gun frigate's mainmast and the doubled travelling-backstays that Jack had endowed her with. And although he might have a most unfortunate reputation as a man who could not maintain discipline, Latham handled her well. She was under topgallants and full topsails with windward studdingsails on the main and fore: it looked dangerous, but it was a trim that suited the Surprise and she was running her ten or even eleven knots without the least risk to her spars.
The combined speed of the squadron and of the frigate brought them together at a splendid pace, yet to those who so longed for post and for news of home and the war by land the formalities of her making her number, making the private signal, and heaving to the wind to salute the flag with seventeen guns seemed exceedingly tedious. The flagship returned the civility with a quick, barking thirteen and immediately afterwards threw out a signal requiring the Surprise to strike her topgallantmasts: it was said that the Admiral had rather lose a pint of blood than a spar, and certainly he hated to see any ship endanger masts, yards, cordage or canvas when these might be needed for the supreme effort at some unknown moment - tomorrow, perhaps.
The Surprise, looking stumpy with topmasts alone, ran under the Admiral's stern. Her captain was seen to go aboard him in a barge containing five sacks, presumably of mails: the dispatches would be the sailcloth packet he held in his hand. Now the time dragged more painfully still, even though there was the diversion of another sail seen on the blurred southern horizon, a puzzling sail, until the clearing weather showed it to be two, a sloop and a Spanish victualler. Those who possessed watches looked at them; others came aft on various pretexts to peer at the sand in the half-hour glass; the Marine in charge gave it a privy jerk to hasten the sand in its fall. Endless surmises, vain conjectures as to the cause of the delay: the general opinion was that Captain Latham was being told that he was the kind of officer who should never sail without a store-ship in company; that he knew as much of seamanship as the King's attorney-general; and that the Admiral would not trust him with a boat in a trout- stream. But just at the one moment when the signal-midshipman had taken his eye from the flagship's mizen-peak twenty voices all around him uttered a meaning cough, and turning he saw the hoist break out: 'Boyne, a boat and a lieutenant to repair aboard the flag. Defender, a boat and a lieutenant to repair aboard the flag,' and so it ran, hoist after hoist, until at last the Worcester's turn came round. Throughout the squadron the boats splashed down and pulled double-banked at racing speed for the Admiral, returning with infinitely welcome post and the scarcely less welcome newspapers from home.
Apart from the watch on deck, the Worcesters retired to what privacy they could find in a man-of-war, where those who could read learnt something of that other world they had left, and those who could not had it spelled out to them. Jack was far more favoured than the majority in this respect as in most others, and inviting Stephen to come and share a pot, he walked into his great after-cabin, where each could have a corner and an easy chair to himself. He had a fine comfortable packet of letters from Sophie: all was well at home, apart from the chicken- pox and Caroline's teeth, which had been obliged to be filed by a dentist in Winchester; a strange blight had struck the roses, but on the other hand his new plantation of oaks was shooting up amazingly. They had seen a good deal of Diana, who was often driven down by Captain Jagiello, to whom Mrs Williams, Sophie's mother, was absolutely devoted, declaring that he was the handsomest man she had ever beheld, and so beautifully rich; and their new neighbour, Admiral Saunders, was most kind and attentive - all their neighbours were kind and attentive. And there were laboriously-written notes from the children themselves hoping that he was quite well; they were quite well: and each told him it was raining and that Caroline had had her teeth filed by a dentist in Winchester. But .the whole packet was domestic, from the first letter to the last: not a single word, good or bad, from his lawyers. Having read his home-letters over again, smiling as he did so, he pondered over this silence: a favourable omen or not? He took a guinea from his pocket, tossed it, missed his catch and sent the coin flying across to the table where Stephen was dealing with his correspondence, some cheerful, ill-spelt scrawls from Diana, describing a very active social life in London and observing, in a casual aside, that she had been mistaken about her pregnancy; some miscellaneous communications, mostly of a scientific nature; a note from the Admiral enclosing a friendly, even an affectionate letter to 'my dear Maturin' from Sir Joseph Blaine, his chief in Intelligence, together with two reports and a coded despatch. He had digested the reports and he was reading one of the unscientific communications when the guinea landed on the coded dispatch. On the face of it the letter in his hand called for no deciphering: in plain terms and an obviously disguised hand an anonymous correspondent told him that he was a cuckold and that his wife was deceiving him with a Swedish attache', Captain Jagiello. He nevertheless hoped to make out the writer's identity, to break the code, as it were; there were few English men or women who would have spelt his name with an h, although it was usual in France; and he had already picked out some other significant details. The letter, and the puzzle, amused him: the malignancy and its transparent covering of righteous indignation were perfect of their kind and but for his ingrained sense of secrecy he would have shown it to Jack. In the event he did no more than return the guinea with a private smile.
They exchanged the essence of their family news and then Stephen observed that he intended leaving for Spain in the morning: 'The Admiral tells me that as soon as the victualler shall have discharged its cabbages, onions and tobacco, it will carry me to Barcelona.'
'Lord, Stephen,' cried Jack, his face falling, 'So soon? Damn me, I shall miss you.'
'We shall soon meet again, with the blessing,' said Stephen. 'I expect to be in Mahon before very long.'
In the momentary silence they both heard the sentry hail an approaching boat and the boat's reply 'Dryad', signifying that the Dryad's captain was coming aboard.
'Damn him,' said Jack, and in answer to Stephen's questioning look, 'She is that slab-sided sloop that came in with the victualler while we were reading our letters, a horrible old little lumpish round-sterned Dutch tub, captured about the time of the Spanish Armada and madly over-gunned with her fourteen twelve-pounders. I do not know who has her now. However,' he said, standing up, 'I suppose I must do the civil: do not stir, Stephen, I beg.'
Within seconds he was back again, strong pleasure shining in his face, and before him he urged a small, compact, round-headed officer, as pleased as himself, a gentleman who had served under him as a first-class volunteer, midshipman and lieutenant and who was now, largely because of Jack, a commander, the captain of that lumpish ill-looking tub the Dryad.
'William Babbington, my dear,' cried Stephen, 'I am delighted to see you, joy. How do you do?'
The Dryad's captain told them how he did with all the ease and freedom and detail of a long and intimate acquaintance, a friendship as close as the difference in their ages would allow - a difference that had grown less important with the passing of the years. Having drunk half a pint of madeira, having made all proper enquiries after Mrs Aubrey, the children, and Mrs Maturin, and having promised to dine aboard the Worcester tomorrow (weather permitting) in the company of his old shipmates Pullings and Mowett, he sprang to his feet at the sound of three bells. 'Since Dryad is to be attached to the squadron,' he said, 'I must wait on Admiral Harte. It would never do to put a foot wrong with him. I am deep enough in his bad books already.'
'Why, William, what have you been at?' asked Jack. 'You can hardly have vexed him in the Channel?'
'No, sir,' said Babbington. 'It was not really a service matter. Do you remember his daughter Fanny?'
Both Jack and Stephen had a vague recollection of a thickset, swarthy, hirsute, spotted girl: their hearts sank. From his earliest youth, from a shockingly precocious age, Babbington had pursued the fair; and that was well enough, perfectly in the naval tradition; but although an excellent seaman, he lacked discrimination by land and he reckoned almost anything clothed in a skirt as one of the fair. Sometimes he attacked ravishing creatures with
