Book 5 - Desolation Island

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Ice,' thought Stephen as he stepped into the cabin, 'and perhaps the great southern penguins, eared seals, the sea-elephant . . . How I should love to see a mountain of ice, a floating island. Killick, good morning, and how is himself?'

  'Good morning, sir: passed a quiet night, and is as comfortable as can be expected.'

  Comfortable, maybe, although he still seemed closed in and reserved: no doubt there was a good deal of pain in his head. Nausea for sure: he could not touch the huge breakfast that Killick provided. But Stephen was pleased with the leg, and when Jack stated his determination to be on deck for the noon observation he agreed, only insisting that there should be proper support, and wool next the skin. 'You may also receive Mr Grant if you wish,' he added. 'No doubt you are eager to learn the state of the ship. But you would be wise to speak very quietly, and to keep your mind as calm as may be.'

  'Oh,' said Jack, 'I sent for him the moment I woke, and asked what the devil he meant by altering course without orders. There was the line'—with an unguarded nod at the compass hanging over his cot and a wince of pain—'pointing north-east and then north. Anyone would have thought I had been killed in the action. I soon undeceived him. What a loud voice that fellow has: I dare say his mother was one of those bulls of Bashan. What is it?'

  'Which it's Mr Byron, sir,' said Killick, 'asking may he report a mountain of ice to windward.'

  Jack nodded, and winced again. As Byron came in Stephen rose, laid his finger to his lips, and left the room. The young man, quicker in wit than Mr Grant, whispered, 'A mountain of ice to windward, sir, if you please.'

  'Very good, Mr Byron. How far away?'

  'Two leagues, sir; bearing west-south-west a half west.'

  'I see. Pray let the bell be muffled, Mr Byron. It fairly goes through my head.'

  The muffled bell struck through the day, in a ship that had grown as silent as the tomb, so silent that those near the hatchways could distinctly hear the mewling of Mrs Boswell's baby on the orlop.

  It quietened when it nuzzled its red, crinkled face into its mother's tawny bosom, and Mrs Wogan said, 'There, poor honey lamb: I will come back for her in an hour.'

  'You are handy with these little creatures, I find,' said Stephen, leading her back to her cabin.

  'I have always loved babies,' said she, and she seemed about to go on.

  After a pause in which nothing emerged Stephen said, 'You must put on the warmest garments you possess before your walk, which I must ask you to take early today, with Mr Herapath. You have looked yellowish and peaked these last days, and the air is extremely raw. I recommend two pairs of stockings, two pairs of drawers, drawn well up about the belly, and a pelisse.'

  'Upon my word, Dr Maturin,' said Mrs Wogan, starting to laugh. 'Upon my word, you are beyond the pale of humanity. You tell me I am not good in looks, and you name what cannot be named.'

  'I am a physician, child: at times my office sets me as far beyond the human pale as the tonsure sets a priest.'

  'So medical men do not look upon their patients as beings of the same race with themselves?'

  'Let me put it thus: when I am called in to a lady, I see a female body, more or less deranged in its functions. You will say that it is inhabited by a mind that may partake of its distress, and I grant your position entirely. Yet for me the patient is not a woman, in the common sense. Gallantry would be out of place, and what is worse, unscientific.'

  'It would grieve me to be a mere deranged female in your eyes,' said Mrs Wogan, and Stephen observed that for the first time in their acquaintance her composure was far from entire. 'Yet . . . do you recall that at the beginning of this voyage you were so indiscreet as to ask whether I might be confined?' Stephen nodded. 'Well,' said she, twisting a piece of blue wool, 'were you to ask me now, I should be obliged to say yes, perhaps.'

  After the usual investigation Stephen said that it was too early to be sure; that her view of the matter was probably correct; and that in any case she was to take more than common care of herself—no stays, no tight-lacing, no high-heeled shoes, no gross indulgence of any kind, no high living.

  Mrs Wogan had been nervous and solemn up to this point, but the notion of high living in so desolate an ocean—half a pot of jam, three pounds of biscuits and a pound of tea all that remained of her stores—made her laugh with such amusement that Stephen was obliged to turn away, to preserve his character. 'Forgive me,' she said at last. 'I shall do everything you say, most religiously. I have always longed for a baby of my own, and although this one falls a little awkwardly perhaps, it shall have the best start that ever I can give it. And may I say,' she added, in a faltering voice, 'how much I honour your discretion? Even with Dr Maturin, I had dreaded this interview—perhaps I should say this confession—with its almost inevitable personal questions. You have been even kinder than I had hoped; I am so much obliged to you.'

  Stephen said, 'Not at all, ma'am,' but the sight of her eyes brimming with tears and full of confiding affection made him deeply uneasy, and he was glad when she went on, with a gravity unusual in her, 'How I hope the rumour is not true, that the Captain is dying. I have heard that dreadful muffled bell, and all the sailors tell Peggy it tolls for him.'

  'They are never in conversation with her again?' cried Stephen.

  'Oh no,' said Mrs Wogan, who caught his meaning, 'they only talk through the bars. Pray, how does he do? I have heard such a tale of blood and wounds.'

  'He was hurt, sure, and cruelly hurt; but with the blessing he may do well.'

  'I shall say a novena for him.'

  The novena had begun at noon, but Jack did not appear: it was not so much that he was unequal to the exertion, nor that low cloud made observation impossible, as that he was fast asleep. A deep, lasting, healthy sleep right round the clock and farther still, while Killick and the cook ate the enormous meals prepared for him, meals they had designed to fill him with good red blood, He woke with less pain, and although he was still somewhat removed, 'a bar or so behind' as he put it, he felt a keen interest in the welfare and the whereabouts of the ship. His leg was coming to, and a little before noon the next day he stumped out on to the quarterdeck and viewed the scene with the liveliest attention—much the same attention with which he himself was viewed, though covertly, by his officers, the young gentlemen, and all those members of the crew who were not actively employed in the head. He saw a grey and misty sea, with vapour rising from it; a smooth sea that heaved with a quiet swell; a low sky, but clearing here and there as the clouds or rather sea-fog parted, showing pale blue above; the Leopard neat and trim, slipping along through the smoking sea with scarcely a sign of her rough time apart from the mizzen-top, which was still repairing. On the starboard quarter, a school of whales, rising, rolling and spouting quite close, perfectly undisturbed. The quarterdeck beheld a tall, pale, strange-looking Captain with a fresh bandage over his gaunt face, silent, uncertain in his movements.

  'Deck ho,' called the lookout. 'Ice island three points before the larboard beam. Maybe a league.'

  Jack stared over the sea, and there in the wafting mist loomed the island, half a mile across or so, with a tall triangular peak to one side. Noon was too close for any detailed inspection: but he did see that it was surrounded by a mass of floating blocks. He made his way to his usual place, leant on the rail, gave Bonden his watch, took his sextant, and stared aloft. All the officers, all the young gentlemen did the same; if only the fog would clear in the north there was a fair chance of an observation, and it was thinning out fast. The pale sun at its height broke through: a general 'Ha' of satisfaction, and Jack wrote his reading while Bonden gave him the time by the watch. Then came the ritual of noon, the acting master to the officer of the watch, the officer to the Captain, Jack's grave 'Make it so, Mr Byron', and the hands piped to dinner. On the assumption that Jack was quite restored the order was carried out with the usual hullabaloo. He clapped his hand to his forehead, turned, stumbled on his game leg, and fell flat on the deck.


  They ran to help him—small thanks for their pains—and when he was upright, clinging to the rail, he said, 'Mr Grant, when the hands have had their dinner, we will hoist out the jolly-boat and the red cutter to fetch ice from off that island.'

  'I beg your pardon, sir, but it will run on to your coat,' said Grant. Indeed, the wound had opened, and the bandage was soaked already, the red blood dripping down his face.

  'Well, well,' he said testily. 'Bonden, give me your arm. Mr Babbington, get that hairy thing of yours out of the fairway.' He had meant to ask Grant and the midshipman to dine with him. He was fully aware of the importance of the invulnerable, infallible commander, superior to all mortal ills, particularly with a crew like the Leopard's, with some indifferent officers and what was now so large a proportion of raw hands, and he had caught the atmosphere of intense, doubting curiosity; but suddenly he felt that he could not bear an hour of Grant's loud, metallic voice, and he decided to put it off until tomorrow.

  Yet before his solitary meal, Stephen, having renewed the bandage, sat with him for a while; and to Stephen he said, 'Here we are, do you see, in 42°45'E, 43°40'S. A good observation, and I checked the chronometers by a lunar only ten days ago, so we cannot be more than a minute out.'

  Stephen looked at the chart and said, 'The Cape seems a great way off.'

  'About thirteen hundred miles, give or take a score or so. Lord, how we did run off our casting, with the Devil at our heels.'

  'It will take longer, I presume, to run it in again, and bring us back to the Cape.'

  'There is little point in going back to the Cape. It is less than five thousand miles to Botany Bay, and down here in the forties, with the likelihood of fair winds all the way, we may run them off in under a month. As for hands, Mr Bligh or the Admiral are as likely to supply us as the Cape. Our stores have held out very well; so rather than beat back or run north and west, I mean to carry on, keeping to this parallel, or perhaps a little south.'

  'No Cape,' said Stephen.

  'No. Did you particularly wish to see the Cape again?'

  'Oh, not at all,' said Stephen. And then, 'But come, you poured all the water away. What do we drink, during this month of yours?'

  'Dear Stephen,' said Jack, smiling for the first time since the action, 'there is as much fresh water a few miles to leewards as ever we could wish. If you had been on deck for the observation you would have seen it, a monstrous fine great island of ice, enough to last us ten times round the world. That is why I had the ship's head kept south-east. You always find these mountains floating about the high latitudes, though I had not hoped for them quite so soon, this being what they call summer.'

  Stephen may have missed the iceberg in the forenoon, when he was deep in Mrs Wogan's papers, she being walked by Herapath, but he was not going to miss it now. As soon as he was free he put on his comforter, a pilot jacket, and a woollen hat, borrowed Jack's common telescope—much as he loved Stephen, Jack would not let him have his best—and found a sheltered corner by the shivering hens. He sat upon a coop and stared at the towering ice with great satisfaction: far grander than he had imagined, a most enormous mass, fretted at its base into fantastic shapes—deep bays, caverns, lofty pinnacles, overhanging cliffs. An ancient island, he presumed, decaying fast in its northward drift. Great numbers of detached blocks floated at its foot, and some fell from the heights as he watched. A deeply gratifying spectacle. The Cape was a disappointment, particularly as both he and Mrs Wogan had relied upon it: her papers were almost ready, and only a few pages of Herapath's transcript remained to be encoded. By now she was much quicker at her task, though she still used the inky, often-folded key that he had copied on an earlier occasion to include in his own letter from the Cape—such a letter from an agent put out to grass! 'But still,' he said, shrugging, 'Cape Town or Port Jackson, the end is much the same: though I do regret the loss of time. If the British boobies do provoke the Americans into a declaration of war, they may weep for these lost months.' Far over, where the boats were busy, a dark form hauled out on to the ice. He stared more intently still. 'A sea-leopard?' If only it would turn its head. 'God damn this glass.' He wiped the lens, but with no good result: it was not the glass misting, but the fog that dimmed his view. A yellowish fog that presently increased, so that the spires of the island came and went, showing like floating castles made of glass.

  The ice had been coming aboard at a fine pace, hoisted up with can-hooks, and there was question of using the other cutter, perhaps the launch. From what little Stephen retained of the conversation on the quarterdeck as it flowed past his inattentive ears, the officers were in disagreement. Over and over again Babbington said that when he was in Erebus north of the Banks he had noticed that the current always set in towards an ice island; and the larger the island the stronger the current—it was common knowledge in northern waters. Other voices maintained that this was all stuff; that everyone knew the current set eastward in these latitudes, regardless; the southern hemisphere was quite different; Babbington was only showing away, with his Newfoundland Banks; he might keep that for his Newfoundland dog, or tell it to the Marines.

  The Leopard stood off and on for some time after Stephen had given up hope of seeing anything at a distance, and in spite of the apparently immobile fog her topgallantsails caught enough breeze up there to send her along at a comfortable pace, so that she came about easily at the end of each of her short boards. Babbington kept insisting, in an earnest voice, that something should be referred to the Captain; Grant that he should not be disturbed. The Captain was far too sick to be disturbed. Eventually Babbington came over to Stephen and said, 'Doctor, do you think I can go into the cabin without doing any harm?'

  'Certainly, if you talk in a reasonable tone, and not as though your interlocutor were seven miles off, and he deprived of hearing. You may find that answer in the wardroom, Mr Babbington, where people interrupt you before you have opened your lips; but it will not do in the cabin today. For you are to consider, that loss of blood renders the ears preternaturally acute.'

  Two minutes later Jack came out, leaning on Babbington's shoulder. He looked at the sea and the fog and said, 'Where is the jolly-boat?'

  'Between us and the island, sir, right on the larboard beam. I saw them not ten minutes ago.'

  'Signal the cutter to follow, run down and pick 'em up. We do not want to lie here all day, firing guns, while they wander about in the fog looking for us. I do not like the look of this current, either. There will be plenty of ice tomorrow, and clear weather, if this breeze goes on.'

  The Leopard ran down, heaved to within three-quarters of a mile of the island, unloaded the jolly-boat, hoisted it in, and waited a while for the cutter. During this time a thin gleam broke through the fog, and although Stephen could not distinguish anything but a single giant petrel he did have the pleasure of seeing even greater masses of ice fall from the high cliffs above the low-lying mist, masses the size of a house that either shattered at the foot of the mountain or plunged straight into the sea, sending up vast fountains of water: scores of these monstrous great blocks.

  The cutter was hoisted in. Jack said, 'Spritsail, foresail, topsails and topgallants: give the island a wide berth with this damned current, then east-south-east.'

  The watch changed. Turnbull came on deck, muffled like a bear; Babbington handed over: 'Here you have her; spritsail, foresail, topsails, topgallants; give the ice-island a wide berth, then east-south-east,' and Stephen, licking a piece of ice—it was quite fresh—once again meditated upon the enormous amount of repetition in the service.

  Jack lingered until Turnbull had trimmed the sails and the Leopard was making five or six knots; then he said, 'Mr Grant, come and take a dish of tea in the cabin. You will join us, Doctor?'

  'Thank you, sir,' said Grant, 'but I am sure you are not equal to company.'

  Jack made no reply: he stared over the side for a while, trying to pierce the fog and see the iceberg out on the larboard beam, but it was
gone. Then he led the way aft, holding Stephen's arm, and followed, rather awkwardly, by Grant.

  The awkwardness persisted throughout the tea-drinking, and it caused Grant to speak in a voice louder and more brassy than usual. Stephen was glad to escape: 'I shall sit with Mrs Wogan and her stove for a while,' he said as he made his way down to the orlop.

  He was on the top step of the lower ladder when he was flung bodily down to its foot. An enormous echoing crash seemed the cause, and the total arrest of the ship's forward motion. At once all the people below rushed over his body as they made their way on deck, and it was some time before he could gather his wits. He heard furious contradictory cries of 'Up with the helm' and 'Down with the helm' and a confused bellowing.

  Herapath came leaping below in two bounds, with a spike in his hand. Seeing Stephen he cried, 'The key! The key! I must get her out from down there.'

  'Calm yourself, Mr Herapath. There are no rending timbers, no evident leak, no immediate peril. But here is the key, and that of the forepeak. You may liberate them if the water should rise.' He spoke quietly enough, but Herapath's frantic dismay affected him to the extent of causing him to step into his cabin, make a quick, judicious selection of his papers and put them into his bosom before climbing up to the deck.

  There he found an appearance of complete disorder, some men running aft, others running forward to join the vague shadowy forms on the forecastle. The ship and everything around her was shrouded deep in fog until an eddy of wind tore it apart; and there, high above the masthead, he saw a wall of ice, soaring up and up, leaning out so as to overhang the deck; and its base, with the breaking waves, was not twenty feet away.

  'Haul of all,' came Jack's voice, loud and clear, doubled by the echo of the ice. The disorder vanished, the yards creaked round, the towering wall moved sideways, gently on and on until it lay abeam. Then the fog closed in and a dead silence fell.

  'Fore topgallant staysail,' said Jack. 'Rig the pumps.'

  The sound of running feet and hauling died away: in the silence nothing could be heard but once the thunderous crash of falling ice some way to starboard, the grinding of the pumps, and the gush of water from the side. No one spoke: all on the quarterdeck stood motionless, and their breath, condensing, joined the silent fog. Silence, and the ship dead still, quite motionless.