Book 18 - The Yellow Admiral

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Sir, sir, our number, sir, if you please: and the signal Captain repair aboard flag' , cried Callaghan.

  'Thank you, Mr Callaghan,' said Jack. 'Let us bear down on the Bellona with all the sail we can spread. Mr Wetherby, pray take a glass aloft and see what the frigate is saying.'

  A few moments later the midshipman's shrill, somewhat breathless voice began to pipe away, at first hesitantly, and then, as the distance lessened, more surely, calling down the frigate's signals, while Callaghan, having said, 'Reading from last Tuesday's plan, sir,' translated them: 'A first rate, wearing a rear-admiral's flag: a line-of-battle ship with sixteen ports, bearing a broad pennant: a line-of-battle ship: doubtful—probably a seventy-four: a frigate, yards and top-masts struck: a hulk: another: a corvette: a brig without topmasts: two frigates ready for sea, everything aloft . . .'

  'Are we not to go to the Admiral?' asked Stephen in a low voice, when the list had ended and the tender was passing well east of the Queen Charlotte.

  'Yes, but by way of the Bellona and so in my own barge,' said Jack, smiling at his simplicity; and in the same undertone he went on, 'I shall watch my step this time, I can tell you. When the Almighty hears my news he will love me even less than he did before; and with such a damned unlucky omen I may expect some wicked squalls. I shall look out for them.'

  'To what omen do you refer, brother?' asked Stephen.

  'Why, to poor Bonden's being beat, of course. What could be more unlucky? And you say you are not quite happy about his head.'

  'Shame upon you and fie, for a poor weak superstitious creature. What connection can there be between the two matters?'

  'Well, the heart has its reasons . . .' Jack began, but then with a confused memory of kidneys troubling his mind he dropped the heart and went on, 'I may be no great scholar, but I do know that Julius Caesar put off an attack because he saw a damned great black bird flying from an unlucky quarter. And Julius Caesar was no weak, simple, womanly creature. It's all one, you know. But tell me, will poor Bonden be fit to see us across?'

  'I believe so, with the blessing,' said Stephen. 'May I have ten minutes?'

  Jack turned his glass on the Bellona, where they were already well on the way to getting the barge over the side—an arduous business, perfectly unnecessary as far as carrying Mr Aubrey to the flagship was concerned, but of the first importance to Captain Aubrey, to the custom of the sea, to the pride of the Bellonas, in their ship and to their concern for their commander's dignity. They were nearly all thoroughly established seamen—often hereditary seamen—and they liked things done proper, particularly in this case, for well over half had served with Jack before, either in the last commission or in other ships entirely: he was a taut captain but very well liked, a capital seaman, much given to battle and above all exceptionally lucky in prize-money (his present legal difficulties affected only himself, not the hands in any way at all, nor the officers). 'Yes, I think so,' he said, and gave orders to gather the fore-sheet aft, gently lessening the tender's pace.

  Hurrying below, Stephen found Bonden half in and half out of his formal rig as captain's coxswain. 'Good day, now, Barrett Bonden,' he said. 'Take off that neckcloth; come here under the skylight and let me see your wound. How do you feel within yourself?'

  'Tolerably, sir, tolerable, I thank you kindly,' said Bonden, sitting on the stool and submitting his poor head to have the bandages removed. Stephen gazed down at the scalp, quite hairless now, and at the still-angry wound: he pondered, weighing the possibilities. 'That was a cruel unlucky throw,' he said.

  'It was indeed, sir. I fair cherished that tail, the finest in the fleet.' Bonden felt behind his neck, where the plait had hung so thick. 'Fair cherished it. But I came home by weeping cross, as they say. It gave me one more wrinkle in my arse, however: which is to the good, no doubt.'

  'Do you feel capable of taking the barge across to the flag, Barrett Bonden?'

  'Of course I do, sir. What, let the Captain wait upon the Admiral without his coxswain? Never in life.'

  'Then I will dress the place again, and you may cover it with your wig,' said Stephen, nodding towards a shaggy pale yellow object run up aboard from well-combed tow: and while he was busy with his ointment and bandage he said, 'Will you tell me about the wrinkles in your arse?'

  The relations between Bonden and Stephen, always close since their first voyage together, when Stephen had taught the coxswain to read quite fluently, had grown closer during this course of treatment and now Bonden spoke with a greater freedom, often using the rakish and even licentious cant expressions of his youth in the London streets and of his prize-fighting days—a familiarity that thoroughly displeased Killick, who thought the terms low, ignorant, disrespectful.

  'Why, sir, in Seven Dials everyone knows that each time you learn something new, your arse takes on another wrinkle: well, in the Dripping Pan I learnt that it is better to be as bald as a coot than risk such a fall and such a cruel loss. That's what I learnt, and it was worth the wrinkle.'

  Stephen finished the dressing. The tender hooked on to the Bellona's larboard afterchains just as the bosun's pipe guided the barge evenly down to the water on the leeward side and the bargemen—blue jackets, duck trousers, broad-brimmed ribboned hats—ran down into it, joined by Bonden.

  Jenkins, the jobbing captain, left the ship with little ceremony after a few minutes of conversation with Jack: Mr Harding, the Bellona's first lieutenant, reported a signal for the Doctor, and Jack, having first urged Stephen to venture the descent before him, ran down and took his seat in the stern-sheets.

  Five minutes later the long slim twelve-oared boat reached the flagship's starboard mainchains, and this time Jack was received with all the honours due to a post-captain, the bosun and his mate winding their calls, white-gloved sideboys running down to offer entering-ropes, the Charlotte's Marines presenting arms as he came aboard, and, the moment he had saluted the quarterdeck, her captain, John Morton, advanced to welcome him, to ask him how he did, and to lead him to the Admiral.

  Stephen's coming aboard, though less ceremonious, was also less discreditable than some of his old shipmates had feared. Even before Captain Aubrey was out of sight Bonden murmured, 'Right away, Bob: on the roll,' to young Robert Cobbald, a wiry, nimble young man rowing stroke, who stepped across the void, gave Stephen a hand, swung him up a few steps, writhed behind and so ran him up to the entering-port without disgrace.

  The Charlotte's lieutenant of the watch and her surgeon greeted him, and to the latter, after the usual civilities, Stephen said, 'Mr Sherman, I rejoice to see you again. I have been reading your paper on the larvae of calliphora with the utmost interest; and apart from that I have a case upon which I should like your opinion.'

  'Come with me, dear colleague, and let us drink a glass of madeira while I tell you about my treatment.' He led Stephen to the wardroom, but on seeing some officers playing backgammon he withdrew, saying, 'Perhaps my cabin, such as it is, would be better. There is so much childish prejudice against what are vulgarly known as maggots, even among the educated, that the people in there would look upon us with dislike during my explanation: they might even protest.'

  'Pray how do you introduce your larvae into the wound?' asked Stephen when they were sitting in the little cabin. 'I know that Larrey began by simply leaving it open, having first ensured the presence of blow-flies by hanging decayed meat in the ward: but this of course was by land.'

  'I encourage my assistants to keep a fair stock,' said Sherman. 'We usually isolate the eggs or the very small larvae, and in appropriate cases we sew them into the wound, leaving a little ventilation, naturally. The result in a really ugly suppurating lacerated wound is sometimes extraordinarily gratifying: I have known gangrenous legs that any surgeon would have amputated without a second thought become perfectly clean and perfectly whole after little more than a month. How I wish I had a few cases to show you: but I am afraid we have seen no action for a great while.'

  'Do you experience
much resistance to the treatment—reluctance to submit?'

  'Tact is called for: even an economy with literal truth and ugly names. But where the hands are concerned we can always fall back on discipline. However, you were speaking of a case that does not quite satisfy you?'

  'To be sure. A profound stertorous coma, resolved after some days: no apparent fracture of the skull, but recently I have seemed to detect a slight crepitation: and there is a change in behaviour and vocabulary that strikes one who knows the patient well. At times I feel there may be a certain aberration, and I should be grateful for the opinion of one who has studied the naval mind so much longer than I have done—of the author of the Mental Health of Seamen.'

  In the great cabin the Admiral half-rose from his desk, gave Jack a hand and said, 'Well, Aubrey, here you are at last. Good morning to you.'

  'Good morning to you, my lord. I trust I see you well?'

  'Oh, as for that . . .' said the Admiral. 'Sit down, Aubrey, and tell me how you come to be so infernally late.'

  'Why, sir, I regret it extremely, but by the time your orders reached Woolcombe I had already left on my way to London. I did not receive them until I came back, when I set out directly, boarding the tender in Torbay.'

  The Admiral gave him a long, considering look. 'You was going to the House, I collect?'

  'Yes, sir. I had to attend a committee deciding on a petition for the inclosure of a common.'

  'Simmon's Lea? The common in which my nephew Griffiths is interested? It seems to me very suitable for inclosure. I told him so. I advised him to proceed.'

  'So I understand, my lord: but I am afraid there was a great deal of opposition on the part of the commoners and—with all respects to you, sir—on my part as lord of the manor. In short, the petitioners' majority was considered insufficient and the petition was dismissed.'

  'I see, I see,' said the Admiral, looking wicked. He made two abortive starts, but then in a controlled voice he said, 'To return to service matters, I must tell you that your frequent absences on parliamentary leave has had a most injurious effect upon Bellona's discipline and general efficiency. She was never, at the best of times a particularly well disciplined or efficient ship; but when I was drilling the squadron in the mouth of Douarnenez Bay on Friday, while you were amusing yourself in town, she very nearly fell aboard of me in a very simple manoeuvre—had to be fended off, with half a dozen voices on her fo'csle and quarterdeck bawling out contradictory orders. You know as well as I do that Captain Jenkins is no more of a seaman than his grandmother, even when he is sober, but I had expected more of your officers. After all, you chose many of them—they were your personal choice, having served under you as reefers or the like. No one would ever call you much of a seaman yourself, Aubrey; but hitherto you have been uncommonly fortunate in picking the men who actually sail the ship. Now, I regret to say, your luck seems to be running out. If on returning to the Bellona you will take the trouble to glance aloft I think that even you will be startled by the number of Irish pennants everywhere to be seen, to say nothing of the great streaks of filth oozing from her head: though perhaps you prefer it that way.' A pause. 'I intend posting you to the inshore squadron. The navigation in the bay is extremely difficult and arduous; the innumerable reefs have not all been accurately charted—very far from it, indeed—and some months of beating to and fro, up and down, will teach you and your people more in the way of seamanship than countless lazy miles rolling down the trades with a flowing sheet. Furthermore, when the French in Brest see the kind of opposition that is waiting for them inshore, they may well be tempted to come out, and then the ships in better order may be able to deal with them.' The Admiral moved his lips for a few moments after this, but silently; then, visibly recovering himself, he said, 'I believe your surgeon is called Maturin, Dr Maturin. Be so good as to tell him that I should like to see him.'

  'Dr Maturin,' said the Admiral as Stephen came in, much delayed by a visit to the sick-berth, 'I am very happy to see you again, sir. When I heard your name I hoped that you might be the same gentleman that I met in Bath, with Prince William, and now I find that I was right. How do you do, sir? Pray take a seat.'

  'How do you do, my lord?' said Stephen in a noncommittal voice. 'I did not at once recall . . .'

  'No, I am sure you did not,' said the Admiral. 'I was plain Koop in those days, Captain Hanbury Koop: I did not inherit until some years later. My name is now Stranraer.'

  'So I have heard, my lord. May I offer my belated but hearty congratulations? Sure, it is a glorious thing to be a peer.'

  'Well,' said Stranraer, laughing, 'it may not be quite what people expect, but it has its advantages. On occasion it gives one a certain amount of extra power, like a double-purchase block. But my purpose—one of my purposes, I may say—for troubling you is this: when we were sitting by his Highness' bed I was seized with a very violent very sudden pain here'—laying his hand on his waistcoat—'and for a moment I thought it was the heart-pang, that I was going to die. But after a couple of words you whipped something out of your bag and in two minutes—no, not so much—the pain was gone. I was deeply impressed. So was the Duke, my old shipmate. He said, "There's Dr Maturin for you. He can cure anybody, so long as the tide is not on the ebb, and so long as he likes the patient." '

  'I am afraid that is quite a widespread superstition,' said Stephen. 'In point of fact I can do nothing that any other ordinary medical man cannot do: the tide nor my liking is neither here nor there.'

  Stranraer smiled, shaking a sceptical head. 'So my first purpose,' he went on, 'is to beg you will tell my surgeon Sherman the name of your elixir: the pain comes back from time to time, but the ignorant dog cannot find out the remedy.'

  'No, my lord: there I must protest. Mr Sherman is a very eminent physician. He has also made some surprising advances in surgery and the treatment of wounds; and no man knows more about the seafaring mind—or the minds of landsmen, for that matter. He was consulted in the King's malady.'

  'Yes. I have heard that he was much cried up as a mad-doctor by land, and I wonder at his taking to the sea: but if he cannot cure an infernal burning physical pain, what good is he to me? My mind is as sound as a bell. I have no call for a mad-doctor, nor have my people. But I am wondering . . .' He rang for his steward. 'Light along some madeira, there; and bear a hand, bear a hand.'

  'Now I understand it, sir,' he began when the wine was poured, 'you and Captain Aubrey have been shipmates for many a commission, and you often mess together. From this I believe it may be presumed that you are—how shall I put it?—well assorted, which does Aubrey much honour I am sure: but it must also be presumed that a man of your superior education and shining parts will have acquired a great influence over him.'

  'There again, my lord, I must beg leave to disagree. Captain Aubrey's intelligence and learning are in many ways far superior to mine. He has read papers on nutation to the Royal Society, and upon Jovian satellites, that soared far beyond my reach, but which were much applauded by the mathematical and astronomical fellows.'

  If Lord Stranraer was impressed by these words he did not show it but carried straight on, 'Another reason that I have for supposing this is my very clear recollection of what might properly be called your ascendancy over your illustrious patient—very much the sea-officer, in spite of everything—at your next visit, when you explained the Spartan system to him and he listened intently, never interrupting though his mouth often opened—explained it with such clarity and at some length: and when you left he said, "Now there's a head for you, Koop: there's a head, by God!" And this brings me, in a roundabout way, to my point: to the inclosure. I know that many people, including your friend, look upon as self-seeking hard-hearted wretches; and it is not impossible that my nephew Griffiths, who lacks the graces, and some of his associates may have strengthened this impression: but please allow me to assure you that there is another side to the question—an entirely different side, indeed. Mr Arthur Young cannot be described as a
nything but a benevolent and very knowledgeable writer on agriculture, and he is in favour of inclosures: the president of your eminently respectable Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, has inclosed thousands of acres, to the great benefit of his tenants and the country; and it must be added, himself. The produce from his estates has increased immensely, because rational cultivation is possible on a large scale: just how great the increase is I naturally cannot tell, but the yield in corn alone from my two manors in Essex has grown by twenty-seven per cent in less than three years since the miserable little scraps were thrown into large fields, properly hedged and ditched: while the harvest from my land in the Fens has increased no less than cent per cent, though to be sure it has taken ten years to do so and the drainage was a great burden, calling for a capital that the villagers could not possibly command. There is a legal expression where manors are concerned and I dare say you are acquainted with it: "the lord's waste"; and never was a truer description—hundreds, even thousands of acres that could be pasture or tillage under proper management but that in fact support no more than a few goats and an ass, a little game that is a standing temptation to poaching, rarely resisted—land that produces nothing but poverty, idleness and vice.'

  Stephen felt Lord Stranraer's considering eye upon him. The Admiral had almost certainly lost the thread of his discourse and was now afraid of growing long-winded, boring, unconvincing: for his own part Stephen said nothing.

  'However,' Stranraer went on, pouring more wine, 'may I first hark back to your Spartans, the Spartans of Thermopylae, and then suggest the comparison between a rabble, with arms of a sort but with neither leaders nor discipline, and these Spartans, or with a well-ordered regiment of today; or perhaps more appropriately between a parcel of fishing smacks with no clear organization—every skipper for himself—and a first-rate man-of-war, thoroughly worked up, well-manned and well-officered, the most formidable engine of war the world has ever seen. Doctor, I will not be troublesome with a wealth of details, but it seems to me that there is a fair analogy here between a well-inclosed estate, directed by men of education with capital, and the usual village of small-holdings and an immense, largely unproductive common. We are, after all, at war; and though this one may soon be over, above all if we can keep the French bottled up in Brest, there is sure to be another presently—foreigners are never to be trusted: look at Spain for example, with us, against us, and now with us again until it suits their purpose to turn cat-in-pan once more. And with the present system we simply do not grow enough corn: we do not produce enough meat to feed the navy, the army and the civilians. It seems to me and to many men of good will that just as it was the duty of the Spartans to bring up their young men to arms, so it is our duty to bring up farmers to feed the fighting-men, farmers with two or three hundred acres, often carved out of unproductive common. There is no room for sentiment in wartime: and after all your village Strephons with an oaten pipe were not very valuable creatures, if indeed they ever existed—I never came across any. There: forgive me, Doctor. I have explained myself very badly, I am afraid. But if you could put that point of view to your shipmate, particularly the image of a first-rate in capital order on the one hand and a straggling village, with pot-houses, small-holdings and more poachers, half of them on the parish, than farm-hands, I believe you would act as a friend. I cannot do it myself. Not only am I an interested party, but in my disappointment at his news I spoke—I used some unguarded terms: and Griffiths is quite incapable. Yet this is a time when sailors as well as neighbours should stand together. Victory—if it come'—he rapped the table-top—'will be very welcome, but it will be a hard time for the service, with ships being paid off by the hundred, half-pay for almost everybody, and precious few commands: a time when a well-placed friend may prove . . .' He did not finish his sentence but coughed, and his commanding old face, unused to such an expression, took on a look of acute embarrassment. 'I am afraid I have been wearisome, Doctor, and I beg your pardon: but this is a point—a duty, as I see it—upon which I feel very strongly indeed. You will say that I am personally concerned, which is very true: yet I think I may place my hand on my heart and assert that I should be of the same opinion if neither I nor my nephew possessed an acre of land. Still, I know what assertions are worth, and I shall bore you no longer, except to observe that my secretary has some messages for you.' He rang a bell, told the servant to pass the word for Mr Craddock, and said, 'Doctor, thank you for listening to me so patiently: I shall leave you and Craddock together,' and with a slight bow he walked out of the cabin.