Book 15 - Clarissa Oakes

by Patrick O'Brian

  There were the usual repetitions, followed by the usual thundering of the drum, the usual muffled rushing sound of bare feet running fast to their action-stations, the usual report of 'All present and sober, if you please, sir' relayed to the captain, and Jack stood contemplating the silent, attentive deck, the crews grouped in their invariable pattern round their guns, the match-tubs sending up their smoke, the whole fighting-machine ready for instant action.

  Nothing could have been more improbable. The whole towering array of canvas, from courses to skyscrapers, hung limp, sagging in the bunt; the smoke rose straight from the tubs; and both to larboard and to starboard there were unruffled mirror-pools of sea, miles in length and breadth, oddly purple in the declining sun. And nowhere, in the cloudless sky or on the smooth disk of enormous ocean, was there anything that moved, living or dead.

  In the silence Dr Maturin's harsh voice could just be heard telling a very deaf dyspeptic seaman that his disorder was 'the remorse of a guilty stomach', that he must chew every mouthful forty times, and 'abjure that nasty grog'.

  'Well, Captain Pullings,' said Jack at last, 'since tomorrow is a saluting-day we will just rattle them in and out half a dozen times. Then let us take in the flying kites and topgallants and give the rest of the day to the King.'

  The King, poor gentleman, had been very fond of the infant Mozart, sitting by him at the pianoforte and turning the pages of his score, and perhaps he would have liked the pieces they played that evening, all as purely Mozartian as love of the great man could make them; for although there were no canonical violin and 'cello duets to be played, a bold mind could transcribe those for violin and viola as well as a variety of songs, the fiddle taking the voice and the 'cello something resembling the accompaniment, while boldness on quite another scale could wander among the operas, stating various passages in unison and then improvising alternately upon the theme. It might not have pleased everybody—it certainly angered Killick—but it gave them the greatest pleasure; and when they laid down their bows after their version of Sotto i pini Jack said 'I can think of nothing in its particular way so beautiful or moving. I heard La Salterello and her younger sister sing it when I was a master's mate, just before I passed for lieutenant: Sam Rogers—a drunken whoremaster if ever there was one, God rest his soul—was sitting next to me in the silent house and you could absolutely hear the tears pittering on his knee. Lord, Stephen, joy makes me sleepy. Don't you find joy makes you sleepy?'

  'I do not. You are much given to sleep these days, I find; and sure your tedious anxious careworn endless weeks or even God forbid months in that vile penal colony required a deal of reparation; but you are to consider that sleep and fatness go hand in hand, like fas and nefas—think of the autumn dormouse, the hibernating hedgepig—and I should be sorry if you were to grow even heavier. Perhaps you should confine yourself to one single dish of toasted cheese before turning in. I smell it coming.'

  'Some other time certainly,' said Jack. 'But tonight is Guy Fawkes' Eve, and must in common decency be celebrated to the full. Anything else would be close to treason, tasting of rank Popery—oh Lord, Stephen, I am laid by the lee again. I am so sorry.'

  The extraordinary smoothness of the sea and the consequent immobility of his cot gave the sleeping Captain Aubrey a very strong impression of being at home, an impression so strong and a sleep so profound, his whole body limp and relaxed, that even the double swabbing of the deck and flogging it dry (this being a saluting-day) did not pierce through to his ordinary consciousness. Nor was it easy for Reade to wake him when he came bounding down at six bells to tell him that the ship had been pierced.

  'Captain Pullings' duty, sir, and the ship's side has been pierced below the waterline just abaft of Wilful Murder. He thought you might like to know.'

  'Are we making water?'

  'Not exactly, sir. It was a swordfish, and his sword is still plugging the hole.'

  'When you have finished playing off your humours on me, Mr Reade, you may go and tell the Doctor. I suppose the fish was not taken up?'

  'Oh but he was, sir. Awkward Davies flung a harping-iron into him so hard it went right through his head. They are trying to get a bowline round his tail.'

  Awkward Davies was rated able because he had followed Captain Aubrey into ship after ship whatever Jack might do and because the Surprise carried no landsman or ordinary seamen, but he possessed no seamanlike ability whatsoever apart from being able to throw the harping-iron with frightful strength, a skill that he had never been able to exercise in any commission for the last ten or twelve years. By the time Jack came on deck the swordfish, slow to acknowledge death, had at last ceased lashing; the bowline had been passed; and a gang from the afterguard, entirely directed by Davies, who would allow nobody, officer or not, to have any part in it, was gently raising the fish from the sea, brilliant in the early sun, its grey dorsal fin hanging down.

  'He is one of the histiophori,' said Stephen, standing there in his nightshirt. 'Probably pulchellus.'

  'Can he be ate?' asked Pullings.

  'Of course he can be ate. He eats better by far than your common tunny.'

  'Then we shall be able to have our feast at last,' said Pullings. 'I have been growing so shamefaced this last fortnight and more I could hardly meet her eye, a bride and all. Good morning, sir,' he cried, seeing Jack standing at the hances. 'We have caught a fish, as you see.'

  'I caught him, sir,' cried Davies, a big, powerful, swarthy man, usually withdrawn, dark and brooding but now transfigured with joy. 'I caught him. Handsomely there, you goddam swabs. I flung the iron right through his goddam head, ha, ha, ha!'

  'Well done, Davies. Well done upon my word. He must weigh five hundred pounds.'

  'You shall have his tail and belly, sir: you shall blow out your kite with his tail and belly.'

  Chapter Four

  'At least the ship has steerage-way,' said Jack, taking off his shirt and trousers and placing them in the hammock-netting well clear of the trail of shining scales. 'I do so loathe plunging into the accumulated filth of two, no, three days and nights. Ain't you coming?'

  'With your leave I shall attend to the anatomy of this noble fish—Mr Martin, how do you do?—before the slightest change sets in.'

  'You can't have the deck above half an hour, Doctor,' said Pullings. 'This is a saluting-day, you know, and everything has to be tolerable neat.'

  'Mr Reade, my dear,' said Stephen, 'may I beg you to run—to jump—downstairs and bid Padeen bring me the large dissecting-case, and then go forward and tell the little girls to bear a hand, to lend a hand; but in their old, dirty pinafores.'

  Their old, dirty pinafores had already been put to soak; new pinafores were out of the question: they came aft naked, as naked as worms, their small black figures exciting no comment, since they were in and out of the water much of the day in this calm weather. They were valuable assistants, with their little neat strong hands, their total lack of squeamishness—they would seize a ligament with their teeth if need be—their ability to hold almost as well with their toes as their fingers, and their eagerness to please. Padeen was useful too in heaving on the very heavy parts, and even more in warding off Davies, the ship's cook, the gun-room cook, the captain's cook, the ship's butcher, and all their respective mates, who were urgent to have their pieces out of the sun and into the relatively cool part of the ship or the salting-tubs; for swordfish was like mackerel in these latitudes, mate, prime before sunset, poor-john the second day, and rank poison the third.

  But with all their dispatch—and the seamen hurried off with their prizes the moment they were released by the anatomists—they were not hasty enough for Pullings. He had already sent the gun-room's compliments to Mr and Mrs Oakes and would be honoured by their presence at dinner, while Jack had accepted even before diving: the first lieutenant therefore had to set everything in train for a feast that would make up for the long delay, and at the same time he had to prepare the ship, dressed all over, for the grave
ritual of saluting the Fifth of November. He and the bosun had of course laid aside great quantities of bunting and streamers, but they knew very well that nothing could be sent aloft until everything below was so clean that a maiden could eat her dinner off of it—until all guns and their carriages were spotless, until what little unpainted brass the ship possessed outshone the sun, until a whole catalogue of tasks had been carried out, all of them calling for great activity.

  Early in these strenuous preparations Stephen handed the fishy little girls over the side, and having seen them thoroughly dipped, and having learnt from Jemmy Ducks that their divisional pinafores were ready for the ceremony, he hurried aft, drawn by the scent of coffee, to have breakfast with Jack, who had also invited West and Reade: it was a pleasant meal, yet with so much to be done none of the sailors lingered.

  Stephen followed them on deck, but at the sight of the turmoil he retired to his cabin, and there, having smoked a small paper cigar out of the scuttle, he sat to his desk, reflected for a while and then wrote 'My dearest love, when I was a child and had to have my paper ruled for me I used to begin my letters "I hope you are quite well. I am quite well." There the Muse would often leave me; yet even so, as a beginning it has its merits. I hope you are very well indeed, and as happy as ever can be. Come in,' he cried. Killick opened the door, laid Stephen's best uniform, cocked hat and sword on the table with a significant look, nodded, and walked off. 'When last I sat at this desk,' continued Stephen, 'I was telling you, if I do not mistake, about Mrs Oakes: but I think I never described her. She is a slim, fair-haired young woman, a little less than the average size, with a slight figure, grey-blue eyes, and an indifferent complexion that I hope will be improved by steel and bark. Her chief claim to beauty is an excellent, unstudied carriage, not unlike yours. As for her face—but where faces are concerned, what can description do? All I will say is that hers reminds me of an amiable young cat: no whiskers, no furry ears, to be sure, but something of the same triangularity, poise, and sloping eyes. Its expression, though modest, is open and friendly, indeed markedly friendly, as though she were eager if not for downright affection then at least for general liking. This, or even both, she has certainly acquired; and a curious proof of the fact is that whereas some time ago all hands were intensely eager to know what crimes or misdemeanours had brought her to Botany Bay, she is now no longer troubled with any of the ill-bred hints that she at one time dismissed with a firmness that I admired—I believe that the very curiosity itself has died away, she being accepted as a person belonging to the ship. The question of guilt or reprobation is quite left aside.

  'She is, there is no doubt at all, good company, willing to be pleased, taking an unfeigned interest in naval actions—I was there when West gave her a detailed account of Camperdown and I am sure she followed every stroke—and she never interrupts. She never interrupts! Yet I must insist that there is nothing in the least forward or provocative or inviting about her manner, nothing whatsoever of the flirt; she does not put out for admiration and although some of the officers feel called upon to say gallant things she does not respond in kind—no protestation, no simpering—a civil smile is all. Indeed I should say that she is in general much less aware of her sex than those she is with; and this I say with the more confidence since I have sat with her for hours, right through the afternoon watch for example, when her husband was on duty and I was looking out for Latham's albatross, or on occasion through much of the night, when it is close below and fresh on deck. We have few things in common: she knows little about birds, beasts or flowers, little about music; and although she has read a certain amount no one could call her a bas bleu; yet we talk away in a most companionable manner. And through all our conversations by day or by night, I might have been talking to a modest, agreeable, quite intelligent young man; though few young men I know are more conciliating, more willing to be liked—and none more capable of resisting intrusion on his privacy. Without being in the slightest degree what is called mannish, she is as comfortable a companion as a man. You may say that this is because I am no Adonis, which is very true. But unless I mistake it is the same with Jack, on those rare occasions when he comes to exchange the time of day; the same with Davidge, a more constant attendant; and both are reckoned tolerably good-looking men. Tom Pullings and West, whose nose mortified on the outward voyage, are even less lovely than I am: they are treated with the same friendliness. So is one-eyed Martin, though he, poor fellow, is not always discreet, and has sometimes seen the cold side of the moon, the Medea I spoke of long ago.

  'Whether this unguarded friendliness is very wise or in the event very kind I do not know. Men are sadly apt to misinterpret such conduct and even when no masculine vanity or self-love steps in, a tenderness may arise in some bosoms, I fear. A tenderness or perhaps something with a grosser name in certain cases, or a mixture of the two in yet others: for after all, the lady came aboard in circumstances that could never be called ambiguous, and even the faintest remains of a bad reputation are wonderfully stimulating.

  'Dear Jack, who is not insensible to her charms, keeps very much aloof; but to my astonishment I find that he is anxious for my peace of mind. For my peace of mind. Some of his more obscure general remarks upon human happiness became clear to me on Tuesday, when he surprised me extremely by repeating the sonnet that begins Th' expense of spirit, saying it in his deep voice better than I thought he could possibly have done, and ending

  All this the world well knows, but none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell

  with the fine sullen growl it calls for, generally in vain. I was transfixed. And the words savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust echoed strangely in my mind.

  'The bell tells me that I shall see the lady in five minutes, unless she sends to cry off, which is not unlikely, she being to dine with the gun-room today; and although she may have some manly virtues I am sure she is woman enough to spend some hours dressing for a feast, so I shall leave this sheet unfinished.'

  Stephen was not infallible. He was by no means infallible. The tap at his door five minutes later was his patient, true to her hour. The coming feast had brought some colour into her cheeks and she looked very well, but in point of fact he found neither improvement nor deterioration in her physical state; and when the examination was over he said, 'We must persevere with the steel and bark; I believe I shall increase the dose a trifle, and I shall also send a little wine forward, to be drank medicinally, a glass at noon and two glasses in the evening.'

  'How very kind,' said Clarissa, her voice muffled in the folds of her dress; and again he reflected that she took no more notice of her nakedness than if they had both been men. Perhaps this was because he was a physician and did not count; yet most of his few women patients had made some gestures in the direction of modesty. Clarissa made none, any more than a professional painter's model would have done. But when her head emerged and she had buttoned herself and smoothed her hair she said, with a certain awkwardness, 'Dear Doctor, may I beg you to do me another kindness, nothing to do with medicine?' Stephen smiled and bowed and she went on, 'Something disagreeable happened yesterday. Mr Martin was showing me how to tune the viola when his little cat—you know his little cat?'

  The little cat's mother had joined the ship in Sydney Cove, and had been tolerated so long by Jack-in-the-Dust—she was a good mouser—that it was thought inhuman to turn her ashore when she proved to be in kit: and Martin had adopted this survivor from the litter, a stupid, persecuting animal.

  Stephen bowed again. 'Well, it suddenly jumped on my lap, as it so often does. I dislike cats and I pushed it off, perhaps a little harder than usual. "Oh," cries he, "do not be unkind to my little cat, I beg. Were you not brought up with cats? Were there no cats at home when you were a child?" And a whole string of enquiries. As you know, I dislike questions as much as I dislike cats, and I may have answered him a little sharply.'

  'Perhaps you did, my dear.'

 
'And I am afraid he may think I am still cross. But what is worse, the wretched creature disappeared last night and he may possibly imagine that I threw it overboard. Please would you seat him next to me at dinner? I should be so sorry if we were not friends.'

  Stephen, feeling that his eyes might betray his reflexions, looked down and said in a neutral voice 'I have no say in these things: Pullings is the president of our mess. But I will mention it to him if you choose.'

  Another tap at the door, and this time it was Reade, bringing the Captain's compliments: if Dr Maturin should wish to attend the ceremony he had between four and five minutes in which to change. The message was delivered in an embarrassed mumble, and when Mrs Oakes asked Reade whether her husband was already on deck he flushed and said 'yes, ma'am,' neither smiling at her nor looking at her, which was in so great a contrast to his usual attitude of open admiration that each gave him a quick, penetrating glance.

  Stephen however had little time for quick penetrating glances. Killick was fuming there at the door and even before Mrs Oakes was quite out of the room he had whipped Stephen's greasy old coat off—a steady stream of nagging reproach.

  Dr Maturin, properly uniformed, was propelled up the companion-ladder to the quarterdeck as the noon observation was in progress. He was somewhat astonished first by the flood of midday light after the shaded cabin and then by the colours all about him, high, low and on every hand, a variety of reds and yellows and blues, square, oblong, triangular, swallow-tailed, chequered, strangely brilliant after the eternal blue or grey, for the ship was now dressed over all, a splendid sight under a most luminous and perfect sky. There was just enough breeze to waft out all the flags and streamers that clothed the masts, yards and rigging—a startling multitude of them, blazing away there in the sun: the whole ship too was very fine, her hammock-cloths stretched to a gleaming white unwrinkled smoothness, everything exactly as a sailor could wish it, decks, guns, falls, a quarterdeck alive with gold lace, the gangways and forecastle filled with hands in high Sunday rig, duck trousers, bright blue brass-buttoned jackets, embroidered shirts, ribboned hats.