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bomberqueen17 · 2 months ago

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Liveblogging the Aubreyad: HMS Surprise pt 2

Yeah yeah i really wasn't going to do this but I had to split it. We left our heroes limping toward Bombay in a broken-kneed Surprise with every last rat eaten and scurvy breaking out again and their dead reckoning so far out that it's telling them they should be in the Himalayas. (The master on this ship is not a gifted navigator.) But Jack knows math now, and consulting with Tom Pullings who has been here before [see the breakout running tally section] they make their landfall dead on, and reach Bombay. The Admiral there immediately removes Lt. Hervey to promote him, but by recompense gives Jack free run of the naval storeyards, so they can repair the Surprise.

And there's somebody ostensibly in Bombay, who doesn't know they're coming.

Stephen goes ashore and goes native, delighting in the city's diverse ways of life, and is adopted by a young street kid named Dil, who takes it upon herself to make sure he does not come to harm.

He finds Diana quite by coincidence. It had been said that she and Canning were traveling and would be out of town until the 17th, and this rumor had reached Jack, but she had grown bored and ridden home early, so she sees him in a crowd, is astonished and delighted, and tells him he must come to her house. He does so, they talk, she confesses unhappiness in her situation here-- Canning is violently jealous, the other women all refuse to see her socially, there is vicious gossip. Stephen asks her to marry him. She is so shocked she turns him down. He is completely shattered by this.

Canning walks in as they are still talking, and Stephen cannot tell how much he heard. He acts friendly enough but not quite right. He must suspect Stephen's motives.

Stephen goes back to his lodgings, finds out Jack has been furiously trying to make him come back on board for several days. Jack wants them to leave so that Stephen won't see Diana, it's clear, and has been relentlessly driving his people through the repair and refit of the Surprise to make it happen. But Stephen declines to return with the messenger, and goes out to tie up his various bits of business.

He finds his little street kid dead, so he pays for her funeral, and sits by the pyre until it's gone.

Meanwhile the new 1st lieutenant comes aboard-- Stourton, who had previously been in a floating hell ship under a flogging captain, obliged to carry out that kind of discipline. Jack knows this and doesn't make the mistake he did with Parker of trying to be subtle-- he immediately tells Stourton explicitly that the Surprise almost never flogs and he won't stand for trivial hard-horse bullshit. Stourton is inexpressibly relieved, and proves to be a thoroughly decent and competent chap. He is leery of Pullings, who he is painfully aware he is supplanting (precedence of lieutenants depends entirely on seniority in the service, not seniority in the ship)-- and Pullings it was who did all of the exhausting, driving work of the refit, of course-- but Tom is such a nice kid that he never so much as looks at Stourton cross-eyed, because he never would.

Stephen shows up finally, and Jack is ready to be furious with him, but at his obviously devastated, gray aspect, Jack wisely says nothing. A little later he endeavors to cheer Stephen up by taking him into the foretop and showing him where he carved his initials on the cap as a midshipman. Stephen is touchingly delighted by the view.

Jack writes to Sophie; they could live modestly in a charming little cottage, if only Jack can get free of the last of this debt which he surely can in short order. Pullings knows about the earth and advised him on gardens, they could live like that, surely, living off the land in deep frugality. It pleases him to imagine it. (He also mentions Babbington being on the sick-list but does not elaborate that it is because of venereal disease acquired in Bombay. Time for an update to that young man's running tally...)

The envoy has a medical crisis. Stephen says they must get to solid land within 24 hours. “Pulo Batak, sir,' said Pullings at once, touching the coast of Sumatra with the dividers. 'Inside Pulo Batak. We watered there twice in the Lord Clive, both coming and going.” which means another update to that tally as well.

Tom is given more or less complete control, and as part of the approach he has to anchor them in deeper water than Jack has ever anchored in, against a very powerful ebb tide, and Jack is dubious but believes in Pullings's seamanship. Pullings claims confidence but is horribly nervous about it. Babbington comes and cheers him up supportively, which earns his gratitude.

Alas, alas: they make it to land, and land the envoy, and set up to operate on him, but he does not survive long enough. Mr. Stanhope dies at 3am from, well, a medical person could probably make it out but the terms Stephen uses are incomprehensible to me.

They put back to sea-- homeward bound now, there's no reason to continue to Kampong, as they have no envoy now. Their mission is ended. And they soon encounter the East India Company's China fleet, bound for the very long haul to England.

Pullings takes the littlest midshipman, Church, up into the tops to behold the riches of the Orient-- six million pounds or more, in that convoy. He also tells Church that if he is careless in his speech the Captain will nail his ears to a plank and cast him adrift in the ocean, solemnly attesting that he saw the captain do this to no less than three young gentlemen in the Med.

(Pullings made two voyages in the Lushington, apparently, which brings his tally up to an improbable eight. I don't think Pullings is meant to be lying about the Indiamen, despite him practicing on Church's credulity about the young men cast adrift, but he has to have been in some sort of chronological anomaly to do this.)

The China fleet has seen them, and signals them to come aboard to dine. Officers in the East India Company are well-paid and eat well; they are fond of the Navy, if a bit self-conscious in an inferiority-complex kind of way-- the proper long-haul Indiamen are designed to look as much like men-of-war as possible, to deter piracy and privateers, and there's a bit of mutual friction on the whole between the merchant and martial fleets. But Jack isn't given to that sort of thing, and Pullings is very well-disposed toward them, so they have a lovely dinner, all the young pretty women in the fleet having been signaled to come aboard to make up the numbers ("repeat: young, repeat: pretty"), and all the officers being eager to make a good impression.

Young Church eats so much his dining companion is afraid he might hurt himself. The ladies withdraw, and Babbington makes a pretext to follow them of course. Upon their return to the ship, Church hurries down to the midshipmen's berth to eat a second dinner.

The wonderful outcome of this meeting is that they offload most of the envoy's suite into the Indiamen, which can provide much more luxurious accomodations. This frees up a ton of space in Surprise and also rids them of the obnoxious Atkins.

They have not long parted ways with the China fleet when they sight sails again-- in his haste to report, Babbington trips and sprawls headlong at Jack's feet, and Jack tells him this is carrying deference too far. But the upshot is that these sails are the French-- Linoir's squadron, very clearly on the hunt for the China fleet, who would be a delicious fat prize for them and is the main incentive for them to haunt these waters.

Surprise must try to lure the French away, then double back to report to the China fleet so there is time for them to defend themselves. Linoir has four ships, most of them far too large for Surprise to hope to defeat. Jack gets up to his favorite kinds of capers, rigging a drag sail so the ship can be seen to be cracking on while remaining eminently catchable-looking, and other things to lure them to chase thinking they'll be able to catch and take him without imperiling their search for the China fleet.

In the course of the chase (Jack repeats a move he used unsuccessfully against Linois in the Mediterranean, doubling back to dart between two pursuing ships, and is this time more successful), they close with a small corvette, the Berceau, which fights them far more aggressively and gallantly than they expect, taking shocking damage. Jack has had Babbington rig one of the large sails so that it can be let go suddenly (though secretly will land without harm), to pretend the Berceau shot it away, to give them more reason to limp and look tempting, luring the Frenchmen on thinking they could catch him. Babbington makes a great show of this, with tremendous flair and style and the enjoyment of all the hands involved who love a caper, and they also make a fire amidships in one of the kitchen coppers with slush and tow to burn very smokily, everyone acting panicked and running around shouting and hollering.

They keep up their capers until dark, and then change direction rapidly and crack on to reach the fleet, but Jack knows Linois and does not assume the intelligent, experienced admiral will necessarily be fooled. But they did their best, and he turns in.

Indeed Linoir guessed at their capers, and had sent one brig northwards in case the Surprise doubled back that way, so they are spotted near-immediately. But it did divert the main body of Frenchmen, giving them enough time for Surprise to come up with the China fleet well in advance of the French approach, and Jack immediately calls in all of the Indiamen's captains for a council of war. They do have guns, they can fight, and if they organize themselves strategically, they have a real hope of fending Linoir off-- out here the French do not have ready access to resupply, and if any of the French ships are badly damaged they will not be able to repair them. Jack firmly believes that if they puff themselves up enough, if they act sharp and aggressive, the French will not engage, or will be driven off by a determined resistance.

He is incredibly nice to the merchant captains, very respectful of them, lays out all the amiability he can muster to keep from offending them, because he knows what a situation this is. Were he not there, the fastest of them would probably run, and would probably escape, leaving the weaker ones to be snapped up-- but it is some of these faster ships that he has to implore to stay against their immediate best interests and help defend the others, in hopes of a good outcome for all. It's a hard sell, but the fleet's commodore, Captain Muffit of the Lushington, speaks eloquently in Jack's favor, and convinces the other captains. The fleet divides up into a leeward squadron of the smaller, weaker ships that will sail as far away as they can to try to get well out of reach of the French, and a windward squadron that will form a line of battle, the largest among them being given as much help as possible to look like real Royal Navy ships. Jack strips his quarter-deck, sending even his purser to one of the ships, as the man is an avid seaman and can point a gun beautifully despite that not being his job-- and very delicately makes offerings such as all his officers' spare coats for the captains of the Indiamen chosen for disguise to wear, man-of-war pendants and blue ensigns for the ships-- it is illegal for them to endeavor to deceive in this manner on their own account, but with Jack there to countenance it, this is technically legal, but it is hard to overcome their resistance.

But he does, and their commodore, Muffit of the Lushington, had liked him from the start and is very cooperative.

“I admire the regularity of your line, sir,' said Jack. 'The Channel fleet could not keep station better.' 'I am happy to hear you say so,' said Muffit. 'We may not have your heavy crews, but we do try to do things seaman-like. Though between you and me and the binnacle,' he added in a personal aside, 'I dare say the presence of your people may have something to do with it. There is not one of us would not sooner lose an eye-tooth than miss stays with a King's officer looking on.”

The ruse initially works; the windward ships, fifteen of the big long-haul Indiamen, form a proper line of battle, wearing in succession with snappy Royal Navy promptness, three of them very convincingly disguised as frigates down to Jack's second-best coat on the captain on the quarterdeck of one of them (Pullings recognizable to Jack on the quarterdeck of the Lushington solely by his huge grin), and the French decline the engagement that first day, sailing away for the night in an obvious attempt to beat up overnight to get the weather-gage so they can control the engagement on the morrow.

They do, but a swell rises, which Jack had hoped for-- it means the French cannot accurately point their guns at long range, which will spare the English ships a distant hammering to which they cannot reply.

The next morning the French come on, and Linois intends to break the line, which cannot be allowed to happen, pointing his flagship Marengo at the weakest point between what he has accurately guessed to be the two lightest-armed, poorest-sailing ships. The Surprise comes out ahead, alone, to engage; the Indiamen only have cannonades, which are short-range inaccurate guns, and cannot fight effectively at any range; they must stay in formation so their overlapping fields of fire can repel the French ships.

The Marengo is a 74, approximately twice Surprise's size, and she can only hope to hold her off briefly. This they do, at the cost of a shocking drubbing from Marengo's much heavier guns. All seems lost, but three of the Indiamen come off the line in a pretty manoever that lets them still reinforce one another, and they come up to hammer the Marengo from both sides, which she cannot endure, rescuing Surprise and in turn breaking the French formation. The Indiamen force Marengo to turn, and Surprise manages to give her enough of a pounding that her rigging is badly damaged and the French lose heart for the engagement-- Jack is correct, they cannot afford damage, they cannot refit, and so they turn and flee. The Indiamen chase briefly, but they are not designed for speed and Surprise is too badly damaged to sail fast, and once the French are too far to come up on the leeward ships, they turn back.

Muffit is horrified to realize how torn up the Surprise is, and offers all the help he can. Mostly, Jack just wants his officers back-- he relies on them and it was difficult to fight an action without Pullings, Babbington, and the others.

So-- he won no prizes in this engagement, took or sank no Frenchmen, but neither did the Frenchmen win a single penny from the entire China fleet, which is preserved intact. The East India Company is absolutely delighted with him, and the fleet escorts him into Calcutta victorious though inches from foundering most of the way, pumping heavily.

There the Surprise is lavishly repaired at the Company's expense, and all her people wined and dined, a purse of gratitude-money distributed among her sailors, and Canning comes and offers Jack a very delicately-put reward for himself-- freight. A Royal Navy captain that consents to carry "freight"-- necessarily small, precious items, so as to be worth the doing but not cumbersome enough to interfere with the running of the ship-- will be repaid according to a percentage of the cargo's value, and the Company has a shipment of precious stones that will answer the purpose admirably. It is more modest but far more sure than prize-money, as there is no fighting and no legal questions surrounding it.

This will be enough for Jack to meet the terms of the engagement as set out by Mrs. Williams, so he takes advantage of Canning's offer of a fast overland mail courier to send her a letter begging her to come out to Madiera and meet him there, and another letter to his friend Heneage Dundas asking him to carry her to Madiera.

Meanwhile Stephen goes to see Diana. She is in a fluster; from what she says it is clear she thinks he is only interested in taking possession of her because she is otherwise so trapped that she has no choice, and what she believes his motives to be I am unsure, but he has been at such pains to discipline himself against sentiment with her that she certainly cannot understand his feelings for her with any clarity, and he does not understand her hesitation.

“Why wait till now? Anyone would say I had brought myself so low that you could do something quixotic. Indeed, if I were not so fond of you - and I am fond of you, Maturin: you are a friend I love - I might call it a great impertinence. An affront. No woman of any spirit will put up with an affront. I have not degraded myself.' hcr chin began to pucker; she mastered it and said, 'I have not come down to… 'But in spite of her pride the tears came running fast: she bowed her head on his shoulder, and they ran down his bloom-coloured coat. 'In any case,' she said between her sobs, 'you do not really wish to marry me. You told me yourself, long ago, the hunter does not want the fox.”

Canning walks into the room and demands to know just what Stephen thinks he is doing. Stephen demands to know what Canning thinks he is doing, when anyone knows that Mrs. Canning is on her way and will arrive on the sixteenth. Where then will be your "protection" of Mrs. Villiers?

Canning is furious (he had not told Diana of this, though it had clearly been weighing on him), says Stephen has been tampering with his papers, and in a passion he strikes Stephen. Diana throws a table between them and tries to break them up, begging Stephen to take no notice of the affront; Canning runs out of the room after smashing a chair.

Stephen leaves, and then goes to the Surprise's captain of Marines to ask him to be his second in a duel.

He does not tell Jack, but instead asks him to play a duet, and they play the Boccherini in C, the best they've ever played it. Jack is delighted. And then Stephen gives him his confidential papers and asks him to dispose of them as directed, "the usual things", as he is to duel Canning in the morning. Jack is unhappy, but insists he will come along.

Stephen resolves to shoot Canning in the arm, but his aim is not what it was ever since the torture in Port Mahon. Canning fires first, striking Stephen in the ribs. Stephen staggers, puts the pistol into his other hand, changes his stance, and fires in return. His shot hits Canning in the chest, piercing either the aorta itself or his subclavian artery, and the man dies within moments. Stephen is horribly downcast, and is bandaged and driven away.

Jack takes a letter to Diana. He is coldly angry with her, blames her for the whole thing. She asks if she might come back to England in the Surprise and he tells her it is impossible. She knows this is a lie and tells him he is a scrub. He leaves.

The pistol ball is lodged in Stephen's ribcage and must be extracted. Stephen insists on performing the operation himself, and commissions the ship's armourer to make him a custom-designed extractor for the purpose.

“No, sir. I do this with my own hand.' He looked at it critically, and said, more or less to himself, 'If it could undertake the one task, it must undertake the other: that is but justice.”

Jack holds him while he performs the operation, and nearly faints at the end; he is used to wounds but the cold inhumanity of it quite unsettles him.

“Christ, Bonden,' said Jack, 'he opened himself slowly, with his own hands, right to the heart. I saw it beating there.' 'Ah, sir, there's surgery for you,' said Bonden, passing the glass. 'It would not surprise any old Sophie, however; such a learned article. You remember the gunner, sir? Never let it put you off your dinner. He will be as right as a trivet, never you fret, sir.”

Stephen is ill, feverish, for a long time. Diana comes aboard, and, told not to upset Stephen, she lies and says she simply did not think to ask Jack if she could come aboard in the Surprise, but she is happy to go in the Lushington instead, it will be just as Stephen wishes, she will see him in England, and so she leaves.

Jack sits with Stephen, who is delirious and ranting and says many, many things in many languages. Others would be happy to sit with him, Jack knows, but he has begun to understand how much of Stephen's life is confidential, and he does not wish anyone else to hear the things Stephen is saying, knowing that it would mortify Stephen to know anyone had heard them. Some of them are unkind things about Jack, many of them are about Diana. Jack is grateful on the occasions Stephen lapses into other languages, because he does not understand any of them. Jack is also deeply grateful that he can rely so thoroughly on his officers to run the ship, Pullings especially but Babbington too, because it means he can just sit and listen to Stephen's ranting and not have to expose these secrets to anyone else.

But eventually the fever breaks and Stephen progresses disagreeably (he is a truly horrible patient) through his convalescence. They go ashore on a remote island that Jack wishes to properly survey, and Stephen discovers a truly massive land tortoise unknown to science. He immediately names it after Jack (testudo Aubreii) and they take it aboard, and this turns the corner for him into recovery as he is so cheered up by it.

They are following the path the Lushington took, and hear news that the ship has passed everywhere that can have recorded said news. They reach Madiera, where Jack had written to Sophie to ask her to meet him. But she is not there. And what's more, the Lushington had touched there, and Diana disembarked from it, leaving Stephen a note in which she returned the ring he had given her. She has gone instead to America with a man named Johnson who had been trying to court her in India, there to be married to him, and she will never see Stephen again, though she will always remember him fondly.

Stephen takes this as well as can be expected-- he goes up a mountain to read it, knowing since he can feel the ring through the envelope that it is a Dear John letter, and lies there in a hollow in a rock all night, and then comes down and admits what has happened to Jack. Jack is similarly bereft, as Sophie did not come. Stephen tries to cheer Jack up-- perhaps she did not get the letter in time-- but Jack had sure news that the courier had arrived, so that cannot be the case. No, she declined to come.

So they get back on the Surprise and continue homeward, most of the ship in high delight at the prospect of home and sweethearts, but both Stephen and Jack mute and downcast.

But at night they meet two English frigates, and the second is the Ethalion captained by Heneas Dundage, who signals to Jack that he has women for him, a rather puzzling and yet heart-stopping message.

“The Surprise shot across the Ethalion's bows and rounded to under her lee. He gazed across with a look of extreme apprehension, trying to believe and to disbelieve; and Heneage Dundas called out from her quarterdeck, 'Good morning, Jack; I have Miss Williams here. Will you come across?' The boat splashed down, half-filling in the choppy sea; it pulled across; Jack leapt for the side, raced up, touched his hat to the quarterdeck, crushed Dundas in his arms, and was led to the cabin, unshaved, unwashed, wet, ablaze with joy. Sophie curtseyed, Jack bowed; they both blushed extremely, and Dundas left them, saying he would see to breakfast.”

This is notable because it might be the only time Jack hugs a man of his own volition in this entire series, I hadn't been tracking it but had noticed several notable lacks. (Anyone else who is reading these please do send me examples I've missed, as I said I wasn't looking for it! Tangent: Jack is canonically bad at sex but would probably be amazing at hugs don't you think?? We'll get to that in Yellow Admiral.)

Jack has a parson aboard and offers to marry Sophie right now, but she declines, she has promised her mother to marry at home in the local church.

And so they set off for home.

#liveblogging the aubreyad #HMS Surprise #Jack Aubrey #Stephen Maturin #Tom Pullings #William Babbington

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