Master and Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

  But dozing would not do. This was the time for riding in with the tide of flood, for making a dash for a frigate, for seizing fortune while she was in reach, running her aboard. He would write to Queeney at once, and half a dozen letters more that afternoon, before the party—perhaps to his father too, or would the old boy make a cock of it again? He was the worst hand imaginable at plot, intrigue or the management of what tiny amount of interest they had with the grander members of the family—should never have reached the rank of general, by rights. However, the public letter was the first of these things, and Jack got up carefully, smiling still.

  This was the first time he had been openly ashore, and early though it was he could not but be conscious of the looks, the murmurs and the pointing that accompanied his passage. He carried his letter into the commandant's office, and the compunction, the stirrings if not of conscience or principle then at least of decency, that had disturbed him on his way up through the town and even more in the anteroom, disappeared with Captain Harte's first words. 'Well, Aubrey,' he said, without getting up, 'we are to congratulate you upon your prodigious good luck again, I collect.'

  'You are too kind, sir,' said Jack. 'I have brought you my official letter.'

  'Oh, yes,' said Captain Harte, holding it some way off and looking at it with an affectation of carelessness. 'I will forward it, presently. Mr Brown tells me it is perfectly impossible for the yard here to supply half your wants—he seems quite astonished that you should want so much. How the devil did you contrive to get so many spars knocked away? And such a preposterous amount of rigging? Your sweeps destroyed? There are no sweeps here. Are you sure your bosun is not coming it a trifle high? Mr Brown says there is not a frigate on the station, nor even a ship of the line, that has called for half so much cordage'

  'If Mr Brown can tell me how to take a thirty-two gun frigate without having a few spars knocked away I shall be obliged to him.'

  'Oh, in these sudden surprise attacks, you know . . . however, all I can say is you will have to go to Malta for most of your requirements. Northumberland and Superb have made a clean sweep here.' It was so evidently his intention to be ill-natured that his words had little effect; but his next stroke slipped under Jack's guard and stabbed right home. 'Have you written to Ellis' people yet? This sort of thing'—tapping the public letter—'is easy enough: anyone can do this. But I do not envy you the other. What I shall say myself I don't know . . .' Biting the joint of his thumb he darted a furious look from under his eyebrows, and Jack had a moral certainty that the financial setback, misfortune, disaster, or whatever it was, affected him far more than the debauching of his wife.

  Jack had, in fact, written that letter, as well as the others—Dillon's uncle, the seamen's families—and he was thinking of them as he walked across the patio with a sombre look on his face. A figure under the dark gateway stopped, obviously peering at him. All Jack could see in the tunnel through to the street was an outline and the two epaulettes of a senior post-captain or a flag-officer, so although he was ready with his salute his mind was still blank when the other stepped through into the sunlight, hurrying forward with his hand outstretched. 'Captain Aubrey, I do believe? Keats, of the Superb. My dear sir, you must allow me to congratulate you with all my heart—a most splendid victory indeed. I have just pulled round your capture in my barge, and I am amazed, sir, amazed. Was you very much clawed? May I be of any service—my bosun, carpenter, sailmakers? Would you do me the pleasure of dining aboard, or are you bespoke? I dare say you are—every woman in Mahon will wish to exhibit you. Such a victory!'

  'Why, sir, I thank you most heartily,' cried Jack, flushing with undisguised open ingenuous pleasure and returning the pressure of Captain Keats' hand with such vehemence as to cause a dull crepitation, followed by a shattering dart of agony. 'I am infinitely obliged to you, for your kind opinion. There is none I value more, sir. To tell you the truth, I am engaged to dine with the Governor and to stay for the concert; but if I might beg the loan of your bosun and a small party—my people are all most uncommon weary, quite fagged out—why, I should look upon it as a most welcome, indeed, a Heaven-sent relief.'

  'It shall be done. Most happy,' said Captain Keats. 'Which way do you go, sir? Up or down?'

  'Down, sir. I have appointed to meet a—a person at the Crown.'

  'Then our ways lie together,' said Captain Keats, taking Jack's arm; and as they crossed the Street to walk in the shade he called out to a friend, 'Tom, come and see who I have in tow. This is Captain Aubrey Of the Sophie! You know Captain Grenville, I am sure?'

  'This gives me very great pleasure,' cried the grim, battle-scarred Grenville, breaking out into a one-eyed smile: he shook Jack by the hand and instantly asked him to dinner.

  Jack had refused five more invitations by the time he and Keats parted at the Crown: from mouths he respected he had heard the words 'as neat an action as ever I knew', 'Nelson will rejoice in this', and 'if there is justice on earth, the frigate will be bought by Government and Captain Aubrey given command of her'. He had seen looks of unfeigned respect, good will and admiration upon the faces of seamen and junior officers passing in the crowded street; and two commanders senior to him, unlucky in prizes and known to be jealous, had hurried across to make their compliments, handsomely and with good grace.

  He walked in, up the stairs to his room, threw off his coat and sat down. 'This must be what they call the vapours,' he said, trying to define something happy, tremulous, poignant, churchlike and not far from tears in his heart and bosom. He sat there: the feeling lasted, indeed grew stronger; and when Mercedes darted in he gazed at her with a mild benevolence, a kind and brotherly look. She darted in, squeezed him passionately and uttered a flood of Catalan into his ear, ending 'Brave, brave Captain—good, pretty and brave.'

  'Thank you, thank you, Mercy dear; I am infinitely obliged to you. Tell me,' he said, after a decent pause, trying to shift to an easier position (a plump girl: a good ten stone), 'diga me, would you be a good creature, bona creatura, and fetch me some iced negus? Sangria colda? Thirst, soif, very thirst, I do assure you, my dear.'

  'Your auntie was quite right,' he said, putting down the beaded jug and wiping his mouth. 'The Vinaroz ship was there to the minute, and we found the false Ragusan. So here, acqui, aqui is auntie's reward, the recompenso de tua tia, my dear'—pulling a leather purse out of his breeches pocket—'y aqui'—bringing out a neat sealing-waxed packet—'is a little regalo para vous, sweetheart.'

  Present?' cried Mercedes, taking it with a sparkling eye, nimbly undoing the silk, tissue-paper, jeweller's cotton, and finding a pretty little diamond cross with a chain. She shrieked, kissed him, darted to the looking-glass, shrieked some more—eek, eek!—and came back with the stone flashing low on her neck. She pulled herself in below and puffed herself out above, like a pouter-pigeon, and lowered her bosom, the diamonds winking in the hollow, down towards him, saying, 'You like him? You like him? You like him?'

  Jack's eyes grew less brotherly, oh far less brotherly, his glottis stiffened and his heart began to thump. 'Oh, yes, I like him,' he said, hoarsely.

  'Timely, sir, bosun of the Superb,' said a tremendous voice at the opening door. 'Oh, beg pardon, sir.

  'Not at all, Mr. Timely,' said Jack. 'I am very happy to see you.'

  'And indeed perhaps it was just as well,' he reflected, landing again at the Rope-Walk stairs, leaving behind him a numerous body of skilful, busy Superbs rattling down the newly set-up shrouds, 'there being so much to do. But what a sweet girl it is . . .' He was now on his way to the Governor's dinner. That, at least, was his intention; but a bemused state of mind, swimming back into the past and onwards into the future, together with a reluctance to seem to parade himself in what the sailors called the High Street, brought him by obscure back, ways filled with the smell of new fermenting wine and purple-guttered with the lees, to the Franciscan church at the top of the hill. Here, summoning his wits into the present, he took new bearings; and looking
with some anxiety at his watch he paced rapidly along by the armoury, passed the green door of Mr Florey's house with a quick upward glance and headed north-west by north for the Residence.

  Behind the green door and some floors up Stephen and Mr Florey were already sat down to a haphazard meal, spread wherever there was room on odd tables and chairs. Ever since coming back from the hospital they had been dissecting a well-preserved dolphin, which lay on high bench by the window, next to something covered by a sheet.

  'Some captains think it the best policy to include every case of bloodshed or temporary incapacity,' said Mr Florey, 'because a long butcher's bill looks well in the Gazette. Others will admit no man that is not virtually dead, because a small number of casualties means a careful commander. I think your list is near the happy mean, though perhaps a trifle cautious—you are looking at it from the point of view of your friend's advancement of course?'

  'Just so.'

  'Yes . . . Allow me to give you a slice of this cold beef. Pray reach me a sharp knife—beef, above all, must be cut thin, if it is to savour well.'

  'There is no edge on this one,' said Stephen. 'Try the catling.' He turned to the dolphin. 'No,' he said, peering under a flipper. 'Where can we have left it? Ah'—lifting the sheet—'here is another. Such a blade: Swedish steel, no doubt. You began your incision at the Hippocratic point, I see,' he said, raising the sheet a little more, and gazing at the young lady beneath it.

  'Perhaps we ought to wash it,' said Mr Florey.

  'Oh, a wipe will do,' said Stephen, using a corner of the sheet. 'By the way, what was the cause of death?' he asked, letting the cloth fall back.

  'That is a nice point,' said Mr Florey, carving a first slice and carrying it to the griffon vulture tied by the leg in a corner of the room. 'That is a nice point, but I rather incline to believe that the battering did her business before the water. These amiable weaknesses, follies . . . Yes. Your friend's advancement.' Mr Florey paused, gazing at the long straight double-edged catling and waving it solemnly over the joint. 'If you provide a man with horns, he may gore you,' he observed with a detached air, covertly watching to see what effect his remark might have.

  'Very true,' said Stephen, tossing the vulture a piece of gristle. 'In general fenum habent in cornu. But surely,' he said, smiling at Mr Florey, 'you are not throwing out a generality about cuckolds? Do not you choose to be more specific? Or do you perhaps refer to the young person under the sheet? I know you speak from your excellent heart, and I assure you no degree of frankness can possibly offend.'

  'Well,' said Mr Florey, 'the point is, that your young friend—our young friend, I may say, for I have a real regard for him, and look upon this action as reflecting great credit upon the service, upon us all—our young friend has been very indiscreet: so has the lady. You follow me, I believe?'

  'Oh, certainly.'

  'The husband resents it, and he is in such a position that he may be able to indulge his resentment, unless our friend is very careful—most uncommon cautious. The husband will not ask for a meeting, for that is not his style at all—a pitiful fellow. But he may try to entrap him into some act of disobedience and so bring him to a court-martial. Our friend is famous for his dash, his enterprise and his good luck rather than for his strict sense of subordination: and some few of the senior captains here feel a good deal of jealousy and uneasiness at his success. What is more, he is a Tory, or his family is; and the husband and the present First Lord are rabid Whigs, vile ranting dogs of Whigs. Do you follow me, Dr Maturin?'

  'I do indeed, sir, and am much obliged to you for your candour in telling me this: it confirms what was in my mind, and I shall do all I can to make him conscious of the delicacy of his position. Though upon my word,' he added with a sigh, 'there are times when it seems to me that nothing short of a radical ablation of the membrum virile would answer, in this case.'

  'That is very generally the peccant part,' said Mr Florey.

  Clerk David Richards was also having his dinner; but he was eating it in the bosom of his family. 'As everyone knows,' he told the respectful throng, 'the captain's clerk's position is the most dangerous there is in a man-of-war: he is up there all the time on the quarter-deck with his slate and his watch, to take remarks, next to the captain, and all the small-arms and a good many of the great guns concentrate their fire upon him Still, there he must stay, supporting the captain with his countenance and his advice.'

  'Oh, Davy,' cried his aunt, 'and did he ask your advice?'

  'Did he ask my advice, ma'am? Ha, ha, upon my sacred word.'

  'Don't swear, Davy dear,' said his aunt automatically. 'It ain't genteel.'

  ' "La, Mr Richards bach," says he, when the maintop begins to tumble about our ears, tearing down through the quarter-deck splinter-netting like so much Berlin wool, "I don't know what to do. I am quite at a loss, I protest." "There's only one thing for it, sir," says I. "Board 'em. Board 'em fore and aft, and I give you my sacred word the frigate's ours in five minutes." Well, ma'am and cousins, I do not like to boast, and I confess it took us ten minutes; but it was worth it, for it won us as pretty a copper-fastened, new-sheathed xebec frigate as any I have seen. And when I came aft, having dirked the Spanish captain's clerk, Captain Aubrey shook me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes, "Richards," says he, "we ought all to be very grateful to you,"says he. "Sir, you are very good," says I, "but I have done nothing but what any taut captain's clerk would do." "Well," says he, " 'tis very well." ' He took a draught of porter and went on, 'I very nearly said to him, "I tell you what, Goldilocks"—for we call him Goldilocks in the service, you know, in much the same way as they call me Hellfire Davy, or Thundering Richards—"just you rate me midshipman aboard the Cacafuego when she's bought by Government, and we'll cry quits." Perhaps I may, tomorrow; for I feel I have the genius of command. She ought to fetch twelve pound ten, thirteen pound a ton, don't you think, sir?' he said to his uncle. 'We did not cut up her hull a great deal.'

  'Yes,' said Mr Williams slowly. 'If she was bought in by Government she would fetch that and her stores as much again: Captain A would clear a neat five thou' apart from the head-money; and your share would be, let's see, two hundred and sixty-three, fourteen, two. If she was bought by Government.'

  'What do you mean, Nunckie, with your if?'

  'Why, I mean that a certain person does the Admiralty buying; and a certain person has a lady that is not over-shy; and a certain person may cut up horrid rough. O Goldilocks, Goldilocks, wherefore are thou Goldilocks?' asked Mr Williams, to the unspeakable amazement of his nieces. 'If he had attended to business instead of playing Yardo, the parish bull, he . . .'

  'It was she as set her bonnet at him!' cried Mrs Williams, who had never yet let her husband finish a sentence since his 'I will' at Trinity Church, Plymouth Dock, in 1782.

  'O the minx!' cried her unmarried sister; and the nieces' eyes swung towards her, wider still.

  'The hussy,' cried Mrs Thomas. 'My Paquita's cousin was the driver of the shay she came down to the quay in; and you would never credit . . .'

  'She should be flogged through the town at the cart's tail, and don't I wish I had the whip.'

  'Come, my dear . . .'

  'I know what you are thinking, Mr W.,' cried his wife, 'and you are to stop it this minute. The nasty cat; the wretch.'

  The wretch's reputation had indeed suffered, had been much blown upon in recent months, and the Governor's wife received her as coldly as she dared; but Molly Harte's looks had improved almost out of recognition—she had been a fine woman before, and now she was positively beautiful. She and Lady Warren arrived together for the concert, and a small troop of soldiers and sailors had waited outside to meet their carriage: now they were crowding about her, snorting and bristling with aggressive competition, while their wives, sisters and, even, sweethearts sat in dowdy greyish heaps at a distance, mute, and looking with pursed lips at the scarlet dress almost hidden amidst the flocking uniforms.

  The men fell
back when Jack appeared, and some of them returned to their womenfolk, who asked them whether they did not find Mrs Harte much aged, ill dressed, a perfect frump? Such a pity at her age, poor thing. She must be at least thirty, forty, forty-five. Lace mittens! They had no idea of wearing lace mittens. This strong light was unkind to her; and surely it was very outré to wear all those enormous great pearls?

  She was something of a whore, thought Jack, looking at her with great approval as she stood there with her head high, perfectly aware of what the women were saying, and defying them: she was something of a whore, but the knowledge spurred his appetite. She was only for the successful; but with the Cacafuego moored by the Sophie in Mahon harbour, Jack found that perfectly acceptable.

  After a few moments of inane conversation—a piece of dissembling which Jack thought he accomplished with particular brilliance, alas—they all surged in a shuffling mob into the music-room, Molly Harte to sit looking beautiful by her harp and the rest to arrange themselves on the little gilt chairs.