3. Surprise, surprise

In the event, there were several surprises to be had. The first one, and a happy one it was, consisted of Captain LaSalle’s stores. They were splendid: bottles of excellent claret by the crate, poultry, several sows… even vegetables. Jack would be eating like a king for most of the rest of the voyage; he would be able to invite his officers every other night. It pleased him to no end.

The second one consisted of what Stephen had schemed to contrive. It was a surprise that was not without danger, even though the worst was behind them now. Stephen would have to tread carefully, but then, his secretive nature was eminently suited to treading carefully. He urged Jack to search the ship with his most trusted officers, ordering the men on deck for the time being. He did not divulge what they were looking for, only that he’d know what it was they were searching for the moment he’d lay eyes upon it. Nor did he share how he would have come by the knowledge that this damned secrecy would be important or necessary. He only gave Jack a certain look, and that had him comply without hesitation. They had been particular friends for so long, and had shared so much, that that one look was quite enough.

So, with a small group of officers, Jack and Stephen set out to search the ship. Stephen fervently hoped the late Indomitable’s doctor – who had been sadly cut in half by a large flying piece of debris in the heat of battle – would have left him some useful medical stores, but all he found was a chest full of rusty saws, obviously not used with any regularity, and a staggering amount of laudanum. Apparently the medical gentleman had been more in the line of numbing the pain than curing the illness or removing the limb, if and when the occasion called for it. Stephen muttered disapprovingly, but with a very secretive inward glee at such a store of the much-valued medicine. He was, as a medical man, of quite a different persuasion compared to his French counterpart, but at the same time he wasn’t averse to self-medication. He especially praised the qualities of laudanum to help put to rest the troubled mind, such as he himself often possessed, and currently drank a dose of five hundred drops every night, meticulously counted off. Only in cases of very severe stress did he allow himself to double that dose.

The search continued, and when the captain’s stores were re-examined, the second lieutenant discovered a suspicious sea-chest behind the crates of claret. And another, under a bundle of sailcloth.

‘Do not touch that chest!’ Stephen exclaimed with all his medical authority behind it, but the young man, still free and exhilarated from battle, whooped in a very undignified manner and threw back the lid.

‘Report on deck, this very instant!’ Jack Aubrey thundered. ‘Off with you, sir, you are a disgrace to the Service!’

The lieutenant crept up the ladder shamefacedly, and was heard taking out his frustration on the men up on deck. Stephen, in the mean time, carefully examined the contents of the chest and from his posture it was clear he deemed them quite harmless.

‘Curious… most curious. Jack, what do you make of this?’ he said, holding up a piece of clothing.

‘It is a corset,’ said Jack knowingly, ‘a ladies’ undergarment. Surely you have seen one before, dear Stephen?’

‘Yes, yes, naturally. But what is it doing here? It appears to be of the very finest quality. See? Such delicate silk, such fine stitching.’

‘Perhaps LaSalle brought these clothes for his mistress? I cannot believe him a married man. No wife would endure such a villain, I’m sure.’

Stephen clapped the lid shut again, and turned to the other chest. It contained books, shoes, and very expensive toiletries. ‘If all this was for his mistress, she must be a lady of extremely refined taste. And LaSalle must be a man of considerable, very considerable means…’ Stephen’s face darkened for an instant. Jack in the mean time was wholly engrossed in the bottles of claret.

‘Bear a hand with this sailcloth, if you please Mr. Grant,’ Stephen said to the senior midshipman, as he closed the lid to the second chest. The mid, a lanky, quiet boy, lifted the bundle with the intention of putting it back on top of the chest, when it emitted a delicate twoingng.

Both Jack and Stephen turned. Mr. Grant stepped back, an apologetic look upon his face. Jack approached the bundle, and carefully threw back a corner of the sailcloth, and another, and another… to reveal a beautifully worked harp. A harp! And such a fine instrument as well.

‘Take it to my cabin, Mr. Grant, step lively now, and have a care.’ Jack said, puzzled to the extreme. ‘Perhaps LaSalle captured a vessel, and carried all this away?’ he suggested to Stephen.

‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ Stephen said thoughtfully, ‘although I may have seen that instrument before… now if only I could remember where and when… It will come to me, I am sure. Now, as you honest Tars are so fond of saying: there is not a moment to lose, so come, Jack, on with our quest.’

And hidden in a corner of the sail room, the sail room that had been shamefully bare before, but that was by now full of canvas transferred from the Lucky, they found three inconspicuous-looking chests that, upon shifting, proved to be quite heavy for their size.

Stephen immediately pronounced them to be what he had been searching for. ‘For the love of God, do not try to open them, if you value your lives!’ he quickly said, with great animation. ‘Have them brought into the great cabin and I will have a very, very careful look – with your permission,’ he added, not to undermine Jack’s authority.

‘By all means, we must follow the doctor’s orders,’ Jack chuckled, and hoisted one of the chests upon his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. He was a powerful man, even with a lacerated arm.

‘Who knows what may be in there,’ the remaining officers whispered to each other. ‘A secret weapon? The curse of the Pharaoh? A deadly disease? Pirate gold by the score? No, it can’t be pirate gold, or the Captain would not have been able to carry the chest all by himself.’

‘Yes he could have, he’s Lucky Jack!’

‘Silence fore and aft!’ roared the retreating back of Lucky Jack. The roar was followed by a very private, rather wistful and wholly unheard ‘I tell you what I should do if I were only half as lucky as all that...’

Chapter Four 

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