HMS Surprise

PATRICK O’BRIAN

H.M.S. Surprise

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

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Copyright © Patrick O’Brian 1973

Patrick O’Brian asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006499176

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007429301

Version: 2019-04-17

MARIAE LEMBI NOSTRI DUCI ET MAGISTRAE DO DEDICO

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Diagram of a Square-Rigged Ship

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Arms and the Man: CHARLTON HESTON

Keep Reading

About the Author

The Works of Patrick O’Brian

About the Publisher

The sails of a square-rigged ship, hung out to dry in a calm.

1 Flying jib

2 Jib

3 Fore topmast staysail

4 Fore staysail

5 Foresail, or course

6 Fore topsail

7 Fore topgallant

8 Mainstaysail

9 Main topmast staysail

10 Middle staysail

11 Main topgallant staysail

12 Mainsail, or course

13 Maintopsail

14 Main topgallant

15 Mizzen staysail

16 Mizzen topmast staysail

17 Mizzen topgallant staysail

18 Mizzen sail

19 Spanker

20 Mizzen topsail

21 Mizzen topgallant

Illustration source: Serres, Liber Nauticus.

Courtesy of The Science and Technology Research Center, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation

Chapter One

‘But I put it to you, my lord, that prize-money is of essential importance to the Navy. The possibility, however remote, of making a fortune by some brilliant stroke is an unparalleled spur to the diligence, the activity, and the unremitting attention of every man afloat. I am sure that the serving members of the Board will support me in this,’ he said, glancing round the table. Several of the uniformed figures looked up, and there was a murmur of agreement: it was not universal, however; some of the civilians had a stuffed and non-committal air, and one or two of the sailors remained staring at the sheets of blotting-paper laid out before them. It was difficult to catch the sense of the meeting, if indeed any distinct current had yet established itself: this was not the usual restricted session of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, but the first omnium gatherum of the new administration, the first since Lord Melville’s departure, with several new members, many heads of department and representatives of other boards; they were feeling their way, behaving with politic restraint, holding their fire. It was difficult to sense the atmosphere, but although he knew he did not have the meeting entirely with him, yet he felt no decided opposition – a wavering, rather – and he hoped that by the force of his own conviction he might still carry his point against the tepid unwillingness of the First Lord. ‘One or two striking examples of this kind, in the course of a long-protracted war, are enough to stimulate the zeal of the whole fleet throughout years and years of hardship at sea; whereas a denial, on the other hand, must necessarily have a – must necessarily have the contrary effect.’ Sir Joseph was a capable, experienced chief of naval intelligence; but he was no orator, particularly before such a large audience; he had not struck upon the golden phrase; the right words had escaped him, and he was conscious of a certain negative, unpersuaded quality in the air.

‘I cannot feel that Sir Joseph is quite right in attributing such interested motives to the officers of our service,’ remarked Admiral Harte, bending his head obsequiously towards the First Lord. The other service members glanced quickly at him and at one another: Harte was the most eager pursuer of the main chance in the Navy, the most ardent snapper-up of anything that was going, from a Dutch herring-buss to a Breton fishing-boat.

‘I am bound by precedent,’ said the First Lord, turning a vast glabrous expressionless face from Harte to Sir Joseph. ‘There was the case of the Santa Brigida …’

‘The Thetis, my lord,’ whispered his private secretary.

‘The Thetis, I mean. And my legal advisers tell me that this is the appropriate decision. We are bound by Admiralty law: if the prize was made before the declaration of war the proceeds escheat to the Crown. They are droits of the Crown.’

‘The strict letter of the law is one thing, my lord, and equity is another. The law is something of which sailors know nothing, but there is no body of men more tenacious of custom nor more alive to equity and natural justice. The position, as I see it, and as they will see it, is this: their Lordships, fully aware of the Spaniards’ intention of entering the war, of joining Bonaparte, took time by the forelock. To carry on a war with any effect, Spain needed the treasure shipped from the River Plate; their Lordships therefore ordered it to be intercepted. It was essential to act without the loss of a moment, and the disposition of the Channel Fleet was such that – in short, all we were able to send was a squadron consisting of the frigates Indefatigable, Medusa, Amphion and Lively; and they had orders to detain the superior Spanish force and to carry it into Plymouth. By remarkable exertions, and, I may say, by the help of a remarkable stroke of intelligence, for which I claim no credit, the squadron reached Cape Santa Maria in time, engaged the Spaniards, sank one and took the others after a determined action, not without grievous loss on our side. They carried out their orders; they deprived the enemy of the sinews of war; and they brought home five million pieces of eight. If now they are to be told that these dollars, these pieces of eight, are, contrary to the custom of the service, to be regarded not as prize-money at all but as droits of the Crown, why then, it will have a most deplorable effect throughout the fleet.’

‘But since the action took place before the declaration of war…’ began a civilian.

‘What about Belle Poule in ’78?’ cried Admiral Parr.

‘The officers and men of our squadron had nothing to do with any declaration,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘They were not to meddle with affairs of state, but to execute the orders of the Board. They were fired upon first; then they carried out their duty according to their instructions, at no small cost to themselves and with very great advantage to the country. And if they are to be deprived of their customary reward, if, I say, the Board, under whose orders they acted, is to appropriate this money, then the particular effect upon the officers concerned, who have been led to believe themselves beyond the reach of want, or of anything resembling want, and who have no doubt committed themselves upon this understanding, will be –’ he hesitated for the word.

‘Lamentable,’ said a rear-admiral of the Blue.

‘Lamentable. And the general effect upon the service, which will no longer have this splendid example of what zeal and determination can accomplish, will be far wider, far more to be deplored. This is a discretionary matter, my lord – the precedents point in contrary directions, and none has been tried in a court of law – and I put it to you with great earnestness that it would be far better for the Board to use its discretion in the favour of the officers and men concerned. It can be done at no great expense to the country, and the example will repay that expense a hundredfold.’

‘Five million pieces of eight,’ said Admiral Erskine, longingly, in the midst of a general hesitation. ‘Was it indeed as much as that?’

‘Who are the officers primarily concerned?’ asked the First Lord.

‘Captains Sutton, Graham, Collins and Aubrey, my lord,’ said the private secretary. ‘Here are their files.’

There was a silence while the First Lord ran through the papers, a silence broken only by the squeak of Admiral Erskine’s pen converting five million pieces of eight to pounds sterling, dividing the result into its customary prize-shares and coming out with the answer that made him whistle. At the sight of these files Sir Joseph knew the game was up: the new First Lord might know nothing of the Navy, but he was an old parliamentary hand, an astute politician, and there were two names there that were anathema to the present administration. Sutton and Aubrey would throw the damnable weight of party politics into the wavering balance; and the other two captains had no influence of any kind, parliamentary, social or service, to redress it.

‘Sutton I know in the House,’ said the First Lord, pursing his mouth and scribbling a note. ‘And Captain Aubrey … the name is familiar.’

‘The son of General Aubrey, my lord,’ whispered the secretary.

‘Yes, yes. The member for Great Clanger, who made such a furious attack upon Mr Addington. He quoted his son in his speech on corruption, I remember. He often quotes his son. Yes, yes.’ He closed the personal files and glanced at the general report. ‘Pray, Sir Joseph,’ he said after a moment, ‘who is this Dr Maturin?’

‘He is the gentleman about whom I sent your Lordship a minute last week,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘A minute in a yellow cover,’ added with a very slight emphasis – an emphasis that would have been the equivalent of flinging his ink-well at the First Lord’s head in Melville’s time.

‘Is it usual for medical men to be given temporary post-captain’s commissions?’ went on the First Lord, missing the emphasis and forgetting the significance of the yellow cover. All the service members looked up quickly, their eyes running from one to the other.

‘It was done for Sir Joseph Banks and for Mr Halley, my lord, and I believe, for some other scientific gentlemen. It is an exceptional compliment, but by no means unknown.’

‘Oh,’ said the First Lord, conscious from something in Sir Joseph’s cold and weary gaze that he had made a gaffe. ‘So it has nothing to do with this particular case?’

‘Nothing whatsoever, my lord. And if I may revert for a moment to Captain Aubrey, I may state without fear of contradiction that the father’s views do not represent the son’s. Far from it, indeed.’ This he said, not from any hope that he could right the position, but by way of drowning the gaffe – of diverting attention from it – and he was not displeased when Admiral Harte, still hoping to curry favour and at the same time to gratify a personal malevolence, said, ‘Would it be in order to call upon Sir Joseph to declare a personal interest?’

‘No, sir, it would not,’ cried Admiral Parr, his port-wine face flushing purple. ‘A most improper suggestion, by God.’ His voice trailed away in a series of coughs and grunts, through which could be heard ‘infernal presumption – new member – mere rear-admiral – little shit.’

‘If Admiral Harte means to imply that I am in any way concerned with Captain Aubrey’s personal welfare,’ said Sir Joseph with an icy look, ‘he is mistaken. I have never met the gentleman. The good of the service is my only aim.’

Harte was shocked by the reception of what he had thought rather a clever remark, and he instantly pulled in his horns – horns that had been planted, among a grove of others, by the Captain Aubrey in question. He confounded himself in apologies – he had not meant, he had not wished to imply, what he had really intended – not the least aspersion on the most honourable gentleman…

The First Lord, somewhat disgusted, clapped his hand on the table and said, ‘But in any event, I cannot agree that five million dollars is a trifling expense to the country; and as I have already said, our legal advisers assure me that this must be considered as droits of the Crown. Much as I personally should like to fall in with Sir Joseph’s in many ways excellent and convincing suggestion, I fear we are bound by precedent. It is a matter of principle. I say it with infinite regret, Sir Joseph, being aware that this expedition, this brilliantly successful expedition, was under your aegis; and no one could wish more wealth and prosperity to the gentlemen of the Navy than myself. But our hands are tied, alas. However, let us console ourselves with the thought that there will be a considerable sum left over to be divided: nothing in the nature of millions, of course, but a considerable sum, oh yes. Yes. And with that comfortable thought, gentlemen, I believe we must now turn our attention…’

They turned it to the technical questions of impressment, tenders and guardships, matters outside Sir Joseph’s province, and he leant back in his chair, watching the speakers, assessing their abilities. Poor, on the whole; and the new First Lord was a fool, a mere politician. Sir Joseph had served under Chatham, Spencer, St Vincent and Melville, and this man made a pitiful figure beside them: they had had their failings, particularly Chatham, but not one would so have missed the point – the whole expense in this case would have been borne by the Spaniards; it would have been the Spaniards who provided the Royal Navy with the splendid example of four youngish post-captains caught in a great shower, a downpour, of gold – the money would not have left the country. Naval fortunes were not so common; and the fortunes there were had nearly all been amassed by admirals in lucrative commands, taking their flag-share for innumerable captures in which they personally took no part whatsoever. The captains who fought the ships – those were the men to encourage. Perhaps he had not made his point as clearly or as forcibly as he should have done: he was not in form after a sleepless night with seven reports from Boulogne to digest. But in any case, no other First Lord except perhaps St Vincent would have made the question turn on party politics. And quite certainly not a single one of them would have blurted out the name of a secret agent.

Both Lord Melville (a man who really understood intelligence – a splendid First Lord) and Sir Joseph were much attached to Dr Maturin, their adviser on Spanish and especially Catalan affairs, a most uncommon, wholly disinterested agent, brave, painstaking, utterly reliable and ideally qualified, who had never accepted the slightest reward for his services – and such services! It was he who had brought them the intelligence that had allowed them to deliver this crippling blow. Sir Joseph and Lord Melville had devised the temporary commission as a means of obliging him to accept a fortune, supplied by the enemy; and now his name had been brayed out in public – not even in the comparative privacy of the Board, but in a far more miscellaneous gathering – with the question openly directed at the chief of naval intelligence. It was unqualifiable. To rely on the discretion of these sailors whose only notion of dealing with an enemy as cunning as Bonaparte was to blow him out of the water, was unqualifiable. To say nothing of the civilians, the talkative politicians, whose nearest approach to danger was a telescope on Dover cliffs, where they could look at Bonaparte’s invasion army, two hundred thousand strong, camped on the other side of the water. He looked at the faces round the long table; they were growing heated about the relative jurisdictions of the impress service proper and the gangs from the ships – admiral called to admiral in voices that could be heard in Whitehall, and the First Lord seemed to have no control of the meeting whatsoever. Sir Joseph took comfort from this – the gaffe might be forgotten. ‘But still,’ he said to himself, drawing the metamorphoses of a red admiral, egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and imago on his pad, ‘what shall I say to him when we meet? What kind of face can I put on it, when I see him?’

In Whitehall a grey drizzle wept down upon the Admiralty, but in Sussex the air was dry – dry and perfectly still. The smoke rose from the chimney of the small drawing-room at Mapes Court in a tall, unwavering plume, a hundred feet before its head drifted away in a blue mist to lie in the hollows of the downs behind the house. The leaves were hanging yet, but only just, and from time to time the bright yellow rounds on the tree outside the window dropped of themselves, twirling in their slow fall to join the golden carpet at its foot, and in the silence the whispering impact of each leaf could be heard – a silence as peaceful as an easy death.

‘At the first breath of a wind those trees will all be bare,’ observed Dr Maturin. ‘Yet autumn is a kind of spring, too; for there is never a one but is pushed off by its own next-coming bud. You see that so clearly farther south. In Catalonia, now, where you and Jack are to come as soon as the war is over, the autumn rains bring up the grass like an army of spears; and even here – my dear, a trifle less butter, if you please. I am already in a high state of grease.’

Stephen Maturin had dined with the ladies of Mapes, Mrs Williams, Sophia, Cecilia and Frances – traces of brown windsor soup, codfish, pigeon pie, and baked custard could be seen on his neck-cloth, his snuff-coloured waistcoat and his drab breeches, for he was an untidy eater and he had lost his napkin before the first remove, in spite of Sophia’s efforts at preserving it – and now he was sitting on one side of the fire drinking tea, while Sophia toasted him crumpets on the other, leaning forward over the pink and silver glow with particular attention neither to scorch the crumpet by holding it too close nor to parch it by holding it too far down. In the fading light the glow caught her rounded forearm and her lovely face, exaggerating the breadth of her forehead and the perfect cut of her lips, emphasising the extraordinary bloom of her complexion. Her anxiety for the crumpet did away with the usual reserve of her expression; she had her younger sister’s trick of showing the tip of her tongue when she was concentrating, and this, with so high a degree of beauty, gave her an absurdly touching appearance. He looked at her with great complacency, feeling an odd constriction at his heart, a feeling without a name: she was engaged to be married to his particular friend, Captain Aubrey of the Navy; she was his patient; and they were as close as a man and a woman can be where there is no notion of gallantry between them – closer, perhaps, than if they had been lovers. He said, ‘This is an elegant crumpet, Sophie, to be sure: but it must be the last, and I do not recommend another for you, my dear, either. You are getting too fat. You were quite haggard and pitiful not six months ago; but the prospect of marriage suits you, I find. You must have put on half a stone, and your complexion … Sophie, why do you thread, transpierce another crumpet? Who is that crumpet for? For whom is that crumpet, say?’

‘It is for me, my dear. Jack said I was to be firm – Jack loves firmness of character. He said that Lord Nelson…’

Far, far over the still and almost freezing air came the sound of a horn on Polcary Down. They both turned to the window. ‘Did they kill their fox, I wonder, now?’ said Stephen. ‘If Jack were home, he would know, the animal.’

‘Oh, I am so glad he is not out there on that wicked great bay,’ said Sophia. ‘It always managed to get him off, and I was always afraid he would break his leg, like young Mr Savile. Stephen, will you help me draw the curtain?’

‘How she has grown up,’ said Stephen privately. And aloud, as he looked out of the window, holding the cord in one hand, ‘What is the name of that tree? The slim exotic, standing on the lawn?’

‘We call it the pagoda-tree. It is not a real pagoda-tree, but that is what we call it. My uncle Palmer, the traveller, planted it; and he said it was very like.’

As soon as she had spoken Sophia regretted it – she regretted it even before the sentence was out, for she knew where the word might lead Stephen’s mind.

These uneasy intuitions are so often right: to anyone who had the least connection with India the pagoda-tree must necessarily be associated with those parts. Pagodas were small gold coins resembling its leaves, and shaking the pagoda-tree meant making an Indian fortune, becoming a nabob – a usual expression. Both Sophia and Stephen were concerned with India, because Diana Villiers was said to be there, with her lover and indeed keeper Richard Canning. Diana was Sophia’s cousin, once her rival for the affections of Jack Aubrey, and at the same time the object of Stephen’s eager, desperate pursuit – a dashing young woman of surprising charms and undaunted firmness of character, who had been very much part of their lives until her elopement with Mr Canning. She was the black sheep of the family, of course, the scabbed ewe, and in principle her name was never mentioned at Mapes; yet it was surprising how much they knew about her movements and how great a place she occupied in their thoughts.

The newspapers had told them a great deal, for Mr Canning was something of a public figure, a wealthy man with interests in shipping and in the East India Company, in politics (he and his relations owned three rotten boroughs, appointing members to sit for them, since they could not sit themselves, being Jews), and in the social world, Mr Canning having friends among the Prince of Wales’s set. And rumour, making its way from the next county, where his cousins the Goldsmids lived, had told them more. But even so, they had nothing like the information that Stephen Maturin possessed, for in spite of his unworldly appearance and his unfeigned devotion to natural philosophy, he had wide-reaching contacts and great skill in using them. He knew the name of the East Indiaman in which Mrs Villiers had sailed, the position of her cabin, the names of her two maids, their relations and background (one was French, with a soldier brother taken early in the war and now imprisoned at Norman Cross). He knew the number of bills she had left unpaid, and their amount; he knew a great deal about the storm that had raged so violently in the Canning, Goldsmid and Mocatta families, and that was still raging, for Mrs Canning (a Goldsmid by birth) had no notion of a plurality of wives, and she called upon all her relations to defend her with a furious, untiring zeal – a storm that had induced Canning to leave for India, with an official mission connected with the French establishments on the Malabar coast, a rare place for gathering pagodas.

Sophia was right: these were indeed the thoughts that flooded into Stephen’s mind at the name of that unlucky tree – these and a great many more, as he sat silently by the glow of the fire. Not that they had far to travel; they hovered most of the time at no great distance, ready to appear in the morning when he woke, wondering why he was so oppressed with grief; and when they were not immediately present their place was marked by a physical pain in his midriff, in an area that he could cover with the palm of his hand.

In a secret drawer of his desk, making it difficult to open or close, lay docketed reports headed Villiers, Diana, widow of Charles Villiers, late of Bombay, Esquire, and Canning, Richard, of Park Street and Coluber House, co. Bristol. These two were as carefully documented as any pair of State suspects working for Bonaparte’s intelligence services; and although much of this mass of paper had come from benevolent sources, a good deal of it had been acquired in the ordinary way of business, and it had cost a mint of money. Stephen had spared no expense in making himself more unhappy, his own position as a rejected lover even clearer.

‘Why do I gather all these wounds?’ he wondered. ‘With what motive? To be sure, in war any accession of intelligence is an advance: and I may call this a private war. Is it to persuade myself that I am fighting still, although I have been beaten out of the field? Rational enough, but no doubt false – too glib it is.’ He uttered these remarks in Catalan, for being something of a polyglot he had a way of suiting his train of thought to the language that matched it best – his mother was a Catalan, his father an Irish officer, and Catalan, English, French, Castilian came to him as naturally as breathing, without preference, except for subject.

‘How I wish I had held my tongue,’ thought Sophie. She looked anxiously at Stephen as he sat there, bent and staring into the red cavern under the log. ‘Poor dear thing,’ she thought, ‘how very much he is in need of darning – how very much he needs someone to look after him. He really is not fit to wander about the world alone; it is so hard to unworldly people. How could she have been so cruel? It was like hitting a child. A child. How little learning does for a man – he knows almost nothing: he had but to say “Pray be so good as to marry me” last summer and she would have cried “Oh yes, if you please”. I told him so. Not that she would ever have made him happy, the…’ Bitch was the word that struggled to make itself heard; but it struggled in vain. ‘I shall never love that pagoda-tree again. We were so pleasant together, and now it is as though the fire had gone out … it will go out, too, unless I put another log on. And it is quite dark.’ Her hand went out towards the bell-pull to ring for candles, wavered, and returned to her lap. ‘It is terrible how people suffer,’ she thought. ‘How lucky I am: sometimes it terrifies me. Dearest Jack…’ Her inner eye filled with a brilliant image of Jack Aubrey, tall, straight, cheerful, overflowing with life and direct open affection, his yellow hair falling over his post-captain’s epaulette and his high-coloured weather-beaten face stretched in an intensely amused laugh: she could see the wicked scar that ran from the angle of his jaw right up into his scalp, every detail of his uniform, his Nile medal, and the heavy, curved sword the Patriotic Fund had given him for sinking the Bellone. His bright blue eyes almost vanished when he laughed – all you saw were shining slits, even bluer in the scarlet flush of mirth. Never was there anyone with whom she had had such fun – no one had ever laughed like that.

The vision was shattered by the opening of the door and a flood of light from the hall: the squat thick form of Mrs Williams stood there, black in the doorway, and her loud voice cried, ‘What, what is this? Sitting alone in the dark?’ Her eyes darted from the one to the other to confirm the suspicions that had been growing in her mind ever since the silence had fallen between them – a silence of which she was perfectly aware, as she had been sitting in the library close to a cupboard in the panelling: when this cupboard door was open, one could not help hearing what was said in the small drawing-room. But their immobility, their civil, surprised faces turned towards her, convinced Mrs Williams of her mistake and she said with a laugh, ‘A lady and gentleman sitting alone in the dark – it would never have done in my time, la! The gentlemen of the family would have called upon Dr Maturin for an explanation. Where is Cecilia? She ought to have been keeping you company. In the dark … but I dare say you were thinking of the candles, Sophie. Good girl. You would not credit, Doctor,’ she said, turning towards her guest with a polite look; for although Dr Maturin was scarcely to be compared with his friend Captain Aubrey, he was known to be the possessor of a marble bath and of a castle in Spain – a castle in Spain! – and he might very well do for her younger daughter: had Cecilia been sitting in the dark with Dr Maturin she would never have burst in. ‘You would not credit how candles have risen. No doubt Cecilia would have had the same idea. All my daughters have been brought up with a strict sense of economy, Dr Maturin; there is no waste in this house. However, if it had been Cecilia in the dark with a beau, that would never have done; the game would not have been worth the candle, ahem! No, sir, you would never believe how wax has gone up since the beginning of the war. Sometimes I am tempted to turn to tallow; but poor though we are, I cannot bring myself to it – at least not in the public rooms. However, I have two candles burning in the library, and you shall have one: John need not light the sconces in here. I was obliged to have two, Dr Maturin, for I have been sitting with my man of business all this time – nearly all this time. The writings and the contracts and the settlements are so very long and complicated, and I am an infant in these matters.’ The infant’s estate ran far beyond the parish boundaries, and tenants’ babies as far away as Starveacre, on being told ‘Mrs Williams will come for you’, would fall mute with horror. ‘But Mr Wilbraham throws out some pretty severe reflections on us all for our dilatoriness, as he calls it, though I am sure it is not our fault, with Captain A so far away.’