Master & Commander a-1

by Patrick O'Brian

  The boat touched the Sophie's side. 'No such passengers aboard, sir,' he reported.

  So much the better,' said Jack cheerfully, raising his L hat to the American captain and waving it. 'West a half south, Mr Marshall; and house those guns, if you please.' the exquisite fragrance of coffee drifted up from the after hatchway. 'Dillon, come and breakfast with me,' he said, taking him familiarly by the arm. 'You are still looking most ghastly pale.

  You must excuse me, sir,' whispered James, disengaging himself with a look of utter hatred. 'I am a little out of order.'

  Chapter Eight

  'I am entirely at a loss, upon my honour; and so I lay the position before you, confiding wholly in your candour.. I am entirely at a loss: I cannot for the life of me conceive what manner of offence… It was not my landing of those monstrously unjust prisoners on Dragon Island (though he certainly disapproved of it), for the trouble began before that, quite early in the morning.' Stephen listened gravely, attentively, never interrupting; and very slowly, harking back for details overlooked and forward to straighten his chronology by anticipation, Jack laid before him the history of his relations with James Dillon – good, bad; good, bad -with this last extraordinary descent not only inexplicable but strangely wounding, because of the real liking that had grown up, in addition to the esteem. Then there was Marshall's unaccountable conduct, too; but that was of much Less importance.

  With the utmost care, Jack reiterated his arguments about the necessity for having a happy ship if one was to command an efficient fighting machine; he quoted examples of like and contrary cases; and his audience listened and approved. Stephen could not bring his wisdom to the resolution of any of these difficulties, however, nor (as Jack would somewhat ignobly have liked) could he propose his good offices; for he was a merely ideal interlocutor, and his thinking flesh lay thirty leagues to the south and west, across a waste of sea. A rough waste, and a cross sea: after frustrating days of calm, light airs and then a strong south-wester, the wind had backed easterly in the night, and now it was blowing a gale across the waves that had built up during the day, so that the Sohpie went thumping along under double-reefed topsails and courses, the cross-sea breaking over the weather-bow and soaking the lookout on the fo'c'sle 'with a grateful spray, heeling James Dillon as he stood on the quarter-deck communing with the Devil and rocking the cot in which Jack silently harangued the darkness.

  His was an exceedingly busy life; and yet since he entered an inviolable solitude the moment he passed the sentry at his cabin door, it let him a great deal of time for reflexion. It was not frittered away in very small exchanges, in listening to three-quarters of a scale on a quavering German flute or in sailors' politics. 'I shall speak to him, when we pick him up. I shall speak in the most general way, of the comfort it is to a man to have a confidential friend aboard; and of this singularity in the sailor's life, that one moment he is so on top of his shipmates, all hugger-mugger in the ward-room, that he can hardly breathe, let alone play anything but a jig on the fiddle, and the next he is pitched into a kind of hermit's solitude, something he has never known before.'

  In times of stress Jack Aubrey had two main reactions: he either became aggressive or he became amorous; he longed either for the violent catharsis of action or for that of making love. He loved a battle: he loved a wench.

  'I quite understand that some commanders take a girl to sea with them,' he reflected. 'Apart from the pleasure, think of the refuge of sinking into a warm, lively, affectionate…

  'Peace. I wish there were a girl in this cabin,' he added, after a pause.

  This disarray, this open, acknowledged incomprehension, were kept solely for his cabin and his ghostly companion, the outward appearance of the Sophie's captain had nothing hesitant about it, and it would have been a singularly acute observer to tell that the nascent friendship between him and his lieutenant had been cut short The master was such an observer, however, for although Jack's truly hideous appearance when signed and greased had caused a revulsion for a while, at the same time Jack's obvious liking for James Dillon had set up a jealousy that worked in the contrary direction. Furthermore, the master had been threatened in terms that left almost no room for doubt, in very nearly direct terms, and so for an entirely different cause he watched the captain and the lieutenant with painful anxiety.

  'Mr Marshall,' said Jack in the darkness, and the poor man jumped as though a pistol had been fired behind him, 'when do you reckon we shall raise the land?'

  'In about two hours' time, sir, if this wind holds.'

  'Yes: I thought as much,' said Jack, gazing up into the rigging. 'I believe you may shake out a reef now, however; and at any further slackening set the topgallants – crack on all you can. And have me called when land is seen, if you please, Mr Marshall.'

  Something less than two hours later he reappeared, to view the remote irregular line on the starboard bow: Spain; with the singular mountain the English called Egg-top Hill in line with the best bower anchor, and their watering bay therefore directly ahead.

  'By God, you are a prime navigator, Marshall,' he said, lowering his glass. 'You deserve to be master of the fleet.'

  It would take them at least an hour to run in, however, and now that the event was so close at hand, no longer at all theoretical, Jack discovered how anxious he was in fact – how very much the outcome mattered to him.

  'Send my coxswain aft, will you?' he said, returning to his cabin after he had taken half a dozen uneasy turns.

  Barret Bonden, coxswain and captain of the maintop, was unusually young for his post; a fine open-looking creature, tough without brutality, cheerful, perfectly in his place and, of course, a prime seaman – bred to the sea from childhood. 'Sit down, Bonden,' said Jack, a little consciously, for what he was about to offer was the quarter-deck, no less, and the possibility of advancement to the very pinnacle of the sailor's hierarchy. 'I have been thinking… should you like to be rated midshipman?'

  'Why, no sir, not at all,' answered Bonden at once, his teeth flashing in the gloom. 'But I thank you very kindly for your good opinion, sir.'

  'Oh,' said Jack, taken aback. 'Why not?'

  'I ain't got the learning, sir. Why' – laughing cheerfully – it's all I can do to read the watch-list, spelling it out slow; and I'm too old to wear round now. And then, sir, what should I look like, rigged out like an officer? Jack-in-the green: and my old messmates laughing up their sleeves and calling out "What ho, the hawse-hole."'

  'Plenty of fine officers began on the lower deck,' said Jack. 'I was on the lower deck myself, once,' he added, regretting the sequence as soon as he had uttered it.

  'I know you was, sir,' said Bonden, and his grin flashed again.

  'How did you know that?'

  'We got a cove in the starboard watch, was shipmates with you, sir, in the old Reso, off the Cape.'

  'Oh dear, oh dear,' cried Jack inwardly, 'and I never noticed him. So there I was, turning all the women ashore as righteous as Pompous Pilate, and they knew all the time well, well.' And aloud, with a certain stiffness, 'Well, Bonden, think of what I have said. It would be a pity to stand in your own way.'

  'If I may make so bold, sir,' said Bonden, getting to his feet and standing there, suddenly constrained, lumpish and embarrassed, 'there's my Aunt Sloper's George – George Lucock, foretopman, larboard watch. He's a right scholar, can write so small you can scarcely see it; younger nor I am, and more soople, sir, oh, far more soople.'

  'Lucock?' said Jack dubiously. 'He's only a lad. Was not he flogged last week?'

  'Yes, sir: but it was only his gun had won again. And he couldn't hold back from his draught, not in duty to the giver.'

  'Well,' said Jack, reflecting that perhaps there might be wiser prizes than a bottle (though none so valued), 'I will keep an eye on him.'

  Midshipmen were much in his mind during this tedious working in. 'Mr Babbington,' he said, suddenly stopping in his up and down. 'Take your hands out of your pockets. When did you l
ast write home?'

  Mr Babbington was at an age when almost any question evokes a guilty response, and this was, in fact, a valid accusation. He reddened, and said, 'I don't know, sir.'

  'Think, sir, think,' said Jack, his good-tempered face clouding unexpectedly. 'What port did you send it from? Mahon? Leghorn? Genoa? Gibraltar? Well, never mind.' There was no dark figure to be made out on that distant beach. 'Never, mind. Write a handsome letter. Two pages at least. And send it in to me with your daily workings tomorrow. Give your father my compliments and tell him my bankers are Hoares.' For Jack, like most other captains, managed the youngsters' parental allowance for them. 'Hoares,' he repeated absently once or twice, 'my bankers are Hoares,' and a strangled ugly crowing noise made him turn. Young Ricketts was clinging to the fall of the main burton-tackle in an attempt to control himself, but without much success. Jack's cold glare chilled his mirth, however, and he was able to reply to 'And you, Mr Ricketts, have you written to your parents recently?' with an audible 'No, sir' that scarcely quavered at all.

  'Then you will do the same: two pages, wrote small, and no demands for new quadrants, laced hats or hangers,' said Jack; and something told the midshipman that this was no time to expostulate, to point out that his loving parent, his only parent, was in daily, even hourly communication with him. Indeed, this awareness of Jack's state of tension was general throughout the brig. 'Goldilocks is in a rare old taking about the Doctor,' they said. 'Watch out for squalls.' And when hammocks were piped up the seamen who had to pass by him to stow theirs in the starboard quarter-deck netting glanced at him nervously; one, trying to keep an eye on the quartermaster, and on the break of the deck, and on his captain, all at the same time, fell flat on his face. But Goldilocks was not the only one to be anxious, by any manner of means, and when Stephen Maturin was at last seen to walk out of the trees and cross the beach to meet the jolly-boat, a general exclamation of 'There he is!' broke out from waist to fo'c'sle, in defiance of good discipline:

  'Huzzay!'

  'How very glad I am to see you,' cried Jack, as Stephen groped his way 45oard, pushed and pulled by well-meaning hands. 'How are you, my dear sir? Come and breakfast directly – I have held it back on purpose. How do you lind yourself? Tolerably spry, I hope? Tolerably spry?'

  'I am very well, I thank you,' said Stephen, who indeed looked somewhat less cadaverous, flushed as he was with pleasure at the open friendliness of his welcome. 'I will take a look at my sick-bay and then I will share your bacon with the utmost pleasure. Good morning, Mr Day. Take off your hat, if you please. Very neat, very neat: you do us credit, Mr Day. But no exposure to the sun as yet – I recommend the wearing of a close Welsh wig. Cheslin, good morning to you. You have a good account of our patients, I trust?'

  'That,' he said, a little greasy from bacon, 'that was a point that exercised my mind a good deal during your absence Would my loblolly boy pay the men back in their own coin? Would they return to their persecution of him? How quickly could he come by a new identity?'

  'Identity?' said Jack, comfortably pouring out more coffee 'Is not identity something you are born with?'

  'The identity I am thinking of is something that hovers between a man and the rest of the world: a mid-point between his view of himself and theirs of him for each, of course, affects the other continually A reciprocal fluxion, sir. There is nothing absolute about this identity of mine. Were you, you personally, to spend some days in Spain at present you would find yours change, you know, because of the general opinion there that you are a false harsh brutal murdering villain, an odious man.'

  'I dare say they are vexed,' said Jack, smiling. 'And I dare say they call me Beelzebub. But that don't make me Beelzebub.'

  'Does it not? Does it not? Ah? Well, however that may be, you have angered, you have stirred up the mercantile interest along the coast to a most prodigious degree. There is a wealthy man by the name of Mateu who is wonderfully incensed against you. The quicksilver belonged to him, and being contraband it was not insured; so did the vessel you cut out at Almoraira; and the cargo of the tartan burnt off Tortosa – half of that was his. He is well with the ministry. He has moved their indolence and they have allowed him and his friends to charter one of their men-of-war…

  'Not charter, my dear sir: no private person can possibly charter a man-of-war, a national vessel, a King's ship, not even in Spain.'

  'Oh? Perhaps I use the wrong term: I often use the wrong term in naval matters. However. A ship of force, not only to protect the coasting trade but even more to pursue the Sophie, who is perfectly well known now, both by name and by description. This I had from Mateu's own cousin as we danced -'

  'You danced?' cried Jack, far more astonished than if Stephen had said 'as we ate our cold roast baby'.

  'Certainty I danced. Why would I not dance, pray?'

  'Certainty you are to dance most uncommon graceful, I am sure. I only wondered. but did you indeed go about dancing?'

  'I did. You have not travelled in Catalonia, sir, I believe?'

  'Not I.'

  'Then I must tell you that on Sunday mornings it is the custom, in that country, for people of all ages and conditions to dance, on coming out of church: so I was dancing with Ramon Mateu i Cadafalch in the square before the cathedral church of Tarragona, where I had gone to hear the Palestrina Missa Brevis. The dance is a particular dance, a round called the sardana; and if you will reach me your fiddle I will play you the air of the one I have in mind. Though you must imagine I am a harsh braying hoboy.' Plays.

  'It is a charming melody, to be sure. Somewhat in the Moorish taste, is it not? But upon my word it makes my flesh creep, to think of you rambling about the countryside in ports – in towns. I had imagined you would have gone to earth, that you would have kept close with your friend, hidden in her room… that is to say.

  'Yet I had told you, had I not, that I could ride the length and breadth of that country without a question or a moment's uneasiness?' 'So you had. So you had.' Jack reflected for a while. 'And so, of course, if you chose, you could find out what ships and convoys were sailing, when expected, how laden, and so on. Even the galleons themselves, I dare say?' 'Certainly I could,' said Stephen, 'if I chose to play the spy. It is a curious and apparently illogical set of notions, is it not, that makes it right and natural to speak of the Sophie's enemies, yet beyond any question wrong, dishonourable and indecent to speak of her prey?' 'Yes,' said Jack, looking at him wistfully. 'You must give a hare her law, there is no doubt. But what do you tell me about this ship of force? What is her rate? How many guns does she carry? Where does she lie?' 'Cacafuego is her name.'

  'Cacafuego? Cacafuego? I have never heard of her. So at least she cannot be a ship of the line How is she rigged?'

  Stephen paused 'I am ashamed to say I did not ask,' he said 'But from the satisfaction with which her name was pronounced, I take her to be some prepotent great argosy'

  'Well, we must try to keep out of her way and since she knows what we look like, we must try to change our appearance. It is wonderful what a coat of paint and a waist-cloth will do, or even an oddly patched jib or a fished topmast – by the way, I suppose they told you in the boat why we were compelled to maroon you?'

  'They told me about the frigates and your boarding the American.'

  'Yes: and precious stuff it was, too. There were no such people aboard – Dillon searched her for close on an hour. I was just as glad, for I remembered you had told me the United Irishmen were good creatures, on the whole – far better than those other fellows, whose name I forget. Steel boys, white boys, orange boys?'

  'United Irishmen? I had understood them to be French. They told me the American ship had been searched for some Frenchmen.'

  'They were only pretending to be Frenchmen. That is to say, if they had been there at all, they might have pretended to be French. That is why I sent Dillon, who speaks it so well. But they were not, you see; and in my opinion the whole thing was so much cock. I was just as glad, as
I say; but it seemed to upset Dillon most strangely. I suppose he was very eager to take them: or he was very much put out at our cruise being cut short. Ever since then however, I must not bore you with all that. You heard about the prisoners?'

  'That the frigates had been so good as to give you fifty of theirs?'

  'Merely for their own convenience! It was not for the good of the service at all. A most shabby, unscrupulous thing!' cried Jack, his eyes starting from his head at the recollection. 'But I dished 'em, though. As soon as we were done with the American we bore away for the Amelia, told her we had drawn a blank and made our signal for parting company; and a couple of hours later, the wind serving, we landed every man jack on Dragon Island.'

  'Off Majorca?'

  'Just so.'

  'But is not that wrong? Will you not be reproved -courtmartialled?'

  Jack winced, and clapping his hand to wood he said, 'Pray never say that ill-conditioned word. The mere sound of it is enough to spoil the day.'

  'But will you not get into trouble?'

  'Not if I put into Mahon with a thundering great prize at my tail,' said Jack, laughing. 'For now we may just have time to go and lie off Barcelona, do you see, if the wind is kind – I had quite set my heart upon it. We shall just have time for a quick stroke or two and then we must bear away for Mahon with anything we may have caught, for we certainly cannot spare another prize-crew, with our numbers so reduced. And we certainly cannot stay out much longer, without we eat our boots.'