Post Captain (Aubrey & Maturin, #2)

by Patrick O'Brian

Mrs Williams was a woman, in the natural course of things; but she was a woman so emphatically, so totally a woman, that she was almost devoid of any private character.

’ ‘Good morning, Maturin,’ said Diana, coming down the steps. ‘I hope I have not kept you waiting. What a neat cob you have there, upon my word! You never found him in this part of the world.’ ‘Good morning, Villiers. You are late. You are very late.’ ‘It is the one advantage there is in being a woman. You do know I am a woman, Maturin?’ ‘I am obliged to suppose it, since you affect to have no notion of time – cannot tell what o’clock it is. Though why the trifling accident of sex should induce a sentient being, let alone such an intelligent being as you, to waste half this beautiful clear morning, I cannot conceive. Come, let me help you to mount. Sex – sex . . .’ ‘Hush, Maturin. You must not use words like that here. It was bad enough yesterday.’ ‘Yesterday? Oh, yes. But I am not the first man to say that wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas. Far from it. It is a commonplace.’ ‘As far as my aunt is concerned you are certainly the first man who ever used such an expression in public.’

’ Some hours later, in the first grey light, Jack awoke to a faint scratching on the door. His waking mind stated that this was a rat in the bread-room, but his body instantly contradicted it – sleeping or awake his body knew whether it was afloat or not; at no time was it ever unaware of the continual shift and heave of the sea, or of the unnatural stability of the land. He opened his eyes and saw Stephen rise from his guttering candle, open the door, receive a bottle and a folded note. He went back to his table, opened the note, slowly deciphered it, burnt both scraps of paper in the candle flame; without turning round he said, ‘Jack, you are awake, I believe?’ ‘Yes. These last five minutes. A good morning to you, Stephen. Is it going to be hot?’ ‘It is. And a good morning to you, my dear. Listen,’ he said, sinking his voice to no more than a whisper, ‘and do not call out or agitate yourself. Do you hear me now?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘War will be declared tomorrow. Bonaparte is seizing all British subjects.’

Jack plunged into the coach with his hat pulled over his nose and sat huddled low in the corner, peering furtively through the muddy glasses – a curiously deformed, conspicuous figure that excited comment whenever the horse moved at less than a trot. ‘An ill-looking parcel of bastards,’ he reflected, seeing a bailiff in every full-grown man. ‘But my God, what a life. Doing this every day, cooped up with a ledger – what a life.’ The cheerless faces went by, hurrying to their dismal work, an endless wet, anxious, cold, grey-yellow stream of people, jostling, pushing past one another like an ugly dream, with here and there a pretty shop-girl or servant to make it more heart-rendingly pathetic.

Jack liked the look of this man at once, and during the first meaningless civilities this feeling grew: Canning was a broad-shouldered fellow, and although he was not quite so tall as Jack, his way of holding his small round head up and tilted back, with his chin in the air, made him look bigger, more commanding. He wore his own hair – what there was left of it: short tight curls round a shining calvity, though he was in his thirties, no more – and he looked like one of the fatter, more jovial Roman emperors; a humorous, good-natured face, but one that conveyed an impression of great latent strength. ‘An ugly customer to have against you,’ thought Jack, earnestly recommending ‘one of these voluptuous little pies’ and a glass of Constantia. Mr Canning was a Bristol merchant. The news quite astonished Jack. He had never met a merchant before, out of the way of business. A few bankers and money-men, yes; and a poor thin bloodless set of creatures they seemed – a lower order; but it was impossible to feel superior to Mr Canning.

’ ‘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.’ ‘There are such things, sure; but they depend upon the whim, the digestion and the virtue of one or two men, and that is iniquitous. I am opposed to authority, that egg of misery and oppression; I am opposed to it largely for what it does to those who exercise it.’ ‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘it has done me no good. This afternoon I was savaged by a midshipman, and now I am harassed by my own surgeon. Come, Stephen, drink up, and let us have some music.’

Stephen merely looked dogged, reached for the fiddle and ran up and down the scale. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked. ‘I picked it up in a pawnshop near the Sally-Port. It cost twelve and six.’ ‘You were not cheated, my dear. I like its tone extremely – warm, mellow. You are a great judge of a fiddle, to be sure. Come, come, there is not a moment to lose; I make my rounds at seven bells. One, two, three,’ he cried, tapping his foot, and the cabin was filled with the opening movement of Boccherini’s Corelli sonata, a glorious texture of sound, the violin sending up brilliant jets through the ’cello’s involutions, and they soared up and away from the grind of pumps, the tireless barking, the problems of command, up, the one answering the other, joining, separating, twining, rising into their native air.

’ There was a pause. ‘I will not detain you, gentlemen,’ said Jack coldly. ‘Mr Parker, let the starboard watch be exercised at the great guns and the larboard at reefing topsails. Mr Pullings will take the small-arms men. What is that infernal row. Hallows,’ – to the Marine sentry outside the door – ‘what is that din?’ ‘Beg pardon, your Honour,’ said the soldier, ‘it’s the captain’s steward and the gun-room steward fighting over the use of the coffee-pot.’ ‘God damn their eyes,’ cried Jack. ‘I’ll tan their hides – I’ll give them a bloody shirt – I’ll stop their capers. Old seamen, too: rot them. Mr Parker, let us establish a little order in this sloop.’

’ ‘Never be distressed, honey. I know her faults as well as any man.’ ‘Of course, she is very beautiful,’ said Sophia, glancing at him timidly. ‘Yes. Tell me, is Diana wholly in love with Jack?’ ‘I may be wrong,’ she said, after a pause, ‘I know very little about these things, or anything else; but I do not believe Diana knows what love is at all.’

‘THIS GENTLEMAN ASKS whether Mrs Villiers is at home,’ said the Teapot’s butler, bringing in a salver with a card upon it. ‘Show him into the parlour,’ said Diana. She hurried into her bedroom, changed her dress, combed her hair up, looked searchingly into her face in the glass, and went down. ‘Good day to you now, Villiers,’ said Stephen. ‘No man on earth could call you a fast woman. I have read the paper twice through – invasion flotilla, loyal addresses, price of Government stock and list of bankrupts. Here is a bottle of scent.’

Turning, he saw Stephen watching him from the companion hatchway. ‘Good morning, good morning!’ he cried, smiling with great affection. ‘Here’s our old friend the Bellone just to leeward.’ ‘Ay. So Pullings tell me. Do you mean to fight with her?’ ‘I mean to sink, take, burn or destroy her,’ said Jack, a smile flashing across his face. ‘I dare say you do. Please to remember the watch they took from me. A Bréguet repeater, number 365, with a centre seconds hand. And three pairs of drawers, I should know them anywhere. I must go below.’

‘Men,’ said Jack, ‘I know damned well what’s going on. I know damned well what’s going on; and I won’t have it. What simple fellows you are, to listen to a parcel of makee-clever sea-lawyers and politicians, glib, quick-talking coves. Some of you have put your necks into the noose. I say your necks into the noose. You see the Ville de Paris over there?’ Every head turned to the line-of-battle ship on the horizon. ‘I have only to signal her, or half a dozen other cruisers, and run you up to the yardarm with the Rogue’s March playing. Damned fools, to listen to such talk. But I am not going to signal to the Ville de Paris nor to any other king’s ship. Why not? Because the Polychrest is going into action this very night, that’s why. I am not going to have it said in the fleet that any Polychrest is afraid of hard knocks.’

Quick’s the word and sharp’s the action.

‘Now, Polychrests,’ he said, ‘now we are going to crack on until she groans again. Stuns’ls aloft and alow, royals, and, damn me, royal stuns’ls and skys’ls if she’ll bear ’em. The sooner we’re there, the sooner we’re home. Topmen, upperyardmen, are you ready?’ ‘Ready, aye ready, sir.’ A comfortable, good body of sound – relief, thankfulness? ‘Then at the word, up you go. Lay aloft!’

He went below, Bonden holding him by the arm, confirmed the carpenter’s desperate report, gave orders for the wounded to be moved into the corvette, the prisoners to be secured, his papers brought, and sat there as the three vessels rocked on the gentle swell of slack water, watching the tired men carry their shipmates, their belongings, all the necessaries out of the Polychrest. ‘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.’

‘I wish we could have worked the hearse,’ muttered Jack. ‘Stuff. Your own father would not recognize you in that bandage and in this dirty-yellow come-kiss-me-death exsanguine state: though indeed you look fitter for a hearse than many a subject I have cut up. Come, come, there is not a moment to lose. Get in. Mind the step. 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.’ ‘Clap to the door. Give way, now; give way all together. Step out! Lay aloft! Tally! And belay!’

‘Perhaps you would like to come into the cabin,’ said Jack, taking Stephen’s elbow in an iron grip. ‘Your things will be brought aboard directly, never trouble yourself’ – Stephen cast a look into the boat and seemed about to break away. ‘I shall see to it myself at once, sir,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘Oh, Mr Simmons,’ cried Stephen, ‘pray bid them be very tender of my bees.’ ‘Certainly, sir,’ said the first lieutenant, with a civil inclination of his head.

BREAKFAST WAS SOMETHING of a disappointment. Captain Hamond had always drunk cocoa, originally to encourage the crew to do the same and then because he liked it, whereas Jack and Stephen were neither of them human until the first pot of coffee was down, hot and strong. ‘Killick,’ said Jack, ‘toss this hog’s wash over the side and bring coffee at once.’ ‘Ax pardon, sir,’ said Killick, seriously alarmed. ‘I forgot the beans, and the cook’s got none.’ ‘Then jump to the purser’s steward, the gun-room cook, the sick-bay, anywhere, and get some, or your name will not be Preserved much longer, I can tell you. Cut along. God-damned lubber, to forget our coffee,’ he said to Stephen, with warm indignation.

almighty,’ said Killick. ‘Stephen, I am going to take a turn,’ said Jack, withdrawing from the table in a sly undulatory motion and darting through the door with hunched shoulders. ‘Why they call this a crack frigate,’ he said, swilling down a glass of water in his sleeping-cabin, ‘I cannot for the life of me imagine: not a drop of coffee among two hundred and sixty men.’