When each had scored two hits they ate some of the piled tray of small, exquisitely scented bananas, and after a considering pause Jack said 'When we were off Norfolk Island I received orders by that cutter, as you know. I have not spoken about them until now because unlike most of my orders of anything but a purely naval kind they did not mention your name. They did not say "You will seek the advice of Dr Maturin". Then they not only told me that British ships and British seamen were being misused in Moahu, as you also know, but they went on to say there were two parties at war in the island, more or less evenly balanced, and that having dealt with the ships or rather that in addition to dealing with the ships I was to back whichever side was more likely to acknowledge King George. And since I know what you think of empires and colonies I did not like to make you a party to what you disapprove.'
He took yet another banana, deliberately peeling it, and ate it. Stephen was a perfect listener: he never interrupted, he did not fidget or look privately at the time. Yet although Jack was used to it, he found polite, neutral, attentive silence during so long and delicate a speech somewhat unnerving, and while he ate his banana and arranged his coming words some odd region of his mind said that this awkwardness was particularly unfair: he knew perfectly well that Stephen had received countless orders which he never disclosed or spoke about. 'Yet on the other hand,' he went on, 'it occurred to me then and it occurs to me now with far greater strength that the reason the orders did not mention your name was that the people in Sydney did not suppose you capable of giving advice about anything other than medicine. At present I am sure of it: furthermore Wainwright, who has just come from Moahu and who seems to be perfectly reliable, tells me that the two sides are no longer equally balanced. A French privateer-commander, sailing under the American flag but with a crew of Frenchmen, has joined the northern chief against the ruler of the south, a woman; and his intention, when both north and south have worn one another out, is to destroy the chief men of his allies and opponents and turn the place into a Paradise in which the survivors and the French colonists are to hold everything in common: no wealth, no poverty.' He reflected, paraphrased Wainwright's account more fully, more accurately, and said 'His name is Jean Dutourd.'
At this Stephen's face showed a sudden life, a glow of satisfaction. 'What joy,' he said. 'It could not be improved.'
'You know him?' cried Jack.
'I do too. He has written about equality, the perfectibility of human nature, and the essential goodness of mankind for many years - he judges others by himself, poor soul - and he has a considerable following. I was acquainted with him in Paris; and once to my surprise I saw him at Honfleur, sailing about in a very spirited way in a boat with two masts. In personal relations a kinder man never breathed, and in his system the whole purpose was for the good of others: he spent a fortune in trying to settle the Jews in Surinam and another - for he is very rich - in farms and manufactories for young criminals. But although I believe that the man who told Captain Wainwright of Dutourd's deliberate, Machiavellian desire of knocking his Polynesian associates on the head may have been a little excessive, I have no doubt that in defence of a system Dutourd could be utterly ruthless - a very short way indeed with dissenters. And the result though perhaps not the sin might be much the same. One of his books on the Pacific paradise infected that American naval officer - Killick, what are you doing to that young woman?' he called through the open stern window.
'Nothing, sir,' said Killick instantly, and after a gasping pause, 'It is quite all right - perfectly natural. I was just saying good night. Which she pulled me across, the liberty-boat having gone too soon.'
'Killick, come aboard at once,' said Jack.
'Which the boarding-netting is rigged, sir. I thought to creep up by the quarter-gallery, but you ain't turned in yet,' said Killick in a tremulous voice; though he did extract some hint of grievance and hard usage from their sitting up so late.
'Come in by the sash-light,' said Jack.
The sash-light could be reached by a spring from the canoe: Killick, though totty from his swink, attempted it, fell back into the sea, sending up a phosphorescent splash like a moderately good firework, tried again and this time grasped the sill. But he hung there gasping, and it was not until the young woman, with a shriek of laughter, had shoved him from behind, that he came inboard, sodden, resentful, and sadly out of countenance, going straight through the door with a bowed head, a mumble and a gesture towards his forelock.
They sat back, each secretly pleased with having acquired a moral advantage over Killick at last; and Jack returned to the paragraph in his orders in which it was stated that in any event Moahu already belonged to the British crown, Cook having taken possession of the archipelago in 1778.
Stephen said, 'I believe the same applies to a very great many other places in the Pacific Ocean. I remember Sir Joseph telling me that Otaheite, or Tahiti as some people say, was called King George's Island when he was there observing the transit of Venus: though indeed it was Wallis rather than Cook who discovered and annexed it. He did not think the chiefs or their people took the matter at all seriously, and I do not suppose the lady in question would do so either - a polite formality, no more.'
'Forgive me if I am stupider than usual, Stephen, but what lady is in question?'
'Why, Puolani, Wainwright's poor weak woman, the queen of the south. For I imagine it is she you mean to support, the privateer being allied to her enemy in the north, the doubly inimical privateer, both American and French?'
'Of course. I am sorry. She had slipped my mind.'
'Yet even if it were more than a political formality, being a subject of the very remote King George -'
'God bless him.'
'By all means, my dear - would seem a less dreadful fate than being under the immediate and present rule of France or America or the architect of a system that roots up every form of social existence known to man and that is very likely to hurry unbelievers or heretics to the stake.'
'So may I take it that you have no objections?' asked Jack, who was indeed very weary, sleepy and stupid by now.
'As you know very well,' said Stephen, 'I am in favour of leaving people alone, however imperfect their polity may seem. It appears to me that you must not tell other nations how to set their house in order; nor must you compel them to be happy. But I too am a naval officer, brother; long, long ago you taught me that anyone nourished on ship's biscuit must learn to choose the lesser of two weevils. On that basis alone I may be said to have no objection to Moahu's becoming a nominal British possession.'
It was far into the silent middle watch before they parted, and Stephen, having looked into the sleeping sick-berth, tiptoed along the gunroom with a dark-lantern to his lower cabin in the hope of escaping the infernal din of holystones and swabs, ritual cries, the wheeze of pumps and the clash of buckets that began before dawn: for he was a creature that needed sleep if his mind were to function at all, and he looked forward to his free day on Annamooka, a day of intense observation and discovery that would call for all his powers if it were to be carried out intelligently.
Jack Aubrey, on the other hand, possessed in an eminent degree that ability to plunge straight into a deep, restorative sleep without which sailors do not survive, and to wake bright, sometimes intolerably bright, and efficient after an hour or two, no more. He had bathed and he was cheerfully eating his first breakfast, served by a haggard, mournful, unnaturally submissive Killick, when word came below that a small canoe was putting off from the Daisy. It was Wainwright himself, and he brought the news that Tereo, the old chief, had arrived, had given orders that no market should be opened, no trading take place, before there had been an exchange of visits and presents. That was why the beach was empty; that was why there was no swarm of visiting canoes. 'He is a very authoritarian and formal old gentleman,' said Wainwright. 'He rebuked Pakeea for his free and easy ways and confiscated his red feathers. His presents should be coming off in about half an hour,
and then you ought to make a return and visit him. I think it might be a mistake to start watering before you have asked his leave.'
'Is there likely to be any difficulty?'
'Not if you handle him right."
'Captain Wainwright, I should be infinitely obliged if you would help me through the whole of this business. There must be no misunderstanding, no disagreement, no time lost.'
'Of course I will, sir. But it is I that am obliged: your Mr Bentley's mate is caulking our red whale-boat at this moment, and he himself is fashioning a new rider. Perhaps, sir, if you were to show me what you have in the way of trade-goods I could pick out a reasonable return for what you are about to be given. Pakeea told me to the last yard of tapa.'
They were turning over the adzes, axes, beads, glass balls, printed cotton, brass and pewter basins, when a pahi put off from the shore, paddled by girls and commanded by an immensely stout middle-aged woman. 'That is Tereo's sister,' said Wainwright. 'A jolly old soul. It might be as well to rig a bosun's chair.'
A jolly old soul she doubtless was, for the habitual expression of her face had lined it with smiling and laughter; but at present, as she was lowered gently to the deck, she behaved with a natural and impressive gravity. Three of her maidens ran nimbly up the side to join her; they too wore clothes from knee to shoulder, being, as Wainwright whispered in Jack's ear, women of high birth, related to the great families of Tongataboo. They were taller and a lighter brown than the cheerful bare-bosomed girls in the pahi, and they too were grave. They spread out the presents - bolts of tapa cloth, dark red, orange and its natural fawn, made from bark; young hogs confined in matting; baskets of live chickens and dead wildfowl, which included a purple coot and some rails that made Martin stiffen like a setter; billets of sandalwood; baked dogs; sugar-cane, fruit and berries; and two clubs made of a hard, dark wood with a sperm-whale's tooth set in each formidable head. The frigate's crew stood on the forecastle or along the gangways, some few leering at the paddlers or exchanging nods and becks with those they had met the night before, but most watching in silent admiration.
Jack said to Wainwright 'Please tell her that I am profoundly grateful for the chief's magnificent presents; that presently I shall do myself the honour of waiting on him with an offering of our own, necessarily less beautifully attended; that I shall ask his leave to water in his island and to trade with his people for victuals; and that at present I beg that she and these young ladies will walk into the cabin. Pray make it as elegant as you can.'
Wainwright certainly made it longer and probably more elegant, for the South-Seas speakers of the Surprise were seen to nod approvingly at several passages; and at the close the chief's sister turned a benevolent face on Jack. He escorted them to the cabin, where Wainwright seated them according to the Polynesian etiquette and Jack gave each a bunch of red feathers and some other little presents. The feathers in particular were very well received; the madeira that followed less so. Their looks of pleased anticipation changed to one of astonishment, in some cases alarm. But after a stunned moment the polite smiles returned and although they were a little artificial the meeting ended with expressions of kindness and esteem on either side.
Shortly after the pahi had left for the shore Jack followed it, his coxswain and bargemen in their best; and about an hour after his return, successful in all points, Stephen first appeared on deck. Admittedly he had slept late, and he had been long delayed in the sick-berth, yet even so he was astonished to see the sun so high and the day so bright, the ship such a hive of activity, the beach so thronged with people and dashed with colour: for in this brilliant light even a pyramid of coconuts on the white coral strand with aquamarine sea in front and the green of palms and gardens behind, was a fine living tawny brown: to say nothing of the heaps of bananas, yams, breadfruit, taro roots and leaves, the baskets of shining fish. He stared and stared again. A pahi came in, the men and women of its crew all singing; they turned their broad, elaborate, beautifully-built craft round the ship in the light breeze in the most seamanlike fashion, avoiding her cables (she was now moored fore and aft) and running up on the beach to unload yet more fish. A flight of medium-sized parrots he could not identify passed over the gardens beyond the strand: a green, fast-flying pigeon. But the Surprise was a busy ship: the great water-casks were already coming aboard, rising up from the launch, swaying in over the deck with many a cry of Ail together - way-oh - handsomely, there - God damn your eyes and limbs, Joe - half an inch, half an inch, half an inch forward, mate and vanishing down the main hatchway to muffled but sometimes more passionate cries far below.
And water was not all by any means. It had been agreed between Jack and Tereo that all trading should take place on shore, in order to avoid the complexity of business with fifty canoes at once, and the market was spread out, wide, handsome and remarkably varied. The Surprise's chief kinds of trade-goods, tools and everything metal; bottles and everything glass; cloth and the much valued hats; gauds, beads and trinkets, were in barrels with a seaman sitting on each; the bartering was carried out first by Wainwright, who set some kind of a standard, and then on that basis by the more knowing Surprises. Their purchases flowed aboard in a steady stream, to be received by Mr Adams, his steward, Jack-in-the-Dust, Jemmy Ducks where poultry was concerned, and Weightman, the ship's butcher, where it was a question of hogs.
These creatures had been arriving in ones and twos since well before Stephen was afoot, rather small, razor-backed, long-legged, dark and hairy swine, inexpressibly welcome to the little girls. They were the same as the hogs of their native Sweeting's Island in appearance, voice and above all smell: they brought back times past with such force that both girls wept, spoke to them in the Melanesian they had almost entirely forgotten, and comforted them in their distress - they were penned on the forecastle until there should be time to enlarge the quarters below where yesterday's hogs were kept, and the animals were both anxious and frightened. Yet those below were in a still more wretched state, and when they heard and smelt others of their kind overhead they set up a hideous din: this too was perfectly familiar to Emily and Sarah. They ran to Jemmy Ducks and told him the creatures were starved; they were calling out for food. For a great while Jemmy, who was much taken up with his chickens, put them off, saying that hogs was butcher's business; but at last they pestered him so that in a lull he went up to Weightman, one of the very few thoroughly disagreeable men aboard, and suggested that the hogs below sounded hungry. He received the abuse he expected - who did he think he was, telling the barky's butcher about hogs? Did Weightman tell Jemmy Ducks how to look after his fucking hens? Or turtles? Turtles, kiss my arse. In any case, the hogs below had been fed; had been offered every goddam thing the ship contained, from bread to tobacco, passing by a prime bucket of swill. And would they touch it? No, squire, they would not. And Weightman would be buggered if he offered them anything again: they should be salted and put up while there was still any flesh on their bones; and if Jemmy Ducks did not like it, why, he could do the other thing.
About this time repeated cries of 'By your leave, sir,' 'If you please, your honour' had driven Stephen off the gangway, then farther and farther aft along the quarterdeck to the taffrail itself, where, behind a great mound of netting full of yams, he found Mrs Oakes, gazing at the land, lost, enraptured; and her delight made her look more nearly beautiful than Stephen had ever seen her, and physically better in spite of the remainder of her black eye. 'Is not this capital, Doctor?' she cried. 'I always longed to travel and to make distant voyages, but I never did - except of course for ..." She waved New South Wales aside and went on, 'And this is what I always hoped Abroad and the islands of the Great South Sea would be like. Dear me, such brilliance! How I wish I may always retain it in my mind's eye; and how passionately I yearn to go ashore! Do you think the Captain will give Oakes leave?'
'Forgive me, ma'am,' said Pullings. 'I am afraid we must clear the davits.'
Stephen and Clarissa were separated by a
gang of seamen earnestly paying out an eight-inch hawser: she took refuge half-way down the companion-ladder, her head on a level with the deck, so that she might not miss anything that might be seen through the passing seamen's legs; and he was contemplating the ascent to the mizen-top when Padeen thrust his powerful form through the press. 'Gentleman dear,' he cried, his emotion drowning what little English he possessed, 'that black thief the butcher, Judas' own son, is tormenting the pigs, so he is, his soul to the Devil.'
'Pigs, is it?' said Stephen, but even before Padeen had finished speaking - it took him some time even in Irish, with his terrible stammer - pigs he knew it was. An eddy in the gentle breeze brought him a smell that he knew as well as even the little girls did or Padeen, and that was almost as much part of his childhood as it was of theirs, for he had been fostered with peasants in the ancient Irish way, and in their house particular swine walked in and out like Christians, as familiar as the dogs and upon the whole cleaner, more intelligent ; while in one of his Catalan homes he and his godfather had reared up a wild boar from a striped, bounding piglet to a great dark beast of nineteen score with huge tusks that would come out of his beech-grove at a rocking-horse gallop to greet them, frightening all but the boldest of horses. For him too, although the pigs were eventually eaten and eaten with rejoicing, they had a particular sanctity, at least in part because they were individuals rather than members of a herd. He and Padeen walked forward along the waist, dodging between the baskets of turtles coming aboard on the one hand, the casks swinging in front from the other, and sacks of yams, sacks of yams. At the break of the forecastle Sarah, the braver and more vehement of the two girls, came running to meet them. 'Oh sir,' she cried to Stephen, 'listen to the hogs below. We keep asking Jemmy to tell the butcher they must be given taro, but he will not attend.'
The Truelove Page 16
