Master & Commander (47 page)

   'That is a nice point,' said Mr Florey, carving a first slice and carrying it to the griffon vulture tied by the leg in a corner of the room. 'That is a nice point, but I rather incline to believe that the battering did her business before the water. These amiable weaknesses, follies . . . Yes. Your friend's advancement.' Mr Florey paused, gazing at the long straight double-edged catling and waving it solemnly over the joint. 'If you provide a man with horns, he may gore you,' he observed with a detached air, covertly watching to see what effect his remark might have.

   'Very true,' said Stephen, tossing the vulture a piece of gristle. 'In general
fenum habent in cornu
. But surely,' he said, smiling at Mr Florey, 'you are not throwing out a generality about cuckolds? Do not you choose to be more specific? Or do you perhaps refer to the young person under the sheet? I know you speak from your excellent heart, and I assure you no degree of frankness can possibly offend.'

   'Well,' said Mr Florey, 'the point is, that your young friend—our young friend, I may say, for I have a real regard for him, and look upon this action as reflecting great credit upon the service, upon us all—our young friend has been very indiscreet: so has the lady. You follow me, I believe?'

   'Oh, certainly.'

   'The husband resents it, and he is in such a position that he may be able to indulge his resentment, unless our friend is very careful—most uncommon cautious. The husband will not ask for a meeting, for that is not his style at all—a pitiful fellow. But he may try to entrap him into some act of disobedience and so bring him to a court-martial. Our friend is famous for his dash, his enterprise and his good luck rather than for his strict sense of subordination: and some few of the senior captains here feel a good deal of jealousy and uneasiness at his success. What is more, he is a Tory, or his family is; and the husband and the present First Lord are rabid Whigs, vile ranting dogs of Whigs. Do you follow me, Dr Maturin?'

   'I do indeed, sir, and am much obliged to you for your candour in telling me this: it confirms what was in my mind, and I shall do all I can to make him conscious of the delicacy of his position. Though upon my word,' he added with a sigh, 'there are times when it seems to me that nothing short of a radical ablation of the membrum virile would answer, in this case.'

   'That is very generally the peccant part,' said Mr Florey.

Clerk David Richards was also having his dinner; but he was eating it in the bosom of his family. 'As everyone knows,' he told the respectful throng, 'the captain's clerk's position is the most dangerous there is in a man-of-war: he is up there all the time on the quarter-deck with his slate and his watch, to take remarks, next to the captain, and all the small-arms and a good many of the great guns concentrate their fire upon him Still, there he must stay, supporting the captain with his countenance and his advice.'

   'Oh, Davy,' cried his aunt, 'and did he ask your advice?'

   'Did he ask my advice, ma'am? Ha, ha, upon my sacred word.'

   'Don't swear, Davy dear,' said his aunt automatically. 'It ain't genteel.'

   ' "La, Mr Richards bach," says he, when the maintop begins to tumble about our ears, tearing down through the quarter-deck splinter-netting like so much Berlin wool, "I don't know what to do. I am quite at a loss, I protest." "There's only one thing for it, sir," says I. "Board 'em. Board 'em fore and aft, and I give you my sacred word the frigate's ours in five minutes." Well, ma'am and cousins, I do not like to boast, and I confess it took us ten minutes; but it was worth it, for it won us as pretty a copper-fastened, new-sheathed xebec frigate as any I have seen. And when I came aft, having dirked the Spanish captain's clerk, Captain Aubrey shook me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes, "Richards," says he, "we ought all to be very grateful to you,"says he. "Sir, you are very good," says I, "but I have done nothing but what any taut captain's clerk would do." "Well," says he, " 'tis very well." ' He took a draught of porter and went on, 'I very nearly said to him, "I tell you what, Goldilocks"—for we call him Goldilocks in the service, you know, in much the same way as they call me Hellfire Davy, or Thundering Richards—"just you rate me midshipman aboard the Cacafuego when she's bought by Government, and we'll cry quits." Perhaps I may, tomorrow; for I feel I have the genius of command. She ought to fetch twelve pound ten, thirteen pound a ton, don't you think, sir?' he said to his uncle. 'We did not cut up her hull a great deal.'

   'Yes,' said Mr Williams slowly. 'If she was bought in by Government she would fetch that and her stores as much again: Captain A would clear a neat five thou' apart from the head-money; and your share would be, let's see, two hundred and sixty-three, fourteen, two.
If
she was bought by Government.'

   'What do you mean, Nunckie, with your
if?
'

   'Why, I mean that a
certain person
does the Admiralty buying; and a
certain person
has a lady that is not over-shy; and a
certain person
may cut up horrid rough. O Goldilocks, Goldilocks, wherefore are thou Goldilocks?' asked Mr Williams, to the unspeakable amazement of his nieces. 'If he had attended to business instead of playing Yardo, the parish bull, he . . .'

   'It was she as set her bonnet at him!' cried Mrs Williams, who had never yet let her husband finish a sentence since his 'I will' at Trinity Church, Plymouth Dock, in 1782.

   'O the minx!' cried her unmarried sister; and the nieces' eyes swung towards her, wider still.

   'The hussy,' cried Mrs Thomas. 'My Paquita's cousin was the driver of the shay she came down to the quay in; and you would never credit . . .'

   'She should be flogged through the town at the cart's tail, and don't I wish I had the whip.'

   'Come, my dear . . .'

   'I know what you are thinking, Mr W.,' cried his wife, 'and you are to stop it this minute. The nasty cat; the wretch.'

The wretch's reputation had indeed suffered, had been much blown upon in recent months, and the Governor's wife received her as coldly as she dared; but Molly Harte's looks had improved almost out of recognition—she had been a fine woman before, and now she was positively beautiful. She and Lady Warren arrived together for the concert, and a small troop of soldiers and sailors had waited outside to meet their carriage: now they were crowding about her, snorting and bristling with aggressive competition, while their wives, sisters and, even, sweethearts sat in dowdy greyish heaps at a distance, mute, and looking with pursed lips at the scarlet dress almost hidden amidst the flocking uniforms.

   The men fell back when Jack appeared, and some of them returned to their womenfolk, who asked them whether they did not find Mrs Harte much aged, ill dressed, a perfect frump? Such a pity at her age, poor thing. She must be at least thirty, forty, forty-five. Lace mittens! They had no idea of wearing lace mittens. This strong light was unkind to her; and surely it was very outré to wear all those enormous great pearls?

   She
was
something of a whore, thought Jack, looking at her with great approval as she stood there with her head high, perfectly aware of what the women were saying, and defying them: she was something of a whore, but the knowledge spurred his appetite. She was only for the successful; but with the
Cacafuego
moored by the
Sophie
in Mahon harbour, Jack found that perfectly acceptable.

   After a few moments of inane conversation—a piece of dissembling which Jack thought he accomplished with particular brilliance, alas—they all surged in a shuffling mob into the music-room, Molly Harte to sit looking beautiful by her harp and the rest to arrange themselves on the little gilt chairs.

   'What are we to have?' asked a voice behind him, and turning Jack saw Stephen, powdered, respectable apart from having forgotten his shirt, and eager for the treat.

   'Some Boccherini—a 'cello piece—and the Haydn trio that we arranged. And Mrs Harte is going to play the harp. Come and sit by me.'

   'Well, I suppose I shall have to,' said Stephen, 'the room being so crowded. Yet I had hoped to enjoy this concert: it is the last we shall hear for some time.'

   'Nonsense,' said Jack, taking no notice. 'There is Mrs Brown's party.'

   'We shall be on our way to Malta by then. The orders are writing at this moment.'

   'The sloop is not nearly ready for sea,' said Jack. 'You must be mistaken.'

   Stephen shrugged. 'I have it from the secretary himself.'

   'The damned rogue . . .' cried Jack.

   'Hush,' said all the people round them; the first violin gave a nod, brought down his bow, and in a moment they were all dashing away, filling the room with a delightful complexity of sound, preparing for the 'cello's meditative song.

'Upon the whole,' said Stephen, 'Malta is a disappointing place. But at least I did find a very considerable quantity of squills by the sea-shore: these I have conserved in a woven basket.'

   'It is,' said Jack. 'Though God knows, apart from poor Pullings, I should not complain. They have fitted us out nobly, apart from the sweeps—nobody could have been more attentive than the Master Attendant—and they entertained us like emperors. Do you suppose one of your squills would be a good thing, in a general way, to set a man up? I feel as low as a gib cat—quite out of order.'

   Stephen looked at him attentively, took his pulse, gazed at his tongue, asked squalid questions, examined him. 'Is it a wound going bad?' asked Jack, alarmed by his gravity.

   'It is a wound, if you wish,' said Stephen. 'But not from our battle with the
Cacafuego
. Some lady of your acquaintance has been too liberal with her favours, too universally kind.'

   'Oh, Lord,' cried Jack, to whom this had never happened before.

   'Never mind,' said Stephen, touched by Jack's horror. 'We shall soon have you on your feet again: taken early, there is no great problem. It will do you no harm to keep close, drink nothing but demulcent barley-water and eat gruel, thin gruel—no beef or mutton, no wine or spirits. If what Marshall tells me about the westward passage at this time of the year is true, together with our stop at Palermo, you will certainly be in a state to ruin your health, prospects, reason, features and happiness again by the time we raise Cape Mola.'

   He left the cabin with what seemed to Jack an inhuman want of concern and went directly below, where he mixed a draught and a powder from the large stock that he (like all other naval surgeons) kept perpetually at hand. Under the thrust of the gregale, coming in gusts off Delamara Point, the
Sophie's
lee-lurch slopped out too much by half.

   'It is too much by half,' he observed, balancing like a seasoned mariner and pouring the surplus into a twentydrachm phial. 'But never mind. It will just do for young Babbington.' He corked it, set it on a—rail-locked rack, counted its fellows with their labelled necks and returned to the cabin. He knew very well that Jack would act on the ancient seafaring belief that
more is better
and dose himself into Kingdom Come if not closely watched, and he stood there reflecting upon the passage of authority from one to the other in relationships of this kind (or rather of potential authority, for they had never entered into any actual collision) as Jack gasped and retched over his nauseous dose. Ever since Stephen Maturin had grown rich with their first prize he had constantly laid in great quantities of asafetida, castoreum and other substances, to make his medicines more revolting in taste, smell and texture than any others in the fleet; and he found it answered—his hardy patients
knew
with their entire beings that they were being physicked.

   'The Captain's wounds are troubling him,' he said at dinner-time, 'and he will not be able to accept the gun-room's invitation tomorrow. I have confined him to his cabin and to slops.'

   'Was he very much cut up?' asked Mr Daiziel respectfully. Mr Daiziel was one of the disappointments of Malta: everybody aboard had hoped that Thomas Pullings would be confirmed lieutenant, but the admiral had sent down his own nominee, a cousin, Mr Daiziel of Auchterbothie and Sodds. He had softened it with a private note promising to 'keep Mr Pullings in mind and to make particular mention of him to the Admiralty', but there it was—Pullings remained a master's mate. He was not 'made'—the first spot on their victory. Mr Dalziel felt it, and he was particularly conciliatory; though, indeed, he had very little need to be, for Pullings was the most unassuming creature on earth, painfully diffident anywhere except on the enemy's deck.

   'Yes,' said Stephen, 'he was. Sword, pistol and pike' wounds; and probing the deepest I have found a piece of metal, a slug, that he had received at the Battle of the Nile.'

   'Enough to trouble any man,' said Mr Dalziel, who through no fault of his own had seen no bloodshed whatever and who suffered from the fact.

   'I speak under correction, Doctor,' said the master, 'but surely fretting will open wounds? And he must be fretting something cruel not to be on our cruising-ground, the season growing so late.'

   'Ay, to be sure,' said Stephen. And certainly Jack had reason to fret, like everybody else aboard: to be sent to Malta while they had a right to cruise in fine rich waters was very hard, in any case, and it was made all the worse by the persistent rumour of a galleon earmarked by fate and by Jack's private intelligence for the
Sophie
—a galleon, or even galleons, a parcel of galleons, that might at this very moment be creeping along the Spanish coast, and they five hundred miles away.

   They were extremely impatient to be back to their cruise, to the thirty-seven days that were owing to them, thirty-seven days of making hay; for although there were many aboard who possessed more guineas than they had ever owned shillings ashore, there was not one who did not ardently long for more. The general reckoning was that the ordinary seaman's share would be close on fifty pounds, and even those who had been blooded, thumped, scorched and battered in the action thought it good pay for a morning's work—more interesting by far than the uncertain shilling a day they might earn at the plough or the loom, by land, or even than the eight pounds a month that hard-pressed merchant captains were said to be offering.