The Hundred Days by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online

walk out high on the Rock, where they
could speak about their present undertaking in complete safety. that is to say, if you still feel concerned.’
    ‘I am wholly concerned, wholly committed,’ said
Stephen. ‘If it were not so wicked, I could almost be grateful for this very
evil man and his odious system.’
    They walked out of the town, up and up to the ridge
itself, where the cliffs fall down to Catalan Bay and where Stephen saw, with a
muted satisfaction, that the peregrine eyrie was occupied again, the falcon
standing on the outer edge, bating and calling. All the way along they walked,
with the migrant birds passing overhead, sometimes very low, and on either
side, Stephen mechanically noting the rarities (six pallid harriers, more than
he had ever seen together), right out to the far end overlooking Europa Point,
and back again; and all the time, with a much more conscious, concentrated
mind, Stephen listened to all that Jacob, with his remarkable sources of
information, had gathered about the Adriatic ports, the Muslim fraternities and
the progress of their urgent request for money to pay their mercenaries. Jacob
also spoke, and with equal authority, of the probable donor and of the pressure
that might be brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers. ‘But where Africa is concerned,’ he said,
‘it seems to me that little or nothing should be attempted until we have had at
least some success in the Adriatic.’
    Stephen agreed, his eyes following a troop of black
storks as they passed over the flagship; and quite suddenly he realized that
the Royal Sovereign was no longer flying the courtmartial signal. Indeed, the
captains’ barges were already dispersing.
    On the way down they walked almost in silence. They
had said all that could usefully be said at this point, though more
intelligence was to be expected at Mahon - and Stephen very often
glanced at the flagship’s main yardarm. In these waters the Commander-in-Chief
was all-powerful: he could confirm a court’s sentence of death without the
least reference to the King or the Admiralty. In naval courtsmartial sentence
was pronounced at once: it was final, with no appeal: and Lord Keith was not
one for delay.
    By the time they reached the town there was no man
hanging from the yardarm; but on the battlements this side of the Southport
Gate there were several officers, including Jack Aubrey and some of the
Pomone’s people, looking earnestly southward along the strand. Stephen joined
them, saying, ‘Sir, may I introduce Dr Jacob, the assistant surgeon of whom I
told you?’
    ‘Very happy, sir,’ said Jack, shaking Jacob’s hand.
He would obviously have said more, but at this moment a strong murmur all along
from the bastion increased immensely as two boats left the flagship, pulling
for the shore and towing a bare grating, the soaked and wretched prisoners upon
it. A few minutes later the grating was cast off: a small
surf brought it in and the men scrambled in the shallows. There was some sparse
cat-calling from the crowd, but not much; and half a dozen people helped them
to dry land, dragging their belongings.
     ‘Dr Jacob,
sir,’ said Jack, ‘I hope that you will be able to come aboard without delay. I
am eager to be out of sight of this place.’ And privately to Stephen he said,
‘I repeated your “No penetration, no sodomy”, which
floored one and all; though I must say that most of them were glad to be
floored. I persuaded the others to find no more than gross indecency.’
    ‘And is being towed ashore on a grating the set
penalty for gross indecency?’
    ‘No. We call it the use and custom of the sea: that
is the way it has always been.’
    Chapter Two

    For several years now Stephen Maturin had been
perfectly aware that a life at sea, above all in a man-of-war, was not the
waterborne picnic sometimes imagined by those living far inland; but he had
never supposed that anything could be quite so arduous as this existence
between the two,