Forshaw, who walked slowly, awkwardly towards the forehatch, his chin trembling, his companions urging him in a whisper 'to bear up, old chap, and not let those - ing Flitches see', for a knot of grinning reefers stood by the larboard rail.
'There is always something in the misfortune of others that does not displease us,' observed Stephen. 'Will you look at the wicked malicious glee of those snotty midshipmen, now? Poor child, I shall poultice him with the best linseed mash; and a comfortable analgesic too.' A pause. 'But golden days, as you so rightly say, Master. Now that I reflect, I cannot remember ever having passed my time so pleasantly, at sea. If it were not for the health of my marsupials, I could wish nothing changed at all.'
'Do they pine, sir?'
'They miss their filth. That is to say, the wombats miss their filth. Their quarters are cleaned out most rigorously twice a day, and sometimes, I have reason to believe, by night. Now I am aware that in a man-of-war there is no place for filth - perhaps no place for a troop of wombats either - yet I cannot but regret it, and shall be glad when we reach the Cape. I have an excellent friend at Simon's Town, that keeps a number of contented aardvarks in purely nominal captivity: to him I shall confide my marsupials. Do not think, however, that I intend the least reflection on La Fl?e - a most - ' he had been about to say 'commodious machine', but the sight of well over a hundred Flitches swarming about the narrow deck with a great number of empty water-casks made him change the word to 'well-conducted'. 'It will not be long, Doctor. For although it looks bloody in the west just now - Lord, how the deck shines red! - I think I can promise you the breeze will hold; and unless my reckoning is sadly out, tomorrow we shall raise the land.'
The master's reckoning was true. La Fl?e made as pretty a landfall as could be wished, and the following dawn she glided in under topsails with the tide, right down Simon's Bay to the well-remembered anchorage; a wonderfully silent progress after all these weeks of strong winds loud in the rigging and the water racing along her side. Silence, with the shore moving past; a prolonged and dream-like silence shattered at last by La Fl?e's salute, the roaring acknowledgment, and the splash of her best bower.
From that moment on all peace was at an end. A ship carrying despatches was required to come and go with even greater haste than the ordinary man-of-war. La Fl?e set about completing her water as though her life depended on catching the next tide but two; stores and wood and provisions flowed into her, and some flowed secretly out; again and again Stephen heard the words 'Lose not a minute'; again and again he fagged along the dusty road to Cape Town in a rickety cart full of wondering marsupials, confined beneath a net, until he found them a suitable haven; for his friend van der Poel had moved house, aardvarks and all. He was so active on shore that it was not until La Fl?e was standing out to sea and her captain sitting down to his dinner that he heard of the United States' declaration of war.
The news was received with mixed feelings aboard La Fl?e: some of the officers who still felt strongly about the War of Independence welcomed it; others, who had American friends or who thought that the whole affair had been shockingly bungled by the Tories and the army and that in any case a desire for independence was natural, regretted it. Others again left politics to politicians, but supposed that if they had to fight the Americans as well as Bonaparte and his allies, then it was all part of their calling; and at least there might be some hope of prize- money. The glorious days of Spanish treasure-ships were gone for ever; French prizes were precious thin on the ground; but American merchantmen had taken to carrying much of the world's trade, and they might be met with anywhere at all. Bonden told Stephen that upon the whole the lower deck was not pleased: apart from the regular man-of-war's men, they were mostly hands taken out of merchantships or pressed on shore; many had sailed in American vessels and all had had American shipmates. Although they liked the notion of prize-money, they could not see much sense in fighting Americans: there were half a dozen Americans aboard at this moment, and they were practically the same as Englishmen - no airs or graces about them - and you could not say fairer than that. Fighting the French was different; they were foreigners, and somehow it came natural. But generally speaking the whole ship's company looked upon this new war as a matter of no great importance; there might be some advantage in it, but as a contest it was neither here nor there, compared to the war with France. No details had reached the Cape, but everybody knew that the Americans did not possess a single ship of the line, whereas the Royal Navy had over a hundred actually at sea, to say nothing of those building or in reserve.
Yet although the issue of the war as far as it concerned the sailors was a foregone conclusion - the Royal Navy had, after all, spent the last twenty years beating every fleet that was brought against it, taking, burning or sinking the enemy in the mass or in detail wherever he floated - Captain Yorke for one was doubtful, if not despondent, about the outcome on land. If the Americans had beaten the British army in eighty-one they might do so again, particularly as so many of the best regiments were engaged in the Peninsula; and then the French in Quebec could scarcely be expected to show much zeal on the English side. What he feared was a sudden crossing of the border to take the naval base of Halifax from behind. That would be extremely inconvenient; but even so he was quite happy about the naval side. There were the West Indies, there was Bermuda, there were of course the home bases, and he and Jack fell to working out the composition of the squadron required to keep the American navy in check or to destroy it, in the event of a general engagement, on the assumption that Halifax was gone.
They had always taken a keen professional interest in the navies of other powers, even of so young a power as the United States, and when Stephen asked 'What does the American navy consist of, pray?' they were able to answer him at once.
'Apart from their sloops and brigs, they have only eight frigates', said Yorke. 'Eight, no more. It would be stark staring madness to declare war with only eight frigates when your opponents have more than six hundred cruisers at sea, if you meant to do anything in the naval line; but of course their real aim is Canada - they cannot mean to do anything at sea, except for snapping up a few prizes before their ships are taken or blockaded in the Chesapeake.'
'Eight frigates,' said Jack. 'Two of them we should scarcely call frigates at all, nowadays; a thirty-two and a twenty-eight by the name of Adams; then three eighteen-pounders, rated thirty-eight guns apiece, much the same as ours though perhaps a little beamier, Constellation, Congress, and Chesapeake; and then three more, heavier than anything. we have, President, Constitution, and United States, all rated forty-four guns and all carrying twenty-four-pounders. I dare say Acasta will be ordered to the American station to cope with them, together with Endymion and Indefatigable. I shall like that; there is splendid shooting behind Halifax.'
'When you say heavier than anything we possess, do you mean in physical bulk, or in the magnitude of their artillery?'
'I really meant the guns. They have long twenty-fours as opposed to our eighteens - they fire balls that weigh four and twenty pounds, rather than eighteen. Six pound more, do you see?' said Jack kindly. 'But, of course one goes with t'other. The American forty-fours must gauge about fifteen hundred ton, while our thirty-eights are only a trifle over a thousand. Acasta is one thousand one hundred and sixty, if I don't mistake, and she carries forty eighteen-pounders.'
'Would not this preponderance give the enemy a great advantage? Suppose he were to dash his beakhead against you, would not his greater mass bear you down, as the Turks were borne down at Lepanto?'
'Dear Doctor,' said Yorke, 'those are galley tactics. In modern scientific war mere weight does not signify, except that the thickness of your scantlings is some protection to your gun-crews at long range and enables you to carry heavier guns. Yardarm to yardarm, it does not make much odds: an eighteen-pound ball will do just about as
