Authors: Patrick O'Brian
The hellish din began before eight bells in the
middle watch, when, in the complete darkness, the people who were to remove
into other ships began packing their chests and manhandling them along the
narrow, crowded passages and up the steep, steep ladders to strategic corners from
which they could be hurried on deck as soon as the boats came alongside. These
corners were often occupied, which led to disagreement, very noisy disagreement
sometimes, and then to renewed thumping as the defeated chest was humped away.
At eight bells, or four in the morning, that part of the’ starboard watch which
had managed to stay asleep was roused with the usual shattering din and
mustered on deck: then a little later the idlers were called and for the next
two hours they and the starboard watch cleaned the decks with water, sand,
holystones great and small, and swabs. Barely were the spotless decks quite dry
before hammocks were piped up, and in the midst of the frantic hurry boats from
Dover, Rainbow, Ganymede and Briseis approached: unhappily, the officer of the
watch, Mr Clegg, was some way below the deck, stilling a quarrel about chests
dangerously near the sacred cabin, and the master’s mate, misunderstanding his
cry, allowed the boats to come alongside. The seamen swarmed aboard with their
belongings, and it called for all the authority of a tall, furious, night
shirted Captain Aubrey to restore anything like order.
‘I am very sorry for the pandemonium, Stephen,’ he
said as at last they sat down to their breakfast, brought by a now silent, timid
Killick. ‘All this mad rushing up and down, bellowing like Gadarene swine...’
The breakfast itself was adequate, with quantities
of fresh eggs, sausages, bacon, a noble pork pie, rolls and toast, cream for
their coffee; but there was little to be said for it as a fleshly indulgence,
since every other bite was interrupted by a message from one ship or another,
often delivered by midshipmen, washed, brushed and extremely nervous,
presenting their captain’s compliments and might he be favoured with a few, just
a few, really able seamen, with heavy carronades instead of nine-pounder guns,
or any of the countless variety of stores that the Commodore’s good word with
the dockyard officials might provide. Even more irritating was Killick’s
unceasing concern with the splendid uniform in which Jack was to appear at the
court-martial - his intolerable twitching of the napkin that guarded breeches
and lower waistcoat, his muttered warnings about egg-yolk, butter, anchovy
paste, marmalade.
At last the mate of the watch came, with the first
lieutenant’s duty and compliments, to announce that Royal Sovereign had thrown
out her signal for the court-martial. A last cup of coffee and they both went
on deck: over the smooth water of the bay captains’ barges could already be seen
converging on the flagship. Jack’s was waiting for him and after a momentary
hesitation he nodded to Stephen, stepping forward to the gangway stanchions as
the bosun and his mates piped their captain over the side and all his officers
saluted.
‘Sir. If you please, sir,’ said
a boy’s voice for the second time, now with a certain impatience, and turning
from the rail Stephen saw a familiar face, young Witherby, formerly of the
Bellona. The shifting of officers and ratings since Jack’s appointment to the Pomone
had never been clear to Stephen. He knew that Surprise’s coxswain and the
bargemen had followed their captain, but what this boy was doing here he could not tell. Indeed, there
were many, many things that remained obscure unless he made a determined effort
of collecting his mind and concentrating upon the present. ‘Mr Witherby,’ he
said, ‘what may I do for you?’
‘Why, sir,’ said the boy, ‘I understood you were
for the shore, and I have the jolly-boat under the stern, if you please to walk
this way.’
Witherby landed him at the Ragged Staff steps, and
once he was through the Southport Gate he found the familiar surroundings a
comfort: the move into the unknown Pomone, though wholly unimportant in itself,
had for once been strangely disturbing. He made his way steadily along to
Thompson’s comfortable, unpretentious hotel, glancing right and left at shops
and buildings he had known these many years. Many red-coats,
many sea-officers, but nothing to touch the hive-like multitudes of Gibraltar in full
wartime.
He turned in at Thompson’s door. ‘Dr Jacob, if you
please,’ he said. ‘He is expecting me.’
‘Yes, sir. Should you like him to
come down?’
‘Oh no. Tell me the number of his
room and I will go up.’
‘Very good, sir. Pablito, show the
gentleman to the third floor back.’
Pablito tapped; the door opened, and a well-known
voice said, ‘Dr Maturin, I presume?’
The door closed. Pablito’s feet echoed on the
stairs. Dr Jacob seized Stephen, kissed him on both cheeks and led him into a
cool, shaded room where a jug of horchata stood on a low table and smoke from
the hookah hung from the ceiling down to eye level.
‘I am so exceedingly happy that it is you,’ said
Jacob, guiding him to a sofa. ‘I was so nearly sure of it from Sir Joseph’s calculated
indiscretions that I brought you an example of the palmar aponeurosis and the
contractions which so interested you and Dupuytren.’ He slipped into his
bedroom and came out carrying a jar: but realizing that his gift could not be
fully appreciated in the half-light he thrust open the
balcony doors and led Stephen out into the brilliant sun.
‘You are altogether too good, dear Amos,’ said
Stephen, gazing at the severed hand, clear in its spirits of wine, the middle
fingers so hard-clenched against the palm that their nails had grown into the
flesh. ‘You are too good entirely. I have never seen so perfect an example. I long to make a very exact dissection.’
But Jacob, taking no notice, turned him gently to
the full sun and looked hard into his face. ‘Stephen, you have not made some
cruel self-diagnosis, I trust?’
‘I have not,’ said Stephen, and in as few words as
possible he explained the situation - his personal situation. Amos did not
oppress him with any sympathy other than a deeply affectionate pressure on the
shoulder, but suggested that they should walk out high on the Rock, where they
could speak about their present undertaking in complete safety. that is to say, if you still feel concerned.’
‘I am wholly concerned, wholly committed,’ said
Stephen. ‘If it were not so wicked, I could almost be grateful for this very
evil man and his odious system.’
They walked out of the town, up and up to the ridge
itself, where the cliffs fall down to Catalan Bay and where Stephen saw, with a
muted satisfaction, that the peregrine eyrie was occupied again, the falcon
standing on the outer edge, bating and calling. All the way along they walked,
with the migrant birds passing overhead, sometimes very low, and on either
side, Stephen mechanically noting the rarities (six pallid harriers, more than
he had ever seen together), right out to the far end overlooking Europa Point,
and back again; and all the time, with a much more conscious, concentrated
mind, Stephen listened to all that Jacob, with his remarkable sources of
information, had gathered about the Adriatic ports, the Muslim fraternities and
the progress of their urgent request for money to pay their mercenaries. Jacob
also spoke, and with equal authority, of the probable donor and of the pressure
that might be brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers. ‘But where Africa is concerned,’ he said,
‘it seems to me that little or nothing should be attempted until we have had at
least some success in the Adriatic.’
Stephen agreed, his eyes following a troop of black
storks as they passed over the flagship; and quite suddenly he realized that
the Royal Sovereign was no longer flying the courtmartial signal. Indeed, the
captains’ barges were already dispersing.
On the way down they walked almost in silence. They
had said all that could usefully be said at this point, though more
intelligence was to be expected at Mahon - and Stephen very often
glanced at the flagship’s main yardarm. In these waters the Commander-in-Chief
was all-powerful: he could confirm a court’s sentence of death without the
least reference to the King or the Admiralty. In naval courtsmartial sentence
was pronounced at once: it was final, with no appeal: and Lord Keith was not
one for delay.
By the time they reached the town there was no man
hanging from the yardarm; but on the battlements this side of the Southport
Gate there were several officers, including Jack Aubrey and some of the
Pomone’s people, looking earnestly southward along the strand. Stephen joined
them, saying, ‘Sir, may I introduce Dr Jacob, the assistant surgeon of whom I
told you?’
‘Very happy, sir,’ said Jack, shaking Jacob’s hand.
He would obviously have said more, but at this moment a strong murmur all along
from the bastion increased immensely as two boats left the flagship, pulling
for the shore and towing a bare grating, the soaked and wretched prisoners upon
it. A few minutes later the grating was cast off: a small
surf brought it in and the men scrambled in the shallows. There was some sparse
cat-calling from the crowd, but not much; and half a dozen people helped them
to dry land, dragging their belongings.
‘Dr Jacob,
sir,’ said Jack, ‘I hope that you will be able to come aboard without delay. I
am eager to be out of sight of this place.’ And privately to Stephen he said,
‘I repeated your “No penetration, no sodomy”, which
floored one and all; though I must say that most of them were glad to be
floored. I persuaded the others to find no more than gross indecency.’
‘And is being towed ashore on a grating the set
penalty for gross indecency?’
‘No. We call it the use and custom of the sea: that
is the way it has always been.’
Chapter Two
For several years now Stephen Maturin had been
perfectly aware that a life at sea, above all in a man-of-war, was not the
waterborne picnic sometimes imagined by those living far inland; but he had
never supposed that anything could be quite so arduous as this existence
between the two, neither floating free nor firmly ashore, with what
conveniences the land might provide.
The squadron, necessarily gathered together in a
hurry and necessarily short-handed, had to be thoroughly reorganized, above all
the unhappy Pomone: a ship always suffered from a trial for sodomy and although
her people had not been in her for anything like an ordinary commission it was
long enough for them to feel their position acutely - to resent the calls they
heard ashore or the smiles and meaning silence when a group of them walked into
a bar. After all, one of their officers had been dismissed from the service in
the most ignominious fashion possible and towed ashore on a grating in the view
of countless spectators; and some of the discredit clung to his former
shipmates. This corporate shame had a thoroughly bad effect on discipline,
which had never been the Pomone’s strongest point; and a new captain, with a
second lieutenant who knew nobody aboard, was unlikely to remedy this state of
affairs in the near future. She did have a good bosun, however, and the gunner,
though discouraged, was willing and knowledgeable. He and Captain Pomfret were
suitably shocked when the Commodore invited them to accompany Surprise well out
into the Strait, off Algeciras, so that both ships might
exercise the great guns, firing at towed targets. The Pomones brought their
ship out creditably and they were reasonably brisk at the dumb-show of running
the eighteen-pounders in and out, but some of the gun-crews were hesitant about
firing them. Only three or four in the starboard battery had much notion of
anything but point-blank aim or of judging the roll. The first and second
captains were competent upon the whole, but the midshipmen in charge of the
divisions left much to be desired and some of the ordinary hands belonging to
the gun might never have seen an eighteen-pounder fired in earnest before. The
fury of the recoil shocked them extremely and after the first wavering, ragged broadside several had to be led or carried
below, hurt by iron-taut tackles and breechings or even by the angles of the
carriage itself. The Marines who took their places did at least stand clear,
but on the whole it was a most lamentable exhibition, and the Surprises had no
compunction in making it even more obviously ludicrous by destroying, utterly
destroying, the hitherto unscathed target with three
broadsides in five minutes and ten seconds.
‘Captain Pomfret,’ said Jack before he left the
ship, ‘I can foresee a very great deal of great-gun exercise, morning and
afternoon, as well as at quarters: the team must know their pieces through and
through, so that they never have to think, as I am sure you are very well
aware.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Pomfret, trying to master his
distress. ‘The only thing I can advance is that we are cruelly short-handed,
and the people have not been together long.’
‘You have enough right seamen to man your pinnace
and launch?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then let your first lieutenant and the second when
he joins - I know the Admiral means to let you have an excellent young man -
take them out in the middle watch and lie off Cape Spartel till dawn. If they
do not press a score of hands out of the passing merchantmen who have not yet
heard the news I shall be amazed. But above all keep your people hard at it,
the young gentlemen especially - idle young dogs, sauntering about with their
hands in their pockets - hard at it: yet do not blackguard them. Praise if ever
you can; you will find it answer wonderfully. Next week you may fire live -
nothing pleases them more, once they are used to the din.’
Returning to harbour, Jack visited the other ships and
vessels of his squadron, requiring each to beat to quarters and at least to
cast loose their guns. The exactness of the coiled muzzle-lashing, made fast to
the eye-bolt above the port-lid, the seizing of the mid-breeching to the
pommelion, the neat arrangement of the sponge, handspike, powderhorn,
priming-wire, bed, quoin, train-tackle, shot and all the rest told a knowing
eye a great deal about the gun-crew and even more about the midshipman of the
sub-division. The Dover, still actively
reconverting herself, was in rather a sad way, but not very discreditably so;
the others would do at a push, and the little Briseis, one of that numerous
class called coffin-brigs from their tendency to turn over and sink, was
positively brilliant. He told her captain so, and the hands within earshot
visibly swelled with satisfaction.