in St Paul's. Peaceful, but active: they were able to destroy or take away a hundred and twenty-one guns and an immense quantity of powder and shot, to blow up the remaining fortifications, to reduce the naval yard to a mere desolation with not so much as a paint-pot in it, and to do wonders for that fine frigate the Caroline: while the Commodore and the Colonel had time to write their despatches, a most arduous and delicate undertaking. When Jack's were finished at last, stripped of all humanity and copied fair in Mr Peter's hands, together with the very moderate casualty-list, an exact amount of the captured ships and vessels, a somewhat less exact account of the government stores and provisions taken, and many other documents, he came to his difficult decision.
He sent for Corbett and Clonfert, receiving them in some state with his secretary beside him. To the first he said, 'Captain Corbett, since we already have a Caroline in the service, I have provisionally renamed her the Bourbonnaise; but there is nothing provisional in my offering you the command of her, and at the same time desiring you to proceed forthwith to the Cape with my despatches. I have no doubt the Admiral will send you straight home with them, so I will burden you, if I may, with my own personal letters. I have manned her with something near her complement, barring Marines of course, from the merchant-seamen released at St Paul's, so I must ask you to be very moderate in the article of followers. Here is your order, and this is my private packet.'
Corbett's habitually angry face was ill-suited for the expression of pleasure, but even so it cracked and expanded with delight. The man who carried these despatches--the news of the neatest, completest little victory in his experience--would be much caressed at the Admiralty: would be certain of the next plum going.
'I shall be moderation incarnate, sir,' he said. 'And may I say, sir, that nothing could increase my sense of this command more than the obliging manner in which it has been given?'
To the second he said, 'Lord Clonfert, it gives me great pleasure to appoint you to the Nereide, vice Captain Corbett. Tomkinson, your first lieutenant, may have the Otter.' Clonfert too flushed bright at the news, the entirely unexpected news, of this decisive step in his career, the vital change from a sloop to a post-ship; he too made his acknowledgments, and more gracefully by far than Corbett; and for a while the full shining glory of the first day on La Reunion returned, indeed a greater glory. Yet it seemed to have some slight bitter aftertaste, for as he was taking his leave he said, with a smile not wholly of unmixed happiness, 'I never thought, sir, when we were lieutenants together, that it would be you that made me Post.'
'He is an odd fish, Clonfert,' said Jack to Stephen, between two peaceful duets. 'You might almost think I had done him an injury, giving him his step.'
'You did so advisedly, not from any sudden whim? It is the real expression of your sense of his deserts, and not an alms? He should in fact be made a post-captain?'
'Why,' said Jack, 'it is rather a case of faute de mieux, as you would say. I should not like to have to rely upon him at all times; but one of them had to go, and he is a better captain than Corbett. His men will follow him anywhere. Perhaps he may lay out popularity more than I think right, but whether or no, your foremast Jack dearly loves a lord; and I must take advantage of that just as I should take advantage of a tide or a shift in the wind; I shall let him take most of his Otters into the Nereide, and scatter the Nereide about the squadron. That was 4 damned unhealthy ship.' He shook his head, looking grave, and played a series of deep notes: they changed however, promising a happy development; but before he reached it his dry bow refused its duty, and he reached out for the rosin.
'When you have done with my rosin, Jack--my rosin, I say--would you be prepared to reveal our immediate destination?'
'It will please you, I believe. We must take Keating back to Rodriguez first, and you shall have a romp with your tortoises and your vampires; then, while the rest of the squadron is blockading Mauritius, down to the Cape to leave Eliot and the poor old Raisonable; then back in the Boadicea, which is taking the Indiamen south. Back to these waters, to see what can be done about the remaining frigates, unless you and Farquhar have further designs on La Reunion. I will not say I am sanguine, Stephen, because that might not be very clever; but I remember when you asked me how I should set the odds some weeks ago, I said three to five against us. Now I should say they are evens, or slightly in our favour.'
CHAPTER FIVE
The Admiral was pleased with the Commodore, as well he might be, for not only had Jack captured one of the four powerful French frigates that so disturbed Mr Bertie's peace of mind, and retaken two Indiamen together with a useful eighteen-gun sloop, not only had he destroyed one of the strongest French bases in the Indian Ocean, doing so with such briskness that the Admiral's dispositions would be admired even in Whitehall, which always called for quick results, but he had also enriched Mr Bertie to the extent of several thousand pounds. Just how many thousand it was impossible to say until a tribe of officials six thousand miles away should have set a value on a prodigious number of objects such as the three hundred and twenty pikes, forty rammers and forty sponges taken at St Paul's; but in any case Admiral Bertie would eventually receive one twelfth of the total sum that they arrived at: without having stirred hand or foot, without having given any advice more valuable than a general exhortation to 'go in and win', he had acquired a considerable addition to his fortune; and ever since his first charming conference with Captain Corbett, the forerunner of the squadron, he had spent the chief of his time in drawing up detailed plans for new stabling and a pine-house at Langton Castle, where he lived, while in default of the coronet for which she longed, Mrs Bertie should have a suit of lace.
Yet although the Admiral was perhaps a little devious beneath his bonhomie he had a grateful heart--a fairly grateful heart; at least he was no gripe farthing; and the moment the Raisonable was signalled he began to lay on a feast, sending two boats away to the westward for lobsters, his favourite dish.
As he led the Commodore towards this glowing spread, which was attended by almost all the eminent men and all the beautiful women of Cape Town, so long as they were white, he said, 'How happy I am to see you back so soon, Aubrey, and how very well things have turned out! I sent Corbett straight home with your splendid news, as soon as I had dashed off my covering letter: you will have a Gazette to yourself, I am sure. What a pretty ship she is, too, your Bourbonnatse--fine narrow entry, and as stiff as a steeple. I wish our yards could turn 'em out like that: yet after all, if you young fellows take 'em ready made, it saves our shipwrights' time, eh? Ha, ha. I confirmed her new name, by the by, and shall confirm all your appointments: I am glad Clonfert is made post, though that was a sad unlucky stroke with the Company's silk: I dare say you keel-hauled him for it at the time. Still, 'tis of no use crying over spilt milk, as I always tell Mrs Bertie; and all's well that ends well. Clonfert is made post, and you have taken four thumping prizes and half a dozen little ones. You did not see anything else on your way down, I suppose, Just for the bonne bouche, as they say, ha, ha?'
'Well, sir, we sighted that Russian sloop Diana beating about off Rodriguez; but I thought I should best fall in with your views by disregarding her.'
The Admiral did not seem to hear. After a momentary absence he went on, 'Well, and so you knocked their batteries about their ears. I am glad of it, and Farquhar is cock-a-hoop, as far as a dry stick of a man like that can be cock-a-hoop--drinks no wine, and the water has rotted all the joy out of him- I did not ask him to this dinner: in any case, he declines all invitations. He is longing to see you, however, and your Dr Maturin; for the next bite, once Rodriguez is reinforced, is Bourbon for good and all. Or La Reunion, or Ile Buonaparte, as they call it. Damned fools: this chopping and changing is typical of your foreigner, don't you find, Aubrey? That should be with the next
