The Golden Ocean

by Patrick O'Brian

  ‘And as for knowing nothing about the sea,’ cried Peter, red with the humiliating recollection; ‘it is not fair, indeed it is not.’

  ‘Quietly, quietly.’

  ‘I beg pardon, but it is not. I can sail a boat with any of them and ’tis I can put a curragh through the surf at Ballynasaggart and it roaring as high as the church. Only I do not know the names of the things in English, so they think me a fool and a landsman.’

  ‘Have you tried to improve your knowledge of the English sea terms?’

  ‘Sure the Dear knows I have—’

  ‘Say “Yes, sir”.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was only yesterday FitzGerald and I were in the beakhead asking some of the men—’

  ‘At the time of that distressing scene with the Commodore?’ said Mr Walter, frowning, and Peter nodded.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened. I heard only the words on the quarter-deck.’

  ‘Well, sir, we had been asking these men the names of the rigging and I had thought for some time that they were gammoning FitzGerald. One said, “And that is the mainbrace. Do you see how badly it wants splicing?”

  ‘“Where?” says FitzGerald.

  ‘“There,” says another. “It needs a good splice, but we don’t like to say it. The captain has let it slip out of his mind, and with the first puff of wind the mast will come down.”

  ‘“He would be very grateful for being reminded,” says the first one, “but we daren’t go aft, being only ratings, you see.”

  ‘“How very glad he would be,” says another. “Why, it might be the saving of the ship.” And before I could say anything FitzGerald was gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the chaplain, ‘and with a bow—quite out of place—he said to the Commodore, “By your leave, sir, the men up at the sharp end of the boat consider that the main-brace needs splicing.” It was a very shocking piece of effrontery, and although the Commodore passed it off as being accountable to your friend’s inexperience, I really thought Mr Saumarez would have him confined. I understand that Mr FitzGerald enjoys the highest protection; but if he thinks that that will allow him to take liberties with Mr Anson, he is wrong. Mr Anson is not the kind of man to be influenced by such a consideration for a moment. By the by, who were the men who led him to such a monstrous impertinence?’

  ‘I could not say, sir, I am sure,’ said Peter, with a glazed look coming over his face. ‘All I remember is that they left the beakhead very suddenly when FitzGerald went aft.’

  ‘Hm. Quite so,’ said the chaplain. ‘But now I am on the subject, my boy, I must tell you that this friendship of yours makes me very uneasy. As I take it, he borrowed an important share of the money I brought you?’

  ‘Yes, sir; we went snacks. But he bore my charges all the way here. He would have done the same thing for me.’

  ‘And then there was that very discreditable affair with Ransome.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter uneasily.

  ‘It appears that your friend still bears malice.’ Peter was silent. ‘And if that is the case, he is not playing a gentleman’s part.’

  Peter was still silent. He was keenly aware of the strong disapproval that surrounded them in the midshipmen’s berth—a disapprobation that extended to him, because although he could not feel that FitzGerald was right, yet he could not possibly not take his part.

  ‘I may have heard a distorted account,’ said the chaplain, ‘but from what I have gathered, he insulted Ransome with his birth and Ransome knocked him down. I would have done the same. And now he has not the good feeling to make his apology.’

  ‘It was not quite like that, sir,’ said Peter. ‘He did truly think Ransome was a servant: I thought he was a seaman myself. We neither of us knew that midshipmen were so old and big. FitzGerald did not intend to insult him, and indeed afterwards he said he would have cut his tongue out rather than say it. He said he meant to express his regret, only it was so difficult. He said, “How can I go to the fellow and tell him I am sorry I mistook him for a servant or a common seaman when he has been one in fact—the apology would be worse than the offence.” But since then the others have been so unpleasant that he has got on his high horse, and whatever I say only makes it worse.’

  ‘It is bad blood. He has only to go to Ransome and candidly admit that he was wrong. Ransome is a very fine fellow: he behaved extremely well on the lower-deck: he is an excellent seaman and he has a courage that Homer would have mentioned with honour: Mr Anson made him his own coxswain, and then, to reward his merit, rated him midshipman. If I thought your friend had a tithe of Ransome’s merit, I should feel very much happier for you, Peter. Life is not very pleasant for Ransome: there are many of his former shipmates aboard, and it is the nature of low minds to grudge at another’s rise—I do not say that they do, mark you; but I believe he feels his position acutely, far more acutely than ever he need. Certainly there is not a gentleman aboard, not one in the squadron, who would have thrown his origin in his teeth, or who, having done so by inadvertence, would not have apologised in the most full and public manner. No, no. It is very bad, and by associating with Mr FitzGerald you are tarred with the same brush. Believe me, my boy, the Commodore is not a man to be trifled with. He is unceasingly engrossed with the business of preparing the squadron for sea; he has a thousand cares of which you can know nothing—you may have heard, however, of the criminal decision about the invalids?’

  Peter nodded. The squadron was undermanned: seamen could not be had, nor soldiers for the military side, and it was said that Government intended to fill out the numbers with pensioners from the Royal Hospital at Chelsea.

  ‘You have? Well, that is but one of a thousand matters that call for his instant attention. But for all that he knows that his prime duty as captain of the Centurion is the welfare of the ship and her company, and he is certainly informed of all that happens aboard. What kind of opinion will he have of you, Peter? Not only because of this unsuitable friendship, but because of the innumerable scrapes you have got yourself into from the moment you arrived. Do not think to shelter behind my frail protection. I am a very unimportant person here, although Mr Anson honours me with his friendship. But if I were a flag-officer and the Commodore’s own brother, that would avail you nothing if he were to judge you unfit for the service. I put this to you very seriously, Peter; and I put it to you urgently, because at dinner yesterday he mentioned your name: I did not hear what he said; but he mentioned your name.’

  Peter walked soberly away. He wanted to think: but in a ship filled with more than four hundred men, all of them active in one way or another, it is not easy to find a place for quiet meditation. He was wondering whether he might presume to go into the tops, or whether that might be a crime, when he heard his name. It was far off, and mixed with a jumble of sound, but one catches one’s name very quickly. ‘Mr Palafox. Pass the word for Mr Palafox.’ Then another voice, a little nearer, and another. His name, shouted, followed him up the ship, growing vastly in sound, and he hurried aft to report himself. But before he reached the quarterdeck he ran into the Commodore’s steward.

  ‘Wait a minute, young gentleman,’ said the steward. ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘The Commodore has passed the word for me,’ said Peter, trying to get by. ‘I must run.’

  ‘You can save your breath, sir,’ said the steward, ‘for I am on the same errand. The Commodore sends his compliments to Mr Palafox and would be glad of his company at dinner today: he regrets the short notice.’

  ‘My compliments to—to the Commodore,’ said Peter, suddenly ill with apprehension, for dinner was no distance away at all, ‘and I shall be most happy.’

  He dashed into the midshipmen’s berth and forward to the odd, dark kind of cupboard against the jear-capstan casing where he and FitzGerald slung their hammocks. He flung off his coat and rummaged wildly among his possessions in the brass-bound sea-chest, found a clean shirt and his best new coat. He dressed with particular care, but it took longer than he thou
ght, for in his haste he was clumsy, and he was still wrestling with a cross-grained buckle when he heard the ship’s bell go ‘One-two, one-two, one’. Certain that he must have miscounted he shouted into the berth, ‘That was four bells, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Why?’ asked a voice.

  ‘I have to dine with the Commodore,’ said Peter, forgetting their dislike in his hurry. He emerged, buttoning his coat.

  ‘It was five bells. You will be late,’ said Elliot coldly.

  ‘Still, he can’t go like that,’ said Hope. ‘You’ve forgotten your dirk and you’ve trailed your coat in the dust. Here, stand while I get it off you.’

  Keppel fetched his dirk and Peter buckled it on while Hope brushed his back. It was kindly done, and although he had barely time to gasp out a thank you before he raced away aft, Peter felt a strong pleasure from it.

  ‘They could have been wicked,’ he thought: but this reflection was instantly effaced by the sight of the first lieutenant at the half-deck. Mr Saunders looked over him quickly. ‘That will do,’ he said, nodding. ‘Come along.’

  It was a defect in Peter’s upbringing that he had rarely, almost never, been used to paying formal visits or to dining out; but it was an unavoidable defect, for not only were his parents too poor to entertain, but in the neighbourhood for fifteen miles around there was nobody to entertain. Lord Magher, who owned a vast tract of land that included Ballynasaggart and seven villages beside, had never even seen his Irish estate; his agent, a Scotch Presbyterian, had alienated the Reverend Mr Palafox by his rigid treatment of the tenants; the squireen of Connveagh was a disreputable creature, permanently drunk and of more than doubtful loyalty; and of the two livings that bounded the parish, one was held by a rich pluralist in Dublin and the other by a clergyman even poorer than Mr Palafox and with a family that outnumbered his by four. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that at first Peter saw little of the noble stateroom, its gleaming cloth and silver, and the decanters glowing in the sun that came pouring through the great stern-gallery. He had a vague impression of being greeted by an expanse of buff waistcoat and a blue coat afire with gold, of being introduced to various people, and then he was sitting down before his plate and scalding his mouth cruelly with boiling soup.

  But he neither dropped his spoon nor hurled his plate into his lap, and in time he began to take more notice of his surroundings. At the head of the table sat Mr Anson: he was a broad, strongly-built man with a fine head, a Roman face accustomed to command: at the moment he was listening to an anecdote of Marlborough’s wars with an expression of polite interest, but his face was tired, and a man who knew him well could have told that his mind was far away. The speaker, on the Commodore’s right hand, was Colonel Cracherode, commanding the land forces: Peter had seen him before. There was another red coat farther down the table—a young officer of the Marines, who was as rigid with awe as Peter, but who, to keep himself in countenance, fiddled incessantly with the stem of his wine-glass and drank such a very large quantity that by the first remove his face was as red as his coat. Next to him was the captain of the Wager, one of the ships of the squadron, and opposite Peter one of the Wager’s midshipmen, Mr Byron. Mr Saunders, first lieutenant of the Centurion, sat at the farther end.

  The Commodore had a French cook on board: the food was excellent—quite unlike the usual fare of midshipmen—and Peter was beginning to enjoy himself in a quiet way when his peace of mind was shattered by his captain’s voice.

  ‘Mr Palafox,’ said the Commodore, ‘a glass of wine with you.’

  Peter bowed and drank to him: he neither choked nor spilt his wine, but now he felt that his security was gone—he might be spoken to and called upon to reply at any moment. His forebodings were right. His neighbour, a post-captain, turned to him and said, ‘Palafox? I know that name. Yes. It was in the year ’21 that Miss Dillon married a gentleman called Palafox, in spite of all that I could say. I was first of the Falkland then and thought no small beer of myself; but the parson carried away the prize.’

  ‘That was my mother, sir,’ cried Peter.

  ‘Indeed? Indeed?’ said the captain, looking at him with lively interest. ‘Then when next you see her, pray mention my name with—what would be proper?—with my kindest regards, and tell your father that I still bear him an undying grudge. I trust they are both very well?’

  ‘Thank you, sir, very well indeed.’

  ‘And where do you live now? I seem to remember that your father had a living somewhere on the west coast. Bally—’

  ‘Ballynasaggart.’

  ‘That was the place. So he is still there. I know just where it is, although I could not precisely recall the name. Terrible great seas, and the current sets inshore round the headland. An ugly place to be caught on a lee-shore with a westerly gale and the tide making.’

  ‘Is that by the Blaskets?’ asked Captain Kidd of the Wager, across the table. ‘I was wrecked there once.’

  ‘No, far to the north,’ said Peter’s neighbour. ‘Far to the north, with no Dingle Bay to run for. A much worse coast.’

  ‘The Baskets are bad enough for me,’ said Captain Kidd. ‘The natives knocked us on the head one by one as we came ashore.’

  ‘What do you say to that, young man?’ asked Peter’s neighbour.

  ‘Why, sir,’ said Peter, ‘they are only wild men from Kerry. We call them firbolgs, sir.’

  ‘Do you? I would tell you what we called them,’ said Captain Kidd, ‘if it were not for the respect I owe to the Commodore.’

  ‘Are your fellows any better?’ asked Peter’s neighbour, with a wink.

  ‘Yes, sir, they are,’ said Peter. ‘Only last autumn there was a brig on the reef by Maan Point, and we drove the boats out through the surf although it was breaking up the way it washed the cows off the top of the cliff.’

  ‘How did you manage that?’

  ‘Why, sir, we carried the curraghs about two miles to the cove that is sheltered a little, and so we launched them and brought off every man alive, although Michael Tomelty and Seamus Colman were drowned.’

  ‘How many oars do they pull?’

  ‘Eleven sir, counting the one at the back,’ said Peter, who knew very well, having held it on that occasion.

  ‘And you say they carried a ten-oared boat for more than a mile?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter, with the uncomfortable feeling that he was not believed.

  ‘They must be strangely built boats in your part of the world,’ observed Mr Saunders.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter, looking down. It would not be right, he knew, to launch into a long explanation, particularly as the whole table was listening now: but it was hard to be set down as a wild teller of tales—and an unconvincing one at that. He ate a little more, but without much appetite, and presently the cloth was drawn.

  The port went round; they drank the King, and after that Peter relapsed into a meditation; he sat upright, not touching the back of his chair, as trim, neat and silent as a midshipman should be in such august company, but his spirit was far away in the warm drifting rain of his own country, where the land falls sheer to the western sea.

  ‘Wake up,’ said his neighbour, and with a jerk Peter realised that he was being addressed.

  ‘I was saying,’ said the Commodore, smiling at him, ‘that Mr Palafox will decide the question.’ The thought of deciding any question at all froze Peter to the spine. ‘Colonel Cracherode says that your boats are not made of wood: I maintain that they are.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Peter, ‘we do have wooden ones, but they are made of skins entirely.’ ‘What’s the merriment?’ he thought angrily, as the table burst into a general laugh.

  ‘You had better tell the Commodore how they are built,’ said Mr Saunders.

  ‘There is a frame, sir,’ said Peter, ‘of wood that will bend, and that we tie together: then we sew bull skins to that for the very best boats, and dress them with the oil from the sharks that we catch.’

  ‘And you put to s
ea in those?’ asked Captain Kidd.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Peter, wonderingly; for to him it was an everyday occurrence.

  ‘In those seas,’ said the Commodore, ‘it must be a very fine apprenticeship for those that survive.’

  ‘But sir,’ said Peter, made uncommonly bold by the Commodore’s affability, ‘there is the disadvantage that we call the things by Irish names; and although a man may be able to work one of our boats through the sea and it standing straight up to the sky, he sounds but a sad looby in a man-of-war when he calls the mast the tree, as we do at home.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said the Commodore. ‘When I first went to sea I could not make out why the half-deck was so small compared with the quarter-deck. It will all come in time, if you have a seaman’s right resolution. By Heaven,’ he said, breaking off, ‘I wish we had a few score of your villagers here. Kidd, have you heard of the shabby trick the guardship played on poor Legge, after he had been promised ten able seamen?’

  The conversation drifted away to the manifold difficulties of manning the fleet, and Peter spoke no more; but he was very much happier than he had been, and when dinner was over he went on deck with a much lighter heart.

  ‘Mr Palafox,’ said the first lieutenant, looking upon him with an unwontedly favourable eye, ‘you may go with Mr Keppel in the cutter: he is taking a party up the coast to see if he can press a few men. Look lively now, and tell them not to hang too much cloth on the tree,’ he added, with a curiously human smile.

  The cutter was alongside, still hooked on in the chains, and Peter dropped down as the boat reached the top of a wave.

  ‘Mr Saunders said I was to come,’ he said.

  ‘I see,’ said Keppel, with chilling indifference. ‘Give way,’ he ordered, and the boat pulled away into the eye of the wind.

  Half-way to the shore they passed the liberty boat, and in the sheets Peter saw FitzGerald huddled in his boat-cloak. He looked ghastly pale; and he made no sign as they passed.

  ‘Do you know what the other Teague has done?’ said Hope to Keppel, meeting him on the Hard.