Book 1 - Master & Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

  'If you please, sir,' said Babbington, 'the cat's signalling.'

  On the quarter-deck Jack saw that Dillon had run up a motley hoist—obviously all the Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter possessed—stating, among other things, that he had the plague aboard and that he was about to sail.

  'Hands to wear ship,' he called. And when the Sophie had run down to within a cable's length of the convoy he hailed, 'Cat ahoy!'

  'Sir,' came Dillon's voice over the intervening sea, 'you will be pleased to hear the Norwegians are all safe.'

  'What?'

  'The—Norwegians—are—all—safe.' The two vessels came closer. 'They hid in a secret place in the forepeak—in the forepeak,' went on Dillon.

  'Oh,—their forepeak,' muttered the quartermaster at the wheel; for the Sophie was all ears—a very religious hush.

  'Full and by!' cried Jack angrily, as the topsails shivered under the influence of the quartermaster's emotion. 'Keep her full and by.'

  'Full and by it is, sir.'

  'And the master says,' continued the distant voice, 'could we send a surgeon aboard, because one of his men hurt his toe hurrying down the ladder.'

  'Tell the master, from me,' cried Jack, in a voice that reached almost to Cagliari, his face purple with effort and furious indignation, 'tell the master that he can take his man's toe and—with it.'

  He stumped below, £875 the poorer, and looking thoroughly sour and disagreeable.

  This, however, was not an expression that his features wore easily, or for long; and when he stepped into the cutter to go aboard the admiral in Genoa roads his face was quite restored to its natural cheerfulness. It was rather grave, of course, for a visit to the formidable Lord Keith, Admiral of the Blue and Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, was no laughing matter. His gravity, as be sat there in the stern-sheets, very carefully washed, shaved and dressed, affected his coxswain and the cutter's crew, and they rowed soberly along, keeping their eyes primly inboard. Yet even so they were going to reach the flagship too early, and Jack, looking at his watch, desired them to pull round the Audacious and lie on their oars. From here he could see the whole bay, with five ships of the line and four frigates two or three miles from the land, and inshore of them a swarm of gunboats and mortar-vessels; they were steadily bombarding the noble city that rose steeply in a sweeping curve at the head of the bay—lying there in a cloud of smoke of their own making, lobbing bombs into the close-packed buildings on the far side of the distant mole. The boats were small in the distance; the houses, churches and palaces were smaller still (though quite distinct in that sweet transparent air), like toys; but the continuous rumbling of the fire, and the deeper reply of the French artillery on shore, was strangely close at hand, real and menacing.

  The necessary ten minutes passed; the Sophie's cutter approached the flag-ship; and in answer to the hail of Boat ahoy the coxswain answered Sophie, meaning that her captain was aboard. Jack went up the side in due form, saluted the quarter-deck, shook hands with Captain Louis and was shown to the admiral's cabin.

  He had every reason to be pleased with himself he had taken his convoy to Cagliari without loss; he had brought up another to Leghorn; and he was here at exactly the appointed time, in spite of calms off Monte Cristo—but for all that he was remarkably nervous, and his mind was so full of Lord Keith that when he saw no admiral in that beautiful great light-filled cabin but only a well-rounded young woman with her back to thç window, he gaped like any carp.

  'Jacky, dear,' said the young woman, 'how beautiful you are, all dressed up. Let me put your neck-cloth straight, La, Jackie, you look as frightened as if I were a Frenchman.'

  'Queeney! Old Queeney!' cried Jack, squeezing her and giving her a most affectionate smacking kiss.

  'God damn and blast—a luggit corpis sweenie,' cried a furious Scotch voice, and the admiral walked in from the quarter-gallery. Lord Keith was a tall grey man with a fine leonine head, and his eyes shot blazing sparks of rage.

  'This is the young man I told you about, Admiral,' said Queeney, patting poor pale Jack's black stock into place and waving a ring at him. 'I used to give him his bath and take him into my bed when he had bad dreams.'

  This might not have been thought the very best possible recommendation to a newly-married admiral of close on sixty, but it seemed to answer. 'Oh,' said the admiral. 'Yes. I was forgetting. Forgive me. I have such a power of captains, and some of them are very mere rakes . . .'

  ' "And some of them are very mere rakes," says he, piercing me through and through with that damned cold eye of his,' said Jack, filling Stephen's glass and spreading himself comfortably along the locker. 'And I was morally certain that he recognized me from the only three times we were in company—and each time worse than the last. The first was at the Cape, in the old Reso, when I was a midshipman: he was Captain Elphinstone then. He came aboard just two minutes after Captain Douglas had turned me before the mast and said, "What's yon wee snotty bairn a-greeting at?" And Captain Douglas said, "That wretched boy is a perfect young whoremonger; I have turned him before the mast, to learn him his duty." '

  'Is that a more convenient place to learn it?' said Stephen.

  'Well, it is easier for them to teach you deference,' said Jack, smiling, 'for they can seize you to a grating at the gangway and flog the liver and lights out of you with the cat. It means disrating a midshipman—degrading him, so that he is no longer what we call a young gentleman but a common sailor. He becomes a common sailor; he berths and messes with them; and he can be knocked about by anyone with a cane or a starter in his hand, as well as being flogged. I never thought he would really do it, although he had threatened me with it often enough; for he was a friend of my father's and I thought he had a kindness for me—which indeed he did. But, however, he carried it out, and there I was, turned before the mast: and he kept me there six months before rating me midshipman again. I was grateful to him in the end, because I came to understand the lower deck through and through—they were wonderfully kind to me, on the whole. But at the time I bawled like a calf—wept like any girl, ha, ha, ha.'

  'What made him take so decided a step?'

  'Oh, it was over a girl, a likely black girl called Sally,' said Jack. 'She came off in a bum-boat and I hid her in the cable-tier. But Captain Douglas and I had disagreed about a good many other things—obedience, mostly, and getting out of bed in the morning, and respect for the schoolmaster (we had a schoolmaster aboard, a drunken sot named Pitt) and a dish of tripe. Then the second time Lord Keith saw me was when I was fifth of the Hannibal and our first lieutenant was that damned fool Carrol—if there's one thing I hate more than being on shore it's being under the orders of a damned fool that is no seaman. He was so offensive, so designedly offensive, over a trivial little point of discipline that I was obliged to ask him whether he would like to meet me elsewhere. That was exactly what he wanted: he ran to the captain and said I had called him out. Captain Newman said it was nonsense, but I must apologize. But I could not do that, for there was nothing to apologize about—I was in the right, you see. So there I was, hauled up in front of half a dozen post-captains and two admirals: Lord Keith was one of the admirals.'

  'What happened?'

  'Petulance—I was officially reprimanded for petulance. Then the third time—but I will not go into details,' said Jack. 'It is a very curious thing, you know,' he went on, gazing out of the stern window with a look of mild, ingenuous wonder, 'a prodigious curious thing, but there cannot be many men who are both damned fools and no seamen, who reach post rank in the Royal Navy—men with no interest, I mean, of course—and yet it so happens that I have served under no less than two of them. I really thought I was dished that time—career finished, cut down, alas poor Borwick. I spent eight months on shore, as melancholy as that chap in the play, going up to town whenever I could afford it, which was not often, and hanging about that damned waiting-room in the Admiralty. I really thought I should never get to sea again—a half-pay lieutenant for t
he rest of my life. If it had. not been for my fiddle, and fox-hunting when I could get a horse, I think I should have hanged myself. That Christmas was the last time I saw Queeney, I believe, apart from just once in London.'

  'Is she an aunt, a cousin?'

  'No, no. No connexion at all. But we were almost brought up together—or rather, she almost brought me up. I always remember her as a great girl, not a child at all, though to be sure there can't be ten years between us. Such a dear, kind creature. They had Damplow, the next house to ours—they were almost in our park—and after my mother died I dare say I spent as much time there as I did at home. More,' he said reflectively, gazing up at the tell-tale compass overhead. 'You know Dr Johnson—Dictionary Johnson?'

  'Certainly,' cried Stephen, looking strange. 'The most respectable, the most amiable of the moderns. I disagree with all he says, except when he speaks of Ireland, yet I honour him; and for his life of Savage I love him. What is more, he occupied the most vivid dream I ever had in my life, not a week ago. How strange that you should mention him today.'

  'Yes, ain't it? He was a great friend of theirs, until their mother ran off and married an Italian, a Papist. Queeney was wonderfully upset at having a Papist to her father-in-law, as you may imagine. Not that she ever saw him, however. "Anything but a Papist," says she. "I should rather have had Black Frank a thousand times, I declare." So we burnt thirteen guys in a row that year—it must have been '83 or '84—not long after the Battle of the Saints. After that they settled at Damplow more or less for good—the girls, I mean, and their old she-cousin. Dear Queeney. I believe I spoke of her before, did I not? She taught me mathematics.'

  'I believe you did: a Hebrew scholar, if I do not mistake?'

  'Exactly so. Conic sections and the Pentateuch came as easy as kiss my hand to her. Dear Queeney. I thought she was to be an old maid, though she was so pretty; for how could any man make up to a girl that knows Hebrew? It seemed a sad pity: anyone so sweet-tempered should have a prodigious great family of children. But, however, here she is married to the admiral, so it all ends happy . . . yet, you know, he is amazingly ancient—grey-haired, rising sixty, I dare say. Do you think, as a physician—I mean, is it possible . . .?'

  'Possibilissima.'

  'Eh?'

  'Possibile è la cosa, e naturale,' sang Stephen in a harsh, creaking tone, quite unlike his speaking voice, which was not disagreeable. 'E se Susanna vuol, possibilissima,' discordantly, but near enough to Figaro to be recognized.

  'Really? Really?' said Jack with intense interest. Then after a pause for reflexion, 'We might try that as a duetto, improvising . . . She joined him at Leghorn. And there I was, thinking it was my own merit, recognized at last, and honourable wounds'—laughing heartily—'that had won me my promotion. Whereas I make no doubt it was all dear Queeney, do you see? But I have not told you the best—and this I certainly owe to her. We are to have a six weeks' cruise down the French and Spanish coasts, as far as Cape Nao!'

  'Aye? Will that be good?'

  'Yes, yes! Very good. No more convoy duty, you understand. No more being tied to a lubberly parcel of sneaking rogues, merchants creeping up and down the sea. The French and the Spaniards, their trade, their harbours, their supplies—these are to be our objects. Lord Keith was very earnest about the great importance of destroying their commerce. He was very particular about it indeed—as important as your great fleet actions, says he; and so very much more profitable. The admiral took me aside and dwelt upon it at length—he is a most acute, far-sighted commander; not a Nelson, of course, but quite out of the ordinary. I am glad Queeney has him. And we are under no one's orders, which is so delightful. No bald-pated pantaloon to say "Jack Aubrey, you proceed to Leghorn with these hogs for the fleet", making it quite impossible even to hope for a prize. Prize-money,' he cried, smiling and slapping his thigh; and the marine sentry outside the door, who had been listening intently, wagged his head and smiled too.

  'Are you very much attached to money?' asked Stephen.

  'I love it passionately,' said Jack, with truth ringing clear in his voice. 'I have always been poor, and I long to be rich.'

  'That's right,' said the marine.

  'My dear old father was always poor too,' went on Jack. 'But as open-handed as a summer's day. He gave me fifty pounds a year allowance when I was a midshipman, which was uncommon handsome, in those days, or would have been, had he ever managed to persuade Mr Hoare to pay it, after the first quarter. Lord, how I suffered in the old Reso—mess bills, laundry, growing out of my uniforms . . . of course I love money. But I think we should be getting under way—there's two bells striking.'

  Jack and Stephen were to be the gun-room's guests, to taste the sucking-pig bought at Leghorn. James Dillon was there to bid them welcome, together with the master, the purser and Mowett, as they plunged into the gloom: the gun-room had no stern-windows, no sash-ports, and only a scrap of skylight right forward, for although the peculiarity of the Sophie's construction made for a very comfortable captain's cabin (luxurious, indeed, if only the captain's legs had been sawn off a little above the knee), unencumbered with the usual guns, it meant that the gun-room lay on a lower level than the spar-deck and reposed, upon a kind of shelf, not unlike an orlop.

  Dinner was rather a stiff, formal entertainment to begin with, although it was lit by a splendid Byzantine silver hanging lamp, taken by Dillon out of a Turkish galley, and although it was lubricated by uncommonly good wine, for Dillon was well-to-do, even wealthy, by naval standards. Everyone was unnaturally well behaved: Jack was to give the tone, as he knew very well—it was expected of him, and it was his privilege. But this kind of deference, this attentive listening to every remark of his, required the words he uttered to be worth the attention they excited—a wearing state of affairs for a man accustomed to ordinary human conversation, with its perpetual interruption, contradiction and plain disregard. Here everything he said was right; and presently his spirits began to sink under the burden. Marshall and Purser Ricketts sat mum, saying please and thank you, eating with dreadful precision; young Mowett (a fellow guest) was altogether silent, of course; Dillon worked away at the small talk; but Stephen Maturin was sunk deep in a reverie.

  It was the pig that saved this melancholy feast. Impelled by a trip on the part of the steward that coincided with a sudden lurch on the part of the Sophie, it left its dish at the door of the gun-room and shot into Mowett's lap. In the subsequent roaring and hullaballoo everyone grew human again, remaining natural long enough for Jack to reach the point he had been looking forward to since the beginning of dinner.

  'Well, gentlemen,' he said, after they had drunk the King's health, 'I have news that will please you, I believe; though I must ask Mr Dillon's indulgence for speaking of a service matter at this table. The admiral gives us a cruise on our own down to Cape Nao. And I have prevailed upon Dr Maturin to stay aboard, to sew us up when the violence of the King's enemies happens to tear us apart.'

  'Huzzay—well done—hear, hear—topping news—good—hear him,' they cried, all more or less together, and they looked so pleased—there was so much candid friendliness on their faces that Stephen was intensely moved.

  'Lord Keith was delighted when I told him,' Jack went on. 'Said he envied us extremely—had no physician in the flag-ship—was amazed when I told him of the gunner's brains—cabled for his spy-glass to book at Mr Day taking the sun on deck—and wrote out the Doctor's order in his own hand, which is something I have never heard of in the service before.'

  Nor had anyone there present—the order had to be wetted—three bottles of port, there Killick—bumpers all round—and while Stephen sat looking modestly down at the table, they all stood up, crouching their heads under the beams, and sang,

  'Huzzay, huzzay, huzzay,

  Huzzay, huzzay, huzzay,

  Hussay, huzzay, huzzay,

  Huzzay.'

  'There is only one thing I do not care for, however,' he said as the order was passed reverently
round the table, 'and that is this foolish insistence upon the word surgeon. "Do hereby appoint you surgeon . . . take upon you the employment of surgeon . . . together with such allowance for wages and victuals for yourself as is usual for the surgeon of the said sloop." It is a false description; and a false description is anathema to the philosophic mind.'

  'I am sure it is anathema to the philosophic mind,' said James Dillon. 'But the naval mind fairly revels in it, so it does. Take that word sloop, for example.'

  'Yes,' said Stephen, narrowing his eyes through the haze of port and trying to remember the definitions he had heard.

  'Why, now, a sloop, as you know, is properly a one-masted vessel, with a fore-and-aft rig. But in the Navy a sloop may be ship-rigged—she may have three masts.'

  'Or take the Sophie,' cried the master, anxious to bring his crumb of comfort. 'She's rightly a brig, you know, Doctor, with her two masts.' He held up two fingers, in case a landman might not fully comprehend so great a number. 'But the minute Captain Aubrey sets foot in her, why, she too becomes a sloop; for a brig is a lieutenant's command.'

  'Or take me,' said Jack. 'I am called captain, but really I am only a master and commander.'

  'Or the place where the men sleep, just for'ard,' said the purser, pointing. 'Rightly speaking, and official, 'tis the gun-deck, though there's never a gun on it. We call it the spar-deck—though there's no spars, neither—but some say the gun-deck still, and call the right gun-deck the upper-deck. Or take this brig, which is no true brig at all, not with her square mainsail, but rather a sorts of snow, or a hermaphrodite.'

  'No, no, my dear sir,' said James Dillon, 'never let a mere word grieve your heart. We have nominal captain's servants who are, in fact, midshipmen; we have nominal able seamen on our books who are scarcely breeched—they are a thousand miles away and still at school; we swear we have not shifted any backstays, when we shift them continually; and we take many other oaths that nobody believes—no, no, you may call yourself what you please, so long as you do your duty. The Navy speaks in symbols, and you may suit what meaning you choose to the words.'