'Oh no,' said Stephen. 'At this stage a day is a year.'
'If I may say so, sir,' said Jack, 'I believe I see a way out of the difficulty. We sighted two Danes this morning: since I was aware that speed was of the first importance I did not chase; but I did notice that one of them, a cat, made no attempt to escape. She carried on under courses, steering for Riga, and I make no doubt she was sailing under your licence. Now, sir, the wind serves, and the weather is clearing fast; Ariel, as you know, sir, is a very fair sailer, and if I might have your permission to as it were suspend the cat's licence, I believe I could overhaul her. She was heavy, she was slow, and I believe she was short-handed.'
The Admiral considered, whistling silently. 'That is a possible solution,' he said. 'It is not particularly scrupulous; but necessity knows no law. On the other hand there is the possibility of missing her. and of thereby losing two days. The alternative is to wait until one of my cruisers picks up a Dane, licensed or not. It is more certain; but they are scattered from the Alands down to Rugen. Orders would have to reach them, and we should be obliged to pay for the certainty with time. What says Dr Maturin?'
'I have every confidence in Captain Aubrey's ability to seize upon anything that swims,' said Maturin. 'And this is a situation in which I believe we must not lose a minute.' Ever since he had taken to the sea he had been harassed by the cry 'Lose not a minute' and it gave him a certain pleasure to use it himself at last. 'Lose not a minute,' he repeated, savouring the words, and went on, 'As for the moral issue, are we to weigh the hypothetical inconvenience suffered by the cat against the certain death of several thousand men? For I understand that if the island cannot be induced to submit; it must be stormed.' Now that the whole process was in train, now that the long fuse had been lit, he felt a curious levity mingling with his thoughts and he was tempted to repeat Jack Aubrey's joke about always choosing the lesser of two weevils. In most circumstances he would have done so; but there was'something about Admiral Saumarez, an indefinable unaffected magnitude, that made him keep his amusement to himself.
Yet for all Sir James's real dignity Stephen did not hesitate to interrupt the technical discussion between the sailors some moments later. 'I should like to raise the point of wine and tobacco once more,' he said, emerging from his thoughts. 'Would it be possible, sir, to charge the Ariel with an adequate supply of these commodities, so that the eventual merchantman will in fact be found to be what she professes to be?'
'Tobacco, certainly,' said the Admiral. 'Wine may be more difficult, though I dare say the wardrooms of the squadron would yield a fair amount; and we could always fill up with rum, if you feel that would be suitable.'
'Rum would answer tolerably well,' said Stephen, 'although wine would be better. And now, sir, I have some more important observations. This is clearly an expedition that must end either in complete success or in complete failure: there is little point in discussing the failure, so, if you please, I will speak only of the happier event. As you are no doubt aware, I made it a condition of my stepping in that the Catalan troops on Grimsholm should not be treated as prisoners of war, and that they should be carried to Spain with arms and baggage at His Majesty's charges. It is a small price to pay for the bloodless delivery of such a fortress, I believe; and in any case I am intimately convinced that once they are in the Peninsula they will at once engage on Lord Wellington's side.'
'It would indeed be a trifling price,' said the Admiral, 'and fortunately I have the transports here, just at hand. Mr Ponsich made the same condition.'
'Very good, very good,' said Stephen. 'I now come to another point: the commanders of the transports should be strongly impressed with the necessity for according the Catalan officers all the usual compliments of salutes and guns and flags and so on, with all or even more than all the usual ceremony. Their position is irregular; their pride susceptible to the last degree. The least appearance of a slight might have the most unfortunate effects.' He paused. 'But I am running too far ahead. Ideally, sir, the operation would proceed on these lines: the emissary is landed from the merchantman while the Ariel and the transports remain out of sight; he carries his point; after a stated interval the Ariel comes nearer to see his signal; she in her turn calls the transports, which come in with a body of gunners sufficiently numerous to man the batteries, and the transfer takes place at once, while the prospect of the journey home still has its full exhilarating effect and the indignation against the French is at its height; for the sooner they arc out and the sooner the possibility of jealousies or disagreement is done away with the better. All this may be too much to ask, but perhaps some part at least may be feasible.'
'As far as the transports are concerned,' said Admiral Saumarez, 'I see no difficulty, always providing the wind serves; for as you know, Dr Maturin, we are wholly tributary to the winds. If Captain Aubrey can do his part with the necessary Dane, I believe we can do ours with the troop-carriers and the gunners, and indeed with the wine and tobacco that you mentioned. I fully take your point about the necessity for a very rapid transfer; and I see, sir, that the Admiralty was not at all mistaken in advising me to rely upon Dr Maturin's sagacity.'
'The Admiralty was too kind entirely,' said Stephen, 'too indulgent by far. But to tell you the truth of it, sir, this is a conjuncture in which I had rather be granted a single small cup of luck than a whole tun of wisdom.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a black night for the squadron when the Ariel slipped her moorings and stood out into the rain-swept midnight sea, for she carried with her most of the wardrooms' wine and an uneasy proportion of the foremast- jacks' rum and tobacco, as well as twenty prime hands chosen from among the many Dutchmen, Poles, Finns and Letts in the fleet. She left something near prostration behind her, with little to enliven or revive it: in all his experience of naval life Stephen Maturin had never seen anything to equal the speed with which the Ariel was equipped - boats crowded about her, stores flowing in under the immediate supervision of Sir James. The Admiral contributed three tierces of a noble claret to the cargo, observing that he should willingly drink green tea for the rest of the commission rather than jeopardize Ariel's chances; and after that no wardroom could do less. She stood out, therefore, deeper in the water than she had stood in, more crowded than ever, with barrels still lashed provisionally here and there on deck, the purser and the mate of the hold out of their wits, and more than half of her crew suspiciously jolly if not downright drunk.
'There will be a long defaulters' list tomorrow,' said Jack, in a tone that sensibly reduced the merriment. He had just emerged from a long session with Mr Pellworm and the master, in which they had each independently laid down a course to intercept the licensed Dane they had passed not long before, the creeping, short-handed cat: three courses that coincided almost exactly, courses designed to find the cat in the first hours of full day. 'Mr Fenton, we must have very good men at the wheel, and they must steer north seventeen east exactly. Wittgenstein, the quartermaster from the flagship, will do for one: an excellent seaman - I have sailed with him before. You will heave the log at every glass, keeping as near as possible to six knots, making or reducing sail accordingly; above all, do not exceed - we must not pass in the darkness. And although I do not expect to see her before dawn, you will keep sharp, sober men at the masthead, changing them every glass. The lookout that first sights the cat shall have ten guineas and remission of sins, short of mutiny, sodomy, or damaging the paintwork. I am to be called should anything occur, or should there be any change of wind.' In his earlier ships he would have gone on to say that he was about to sup with the Doctor on a very strange dish, a salted buzzard produced by the Commandant at Gothenburg, and they would probably have talked about tomorrow's prospects for a while: but this was a temporary command; he hardly knew his officers, and in any case they seemed so young as almost to belong to another species. Their deference was burdensome, and it would require a real effort on his part, even at a social gathering, to cross the gap, as far as it could be crossed at all. But the god-like remoteness of command came naturally to him now, and having desired Fenton to repeat his orders and to place the written copy in the binnacle drawer he went directly below.
