Book 16 - The Wine-Dark Sea

by Patrick O'Brian

  'They are much the same, sir,' said Fabien. 'I was apprenticed to a horse-leech in Charleston when I was a boy.'

  'Very well. Now I understand you helped Mr Martin when he was aboard your ship.'

  'Yes, sir. Since the surgeon and his mate were both killed I was all he could find.'

  'But I am sure you were very useful to him, with your experience as an apothecary: indeed I seem to remember his mentioning you with commendation, before he grew so ill.'

  'It did not amount to much, sir: most of my time in the shop I spent skinning or stuffing birds, or drawing them, or colouring plates. Yet I did learn to make up the usual prescriptions—blue and black draught—and I did help Monsieur Duvallier in his practice—just the simple things.'

  'In New Orleans, is it customary for apothecaries to stuff birds?'

  'No, sir. Some like to have rattlers in the window or a baby in spirits, but we were the only one with birds. Monsieur Duvallier had a school-friend who engraved them and he wanted to compete with him, so when he found me drawing a turkey-buzzard and then setting it up, he offered me a place.'

  'The horse-leech's calling did not please you?'

  'Well, sir, he had a daughter.'

  'Ah.' Stephen made himself a ball of leaves and said, 'No doubt you were well acquainted with the birds of your country?'

  'I read what I could find to read—Bartram, Pennant and Barton—but it did not amount to much; yet still and all,'—smiling—'I reckon I had an egg and some feathers of every bird that nested within twenty miles of New Orleans or Charleston; and drawings of them.'

  'That must have interested Mr Martin.'

  Fabien's smile left him. 'They did at first, sir,' he said, 'but then he seemed not to care. The drawings were not very good, I guess. Monsieur Audubon took little notice of them—said they were not lively enough—and Monsieur Cuvier never answered when my master sent two or three he had touched up.'

  'I should like to see some when we are at leisure; but at present I still have a few patients in the sick-berth. My engagements may take me away from the ship, and until I have made proper arrangements for them on shore I should like to leave a man aboard to whom I can send instructions. There are no longer any urgent cases: it is a matter of changing dressings and administering physic at stated intervals. I have an excellent loblolly-boy, but although he understands English quite well he speaks little, and all the less in that he has a severe stammer; and he can neither read nor write. On the other hand he has a great gift for nursing, and he is much loved by the people. I should add that he is enormously strong, and although mansuetude, although gentleness is written on his face, he is capable of terrible rage if he is provoked. To offend him, and thus to offend his friends, in a ship like this would be mortal folly. Come with me till I show you our sick-berth. There are only three amputations left, and they are in a very fair way, they will need dressing for a week or two more, and some physic and lotions written on a sheet with their times. You will meet Padeen there, and I am sure you will conciliate his good will.'

  'I certainly shall, sir. Anything for a quiet life is my motto.'

  'And yet you were in a privateer.'

  'Yes, sir. I was running away from a young woman: the same as when I left the Charleston horse-leech.'

  The road to Lima ran between great irrigated mud-walled fields of sugar-cane, cotton, alfalfa, Indian corn, and past carob-groves, with here and there bananas, oranges and lemons in all their variety; and where the sides of the valley rose, some distant vines. At times it followed the deep-cut bank of the Rimac, now a fine great roaring torrent from the snows that could be seen a great way off, and here were palms, strangely interspersed with fine great willows of a kind Stephen had not seen before. Few birds, apart from an elegant tern that patrolled the quieter side-pools of the river, and few flowers: this was the dry season of the year, and except where the innumerable irrigation-channels flowed nothing but a grey wiry grass was to be seen.

  There was a good deal of traffic: casks and bales travelling up from the port or down to it in ox- or mule-drawn wagons that brought the Spain of his youth vividly to mind—the same high-crested yokes, the same crimson, brass-studded harness, the same ponderous creaking wheels. Some few horsemen, some people sitting on asses, more going by foot: short, strong Indians with grave or expressionless copper faces, sometimes bowed under enormous burdens; some rare Spaniards; many black Africans; and every possible combination of the three, together with additions from visiting ships. All these people called out a greeting as they passed, or told him that 'it was dry, dry, intolerably dry'; all except the Indians, who went by mute, unsmiling.

  It was Stephen's custom, particularly when he was walking in a flat country, to turn his face to the zenith every furlong or so, in order not to miss birds soaring above the ordinary range of vision. When he had been walking for an hour he did this again after a longer pause than usual and to his infinite delight he saw no less than twelve condors wheeling and wheeling high in the pale sky between him and Lima. He walked a few paces more, sat on a mile-stone and fixed them with his pocket-glass. No possibility of error: enormous birds: not perhaps as wide as the wandering albatross but more massive by far—a different kind of flight, a different use of the air entirely. Perfect flight, perfect curves: never a movement of those great wings. Round and round, rising and falling, rising and rising still until at the top of their spiral they glided away in a long straight line towards the north-east.

  He walked on with a smile of pure happiness on his face; and presently, just after he had passed a posada where carts and wagons stood under the shade of carob-trees while their drivers drank and rested, he felt his smile return of its own accord: there on the road ahead was a tall black horse carrying a taller, blacker rider at a fine easy trot towards Callao. At the same moment the trot changed to a brisk canter, and a yard from Stephen Sam leapt from the saddle, his own smile still broader.

  They embraced and walked slowly along, each asking the other how he did, the horse gazing into their faces with some curiosity.

  'But tell me, sir, how is the Captain?'

  'His main being is well, thanks be to God—'

  'Thanks be to God.'

  '—but he had the wad of a pistol in his eye. The bullet itself rebounded from his skull—a certain concussion—a certain passing forgetfulness—no more. But the wad set up an inflammation that had not yet quite yielded to treatment by the time I left him—by the time he ordered me to leave him. And he had a pike-thrust in the upper part of his thigh that is probably healed by now, though I wish I could be assured of it . . . But before I forget, he sends his love, says he hopes to bring the Franklin, his present ship, into Callao quite soon, and trusts that you will dine with him.'

  'Oh how I hope we shall see him well,' cried Sam. And after a moment, 'But my dear sir, will you not mount? I will hold the stirrup for you; he is a quiet, gentle horse with an easy walk on him.'

  'I will not,' said Stephen, 'though he is the dear kind creature, I am sure,'—stroking the horse's nose. 'Listen: there is a little small shebeen two minutes back along the road. If you are not desperate for time, let you put him up in the shelter there and return to Callao with me. There is nothing to touch walking for conversation. Reflect upon it, my dear: me perched up on this high horse, and he is seventeen hands if he is an inch, calling down to you, and yourself looking up all the while like Toby listening to the Archangel Raphael—edifying, sure, but it would never do.'

  Sam left not only his horse but his black clerical hat, disagreeably hot through the beaver with the sun reaching its height, and they walked along with an agreeable ease. 'There is another thing that the Captain wished to speak to you about,' said Stephen. 'Among other prizes we took a pirate, the Alastor: she is in the port at this moment. Most of her crew were killed in the desperate fighting—it was in this battle that the Captain was hurt—and Captain Pullings has delivered up those who were not to the authorities here; but she also had a few seamen p
risoners whom we have set free to go ashore or stay, as they please, and a dozen African slaves, the property, if I may use the word, of the pirates; they were shut up below and they took no part in the fighting. There is no question of their being sold to increase our people's prize-money, since the most influential men in our crew, deeply religious men, are abolitionists, and they carry the others with them.'

  'Bless them.'

  'Bless them indeed. But the Captain does not like to turn the black men ashore; he fears they may be taken up and reduced to servitude again: and although he does not feel so strongly about slaves as I do—it is one of the few points on which we differ—he is of opinion that having sailed for even so short a time under the British flag they ipso facto became free, and that it would be an injustice to deprive them of their liberty. He would value your advice.'

  'I honour him for his care of them. Properly vouched for, they may certainly live here in freedom. Have they a trade, at all?'

  'They were being carried from one French sugar-plantation to another when their vessel was taken: as far as I can make out—their French amounts to a few words, no more—that is all the work they understand.'

  'We can find them places here easily enough,' said Sam, waving towards a sea of green cane. 'But it is hard work and ill-paid. Would the Captain not consider keeping them aboard?'

  'He would not. We have only able seamen or highly-skilled tradesmen—the sailmakers, coopers, armourers—and landsmen could never be countenanced in such a vessel as ours. Yet surely even a low wage with freedom is better than no wage and lifelong slavery?'

  'Anything at all is better than slavery,' cried Sam with a surprising degree of passion in so large and calm a man. 'Anything at all—wandering diseased and three parts starved in the mountains, roasted, frozen, naked, hunted by dogs, like the wretched Maroons I sought out in Jamaica.'

  'You too feel very strongly about slavery?'

  'Oh indeed and indeed I do. The West Indies were bad enough, but Brazil was worse by far. As you know, I worked for what seemed an eternity among the black slaves there.'

  'I remember it well. That was one of the many reasons that I looked forward so to seeing you again in Peru.' He looked attentively at Sam; but Sam's mind was still in Brazil and in his deep voice, deeper than Jack's, he went on, 'There may be a tolerable domestic slavery—who has not seen something like it in slave-countries?—but the temptation is always there, the possibility of excess, the latent tyranny, the latent servility; and who is fit to be continually exposed to temptation? On the other hand it seems to me that there is no possibility whatsoever of a tolerable industrial slavery. It rots both sides wholly away. The Portuguese are a kindly, amiable nation, but in their plantations and mines . . .'

  After a while, the road flowing past them and the river on the right-hand side, Sam checked abruptly and in a hesitant, faltering tone he said, 'Dear Doctor, sir, pray forgive me. Here am I prating away for ever and in a loud voice to you, a man that might be my father. Sure you know all this better than I do, and have reflected on it since before ever I was born: shame on my head.'

  'Not at all, not at all, Sam. I have not a tenth part of your experience. But I know enough to be sure that slavery is totally evil. The early generous revolution in the France of my youth abolished it: Buonaparte brought it back; and he is an evil man—his system is an evil system. Tell me, does the Archbishop feel as you do?'

  'His Grace is a very ancient gentleman. But the Vicar-General, Father O'Higgins, does.'

  'Many of my friends in Ireland and England are abolitionists,' observed Stephen, deciding to go no farther at this point. 'I believe I can make out the Alastor among the shipping to the left of the Dominican church. She is painted black, and she has four masts. That is where we live while the Surprise is being repaired: her knees cause some anxiety, I understand. I look forward to presenting my little girls to you, Sarah and Emily, who are good—well, fairly good—Catholics, though they have barely seen the inside of a church, to showing you the Captain's unhappy, bewildered, half-liberated black men, and to asking your help in housing my patients if the prize is sold from under them before they are quite well. And Sam,' he went on as they entered Callao, 'at some later time when you are free I should very much like to talk to you about the state of public opinion here in Peru: not only about abolition, but about many other things, such as freedom of commerce, representation, independence, and the like.'

  Chapter Seven

  The little girls, stiff with pride and amazement, and fairly soused with holy water, were handed into the carriage after pontifical High Mass in Lima cathedral. They smoothed their white dresses, their broad blue Marial sashes and sat quite straight, looking as happy as was consistent with a high degree of pious awe: they had just heard the tremendous voice of an organ for the first time; they had just been blessed by an archbishop in his mitre.

  The crowded steps and pavement thinned; the viceroy's splendid coach rolled away, escorted by guards in blue and scarlet, to his palace fifty yards away; the great square became clearly visible.

  'There in the middle is the splendid fountain of the world,' said Sam.

  'Yes, Father,' they replied.

  'Do you see the water spouting from the top?' asked Stephen.

  'Yes, sir,' they answered, and they ventured no more until they came to Sam's quarters in an arcaded court behind the university, not unlike a quadrangle in one of the smaller Oxford colleges. 'Yes, Father: yes, sir,' was their total response to the news that the fountain was forty foot high, not counting the figure of Fame on the top; that it was surrounded by four and twenty pieces of artillery and sixteen iron chains of unusual weight; that the Casa de la Inquisicíon had scarcely a rival but the one in Madrid; that two of the streets through which they passed had been entirely paved with silver ingots to welcome an earlier viceroy; and that because of the frequent earthquakes the upper and sometimes the lower floors of the house were built of wooden frames filled with stout reeds, plastered over and painted stone or brick colour, with appropriate lines to help the illusion—that the great thing to do, in the event of an earthquake, was to open the door: otherwise it might jam and you would be buried under the ruins.

  They grew a little less shy, a little more human, when they were led indoors and fed. Sam's servant Hipolito pleased them by wearing a sash broader than their own but clerical violet; they were delighted to see that the door was indeed kept open by a wedge, and even more so by the discovery of a ludicrous resemblance between Hipolito and Killick—the same look of pinched, shrewish discontent, diffused indignation; the same put-upon air; and the same restless desire to have everything proceed according to his own idea of order—but with this essential difference, that whereas Killick relied on the Captain's cook for all but coffee and the simplest breakfast dishes, Hipolito could provide a capital dinner with no more help than a boy to carry plates. This meal, however, being very early and the guests very young, was as plain as well could be: gazpacho, a dish of fresh anchovies, a paella: with them a little flowery wine from Pisco. Then came fruit, including the Peruvian version of the custard-apple, the chirimoya at its best, of which the little girls ate so greedily that they were obliged to be restrained—so greedily that they could manage few of the little almond cakes that would have ended their feast if they had been allowed to remain. But happily Hipolito had been born old, and neither Sam nor Stephen had any notion of entertaining the young apart from putting volumes of Eusebius on their chairs so that they might dominate their food. Their wine-glasses had been regularly filled; they had as regularly emptied them; and when towards the end of the meal the boy, standing in the doorway, saw fit to make antic gestures behind his master's back they were unable to restrain themselves. Stifled laughter-swelled to uncontrollable giggles—neither could look at the other, still less at the boy in the doorway; and both were rather relieved than otherwise when they were turned out into the quadrangle and told 'to run about and play very quietly, until Jemmy Ducks comes
to fetch you in the gig.'

  'I am so sorry, Father,' said Stephen. 'They have never behaved like this before: I should have whipped them had it not been Sunday.'

  'Not at all, not at all, God love you, sir. It would be the world's pity if they were kept to a Carmelite silence—sure a healthy child must laugh from time to time; it would be a dismal existence otherwise. Indeed they were very good, sitting up straight with their napkins held just so.' He passed almond cakes, poured coffee, and went on, 'As for public opinion here in Peru, I should say that there is reasonably strong feeling for independence, particularly as the present Viceroy has made some very unpopular decisions in favour of those born in Spain as opposed to those born here. In some cases it is combined with a desire to see the end of slavery, but I do not think this is so much so as it is in Chile. After all, there are perhaps ten times as many slaves here, and many of the plantations depend entirely on their labour: yet there are many highly-respected, influential men who hate it. I have two friends, two colleagues, who know very much more about the matter than I do: the one is Father O'Higgins, the Vicar-General and my immediate superior—he is very, very kind to me—and the other is Father Iñigo Gomez, who lectures on Indian languages in the university. He is descended from one of the great Inca families on his mother's side—you know, I am sure, that there are still many of them, even after the last desperate rising. That is to say, those who were opposed to the rebellious Inca Tupac Amaru; and they still have many followers. Clearly, he understands that side better than any Castillian. Should you like to meet them? They are both abolitionists, but they would do their best to speak without prejudice, I have no doubt at all.'