Read Online Desolation Island by Patrick O’Brian - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick O’Brian
Tags: Historical fiction
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us?'
'For the best part of a year,' said Sir Joseph, with the unuttered addition, 'If I don't sink him first.'
Stephen nodded, and after a while he said, 'Certainly I was vexed by his blundering attempt at manipulating me: the guileless sea-dog lulling a suspected double agent by telling him what steps have been taken, for all love! That I should be attempted to be gulled with such sad archaic stuff: it would not have deceived a child of moderate intelligence. He spoke of his own mere motion, did he not? The alleged Home Office was so much primitive naval cunning?'
Sir Joseph sighed and nodded.
'Of course,' said Stephen, 'a moment's reflection would have told me that. I cannot conceive how my wits came to desert me so. But the Dear knows they have been wandering these many days.. - that unpardonable error with Gomez's reports.'
Stephen had left them in a hackney-coach, as Sir Joseph knew very well: the classic lapse of an over-tired, overworked agent. 'They were recovered within twenty-four hours, the seals unbroken,' he said. 'No harm was done. But it is true that you are not in form. I told poor Warren that the Vigo trip was too much for any man, immediately after Paris. My dear Maturin, you arc knocked up: you must forgive me for saying so, but you arc quite knocked up. As a friend I see you better than you see yourself. \our face has fallen away; your eyes are sunk; you arc a wretched colour. I do beg you will seek advice.'
'Certainly my health is but indifferent,' said Stephen, tapping his liver. 'I should never have flown out upon the Admiral had I been in the full possession of my faculties. I am engaged upon a course of physic that allows me to carry on from day to day, but it is a Judas-draught, and although I can stop the moment I please, it may play me an ugly trick. I suspect it of having clouded my judgement in a case where I lost my patient, and that weighs upon me cruelly.' Stephen very rarely confided in any man, but he had a great liking and respect for Sir Joseph, and now, in his pain, he said, 'Tell me, Blaine, just how far was Diana Villiers involved in this affair? You know the importance I attach... you know the nature of my concern.'
'I wish with all my heart I could make a clear-cut reply; but in all honesty I can give you no more than my impression. I think Mrs Wogan did impose upon her to a large extent; but Mrs Villiers is no fool, and a clandestine correspondence rarely assumes the form of foolscap documents forty pages long. And then the precipitate departure- chaise and four all night and day to Bristol - a six-oared boat and the rowers promised twenty pounds a head to overtake the Sans Souci lying windbound in Lundy Roads- gives some colour to the notion of an uneasy conscience. Yet I am inclined to think that the haste was the fact of Mr Johnson, moved by a purely personal motive. Not that as an American he might not also be interested in information of value to his own country: though we have not established any connection whatsoever between him and Mrs Wogan, apart from this perhaps fortuitous common acquaintance with Mrs Villiers and, of course, a common interest in America. But at all events it is the United States that have benefited from these activities, not France. Mrs Wogan was their Aphra Behn. Their Aphra Behn,' he repeated, finding no response.
'Aphra Behn, the lewd woman that wrote plays in the last age?' said Stephen at last.
'No, no: there you are out for once, Maturin,' said Sir Joseph with great satisfaction. 'You have fallen into the vulgar error. As to her morals, I have nothing to say, but she was first and foremost an intelligence agent. I had some of her Antwerp reports in my hands not a week since, when we were looking through the Privy Council files, and they were brilliant, Maturin, brilliant. For intelligence, there is nothing like a keen-witted, handsome woman. She told us that De Ruyter was coming to burn our ships. It is true that we did nothing about it,
'For the best part of a year,' said Sir Joseph, with the unuttered addition, 'If I don't sink him first.'
Stephen nodded, and after a while he said, 'Certainly I was vexed by his blundering attempt at manipulating me: the guileless sea-dog lulling a suspected double agent by telling him what steps have been taken, for all love! That I should be attempted to be gulled with such sad archaic stuff: it would not have deceived a child of moderate intelligence. He spoke of his own mere motion, did he not? The alleged Home Office was so much primitive naval cunning?'
Sir Joseph sighed and nodded.
'Of course,' said Stephen, 'a moment's reflection would have told me that. I cannot conceive how my wits came to desert me so. But the Dear knows they have been wandering these many days.. - that unpardonable error with Gomez's reports.'
Stephen had left them in a hackney-coach, as Sir Joseph knew very well: the classic lapse of an over-tired, overworked agent. 'They were recovered within twenty-four hours, the seals unbroken,' he said. 'No harm was done. But it is true that you are not in form. I told poor Warren that the Vigo trip was too much for any man, immediately after Paris. My dear Maturin, you arc knocked up: you must forgive me for saying so, but you arc quite knocked up. As a friend I see you better than you see yourself. \our face has fallen away; your eyes are sunk; you arc a wretched colour. I do beg you will seek advice.'
'Certainly my health is but indifferent,' said Stephen, tapping his liver. 'I should never have flown out upon the Admiral had I been in the full possession of my faculties. I am engaged upon a course of physic that allows me to carry on from day to day, but it is a Judas-draught, and although I can stop the moment I please, it may play me an ugly trick. I suspect it of having clouded my judgement in a case where I lost my patient, and that weighs upon me cruelly.' Stephen very rarely confided in any man, but he had a great liking and respect for Sir Joseph, and now, in his pain, he said, 'Tell me, Blaine, just how far was Diana Villiers involved in this affair? You know the importance I attach... you know the nature of my concern.'
'I wish with all my heart I could make a clear-cut reply; but in all honesty I can give you no more than my impression. I think Mrs Wogan did impose upon her to a large extent; but Mrs Villiers is no fool, and a clandestine correspondence rarely assumes the form of foolscap documents forty pages long. And then the precipitate departure- chaise and four all night and day to Bristol - a six-oared boat and the rowers promised twenty pounds a head to overtake the Sans Souci lying windbound in Lundy Roads- gives some colour to the notion of an uneasy conscience. Yet I am inclined to think that the haste was the fact of Mr Johnson, moved by a purely personal motive. Not that as an American he might not also be interested in information of value to his own country: though we have not established any connection whatsoever between him and Mrs Wogan, apart from this perhaps fortuitous common acquaintance with Mrs Villiers and, of course, a common interest in America. But at all events it is the United States that have benefited from these activities, not France. Mrs Wogan was their Aphra Behn. Their Aphra Behn,' he repeated, finding no response.
'Aphra Behn, the lewd woman that wrote plays in the last age?' said Stephen at last.
'No, no: there you are out for once, Maturin,' said Sir Joseph with great satisfaction. 'You have fallen into the vulgar error. As to her morals, I have nothing to say, but she was first and foremost an intelligence agent. I had some of her Antwerp reports in my hands not a week since, when we were looking through the Privy Council files, and they were brilliant, Maturin, brilliant. For intelligence, there is nothing like a keen-witted, handsome woman. She told us that De Ruyter was coming to burn our ships. It is true that we did nothing about it,
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