The Nutmeg of Consolation (8 page)

'Not at all, at all,' said Stephen. 'There is a naevus on his shank that we might do well to cauterize against future trouble. Did you remark it?'

'Aye, that I did. My wife had the very same, but abune the knee.'

They were in the relative privacy of the space that served both as captain's store-room and as dispensary, and Stephen, who had a real esteem and even affection for his assistant, felt required to say 'I was not aware you were a married man, Mr Macmillan.'

For some while Macmillan did not reply, being occupied with putting their pills, plaster, draughts and bandages away with his usual obsessive neatness, but when he did speak it was as though he had already made a comprehensive answer, his present words being a continuation. 'I had thocht a wife was a pairson a mon could tell his dreams to; but then one day she flung the collops in my face straight from the skillet, cried "The Hell with your faukit dreamings," whipped out of the door and locked it fast behind her.' He closed the medicine chest, making the same movement with the key, and said 'I never saw her more.' They lived at the very top of a lofty house in Canongate, he added in parenthesis before going on in a different voice 'But I never was a good husband to a canty young woman like her. Even as a boy I had dreams of tall candles bending over in the sun, right down to touch the shelf; and when I was a man it was much the same - I would be there pointing a pistol with a certain triumph, you understand; and the barrel would droop, droop.'

Some decks away, some holds away, Stephen heard the drum beat Roast Beef of Old England for the officers' dinner. 'You must forgive me, Mr Macmillan,' he said. 'The Captain is so particular about punctuality.'

The Roast Beef that day consisted of the remains of the babirussa, some cooked in the English, some in the Chinese way, a variety of little Javanese dishes and then the best bird's-nest soup that any man much under the rank of emperor was ever likely to see before him.

'I think, gentlemen,' said the Captain, two minutes after they had drunk the King's health, 'that we are coming up into the wind. Doctor, would you let your Ahmed jump up on deck and see what is afoot?'

Ahmed came back in a moment, and bowing he said in a conciliatory, deprecating tone 'that they were stopping, loosening the sails to let a pirate come up, a pirate twice the size of the junk: Li Po had told him that flight was neither possible nor desirable - nothing more fatal.'

'This is out of the frying-pan into the fire,' said Edwards to Stephen as they stood on coils of rope immediately behind Jack and his officers, gazing at the uncommonly large war-proa immediately to windward and the canoe that was paddling towards them.

'If you please, sir,' said Reade in a low voice, 'may I share your coil?'

'Of course you may, Mr Reade,' said Stephen. 'Take my hand; and for God's sake take care of your stump against the wooden thing here. To see so perfect a union damaged would break my heart.' And returning to the secretary he went on,

'A very striking figure, Mr Edwards; but not, if you will forgive me, quite accurate: gridiron would be nearer the mark, since Malays always grill their Christian prisoners. Those, that is to say, whom they do not crucify. You may read of this at length in the P� du Halde.'

'I should not feel nearly so strong an inclination to apostasize if it were not for this treaty,' said Edwards.

The canoe came alongside: its chief and two lieutenants were handed in at the junk's version of an entering-port, where Li Po and his mates received them with deep, reverential bows. At Li Po's first words the chief stared about with astonishment at the English seamen, the Marines (now in old shirts and trousers), the officers, and finally Stephen. At this his face changed to candid delight and he hurried over, his hand held out in the European fashion. 'Wan Da, my dear, how do you do?' asked Stephen. 'You recognize Captain Aubrey, I am sure, and his valuable officers? And Mr Edwards, who bears the precious treaty?'

Certainly he did, and would be delighted to drink coffee in his own vessel with Dr Maturin and the Captain as soon as his lieutenants had done their business. This consisted of taking a hundred and twenty-five silver dollars and three baskets of bird's-nests by way of toll; and since Li Po had been telling out the coins with a morose deliberation ever since that well-known proa had been seen, picking the lightest and most dubious in his store, the transaction did not take long. Yet even in that short time Stephen had heard enough of Wan Da's description of the French frigate Corn�e, now ready for sea in Pulo Prabang, and her frantic attempts at obtaining a minimum of stores for the voyage, to refuse the invitation on Jack's behalf - 'Listen, brother,' said he in an aside, 'we are asked across to the other ship; but it will only mean your listening to an immense amount of talk or making it longer still by translation: I will tell you the gist when I come back' - and to go across alone.

'Yes,' said Wan Da, leading Stephen to a range of cushions, 'she herself is ready for sea; she lies in the fairway; and all the most experienced navigators have advised them, given the season of the year, to sail by the Salibabu Passage. So they will, they swear, if only they can lay in supplies enough to take them there. And indeed they are doing fairly well. They have no money or credit of course, but they have traded six nine-pounders, with a quantity of roundshot and grape, 27 muskets, two cables, one bower anchor and a kedge, for food, mostly sago. How sick of sago they will become, long before the Salibabu Passage, ha, ha, ha!'

'Do you really believe that an armed and desperate ship will confine itself to sago, Wan Da?'

'Not if it can possibly meet a weaker ship in some far corner of the sea. A tiger must be served. But then as I was telling you aboard the junk, there is the question of powder. Their gunner was a careless man, and even when they first came many barrels had been spoilt: then there was the immeasurable rain in the typhoon - your typhoon: it really grieved my heart to hear your news,' said Wan Da, laying his hand on Stephen's knee. 'And all they had ashore was flooded. Now the French envoy, the captain and all the officers have given up their rings, their watches and ornaments, what table silver they have, their silver fittings - shoe-buckles, locks and hinges - to make up a sum to buy as many barrels or even half-barrels as the Sultan will let them have.'

'It is of course a royal monopoly?'

'Oh yes. Except for the Chinese and their fireworks. What quantities the French may privately have had from them, I cannot tell. Not much, I should think, and that little of no great force.'

'What is the Sultan's view?'

He is indifferent. Now that Hafsa is so great with child, she has brought him a new concubine from Bali, an enchanting long-legged creature like a boy, said to be remarkably perverse.' Wan Da reflected for some moments, with an inward smile, and went on, 'He is quite besotted, and he leaves everything to the vizier.'

Stephen knew Wan Da intimately. They had hunted together and Wan Da had acted as the intermediary in Stephen's purchasing the Council's good-will by means of draughts on Shao Yen. After some thought he brought out yet another of these papers with the Chinese banker's well-known red seal and said 'Wan Da, pray do me the very great kindness of seeing whether this will persuade the Vizier to set his face against powder for the French. Point out to him that they may use it to bombard Prabang in revenge for having been given no treaty: they might confiscate the English subsidy, strip the royal treasury, violate the concubines. You owe the French nothing. You have protected them according to your word. What happens to them far away, in the remote Salibabu Passage for example, is no concern of yours. In any event as you know very well whatever is to happen has already been decided: what is written is written.'

'Very true,' said Wan Da. 'What is written is certainly written: it would be folly to deny it.' But he did not seem wholly decided or convinced and when he turned to the coffee-pot once more he did so with a constrained, embarrassed smile.

'Do you remember Mr Fox's rifled gun, the one he called the Manton?' asked Stephen after another cup or so and some words about the honey-bear.

Wan Da's expression changed to one of the most pleasurable recollection, retrospective joy, appreciation. 'The one with the swan's head on the lock?'

Stephen nodded and said 'It is now mine. Would you do me the honour of accepting it as a keepsake? I will give it to your boat's crew when they take me back; for now, dear Wan Da, I am obliged to leave you.'

'Your Excellency,' said a secretary, 'one of the big local junks has come in, loaded to the gunwales with distressed British seamen.'

'From one of the Company's ships?'

'Oh no, sir: they are mostly white or whitish as far as one can see through the dirt. Jackson looked at them through his telescope, and he thought they belonged to the Mauritius privateer that put in last month.'

'Well, damn them all. Do the necessary, Mr Warner: the cavalry barracks is reasonably healthy; and you can indent upon Major Bentinck.'

The Governor returned to his orchid, an epiphyte poised high on a stand, so that its spray of about fifty white flowers -white of a singular purity with golden centres - hung down to his drawing-board, almost touching the particular clock by which he timed his moments of leisure. He was too deeply concerned with exact structure to be a fast worker and he had only added nineteen before the secretary returned and said 'I do beg your pardon, Excellency, but there is a fellow from the junk who insists on seeing you - has papers he will give only into your hands. He says he is a medical man, but he has no wig, and he has not shaved for a week.'

'Is his name Maturin?'

'I am ashamed to say I did not catch it, sir: he was in quite a passion by the time I reached the hall. A small slight pale ill-looking man.'

'Desire him to walk in, and cancel my engagements with the Dato Selim and Mr Pierson.' He put his drawing-board, watercolours and orchid carefully to one side and pressed the well-worn knob on his clock; as the door opened he hurried forward crying 'My dear Maturin, how very happy I am to see you! We had given you up for lost. I trust you are well?'

'Perfectly well, I thank you, Governor; only a little ruffled,' said Stephen, whose face was indeed somewhat less sallow than usual. 'The sergeant offered me fourpence to go away.'

'I am so sorry: almost all the people have been changed. But do please sit down. Drink some orangeado - here is an ice-cold jug - and tell me what has happened all this time.'

'Fox successfully negotiated his treaty. The Diane then sailed to keep a rendezvous off the False Natunas. The other ship did not appear and at the end of the stipulated time Aubrey steered for Batavia. In the night the frigate struck on an uncharted reef at the height of a spring tide. The sea was reasonably placid, the stranding far from disastrous - in no way a wreck - but it proved impossible to get her off, in spite of the most extreme exertions, and we had to resign ourselves to waiting for the next very high water at the change of the moon. Mr Fox thought it his duty to lose no time and he sailed for Batavia together with his suite in the stoutest of the ship's boats, carrying the treaty. He was overtaken by the typhoon that destroyed the Diane on her reef, and I fear he must necessarily have been lost. You have had no word?'

'No word at all; nor could there be any word, I am afraid. That typhoon was horribly destructive: two Indiamen were dismasted and many, many country ships foundered. There was no conceivable hope for an open boat.'

After a pause Maturin said 'He left an authenticated duplicate with his secretary, Mr Edwards, as a formal precaution. I have it here' - holding up a folder. 'It was of course Edwards's office and privilege to bring it to you, but the poor young man is prostrated with dysentery and he begged me to take it, with his duty and respectful compliments, in order that no time should be lost.'

'Very proper in him.' Raffles took the envelope from the folder. 'You will forgive me?'

'Of course.'

'No envoy ever obtained better terms,' said Raffles at last. 'They might have been dictated by the Ministry.' His satisfaction was not quite whole-hearted however and having looked questioningly at Stephen he went on, 'But there is an accompanying letter.'

'There is, I am afraid,' said Stephen. 'I read it to see whether my part in the transaction was given away - revealed - I will not say betrayed. A certain strangeness had led me to suppose that this might possibly be the case.'

'That at least he did not do,' said Raffles. 'But it is a shockingly discreditable piece of invective. Poor Fox. I have seen this coming for some years: but to such a degree... You may not think so, Maturin, but as a young man he was excellent company. Terribly discreditable,' he said again, looking at the neat, deliberate writing with distress.

'So discreditable that I was tempted to suppress it.'

'Does Mr Edwards know the contents of the letter?'

'He does not, poor young man. Indeed, he builds all his hopes on delivering the treaty and whatever goes with it in Whitehall.'

'I see. I see. You can absolutely assert that, Maturin?'

'I can, too.'

'It would blast Fox's reputation if it were made public. All his friends would regret it extremely... Olivia, my dear,' he cried as his wife passed the french window, wearing gardening-gloves, 'here is Dr Maturin back from his travels, and most of his companions with him.'

'I beg your pardon most humbly, ma'am, for appearing in this state, in pantaloons, unpowdered hair and what might almost be taken for a beard,' said Stephen. 'Captain Aubrey declared that I should not go, that I should bring disgrace on the service; but I evaded him. He himself will not set foot on shore nor will any of his men until they are fit for an admiral's inspection. For you are to understand, ma'am, that we travelled in an unwashed junk ordinarily employed in carrying ore, a potent source of filth, and our garments were stowed in a bewildering multiplicity of compartments; so it will be an hour or so before he can do himself the honour of waiting on you. In the meantime, however, he desires his best compliments.'