‘Yes, I remember you told me that before; and it was a great disappointment to you not to be at the battle.’
‘It was indeed: Admiral Vernon had promised it to my uncle, or at least practically promised it; and it was a horribly shabby thing to sail off in that manner, leaving his best friend’s nephew languishing between a guard-ship and a press-smack at the Nore. The Nore is a very disgusting station, Toby.’
‘I am much concerned to hear it, Jack.’
‘But, however, it is probably all for the best. It is perfectly obvious that the Admiralty owes me some reparation – no reasonable being could deny that for a moment – and this secret expedition gives them a perfect chance of making all square.’
‘What secret expedition?’
‘The one I was telling you about – but you did not take it in, I find. It is an expedition,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘that is fitting out for the South Sea, to attack the Spaniards there, where they least expect it. Lard, Toby,’ he cried, ‘think of Chile and Peru, and all the treasure there. Think of Acapulco and Panama and the Philippines. Pieces of eight,’ he cried, in a transport of greed and enthusiasm, throwing his arms out to indicate the immensity of the wealth. He was a fairly good horseman, but his fervour for prize money was too much for him, and he fell slowly over the chesnut’s shoulder.
‘Never mind,’ he said, as Tobias dusted him. ‘It was all in a good cause. The whole point is, that I must be posted to one of these ships. And if I had gone off to the West Indies in the Burford I could not have been here to join this expedition, could I? Everybody who has any interest is trying to get into it, of course, but it is plain enough that I have much more right than most, having been so very ill-used.’
‘Did you say it was a secret expedition?’
Oh yes. You must not speak of it, you know.’
‘Then how is it that people are trying to get into it?’
‘Well, it is secret in a certain sense; I mean, it is officially secret. That is to say, everybody in the know knows about it, but nobody else.’
A single magpie crossed the road, and Jack paused to see if another would follow: but the bird was alone. ‘I wish that damned bird had chosen another moment to go over,’ he said. ‘But as I was saying, I have a perfect right to the appointment; and what is much more important, I have got just about twice as much interest as I need to get aboard. So, do you see, I shall be able to get in with half, and use the rest to draw you in after me. Lard, Toby, I don’t know how a fellow with your simple tastes will spend all the money.’
‘How very kind you are, Jack: I am very much obliged to your goodness. As for a great deal of money, I don’t know that I want it; but when you consider, Jack, that not one single sentient being has even remotely glimpsed the birds of the Pacific Ocean and its shores -’
‘But, my poor Toby, people have been sailing round the Horn and into the South Sea these hundred years and more.’
‘Only mariners, Jack: and, with respect, your mariner is but a shallow creature. I have read Narborough and Dampier and the few other voyages into those regions, and the unhappy men might as well have been blind. They saw nothing, nothing.’
‘They saw noddies and boobies. I particularly remember that Woods Rogers said, “Boobies and noddies.”’
‘They saw birds that they called noddies and boobies; but do we know that they were noddies and boobies? May they not merely have resembled noddies and boobies? It is no good coming to me and saying, “Ha, ha, I have seen noddies and boobies in the Great South Sea,” unless you can support your statement with the measurements and weights, and preferably the skins, of your noddies and boobies.’
This seemed a frivolous objection to Jack, and he only replied, ‘Still, you would find it prodigiously agreeable to have a fortune, you know. You could lay it out in sending fellows off to Kamschatka, or Crim Tartary, to gaze at the boobies there, and measure ‘em, too.’
They wrangled about the disposition of the money for some miles, and then Jack said, ‘Well, you shall do whatever you please with it, Toby, if only you will sit the right way round.’
‘I beg pardon,’ said Tobias, loosening his grip on the grey cob’s tail and swarming back into the saddle: the cob was not the steadiest mount in the world, and a tenth part of this behaviour in anyone else would have sent it into a foaming fit; but it trotted placidly along the road to Bedford, and Jack resumed his account of the secret expedition.
‘There are to be five ships. The Gloucester and the Severn are both fifties, and the Centurion – she’s the flagship – is a sixty; then there is the old Pearl, a forty-gun ship, a very pretty sailer and quick in her stays.’
‘Five ships, you said.’
‘Oh yes, there’s the Wager – she’s the fifth. Centurion, Gloucester, Severn, Pearl and Wager, that makes five. But the Wager don’t count. She’s only an old Indiaman, bought into the service as a storeship, because there is some ridiculous plan of trading with the Indians, and they need a ship for their bolts of cloth and beads and so on. In my opinion it is a vile job – a mere trick to get a vast deal of money into the pocket of a pack of merchants and politicians. Politics are monstrous dirty, you know, and everything is done by backstairs influence. Anyhow, it is quite absurd to call the Wager a man-of-war; and she only mounts twenty guns. Then there is a sloop, the Tryall, and that is all the King’s ships; though there will probably be a victualler or two to carry things some of the way – some little merchantman or other,’ he said with kindly patronage. ‘Now the Severn and the Gloucester have their full complement of officers, because they were already in commission, you see; but the Centurion has not, and that is what we must aim for. I know some of her people -excellent creatures – and my friend Keppel is very anxious that I should join him there. I told you about him, did I not? We were shipmates in the Royal Sovereign.’
‘The one who set fire to you, and thrust you into the North Sea?’
‘Yes. Augustus Keppel: he is only quite a young fellow, but he can be amazingly good company.’
The white gate of a turnpike appeared as they turned a corner and Jack observed, ‘This is the Clapham pike already.’ He looked at his watch and said, ‘We are doing very well.’
‘Jack,’ said Tobias, when the gate was far behind them, ‘when you paid the man at the turnpike before this, he gave you some money. He said, “Here’s your change, your honour.” This one not.’
‘Why, no,’ replied Jack. ‘I hadn’t any change at the first one, so I gave him half a crown; but then of course for this one I already had a pocketful of change.’
Tobias was pondering upon this, when very suddenly he whipped his leg over the saddle, passed the cob’s reins into Jack’s hand and slipped to the ground. He tripped from the speed, but recovered himself and vanished into the tall reeds that stood about a marsh on the low side of the road. The horses saw fit to indulge in a good deal of capering, and Jack dropped his hat and his whip before he brought them to a sense of their duty.
He was waiting with them by the side of the road when Tobias reappeared, and he exclaimed, with something less than his usual good humour, ‘Why, damn your blood, Toby, what do you mean by plunging off in that wild manner? How can you be so strange? You have been in the water,’ he added, seeing that Tobias’ lower half was soaked and his stockings and slippers were masked with greenish mud. ‘You look as pleased as if you had found a guinea.’
Tobias rarely showed any emotion, but now his face displayed a private gleam; and when he was mounted he showed Jack a brown, speckled feather, saying, ‘Do you know what that is?’
‘A phoenix?’
‘No,’ said Tobias,