business, and met Jack at their appointed place. 'The capitulation is signed, I collect?' he said.
'Yes,' said Jack. 'Uncommon handsome terms, too: they march out with colours flying, match burning, drum beating--all the honours of war--and they are not to be prisoners. Tell me, how did you find Clonfert? I have his wife's letter here in my pocket.'
'I did not see him this morning: he was asleep. McAdam seems to think his general state to be much the same. He should come through, I believe, barring accidents: but of course he will be horribly disfigured. That will have a bearing on his state of mind, and in these -cases the patient's mind is of great importance. I propose leaving you under the trees near the gate, while I attend to his dressings with McAdam. He may be in no state to receive you.'
They made their way up the hill, talking of the ceremony. 'Farquhar was astonished you had not been invited,' said Jack. 'He checked the Admiral so hard we all looked away--said your work had saved innumerable lives and that the slight must be repaired: you should be given the place of honour at his official dinner. The Admiral looked concerned, and salaamed, and said he would instantly do everything in his power--would mention you with the greatest respect in his despatch; and then he ran off like a boy to start writing it--had been itching to do so since dawn. And a precious document it will be, I am sure, ha, ha, ha. Much the same as most of 'em, only more so; but it will certainly have a whole Gazette to itself.'
'Who is to carry it?'
'Oh, his nephew, I dare say, or one of his favourite captains: it is the greatest plum to carry these last five years and more--attendance at court, kind words and a tip from the King, dinner at Guldhall, freedom of this and that: promotion of course or a damned good billet. I shall give the lucky man my letters to Sophie--he will go like the wind, cracking on regardless, homeward bound with such welcome news, the dog.'
Jack's mind flew off to Hampshire, and it was still there when Stephen said in a louder tone, 'I repeat, what do you think is our next destination?'
'Eh? Oh, Java, no doubt, to have a crack at the Dutchmen.'
'Java: oh, indeed. Listen, now: here are your trees. There is a bench. I shall be with you directly.'
The hospital courtyard was in a strange state of disorder: not only the confusion of a defeat, with people making the most of a vacation of power to carry off everything portable, but something quite out of the common. Stephen walked faster when he heard McAdam's raucous northern voice calling out, and he pushed through a knot of attendants staring up at the verandah. McAdam was drunk, but not so drunk that he could not stand, not so drunk that he did not recognize Stephen.--'Make a lane, there,' he cried. 'Make a lane for the great Dublin physician. Come and see your patient, Dr Maturin, you whore.'
In the low-ceilinged room the shutters drawn against the noonday sun made Clonfert's blood show almost black: no great pool, but all there was in his small, wasted body. He lay on his back, arms spread out and dangling, the unshattered side of his face looking beautiful and perfectly grave, even severe. The bandage had been torn from his neck.
Stephen bent to listen for any trace of a heart-beat, straightened, closed Clonfert's eyes, and pulled up the sheet. McAdam sat on the side of the bed, weeping now, his fury gone with his shouting; and between his sobs he said, 'It was the cheering that woke him. What are they cheering for? says he, and I said the French have surrendered. Aubrey will be here and you shall have your Nereide back. Never, by God, says he, not from Jack Aubrey: run out McAdam and see are they coming. And when I stepped out of the door so he did it, and so bloody Christ he did it.' A long silence, and he said, 'Your Jack Aubrey destroyed him. Jack Aubrey destroyed him.'
Stephen crossed the blazing courtyard again, and under the trees Jack stood up, expectant. His smile vanished when Stephen said, 'He is dead,' and they paced down in silence through the town. A town busier now, with the shops opening, men posting up the proclamation, large numbers of people walking about, companies of soldiers marching, parties of bluejackets, queues forming outside the brothels, several French officers who saluted punctiliously, putting the best face they could on defeat. Stephen stopped to kneel as the Sacrament passed by to a deathbed, a single priest and a boy with a bell.
'I trust he went easy?' said Jack in a low voice, at last.
Stephen nodded, and he looked at Jack with his pale, expressionless eyes, looking objectively at his friend, tall, sanguine, almost beefy, full of health, rich, and under his kindly though moderate concern happy and even triumphant. He thought, 'You cannot blame the bull because the frog burst: the bull has no comprehension of the affair,' but even so he said, 'Listen, Jack: I do not much care for the taste of this victory. Nor any victory, if it comes to that. I shall see you at dinner.'
The dinner was nothing in comparison with those usually eaten at Government House under the rule of General Decaen: many of his cooks and all of his plate had vanished in the brief interregnum, and a stray mortar bomb had destroyed part of the wall. But even so the creole dishes made a pleasant contrast with the hard fare of recent days, and above all the ceremony provided an ideal occasion for speeches.
Something, reflected Jack, something came over officers who reached flag rank or the equivalent, something that made them love to get up on their hind legs and produce long measured periods with even longer pauses between them. Several gentlemen had already risen to utter slow compliments to themselves, their fellows, and their nation, and now General Abercrombie was struggling to his feet, with a sheaf of notes in his hand. 'Your Excellency, my lords, Admiral Bertle, and gentlemen. We are met here together,' two bars of silence, 'on this happy, eh, occasion,' two more bars, 'to celebrate what I may perhaps be permitted to call, an unparalleled feat, of combined operations, of combination, valour, organization, and I may say, of indomitable will.' Pause. 'I take no credit to myself.' Cries of No, no; and cheers. 'No. It is all due,' pause, 'to a young lady in Madras.'
'Sir, sir,' hissed his aide-de-camp, 'you have turned over two pages. You have come to the joke.'
It took some time to get the General back to his eulogy of Abercrombie and all present, and in the interval Jack looked anxiously at his friend, one of the few black coats present, sitting on the Governor's right. Stephen loathed speeches, but though paler than usual he seemed to be bearing up, and Jack noticed with pleasure that as well as his own he was secretly drinking the wine poured into the abstinent Governor's glass.
The General boomed on, came to a close, a false close, rallied and began again, and at last sank into his chair, glared round in surly triumph and drank like a camel with a broad desert before it.
A broad desert threatened, to be sure, for here was Admiral Bertle, fresh and spry, game for a good half hour: and his first words about his inability to match the gallant General's eloquence struck a chill to Jack's heart. His mind wandered during the Admiral's compliments to the various corps that made up the force, and he was in the act of building an observatory-dome of superior design on the top of Ashgrove hill--he had of course purchased the hill and felled the trees on the summit--when he heard Mr Bertie's voice take on a new and unctuous tone.
