Desolation island

by Patrick O'Brian

  "Well, I showed you the Roman mine-shafts, I remember - miles of 'em, and mortal dangerous - but do you know what the Romans mined there?"

  "Lead."

  "And do you know what all those lumpy hills are? One of them is the very place where you mean to set up your booth."

  "Dross."

  "Well, Stephen," said Jack, leaning forward with a very knowing look indeed, "now I shall tell you something you do not know, for once. That dross is full of lead; and what is more, that lead contains silver. The Romans' way of smelting did not extract it all, no, not by a chalk as long as your arm, and there it lies, thousands and thousands of tons of valuable dross just waiting to be treated by Kimber's new process."

  "Kimber's new process?"

  "Yes. I dare say you have heard of him - a very brilliant fellow. fie proceeds by lixiviation with some particular chemicals and then by cupellation according to principles discovered by himself. The lead pays for the working, and the silver is pure profit. The scheme would answer even if there were only one part of lead in one hundred and thirty-seven of dross, and one part of silver in over ten thousand; and on the average of close on a hundred random samples, our dross contains more than seventeen times as much!"

  I am amazed. I did not know the Romans ever mined silver in Britain."

  "Nor did 1. But here's the proof.' He unlocked the door of a cupboard under the window-seat and came staggering back with a pig of lead upon which there lay a little silver ingot, four inches long. "That was the result of no more than a first rough trial," he said. "No more than a few cart-loads of dross. Kimber set up a little furnace in the old linhay, and I saw the stuff pour out with my own eyes. I wish you had been there."

  "So do I," said Stephen.

  "Of course, it will call for quite a considerable capital outlay - roads, buildings, proper furnaces and so on - and I had thought of using the girls' portions; but it seems that they can't be touched by reason of the trust - that they have to remain in Consols and Navy five per cents, although I proved that it was mathematically impossible for them to yield a seventh part as much, even going by the poorest sample. I do not mean to set it going full-blast until I am likely to be on shore for some years on end

  "You foresee this eventuality?"

  "Oh yes. Unless I am knocked on the head, or unless I am caught doing something very wicked, I should get my flag in the next five years or so - sooner, if those old fellows at the head of the list did not cling to life so - and since it is harder for an admiral to find employment than a captain, I shall have plenty of time to build up my stud and work my mine. But I do mean to make a start, in a modest way, just to get things running and to lay by a fair amount of treasure. Fortunately Kimber is very moderate in his demands: he leases me the use of his patent, and he will supervise the working of the stuff."

  "For a salary?"

  "Yes, and a quarter share. A really modest salary, which I think particularly handsome of him, because there is a Prince Kaunitz begging and praying him to attend to his mines in Transylvania, proposing ten guineas a day and a third share; he showed me all sorts of letters from great men in Germany and Austria. But do not run away with the idea that he is one of your enthusiastic vapouring projectors, promising Peru tomorrow: no, no, he is a very honest fellow, scrupulous to a fault, and he gave me fair warning - we may have to operate at a loss for as much as a year. I quite see that, but I can't wait to begin."

  "Surely you do not mean that you will disturb my buzzards, Jack?"

  "Never you fear for them. There's a long way to go yet: Kimber still needs time and money to make his patents watertight, and for certain experiments; they will have hatched and flown before we have even lit our furnaces, I dare say. And what is more, Stephen, what is more, you will be well on your way to wealth; because although Kimber is unwilling to admit many venturers, I made him promise to let you in on the ground floor, as he puts it."

  "Alas, Jack. What I have is all bespoke, locked up in Spain. Indeed, I am so short in England that it is my intention to beg you to lend me, let us see - 'consulting a paper, "seven hundred and eighty pounds."

  "Thank you," he said, when Jack came back with a draft on his banker. "I am obliged to you, Jack."

  "I beg you will not speak nor think of obligation," said Jack. "Between you and me, it would be precious strange to speak of obligation. By the way, that is drawn on London, but for these coming days, there is plenty of gold in the house."

  "No no, my dear: this is for a particular purpose. For myself, I am as comfortable as my best friend could wish."

  His best friend gazed at him doubtfully: Stephen did not look comfortable in his mind, and he seemed ill at ease in his body too, weary, sad, constrained.

  "What do you say to a ride?" he said. "I am half engaged to meet some men at Craddock's: they promised me my revenge.

  "With all my heart," said Stephen, but with so melancholy an attempt at heartiness that Jack could not refrain from saying, "Stephen, if anything is amiss, and if I can be of any kind of use, you know . . ."

  "No, no, Jack: you are very good, however. I am a little low in my spirits, to be sure; but I am ashamed that it should be so apparent. I lost a patient in London, and I am by no means sure that I did not lose him through my own fault. My conscience troubles me: and I grieve for him extremely, a young man full of promise. And then again, in London I met Diana Villiers."

  "Ah,"said Jack awkwardly. "Just so.'And after a pause in which the horses were led to the door and in which Stephen Maturin reflected upon a third factor of his distress - the hare-brained leaving of a folder containing highly confidential papers in a hackney-coach - Jack added, "You said Villiers, not Johnson?"

  "Yes,"said Stephen, mounting. "It seems that the gentleman already had a wife in America, and that the decree of nullity or whatever they have in those parts was not to be obtained."

  Diana Villiers was an uncomfortable subject between the two, and after they had ridden for some way, Jack, to change the current of his mind, remarked, "You would not think there was any skill in a game like Van John, would you? No. Yet these fellows strip me bare almost every time we sit down together. You used to do the same at picquet, but that is another pair of drawers."

  Stephen made no reply: he pushed his horse on faster and faster over the bare down, sitting forward with a set, urgent expression on his face, as though he were making an escape; and so they cantered and galloped over the firm turf until they came to the brow of Portsdown Hill, where Stephen reined in for the steep descent. They stood for a while, surrounded by the smell of hot horse and leather, looking down at the vast sweep of the harbour, Spithead, the Island, and the Channel beyond: men-of-war at their moorings, men-of-war moving in and out, a huge convoy tiding it down off Selsey Bill.

  They smiled at one another, and Jack had a premonition that Stephen was about to say something of great importance: a false premonition. Stephen spoke only to remind him that Sophie had desired them to pick up some fish at Holland's, and to add three dabs for the children.

  Craddock's was already lighting up when they left their horses with the ostler, and Jack led Stephen under a series of noble chandeliers to the card room, where he gave a man at a little table inside the door eighteen-pence. "Let us hope the game will be worth the candle," he said, looking round. Craddock's was frequented by the wealthier officers, country gentleman, lawyers, officials in Government employ, and other civilians; and it was among these that Jack saw the men he was looking for. "There they are," he said, "talking to Admiral Snape. The one in the bag wig is Judge Wray, and the other is his cousin, Andrew Wray, pretty eminent in Whitehall - spends most of his time down here on Navy Office business. I dare say they have made up our table already: I see Carroll standing by until they have finished with the Admiral - the tall fellow in a sky blue coat and white pantaloons. Now there's a man who understands horses for you. His stables are over behind Horndean."

  "Running horses?"

  "Oh yes, indeed. His
grandfather owned Potoooooooo, so it's in the blood. Do you choose to take a hand? We play the French game here."

  "I believe not; but I will sit by you, if I may."

  "I should be very happy; you will bring me some of your luck. You was always lucky at cards. Now I must step over to the desk and buy some counters."

  While Jack was gone, Stephen paced about the room. Many of the tables were already occupied, and some quiet, intense, scientific whist was going on; but he had a feeling that the evening had not really begun. lie met some naval acquaintances, and one of these, Captain Dundas, said, "I hope he will prove to be Lucky Jack Aubrey again this evening: last time I was here . . . "

  "There you are, Heneage," cried Jack, bearing down on them. "Will you join us? We have a table of Van John."

  "Not 1, Jack. We half-pay paupers can't stand in the line with nabobs like you."

  "Come along then, Stephen. They are just going to sit down.' He led Stephen to the far end of the room. "Judge Wray," he said, "allow me to name Dr Maturin, my particular friend. Mr Wray. Mr Carroll. Mr Jenyns.'They bowed to one another, uttered civil expressions, and settled down to the broad green baize. The judge carried judicial impenetrability into his social life to such a pitch that Stephen received little impression but that of selfconsequence. Andrew Wray, his cousin, was a somewhat younger and obviously far more intelligent man; he had served under the political heads of the Admirality, and

  Stephen had heard of him in connection with the Patronage Office and the Treasury. Jenyns was neither here nor there, a man who had inherited a vast brewery and a broad, pale, unmeaning countenance; but Carroll was a more interesting creature by far, as tall as Jack though less burly, with a long face very like that of a horse, but of a horse endowed with a high degree of life and wit. As he shuffled, his Jovial eye, as blue as Jack's, fell upon Stephen, and he smiled, a singularly winning smile that compelled a return: the cards flowed through his hands in an obedient stream.

  Each drew in turn, and the deal fell to Mr Wray. Stephen was not familiar with their version of the game, although its childish basis was clear enough; and for a while their cries of 'Imaginary tens', "rouge et noir', ,sympathy and antipathy', "self and company', and 'clock' were amusing enough. He also took some pleasure in watching their faces - the judge's pomp yielding to a sly satisfaction, and that succeeded by a sourness and an evil-tempered jerk of his mouth; the deliberate nonchalance of his cousin, betrayed now and then by a sudden blaze in his eye; Carroll's intense eagerness, his whole person vividly alive with a look that reminded Stephen of Jack's when he was taking his ship into action. Jack seemed very well with them all, even with the phlegmatic Jenyns, as though he had known them these many years; but that did not mean a great deal. With his open, friendly character, Jack was always well with his company, and Stephen had known him get along famously with country gentlemen whose talk was all of bullocks. There was no money on the table, only counters: these moved from one place to another, though with no determined tide as yet, and as Stephen did not know what they represented his interest in the matter faded quickly. Reminded by the shape of some of the tokens, he thought of Sophie's fish, silently withdrew, and made his way along the busy High Street, past the George, to Holland's, where he bought a couple of fine plump lampreys (his favourite dish) and the dabs: these lie carried with him down to the I lard, where the Mentor's crew, just paid off, were bawling and halloolng round a bonfire, together with a growing crowd of the thick, powerful young women known as brutes and a large number of pimps, idle apprentices, and pickpockets. The bonfire sent a ruddy glow far up into the night air, accentuating the darkness: disturbed gulls could be seen far above, their wings a reflected pink; and in the midst of the flames hung the effigy of the Mentor's first lieutenant. "Slilpi-nate," said Stephen into the ear of a bemused sailor whose brute was openly robbing him, "mind your poke.' But even as he spoke he felt a violent twitch at the parcel under his arm. Ills lampreys and his dabs were gone - a wicked fiving bov, not three fook tall, vanished in the nulling crowd - and Stephen walked back to the shop, which could now afford him no more than a salmon of enormous price, and a pair of wizened plaice.

  Their smell grew more apparent as they warmed against Ills bosom, and he left them with the horses before returning to his seat. Everything seemed much as it had been, except that Jack's store of counters had grown thin and sparse; they still called 'pay the difference' and antipathy'; but there was certainly a new tension. Jenyns' pale expanse of face was sweating more profusely; Carroll's whole being was electric with excitement; the two Wrays were even colder and more guarded. As he was drawing a card, Jack brushed one of his remaining counters, a mother-of -pearl fish, off the table: Stephen picked it up, and Jack said, "Thankee, Stephen, that's a pony."

  "It looks more like a fish," said Stephen.

  "That is our slang term for five and twenty pound," said Carroll, smiling at him.

  "Indeed?" said Stephen, realizing that they were playing for far, far higher stakes than he had ever imagined. He watched the silly game with much keener attention, and presently he began to think it strange that Jack should lose so much, so often, so regularly. Andrew Wray and Carroll were the principal winners; the judge seemed to be more or less where he had begun; Jack and Jenyns had lost heavily, and they both called for fresh counters before Stephen had been back half an hour. During this half hour he had made up his mind that something was amiss. Something was holding the law of probabilities in abeyance. just what it was he could not tell, but he was sure that if only he could as it were break the code he should find evidence for the collusion that he sensed. A dropped handkerchief allowed him to inspect their feet, a usual means of communication; but their feet told him nothing. And where did the collusion He? Between whom? Was Jenyns in fact losing as much as he appeared to be losing, or was he a deeper man than he seemed? It was easy to be too clever by half, and to over-reach oneself, in matters of this kind: in natural philosophy and in political intelligence a good rule was to look into the obvious first, and to solve the easy parts of the problem. The judge had a trick of drumming his fingers on the table; so did his cousin. Natural enough: but was not Andrew Wray's drumming of a somewhat particular kind? Not so much the ordinary rhythmic roll as the motion of a man picking out a tune with variations: was he mistaken in thinking that Carroll's lively, piratical eye dwelt upon those movements? Unable to decide, he moved round the table and stood behind Wray and Carroll, to establish a possible relationship between the drumming and the cards they held. His move was not directly useful, however. He had not been there for any length of time before Wray called for sandwiches and half a pint of sherry, and the drumming stopped - a hand holding a sandwich is naturally immobilized. Yet with the coming of the wine, the law of probabilities reasserted itself: Jack's luck changed; fish returned to him in a modest shoal; and he stood up somewhat richer than he had sat down.

  He displayed no indecent self -complacency; indeed, all the gentlemen present might have been playing for love, from their lack of apparent emotion; but Stephen knew that secretly he was delighted. "You brought me luck, Stephen," he said, when they had mounted. "You broke the damnedest sequence of cards I have ever seen in my life, week after goddarn week."

  "I have also brought you a salmon, and a pair of plaice."

  "Sophie's fish!"cried Jack. "God's my life, they had gone completely out of my mind. Thank you, Stephen: you are a friend in a thousand."

  They rode through Cosharn in silence, avoiding drunken seamen, drunken soldiers, and drunken women. Stephen knew that Jack had repaired his fortunes in the Mauritius campaign: even with the admiral's share, the proctors' fees, and the civilians' jobbery deducted, the recaptured Indiamen alone must have set him quite high in the list of captains who had done well out of prize money. But even so . . . When they were clear of the houses he said, "As such I should tell you some of the disagreeable things that are said to fall to friends; yet since I have so lately borrowed a large sum of money from
you, I can scarcely cry up thrift, nor even common prudence, with much decency or conviction. I am struck dumb; and must content myself with observing that Lord Anson, whose wealth had the same source as yours, was said to have gone round the world, but never into the world."

  "I take your meaning," said Jack. "You think they are sharps and I am a flat?"

  "I assert nothing: only that in your place I should not play with those men again."

  "Oh come, Stephen, a judge, for all love? And a man so high in Government service?"

  "I make no accusation. Though if I had a certainty where in fact I have only a suspicion, a man, s being a judge would not weigh heavily. Sure, it is weak and illiberal to speak slightingly of any considerable body of men; yet it so happens that the only judges I have known have been froward companions, and it occurs to me that not only are they subjected to the evil influence of authority but also to that of righteous indignation, which is even more deleterious. Those who judge and sentence criminals address them with an unbridled, vindictive righteousness that would be excessive in an archangel and that is indecent to the highest degree in one sinner speaking to another, and he defenceless. Righteous indignation every day, and publicly applauded! I remember an acquaintance of mine literally foaming- there was a line of white between his lips - as he condemned a wretched youth to transportation for carnal knowledge of a fine bold up standing wench: yet this same man was himself a smell-smock, a cold, determined lecher, a voluptuary, a libertine, a discreet frequenter of Mother Abbot's establishment in Dover Street; while another, in whose house I have drunk uncustomed wine, tea, and brandy, told a smuggler, with great vehemence, that society must be protected from such wicked men as he and his accomplices. Do not suppose, however, that I am calling this judge of yours a sharper: his respectability may be no more than a useful screen."