burnt a score of yards together with the ships they were building.’
‘Yes,’ said the Admiral. ‘I have heard something of it; and I congratulate you on your success, I am sure... (‘How he banged them about!’ murmured Sir James.) Have you prepared a report?’
‘Not yet, my Lord.’
‘Then you can come back to Gibraltar with us and let me have it there as soon as possible. You spoke of your political adviser and his colleague?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘I should be obliged if you would send them both across to confer with my politico. And Aubrey, although Lord Keith gave you quite a handsome squadron, it has melted away, for convoy duty and the like. What is that schooner you have in company?’
‘She belongs to my surgeon, sir, and she acts as our tender.’
‘Well, she is a handsome little craft, but she don’t amount to a squadron; so perhaps it would be more proper if you were to strike your broad pennant and revert to a private ship.’
Jack had intended to ask the Commander-in-Chief whether there was any news of the French or Allied armies, but these last words were so clearly meant to be disobliging that he merely took his leave. On deck, however, he found Implacable’s captain, who said that although there were rumours of the wildest sort, such as a rising in Ireland and a French invasion of Kent, he had heard nothing authentic except for the soldiers’ exasperation, frequently expressed, at the Russians’ slowness.
Jack nodded with satisfaction and then said, ‘Lord Barmouth has ordered me to send my surgeon and a politico across: they are amazingly gifted linguists and very learned men, but neither has much notion of coming up the side of a ship, and was you to rig a bosun’s chair, I should take it kindly.’
Back in the Surprise he took off his finery, struck his broad pennant, told Harding to follow the flag into Gibraltar, and sent for the log-books. He and Adams were still establishing the bases of his report - obviously with great gaps that only Stephen and Jacob could fill - when they heard the boat’s return, the anxious cries, and the children’s piping ‘We!come aboard, dear Doctors, welcome oh welcome aboard!’
Coming below, Stephen looked attentively at his friend, deep in papers, and said, ‘You are low in your spirits, brother.’
‘Indeed I am. For your own ear alone, I am very much afraid that we are going to be baulked of our galley - pipped on the post - done brown. In my simplicity I told the Commander-in-Chief that she was coming up by the Straits and that I meant to intercept her. I let it be understood, that .I was still acting on the orders given me by Lord Keith; but I fear I may be set aside and the chance given to some more favoured man.’
‘Be easy in your mind, my dear,’ said Stephen in a tone that carried great conviction. ‘Jacob and I have just been talking with the Commander-in-Chief and his politico, then with the politico alone - Matthew Arden, a very intelligent man, very highly influential in Whitehall. The Ministry regard this as an exceptionally important theatre of war and they have sent one of their best brains, a man who has refused high office, very high office indeed. He is also a close friend of Lord Keith’s, who would be mortally offended at heaving his evident wishes set aside. Arden and I have known one another these many years: ,we have never disagreed on any important point, and this time again we got along together exceedingly well. Furthermore, I am happy to say that for all his domineering manner, Lord Barmouth is in awe of Matthew Arden... you are drawing up an account of our little campaign, I see... heavy going, heavy going: I must give you some remarks on Algerine politics and my sojourn in Africa. But I do wish you could have heard how Arden exulted at your doing in the Adriatic, and how he obliged the Commander-in-Chief to acknowledge that the elimination of that particular danger was a most important feat ... No, no, Jack: courageous though Lord Barmouth quite certainly is, I do not believe for a moment that he would dare to use you ill in these circumstances.’
‘How very kind you are to tell me all this, Stephen,’ said Jack. ‘From anyone else I should scarcely have regarded it, but from you ...’ He threw aside the pen he had been chewing, walked across the cabin, took up his fiddle and played a wild series of very rapid ascending trills that vanished quite out of hearing. Then he sat at his desk and with another pen he quickly drew up several lists, sent for the gunner and asked him for a state of the ship’s powder and shot. ‘I can tell you quite exactly after five minutes’ look round the magazines, sir,’ said the gunner.
‘Very well: then you fill in the figures to top us up where I have left room, and take them along. Here is a guinea to sweeten the usual palm for reasonable dispatch. Then there is this, also for the ordnance wharf.’
‘Blue lights and red,’ murmured the gunner, slowly going through the list. ‘We do have a few, but it’s as well to be sure they .are fresh. Then extra-high Congreves: I don’t think I know about them, sir.’
‘They are white star-bursts, and on occasion they can be very useful. Half a guinea for all the fireworks together would be about right, I believe?’
