This is a work of fiction,
loosely based on the characters from the film “
Fortuna's Favourite
©2008 by: Jackie
1. Admiral’s orders
Jack stood at the wheel of the Lucky, a wholly ineptly named vessel in his honest opinion, but one he was extremely happy to have under his command nonetheless. The Lucky was the smallest ship ever to be rated Post in the history of the Service: a hundred men and sixteen twelve-pounder guns was all she would carry. The state of her beams he didn’t even dare contemplate, but Mr. Woodring, his master carpenter, had assured him that she was reasonably dry with a steady six inches in the well and the pumps worked for an hour each day.
She wasn’t a bad sailor, close-hauled, but nothing to his old Surprise. Ah, the Surprise, the reason he had been given this cruise in the first place. For the longest time Jack had doubted he’d ever see the sea again, and he had seriously contemplated to say hang the Navy, damn the Admiralty, and to find himself a merchantman. He was more than well known as an excellent mariner, an intrepid, even dashing fighting captain; no doubt he’d find employment in that line. And it would pay a damned lot better than his Post Captain’s wages and the prizes he’d brought in, prizes the Board incessantly condemned, confiscated or found another way to withhold him his share.
But then, just as he had been ready to give up on Nelson’s Navy altogether, Jack was summoned to meet with Admiral Harte, and that old poxed son of a whore had given him a cruise. Just like that, easy as kiss my hand. And it wasn’t your common cruise: it was very dangerous, very secretive, and quite suicidal, especially in the Lucky.
As a concession, and as a confirmation that Admiral Harte had known exactly what he was doing when he gave Jack his orders, Jack had been allowed to handpick his crew. So he found himself surrounded by Preserved Killick his steward, Barrett Bonden his cox’n, Tom Pullings his first lieutenant, and a score of officers and able hands that he knew through and through, and that were happy to sail with him, no matter what the orders entailed. Mr. Babbington, Mr. Blakeney, Joe Plaice, Awkward Davies, the smallish deck crowded with familiar faces that knew him and his sailing so well that most times the men were halfway up in the shrouds before the order was given.
A second concession was that the dockyard had for once in his life given him a free hand, and so he’d stowed as much snowy white line as he could get his hand on, and a full extra suit of sail, enough for a much larger ship. Powder of the best quality, and shot in abundance. If only he could have carried more guns.
All this didn’t diminish the fact that the mission was suicidal. Or, for Jack, homicidal, because when he had received his orders - to seek out his old command the Surprise, take her with as little damage as possible to both ship and valuable, though highly secret, cargo, and take her safely into the closest English port - and he’d heard with which vessel these orders were supposed to be accomplished, he immediately knew the task was impossible. It was, in effect, nothing more than another one of Harte’s relentless stabs at his career, another example of the man’s unforgiving nature. And for the thousandth time, Jack wished he’d possessed more wisdom in his younger years, when he had merrily cuckolded old Harte and had dreamt himself a worthy lover in Molly Harte. Oh, to be sure, she had been a fine woman in her day, but when he looked back upon those days now (which he did but rarely, being mildly ashamed of his own actions) he could kick himself for his foolishness.
He couldn’t refuse his orders, obviously, without ruining what little there was left of his career, and so Admiral Harte had virtually sent Jack to his death when he had handed him the sealed envelope, a mad glee in his old rheumy eyes. Jack had felt his heart sink in a very real moment of dread when he had taken aboard all the consequences his orders entailed, but that sinking feeling had been immediately replaced by a blossoming euphoria, a wild sense of freedom. Jack’s current all-round situation was so dire that either way, fulfilling his orders would provide him with a solution to his problems. It would be all or nothing, and those were odds Jack could very well live with, at this point in his life.
One of his great comforts consisted of the presence on board of his particular friend Stephen Maturin, eminent physician, enthusiastic naturalist, passable cellist, and spy. Well, this latter element was no more than conjecture and never discussed between them, but Jack was tolerably certain that Stephen’s business on shore here and there was much less innocent than his friend would have him believe. His friend who had, unbeknownst to Jack, a set of orders himself, coming from a slightly different department in the English government, but pertaining to the same ship. The Surprise.
‘Mr. Bonden, take the wheel,’ said Jack. ‘Keep this course for another half hour, then tack and stay as close to the wind as she’ll bear. I’ll be in my cabin. Stephen, would you care to join me?’
Jack climbed down from the tiny quarterdeck and ducked into his smallish cabin, Stephen on his heels.
‘What is it, joy; is your pike wound playing up again in this weather? Do take off your shirt. Jack, Jack, I wish you would take my advice and not eat so much; you are digging your grave with your teeth.’
Jack frowned and looked down at his scarred, lightly furred belly. He had lost close to a stone in the last month but still had an impressive frame. His last wound was still an angry red, but healing beautifully. ‘Not to worry, Stephen. Our stores will run out soon enough and we will be eating rations, just like the rest of the hands. I assure you I will shrink prodigiously. I would however speak to you about my orders. You are aware of the nature of them?’
‘Yes,’ said Stephen, finishing his quick assessment of Jack’s wound.
‘And you are aware of the dangers involved in this particular cruise?’ This from within Jack’s shirt.
‘Yes, they are no different than those of any other cruise, I am sure.’
‘Not true,’ said Jack, his head popping out of his shirt. ‘We are in a ridiculous little tub of a Post ship,’ he stroked the wood of his cabin comfortingly, as if to soften the blow to the Lucky for having to speak of her so, ‘we are undermanned and undergunned, and we have to find the Surprise, our old ship. She might be anywhere. Anywhere in the world. Not only do we have to find her, but we must take her without damaging her or her cargo. Now Stephen, I have been going over it in my mind, but I do not see how…’
Stephen had a strange light in his eyes. ‘Our old Surprise… How many wonderful memories we have between us of that admirable ship. She fell into the hands of the French, did she not?’
‘She mutinied, surely you know this? Under Captain Hartnett? Peregrine Hartnett, you must remember him, he gave a thundering good dinner when he snapped up the command to her, oh how the claret flowed, and what an excellent claret it was!’
‘You were brought home on a hatch, if I remember correctly.’
‘Ay,’ Jack smiled indulgently, ‘and little did I know that Hartnett would turn out to be such a taut Captain, such an enthusiast for a flogging, so favouring the cat. Well, a good host he may be, but it just ain’t the thing. Discipline cannot be forced upon the men in such a manner; respect must be won. So: the men mutinied, they put Hartnett and his officers overboard in a jollyboat, and the Amethyst found them right before they perished of thirst. And then, of course, the French took the Surprise, renamed her Indomitable and put her to war again. Oh, oh, what a great loss for the Navy; such a sweet-sailing ship close-hauled, so tight upon a bowline…’ Jack stared out his cramped stern-windows with an open longing on his face.
‘What would you say if I were to tell you that the Indomitable was spotted not three weeks ago off the coast of Portugal?’
Jack turned sharply to face Stephen. How in God’s name could he have come by such knowledge? Stephen was such a deep old file, and yet Jack trusted him implicitly. ‘Off the cost of Portugal eh? And you are quite certain?’
‘Quite so.’
‘Heading?’ Jack’s deep blue eyes began to sparkle with a dangerous intensity.
‘North. Following the coastline, but standing far enough out to sea not to be seen from the land. Jack, she is practically sailing directly towards you…’ Stephen smiled inwardly at the sudden animation that swept over his friend’s face. A face that, of late, had lost much of his openness, it’s good-natured cheer.
‘Then, there is not an instant to lose. Killick! Killick there!’
Killick poked his grumpy face into the great cabin.
‘Pass the word for Mr. Pullings.’
The face disappeared.
‘Oh and Killick? Roust out a bottle of wine. The green seal.’
Killick’s face reappeared for an instant, only to be retracted again, while uttering a stream of discontented mumbling.
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