quarterdeck where the captured officers stood. 'It is a pleasure to see you walking about and looking so well, sir,' said one of them.
'You are very good, sir,' replied Jack. Then, conscious of an absence, he ran his eye sharply over the little band and cried, 'Where is Mr Dutourd? Bonden, jump down to his cabin and rouse him out. Find his servant.'
There was no Dutourd: nor could his servant be found though the ship, the prize and the schooner-rigged launch towing astern were searched through and through with all the skill of those accustomed to hiding goods from customs officers and men from impressment. His sea-chest, with the plate reading Jean du Tourd, was in his cabin, and all his clothes; his writing-desk, open and disordered, with some papers presumably taken from it; but his purse, which Jack had restored, was not to be seen.
The testimonies were extraordinarily varied: they agreed only in that Dutourd had not dined in the gunroom for quite a while and that he had seemed to be offended - was thought to be messing by himself. But how long that time was no one could tell for certain. Even Killick, the most inquisitive man aboard, had no sure, clearly-dated knowledge, and to Jack's astonishment he was not even aware that Dutourd had been refused leave to go to Callao in the Surprise with his former shipmates -did not even know that he had asked for permission. No one could swear to having seen him on the quarterdeck after the Franklin had parted company: none could swear to the contrary: most had the impression that he was keeping his cabin, studying or sick.
There were several possibilities, and Jack turned them over in his mind as he sat, alone at last, in the Franklin's stern window: Dutourd might have brought his belongings over from the Surprise to the Franklin, returning on some pretext and there concealing himself. He might have walked into the Alas tor when she was alongside, transferring stores: the same applied to the whaler. And there was the launch, sent in to bring hands from Callao.
It was the outcome that really mattered, however: in his reserved way Stephen had said that sending Dutourd in to Callao 'might be impolitic'; and there was no doubt that Dutourd was in Callao at this moment.
'Pass the word for Mr Vidal,' he called, and when Vidal came, 'Sit down, Mr Vidal. Who took the launch into Callao?'
'I did, sir,' said Vidal, changing colour.
'How did she handle?'
'Sir?'
'How did she handle? Is she a weatherly boat? Does she hold a good wind?'
'Yes, sir. She points up very close indeed: makes almost no leeway, close-hauled, a jewel of a...' His voice died away.
'Very well. Pray have her victualled and stored, with masts stepped, before the first dog.'
'... craft,' said Vidal, finishing his words.
'Do not let them forget fishing-tackle and a casting net: it may need two or three days to beat in if this wind don't change. I shall take Bonden, Killick, Plaice, William Johnson: and your Ben.' The last he named after an infinitesimal pause, for while they were speaking he had come to an intimate conviction that Dutourd had gone ashore in the schooner and that taking Ben would if nothing else prevent any foolish action on Vidal's part: it might have been wiser to take Vidal himself, but with so many of the most responsible and experienced men away or wounded Vidal was by far the best to leave in charge: he might have chapelish, democratic, even republican views, but he had been the master of a ship larger than the Franklin, he was a prime seaman, thoroughly respected, and he had a large following. 'You will take command while I am away,' he said after a silence. 'If the wind keeps in the east, as I believe it will, you will not be able to carry the prize a single mile nearer Callao, though you beat up day and night. Should it change you may come in, and if you cannot fetch Callao we will rendezvous off the Chinchas. But I shall give you your orders in writing, together with a list of meeting-places from the Lobos Rock far to the southward.'
** *
Indeed, to make any real progress in a breeze as strong and steady as this a vessel had to be rigged fore and aft, and nothing could have been more wholly fore and aft than the Alastor's elegant mahogany launch with her remarkably flat-cut sails: in spite of his deep uneasiness Jack took a pleasure in getting all that he could from her, bringing her up to the very edge of shivering, falling off just that much and sending her fast through the coming sea. The launch was as responsive as a well-mannered, spirited horse; it was beamy and stiff enough for this kind of weather; and well before nightfall they had sunk the Franklin's topsails in the west.
When Jack Aubrey was strongly moved he seemed to grow taller and broader-shouldered, while without the slightest affectation or morosity his ordinarily good-humoured expression became remote. Killick was not easily put down: ordinary fits of anger over dropped bottles, inept orders from Whitehall or the flag left him totally unmoved, so did reproach and even abuse, but this rare, particular gravity intimidated him and when he dressed leg, eye and scalp that evening he did so with no more words than were necessary, and those uttered meekly.
The decked part of the launch was divided fore and aft into two long cuddies, each with headroom enough to sit up; it was here that Jack stretched out on a mattress over the grating a little after the setting of the watch. Although the forward part of the cuddy was filled with canvas and cordage there was plenty of room for him and according to his life-long habit he fell asleep within minutes, in spite of pain and anxiety. His neighbours in the larboard cuddy, Johnson and young Ben Vidal, did much the same. Johnson, a black man from the Seven Dials, began telling Ben about his triumph over the whoreson pinchfart master-at-arms in Bellerophon when first he went to sea, but his voice dwindled when he found he had no hearer.
It had been laid down that they should be at watch-and-watch, and a few minutes before midnight Jack woke straight out of what had seemed a deep and dreamless sleep. Yet some parts of his mind must have been active, since he knew perfectly well that the launch had gone about four times and that the wind had diminished to a moderate breeze. He made his way out of the cuddy into the light of the moon, a true clock if one knew her age and her exact place among the stars for the beginning of each watch. Suddenly, as he stood there swaying to the quieter sea and wishing he could stretch over the lee rail and dash water into his face, it occurred to him that his eye scarcely hurt at all: there was still a certain irritation, but the deep pain was not there. 'By God,' he said, 'perhaps I shall be able to swim again in a week or two.'
'You are a good relief, sir,' said Bonden, yielding the tiller; and he gave an exact account of the courses steered - two reaches as near south-east by east as possible and two north-east by east - and their speed, rising to ten knots one fathom now that the head-seas had grown less lumpish. Behind them there was the muffled sound of the changing watch, the very small watch; and Jack said, 'Well, turn in, Bonden, and get what sleep you can.'
He settled into the helmsman's place with the living tiller under his hand and forearm, and while his
