HMS Surprise (Aubrey & Maturin, #3)

by Patrick O'Brian

He was blaming his particular friend for romantic notions the other day – the friend who is to marry the daughter of that woman we saw just now – and if I had not been so shocked by his condition, I should have been tempted to laugh. He is himself a perfect Quixote: an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution until ’93; a United Irishman until the rising, Lord Edward’s adviser – his cousin, by the way – ’ ‘Is he a Fitzgerald?’ ‘The wrong side of the blanket. And now Catalan independence. Or perhaps I should say, Catalan independence from the beginning, simultaneously with the others. But always heart and soul, blood and purse in some cause from which he can derive no conceivable personal benefit.’ ‘Is he romantic in the common sense?’ ‘No. So chaste indeed that at one time we were uneasy: Old Subtlety was particularly disturbed. There was one liaison, however, and that set our minds at rest. A young woman of very good family: it ended unhappy, of course.’

Mend your pace, Sophie. Come come. You would never grow fat as a scrivener. Cannot you spell hyperbole? Is it done at last, for all love? Show.’ ‘Never,’ cried Sophie, folding it up. ‘I believe you have put in more than ever I said,’ said Stephen, narrowing his eyes. ‘You blush extremely. Have you at least the rendezvous just so?’ ‘Wolmer Cross at four in the morning of the third. Stephen, I shall be there. I shall get out of my window and over the garden wall: you must take me up at the corner.’ ‘Very well. But why will you not walk out at the front door like a Christian? And how are you going to get back? You will be hopelessly compromised if you are seen stalking about Bath at dawn.’ ‘So much the better,’ said Sophie. ‘Then I shall have no reputation left whatsoever, and shall have to be married as soon as possible – why did I not think of that before? Oh Stephen, you have beautiful ideas.’

Stephen said, ‘Captain Aubrey, your butt-ends and your hanging knees cannot be attempted to be rectified, as I understand you, until you have her docked, three thousand miles away; so may I beg you to clap a stopper over all and to accept the inevitable with a decent appearance of unconcern? If we fall apart, why, we fall apart, and there is the end to it. For my part, I have every confidence of reaching Bombay.’ ‘What I know, and what you don’t know,’ cried Jack, ‘is that I have not so much as a single ten-inch spike left aboard.’ ‘God set a flower upon you, my dear, with your ten-inch spike,’ said Stephen. ‘Of course I know it: you have mentioned them daily these last two hundred leagues, together with your hanging-ends and double-sister-blocks; and nightly too, prattling in your sleep. Bow, bow to predestination or at least confine yourself to silent prayer.’

On and on she sailed, in warmer seas but void, as though they alone had survived Deucalion’s flood; as though all land had vanished from the earth; and once again the ship’s routine dislocated time and temporal reality so that this progress was an endless dream, even a circular dream, contained within an unbroken horizon and punctuated only by the sound of guns thundering daily in preparation for an enemy whose real existence it was impossible to conceive.

At times, whatever he might say, he was surely lost in a cloud of unknowing; but at least it was a peaceful cloud at present and sailing through a milky sea towards a possible though unlikely ecstasy at an indefinite remove was, if not the fulness of life, then something like its shadow.

Stephen said, ‘Have you ever contemplated upon sex, my dear?’ ‘Never,’ said Jack. ‘Sex has never entered my mind, at any time.’

signals broke out aboard the Lushington: the one to the Surprise, Request honour of captain’s and officers’ company to dinner, the other to the convoy, All ships: pretty young female passengers required dine frigate’s officers. Repeat young. Repeat pretty.

‘Pipe the hands to breakfast’ he said. ‘And Mr Church, be so good as to let Killick know that if my coffee is not on deck in fifteen seconds he will be crucified at noon.

Virtue: he turned it over, vaguely watching a horseman winding through the trees. He had attacked her ‘virtue’ as hard as ever he could; so where did he stand? The common cant it is different for men was no comfort.

Deep in the throbbing cavity Jack caught a glimpse of a leaden gleam; it clouded; and there, half-focused, was the long-nosed instrument searching, deeper and deeper. He closed his eyes.

He looked up and saw Stephen: his face was now perfectly grey, glistening with sweat; it was barely human, but somewhere about it there was a look of surly triumph. Jack’s eye moved down to Stephen’s chest, ploughed open from side to side, deep, deep; and white bone bare . . . Then M’Alister’s back hid the wound as he set to work – a competent back, expressing ease and a share in the triumph. Competent activity, short technical remarks; and there was Stephen, his chest swatched in a white bandage, sponged, relaxed, leaning back with his eyes half-closed. ‘You took the time, M’Alister?’ he asked. ‘Twenty-three minutes just.’ ‘Slow . . .’ His voice trailed away, reviving after a moment to say, ‘Jack, you will be late for your dinner.’

‘Christ, Bonden,’ said Jack, ‘he opened himself slowly, with his own hands, right to the heart. I saw it beating there.’ ‘Ah, sir, there’s surgery for you,’ said Bonden, passing the glass. ‘It would not surprise any old Sophie, however; such a learned article. You remember the gunner, sir? Never let it put you off your dinner. He will be as right as a trivet, never you fret, sir.’