Book 17 - The Commodore

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Stephen, it was a bloody shambles. It was indeed. But perhaps we shall do better another time. Tell me, you did not bring any letters when you came away from Shelmerston? From Ashgrove, I mean, in particular.'

  'I did not,' said Stephen. 'I am truly sorry to be disappointing, but I had promised young Reade to catch the morning tide, the holy morning tide. Besides, as well as an eagerness to keep my appointment with you—one might even say apart from a sense of duty—I was travelling with my daughter and Clarissa Oakes, taking them to Spain, where an eminent authority is to be consulted; and I did not call: Clarissa and Sophie are not friends.'

  'No. I know they ain't.'

  'I am sorry to be disappointing,' said Stephen again, into the silence.

  'Oh, never fret about that, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You could not be disappointing. In any case I had one but the other day by the Lisbon packet, and a damned unpleasant letter it was. I will not say it made me uneasy, but . . .'

  Stephen said inwardly, 'Brother, I have never seen you so destroyed but once, and that was when you were struck off the Navy List.'

  'Come in,' called Jack.

  'All laid along, sir,' said Tom Pullings. 'And here is the report on the exercise. I am afraid you will not be pleased.'

  Jack glanced at the paper. 'No,' he said. 'No. It is not pleasing. Let us try to show them something rather better. Stephen, it is long since you watched a great-gun exercise,and I do not remember ever having shown you a ship firing both sides at targets. Should you like to watch?'

  'I should like it of all things.'

  As they walked out on to the quarterdeck Pullings gave the order to beat to arms, and above the thunder of the drum Jack said, 'It is just the main batteries, you understand, the gun-deck and the upper deck, the thirty-two pounders and the eighteens.'

  Even Dr Maturin could not have supposed that this was a normal great-gun exercise, with the hands called away from their ordinary occupation to run their pieces in and out three or four times before being dismissed. Not at all: it was meant, and everyone in the squadron knew it was meant, as an example of how these things should be done in battle: and everyone in the Bellona was exceedingly anxious that the pennant-ship's example should indeed be exemplary, for not only was there already a very high degree of pride in the barky, but even among those who had served with him from his very first command, a lumpish brig in the Mediterranean, there was a strong inclination to please the Commodore, or more exactly to avoid his displeasure, which could be devastating, above all at present. From an early hour Mr Meares, the gunner, his mate, the quarter-gunners and of course the gun-crews, first captain, second captain, sponger, fireman, sail-trimmers, boarders, powder-boys and Marines, had been titivating their pieces, greasing trucks, begging slush from the cooks to ease the blocks, arranging tackles and shot-garlands just so, while the midshipmen and officers in charge of stated divisions also fussed over every detail of powder-horns, wads, cartridge-cases, locks, works and the like: and this each crew did on both the starboard and larboard batteries, for although the Bellona had rather better than five hundred people aboard, that was not enough to provide men for each side, and a single crew had to serve two guns.

  The crews, often captained by old Surprises, used to Jack Aubrey's ways, or at all events by men who had seen a great deal of action, had been formed as soon as Jack took command and they had practised together ever since. They should have been confident, but they were not. They settled their handkerchiefs round their heads, hitched their trousers, spat on their hands and stared out forward into the brilliant light over the smooth-heaving sea, their black, brown, or whitish deep-tanned upper parts unconsciously swaying with the heave of the deck as they waited for the signal-gun from the quarterdeck and the appearance of the targets.

  'Very well, Mr Meares,' said Captain Pullings, and the shrill gun went off: its smoke had barely swept astern before the starboard target appeared, three masses of casks and worn-out sailcloth flying on upright spars, each representing the forecastle, waist and quarterdeck of a ship of the line, the whole towed on a long cablet by the boats of the squadron. And at a two-minute interval came the larboard set, also travelling at an easy pace within three hundred yards.

  'From forward aft, fire as they bear,' called Pullings from the quarterdeck, and on the gun-deck the second lieutenant echoed his words. Jack set his stop-watch.

  Two long heaves, with the ship rolling seven degrees, all her teeth showing; and on the next rise the gun-deck bow thirty-two pounder uttered its enormous sullen roar, shooting out a stab of flame that lit the whole jet of smoke, and its ball struck barrel-staves from the target: cheers down the line from both decks, but the bow-gun's crew had no time for such things—they held the gun at its full recoil, sponged, loaded with cartridge and then ball, rammed the wad home with furious speed, heaved the fifty-five-hundredweight monster out again with a crash and raced across to the larboard side, where the second captain had all ready for them to point their massive piece at the next. By this time the firing had run half way down both gun and upper decks on the starboard side. The shattering din, the billowing smoke had already confused Stephen's spirits and the perception, but now the uproar redoubled as the larboard guns came into play and still another set of targets moved within range. He had an impression of enormous, overwhelming noise, shot through and through with fierce jets of intense, concentrated labour where he could see the gun-crews in the waist, shining with sweat as they heaved and pointed and fired their gun before leaping across to the other, never getting in one another's way, never stumbling—almost no words—gestures, nods immediately understood.

  Then, with a last deliberate thirty-two pounder right aft, it was all over, and silence fell on the deafened world. The smoke-bank drifted to leeward, clear of the squadron. Jack looked at the anxious Tom and said, 'I am afraid it was not quite the equivalent of three broadsides in five minutes, Captain Pullings.'

  'I am afraid not, sir,' said Tom, shaking his head.

  'Yet it was not very far off; and we shall soon work up to something a little brisker,' Jack went on. 'And in any case it did give a general idea of what may be expected, a moderately good general idea. What did you make of it, Doctor?'

  'I had no idea that fighting both sides was so very strenuous,' said Stephen in that rather loud voice usual after heavy gunfire, 'nor so very skilled and dangerous, with the cannon recoiling on either hand, with such shocking force. The single broadside I have seen often enough, and it called for surprising agility, but this passes all imagination. I watched them at their frightful task in the waist'—nothing over the quarterdeck barricade down to the upper-deck eighteen-pounders, now being housed and all their implements made fast—'but below, in the gun-deck itself, with those vast pieces booming in one's ear on either side and all the smoke, it must have been very like Hell itself.'

  'Use makes master,' observed Jack. 'It is wonderful what one can grow accustomed to. Not many people could stand your saws and buckets of blood, but you do not turn a hair.' He turned to walk back to the cabin and Stephen was about to follow him when the senior assistant surgeon approached. 'Forgive me, sir,' he said, 'but we are much concerned at Mr Gray's condition—the first lieutenant—Macaulay thinks it may be a very sudden and acute attack of the stone; and with submission I agree.'

  'I will come at once, Mr Smith,' said Stephen; and as they passed down, deck after deck, so the patient's strangled cries became more evident. Stephen's coming was some relief, and Gray stopped for the length of a quick examination—quick, since there was no doubt about the matter—but as soon as he was eased back the groaning began again, though he bit on sheet and blanket with all his strength, his body arched and quivering with the pain. Stephen nodded, went to his dispensary, took out his untouched tincture of laudanum (once his own solace and delight, and very nearly his destruction, it being a liquid form of opium) and some leeches, poured a dose that made his assistants stare, gave them instructions about instruments and bandages, pla
ced half a dozen leeches, told the young men in Latin that he entirely agreed and that as soon as the patient was in a fit state—should he survive that far—he would operate, probably early in the morning: The carpenter would have the necessary chair prepared: there was a measured drawing in Archbold.

  He returned to the quarterdeck and there paced for a while in the sweet evening. The squadron was standing south-south-east under an easy sail and from the forecastle of the Stately, next astern, came the sound of music, the hands dancing in the last dog-watch. At one point he saw Killick in the half-darkness, who said to him, 'There will be a rare old duck for supper tonight, sir,' in a kindly, protective tone before padding along the gangway to the forecastle: thence by way of the shrouds, he reached the foretop, that broad, comfortable platform high above the deck, with folded studdingsails for cushions and a splendid view of the leading ships steering for Africa under courses and single-reefed topsails beneath a sky already filling with starts. But Killick was as indifferent to the stars as he was to the beauty of the Laurel, the lovely little twenty-two-gun ship just ahead. He had come aloft by appointment, to one of the very few places in the ship (500 people and more in a space 170 feet long by 46 feet 9 inches wide at the most and almost entirely filled with stores, provisions, water, guns, powder and shot) where men could talk privately, to see his old friend Barret Bonden, with whom he had scarcely exchanged two words since the Ringle joined; and he looked at the young seamen who were also sitting there, playing draughts, with great displeasure.

  'Bugger off, mates,' said Bonden to them, quite kindly, and they went at once, the authority of the Commodore's coxswain leaving them not a moment's choice.

  'What cheer?' asked Killick, shaking Bonden's hand.

  'All a-tanto,' replied Bonden, 'All a-tanto, thankee. But what's come over the barky?'

  'You want to know what's come over the barky?'

  'That's right, mate. Everything is changed. Anyone would think Old Nick was aboard, or Old Jarvey—wry looks, never a smile, officers nervous, people jumping to it like the day of doom or an admiral's inspection. She had not been really worked up, nor the people had not really shaken down when we left Pompey, but there were a power of old shipmates aboard, right seamen, and on the whole she was a happy ship. What has come over her?'

  'Why,' said Killick, and he searched for a striking, even an epigrammatic reply; but eventually, giving up the attempt, he said, 'It's not just the Purple Emperor and his right discontented ship—which she could not meet a Yankee brig-of-war and take her if the brig was anything like smart—nor it's not that old Stately with her parcel of pouffes aboard; though all that helps. No. It is domestic infelicity that done it. Domestic infelicity that has overflowed into the barky, an awkward barky in any case, whatever you may say, with so many dead ignorant green hands, a heap of miserable pressed men, and a first lieutenant too sick to do his duty. Domestic infelicity.'

  'What do you mean, with your domestic infelicity?' asked Bonden in a stern voice.

  'I mean that the Capt—the Commodore and Mrs A have parted brass rags. That's what.'

  'God Almighty,' whispered Bonden, sinking back against the top-rim, for Killick's words carried complete conviction for the moment. But after a pause he said, 'How do you know?'

  'Well,' said Killick, 'you notice things. You can't help hearing things, and you put them together. No one can call me nosey . . .' Bonden made no comment '. . . and no one can say I ain't got the Captain's best interests at heart.'

  'That's right,' said Bonden.

  'Well, while we was in the East Indies, and Botany bloody Bay, and Peru and so on, Mrs A looked after what we have here, at Ashgrove, in Hampshire, I mean; and she looked after the Woolcombe estate the Captain inherited from the General: which Mr Croft, Lawyer Croft, was not quite exactly in his intellects, being so ancient. And down there there is a family called Pengelley.'

  'Pengelley. Yes, I remember them.'

  'Now these Pengelleys had two farms on the estate, both held for his life by old Frank Pengelley: and the last time the Captain was ever in Dorset just before we set sail, old Pengelley told him he was worried about the lease if he should die before the ship came home—worried for his family, it being a lease for two lives and he being the second. His father's son, if you understand.' Bonden nodded. Leases for one, two or three lives were usual in his part of England too. 'Well, it seems that as the Captain was getting on his horse—that big flea-bitten grey, you remember? he said he would see the young Pengelleys right, by which old Frank understood his sons. But when old Frank died, which he did when we had not been gone a year, Mrs gave Weston Hay to his eldest boy William and Alton Hill, with all its sheep-walks, to young Frank, the old man's nephew and godson, leaving the other brother, Caleb, with nothing.'

  'That Caleb was an idle drunken shiftless creature, no sort of a farmer. Though he had a pretty daughter.'

  'Yes. But when we come home, it appeared that the Captain did mean sons when he said young Pengelleys, and he and Mrs had words about it. Many times and most severe. And about several other changes she had made: there were a lot of deaths down there in Dorset while we were away.' Killick hesitated, unable to see Bonden's expression in the darkness, but presently he went on. 'Yes, Caleb did have a pretty daughter, which her name was Nan: and Nan is a maid at Asbgrove. You know Ned Hart, as works in our garden?'

  'Of course I do. Of course I do. We was shipmates. He lost a foot in the old Worcester.'

  'Well, Ned and Nan want to marry. And if Caleb can get that there lease he says he will set them up. That is how I come to know so much: Nan tells Ned how Caleb goes to work, and Ned tells me, as someone that knows the Captain's mind.'

  'Fair enough. But they would never part brass rags over a thing like that?'

  'No. But one thing added to another and every time there was a disagreement, with hard words and ill-feeling. You remember Parson Hinksey?'

  'The gentleman as courted Miss Sophie long ago, the cricketer?'

  'Yes: well it turned out that it was Parson Hinksey as advised it—advised the lease and everything else, all the things they disagreed upon. He was over to Ashgrove at least every week all the time we were away, says Ned, and now he sat in the Captain's chair.'

  'Oh,' said Bonden.

  'Taken much notice of by Mother Williams and her tie-mate; and by the children. Looked up to.'

  Bonden nodded gloomily: an unpromising state of affairs.

  'So there was words, and Parson Hinksey always being brought up. And Parson Hinksey calling very frequent. But that was nothing, nothing, against what happened when the Captain was in London and she went to dinner over to Barham, where Mrs Oakes looks after the poor Doctor's little natural.'

  'She ain't a natural . . . She's as pretty a little maid as ever I see—talks away to Padeen in their language, and quite like a Christian to us. Laughs when the barky ships a sea, goes aloft on old Mould's shoulders, never seasick—loves the sea. We just run her and Mrs Oakes across to the Groyne in the tender. A dear little maid, and the Doctor is as happy as . . .' Before he could hit upon the very type of happiness Killick went on, 'Just what happened Nan could not tell, but it was to do with that there silk the Captain bought in Java and that we made Mrs Oakes's wedding dress out of.'

  'I sewed its bodice,' said Bonden.

  'Well, that only took part of the bolt and the rest was brought home as intended in the first place. So Mrs A wore it to this dinner where there was Parson Hinksey and some other gent: and when she came back she tore it off—said she would never wear such a rag again—and gave it to her maid, who showed Nan a piece—had never seen such lovely stuff, she said.'

  'I do not know what to make of that,' said Bonden.

  'Nor did I,' said Killick. 'Not until it all came down through Mrs A's particular maid Clapton and her friends down to Nan. But it seems that when the Captain came back a day or so after this dinner there was a letter waiting for him about the lease that vexed him, and he checked Mrs A with
seeing too much of Parson Hinksey, of thinking more of his advice than her husband's, and perhaps he said something else, being carried away, like. Anyway, it was far, far more than she could bear and she went for him like a Tartar, right savage—calling out that if he could use her so, and accuse her so, while she was wearing his trull's leavings and being civil to her, she would be damned if she had anything more to do with him and she took off her ring and told him he might—no, she never said that: she tossed it out of window. But she might have said it, and worse: nobody ever thought she had so much spirit or fury in her, nor such a power of dragging him up and down, though with never a tear nor a foul word nor breaking things. Well, that was just before we sailed. He slept in the summerhouse the last few days and she in a dressing-room with a locked door; and there were no fond farewells at parting, though the children saw him to his boat and waved, and . . .'

  A ship's boy put his head over the rail and said, 'Mr Killick, sir, Grimble asks is he to take up the duck or wait for you? Which Commodore's cook says it will spoil, else.'

  'Killick,' said the Commodore, passing him an empty gravyboat, 'tell my cook to fill this with something that very closely resembles gravy or take the consequences. Heaven and earth alike revolt against a parched and withered duck,' he added, addressing Stephen.

  'If a duck lack unction, it forfeits all right to the name,' said Stephen. 'Yet here are some aiguillettes—what is the English for aiguillettes?—from the creature's inner flank that will go down well enough with a draught of this Hermitage.'

  'I wish I could carve like that,' said Jack, watching Stephen's knife slice the long thin strips. 'My birds generally take to the air again, spreading fat in the most disastrous fashion over the table and the laps of my guests.'

  'The only vessel I ever sailed turned ignominiously upside down,' said Stephen. 'Each man to his own trade, said Plato: that's justice.'