The Nutmeg of Consolation (3 page)

When Macmillan came back with all these things Stephen said to him, 'There will of course be no true physical effect for some time; and in the meanwhile it is possible that I shall grow light-headed. I am aware of a rapid increase in the fever and already there is a slight inclination to wandering fancies, disconnected thoughts, hallucination - the first hint of delirium. Be so good as to pass me three coca leaves from the box in my breeches pocket and sit as comfortably as you can on the folded sail.' Having chewed the leaves for some time he went on, 'One of the miseries of medical life is that on the one hand you know what shocking things can happen to the human body and on the other you know how very little we can really do about most of them. You are therefore denied the comfort of faith. Many and many a time have we seen patients in real distress declare themselves much relieved after a draught of some nauseous but wholly neutral liquid or a sugared pill of common flour. This cannot, or should not, happen with us.'

Each retired into his memory, recalling cases where in fact it had happened; sometimes, perhaps, in his own person; and presently Stephen said 'But I will tell you another misery that is not to be denied. In the common, natural course of events physicians, surgeons and apothecaries are faced with enormous demands for sympathy: they may come into immediate contact with half a dozen deeply distressing cases in a single day. Those who are not saints are in danger of running out of funds and becoming bankrupt; a state which deprives them of a great deal of their humanity. If the man is in private practice he is obliged to utter more or less appropriate words to preserve his connexion, his living; and the mere adoption of a compassionate face as you have no doubt observed goes some little way towards producing at least the ghost of pity. But our patients cannot leave us. They have no alternative. We are not required to put on a conciliating expression, for our inhumanity in no way affects our livelihood. We have a monopoly; and I believe that many of us pay a very ugly price for it in the long run. You must already have met a number of callous idle self-important self-indulgent hard-hearted pragmatic brutes wherever the patients have no free choice: and if you remain in the Navy you will meet a great many more.'

Monopoly had not yet turned Macmillan into a pragmatic brute, however. He and Ahmed sat all that stifling humid night at Stephen's side, fanning him, giving him water from the cool depths of the well and rocking his hammock with an even motion: before sunrise the promised east wind began to steal in across the sea, bringing coolness with it, and they had the satisfaction of seeing him lapse into a quiet, untroubled sleep.

'I believe, sir, he may do very well,' said Macmillan, when Jack beckoned him out of the tent. 'The fever fell as suddenly as it rose, with a profuse laudable sudation; and if he lie quiet today, taking a little broth from time to time, he may get up tomorrow.'

Stephen was mistaken in supposing that quietness was not to be had in a camp full of sailors: while stars were still in the sky they tiptoed off in a silent body, carrying their meagre breakfast to eat at the slip, leaving only a few men whose work made almost no noise at all - the rope-making party with their junk, yarns and wheel; the gunner, ready to spread his powder as soon as the sun should give him some hope of drying it; the sailmaker, who had reached the schooner's jibs; and Killick, who intended to overhaul the Doctor's wardrobe (Ahmed was no hand with a needle), and, glorious task, to polish the entirety of the Captain's silver.

It was into a strange unnatural stillness therefore that Stephen stepped out of the tent a little before noon. Macmillan had gone to the galley to see about broth in due course; Ahmed had left much earlier in search of fresh young coconuts; and Stephen, feeling quite well though absurdly weak, had to go to the necessary house.

'I hope I see you well, sir,' said the gunner in a hoarse whisper.

'Very much better, I thank you, Mr White,' said Stephen. 'And you should be happy with this fine dry breeze.'

In a somewhat grudging tone the gunner said that in a couple of days he might be able to barrel it up, and then louder and with much more conviction 'But you never ought to of got up - walking about in your nightshirt with an east wind blowing-if you had given me a hail I should have made that idle lobcock Killick bring a utensil.'

The gunner, like Dr Maturin himself, was a warrant-officer, and although he was not of wardroom rank he was entitled to express his opinion. The rope-makers were not, but Stephen met with so many disapproving looks and shaken heads as he went down and then up the rope-walk that he was quite glad to be back in the tent. Macmillan brought him a bowl of babirussa soup thickened with pounded biscuit (turtle being thought too rich), congratulated him on his recovery, pointed out, with a shade of reproach, that there was a close-stool in the far corner, and said that as Ahmed was sure to be back any minute - he was only going to the west point - while Killick was now within earshot, he meant to take a little sleep; and with deference he suggested that the Doctor should do the same.

This the Doctor did, in spite of a distant roar of merriment down by the slip at noon, where the babirussa turned on its spit before a noble drift-wood fire; and he did not wake until he heard first Malayan voices that he did not recognize and then Killick's saying 'Ha, ha, mate. Tell 'em there's plenty more in the other chest. I could have spread out twice as much if I had more room.'

Ahmed translated this, adding that Captain Aubrey was very enormously rich, very enormously important, a kind of raja in his own country; and then, answering a curiously high-pitched voice - a eunuch's? a boy's? - he explained what the gunner was doing with the powder, and why. There were several other voices, English and muted, for although Ahmed had repeatedly been told 'He is much better, mate: walked to the head like a fairy' he had as often been told 'But he is asleep now, so you want to talk low.'

The high-pitched voice, however, felt no need at all to talk low. It questioned Ahmed closely, insistently about the gunpowder - was that all? - was it ready? - when would it be ready? - would it be good? Eventually Stephen slipped out of his hammock, put on his shirt and breeches, and walked out. The high-pitched voice at once fell into the natural pattern of things: it belonged to a slim young woman - well, youngish -whom he took to be a Dyak from her handsome, animated face and her fine complexion. She wore a long tight skirt that gave her the swaying willowy gait of a Chinese woman with bound feet and a little jacket that did not conceal her bosom, nor was it intended to conceal her bosom. To the sailors' delight it often fluttered open in the capricious, strengthening breeze. She had an ivory-hilted krees thrust into her waistband and her second incisors (not the middle ones) were filed to a point, so that she appeared to have two pairs of dog-teeth: perhaps, reflected Stephen, it was this that made her expression so remarkably vicious. It did not deter the seamen and the few Marines remaining in the camp, however. They gathered about her, gazing like a herd of moon-calves; and the gunner, though he did not quite abandon his heap, now so powdery as to be almost ready, was particularly eager to satisfy her curiosity.

Stephen greeted the newcomers, and the young woman and her grey-headed companion replied with all the formal civility usual among those who speak Malay, but in an accent and with some variations he had never heard before. Ahmed stepped forward with his explanation: when he reached the west point in his vain search for coconuts he found them landing from a small proa with five companions; they asked him what he was about and when he explained the situation they gave him these coconuts - pointing to a little net. The tide was on the ebb, and together with the current it made such a rip that the proa could not have come up the coast even with the most favourable breeze, so he had brought these two by the middle path. 'How did she walk, in that skirt?' asked Stephen in English - a quick aside. 'She took it off,' said Ahmed, blushing.

'I admire your krees,' said Stephen to her. 'Never was a hilt made for so small and delicate a hand.'

'Give me your honoured forearm,' said the young woman, with her startling smile, and drawing her krees, a straight-bladed damascened krees, she shaved a stretch as bare and smooth as any barber could have done.

'Tell her to do me,' cried the gunner, starting forward; and as he left the sailcloth so the east wind took it, enveloping his mate and scattering the powder far to leeward, an impalpable, irrecoverable cloud of dust. 'Look what you've made me do, Tom Evans, you infernal lobcock,' roared Mr White.

'Ahmed,' said Stephen, 'coffee in the tent, if you please. Silver pot, four cups, and a cushion for the young lady. Preserved Killick, run down as fast as ever you can and tell the Captain with my compliments that there are two sea-Dyaks here.'

'And leave my silver? And with my poor leg?' cried Killick, sweeping his arm round the improbable array all blazing in the sun. 'Oh sir, let young Achilles go. He can run faster than any man in the fleet.'

'Very well. Pray cut along, Achilles; you will never forget my compliments, sure.' And as Achilles leapt the breastwork and bared down the slope he continued 'Do not you trust your shipmates, Killick?'

'No, sir,' said Killick. 'Nor these strangers. I do not like to say anything against a lady, but when they first came they called out "Hey there" in their own language and looked very wishful - God love us, how they stared at the soup tureens!'

They looked wishful still as they walked past the display, but having exchanged a couple of words in a language that was not Malay they averted their eyes and passed on into the tent.

The grey-haired man was obviously the woman's inferior; he sat on the ground at a distance, and although what he said was urbane enough, in the Malayan way, it was nothing like so urbane nor nearly as copious as her conversation, a steady, lively flow, not of anything so coarse as direct enquiry but of remarks that would have elicited information if Stephen had chosen to give it. He did not choose, of course: after so long

a course of discretion his mind would scarcely agree to give the exact time without an effort. But obvious unwillingness to speak was quite as indiscreet as blabbing, and he now replied with what she must already know - replied at such length that he was still prosing away about the advantages and disadvantages of a warm climate when Jack came in, redder in the face than usual, having pounded up the hill in Achilles' wake.

Stephen made the introductions with all proper formality: Killick furtively covered the close-stool with a blue peter, upon which Jack Aubrey sat; the coffee appeared; and Stephen said. 'The Captain does not understand Malay, so you will forgive me if I speak to him in English.'

'Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to hear the English language,' said the young woman. 'I am told it is very like that of birds.'

Stephen bowed and said 'Jack, first may I beg you not to gaze upon the young woman with such evident lubricity; it is not only uncivil but it puts you at a moral disadvantage. Secondly shall I ask these people will they carry a message to Batavia for a fee? And if so, what shall the message be?'

'It was a look of respectful admiration: and who is calling the kettle black, anyway? But I will turn my eyes elsewhere, in case it should be misunderstood.' Jack drank coffee to give himself a countenance and then went on, 'Yes, do please ask whether they will go to Batavia for us. With this leading wind set in so steady it should not take them above a couple of days. As for what the message should be, let me think while you settle the first essential point.'

Stephen raised the question and he listened attentively to the long, well-considered temporizing reply, reflecting as he did so that here was a more spirited, articulate mind than any he had met in Pulo Prabang, except when he was talking to Wan Da, whose mother was a Dyak. When she had finished he turned to Jack and said 'In short, everything depends on the fee. Her uncle, a man of the first consequence in Pontianak and the skipper of the proa, particularly wished to be home for the Skull Festival; it would be a great sacrifice for him, for the rest of the crew, and for the lady herself, to give up the Skull Festival; and even with this prosperous wind it must take two days to reach Batavia.

The discussion resumed, with considerations on regular feasts in various parts of the world and on the Skull Festival in particular; it approached the area of compensations and of hypothetical sums and means of payment; and while coffee was being poured out again Stephen said 'Jack, I believe we shall come to an understanding presently, and perhaps it might save time if you were to prepare a list of things you would like Mr Raffles to send; for I presume you do not mean to abandon the schooner, and she almost ready to swim.'

'God forbid,' said Jack, 'that would be flying in the face of Providence, indeed. No: I shall just jot down a few essentials that he can send in the first fishing-boat that comes to hand, no hanging about for Indiamen or anything of that kind.' He began 2 cwt of tobacco: 20 gallons of rum (or arrack if rum is not to be had)... and he had reached soc 12 lb and 509 lb roundshot; 2 half-barrels of red large-grain and one of red fine-grain when Stephen said to him 'We are agreed on a fee of twenty johannes.'

'Twenty joes?' cried Jack.

'It is a great deal, sure; but it is the smallest of Shao Yen's notes that I possess, and I do not wish to lead the young woman into temptation...' He saw a smile forming and a premonitory gleam in Captain Aubrey's eye and he said 'Jack, at this stage I implore you not to be witty: the lady is as fine as amber, has a very penetrating mind, and must not be offended. I do not wish to lead her into temptation, I say, by giving her coin, which Satan might urge her to run away with. These johannes she can receive only when she has given Shao Yen your note and his own countersigned by me: she is perfectly acquainted with his seal. So if your list is ready pray let me have it and we will put up the two together. Furthermore, the lady, whose name is Kesegaran - no remarks, Jack, if you please: a modest downward look, no more - states that she would be very happy to see the schooner. And since the wind, adverse for her uncle's proa, is favourable for our boat, we might gain an hour or two by wafting her down to the southern point. Besides, civility requires no less.'