Treason’s Harbour. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ and Bonden put Pullings tenderly to bed in a neat, seamanlike fashion, and Jack, looking at his watch, realized that if he were not to be late for Mrs Fielding’s rehearsal he would have to step out; he also realized that he had not sent his violin round earlier in the day, a foolish oversight in a town where all officers wore uniform, and could not be seen carrying so much as a packet themselves, let alone a musical instrument. ‘Bonden,’ he said, ‘jump to the Doctor’s parlour, take my fiddle-case from the window-seat, and come along to Mrs Fielding’s with me. I am going directly.’

      Bonden made no reply, only twisting his head to one side, looking dogged, and pretending to be busy with the string of Captain Pullings’ nightcap; but Killick plucked Jack’s hat from the bedside table with such force that the chelengk quivered again and said, ‘Not in that scraper you ain’t.’ The diamonds were of course his first consideration, but there was also the hat itself, Captain Aubrey’s best gold-laced hat, and Killick hated to see good uniforms worn to skin and bone, rack and ruin; or indeed worn at all. And although he was an open-handed creature himself (none more prodigal than Preserved Killick when ashore with a hat-full of prize-money) he disliked seeing Captain Aubrey’s victuals or wine eaten or drunk by anyone but admirals or lords or very good friends; and he had been known to give junior officers and midshipmen the mixed leavings of yesterday’s bottles. Now he came back with a little mean shrunken threadbare hat that had seen cruel hard service in the Channel. ‘Oh well, damn the scraper,’ said Jack, reflecting that the chelengk would be horribly out of place at the rehearsal. ‘Bonden, what are you at?’

      ‘I shall have to shift my togs first,’ said Bonden, looking away.

      ‘Which he means was he to carry a fiddle the redcoats might call out Give us a tune, sailor,’ said Killick. ‘You wouldn’t like that, your honour, not with Surprise on the ribbon of his hat. No. What you would like is for me to call a blackguard boy to carry it; and Bonden will go along and keep an eye on him, as in duty bound.’

      It was all hellfire nonsense, began Captain Aubrey, and they were a couple of God-damned swabs; but then reflecting that they had followed him many a time on to the deck of an enemy man-of-war, when there was no question of carrying fiddle-cases or being laughed at, he said there was no time to be lost – they might do as they chose – but if that fiddle were not at Mrs Fielding’s within five minutes of his own arrival, they might look out for another ship.

      In fact the fiddle was there before him. Bonden’s little barefoot boy knew every short cut and they were waiting at the big double doors giving on to the street when Jack came hurrying down through an adverse tide of black-cowled women, men of half a dozen nations, some scented, and goats. ‘Well done,’ he said, giving the boy a shilling. ‘I shall be just in time. Bonden, you may cut along: I shall want my gig at six in the morning.’ He took his fiddle and hurried down the long stone passage that pierced the building from front to back, leading to the little garden house where Laura Fielding lived; but when he reached the door that opened on to this inner court he found that his haste had been quite unnecessary – there was no answer to his knock. He waited a decent interval, then pushed the door; and as it opened he caught a great heady waft from her lemon-tree. It was an enormous tree, certainly as old as Valletta, if not older, and it had some flowers all the year round. Jack sat on the low surrounding wall, rather like a well-head, and gasped for a while; the bed had had its enormous quarterly watering that very day, and the damp earth gave out a grateful freshness.

      He had quite recovered his good humour during his walk – it rarely deserted him for long – and now, opening his coat and taking off his hat, he contemplated the lemons in the gathering twilight with the utmost satisfaction, the cool air wafting about him. He had stopped puffing and he was about to take his fiddle out of its case when he took notice of a sound that had been vaguely present for some time but that now seemed to increase – a desperate unearthly wailing, fairly regular.

      ‘It is scarcely human,’ he said, cocking his ear and trying to think of possible origins – a windmill turning with no tallow on its shaft, a lathe of some kind, a man run melancholy-mad and shut up behind the wall on the left. ‘Yet sound is the strangest thing for reverberation,’ he reflected, standing up. Beyond the lemon-tree there stood the little house, and from its right-hand corner ran an elegant flight of arches, screening another courtyard at an angle to the first: he walked through, and at once the sound grew very much louder – it was coming from a broad, deep cistern sunk in the corner to receive rain-water from the roofs.

      ‘God help us,’ said Jack, running towards it with a vague but very horrible notion of the maniac’s having flung himself in out of despair. And when he leant over the edge of the dark water some four or five feet below, the notion seemed to be confirmed – a dim hairy form was swimming there, straining up its huge lamentable head and uttering a hoarse wow wow wow of extraordinary volume. Another glance, however, showed him that it was Ponto.

      The cistern had been more than half emptied to water the lemon-tree (buckets stood by it still): the wretched dog, impelled by some unknown inquisitiveness and betrayed by some unknown blunder, had fallen in. There was still enough water for him to be out of his depth but enough had been taken to make it impossible for him to reach the rim and heave himself out. He had been in the water a great while, and all round the walls there were the bloody marks of his paws where he had tried to scrabble up. He looked quite mad with terror and despair and at first he took no notice of Jack at all, howling on and on without a pause.

      ‘If he is out of his wits he will have my hand off, maybe,’ said Jack, having spoken to the dog with no effect. ‘I must get hold of his collar: a damned long lean.’ He took off his coat and sword and reached down, far down, but not far enough although he felt his breeches complain. He straightened, took off his waistcoat, loosened his neckcloth and the band of his breeches and leant over again, down into the dimness and the howling that filled the air. This time his hand just touched the water: he saw the dog surge across, called out, ‘Hey there, Ponto, give us your scruff,’ and poised his hand to seize the collar. To his vexation the animal merely swam heavily to the other side, where it tried to climb the hopeless wall with its flayed, clawless paws, howling steadily.

      ‘Oh you God-damned fool,’ he cried. ‘You silly calf-headed bitch. Give us your scruff: bear a hand now, you infernal bugger.’

      The familiar naval sounds, uttered very loud and echoing in the cistern, pierced through the dog’s distress, bringing sense and comfort. He swam over: Jack’s hand brushed the hairy head, whipped down to the collar, the damned awkward spiked collar, and took what grip it could. ‘Hold fast,’ he said, slipping his fingers farther under. ‘Stand by.’ He drew breath, and with his left hand gripping the cistern-rim and his right hooked under the collar, the two as far apart as they could be, he heaved. He had the dog half way out of the water – a very great weight with such a poor grip, but just possible – when the edge of the cistern gave way and he fell bodily in. Two thoughts flashed into his plunging mind: ‘There go my breeches’ and ‘I must keep clear of his jaws’, and then he was standing on the bottom of the cistern with the water up to his chest and the dog round his neck, its forelegs gripping him in an almost human embrace and its strangled breath in his ear. Strangled, but not demented: Ponto had clearly recovered what wits he possessed. Jack let go the collar, turned the dog about, grasped his middle, and crying ‘Away aloft’ thrust him up towards the rim. Ponto got his paws on to it, then his chin; Jack gave his rump one last powerful heave and he was gone: the mouth of the cistern overhead was empty, but for the pale sky and three stars.

      Chapter Two

      Malta was a gossiping place, and the news of Captain Aubrey’s liaison with Mrs Fielding soon spread through Valletta and even beyond, to the outlying villas where the more settled service people lived. Many officers envied Jack his good fortune, but not unkindly, and he sometimes caught knowing, conniving smiles and veiled congratulatory expressions that he could not make out, he being, in the natural course of events, one СКАЧАТЬ