21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey Read Online Free PDF Page A

recall, I nearly always bri ng them back to the ship sober.”
    “ Indeed you do: thoughtful, contemplative and, as you say dead sober. Now it just happened to cross my mind that was you to take them all to the cathedral, where I have no doubt the Legate will be pontificating, as is but right and proper, and if they were to be perfect ly neat, fit to pass an Admiral’ s inspection, most uncommon solemn and pious, if you understand me, and was they to sing out good and hearty in the right places, it might tend to create a good impression, and persuade his Holiness that we were not all a band of gin-sodden ra parees, given over entirely to whoredom and things I do not like even to mention. I hope you do not find my suggestion offensive, Stephen ? For it is only a suggestion, d o you see, not in any sense an order.”
    “ A very good suggestion, too. And I shall pass the word about my fellow-papists, letting them know, among other things, that it is for the honour of the ship that we should not all be blacked with a whole number of brushes - Lutherans, bigots, church-burners, destroyers of monasteries, sodomites and a number of other words that will instantly occur to your mind. But first, with your permission I will go ashore and gather what information I can: at present I swim in a sea of unknowing. The only thing that is at all clear is that upon the whole do not love us as much as they should.”
    What he said was quite true. Neither the British seamen nor the Royal Navy seemed really popular. Quite early in the morning a large scow, filled with much of the city’ s night-soil, heaved its massy burden ov erboard so close to the frigate’ s side that her paintwork was horribly fouled and her yardarms much endangered: all this to the cry ‘Filthy sods,’ which the Portuguese had obviously learnt from a merchantman and which they repeated with unflagging zeal for a very long time, stopping only when some facetious hands from an incoming trawler started throwing their more putrid cargo on to Surprise’ s deck. The trawler, curiously enough, was garlanded if not with roses, then at least with some bright pink tropical flowers. Nor was she alone in this: very considerable numbers of other fishing-craft, from whalers down to one-rod tunny-men, came swarming up the bay.
    During a pause in the hoots, the pelting and the obscene gestures, Stephen and Jacob returned, unhurt, unmolested, undefiled — they did indeed look very like foreigners, poor souls. They asked Jack to come below, and in the cabin Stephen said, “ Sir, I shall speak for us both, if I may, although Dr Jacob's information is of greater value than mine and his connexions far more varied. In the very first place the extreme clerical what I might call right wing means to overthrow the governor and the government tonight or tomorrow. The Legate, who has great influence with the very large service population and above all with their leaders is here to prevent or at least to soften this movement: the ultra-clericals have little in the way of armed sup port, and that is one of the reasons why they have made so much of this alleged Protestant business, and why we were pelted with dung. May I say how extraordinarily wise you have been not to retaliate? To continue: this is the day upon which the fishing-boats are blessed, a very considerable feast i ndeed, a holiday of obligation.” He looked at his watch. “ I shall not go on prating any longer, but let me beg you to come on deck now, with your glass: and if necessary to go into the top to see the Legate arrive at the top of the steps from which he blesses the fishermen and their craft.”
    Jack Aubrey did exactly what he was asked to do, giving Jacob a hand at the last stage; and there they stood all three, gazing out to starboard at the far, but not so very far, side of the harbour, where a noble flight of stairs led down to the water. At the side of the step stood soldiers in scarlet cl oaks; and on the water