Читать книгу HMS Surprise - Patrick O’Brian - Страница 9
ОглавлениеUnder the swinging lamp in the cabin, he looked intently into Maragall’s face. It was a tough, youngish, lined face, pock-marked and with bad teeth; an ill-looking cast in one eye, but the other large and as it were gentle. What to make of him? The fluent Minorcan English, perfectly comprehensible but foreign, was difficult to judge for integrity: the open sheet of paper under the lamp had been written with a piece of charcoal; almost the whole message had crumbled away or smudged. Do not – perhaps wait; then several words underlined with only the line remaining – send this – a name: St Joseph? – not to trust. Then the traces of figures, five painful rows of them, and the trailing S.
The whole thing might be an elaborate trap: it might also be intended to incriminate Stephen. He listened to the run of words, examined the paper, weighed the possibilities, with his mind working fast. There were times when there was something very young and slightly ridiculous about Jack; it was a side of him that Sophie loved beyond measure; but no one looking at him now, or in action, would have believed in its existence.
He led Maragall through his narrative again – the first trouble following a denunciation to the Spanish authorities, quickly settled by the production of an American passport and the intervention of the vicar-general: Señor Domanova was an American of Spanish origin. Then the interference of the French, their removal of the suspect to their own headquarters in spite of violent protests. The jealousy between the French and Spanish allies at all levels, administration, army, navy, civilian population – the French way of behaving as though they were in conquered territory, which was bringing even Catalans and Castilians together. Particular hatred for this alleged French purchasing commission, which was in fact an intelligence unit, small but very active, recently joined by a Colonel Auger (a fool) and Captain Dutourd (brilliant) straight from Paris, busily recruiting informers, as bad as the Inquisition. Growing detestation of the French, almost universal apart from some opportunists and the leaders of the Fraternitat, an organisation that hoped to use them rather than the English against the Castilians – to win Catalan independence from Napoleon rather than George III.
‘And you belong to a different organisation, sir?’ said Jack.
‘Yes, sir. I am the head of the Confederacio on the island; that is why I know Esteban so well. That is why I have been able to get messages in and out of his cell. We are the only organisation that has wide support, the only one that really does anything apart from to make speeches and denunciations. We have two men in their place in the day-time, and my brother, which is a priest, has been in several times: myself was able to take him the laudanum he asked for and speak him a few minutes through the bars, when he told me the words I was to say.’
‘How is he?’
‘Weak. They are quite pitiless.’
‘Where is he? Where is their headquarters?’
‘Do you know Port Mahon?’
‘Yes. Very well.’
‘Do you know where the English commandant used to live?’
‘Martinez’s place?’
‘Is right. They have taken it over. The little house at the back of the garden they use for questioning – farther from the street. But you can hear the shrieks from St Anna’s. Sometimes, at three or four in the morning, they carry bodies down and throw them into the harbour behind the tanneries.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Five officers now, and a guard quartered in the Alfonso barracks. A dozen men on duty at a time – the guard changes at seven. No sentries outside, no show, all very quiet and retired. Then there are a few civilians, interpreters, servants, cleaners; two of them belong to us, as I have say – said.’
Eight bells struck; the watch changed overhead. Jack glanced at the barometer – sinking, sinking.
‘Listen, Mr Maragall,’ he said. ‘I shall tell you my general course of action: be so good as to make any observations that occur to you. I have a French gunboat here, captured yesterday: I shall run her into Port Mahon, land a party say at Johnson’s Steps or Boca Chica, march up in detached groups behind St Anna’s to the garden wall, take the house as silently as possible and either return to the gunboat or behind the town to Cala Garau. The weak points are, entrance into the port, guides, alternative lines of retreat. In the first place, can you tell me whether there is any French ship in? How are French vessels received, what are the formalities, visits, moorings?’
‘This is far from my line. I am a lawyer, an advocate,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘No, there is no French ship in at present. When they come, they exchange signals off Cape Mola – but what signals? Then there is the pratique boat, for plague and health; if they have a clean bill of health it leads them to their moorings, otherwise to the quarantine reach. I believe the French moor above the customs house. The captain waits on the port-admiral – but when? I could tell you this, all this, if I had time. My cousin is the doctor.’
‘There is no time.’
‘Yes, sir, there is time,’ said Maragall slowly. ‘But can you indeed enter the port? You rely on their not firing on French colours, on confusing signals?’
‘I shall get in.’
‘Very well. Then if now you put me ashore before light, I shall meet you in the pratique boat or tell my cousin what he must do – meet you in any case, deal with what formalities there may be and tell you what we have managed to arrange. You have said guides – certainly: other lines of retreat, yes. I must consult.’
‘You take this to be a feasible plan, I collect?’
‘Yes. To get in, yes. To get out – well, you know the harbour as well as I do. Guns, batteries all the way for four miles. It is the only plan, however, with so little time. It would be terrible to run in, and then to arouse suspicion by some little nonsense that my friends could tell you in a moment. You are unwilling to put me ashore, are you not?’
‘No, sir. I am no great politician or judge of character, but my friend is: I am happy to stake my head on his choice.’ Sending for the officer of the watch he said, ‘Mr Fielding, we shall run in. To Cala Blau?’ – looking at Maragall, who nodded. ‘To Cala Blau. All sail she will bear; blue cutter to be ready at a moment’s notice.’ Fielding repeated the order and hurried out, calling, ‘Watch, watch, about ship,’ before he was past the sentry. Jack listened to the running feet for a moment, and said, ‘While we stand in, let us go over the details. May I offer you some wine – a sandwich?’
‘Four bells, sir,’ said Killick, waking him. ‘Mr Simmons is in the cabin.’
‘Mr Simmons,’ said Jack in a harsh, formal voice. ‘I am taking the gunboat into Port Mahon at sunset. This is an expedition in which I shall ask none of the officers to come with me; I believe none is intimately acquainted with the town. I should like those of the launch’s crew who choose to volunteer, but it must be represented to them, that this is an expedition in which – it is an expedition of some danger. The pinnace is to remain at the cave at Cala Blau from the coming midnight until the following sunset, when, unless it receives orders, it is to rejoin the ship at the rendezvous I have marked here. The launch at Rowley’s Creek, with the same orders. They are to be victualled for a week. The frigate will stand off and on to windward of Cape Mola, having sent them in, and close with the land at dawn under French colours, remaining out of gunshot, however; I hope to join her at that time or during the course of the day. If I do not appear by six o’clock she is to proceed to the first rendezvous without loss of time; and after cruising twenty-four hours there, to Gibraltar. Here are your orders; you will see that I have written clearly what I now repeat – there is to be no attempt whatsoever at any rescue. These orders are to be followed to the letter.’ The idea of these good, brave, but essentially unenterprising and unimaginative men plunging about an unknown countryside, with the frigate a prey to the Spanish gunboats or the great batteries of St Philip’s or Cape Mola made him repeat these words. Then, after a slight pause and in a diffident tone, he said, ‘My dear Simmons, here are some personal papers and letters that I will trouble you with, if I may, to be sent home from Gibraltar in the event of things going amiss.’
The first lieutenant looked down, and then up again into Jack’s face; he was profoundly troubled, and he was obviously seeking for his words. Jack did not wish to hear them: this was his own affair – he was the only man aboard, apart from his followers, who knew Port Mahon backwards, above all the only one who had been in Molly Harte’s garden and her music-room; and at this pitch of cold tension he wanted no gestures of any kind, either. He had no emotion to spare for anyone else. ‘Be so good, Mr Simmons, as to speak to the launch’s crew,’ he said with a trace of impatience. ‘Those who wish to come will be taken off duty; they must rest. And I should like a word with my coxswain. The gunboat is to come alongside; I shall go into her when I am ready. That will be all, Mr Simmons.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Simmons. He turned in the door and paused, but Jack was already busy with his preparations.
‘Killick,’ he said, ‘my sword is dull from yesterday. Take it to the armourer; I want it shaving-sharp. And bid him look at my pistols: new flints. Bonden, there you are. You remember Mahon?’
‘Like the palm of my hand, sir.’
‘Good. We are taking the gunboat in this evening. The Doctor is in prison there, and they are torturing him. You see that book? It has their signals in it: check the gunboat’s flags and lanterns and see everything is there. If not, get it. Take your money and warm clothes: we may end up in Verdun.’
‘Aye aye, sir. Here’s Mr Simmons, sir.’
The first lieutenant reported that the entire launch’s crew had volunteered: he had taken them off duty. ‘And, sir,’ he added, ‘the officers and men will take it very unkind indeed if some of them may not come along – if you will not pick from them. I do beg you will not disappoint me and the whole gun-room, sir.’
‘I know what you mean, Simmons – honour their feelings – should feel the same myself. But this is a very particular, hey, expedition. My orders must stand. Is the gunboat alongside?’
‘Just ranging up on the quarter now, sir.’
‘Let Mr West and his mates check her rigging before I go aboard, in half an hour. And the launch’s crew are to be provided with red woollen hats, Mediterranean style,’ he said, looking at his watch.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Simmons in a flat, dead, wretched tone. Half an hour later Jack came on deck in a shabby uniform and Hessian boots, a cloak and a plain cocked hat. Glancing at the sky he said, ‘I shall not return to the ship until after Port Mahon, Mr Simmons. At eight bells in the afternoon watch, pray send the launch across. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, sir.’
They shook hands. Jack nodded to the other officers, touched his hat, and they piped him down the side.
As soon as he was aboard the gunboat he took the tiller and sent her racing away down to leeward with the fresh breeze on her larboard quarter. The island rose in the south, headland after headland stretching away, and he brought her up in a long sweet curve. She was not one of the regulation Toulon gunboats, or the heavy Spanish creatures that swept out from Algeciras every time there was a calm, creeping over the still water; she was not one of those port-bound floating carriages for a single heavy gun, or he would never have brought her away, but a half-decked barca-longa with a long slide that allowed her gun to be run in and stowed against her short thick forward-raking mast – a vessel perfectly capable of running down the Mediterranean, and of sweeping in and out of any port.
She was no fairy, though. As he brought her up and up into the wind the tiller was hard under his hand, and he felt the weight of that gun forward. Yet once she was close up, right up, pointing even closer than five, she held her course, never offering to fall to or gripe, but shouldering the short seas bravely; and the spray came whistling aft.
This was the sort of thing he understood. The immense lateen on its curving yard was not so familiar as a square rig nor a cutter, but the essence was the same, and he was like a good horseman riding a well-spirited horse from another stable. He put the gunboat through all her paces – unspectacular, but dogged, firm and sure – tracing great curves round the frigate, weaving to and fro until the sun sloped far westwards.
He brought her under the Lively’s lee, signalled for the launch, and went below. While the red-hatted crew came aboard he sat in the late captain’s cabin, a low triangular cupboard aft, studying the charts and the signal-book: not that he had much need of either – the Minorcan waters were home to him, and the rows of flags and lights were sharp in his mind – but any contact with the ship at this point meant a waste of that particular strength he should need in a few hours’ time. In a few hours, if only the dropping glass and the ugly look of the sky did not mean a full gale of wind.
Bonden reported all hands present and sober, and he went on deck. He was completely withdrawn: he shook his head impatiently at the ragged, spontaneous cheer, put his helm astarboard and bore away for the eastern cape. He saw Killick lurking there against his orders, looking sullen, with a basket of food and some bottles, but he looked beyond him for the quartermaster, handing over the tiller and giving him the course to steer; and then he began his steady pace to and fro, gauging the progress of the wind, the speed of the gunboat, the changing lie of the land.
The shore went by a mile to starboard, well-known headlands, beaches, creeks turning slowly; very like a dream; and the men were quiet. He had a momentary feeling that his pace and turn, pace and turn in this silence was taking him from reality, spoiling his concentration, and he went below, crouching into the cabin.
‘You are up to your God-damn-ye capers again, I see,’ he said coldly.
Killick dared not speak, but put cold mutton, bread and butter, and claret in front of him. ‘I must eat,’ he said to himself, and deliberately set to his meal: but his stomach was closed – even the wine seemed hard in his gullet. This had not happened to him before, in no action, emergency or crisis. ‘It don’t signify,’ he said, pushing the things aside.
When he came on deck again the sun was only a span from the high land to the west, and broad on the starboard bow lay Cape Mola. The wind had freshened, blowing gusty, and the men were baling: it would be touch and go to round the cape, and they might have to sweep in. But so far the timing was right. He wanted to pass the outer batteries in the light, with his French colours clearly seen, and to move up the long harbour as darkness fell. He glanced up at the tricolour at the peak, at the hoists that Bonden had ready laid out at the signal-halliards, and he took the helm.
Now there was no time for reflection: now the whole of his person was engaged in governing immediate material problems. The headland and the white surf were racing towards them; he must round the point just so, and even with the nicest judgment a back-eddy off the cliff might lay him right down or sweep him away to leeward.
‘Right, Bonden,’ he said, as the signal-station came into view. The stoppered flags shot up, broke out and showed clear. His eye darted from the sea and the straining sail to the height, where the Spanish ensign flew still in the breeze. If his was the right signal, it would dip. Motionless up there, motionless, and flat as a board in the distance. Motionless and then at last it jerked down and up again.
‘Acknowledge,’ he said. ‘Start the sheet. Stand by the halliards, there.’ The seamen were in their places, silent, glancing from the sky to the rigid sail. Bracing himself and tightening his mouth he brought up the helm: the gunboat answered instantly, her lee-rail vanishing deeper and deeper under the foam: the wind was abeam, she lay over, over, and here was St Philips on his larboard bow. A broad line of white scum, marking the edge of the full wind, a quarter of a mile ahead: she was through it, shooting into the calm water under the lee of the cape, gliding on an even keel.
‘Satisfaction, take the helm,’ he said. ‘Bonden, con the ship.’
The two sides, the approach to the harbour, were running together, and where they almost joined lay the narrow mouth with its heavy batteries on either side. Some of the casemates were lit, but there was still light enough over the water for a watcher to take notice of an officer at the helm – an unnatural sight. Nearer, nearer: and the gunboat moved silently through the mouth, close enough to toss a biscuit on to the muzzles of the forty-two-pounders at the water’s edge. A voice in the twilight called out, ‘Parlez-vous français?’ and cackled: another shouted ‘Hijos de puta.’
Ahead lay the broad stretch with the hospital island in it, the lazaretto, a good mile away on the starboard bow; the last reflection of the day had left the hilltops, and the long harbour was filled with a deep purple, shading to blackness. Fitful gusts from the tramontane outside ruffled its surface, ugly gusts sometimes; and there beyond the lights – they were increasing every moment – was the gap in the hills where just such a gust had laid the Agamemnon on her beam ends in ’98.
‘Brail up,’ he said. ‘Out sweeps.’ He fixed the lazaretto island, staring till his eyes watered; and at last a boat put off. ‘Silence fore and aft,’ he called. ‘No hailing, no speaking: d’ye hear me there?’
‘Boat on the starboard bow, sir,’ murmured Bonden in his ear.
He nodded. ‘When I wave my hand so,’ he said, ‘in sweeps. When I wave again, give way.’
Slowly they drew together, and although his mind was as cool and lucid as he could wish, he found he had stopped breathing: he heaved in a deep draught with a sigh, and the boat hailed, ‘Ohé, de la barca.’
‘Ohé,’ he repeated, and waved his hand.
The boat ran alongside, hooked on, and a man made a blundering leap for the rail; Jack caught his arms and lifted him clear over, looking into his face – Maragall. The boat shoved off; Jack nodded significantly to Bonden, waved his hand, and led Maragall into the cabin.
‘How is he?’ he whispered.
‘Alive – still there – they talk of moving him. I have sent no message, received none.’ His face was strained and deadly pale, but he moved it into the shape of a smile, and said, ‘So you are in. No trouble. You are to lie off the old victualling wharf; they have given you the dirty filth-place, because you are French. Listen, I have four guides, and the church will be open. At half after two o’clock I put fire to Martinez’s warehouse close to the arsenal – Martinez it was denounced him. This will allow a friend, an officer, to move the troops; by three there will be no soldiers or police within a quarter of a mile of the house. Our two men who work there will be at the church to show the way inside the house. Right?’
‘Yes. How many men inside tonight?’
‘Boat hailing, sir,’ said Bonden, thrusting in his head.
They leapt from their seats, and Maragall stared out over the water. The lights of Mahon were showing round the point, silhouetting a black felucca a hundred yards away. The felucca hailed again. ‘He asks what it is like outside,’ whispered Maragall.
‘Blowing hard – close-reefed topsails.’
Maragall called out in Catalan, and the felucca dropped astern, out of the lights. Back in the cabin he wiped his face, muttering, ‘Oh, if only we had had more time, more time. How many men? Eight and a corporal: probably all five officers and one interpreter, but the colonel may not have come back. He is playing cards at the citadel. What is your plan?’
‘Land in small parties between two and three o’clock, reach St Anna’s by the back streets, take the rear wall and the garden house. If he is there, away at once, the way we came. If not, cross the patio, seal the doors and work through the house. Silently if possible, and fall back on the gunboat. If there is a row, then out across country: I have boats at Cala Blau and Rowley’s Creek. You can manage horses? Do you need money?’
Maragall shook his head impatiently. ‘It is not only Esteban,’ he said. ‘Unless the other prisoners are released, he is pointed at – identified, and God knows how many others with him. Besides, some of them are our men.’
‘I see,’ said Jack.
‘He would tell you that himself,’ whispered Maragall urgently. ‘It must look like a rising of all the prisoners.’
Jack nodded, peering out of the stern window. ‘We are almost in. Come on deck for the mooring.’
The old victualling-wharf was coming closer, and with it the stench of stagnant filth. They slid past the customs house, all lit up, and into the darkness beyond. The pratique boat hailed, backing water and turning back down the harbour. Maragall replied. A few moments later Bonden murmured ‘In sweeps’ and steered the gunboat gently up along the black and greasy side. They made fast to a couple of bollards and lay there in silence, with the lap of water on the starboard side and the diffused noise of the town on the other. Beyond the stone quay there was a vague plain of rubbish, a disused factory on the far side, a rope-walk, and a shipbuilder’s yard with broken palings. Two unseen cats were howling in the middle of the rubbish.
‘You understand me?’ insisted Maragall. ‘He would say exactly the same.’
‘It makes sense,’ said Jack sharply. ‘He would say so,’ repeated Maragall. ‘You know where you are?’
‘There’s the Capuchins’ church. And that is St Anna’s,’ he said, jerking his head towards a tower. It stood high over them, for at this point, the far end of the harbour, a cliff rose sheer from the low ground, a long cliff beginning in the middle of the town, so that this part of Mahon rode high above the water.
‘I must go,’ said Maragall. ‘I shall be here at one with the guides. Think, I beg of you, think what I have said: it must be all.’
It was eight o’clock. They carried out a kedge, moored the gunboat stern-on with the sweeps ready at hand and lay there in squalid loneliness: Jack had a meal served out to the men in messes of six, crowded into the little cabin, while the rest sheltered under the half-deck – only one light, little movement or sound, no appearance of activity.
How well they bore the waiting! A low murmur of talk, the faint click of dice; the fat Chinese snoring like a hog. They could believe in an omniscient leader, who had everything in hand – meticulous preparations, wisdom, local knowledge, sure allies: Jack could not. Every quarter the church bells chimed all over Port Mahon; and one, with a cracked treble, was St Anna’s, which he had often heard from that very garden house with Molly Harte. A quarter past; the half-hour; nine. Ten.
He found himself staring up at Killick, who said, ‘Three bells, sir. Gentleman back presently. Here’s coffee, sir, and a rasher. Do get summat in your gaff, sir, God love us.’
Like every other sailor Jack had slept and woken in all latitudes at all hours of the night and day; he too had the trick of springing out of a deep sleep ready to go on deck, highly developed by years and years of war; but this time it was different – he was not only bright awake and ready to go on deck – he was another man; the cold desperate tension was gone and he was another man. Now the smell of their foul anchorage was the smell of coming action – it took the place of the keen whiff of powder. He ate his breakfast with eager voracity and then went forward in the quarter moonlight to talk to his crew, squatting under the half-deck. They were astonished at his contained high spirits, so different from the savage remoteness of the run down the coast; astonished, too, that they should outlast the stroke of one, of half past, the waiting and no Maragall.
It was nearly two o’clock before they heard steps running on the quay. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, panting. ‘To make people to move in this country… Here they are, guides. All’s well. St Anna’s at three, yes? I shall be there.’
Jack smiled and said, ‘Three it is. Good-bye.’ And turning to the shadowy guides, ‘Cuatro groupos, cinco minutos each, eh? Satisfaction, then Java Dick: Bonden, bring up the rear.’ He stepped ashore at last, the stiff, unyielding ground after months at sea.
He had thought he knew Port Mahon, but in five minutes of climbing up through these dark sleeping alleys, with no more than a cat flitting in the doorways and once the sound of a baby being hushed, he was lost; and when they came crouching through a low stinking tunnel he was astonished to find himself in the familiar little square of St Anna’s. The church door was ajar: they pushed silently in. One candle in a side-chapel, and by the candle two men holding white handkerchiefs. They whispered to the guide, a priest or a man dressed as a priest, and came forward to speak to him. He could not make out what they said, but caught the word foch several times repeated, and when the door opened again he saw a red glow in the sky. The back of the church was filling as the guides led in his other groups: close-packed silent men, smelling of tar. The glow again, and he went to look out – a fire down by the harbour, with smoke drifting fast away to the south, lit red from below – and as he looked he heard a shriek: high bubbling agony cut off short. It came from a house no great way off.
Here was Bonden with the last party, doubling across the square. ‘Did you hear that, sir? Them buggers are at it.’
‘Silence, you God-damn fool,’ he said, very low.
The clock whirred and struck: three. Maragall appeared from the shadows. ‘Come on,’ said Jack, ran from the square to the alley in the corner, up the alley, along the high blank wall to where a fig-tree leaned over the top. ‘Bonden, make me a back.’ He was up. ‘Grapnels.’ He hooked them around the trunk, whispered, ‘Land soft, land soft, there,’ and dropped into the court.
Here was the garden house, its windows full of light: and inside the long room three men standing over a common rack; one civilian at a desk, writing; a soldier leaning against the door. The officer who was shouting as he leant over the rack moved sideways to strike again and Jack saw that it was not Stephen spreadeagled there on the ground.
Behind him there was the soft plump of men dropping from the wall. ‘Satisfaction,’ he whispered, ‘your men round the other side, to the door. Java Dick – that archway with the light. Bonden, with me.’
The bubbling shriek rose again, huge, beyond human measure, intolerable. Inside the room the strikingly handsome youth had turned and now he was looking up with a triumphant smile at the other officers. His coat and his collar were open, and he had something in his hand.
Jack drew his sword, opened the long window: their faces turned, indignant, then shocked, amazed. Three long strides, and balancing, with a furious grip on his hilt, he cut forehand at the boy and backhand at the man next to him. Instantly the room was filled – bellowing noise, rushing movement, blows, the thud of bodies, a shout from the last officer, chair and table crashing down, the black civilian with two seamen on top of him, a smothered scream. The soldier shooting out of the door – an animal cry beyond it; and silence. The demented, inhuman face of the man on the rack, running with sweat.
‘Cast him off,’ said Jack, and the man groaned, shutting his eyes as the strain relaxed.
They waited, listening: but although they could easily hear the voices of three or four soldiers arguing on the ground floor and someone whistling sweet and true upstairs, there was no reaction. Loud voices, didactic, hortatory, going on and on, unchanged.
‘Now for the house,’ said Jack. ‘Maragall, which is the guard-room?’
‘The first on the left under the archway.’
‘Do you know any of their names?’
Maragall spoke to the men with the handkerchiefs. ‘Only Potier, the corporal, and Normand.’
Jack nodded. ‘Bonden, you remember the door into the front patio? Guard that with six men. Satisfaction, your party stays in this court. Java, yours each side of the door. Lee’s men come along with me. Silence, silence, eh?’
He walked across the court, his boots loud on the stones and soft feet padding by him: a moment’s pause for a last check and he called out, ‘Potier.’ In the same instant, like an echo from up the stairs came the shout ‘Potier’, and the whistling, which had stopped, started again, stopped, and ‘Potier!’ again, louder. The argument in the guard-room slackened, listening; and again, ‘Potier!’
‘J’arrive, mon capitaine,’ cried the corporal; he came out of the room, still talking into it before he closed the door. A sob, an astonished gasp, and silence. Jack called, ‘Normand,’ and the door opened again; but it was a surly, questioning, almost suspicious face that craned out, slammed the door to at what it saw.
‘Right,’ said Jack, and flung his sixteen stone against it. The door burst inwards, shuddering as it swung; but there was only one man left this side of the crowded open window: they hunted him down in one quick turn. Shrieks in the courtyard.
‘Potier,’ from above, and the whistling moved down the stairs, ‘qu’est-ce que ce remue-ménage?’
By the light of the big lantern under the arch Jack saw an officer, a cheerful, high-coloured officer, bluff good humour and a well-fitting uniform, so much the officer that he felt a momentary pause. Dutourd, no doubt.
Dutourd’s face, about to whistle again, turned to incredulity: his hand reached to a sword that was not there.
‘Hold him,’ said Jack to the dark seamen closing in. ‘Maragall, ask him where Stephen is.’
‘Vous êtes un officier anglais, monsieur?’ asked Dutourd, ignoring Maragall.
‘Answer, God rot your bloody soul,’ cried Jack with a flush of such fury that he trembled.
‘Chez le colonel,’ said the officer.
‘Maragall, how many are there left?’
‘This person is the only man left in the house: he says Esteban is in the colonel’s room. The colonel is not back yet.’
‘Come.’
Stephen saw them walk into his timeless dream: they had been there before, but never together. And never in these dull colours. He smiled to see Jack, although poor Jack’s face was so shockingly concerned, white, distraught. But when Jack’s hands grappled with the straps his smile changed to an almost frightened rigour: the furious jet of pain brought the two remote realities together.
‘Jack, handsomely, my dear,’ he whispered as they eased him tenderly into a padded chair. ‘Will you give me something to drink, now, for the love of God? En Maragall, valga’m Deu,’ he said, smiling over Jack’s shoulder.
‘Clear the room, Satisfaction,’ said Jack, breaking off – several prisoners had come up, some crawling, and now two of them made a determined rush at Dutourd, standing ghastly, pressed into the corner.
‘That man must have a priest,’ said Stephen.
‘Must we kill him?’ said Jack.
Stephen nodded. ‘But first he must write to the colonel – bring him here – say, vital information – the American has talked – it will not wait. Must not: vital.’
‘Tell him, sir,’ said Jack to Maragall, looking back over his shoulder, with the look of profound affection still on his face. ‘Tell him he must write this note. If the colonel is not here in ten minutes I shall kill him on that machine.’
Maragall led Dutourd to the desk, put a pen in his hand. ‘He says he cannot,’ he reported. ‘Says his honour as an officer –’
‘His what?’ cried Jack, looking at the thing from which he had unstrapped Stephen.
Shouting, scuffling, a fall on the way up.
‘Sir,’ said Bonden, ‘this chap comes in at the front door.’ Two of his mates propped a man into the room. ‘I’m afraid the prisoners nobbled him on the way up.’
They stared at the dying, the dead colonel, and in the pause Dutourd whipped round, dashed out the lamp, and leapt from the window.
‘While trying to escape,’ said Stephen, when Java Dick came up to report. ‘Oh, altogether too – too – Jack, what now? I cannot scarcely crawl, alas.’
‘We carry you down to the gunboat,’ said Jack.
Maragall said, ‘There is the shutter they carry their dead suspects on, behind the door.’
‘Joan,’ said Stephen to him, ‘all the papers that matter are in the press to the right of the table.’
Gently, gently down through the open streets, Stephen staring up at the stars and the clean air reaching deep into his lungs. Dead streets, with one single figure that glanced at this familiar cortège and looked quickly away: right down to the quays and along. The gunboat: Satisfaction’s party there before them, ready at the sweeps. Bonden reporting ‘All present and sober, sir, if you please.’ Farewell, farewell, Maragall: God go with you and may no new thing arise. The black water slipping by faster, faster, lipping along her side. The strangled chime of a clock among the neat bundles of loot under the half-deck. Silence behind them: Mahon still fast asleep.
Lazaretto Island left astern; the signal lanterns swaying up, answered from the battery with the regulation hoist and a last derisive cry of ‘Cochons’. And the blessed realisation that the dawn was bringing its usual slackening of the tramontane – and that the sail down to leeward was the Lively.
‘God knows I should do the same again,’ said Jack, leaning on the helm to close her, the keen spray stinging his tired, reddened eyes. ‘But I feel I need the whole sea to clean me.’
