The Commodore

by Patrick O'Brian

  Jack paused, absently cut Stephen another slice of pineapple, and passed it over. Stephen acknowledged it with a bob of his head but said nothing. It was very unusual for Jack to speak in this way: the flow was not to be interrupted. 'I hate using the ordinary coarse word about Duff, whom I like and who is a fine seaman, and whether he is a sodomite or not I do not give a damn. But as I tried to make him see, you have to check it aboard a man-of-war. A girl on board is a bad thing: half a dozen girls would be Bedlam. But if a man, a man-lover, is an unchecked sodomite, the whole ship's company is his prey. It will not do. I tried to make him see that, but I am not a very eloquent cove and I dare say I put it wrong, being so God-damned tactful, because all that worried him was that his manhood, his courage, his conduct as we say, should be impugned. So long as he was happy to attack, whatever the odds, all was well. It is very difficult. His officers want to arrest him, to bring him to a court-martial, he having angered them so with his favourites. They are said to have witnesses—damning evidence. If he is found guilty he must be hanged: that is the only sentence. It is very bad. Very bad for the service, very bad in every way. I have done what I can in shifting his officers—with the inshore fever and the casualties there have been several promotions—but his ship is still . . .' He shook his head. 'And as for the Purple Emperor, who is not on speaking terms with Duff, by the way, and scarcely with me, he has contrived to gather a set of officers very like himself: not a seaman among them, and even the master needs both watches to put the ship about in anything like a Christian manner. It is the usual West Indies discipline—spit and polish all day long, and flog the last man off the yard, all combined with fine uniforms, brutal ignorance of their profession, and a contempt for bo'sun captains. Such a band of incompetents as I have never seen gathered together in any one ship belonging to His Majesty.'

  Jack had remained silent for so long that Stephen ventured to say, 'Perhaps in the long haul northwards, with constant exercise and colder seas the two sick ships will regain a certain health.'

  'I hope so, indeed,' said Jack. 'But it would have to be a most uncommon long haul to bring them to anything like Nelson's standard, a complete change of heart in all hands. And with a man like the Purple Emperor there is no heart to change: no person left: only a set of pompous attitudes. Though to be sure exercise—and we off-shore people have been thoroughly idle—and cold seas can do wonders. Stephen, was you to be propped up with cushions, do you think you could hold your 'cello? The sea is smooth. With a couple of turns round your middle, you would not be flung about.'

  When Whewell came aboard from the Cestos's cutter he found both Commodore and Captain on the quarterdeck, looking pleased; and when, after the usual obeisances, he asked how the Doctor did, the Commodore nodded his head aft, and Whewell, listening attentively, heard the deep, melodious, though somewhat unsteady voice of the 'cello.

  'It takes more than the yellow jack to come to an end of him,' said the Commodore. 'Come along with me, and when you have made your report, I will take you in. He longs to know how things have been going along, inshore.'

  They walked aft, and in the passage Whewell said, 'My report is very brief, sir. Whydah is empty. The news ran ahead of us at last, and there is not a slaver left in the road that we could touch with safety.'

  'I am heartily glad of it,' said Jack, and he carried on into the great cabin, where Stephen sat lashed into an elbow-chair, looking like an ancient child. 'Doctor,' cried Jack, 'I have brought you Mr Whewell, who tells me that Whydah is empty. I am heartily glad of it, for we cannot spare officers and men for any more prize-crews—we are far below complement already, with so many of them bowsing up their jibe in Freetown. What is more, it allows us to leave this infernal coast at once, steering for St Thomas and something like breathable air. But since the breeze is dead contrary at present and likely to remain so until after sunset, I shall stand in, say farewell to the brigs and schooners, and then give those scoundrels in the town and the barracoons a salute that will put the fear of God into them. Mr Whewell, I shall send you the log-book rough-sheets so that you can tell the Doctor about each action in turn.'

  Orders could be heard on deck, and the patter of feet overhead as the signal-hoists were prepared: already the helm was hard over, and the ship was turning, turning, her motion gradually changing from roll to pitch as she headed for the land. 'Look at that infernal lubber,' cried Whewell, pointing at the Thames, two cables' length astern and in the Bellona's wake. Stephen could discern something flapping about among the sails, and a certain deviation either side of the line traced by the pennant-ship; but his seamanship could not name the crime committed, heinous though it must have been.

  The rough-sheets came, but before reading them Whewell asked after Square and Stephen's journey up the Sinon river.

  'Square was all that could possibly have been wished,' said Stephen. 'I am most grateful to you for the recommendation; and although my little expedition was pitifully short, I saw many wonders and I brought back a wealth of specimens.'

  'I wonder whether you saw your potto. I remember you particularly wished to see the potto of those parts.'

  'I saw one, sure; and an eminently gratifying sight he was. But I was unable to bring him home.'

  'In that case I have one aboard the Cestos, if you would like her. But I am afraid she is only the Calabar kind, without a tail: an awantibo. A she-potto. I thought of you at once when I saw her in the market.'

  'Nothing, nothing, would give me greater pleasure,' cried Stephen. 'I am infinitely obliged to you, dear Mr Whewell. A Calabar potto within two or three hours' sail, or even less with this beautiful sweet-scented breeze. What joy.'

  The activities of the inshore squadron took up the hour or so before dinner, which Whewell ate with the Commodore, the Captain, the first lieutenant and a scrubbed, speechless midshipman: they took their coffee on the poop, supporting Stephen up the ladder; and by now a vast expanse of Africa was to be seen ahead, lagoons glittering along the coast, very tall palms just visible, and greenness, often very dark, stretching away inland until it merged with the indefinite horizon and the sky. The midshipman made his barely-audible blushing acknowledgments and vanished; the superior officers followed him after no more than a glass of brandy; and Whewell said, 'There, on the far bank of the lagoon, about half way along, is Whydah. May I pass you the telescope?'

  'If you please. So that is the great slave market: yet I see no port, no harbour.'

  'No, sir. Whydah has nothing of that kind. Everything has to be landed or taken off through the frightful surf—see how it breaks!—then run up the beach and so ferried across the lagoon. The Mina, who do it all, have wonderful surf-boats; but even so things get lost.'

  'Surely that is a very curious arrangement for a large commercial town?'

  'Yes, sir: but there are precious few real ports all along the coast. And then again, Dahomey, that is to say, practically everything we are looking at, is an inland kingdom: their capital is right up-country. They know nothing about the sea and they dislike the coast; but they are a very warlike nation, perpetually raiding their neighbours to capture the slaves they exchange for European goods. So they use Whydah, which is more or less under their rule, as the nearest place, inconvenient though it is; and since they export thousands and thousands of negroes every year, it has grown to be a considerable place, with English, French and Portuguese quarters, and some Arabs and Yorubas.'

  'I see a great deal of green among the houses.'

  'Oranges and limes and lemons everywhere, sir, a delight after a long passage. I remember squeezing a score together into a bowl and quaffing it straight off, when first I was here. Things were not so cleverly arranged in those days, and there were some goods you had to carry all the way to Abomey, the king's great town, or in the hottest weather to Kana, his smaller place.'

  'I do not think I have ever read a description of a great African town—I mean a negro town as opposed to a Moorish.'

  'A very curious sig
ht it is, sir. Abomey has a wall six miles round, twenty feet high, with six gates. There is the king's house, a vast great place, surprisingly high, and lined with skulls: skulls on the walls, skulls on posts, skulls everywhere; and jawbones. And then of course there are great numbers of ordinary Ewe houses—they all speak Ewe in those parts—made of mud with thatched roofs; and some what you might call palaces, a market-place of perhaps forty or fifty acres, and a huge spreading barracks.'

  'How did the people use you?'

  'The Dahomi are a fine, upstanding set of men, civil, though reserved; yet I had the impression that they looked down on me, which they did, of course, being so much taller: but I mean out of pride. Still, I do not remember that any of the men behaved in a way you could object to; and since I had brought a dozen chests of capital iron war-hats for his Amazons, the king ordered me to be given a gold fetiso weighing a good quarter of a pound.'

  'Did you say his Amazons, Mr Whewell?'

  'Why, yes, sir. The Dahomey Amazons.' And seeing that Stephen was in no way enlightened he went on, 'The most effective part of the king's army is made up of young females, sir, terribly bold and fierce. I never saw more than a thousand at a time, when some particular bands were marching past; but I was assured there were many more. It was for them that I brought the iron war-hats.'

  'They are actually warriors, so? Not merely camp-followers?'

  'Indeed they are, sir, and by all accounts quite terrible—fearless and terrible. They have the post of honour in battle, and attack first.'

  'I am amazed.'

  'So was I, sir, when a pack of I suppose female sergeants made me come into their hut and fit them with their war-hats. I was younger then, and not as ill-looking as I am now, and they used me shamefully. I blush for it yet.' He hung his head, regretting having begun the anecdote. Stephen said, 'Your infinitely welcome potto, Mr Whewell, is she as strictly nocturnal as her cousin the Common Potto?'

  'Sir, I have no notion at all. She was there in the market, curled up in a ball under some straw in the bottom of a fine brass wire cage, and when I asked what was there the old woman said "Potto". It would have been no satisfaction to anyone not to haggle a little, and I knocked off the equivalent of fourpence for no tail; but in the end she had a price that made her laugh with pleasure and she said I might have some little books and pictures into the bargain. She had been a Popish missionary's housekeeper, you see, and she was selling what he had left. Everything had gone except these books and papers and the potto, which the people of all the nations in Whydah, even the Hausas, suspected of being a Roman fetiso, which might offend the local spirits. I carried her aboard the Cestos and just before I turned in I saw her looking at me with eyes like saucers, but she did not seem to like the sight, and she shrank back into the straw almost at once, though I offered her a piece of banana. That is all I know of her, except that she would have been boiled tomorrow if she had not found a customer.'

  'You would not have her with you, at all, in that elegant boat, dear Mr Whewell?'

  'Oh no. Movement seems to distress her, and we had to beat into a heavy head-sea: but I did bring the drawings and the books.'

  The books were an Elzevier Pomponius Mela De situ orbis, a breviary worn almost to destruction and a thick notebook filled at one end with equivalents in various African languages and at the other with personal reflexions and what appeared to be drafts of letters. The drawings were painstaking, inexpert representations of the potto in different attitudes, tailless, anxious.

  'I am sorry to be disappointing,' said Whewell, 'but the squadron is running in at rather better than eight knots—there, over to starboard, you can see our brigs and schooners—and in a few minutes I must hurry ahead with orders. All ships and vessels are to fire a royal salute of twenty-one guns.'

  'Why, for all love? This is not Oak-Apple Day or any other great occasion.'

  'In order to impress Whydah and the King of Dahomey: and it can be justified as being the birthday of a member of the royal family—well, almost. Mr Adams ran right through the book and came up with the Duke of Habachtsthal, who was born today: a close cousin, I believe. Anyhow, royal enough for the purpose.'

  That ill-omened name was never wholly remote from Stephen's thoughts, but today it had retreated farther than usual, and the sudden, wholly unexpected sound of it cast a singular damp upon his happiness.

  Whewell set off for the Whydah road, leaving the drawings and other things by Stephen's side. Presently he took up the notebook, and turning to the back he at once came upon a smaller drawing of both the potto and a creature very like it that he took to be Lemur tardigradus, with the following text, apparently meant for a fellow-member of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost:

  In her manners she is for the most part gentle, except in the cold season, when her temper seemed wholly changed: and her Creator who made her so sensible to cold, to which she must often have been exposed even in her native forests, gave her her thick fur, which we rarely see in animals in these tropical climates: to me, who not only constantly fed her, but bathed her twice a week in water accommodated to the seasons, and whom she clearly distinguished from others, she was at all times grateful; but when I disturbed her in winter, she was usually indignant, and seemed to reproach me with the uneasiness which she felt, though no possible precaution had been omitted to keep her in a proper degree of warmth. At all times she was pleased with being stroked on the head, and frequently suffered me to touch her extremely sharp teeth; but her temper was always quick, and when she was unreasonably disturbed, she expressed a little resentment, by an obscure murmur, like that of a squirrel.

  From half an hour after sunrise to half an hour before sunset, she slept without intermission, rolled up like a hedgehog; and, as soon as she awoke, she began to prepare herself for the labours of her approaching day, licking and dressing herself like a cat, an operation which the flexibility of her neck and limbs enabled her to perform very completely: she was then ready for a slight breakfast, after which she commonly took a short nap; but when she sun was quite set she recovered all her vivacity. A little before daybreak, when my early hours gave me frequent opportunities of observing her, she seemed to solicit my attention, and if I presented my finger to her, she licked or nibbled it with great gentleness, but eagerly took fruit when I offered it, though she seldom ate much at her morning repast; when the day brought back her night, her eyes lost their lustre and strength, and she composed herself for a slumber of ten or eleven hours.

  The missionary's writing was difficult to make out, irregular and trembling, the hand of a very sick or aged man, and by the time Stephen had come to the bottom of the page, the Bellona, her consort and all the inshore vessels had formed a line of parallel with the shore, lying to on the declining breeze at little more than point-blank range of the immense crowds blackening the strand. He had heard the usual orders, the hoarse cry of Meares the master gunner and his mate, and he knew that a salute was to be fired. Yet nothing had prepared him for the prodigious bellowing uproar that followed the Bellona's first discharge. The people on the strand were equally surprised, or even more so, and several thousand fell flat, covering their heads.

  The noise was not quite so great, nor the smoke-banks quite so dense, as they had been at Freetown, but the whole was more concentrated; and when Stephen could hear himself think again he felt that Jack Aubrey was probably right, and that the slave-trade as a whole had received a setback worth a thousand times the cost in powder (shot there was none). For the potto he was not greatly concerned. Creatures that lived within the zone of tropical storms, with the enormous thunder breaking just over their heads, could put up with anything the Royal Navy might be able to offer, particularly those that slept all day with their heads between their knees.

  Certainly this was the case with the present potto. When Whewell and Square brought her aboard and carried her down to Maturin's little cabin on the orlop—he did not trust Jack not to talk loud and chuck her under the chin, which would
not do until she was used to life aboard—he sat with her a great while by the light of a single purser's dip. At about sunset she came out, looking nervous to be sure, as any country potto might in new surroundings, but neither shattered nor terrified. She would have nothing to do with his proffered banana, still less with a finger, but she washed to some extent—a very beautiful little creature—and a little before he left he saw one of the far too many local cockroaches walk into her cage. Her immense eyes glowed with an uncommon fire: she paused, motionless until it was within reach, and then seized it with both hands. Yet for eating the animal, which she did with every appearance of appetite, she used but one, and that the left.