The Commodore

by Patrick O'Brian

  The Bellona's barge (it was in fact her launch, but being rowed by bargemen and acting as a barge, it assumed the somewhat grander name) pulled fourteen oars, and when these fourteen men were not wholly taken up with the exact regularity of their stroke they looked aft with a certain disapproval: their surgeon and his man had come for the ride, and they let the side down—shabby, unbrushed, and carrying an old green umbrella, badly furled. 'Why that idle sod Killick ever let him out looking like George-a-Green, I cannot tell,' whispered bow oar.

  'Never mind,' replied his mate out of the side of his mouth. 'He ain't going to the palace.'

  He and Square were in fact going to the market-place to seek out Houmouzios at the earliest possible opportunity and then to hurry over the swamp, there to sit under his umbrella, contemplating the long-legged wading birds—even perhaps the fishing vulture—with his perspective-glass; and he was strangely dashed when, on coming to the money-changer's stall, they found only Socrates, who said that Mr Houmouzios was gone on a journey into the interior, but would be back on Friday.

  Stephen was strangely dashed, strangely put about; but having considered for a while he told Square to go and rejoice with his family and walked slowly off in the direction of the fetid swamp, much reduced in this dry season, but still fetid, still a swamp, and with the birds concentrated in a smaller area. And what might he not hope for? Adanson had worked extremely hard, but he had been farther to the north, on the banks of the Senegal; and even Adanson had not turned every egg.

  'Doctor, Doctor!' they cried, hallooing far behind.

  'They are calling for a doctor, the creatures,' he reflected. 'Don't they wish they may find one? Does the chanting goshawk come so far south, I wonder?'

  'Doctor, doctor!' they called, hoarse with running, and at last he stopped.

  'The Commodore says pray come directly,' gasped a midshipman. 'His Excellency invites you to dinner.'

  'My compliments and thanks to his Excellency,' said Stephen, 'but regret I am unable to accept.' He moved on towards the fetid swamp.

  'Come, sir, that won't do,' said a tall sergeant. 'You will be getting us into cruel trouble. Which we have orders to escort you back, and we shall be brought to the triangle and flogged, else. Come sir, if you please.'

  Stephen looked at the three breathless but determined master's mates, the powerful Marine, and gave in.

  'My dear sir,' cried the Governor, 'I beg you will overlook the short notice, the unceremonious invitation, but the last time you were here I did not have the pleasure, the honour, of meeting you; and when my wife heard that Dr Maturin, Dr Stephen Maturin, had been in Sierra Leone without dining here she was infinitely distressed, desolated, quite put out . . . allow me to introduce you.' He led Stephen up to a very good-looking young woman, tall, fair, agreeably plump, smiling at him with the utmost benevolence.

  'I ask your pardon, ma'am, for appearing before you in this squalid . . .'

  'Not in the very least,' she cried, taking both his hands. 'You are covered, covered with laurels. I am Edward Heatherleigh's sister, and I have read all your lovely books and papers, including your address to the Institut, which Monsieur Cuvier sent over to Edward.'

  Edward Heatherleigh, a very shy young man, a naturalist and a member (though rarely seen) of the Royal Society, with a moderate estate in the north of England, where he lived as quietly as possible with this sister, both of them collecting, botanizing, drawing, dissecting, and above all comparing. They had articulated skeletons of all the British mammals, and Edward had told Stephen, one of his few intimates, that she knew bones far better than he did—she was unbeatable on bats.

  This passed through or rather appeared in his mind so rapidly that there was no measurable pause before his reply of 'Miss Christine! I am delighted to see you, ma'am; and now I do not mind my squalor in the least.'

  Captain James Wood, the Governor, possessed a maiden sister who had looked after much of his official entertaining before his marriage, which was just as well; for although Mrs Governor kept remembering her duty, and doing it, few sailors could engage her real attention when a famous natural philosopher was by.

  'You must certainly come tomorrow,' she said as they parted, 'and I will show you my garden and my creatures—I have a chanting goshawk and a brush-tailed porcupine! And perhaps you might like to see my bones.'

  'Nothing could possibly give me greater pleasure,' said Stephen, pressing her hand. 'And perhaps we might walk by the swamp.'

  'Well, Stephen, you were in luck, upon my word,' said Jack, as they walked down to the boat. 'The only pretty woman of the party, and you completely monopolized her. And in the drawing-room she came and sat at your knee and talked to no one else for hours on end.'

  'We had a great deal to talk about. She knows more on the subject of bones and their variations from species to species than any woman I am acquainted with; much more, indeed, than most men, and they professed anatomists. She is sister to Edward Heatherleigh, whom you may have seen at the Royal. A fine young woman.'

  'What a pleasure. I love talking to women like that. Caroline Herschel and I used to prattle away about Pomeranian sludge and the last stages of a telescope's mirror half way through the night. But knowing and beautiful too—what bliss. Yet how she ever came to marry James Wood I cannot tell. A fair practical seaman and an excellent fellow, but never an idea in his head; and he is at least twice her age.'

  'Other people's marriages are a perpetual source of amazement,' said Stephen.

  They walked on, rejecting first the offer of a sedan-chair and then that of a hammock slung on a pole and carried by two men, a usual conveyance in those parts.

  'You too seemed to be enjoying yourselves very heartily at your end of the table,' said Stephen, after a while.

  'So we were. There were some people from the vice-admiralty court, and the civil secretary, and they were telling us how well we had done, how very much better than anyone else, how much wealthier we should be when everything was settled up, above all if none of the alleged Americans or Spaniards won an appeal against their decisions, which was most improbable, and how well our hands would do with their undisputed share, which was ready in canvas bags in the treasury—ready to be paid out. And Stephen, now it is the dry season, you will not keep them aboard all night?'

  'I will not: though you know very well what the result will be. But, brother, there is a glee radiating from you that was never aroused by prize-money, dearly though you love it. You would never have heard from the Admiralty, at all?'

  'Oh no. I should not expect anything yet, if ever: we saved a wonderful amount of time on that last leg. No. I have letters from home'—tapping his bosom—'and so have you, but from Spain.'

  Stephen's letter was from Avila. Clarissa reported a quiet, agreeable life, a healthy, affectionate and biddable child, now garrulous and tolerably correct in English, with some Spanish, but preferring the Irish she spoke with Padeen. She was learning her letters quite well, but was puzzled about which hand to write them with. Stephen's Aunt Petronilla was very kind to Brigid—to them both. Some of the ladies who lived in the convent had carriages and took them for drives, wrapped in furs: it was a severe winter, and two of Stephen's cousins, one coming from Segovia and the other from Madrid, had heard wolves close to the road at noon. She herself was well, mildly happy, reading as she had not read for years, and she liked the nuns' singing: sometimes she went with Padeen (who sent his duty) to the Benedictine church for the plainchant. Enclosed was a small square piece of paper, not over-clean, with a drawing of a wolf with teeth and some words that Stephen could not make out until he realized that they were Irish written phonetically: O my father fare well Brigid.

  He sat in the cabin savouring this and drinking thin lime-juice for some considerable time before Jack came in from the stern-gallery, looking equally happy. He said, 'I have had such delightful letters from Sophie, who sends you her dear love, and I mean to answer them this minute—there is a merchantman on the wing fo
r Southampton. Stephen, how do you spell peccavi?'

  Christine Heatherleigh had quite charmed Dr Maturin: he lay in his cot that night, swinging to the long Atlantic swell and thinking about his afternoon, and he had a startlingly clear visual image of her speaking earnestly about clavicles in primates, her eyes particularly wide open. 'Can it be that her physical presence has stirred long-dormant emotions in my let us say bosom?' he wondered. The answer 'No. My motives are entirely pure' came at almost the same moment that another part of his mind was considering the gentle pressure of her hand: kindness? her brother's friendship? a certain inclination? 'No,' he replied again, 'my motives being entirely pure she feels perfectly safe with me, middle-aged, ill-formed, wizened from the yellow jack, and can be as free as with her grandfather; or at least an uncle. Yet out of respect for her, and for Government House, I shall desire Killick to unpack, curl and powder my best wig against tomorrow's visit.'

  In the morning he rose early, saying, 'I shall not shave until after my rounds and breakfast, when I shall have light enough to shave extremely close.' But when his rounds were over—and they were quite long, with several new cases of an intractable rash that he had never seen elsewhere—the light was still extremely poor. On his way up he met Killick, and speaking loud over the curious circumambient noise he asked him both to attend to the wig and to lay out his good satin breeches and a clean shirt, adding that he was about to ask the first lieutenant for a boat in the forenoon.

  'No forenoon, no, nor no afternoon today, sir. Which there's a smoke on, and you can't hardly breathe on deck: nor no boat could swim. Harmattan, some say, a right Guinea smoke. You won't want no wig.'

  No. And had he worn one he would have lost it. The moment he put his head above the level of the quarterdeck his meagre locks were whipped away to the south-west and he understood that the noise he heard was that of a very curious, very furious, north-east wind, hot, extraordinarily parching dry, and so loaded with red-brown dust that at times one could scarcely see twenty yards beyond the side. But those twenty yards of visible sea were whipped to a continuous chopping froth against the swell.

  'Smoke, sir,' said Square at his side. 'But only a little one, over tomorrow or the next day.'

  'How I hope you are right,' said Stephen. 'I particularly wish to see Mr Houmouzios,' and as he spoke he felt the red dust gritting between his teeth.

  A disappointing day, and quite extraordinarily thirsty: yet it did have some wonders of its own. Jack, who as usual was making what observations were possible—observations of temperature at various depths, salinity, humidity of the air and so on for his friend Humboldt—showed Stephen his sea-chest, which had been brought up on to the half-deck so that the joiner might add an additional till or tray, a very stout chest indeed, that had seen and survived almost every kind of weather the world could offer: but the harmattan had split its lid—a broad cleft from one end to the other. 'We are playing the fire-hose on the boats to keep them whole' he observed in a cheerful roar.

  Square was right about the duration, however, and Thursday saw a world which, though ravaged, covered with rufous dust feet deep in sheltered places, and generally flattened, was at least quite calm, and a close-shaven Stephen Maturin, neatly dressed, pulled ashore over a filthy, gently heaving sea. Since he was carrying a gift of sun-birds, or rather their skins arranged with the feathers outwards, as beautiful as any bouquet and far more lasting, he took a sedan-chair to Government House, where he would have sent in his name if Mrs Wood had not thrown up a window with a little shriek and called out to ask him how he did.

  She would be down in a minute, she said; and so she was, having paused only to change her shoes and put on a singularly becoming cashmere shawl. 'I am so sorry about this odious harmattan,' she said. 'It has utterly destroyed my garden. But perhaps, when we have had some coffee, you might like to look at some dried specimens, and the bones.'

  The bones were indeed worth looking at, beautifully arranged, often articulated with a dexterity few could achieve. 'When we were young,' she said, and Stephen smiled, 'Edward and I used still to put the bat among the primates. But now we do not.'

  'I am sure you are right,' said Stephen. 'They are very amiable creatures, yet it appears to me that their next of kin are the insectivores.'

  'Just so,' cried she. 'You have but to look at their teeth and their hyoids, whatever Linnaeus may say. The primates are much more interesting. Shall we look at them first? The drawers over there and the tall cupboard are all primates: suppose we were to start with the lowest of the order and work up to the pongo. Here'—opening the bottom drawer, 'is a common potto. Perodicticus potto.'

  'Ah,' said Stephen, delicately taking up the skeletal hand, 'how I have longed to see these phalanges. Do you happen to know whether in life this aborted index-finger had a nail?'

  'He had none, poor dear: he seemed quite conscious of it. I often saw him gazing at his hand, looking puzzled.'

  'He lived with you, so?'

  'Yes. For nearly eighteen months, and how I wish he were living yet. One grows absurdly attached to a potto.'

  Stephen examined the bones in silence for some considerable time, particularly the very curious anterior dorsal vertebrae, and at last he said, 'Dear Mrs Wood, may I ask you to be very kind to me?'

  'Dear Dr Maturin,' she replied, blushing, 'You may ask me anything you like.'

  'I too am absurdly attached to a potto,' he said, 'a tailless potto from Old Calabar.'

  'An awantibo!' she cried, recovering from her surprise.

  Stephen bowed. 'She has been grievously on my mind since we left those parts. I cannot in conscience take her north of the tropic line; I have not the resolution to kill and anatomize her; to abandon her to a local tree in unknown surroundings would go against my heart.'

  'Oh how well I understand you,' she said, taking his hand in the kindest manner. 'Leave her with me, and I will look after her with the utmost care, for her sake and for yours; and if she dies, as my dear Potto died, you too shall have her bones.'

  Friday's market was more than usually crowded, and Stephen's anxiety to find Houmouzios was more than usually keen: the harmattan had cracked not only the Commodore's sea-chest but a large number of other things aboard the Bellona, including the caddy in which Stephen kept his small remaining store of coca-leaves: the omnivorous, insatiable Guinea cockroaches had swarmed in, fouling what little they could not eat, and already he was feeling the lack. But there were large numbers of sailors and Marines wandering vaguely about; and a large number, a tribe, of tall stout very black men from some region where it was usual to carry broad-bladed spears and a shining trident stood at gaze, amazed by their first visit to a town: Square heaved them gently aside with his shoulder, opening a path as through a drove of oxen, Stephen followed him, and there at last, beyond a snake-charmer, he saw the familiar canopied stall, the dreadful great bald dog, and, huzzay, Houmouzios. Socrates was already present, so Houmouzios left him In charge and carried Stephen back to the house at once. At their first greeting he said that he had received the Brazilian leaves, but it was not until the door was closed behind them that he spoke of three messages that had arrived for Dr Maturin.

  Stephen thanked him cordially for his trouble, paid for the leaves, put the messages in his pocket and said, 'You have been very kind to me: allow me to suggest the purchase of East India stock as soon as it drops below a hundred and sixteen.'

  They parted on excellent terms, and Stephen, with Square carrying the little sack, set off for the strand, the boat, the ship, and the privacy of his cabin and his decoding book; but they had not gone a furlong before the road was blocked by a turbulent mass of seamen, many already drunk, all fighting or about to fight or bawling encouragement at those who were engaged—hands from the Thames and the Stately having a dust up. Happily a group of moderately sober Bellonas came by, some of them Stephen's old shipmates, and they, forming close about the pair and roaring, 'Make a lane, there,' ran them briskly through unharmed.
>
  Once aboard Stephen hurried below, locked the door and opened the messages in the order of their sending. They were all, of course, from Blaine's office. The code was so familiar that he could almost have done without the key, and the first two were comforting though unremarkable: the French plan was following its course: there had been two unimportant changes of command in minor vessels and one ship substituted for another of equal force. The third, however, stated that a requisition in the Netherlands had provided faster, better, more efficient transports and that the whole operation might be advanced by a week or ten days and that a third line-of-battle ship, the César, 74, coming from America might join the French squadron in 42°20'N, 18°30'W: there might however be a reduction in the number of French frigates. The message ended with the hope that this might not reach Stephen too late, and it enclosed a fourth sheet written by Blaine himself according to the formula they used for private, personal communication. Stephen recognized the hand, he recognized the shape of the sequences, but he could not make the message out at all, though he was almost certain that one group was the combination Sir Joseph used for Diana's name. He ran clean through the book, a book that he knew backwards in any case; but there was no evident solution.

  He put the personal message aside for further study and went in search of Jack, who was in the master's day-cabin with Tom, all three gazing very anxiously at the chronometers, which no longer agreed, harmattan, drought and dust having presumably deranged one or both. In some ways Jack was very quick: one glance at Stephen's face and he was in the great cabin in a moment: he listened in silence, and then said, 'Thank God we heard in time. I shall get under way as soon as possible. Pray see to your medical stores at once.' He summoned Tom: 'Tom, we must be under way in twelve hours, on the first of the ebb. We are short-handed and with so many men ashore, hard to find and bring off, we shall be in real difficulties: send the boats to the last-come merchantmen and press all you can. Stores are fairly good, apart from the gunner's, but watering will take place at once. No liberty, of course. Throw out one signal for all captains and another for the powder-hoys. All Marines to round up stragglers and I shall ask the Governor to use his troops.'