Post Captain (Aubrey & Maturin, #2)

by Patrick O'Brian

How deeply sorry, how more than sorry I should be if she were to take the habit of unhappiness: it is coming on her fast. The structure of her face is changing.’

‘All ports I have seen are much the same,’ he reflected. ‘All the places where sailors congregate: I do not believe that this reflects their nature, however, but rather the nature of the land.’ He sank into a train of thought – man’s nature how defined? Where the constant factors of identity? What allows the statement ‘I am I’

‘How much better a man feels when he is mixed with halibut and leg of mutton and roebuck,’ he said, toying with a piece of Stilton cheese.

How far do these carronades of yours fling their vast prodigious missiles?’

pray do not reject anything that can haul a rope.’

but after all, the same remarks apply to the curragh in which Saint Brendan made his voyage. I do not understand what all the coil is about.’ ‘His curragh stayed well? She sailed against wind and tide?’ ‘Certainly. Did he not reach the Islands of the Blessed?’

Truffles, morells, blewits, jew’s ears (perfectly wholesome if not indulged in to excess; and even then, only a few cases of convulsions, a certain rigidity of the neck over in two or three days – nonsense to complain)

It was not that he did not like the land – capital place; such games, such fun – but the difficulties there, the complications, were so vague and imprecise, reaching one behind another, no end to them: nothing a man could get hold of. Here, although life was complex enough in all conscience, he could at least attempt to cope with anything that turned up.

‘As for mutinies in general,’ said Stephen, ‘I am all in favour of ’em. You take men from their homes or their chosen occupations, you confine them in insalubrious conditions upon a wholly inadequate diet, you subject them to the tyranny of bosun’s mates, you expose them to unimagined perils; what is more, you defraud them of their meagre food, pay and allowances – everything but this sacred rum of yours. Had I been at Spithead, I should certainly have joined the mutineers. Indeed, I am astonished at their moderation.’ ‘Pray, Stephen, do not speak like this, nattering about the service; it makes me so very low. I know things are not perfect, but I cannot reform the world and run a man-of-war. In any case, be candid, and think of the Sophie – think of any happy ship.’

Will you drink some of his honour’s sherry? You are looking quite glum, Maturin. Don’t be mumchance, there’s a good fellow. I have not said an unkind thing since you appeared: it is your duty to be gay and amusing. Though harking back, I was just as pleased to come away too, with my face intact: it is my fortune, you know. You have not paid it a single compliment, though I was liberal enough to you. Reassure me, Maturin – I shall be thirty soon, and I dare not trust my looking-glass.’

If you think to gain your point by wearing me out, you have reckoned short; and even if you were to succeed, you would only regret it. You do not know who I am at all; everything proves it.’

‘My mind dwells with real concern, and yet with what I might term an inquisitive, slightly vulgar concern, upon the state of Mother Williams’s heart when she finds her dairy, poultry-yard, pig-house, larder, stripped bare. Will it burst? Will it stop beating altogether? Dry to a total desiccation – no great step? What the effect upon her visceral humours? How will Sophie reply? Will she attempt concealment, prevarication? She lies with as much skill as Preserved Killick – a desperate stare, and her face the most perfect damask rose. My mind, I say, wanders in this region, lost. I have no acquaintance with English family life, with English female family life: it is to me a region quite unknown.’

TOWARDS FOUR BELLS in the middle watch Jack came on deck: the Polychrest was lying to under foretopsail and mizzen, bowing the swell with her odd nervous lift and jerk. The night was still sharp and clear, bright moonlight, and eastwards a pale host of stars – Altair rising over the dark mass of Cap Gris Nez under the starboard quarter.

‘but none of your mainbrace, none of your nasty grog, my friend, until you learn to avoid the ladies of Portsmouth Point, and the fireships of the Sally-Port. No ardent spirits at all for you. Not a drop, until you are cured. And even then, you would be far better with mild unctuous cocoa, or burgoo.’ ‘Which she told me she was a virgin,’ said the sailor, in a low, resentful tone.

The topmast could no longer plunge like a gigantic arrow down through the deck, down through the ship’s bottom, and send them all to their long account.

‘Was not candour the soul of friendship, I should say, “Why Villiers, I am sure it will delight you,” affecting not to know that you were there last week.’

He is growing quite a bore. Preaching and moralizing. Maturin, could you not tell him to be less prosy? He would listen to you.’

Oh, what is that bird?’ ‘It is a wheatear. We have seen between two and three hundred since we set out, and I have told you their name twice, nay, three times.’

‘He is entrancing,’ said Diana. ‘Pray put him out, on the grass. Do you think I may ask what this delightful smell is, without being abused?’ ‘Thyme,’ said Stephen absently. ‘Mother of thyme, crushed by our carriage-wheels.’

Those who are not dead will survive him.’

‘To town? But Brighton is quite out of your way – I had imagined you had to go to Portsmouth, when you offered me a lift. Why have you come so far out of your way?’ ‘The dew-ponds, the wheatears, the pleasure of driving over grass.’ ‘What a dogged brute you are, Maturin, upon my honour,’ said Diana. ‘I shall lay out for no more compliments.’ ‘No, but in all sadness,’ said Stephen, ‘I like sitting in a chaise with you; above all when you are like this. I could wish this road might go on for ever.’

‘There is much to be said for directness.’ ‘Oh, yes, yes! There is. Everything would be so much simpler if one only said what one thought, or felt. Tell me,’ she said shyly, after a pause, ‘may I say something to you, perhaps quite improper and wrong?’ ‘I should take it very friendly in you, my dear.’ ‘Then if you were perfectly direct with Diana, and proposed marriage to her, might not we all be perfectly happy? Depend upon it, that is what she expects.’

Jack shook his head impatiently, and the blood spattered the deck. Every second counted, on the ebb. Even now there was six inches less of water round the Polychrest. He went down the ladder, let himself into the water and pushed off, swimming on his back. The sky was in a state of almost continual coruscation: between the flashes the moon shone out, her face bent like a shield. Abruptly he realized that there were two moons, floating apart, turning; and Cassiopeia was the wrong way about. Water filled his throat. ‘By God, I’m tiring. Wits going,’ he said, and slid round in the water, straining his head up and taking his bearings. The Polychrest was far over on his left: not ahead. And hailing; yes, they were hailing. He took a turn with the line round his shoulder and concentrated his whole spirit on swimming, fixing the ship, plunging with every stroke, fixing it again: but such feeble strokes. Of course, it was against the tide: and how the line dragged. ‘Thus, very well thus,’ he said, changing his direction to allow for the current. In the last twenty yards his strength seemed to revive, but he could only cling there under her stern – no force in his arms to get aboard. They were fussing about, trying to haul him in. ‘Take the line, God damn you all,’ he cried in a voice that he heard from a distance. ‘Carry it for’ard and heave, heave . . .’

‘It is time to go, sir,’ said Parker, with Pullings and Rossall standing by him, ready to lift their captain over. ‘Go,’ said Jack. ‘I shall follow you.’ They hesitated, caught the earnestness of his tone and look, crossed and stood hovering on the rail of the corvette. Now the veering breeze blew off the land; the eastern sky was lightening; they were out of the Ras du Point, beyond the shoals; and the water in the offing was a fine deep blue. He stood up, walked as straight as he could to a ruined gun-port, made a feeble spring that just carried him to the Fanciulla, staggered, and turned to look at his ship. She did not sink for a good ten minutes, and by then the blood – what little he had left – had made a pool at his feet. She went very gently, with a sigh of air rushing through the hatches, and settled on the bottom, the tips of her broken masts showing a foot above the surface. ‘Come, brother,’ said Stephen in his ear, very like a dream. ‘Come below. You must come below – here is too much blood altogether. Below, below. Here, Bonden, carry him with me.’

‘Where was I? A quart of porter with your dinner: no wine, though you may take a glass or two of cold negus before retiring; no beef or mutton – fish, I say, chicken, a pair of rabbits; and, of course, Venerem omitte.’ ‘Eh? Oh, her. Yes. Certainly. Quite so. Very proper.

Preserved Killick, take good care of the Captain: his physic, well shaken, twice a day; the bolus thrice. He may offer to forget his bolus, Killick.’ ‘He’ll take his nice bolus, sir, or my name’s not Preserved.’

‘It’s no go, sir. I seen some slang coves in the tap. You’ll have to drink it in the shay. What’ll it be, sir? Dog’s nose? Flip? Come, sir,’ he said, with the authority of the well over the sick in their care, or even out of it, ‘What’ll it be? For down it must go, or it will miss the tide.’

If only little Parslow could have contrived to get himself knocked on the head it would have been perfect.

‘Oh no, my lord! Oh, very far from it. It was only a passing weakness – quite gone now – and Dr Maturin assures me that my particular constitution calls for sea air, nothing but sea air, as far from land as possible.’

‘Oh, the merest dilettante, sir; but I should be happy to blow for you, if you choose to go on. It would be a sad shame to leave Handel up in the air, for want of wind.’

When it was over they came to life again, regained their colour, smiled, seemed very pleased with being married, amazed at themselves.

‘There,’ said Stephen, ‘that is far, far better is it not? Urge them to mount on your finger, Jack, and carry them back to their hive. Gently, gently, and on no account exhibit, or even feel, the least uneasiness: fear is wholly fatal, as I dare say you know.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Stephen, returning to the present. ‘I had the pleasure of meeting her this morning, walking hand in hand with the very young gentleman: it was impossible to tell which was supporting which. A fetching, attractive creature, in spite of its deplorable state. I look forward eagerly to dissecting it. Monsieur de Buffon hints that the naked callosities on the buttocks of the hylobates may conceal scent glands, but he does not go so far as to assert it.’ A chill fell on the conversation, and after a slight pause Jack said, ‘I think, my dear fellow, that the ship’s company would be infinitely more obliged to you, was you to cure it, than for putting Monsieur de Buffon right – for putting Cassandra in order, rather than a Frenchman, eh, eh?’

It was as meaningless as total death, a skull in a dim thicket, the future gone, its past wiped out.

‘Mama said I was never to mention it. And I never will. But if you promise not to tell, I will whisper it.

‘No, my dear. I cast you adrift. Sink or swim, Sophie; sink or swim. Where is my hat? Come, give me a buss, and I must away.’

I absolutely decline to hear more of the matter. A hawser not hawser-laid – what stuff. I badger the silversmith early and late, and we are to be told that hawsers are not hawser-laid. No, no. The wine is drawn, it must be drunk. The frog has neither feathers nor wool, and yet she sings. You will have to sail up to the Downs, eating the bread of affliction off your cable-laid baubles, and wetting it with the tears of misery; and I may tell you, sir, that you will eat it without me. Essential business calls me away. I shall put up at the Grapes, when I am in London: I hope to be there well before Michaelmas. Pray send me a line. Good day to you, now: God bless.’

Butterflies, moths, the dubious privilege of having two sexes at once, and an aged clerk came in, whispered in Sir Joseph’s ear, and tiptoed out.

A foolish German had said that man thought in words. It was totally false; a pernicious doctrine; the thought flashed into being in a hundred simultaneous forms, with a thousand associations, and the speaking mind selected one, forming it grossly into the inadequate symbols of words, inadequate because common to disparate situations – admitted to be inadequate for vast regions of expression, since for them there were the parallel languages of music and painting. Words were not called for in many or indeed most forms of thought: Mozart certainly thought in terms of music. He himself at this moment was thinking in terms of scent.

Stephen watched with no particular emotion but with extreme accuracy.

It was so: everything showed it, and he extracted the last dreg of pain from the knowledge, the spectacle. She was on display. The purity of wild grace was gone, and the thought that from now on he must associate vulgarity with his idea of her was so painful that for a while he could not think clearly. Not that it was in the least obvious to anyone who knew her less well, or who valued that purity less highly,

Did the Diana I last saw at New Place ever exist in fact? A creation of my own? Can you create a unicorn by longing? Through the music and the caterwauling on the stage the insistent knocking at the locked door of his box disturbed the course of his reflection. He did not reply, and presently it went away. Had he had a hand in her death? He shook his head to deny it.

And Jack, in all this that has passed between us, all that you may have guessed, I rely wholly upon your discretion, eh? There are moments when my life might turn upon it.’

‘If he had had you aboard, he might be godfather to half a dozen birds with curious beaks;