sideboys put on their white gloves. The Admiral came aboard in style: hats flew off, and Marines presented arms with a ringing unanimous stamp and clash, while their officer's sword cut a gleaming curve in the sunlight and the bosun's calls wailed over all. Sir Francis touched his own hat, glanced about the quarterdeck, caught sight of Jack's bright yellow hair and called out 'Aubrey! Now that is what I call brisk. Good: very good. I had not looked for you this hour and more. Come along with me.' He led the way to the great cabin, waved Jack to an elbow-chair, settled behind a broad, paper-lined desk and said 'First I must tell you that Worcester is condemned. She should never have been attempted to be repaired: it was a damned job to firk money out of Government. The new surveyors I have brought with me say that without she is completely rebuilt she can never take her place in the line of battle, and she ain't worth it; we have already spent far, far too much on her. So since we are in need of one, I have ordered her to be converted into a sheer-hulk.'
Jack had been expecting this; and since he had the Surprise for the present and the firmly-promised Blackwater for the future he was not much concerned, particularly as the Worcester was one of the few ships he had known that he never could love or even esteem. He bowed, saying 'Yes, sir.'
The Admiral looked at him with approval, and said 'How is Surprise coming along?'
'Pretty well, sir. I went over her this morning, and barring mishaps she should be ready for sea in thirteen days. But, sir, unless I am given a very large draft of men I shall not have hands enough to work her. We have been bled white.'
'You have enough to work a moderate ship?'
'Oh yes, sir: enough to work and fight any sloop in the list.'
'And I dare say most of them are seamen? I dare say you kept the hands that had served with you in other missions?' said the Admiral, taking the list Jack brought from his pocket. 'Yes,' he said, cocking it to the light and holding it at arm's length, 'scarcely a man that is not rated able. Now that is just what I want.' He searched among the folders on his desk, opened one, and said with his rare smile, 'I believe I may be able to put you in the way of a plum. You deserve one, after turning the French out of Marga.' He looked through the papers for some minutes, while Jack gazed out of the stern-windows at the vast sunlit Grand Harbour with the Thunderer, 74, wearing red at the mizen, gliding towards St Elmo under topsails before the west-north-west breeze, bearing Rear-Admiral Harte away to the blockading squadron and its everlasting watch on the French fleet in Toulon.
'Plum?' he thought. 'How I should love a plum. But there are precious few left in the Mediterranean: can he be topping it the ironical comic?'
'Yes,' said the Admiral, 'turning the French out of Marga was a capital stroke. Now,' - taking a chart from the folder and speaking in quite another tone, in the rapid, urgent, emphatic way that came naturally to him when any naval undertaking was in hand - 'bring your chair over here and look at this. Have you ever been in the Red Sea?'
'Only as far as Perim, sir.'
'Well, now, here is the island of Mubara. Its ruler has some galleys and an armed brig or two; he is obnoxious to the Sublime Porte and to the East India Company, and it was thought he could be quietly deposed by a small force arriving unexpectedly, the Company providing an eighteen-gun ship-rigged sloop and the Turks a suitable body of troops and a spare ruler. The sloop is there, lying at Suez with a small crew of lascars and conducting herself as a merchantman, and the Turks are ready with their soldiers. It was thought that Lord Lowestoffe would go out, travelling overland with a party of seamen, and carry out the operation some time next month. But Lowestoffe is sick, and in any case a new situation has arisen. The French want a base for the frigates they have and plan to have in the Indian Ocean and although Mubara is rather far to the north it is a great deal better than nothing. They offered the ruler - his name is Tallal, and he has always been a friend of theirs- gunners and engineers to fortify his harbour, together with a present of gewgaws. But Tallal was not interested in gewgaws: hard cash was what he wanted, and a very great deal of it. Indeed, his demands have increased at every interview. I say, his demands have increased at every interview.'
'Pray why is that, sir?'
'Because now there is a scheme for Mehemet Ali to conquer Arabia right down to the Persian Gulf, declare himself independent, and join with the French in bundling us out of India; and since Mehemet Ali has no navy in the Red Sea, Mubara has become very valuable indeed; all the more so as the French want it in order to keep a check on their ally. Furthermore, Tallal has relations all along the coast, and the present has grown into a sum that is to bring them over to the French side too. Well, now, they have come to an agreement at last and Tallal has sent one of his galleys down to Kassawa to take the Frenchmen aboard and to load the treasure. How much I do not know: some reports put it as high as five thousand purses, some at only half as much, but they all agree it is the silver that Decaen sent away from the Mauritius just before the island was taken, in a brig loaded to the gunwales. But you know all about that, of course.'
Of course he did: apart from the last purely formal stages, when his admiral assumed command, Jack it was who had taken the Mauritius, at the head of a small squadron. 'Yes, sir,' he said. 'I heard about that wretched brig. I even saw her, hull down to the north, but could not chase: I much regretted it.'
'I dare say you did. Well, now, that was at the beginning of their Ramadan: when it is over the galley will return. Do you wish to hear about their Ramadan, Aubrey?'
'If you please, sir.'
'It is a kind of Lent, but far more thorough-paced. They are not allowed to eat or drink or have to do with women from sunrise to sunset, and it lasts from one new moon to the next. Some say travellers are excused, but these people, these Mubaraites, are uncommon pious and they say that is all stuff - everyone must fast or be damned. So since no one can be expected to row a galley some hundreds of miles up the Red Sea - at this time of year the prevailing winds are all northerly, and it is a matter of pulling all the way, galleys being so unweatherly - hundreds of miles, I say, without a drop of water under that infernal sun, nor yet a bite to eat, they mean to sit in Kassawa until Ramadan is over. Now I do not like galleys - frail ricketty affairs that cannot stand a sea and too crank to bear much sail unless the wind is right aft: dangerous, too, if two or three of them come up on you in a dead calm and hammer you for a while and then board you on both sides with several hundred men - do not like galleys, but all officers with local knowledge and all our other informants agree that in those waters they are as regular as the post, pulling their twelve hours and then snugging down for the night. So at least we know where to find them. A ship cruising off the southern channel to Mubara, keeping well clear of these shoals and small islands here, you see, could hardly fail to intercept the galley with the treasure aboard on about the fifteenth day of the moon. She would then proceed to Mubara with the Turks for them to carry out the deposition, which is none of our business.'
'It would call for rapid, well-coordinated movement, sir,' said Jack in reply to the Admiral's expectant pause.
'Speed is the essence of attack,' said the Admiral. 'It also calls for a man who is not slack in stays and who is used to dealing with Turks and Albanians. Mehemet Ali is an Albanian, you know, and so are many of his soldiers
