foretops’l. Man clew-?garnets.’
The Surprise was within pistol-?shot, all her guns bearing, and he heard the returning hail ‘Euryalus. What ship is that?’
‘Surprise. Heave to or I sink you,’ he replied; but the true fire had gone. Under his breath he said, ‘God damn you all to hell, for a set of lubbers.’ Yet hope said it might still be a ruse, and as the ships came up into the wind he stood there still, twice his natural size and all aglow.
But Euryalus she was, and there was Miller in his nightshirt on the quarterdeck: Miller, far senior to him. He pitied the officer of the watch, the lookouts; there
would be the devil to pay - many a bloody back in the morning. ‘Aubrey,’ hailed Miller, ‘where the devil do you come from?’
‘East Indies, sir. Last from the Island.’
‘Why the devil did you not make the night-?signal like a Christian? If this is a joke, sir, a God-?damned pleasantry, I am not amused. Where the hell is my cloak? I am getting wet. Mr Lemmon, Mr Lemmon, I will have a word with you presently, Mr Lemmon. Aubrey, instead of arsing about like a jack-?in-?the-?box, just you run down to Ethalion and tell him to mend his pace. Good day to you.’ He disappeared with a savage growl; and from the bow port under Jack’s feet a voice said ‘Euryalus?’
