HMS Surprise. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ at sea.

      He had thought he knew Port Mahon, but in five minutes of climbing up through these dark sleeping alleys, with no more than a cat flitting in the doorways and once the sound of a baby being hushed, he was lost; and when they came crouching through a low stinking tunnel he was astonished to find himself in the familiar little square of St Anna’s. The church door was ajar: they pushed silently in. One candle in a side-chapel, and by the candle two men holding white handkerchiefs. They whispered to the guide, a priest or a man dressed as a priest, and came forward to speak to him. He could not make out what they said, but caught the word foch several times repeated, and when the door opened again he saw a red glow in the sky. The back of the church was filling as the guides led in his other groups: close-packed silent men, smelling of tar. The glow again, and he went to look out – a fire down by the harbour, with smoke drifting fast away to the south, lit red from below – and as he looked he heard a shriek: high bubbling agony cut off short. It came from a house no great way off.

      Here was Bonden with the last party, doubling across the square. ‘Did you hear that, sir? Them buggers are at it.’

      ‘Silence, you God-damn fool,’ he said, very low.

      The clock whirred and struck: three. Maragall appeared from the shadows. ‘Come on,’ said Jack, ran from the square to the alley in the corner, up the alley, along the high blank wall to where a fig-tree leaned over the top. ‘Bonden, make me a back.’ He was up. ‘Grapnels.’ He hooked them around the trunk, whispered, ‘Land soft, land soft, there,’ and dropped into the court.

      Here was the garden house, its windows full of light: and inside the long room three men standing over a common rack; one civilian at a desk, writing; a soldier leaning against the door. The officer who was shouting as he leant over the rack moved sideways to strike again and Jack saw that it was not Stephen spreadeagled there on the ground.

      Behind him there was the soft plump of men dropping from the wall. ‘Satisfaction,’ he whispered, ‘your men round the other side, to the door. Java Dick – that archway with the light. Bonden, with me.’

      The bubbling shriek rose again, huge, beyond human measure, intolerable. Inside the room the strikingly handsome youth had turned and now he was looking up with a triumphant smile at the other officers. His coat and his collar were open, and he had something in his hand.

      Jack drew his sword, opened the long window: their faces turned, indignant, then shocked, amazed. Three long strides, and balancing, with a furious grip on his hilt, he cut forehand at the boy and backhand at the man next to him. Instantly the room was filled – bellowing noise, rushing movement, blows, the thud of bodies, a shout from the last officer, chair and table crashing down, the black civilian with two seamen on top of him, a smothered scream. The soldier shooting out of the door – an animal cry beyond it; and silence. The demented, inhuman face of the man on the rack, running with sweat.

      ‘Cast him off,’ said Jack, and the man groaned, shutting his eyes as the strain relaxed.

      They waited, listening: but although they could easily hear the voices of three or four soldiers arguing on the ground floor and someone whistling sweet and true upstairs, there was no reaction. Loud voices, didactic, hortatory, going on and on, unchanged.

      ‘Now for the house,’ said Jack. ‘Maragall, which is the guard-room?’

      ‘The first on the left under the archway.’

      ‘Do you know any of their names?’

      Maragall spoke to the men with the handkerchiefs. ‘Only Potier, the corporal, and Normand.’

      Jack nodded. ‘Bonden, you remember the door into the front patio? Guard that with six men. Satisfaction, your party stays in this court. Java, yours each side of the door. Lee’s men come along with me. Silence, silence, eh?’

      He walked across the court, his boots loud on the stones and soft feet padding by him: a moment’s pause for a last check and he called out, ‘Potier.’ In the same instant, like an echo from up the stairs came the shout ‘Potier’, and the whistling, which had stopped, started again, stopped, and ‘Potier!’ again, louder. The argument in the guard-room slackened, listening; and again, ‘Potier!’

      ‘J’arrive, mon capitaine,’ cried the corporal; he came out of the room, still talking into it before he closed the door. A sob, an astonished gasp, and silence. Jack called, ‘Normand,’ and the door opened again; but it was a surly, questioning, almost suspicious face that craned out, slammed the door to at what it saw.

      ‘Right,’ said Jack, and flung his sixteen stone against it. The door burst inwards, shuddering as it swung; but there was only one man left this side of the crowded open window: they hunted him down in one quick turn. Shrieks in the courtyard.

      ‘Potier,’ from above, and the whistling moved down the stairs, ‘qu’est-ce que ce remue-ménage?’

      By the light of the big lantern under the arch Jack saw an officer, a cheerful, high-coloured officer, bluff good humour and a well-fitting uniform, so much the officer that he felt a momentary pause. Dutourd, no doubt.

      Dutourd’s face, about to whistle again, turned to incredulity: his hand reached to a sword that was not there.

      ‘Hold him,’ said Jack to the dark seamen closing in. ‘Maragall, ask him where Stephen is.’

      ‘Vous êtes un officier anglais, monsieur?’ asked Dutourd, ignoring Maragall.

      ‘Answer, God rot your bloody soul,’ cried Jack with a flush of such fury that he trembled.

      ‘Chez le colonel,’ said the officer.

      ‘Maragall, how many are there left?’

      ‘This person is the only man left in the house: he says Esteban is in the colonel’s room. The colonel is not back yet.’

      ‘Come.’

      Stephen saw them walk into his timeless dream: they had been there before, but never together. And never in these dull colours. He smiled to see Jack, although poor Jack’s face was so shockingly concerned, white, distraught. But when Jack’s hands grappled with the straps his smile changed to an almost frightened rigour: the furious jet of pain brought the two remote realities together.

      ‘Jack, handsomely, my dear,’ he whispered as they eased him tenderly into a padded chair. ‘Will you give me something to drink, now, for the love of God? En Maragall, valga’m Deu,’ he said, smiling over Jack’s shoulder.

      ‘Clear the room, Satisfaction,’ said Jack, breaking off – several prisoners had come up, some crawling, and now two of them made a determined rush at Dutourd, standing ghastly, pressed into the corner.

      ‘That man must have a priest,’ said Stephen.

      ‘Must we kill him?’ said Jack.

      Stephen nodded. ‘But first he must write to the colonel – bring him here – say, vital information – the American has talked – it will not wait. Must not: vital.’

      ‘Tell him, sir,’ said Jack to Maragall, looking back over his shoulder, with the look of profound affection still on his face. ‘Tell him he must write this note. If the colonel is not here in ten minutes I shall kill him on that machine.’

      Maragall led Dutourd СКАЧАТЬ