'Dr Maturin?'
'Yes, sir. Dr Stephen Maturin, whose book on the diseases of seamen I showed you. I have a case that troubles me exceedingly, and I should like his opinion. You do not see him in the boat, I suppose?'
'I am not acquainted with the gentleman,' said Mr Stone, 'but I know he is much given to natural philosophy, and conceivably that is he, leaning over the back of the boat, with his face almost touching the water. I too should like to meet him.'
They both levelled their glasses, focusing them upon a small spare man on the far side of the coxswain. He had been called to order by his captain and now he was sitting up, settling his scrub wig on his head. He wore a plain blue coat, and as he glanced at the flagship before putting on his blue spectacles they noticed his curiously pale eyes. They both stared intently, the surgeon because he had a tumour in the side of his belly and because he most passionately longed for someone to tell him authoritatively that it was not malignant. Dr Maturin would answer perfectly: he was a physician with a high professional reputation, a man who preferred a life at sea, with all the possibilities it offered to a naturalist, to a lucrative practice in London or Dublin -or Barcelona, for that matter, since he was Catalan on his mother's side. Mr Stone was not so personally concerned, but even so he too studied Dr Maturin with close attention: as the Admiral's secretary he attended to all the squadron's confidential business, and he was aware that Dr Maturin was also an intelligence agent, though on a grander scale. Stone's work was mainly confined to the detection and frustration of small local betrayals and evasions of the laws against trading with the enemy, but it had brought him acquainted with members of other organizations having to do with secret service, not all of them discreet, and from these he gathered that some kind of silent, hidden war was slowly reaching its-climax in Whitehall, that Sir Joseph Blain, the head of naval intelligence, and his chief supporters, among whom Maturin might be numbered, were soon to overcome their unnamed opponents or be overcome by them. Stone loved intelligence work;- he very much hoped to become a full member of one of the many bodies, naval, military and political, that operated behind the scenes with what secrecy they could manage in spite of the indiscretion, not to say the incurable loquacity of certain colleagues; and he therefore stared with intense curiosity at a man who was, according to his fragmentary, imprecise information, one of the Admiralty's most valued agents - stared until the quarterdeck filled with ceremonial Marines and the sound of bosun's pipes and the first lieutenant said 'Come, gentlemen, if you please. We must receive the Captain of Surprise.'
'The Captain of Surprise, sir, if you please,' said the secretary at the cabin door.
'Aubrey, I am delighted to see you,' cried the Admiral, striking a last chord and holding out his hand. 'Sit down and tell me how you have been doing. But first, what is that ship you arc towing?'
'One of our whalers, sir, the William Enderby of London, recaptured off Bаhia. She rolled her masts out in a dead calm just north of the line, she being so deep-laden and the swell so uncommon heavy.'
'Recaptured, so a lawful prize. And deep-laden, eh?'
'Yes, sir. The Americans put the catch of three other ships into her, burnt them and sent her home alone. The master of Surprise, who was a whaler in his time, reckons her at ninety-seven thousand dollars. A sad time we have had with her, both of us being so precious short of stores. We did rig jury-masts made out of various bits and pieces and made fast with our shoe-strings, but she lost them in last Sunday's blow.'
'Never mind,' said the Admiral, 'you have brought her in, and that is the main thing. Ninety-seven thousand dollars, ha, ha! You shall have everything you need in the way of stores: I shall give particular orders myself. Now give me some account of your voyage. Just the essentials to begin with.'
'Very good, sir. I was unable to come up with the Norfolk in the Atlantic as I had hoped, but south of Falkland's Islands I did at least recapture the packet she had taken, the Danaл-…'
'I know you did. Your volunteer commander - what was his name?'
'Pullings, sir. Thomas Pullings.'
'Yes, Captain Pullings - brought her in for wood and water before carrying her home. He was in Plymouth before the end of the month - having been chased like smoke and oakum for three days and nights by a heavy privateer - an amazing rapid passage. But tell me, Aubrey, I heard there were two chests of gold aboard that packet, each as much as two men could lift. I suppose you did not recapture them too?' 'Oh dear me no, sir. The Americans had transferred every last penny to the Norfolk within an hour of taking her. We did recover some confidential papers, however.'
At this point there was a silence, a silence that Captain Aubrey found exceedingly disagreeable. An untoward fall, the bursting open of a hidden brass box, had shown him that these papers were in fact money, a perfectly enormous sum of money, though in a less obvious form than coin; but this was unofficial knowledge, acquired only by accident, in his capacity as Maturin's friend, not his captain; and the real custodian of it was Stephen, whose superiors in the intelligence service had told him where to find the box and what to do with it. They had not told him why it was there, but no very great penetration was required to see that a sum of such extraordinary magnitude, in such an anonymous and negotiable form, must be intended for the subversion of a government at least. It was clearly something that Captain Aubrey could not speak about openly except in the improbable event of the Admiral's having been informed and of his giving a lead; but Jack hated this concealment - there was something sly, shifty and mean about it, together with an edge of very dangerous dishonesty - and he found the silence more and more oppressive until he saw that in fact it was caused by Sir William's private conversion of ninety-seven thousand dollars into pounds and his division of the answer by twelve: this with a piece of black pencil on the corner of a dispatch. 'Forgive me for a moment,' said the Admiral, looking up from his sum with a cheerful face. 'I must pump ship.'
The Admiral vanished into the quarter-gallery, and as Jack Aubrey waited he recalled the conversation he had had with Stephen while the Surprise was running in. By nature and profession Stephen was exceedingly close; they had never spoken about these bonds, obligations, bank-notes and so on until it became obvious that Jack would be summoned aboard the flagship in the next few hours, but then in the privacy of the frigate's stern-gallery, he said, 'Everyone has heard the couplet in vain may heroes fight and patriots rave If secret gold sap On from knave to knave but how many know how it goes on?'
'Not I, for one,' said Jack, laughing heartily.
'Will I tell you, so?'
'Pray do,' said Jack.
Stephen held up a watch-bill by way of symbol, and with a significant look he continued,
'Blest paper credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
A single leaf shall waft an army o'er
Or ship off senates to a distant shore.
Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen
And silent sells a king, or buys a queen.'
'I wish someone would try to corrupt me,' said Jack. 'When I think of how my account with Hoares must stand at the present moment, I would ship any number of senates to a distant shore for five hundred pounds; and for another ten the whole board of Admiralty too.'
'I dare say you would,' said Stephen. 'But you take my meaning, do you not? Were I in your place I should glide over that unhappy brass box and its contents, with just a passing reference to certain confidential papers to salve your conscience. I will come with you, if I may, so that if the Admiral prove inquisitive, I may toss him off with a round turn.'
Jack looked at Stephen with affection: Dr Maturin could dash away in Latin and Greek, and as for modern languages, to Jack's certain knowledge he spoke half a dozen; yet he was quite incapable of mastering low English cant or slang or flash expressions, let alone the technical terms necessarily used aboard ship. Even now, he suspected, Stephen had difficulty with starboard and larboard.
'The less said about these things the better,' added Stephen. 'I wish…' But here he stopped. He did not go on to say that he wished he had never seen these papers, had never had anything to do with them; but that was the case. Money, though obviously essential on occasion, usually had a bad effect on intelligence - for his part he had never touched a Brummagem farthing for his services and money in such exorbitant, unnatural amounts might be very bad indeed, endangering all those who came into contact with it.
'I don't know how it is, Aubrey,' said the Admiral, coming back, 'but 1 seem to piss every glass these days. Perhaps it is anno Domini, and nothing to be done about it, but perhaps it is something that one of these new pills can set right. 1 should like to consult your surgeon while Surprise is refitting. I hear he is an eminent hand - was called in to the Duke of Clarence. But that to one side: carry on with your account, Aubrey.'
'Well, sir, not finding the Norfolk in the Atlantic I followed her round into the South Sea. No luck at Juan Fernandez, but a little later I had word of her playing Old Harry among our whalers along the coast of Chile and Peru and among the Galapagos. So I proceeded north, retaking one of her prizes on the way, and reached the islands a little after she had left; but there again I had fairly certain intelligence that she was bound for the Marquesas, where her commander meant to establish a colony as well as snapping up the half dozen whalers we had fishing in those waters. So I bore away westward, and to cut a long story short, after some weeks of sweet sailing, when we were right in her track saw her beef-barrels floating - we had a most unholy blow, scudding under bare poles day after day, that we survived and she did not. We found her wrecked on the coral-reef of an uncharted island well to the east of the Marquesas; and not to trouble you with details, sir, we took her surviving people prisoner and proceeded to the Horn with the utmost dispatch.'
'Well done, Aubrey, very well done indeed. No glory, nor no cash from the Norfolk, I am afraid, it being an act of God that dished her; but dished she is, which is the main point, and I dare say you will get head-money for your prisoners. And then of course there are these charming prizes. No: a very satisfactory cruise, upon the whole. I congratulate you. Let us drink a glass of bottled ale: it is my own.'
'Very willingly, sir. But there is something I should tell you about the prisoners. From the beginning the captain of the Norfolk behaved very strangely; in the first place he said the war was over…'
'That's fair enough. A legitimate ruse de guerre.'
'Yes, but there were other things, together with a want of candour that I could not understand until I learnt that he was trying, naturally enough, to protect part of his crew; some of his men were deserters from the Navy and some had taken part in the Hermione…'
'The Hermione!' cried the Admiral, his face growing pale and wicked at the mention of that unhappy frigate and the still unhappier mutiny, when her crew murdered their inhuman captain and most of his officers and handed the ship over to the enemy on the Spanish Main. 'I lost a young cousin there, Drogo Montague's boy. They broke his arm and then fairly hacked him to pieces, only thirteen and as promising a youngster as you could wish, the damned cowardly villains.'
'We had a certain amount of trouble with them, sir, the ship having been blown off for a while; and some were obliged to be knocked on the head.'
'That saves us the trouble of hanging them. But you have some left, I trust?'
'Oh yes, sir. They are in the whaler, and if they might be taken off quite soon I should esteem it a kindness. We have never a boat to bless ourselves with, apart from my gig, and our few Marines are fairly worn to the bone with guarding them watch and watch.'
'They shall be clapped up directly,' cried the Admiral, pealing on his bell. 'Oh it will do my heart good to see 'em dingle-dangle at the yardarm, the carrion dogs. Jason should be in tomorrow and with you that will give us just enough post-captains for a court-martial.'
Jack's heart sank. He loathed a court-martial: he loathed a hanging even more. He also wanted to get away as soon as he had completed his water and taken in stores enough to carry him home, and from the obvious paucity of senior officers off Bridgetown he had thought he might be able to sail in two days' time. But it was no good protesting. The secretary and the flag-lieutenant were both in the cabin; orders were flying; and now the Admiral's steward brought in the bottled ale.
It was intolerably fizzy as well as luke-warm, but once his orders were given the Admiral drank it down in great gulps, with evident pleasure; presently the savage expression faded from his grim old face. After a long pause in which the clump of Marines' boots could be heard, and the sound of boats shoving off, he said 'The last time I saw you, Aubrey, was when Dungannon gave us dinner in the Defiance, and afterwards we played that piece of Gluck's in D minor. I have hardly had any music since, apart from what I play for myself. They are a sad lot in the wardroom here: German flutes by the dozen and not a true note between 'em. Jew's harps are more their mark. And all the mids' voices broke long ago; in any case there's not one can tell a B from a bull's foot. I dare say it was much the same for you, in the South Sea?'
'No, sir, I was much luckier. My surgeon is a capital hand with a violoncello; we saw away together until all hours. And my chaplain has a very happy way of getting the hands to sing, particularly Arne and Handel. When I had Worcester in the Mediterranean some time ago he brought them to a most creditable version of the Messiah.'
'I wish I had heard it,' said the Admiral. He refilled Jack's glass and said, 'Your surgeon sounds a jewel.'
'He is my particular friend, sir: we have sailed together these ten years and more.'
The Admiral nodded. 'Then I should be happy if YOU would bring him this evening. We might take a hit of supper together and have a little music; and if he don't dislike it, I should like to consult him. Yet perhaps that might be improper; I know these physical gentlemen have a strict etiquette among themselves.'
'I believe your surgeon would have to give his consent, sir. They probably know one another, however, and it would be no more than a formality; Maturin is aboard at this moment, and if you wish I will speak to him before (pay my call on Captain Goole.'
'You are going to wait on Goole, are you?' asked Sir William.
'Oh yes, sir: he is senior to me by a good six months.'
'Well, do not forget to wish him joy. He was married a little while ago: you would have thought him safe enough, at his age, but he is married, and has his wife aboard.'
'Lord!' cried Jack. 'I had no idea. I shall certainly give him joy - and he has her aboard?'
'Yes, a meagre yellow little woman, come from Kingston for a few weeks to recover from a fever.'
Jack's heart and mind were so filled with thoughts of Sophie, his own wife, and with a boundless longing for her to be aboard that he missed the sense of the Admiral's words until he heard him say 'You will tip it the civil to them, Aubrey, when you run each of 'em to earth. These medicos are a stiff-necked, independent crew, and you must never cross them just before they dose you.'
'No, sir,' said Jack, 'I shall speak to them like a sucking dove.'
'Pig, Aubrey: sucking pig. Doves don't suck.' 'No, sir. I shall probably find them together, talking about medical matters.'
So indeed they were. Mr Waters was showing 1)r Maturin some of his pictures of the most typical cases of leprosy and elephantiasis that he had met with on the island - remarkably well-drawn, well-coloured pictures -when Jack came in, delivered his message, took one glance at the paintings and hurried away to have a word with the Admiral's secretary before paying the necessary call on Captain Goole.
Mr Waters finished his description, returned his last example of Barbados leg to its folder, and said, 'I am sure you have observed that most medical men are hypochondriacs, Dr Maturin.' This, delivered with a painfully artificial smile, was clearly a prepared statement: Stephen made no reply, and the surgeon went on, '1 am no exception, and I wonder whether I too may importune you. I have a swelling h
ere' - putting his hand to his side - 'that gives me some concern. I have no opinion at all of any of the surgeons on this station, least of all my assistants, and I should very much value your reflections upon its nature.'
'Captain Aubrey, sir, what may I have the pleasure of doing for you?' asked the secretary, smiling up at him.
'You would put me very much in your debt by producing a bag of mail for the Surprise,' said Jack. 'It is a great while since any of us has heard from home.'
'Mail for Surprise?' said Mr Stone doubtfully. 'I scarcely think - but I will ask my clerks. No, alas,' he said, coming back, 'I am very sorry to say that there is nothing for Surprise.'
'Oh well,' said Jack, forcing a smile, 'it don't signify. But perhaps you have some newspapers, that will give me an idea of how things stand in the world: for obviously you are much too busy with this damned court-martial to tell me the history of the last few months.'
'Not at all, not at all,' said Mr Stone. 'It will take me no time to tell you that things are going from bad to worse. Buonaparte is building ships in every dockyard, faster than ever; and faster than ever ours are wearing out, with perpetual blockade and perpetually keeping the sea. He has very good intelligence and he foments discord among the allies - not that they need much encouragement to hate and distrust one another, but it is wonderful how he touches on the very spot that hurts, almost as though he had someone listening behind the cabinet door, or under the council table. To be sure our armies make some progress in Spain; but the Spaniards… well, you know something of the Spaniards, sir, I believe. And in any event, it is doubtful that we can go on supporting all these people or even paying for our own part of the war. I have a brother in the City, and he tells me that the funds have never been so low, and that trade is at a stand: men walk about on Change with their hands in their pockets, looking glum: there is no gold to be had - you go to the bank to draw out some money, money that you deposited with them in guineas, and all they will give you is paper -and nearly all securities are a drug on the market: South Sea annuities at fifty-eight-and-a-half for example! Even East India stock is at a very shocking figure, and as for Exchequer bills… There was a flurry of activity at the beginning of the year, with a rumour of peace causing prices to rise; but it died away when the rumour proved false, leaving the City more depressed than ever. The only thing that prospers is farming, with wheat at a hundred and twenty-five shillings the quarter, and land is not to be had for love or money; but at present, sir, a man with say five thousand pounds could buy stock, capital stock, that would have represented a handsome estate before the war. Here are some papers and magazines that will tell it all in greater detail; they will depress your spirits finely, I do assure you. Yes, Billings,' - this to a clerk - 'what is it?'
THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL aam-11 Page 2