Master and Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

  They had each received an official notification the day before, and for some reason each had brought it with him, folded or rolled. After a while Babbington and Ricketts took to changing all the words they could into obscenities, secretly in a corner, while Mowett wrote and scratched out on the back of his, counting syllables on his fingers and silently mouthing. Lucock stared straight ahead of him into vacancy. Stephen intently watched the busy unsatisfied questing of a shining dark-red rat-flea on the chequered sailcloth floor.

  The door opened. Jack returned abruptly to this world, picked up his laced hat and walked into the great cabin, ducking his head as he came in, with his officers filing in behind him. He came to a halt in the middle of the room, tucked his hat under his arm and made his bow to the court, first to the president, then to the captains to the right of him, then to the captains to the left of him. The president gave a slight inclination of his head and desired Captain Aubrey and his officers to sit down. A marine placed a chair for Jack a few paces in front of the rest, and there he sat, his hand going to hitch forward his non-existent sword, while the judge advocate read the document authorizing the court to assemble.

  This took a considerable time, and Stephen looked steadily about him, examining the cabin from side to side: it was like a larger version of the Desaix's stateroom (how glad he was the Desaix was safe) and it, too, was singularly beautiful and full of light—the same range of curved stern-windows, the same inward-leaning side-walls (the ship's tumblehome, in fact) and the same close, massive white-painted beams overhead in extraordinarily long pure curves right across from one side to another: a room in which common domestic geometry had no say. At the far end from the door, parallel with the windows, ran a long table; and between the table and the light sat the members of the court, the president in the middle, the black-coated judge-advocate at a desk in front and three post-captains on either side. There was a clerk at a small table on the left, and to the left again a roped-off space for bystanders.

  The atmosphere was austere: all the heads above the blue and gold uniforms on the far side of the shining table were grave. The last trial and the sentence had been quite shockingly painful.

  It was these heads, these faces, that had all Jack's attention. With the light behind them it was difficult to make them out exactly; but they were mostly overcast, and all were withdrawn. Keats, Hood, Brenton, Grenville he knew: was Grenville winking at him with his one eye, or was it an involuntary blink? Of course it was a blink: any signal would be grossly indecent. The president looked twenty years younger since the victory, but still his face was impassive and there was no distinguishing the expression of his eyes, behind those drooping lids. The other captains he knew only by name. One, a left-handed man, was drawing—scribbling. Jack's eyes grew dark with anger.

  The judge-advocate's voice droned on. 'His Majesty's late Sloop Sophie having been ordered to proceed and whereas it is represented that in or about 40'W 37° 40' N, Cape Roig bearing . . .' he said, amidst universal indifference.

  'That man loves his trade,' thought Stephen. 'But what a wretched voice. It is almost impossible to be understood. Gabble, a professional deformation in lawyers.' And he was reflecting on industrial disease, on the corrosive effects of righteousness in judges, when he noticed that Jack had relaxed from his first rigid posture: and as the formalities went on and on this relaxation became more evident. He was looking sullen, oddly still and dangerous; the slight lowering of his head and the dogged way in which he stuck out his feet made a singular contrast with the perfection of his uniform, and Stephen had a strong premonition that disaster might be very close at hand.

  The judge advocate had now reached '. . . to enquire into the conduct of John Aubrey, commander of His Majesty's late sloop the Sophie and her officers and company for the loss of the said sloop by being captured on the third instant by a French squadron under the command of Admiral Linois', and Jack's head was lower still. 'How far is one entitled to manipulate one's friends?' asked Stephen, writing Nothing would give H greater pleasure than an outburst of indignation on your part at this moment on a corner of his paper: he passed it to the master, pointing to Jack. Marshall passed it on, by way of Daiziel. Jack read it, turned a lowering, grim face without much apparent understanding in it towards Stephen and gave a jerk of his head.

  Almost immediately afterwards Charles Stirling, the senior captain and president of the court-martial, cleared his throat and said, 'Captain Aubrey, pray relate the circumstances of the loss of His Majesty's late sloop the Sophie.'

  Jack rose to his feet, looked sharply along the line of his judges, drew his breath, and speaking in a much stronger voice than usual, the words coming fast, with odd intervals and an unnatural intonation—a harsh, God-damn-you voice, as though he were addressing a most inimical body of men—he said, 'About six o'clock in the morning of the third, to the eastward and in sight of Cape Roig, we saw three large ships apparently French, and a frigate, who soon after gave chase to the Sophie: the Sophie was between the shore and the ships that chased her, and to windward of the French vessels: we endeavoured by making all sail and were pulling with sweeps—as the wind was very light—to keep to windward of the enemy; but having found notwithstanding all our endeavours to keep to the wind, that the French ships gained very fast, and having separated on different tacks one or the other gained upon each shift of wind, and finding it impracticable to escape by the wind, about nine o'clock the guns and other things on deck were thrown overboard; and having watched an opportunity, when the nearest French ship was on our quarter, we bore up and set the studdingsails; but again found the French ships outsailed us though their studdingsails were not set: when the nearest ship had approached within musket-shot, I ordered the colours to be hauled down about eleven o'clock a.m., the wind being to the eastward and having received several broadsides from the enemy which carried away the maintopgallantmast and foretopsail yard and cut several of the ropes.'

  Then, though he was conscious of the singular ineptitude of this speech, he shut his mouth tight and stood looking straight ahead of him, while the clerk's pen squeaked nimbly after his words, writing 'and cut several of the ropes'. Here there was a slight pause, in which the president glanced left and right and coughed again before speaking. The clerk drew a quick flourish after ropes and hurried on:

  Question by the court: Captain Aubrey, have you any reason to find fault with any of your officers or ship's company?

  Answer: No. The utmost endeavour was used by every person on board.

  Question by the court: Officers and ship's company of the Sophie, have any of you reason to find fault with the conduct of your captain?

  Answer: No.

  'Let all the evidence withdraw except Lieutenant Alexander Dalziel,' said the judge-advocate, and presently the midshipmen, the master and Stephen found themselves in the dining-cabin again, sitting perfectly mute in odd corners, while from the one side the distant shrieking of the parson echoed up from the cockpit (he had made a determined attempt at suicide) and from the other the drone of the trial went on. They were all deeply affected by Jack's concern, anxiety and rage: they had seen him unmoved so often and in such circumstances that his present emotion shook them profoundly, and disturbed their judgment. They could hear his voice now, formal, savage and much louder than the rest of the voices in the court, saying, 'Did the enemy fire several broadsides at us and at what distance were we when they fired the last?' Mr Daiziel's reply was a murmur, indistinguishable through the bulkhead.

  'This is an entirely irrational fear,' said Stephen Maturin, looking at his wet and clammy palm. 'It is but one more instance of the . . . for surely to God, surely for all love, if they had wished to sink him they would have asked "How came you to be there?"? But then I know very little of nautical affairs.' He looked for comfort at the master's face, but he found none there.

  'Dr Maturin,' said the marine, opening the door.

  Stephen walked in slowly and took the oath with particular d
eliberation, trying to sense the atmosphere of the court: he thus gave the clerk time to catch up with Dalziel's evidence, and the shrill pen wrote:

  Question: Did she gain on the Sophie without her studdingsails set?

  Answer: Yes.

  Question by the court: Did they seem to sail much faster than you?

  Answer: Yes, both by and large.

  Dr Maturin, surgeon of the Sophie, called and sworn.

  Question by the court: Is the statement you heard made by your captain respecting the loss of the Sophie, correct as far as your observation went?

  Answer: I think it is.

  Question by the court: Are you a sufficient judge of nautical affairs to know whether every effort was used to escape from the force that was pursuing the Sophie?

  Answer: I know very little of nautical affairs, but it appeared to me that every exertion was used by every person on board: I saw the captain at the helm, and the officers and ship's company at the sweeps.

  Question by the court: Was you on deck at the time the colours were struck and what distance were the enemy from you at the time of her surrender?

  Answer: I was on deck, and the Desaix was within musket-shot of the Sophie and was firing at us at the time.

  Ten minutes later the court was cleared. The dining-cabin again, and no hesitation about precedence in the doorway this time, for Jack and Mr Daiziel were there: they were all there, and not one of them spoke a word. Could that be laughter in the next room, or did the sound come from the wardroom of the Caesar?

  A long pause. A long, long pause: and the marine at the door.

  'If you please, gentlemen.'

  They filed in, and in spite of all his years at sea Jack forgot to duck: he struck the lintel of the door with a force that left a patch of yellow hair and scalp on the wood and he walked on, almost blinded, to stand rigidly by his chair.

  The clerk looked up from writing the word Sentence, startled by the crash, and then looked down again, to commit the judge-advocate's words to writing. 'At a court-martial assembled and held on board His Majesty's Ship Pompée in Rosia Bay . . . the court (being first duly sworn) proceeded in pursuance of an order from Sir James Saumarez Bart. Rear-Admiral of the Blue and . . . and having examined witnesses on the occasion, and maturely and deliberately considered every circumstance . . .'

  The droning, expressionless voice went on, and its tone was so closely allied to the ringing in Jack's head that he heard virtually none of it, any more than he could see the man's face through the watering of his eyes.

  '. . . the court is of the opinion that Captain Aubrey, his officers and ship's company used every possible exertion to prevent the King's sloop from falling into the hands of the enemy: and do therefore honourably acquit them. And they are hereby acquitted accordingly,' said the judge-advocate, and Jack heard none of it.

  The inaudible voice stopped and Jack's blurred vision saw the black form sit down. He shook his singing head, tightened his jaw and compelled his faculties to return; for here was the president of the court getting to his feet. Jack's clearing eyes caught Keats' smile, saw Captain Stirling pick up that familiar, rather shabby sword, holding it with its hilt towards him, while with his left hand he smoothed a piece of paper by the inkwell. The president cleared his throat again in the dead silence, and speaking in a clear, seamanlike voice that combined gravity, formality and cheerfulness, he said, 'Captain Aubrey: it is no small pleasure to me to receive the commands of the court I have the honour to preside at, that in delivering to you your sword, I should congratulate you upon its being restored by both friend and foe alike; hoping ere long you will be called upon to draw it once more in the honourable defence of your country.'

  The Winning Post

  at Last

  ALAN JUDD

  SOMETIMES THINGS come together as they should. They recently have for the novelist and biographer, Patrick O’Brian; within a week of the announcement in the Birthday Honours of his CBE for services to literature, he became the first ever winner of the £10,000 Heywood Hill Literary Prize.

  World-wide publishing success already threatens to lionise this energetic and very private octogenarian, but it was clear at the prize-giving that the pleasures of literary recognition do something to render tolerable the passing inconveniences of fame. They do something, too, to make up for decades of unremitting endeavour, for early years of poverty and for numbers of good books written blind—that is, without the comforting assurance of a reading public. It has been a long haul for O’Brian.

  Ill-health and parental death resulted in a peripatetic Anglo—Irish childhood, while an education that unusually combined rigour and breadth fed the autodidact in him. Fluency in French, Spanish and Catalan found him useful employment in Intelligence during the Second World War, on which subject he remains firmly discreet, and also led to his marriage to Mary, mother of Count Nikolai Tolstoy. After the war they settled in Wales, then partly for health reasons moved to the coastal village near the Franco-Spanish border where they have lived ever since.

  It was easier to be poor in a warm climate.

  There was never any question for O’Brian that he should—must—write, and never any wavering or compromise in Mary’s essential support. Short stories, reviews, translations and early novels appeared, outstanding amongst which was Testimonies, an intense and obsessional love story set in rural Wales and now published by HarperCollins. For years, how ever, it was the translations from French into English—Papillon, for instance, and all of de Beauvoir—that kept the wolf from the door. Luck helped; Picasso was a neighbour and became a friend, which subsequently led O’Brian to write a vivid and perceptive biography of him, still acknowledged in Spain (and by the late Lord Clark) as the best.

  In 1969 O’Brian published Master and Commander, the first of a series of novels—‘tales’, he modestly calls them—set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Although he thought there might be others he no more anticipated that the series would extend to seventeen (so far—the eighteenth is on the way) than that it would ensure his place in the literary pantheon. Indeed, despite early support from such as Mary Renault, T. J. Binyon and John Bayley, the books were not an immediate sensation and actually went out of print in America.

  Gradually, however, word-of-mouth, astute publishing, literary merit and—dare one say it?—sheer readability have combined to produce during the last five years a rare tidal wave of literary recognition and commercial success. Sales are now over the million, translations are into nineteen languages, British Library has published its first bibliography of a living author (with an introduction by William Waldegrave), the University of Indiana is buying the manuscripts and forming an O’ Brian study centre, a ship is being built in Chile to the specification of that most often sailed by O’Brian’s heroes, his American publishers (Norton) issue a regular newsletter and in the Cayman Isles there is a dining club called the Patrick O’Brian Widows, formed by ladies whose husbands are addicted. Better known admirers include people as diverse as Iris Murdoch and Max Hastings, Antonia Byatt and Charlton Heston.

  Master and Commander begins in Port Mahon where the impoverished Lieutenant Jack Aubrey and the impoverished physician, Stephen Maturin, meet and fall out at a concert. Next morning, in the euphora of a longed-for but unexpected promotion to command, Jack offers Stephen a place as ship’s surgeon, so beginning a friendship that will surely prove one of the most enduring and endearing in our literature. They are quite different: Jack is English, beefy, cheerful and generous, a fool ashore but a genius afloat; Stephen is Irish—Catalan, moody, subtle, brilliant, a passionate naturalist (O’Brian is also the biographer of Sir Joseph Banks) and a determined spy against Napoleon. They are united by sympathy, respect, acknowledgement of difference, a sense of fairness and justice and affection. All this is suggested more in the spaces between words than expressed directly, except when they make music together. In the portrayal of this friendship we learn something of all friendship, just as in th
e series as a whole we learn of loyalty and betrayal, love and mutability, interest and humour.

  These novels are neither Forester nor Marryat, though O’Brian pays the respect due to both. There is adventure and there are battles. The historic furniture and vernacular you can trust absolutely because O’Brian is so steeped in his period but there is also something of his heroine, Jane Austen. He writes with her irony, humour and moral toughness, almost as she might have written of the adventures of her naval brothers. Above all, they are accessible novels, so well written that you settle into each as into a warm bath, knowing you are in good, considerate hands. In evoking so vividly what it was like to be alive then, O’Brian shows by reflection elements of what it is to be alive now, and of how we should live. He achieves that simultaneous dislocation and bridging that is the essence of all imaginative art and is what distinguishes it from everything else.

  The Heywood Hill Literary Prize was the suggestion of the Duke of Devonshire, a director of the bookshop. The judges were John Saumarez Smith, Mark Amory and Roy Jenkins. It is awarded not for somebody’s latest work, but for a ‘lifetime’s contribution to the enjoyment of books’ and could easily have gone to a publisher such as Rupert Hart-Davis or the late Jock Murray. For an author to win it his or her books must have held up well over a period of years among the customers of Heywood Hill; in the words of John Saumarez Smith, ‘we wanted to strike a blow for reading’.

  There is a feeling that one or two well-known prize-giving bodies have lost sight of what they think of as the reading aspect of books.

  O’Brian was handed his award by another admirer, Tom Stoppard, amidst the bucolic elegance of a large mixed crowd on the lawn at Chatsworth. The sun shone, the bands played cheerfully, the literati were littered about and the gliterati glittered—though not as brightly as the chains adorning the assembled mayors of Derbyshire. The RAF laid on a timely unintended fly-past, the Chatsworth dogs proved that if you’re handsome enough you can scrounge any number of free lunches and at the end a lady danced extempore upon a table.