Authors: Patrick O'Brian
For the hydrographical voyage Jack had intended to
act as his own purser: yet even by Funchal he had found it a very wearisome
task indeed, and now that he had this present command some relief was
essential. Three times he had meant to speak of it aboard the Royal Sovereign
and three times he had lost the opportunity.
‘Do you guarantee your man?’ he asked.
‘Without the least reserve,
sir.’
‘Then I should be happy to see him; and his
fellows, of course. Now for my part, I do not believe for a moment that those
villains are going to lie in Sallee wringing their hands and lamenting their
loss. So in case they come out again when the squadron is gone, I shall send Dover to strengthen your escort.
They will not face your artillery again, backed up with that of a thirty-two
gun frigate. And there is always the possibility of French privateers or even
men-of-war in the Channel.’
‘Very good - hear him - hear him,’ cried the
captains, beating on the table.
When they had buried their dead - an expeditious
matter at such a time - and repaired the worst of their damage, the convoy and
squadron parted on the best of terms, the Indiamen and their escort steering
north-west and the squadron beating up tack upon tack for Gibraltar.
Stephen and
Jacob had some very seriously injured patients as well as the routine strains,
common fractures, contusions and powder-burns; and it was now that Dr Maturin
came to appreciate the full value of good female nursing. Both Poll Skeeping
and Mrs Cheal had that devotion peculiar perhaps to their sex and a lightness
of hand, a dexterity where dressings were concerned that he had not seen
equalled outside a religious order. He was busy, but not desperately so (as he
had been after some much bloodier fights), and he was quite able to accept
Jack’s invitation to dine with several of the captains and other officers. He
was placed between Hugh Pomfret and Mr Woodbine, the master, an old
acquaintance who was eagerly engaged in an argument with Captain Cartwright of
Ganymede about lunar observations, an argument that had started before dinner
and that did not interest Stephen in the least. Captain Pomfret, though
obviously unwell and in very low spirits, was a civilized man and he provided a
proper amount of conversation; yet their end of the table could hardly have
been described as outstandingly cheerful or amusing and it did not surprise
Stephen when, as the party broke up, Pomfret asked in a low voice whether he
might beg for a consultation, a medical or quasi-medical consultation, at any time
that suited Dr Maturin.
‘Certainly you may,’ said Stephen, who very much
liked what he had seen of the young man and who knew
the limits of Pomone’s surgeon. ‘But only with the concurrence of Mr Glover.’
‘Mr Glover is no doubt a very clever doctor,’ said
Pomfret, ‘but unhappily we are barely on speaking terms, and this is a wholly
personal, confidential matter.’
‘Let us take a turn upon deck.’
There under the open sky, with the ship
close-hauled on the larboard tack, he explained the rudiments of medical
etiquette. ‘I quite take your point,’ said Pomfret, ‘but this is more what
might be called a moral or spiritual rather than a physical matter - not wholly
unlike the distinction between right and wrong.’
‘If you would be a little more specific, I might perhaps
tell you whether I could properly be of any use.’
‘My trouble is this: Pomone, under my orders, beat
one Moorish galley to pieces by gunfire and deliberately rode down two others
in the mêlée, cutting them in half so that they sank within the minute. And I
perpetually see those scores of men, Christian slaves chained to their oars,
looking up in horror, looking up perhaps for mercy; and I sailed on to destroy
another. Is it right? Can it be right? I cannot sleep for those faces gazing,
straining up. Have I mistaken my profession?’
‘On the face of it,’ said Stephen, ‘I do not think
you have. I feel extremely for your very great distress, but... no, I should
have to summon more powers than I can call upon at present, to justify a war,
even a war against a dictatorial system, an open denial of freedom; and I shall
only say that I feel it must be fought. And since it has to be fought it is
better that it should be fought, at least on one side, with what humanity war
does allow, and by officers of your kind. I shall play the doctor so far as to
send you a box of pills that will give you two nights’ heavy sleep. If, having
slept, you wish to hear my reasons, I hope I shall have them fairly well
arranged; and after that you must be your own physician.’
Chapter Three
That night the wind backed steadily until by two
bells in the graveyard watch it was a little south of west, where it steadied,
strengthened and carried them right through the Strait - no more piping of all hands
every other glass or two, but a sweet passage to the Rock itself and their
accustomed moorings.
Stephen and Jacob were heartily glad of it because
three of their badly injured men had taken a serious turn for the worse: in one
case a leg could no longer be saved, in another a resection was imperatively
necessary, and in the third trephining on a solid table was preferable to the
same operation on a moving deck. They and all but the slightly wounded men were
taken to the hospital, where in any event more surgeons were called for, one of
the immense cranes on the new mole having collapsed, very heavily loaded, on a
gang of workmen.
They had finished, they had taken off their bloody
aprons and they were washing their hands when a midshipman from the Surprise
arrived with a note from the Commodore desiring them to come aboard at once.
It was a quiet, serious, hurried boat that carried
them out, and the midshipman, young Adams, looked particularly grave: both
surgeons were silent too - they were sadly worn - but Stephen did notice the
Blue Peter at Surprise’s masthead and he did notice the curious, bedraggled
appearance of the usually trim and more than trim Pomone, with yards all
uneven, sails drooping, sagging in the breeze, rope-ends here and there. He had
never seen a man-of-war look so desolate.
As they approached the pennant-ship they saw a
captain’s barge at the starboard gangway and so pulled round to the other side.
By the time Stephen reached the deck - a slow process, with no side-ropes - the
officer had taken leave of the Commodore and his barge was shoving off.
‘There you are, Doctor,’ said Jack. ‘Come and take
a draught. How are our people?’
‘The usual reply, I am afraid, my dear: “as well as
can be expected”, after that cruel bucketing of going about in a heavy
head-sea. But poor Thomas could not keep his leg. We had it off in a trice,
with barely a moan.’
‘Well done. It will be a cook’s warrant for him, if
I and my friends have any influence. I wish my news were as good. While you
were in the hospital there was a shocking accident aboard Pomone. Most
unhappily poor Hugh Pomfret was cleaning his pistols - we are ordered to sea
directly - and by some wretched mischance one was loaded. It blew his brains
out. Then the Admiral sent for me. He commended what the squadron had done very
handsomely indeed and he will do us full justice in his dispatch, sending it by
the same courier that brought him orders to send the squadron to sea
immediately - the Ministry are much perturbed by the attitude of the Balkan
Muslims. He was deeply concerned about Pomfret’s death; but he has a young man
of his own at hand, John Vaux, who distinguished himself at the taking and
above all the arming of the Diamond Rock in the year four and who should have
been made post long ago - that was the man you saw leaving the quarterdeck when
you came aboard. His barge will carry Pomfret’s body to the cemetery but our
orders are so urgent that the Admiral and his staff will take care of the
funeral. As soon as the barge is back we unmoor and proceed to Mahon, where we shall ship our
Marines. Captain Vaux will already have Pomone out of mourning and shipshape -
you have seen her yards all a-cockbill, I am sure, and her scandalized mizen? Very proper, of course, but horrible to see.’
The squadron had received no more damage than the
bosuns and carpenters, with some help from the dockyard, could repair within
the day; and by early evening, with the shattered gun aboard Surprise replaced,
they took advantage of the kind north-wester to make sail for Mahon, where they
would refit more thoroughly, take in stores, and above all learn the most
recent intelligence from the Adriatic, the eastern Mediterranean and the
convoys to be protected. By the time they had sunk the land, the full-topsail gale
was so steady from the west-north-west that the ship was making ten knots and
more, never touching a sheet or brace; and after retreat the smoking-circle
formed in the galley, the only place where smoking was allowed.
Although most of the Surprises had sailed together
long before this, there were many who preferred to chew their tobacco, there
were some who liked fishing over the side, and there were some who were too
bashful to attend; for this was not an assembly for just any boy, landman or
ordinary seaman - not that there were many aboard - nor for those who were not
at ease in conversation, particularly cheerful conversation, enlivened by
anecdotes.
Yet this particular evening began in a positively
lugubrious fashion. Mrs Skeeping, though professionally neat as a wren,
contrived to trip over the cheese of wads that served as her chair and flung
her fresh-filled boiling teapot into Joshua Simmons’ lap and bosom. She begged
his pardon, mopped him more or less dry, hung his waistcoat in the ratlines and
assured him with a laugh that now he was at least clean in places, while the
waistcoat was as good as new: but Joshua Simmons - commonly known as Old Groan
and tolerated only because he had served at the Nile with Jack Aubrey, under
Nelson again at Copenhagen, and finally at Trafalgar - was not to be amused,
nor comforted; no, nor mollified neither. After a while he said, ‘Well, this is
a fine beginning - an unlucky squadron if ever there was one. Those bloody
Indiamen never gave so much as a brass farthing between us, though we saved
their lives and fortunes; and now there is this wicked self-murder in Pomone.
How can there be any luck in such a commission? Which is
doomed from the bleeding start.’
‘Balls,’ said Killick.
‘Now then, Preserved Killick,’ cried Maggie Cheal,
the bosun’s wife’s sister, taking her short clay pipe from her mouth so that
her words were mixed with smoke. ‘None of your coarse Seven
Dials kind of talk, if you please, with ladies present.’
‘How do you know it was self-murder?’ asked the cook,
jerking his chin at Simmons. ‘You was not there.’
‘No, I was not; but it stands to reason.’
‘Gammon,’ cried Killick. ‘If it had been
self-murder he would have been buried at the crossroads with a stake through
his heart. And was he buried at the crossroads with a stake through his heart?
No, mates, he was not. He was buried in a Christian grave in the churchyard,
with the words said over him by a parson, the Admiral in attendance, the union
flag on his coffin, and a volley fired over him. So be damned to Old Groan and
his bad luck.’
Simmons gave a bitter sniff, unpinned his waistcoat
and walked off, deliberately feeling in its pockets and glancing back at his
companions.
‘In any case,’ Killick went on, ‘even if he had
done himself in a dozen times over, we have a gent aboard that brings in luck
by wholesale. Luck? I never seen
anything like it. He has a unicorn’s horn in his cabin, whole and entire - a
unicorn’s horn as is proof against all poisons whatsoever, as some people know
very well -, glancing at Poll, who nodded in a very emphatic and knowledgeable
manner ‘- and which is worth ten times its own weight in guinea-gold. Ten
times! Can you imagine it? And not only that, mates, not only that. He likewise
has a Hand of Glory! There’s luck for you, I believe.’
A shocked silence, but for
the even song of the ship.
‘What’s a Hand of Glory?’ asked a nervous voice.
‘Why, you lemon: don’t you even know what a Hand of
Glory is? Well, I’ll tell you. It is one of the hangman’s prime perquisites.’
‘What’s a perquisite?’
‘Don’t you know what a.. .
? You’re ignorant, is all. Dead ignorant.’
A voice, ‘The same as
vails.’
Another, ‘Advantages on the side, like.’
‘There is the rope, of course. He can get half a crown
an inch for a rope that hanged a right willain. And there are the clothes,
bought by them that think a pair of pissed and shitten breeches...’
‘Now then, Killick,’ cried Poll, ‘this ain’t one of
your Wapping ale-houses or knocking-kens, so clap a stopper over that kind of
talk. “Soiled linen” is what you mean.’
are worth a guinea, for the
sake of the luck they bring. But most of all it is the Hand of Glory that makes
the hangman so eager for the work. Because why? Because it too is worth its
weight in gold... well, in silver.’
‘What’s a Hand of Glory?’ asked the nervous voice.
‘Which it is the hand that did the deed - ripped
the young girl up or slit the old gentleman’s throat - and that the hangman
cuts off and holds up. And our Doctor has one in a jar which he keeps secret in
the cabin and looks at by night with his mate, talking very low.’
The uneasy silence was broken by a hail from the
forecastle lookout: ‘Land, ho. Land fine on the starboard
bow.’
It was the island of Alboran, almost exactly where it
ought to be but slightly earlier than Jack had expected. He altered course a
trifle and stood straight on for Mahon.
There were some rather dull sailers in Jack
Aubrey’s squadron, and it was not until Tuesday afternoon that they rounded Ayre Island, standing for Cape Mola and the narrow entrance,
with the breeze just before the beam and the larboard tacks aboard.