20. Yardarm to yardarm

The plan came off beautifully. The Surprise limped about like a shot duck, allowing the Victoire to come virtually within touching distance while always, secretly, keeping her favourable position to the wind. Then, in the very last instant, off came the disguise and the Surprise’s cannons ripped into the Victoire’s hull while the bow chaser, smartly trained around and manned by an unparalleled crew, swept the decks with grape. Marines, hiding in the crosstrees under secretly hoisted up hammocks, fired their muskets on all that moved above decks in the Victoire and the Surprise’s surprise was so complete that Jack found himself aboard the vastly larger ship, hacking and slashing away, before he had time to consider it properly.

It was over in fifteen blood drenched minutes. As it turned out, the Captain of the Victoire was a young lad, no older than seventeen, who had been at sea for no more than two years but who, as Stephen whispered in Jack’s ear, was very well connected. Which had to be how he’d gotten the ship under his command, because it couldn’t have been his sailing qualities, nor his fighting spirit. To top it all off, he was a dandy of the worst sort, who as he handed over his beautifully worked sword seemed more worried about the blood stain on his neck cloth than losing his ship, a deadly naval weapon that could in the right hands do the world of damage to its enemies.

Jack showed him a smattering of civility then ordered him to be locked up with the other prisoners of war. Tom Pullings he gave the acting Captaincy and he instructed him to stay close. He intended to transfer the Duchess into the Victoire, despite the danger of having her sail home on a ship with a belly full of French prisoners of war, but he insisted any available luxury and comfort should go to her and the Victoire was after all much larger, much more commodious for a lady of her class.

This was undoubtedly true. But when Tom, his old friend, gave him a look that spoke volumes, Jack knew that he had to be honest. ‘Tom, for all love, take her into the Victoire and keep her away from me. I am beside myself,’ he said in an undertone. Then, he pinched his lips and nodded once, and would say no more of it. He knew Tom Pullings would see to it that his wishes would be carried out.

Jack, after overseeing the first basic repairs to the Victoire, decided to make his way back to his own ship. He had been dripping blood, none of which his own, and as it dried and his shirt chafed, he realised he urgently needed to wash. Both ships were lashed together and it was no more than a quick jump from the Victoire’s taffrail to the Surprise’s quarterdeck, followed by a rapid succession of orders. The Surprise freed itself and gained speed as behind her, slowly, the Victoire bloomed into sail. Tom Pullings only had a small complement; just enough men to sail the ship and keep the prisoners under guard. The ship would be well-handled, but she would not be among the fastest in the Navy.

‘Barrett, another ten miles then turn her into the wind. We’ll be clear of the debris by then to be sure. I must go for a swim, and I will inspect the Surprise from the water line. Although unless I am mistaken, the Victoire did not get more than one round off, and not much of that flew true.’ Jack looked back, his eye trained on the Victoire. Cat would be there, tucked away safe. Safe from him. Safe from… Jack sighed from the bottom of his soul. He had expected to feel relief with Cat out of reach, but that was not what he was experiencing now. Quite the opposite, actually, he had to admit as a strange anxiety clenched in his chest.

Bonden at the wheel nodded and followed the Captain’s instructions to the letter. Jack shed his coat and boots, dropping them where he stood, earning him an angrily muttered comment from his sour-faced steward. ‘Will you look at all that blood. And how am I going to get it out? Have a bloody care when you fight I says to ‘im, but does he listen? In course he doesn’t, and look what comes of it…’

Jack habitually ignored Killick’s ramblings to the extent that he did not even notice them any more and as the way came off the Surprise, he pulled the shirt off over his head and with complete unselfconsciousness stepped out of his woollen breeches. He stepped up to the taffrail, climbed on, and with an elegant arc he dove into the sea.

The water was pleasant. Not too hot, not too cold, and the waves undulated lazily. Jack swam around the almost stilled ship. He pulled the ribbon out of his hair and submerged, one hand lovingly gliding along the Surprise’s underbelly. The gold gleamed magically in the underwater blue and she looked magnificent and unhurt. With a big splash Jack exploded onto the surface, blowing like a small yellow-haired whale. He gasped once, then with two lungs full of air he dove again, deeper this time, swimming athwartships and effectively keelhauling himself. He had done it often enough to know that he could easily manage both depth and distance, and once past the keel he stilled for a moment to absorb the vista that unrolled before his eyes. Not that he expected any damage on the side of the ship that had been turned away from the Victoire during the fray. It was just that it was such an amazing sight, the clean, clear lucid blue of the sea going on and on forever, the rays of sunlight breaking in a mysteriously beautiful way, the gold gleaming warmly and mysteriously. Jack found himself wishing he could share the magnificence of the moment with Cat, but then he shook his head under water and he expelled an enormous bubble. Cat was on the Victoire, and he’d do well to banish her from his thoughts altogether. He allowed himself to gently drift back to the surface and he floated on his back, letting the sun warm the length of his body, until he came to the stern. There, hand over hand, he climbed a little ways up the larboard rudder cable, inspecting hinges and woodwork with a practised eye, his muscled arms bulging and gleaming with seawater. An extra coat of paint would not go amiss here, he mused, letting himself drop back with a mighty splash then swimming around to the side where he quickly swarmed up the steps, wondering idly why his sloop had been rigged out. It bobbed gently beside the Surprise’s hull.

Jack vaulted over the rail with a powerful grace that belied his large frame, and his feet landed on the deck with a solid wet slap. And there they stayed, as if nailed to the planks below him. In front of him, not ten feet away, stood the Duchess of Marlborough, dressed a little incongruously in a brocade bodice and her leather pantaloons, her feet in a pair of gold leather dancing shoes. Behind her stood her harp, wrapped in sailcloth, and her two chests of ladies’ articles. Her mouth opened in a most unladylike, but very charming manner as she took in the Captain in his gleaming wet altogether. And Jack blushed an equally charming deep pink all over his not inconsiderable body. They stood there rooted to the spot and a hush fell over the ship. Even the wind stopped whispering.

Cat’s impeccable breeding made itself known when she found her voice and said, a little huskily, ‘I do beg your pardon, I was waiting to be helped aboard your boat and rowed across to the…’ she waved in the direction of the other ship.

‘…Victoire,’ Jack finished for her. His mind was so caught up in trying to work out what to do – dive back into the sea, run like a hare and hide belowdecks, order the nearest officer to hand over his jacket, give the order to beat to quarters – that he couldn’t seem to do anything at all.

‘Captain Aubrey?’ Cat’s warm voice penetrated the turmoil in his head and he gave a little jerk. ‘You could consider retreating to your cabin – it is after all your cabin again, I have moved out, as you can see…’

Jack jerked once more and then he turned (and a lovely, sharp, Navy-like turn it was) and he strode to his cabin, head held high and lips pinched. Cat could not resist following him with her eyes, and the glorious, absolutely glorious view the retreating form of Captain Jack Aubrey in his birthday suit offered her made that, almost like a sleepwalker, she turned and followed him.

At the cabin, Jack seemed to sense that Cat was right behind him, because he held the door for her in a most genteel manner, considering the situation. Both safely inside, he swiftly closed it then in three great bounding leaps he was at the stern locker that held some of his spare clothes. He whipped out a shirt and threw it over his head. It drifted down like a snowy white spinnaker and clung to his wet torso, and, relatively decent again, Jack turned.

‘Wh- why have you followed me in, your Gr… Cat…’ he stammered, his gritty baritone breathless.

‘I do not know,’ Cat answered truthfully.

Chapter Twenty-One

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