Book 19 - The Hundred Days

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Aye-aye, sir,' cried Killick, paler than Stephen could have wished, and apt to stare. 'Bow-case it is.'

  But bow-case it was not. Killick had seen fit to take the horn out and now he could be seen for a moment in the light of the open door, making antic gestures with its point at the third-class boy, who was draining the last of the wine. 'Oh, oh,' cried the boy, choking, and he plunged forward in a paroxysm of adolescent drunkenness, spewing improbable jets of madeira, grasping Killick's knees and bringing him down. He fell flat on the deck, holding the horn close to his chest. It broke in the middle with a sharp crack, sending off a long sliver that shot into the great cabin.

  These things took place in the coach, the small apartment forward and to larboard, generally used on such occasions. Jack strode through it over the two bodies, calling very loud and clear for his bosun, swabbers and the master-at-arms.

  Bonden took in the situation at once and in a cold, silent fury he ran the now speechless Killick away forward, while the master-at-arms dragged the limp wretched boy to the nearest pump. The swabbers, old hands at this job, set to without a word: and with extraordinary speed—no comments whatsoever—the frigate's people cleaned up, cleared away, and even before the deck was quite dry, restored the cabin to a wholly clean and civilized condition.

  Mr Wright was sitting on the broad locker that ran across the Surprise's great cabin, just by the sweep of stern windows, when Stephen came back, carrying his 'cello and the scores. The old gentleman had the pieces of narwhal horn carefully arranged by his side, the broken parts set together and the eighteen-inch splinter laid so exactly in place that at first sight the horn looked whole. 'Dear Dr Maturin,' he said, 'I fear you must be grievously distressed.'

  'No, sir,' said Stephen. 'I do not mind it.'

  Wright hesitated for a moment and then went on, 'But believe me, this is one of the few things I can do really well. The providential splinter has shown me the nature of the inner substance; the breaks are perfectly clean; and I have a cement that will knit them so firmly that the tooth will retain all its original strength: a cement that would make dentists' fortunes, were it less noxious. Pray let me take it home with me, will you?'

  'I should be infinitely obliged to you, sir, but . . .'

  'I used to do the same for Cousin Christine's skeletons many years ago. And while you are playing I shall muse with the other half of my mind on the lower shaft, in which those whorls and spirals are so startlingly obvious. A very extraordinary puzzle indeed.'

  'You mean to play, Stephen?' Jack murmured in his ear.

  'Why, certainly.'

  'Bonden,' called Jack, 'place the music stand and light along my fiddle, d'ye hear me, there?'

  'Aye-aye, sir: music stands and light along the fiddle it is.'

  Chapter Four

  Once again the thunder roared from the saluting batteries as Jack Aubrey's squadron made its painful and dangerous way out of Mahon harbour: short boards down the narrow Cala de San Esteban against an irregular gusting southerly breeze and what tide the Mediterranean could summon up at its worst. A small squadron now, since Briseis, Rainbow and Ganymede had been sent off to protect the eastern trade and Dover was still escorting the Indiamen on their homeward run.

  Ringle, leading the way, was nimbler and brisk in stays, as became a schooner of her class, and she was tolerably at home in such waters; so was Surprise, handled by a man who had sailed her for the finest part of his life at sea and who loved her dearly—a ship, furthermore, that was blessed with an uncommonly high proportion of truly able seamen, thoroughly accustomed to her ways and to her captain's. Not that theirs was a happy lot as the channel grew even narrower, the cries of 'Hands about ship' more frequent, and the recently-shipped Marines (at least one in each gun-crew) more awkward still: for in common decency the batteries' salutes to the broad pennant had to be returned, returned exactly: and this called for wonderful activity.

  Yet the sufferings of the Surprises, though severe and often commented upon, were not to be compared to those of the Pomones, a huddled-together ship's company with a captain who had never commanded a post-ship before, a disgruntled first lieutenant and a new second lieutenant—he was now officer of the watch—who did not know a single man aboard and whose orders were often confused, often misunderstood and sometimes shouted down by exasperated, frightened bosun's mates, far too busy with their starters: and all this in an unhandy, heavily-pitching frigate with far too much sail set forward, pressing down her forefoot.

  The Commodore and his officers watched from the quarterdeck: often and often their faces assumed the appearance of whistling and their heads shook with the same grave, foreboding motion. Had it not been for the frenzied zeal of Pomone's aged gunner and his mates she would never have contributed a tenth part of her share of salutes, and even so she cut but a wretched figure.

  'Shall I ever be able to use her heavy broadside in the Adriatic?' murmured Jack to himself. 'Or anywhere else, for that matter? Three hundred blundering hopeless grass combing buggers, for all love,' he added, as the Pomone very, very nearly missed stays, her jib-boom brushing the pitiless rock.

  Unlikely though it had seemed at times, even the Cala de San Esteban had an end: first Ringle cleared the point, stood on and brought the wind abaft the beam; and she was followed by the others. Yet although against probability he had escaped shipwreck, young Captain Vaux (a deeply conscientious officer) did not, like some of his shipmates, give way to relief and self-congratulation. 'Silence, fore and aft,' he cried in a voice worthy the service, and in the shocked hush he went on, 'Mr Bates, let us take advantage of the guns being warm and the screens being rigged and make the signal Permission to fire a few rounds.'

  Fortunately Mr Bates, whose talents would never have recommended him anywhere, had a thoroughly efficient master's mate and yeoman of the signals: between them they whipped the flags from the locker, composed the hoist and ran it aloft. It had barely broken out before another intelligent young master's mate, the recently-joined John Daniel, murmured to Mr Whewell, Surprise's third lieutenant, 'I beg pardon, sir, but Pomone is asking permission to fire a few rounds.'

  Mr Whewell confirmed this with his telescope and the yeoman; then stepping across to Jack Aubrey he took off his hat and said, 'Sir, if you please, Pomone requests permission to fire a few rounds.'

  'Reply As many as you can afford: but with reduced charges and abaft the beam.'

  Captain Vaux was of a wealthy, open-handed family and he dreaded having the appearance of one who owed his early promotion to his connexions: he wanted his ship to be a fighting-machine as efficient as the Surprise, and if a few hundredweight of powder would advance her in that direction he was perfectly willing to pay for them, particularly as he could renew his supplies in Malta.

  A few minutes after the Commodore's signal, therefore, the gunfire began again, starting with single chasers, the occasional carronade, and then fairly regular broadsides that surrounded the frigate with a fine cloud of smoke—broadsides that grew perceptibly more regular as time went on.

  The stabbing flame and the heart-shaking din of a great gun exercise of this kind nearly always spread cheerfulness and high spirits—the noise alone was exhilarating, and exhilaration has some affinity with joy. Yet although Pomone's cannon roared and bellowed prodigiously, there was precious little joy aboard her near neighbour the Surprise.

  Even after dinner (two pcunds of fresh Minorcan beef a head) and dinner's charming grog, and even after supper, the general gloom persisted. Killick's misfortune was known to the last detail; the wretched boy's capers were recounted again and again; and the dreadful fall, the shattering of the precious horn.

  It was much the same the next day, and the next; and even when Mahon was far astern, beneath the western horizon from the main royal masthead, the squadron holding its course for Malta with a steady, gentle topgallant breeze on the starboard quarter.

  No joy among the people of Surprise, for the luck had gone out of the ship tog
ether with the broken horn: for what could be expected of a broken horn, however expertly repaired? Many a time did the older hands mutter something about virginity, maidenhead; and this, with a melancholy shake of the head conveyed all that was to be conveyed. No joy among those of Pomone, either; for not only did their new skipper prove a right Tartar, keeping them at the great-gun exercise morning, noon and night, stopping the grog of a whole gun-crew for the least trifling mistake, but some of those badly hurt by recoil, powder-flash or rope-burn, had to be taken across to the pennant-ship, their own surgeon being so far gone with the double-pox that he did not choose to risk his hand on the delicate cases, and aboard Surprise the Pomones soon learnt what had happened. Nor among the Ringles, their captain having dined with the Commodore and his boat's crew having spent the afternoon among their friends and cousins. No joy.

  Yet the officer in command of the Surprise's Royal Marines, Captain Hobden, had a long-legged, rangy, limping yellow dog, Naseby, whose mother had belonged to the horse-artillery and who absolutely delighted in the smell of powder, even that which came wafting faintly across from Pomone, the laborious Pomone. He was a friendly young creature, used to shipboard life and scrupulously clean, though somewhat given to theft: but he at least was thoroughly cheerful, the animal. He was fond of Marines and their familiar uniform, of course, but he also liked seamen; and as Captain Hobden was much given to playing the German flute (an abomination to dogs) while his other ranks spent their free time cleaning their weapons, polishing, brushing and pipeclaying their equipment, Naseby very soon found out the smoking-circle in the galley. It was not a very jovial, lively place at present, but they were kind to him and the women might give him a biscuit or even a piece of sugar; and in any case it was company.

  'Well, Naseby, here you are again,' said Poll, when they were far and far from land, the stars beginning to prick. 'At least it wasn't you.' She gave him an edge of cake and went on '. . . there they were, the Doctor and his mate, or rather the two doctors as I should say, stamping up and down in a horrid passion and uttering words which I shall not repeat them in mixed company, like a pair of mad lions.'

  At this point Killick came in with an improbable pile of shirts in his arms, kept there by his pointed chin—linen to be aired in the galley when the fires were drawn. He had been washing, ironing and goffering (where appropriate) all Jack's and Stephen's shirts, neck-cloths, handkerchiefs, waistcoats, drawers and duck trousers, and polishing the great cabin's silver to an unearthly brilliance in the hope of forgiveness: but from the great cabin to the galley and even to ship's heads he was still looked upon with a sour, disappointed dislike: and none of the women, nor even the ship's boys, called him Mr Killick any more.

  But even in a pitch of distress that had cut his appetite, his pleasure in tobacco and his sleep, his intense curiosity lingered on and now he asked why the doctors were swearing so.

  'Well, Killick,' said Poll Skeeping. 'I am surprised you should not know, being it was your so-called Hand of Glory, that was to make us all so rich.'

  'Oh no,' whispered Killick.

  'Oh yes,' cried Poll, tossing her head. 'As you know very well, the doctors kept it in a jar of double-refined spirits of wine so that it should stay fresh and clean: and what happened? I'll tell you what happened, if you really need to be told. Some God-damned villain or villains had been drawing off the spirit and replacing it with water, so now it's just bloody water and damn all else, while the Hand has grown gamy, like. It is all up with the finer tissues, but at least they have put it out to dry and they hope to draw the tendons and wire the bones together tomorrow evening.'

  Alas for their hopes. When in one of their few free moments (Pomone's working-up was proving quite exceptionally bloody; and a surprising crop of boils, disturbingly like the Aleppo button, had broken out in Surprise) the medical men approached the table next to a scuttle where the poor hand had been left to dry—indeed to desiccate—they found nothing but a very faint bloody trace, the wooden dissecting board and the print of a large dog's right forefoot on the padded stool.

  'Your beautiful present utterly desecrated, deep in the maw of that vile mongrel'—'All our work wasted,' they cried, and they cursed the dog with extreme violence in Berber and Gaelic.

  Stephen found Hobden in the gun-room, fingering his unlucky flute while the two off-duty lieutenants played backgammon. 'Sir,' he said, pale with anger, 'I must have your dog. He has stolen my preserved hand and I must either open him or exhibit a powerful emetic before it is too late.'

  'How do you know it was my dog? There are all the ship's cats, thieves to a man.'

  'Come with me to the galley and I will show you.'

  Naseby was indeed in the galley, comfortably installed among the women, who started up. Stephen seized the dog, raised his deeply-scarred right fore-paw, showed it to Hobden and said, 'There's your proof.'

  'You never stole anything, did you, Naseby?' asked Hobden. Naseby was a clever dog: he could find a hare and do all sorts of things like counting up to eight bells and opening a latched door; but he could not lie. Perfectly aware of the accusation, he drooped ears and body, licked his lips and confessed total guilt.

  'I must either cut him and recover my hand or give him a very strong emetic: and if the emetic does not work, then it must be the knife.'

  'It was your own silly fault for leaving it about,' cried Hobden. 'You shall not touch my dog, you pragmatical bastard.'

  'Will you stand by those words, sir?' asked Stephen after a short pause, his head cocked to one side.

  'Until my dying day,' said Hobden, rather too loud. Stephen left the room, smiling. He found Somers, the second lieutenant, standing on the forecastle and gazing up at the beauty of the headsails, brilliant in the sun and scarcely less so in the white shadow. 'Mr Somers,' he said, 'I beg pardon for interrupting you—a glorious sight, indeed—but I have had a disagreement with Captain Hobden, who used, and stood by, a very blackguardly insult, made in public—in the galley itself, for God's sake. May I beg you to be my second?'

  'Of course you may, my dear Maturin. How very much I regret it. I shall wait upon him at once.'

  'Come in,' cried Jack Aubrey, looking up from his desk.

  'I beg pardon for interrupting you, sir,' said Harding, the frigate's first lieutenant, 'but I have some awkward, pressing things to tell you.' He said this in a low voice, and Jack led him aft to the locker under the stern windows, where he could speak in perfect safety—in a ship a hundred and twenty feet long with two hundred men crammed into her, privacy was a rare commodity, as he knew from very long experience.

  'Well, sir,' Harding went on, obviously disliking the role of informer, 'Dr Maturin has challenged Hobden, Hobden's dog having eaten a preserved hand; and Hobden, having been told that the hand must be recovered by knife or purge, gave Maturin the lie. I tell you this because the people are very much upset. I do not have to tell you, sir, that seamen or at least our seamen, are as superstitious as a parcel of old women: they looked upon the horn; sir, as the surest possible guarantee of luck: and next to the horn, or even before it, this Hand of Glory . . . you know about it, sir?'

  'Of course I do. Thank you for telling me all this, Harding: it was very proper in you. Now pray be so good as to tell Hobden that I wish to see him at once. He will waste no time with uniform.'

  A minute later he called 'Come in' again, and a shirtsleeved, duck-trousered Hobden appeared.

  'Captain Hobden,' said Jack in a tone of the deepest displeasure, 'I understand that your dog ate Dr Maturin's preserved hand, and that when he checked you with the fact you gave him the lie or something worse. You must either withdraw the insult and let him retrieve the hand as best he may, or you must leave this ship at Malta. I cannot give you more than five minutes to reflect, dogs' powers of digestion being what they are. But while you are reflecting, remember this: in the heat of the moment any man may blurt out a blackguardly expression: yet after a while any man worth a groat knows he must unsay it. A not
e of apology would answer, if you find the spoken word stick in your gullet.'

  Hobden changed colour once or twice—a variety of emotions appeared upon his face, all of them wretchedly unhappy.

  'If you choose to write it now, here are pens and paper, said Jack, nodding to his desk and chair.

  For some time Jacob and Stephen Maturin had been talking about the pleasanter sides of their evening with Mr Wright as they sharpened their instruments on variety of hones and oilstones by the Argand light in the orlop. When they had finished discussing their dispassionate and geometrical treatment of the Locatelli, Jacob said, 'Yet earlier on I fear I was somewhat too loquacious, with my examples of the Zeneta dialect and the double gutturals of the local Hebrew; but at least I did not bore the company with an account of what is perhaps the most curious thing about the Beni Mzab—curious, but difficult to explain in a few words. I mean the fact that not only are the Moslems Ibadite heretics, but many of the Jews are Cainites, equally erroneous according to the orthodox.'

  Stephen reflected, grinding still, and then said, 'I do not think I know about Cainites.'

  'They derive their descent from the Kenites, who themselves have Abel's brother Cain as their common ancestor: furthermore, the initiated still bear his mark; though discreetly, since they do not choose to have it generally known, there still being so many vulgar prejudices against him. This shared mark of Cain forms the strongest bond imaginable, far outdoing that between Freemasons, and of infinitely greater antiquity.'