Desolation island

by Patrick O'Brian

  "I have not," said Stephen. "I cannot mend a severed spinal cord. The man was as dead as a rabbit before ever they picked him up."

  They looked at him in silence; he was clearly upset, and they had very rarely seen him upset, rarely moved beyond a certain peevishness - certainly not for a couple of civilians, who (though nobody chose to say so at this time,

  with the men unburied) were as disagreeable a pair of scrubs as they had set eyes upon. They could not tell that his whole person was shrieking for its usual dose, but they did know that he was in need of something, and having no more than kindness, coffee, toast, and orange marmalade, they offered these, together with tobacco. None of these things satisfied the specific craving, but the combination did have a soothing effect, and when Pullings said,, "Oh, sir, I was forgetting: while we were rousing their surgeon out of the hold, we found a stowaway," Stephen cried, "A stowaway in a man-of-war? I never heard of such a thing," looking keen and attentive. There were a great many things in a man-of-war that Dr Maturin had never heard of, but he had of late made some groping attempts at learning the difference between a slab-line and a selvagee - had been heard to say, not without complacency, "I am become tolerably amphibious' - and this pleased them. They agreed heartily: a stowaway was most uncommon, indeed unheard of; and with a bow to Stephen Jack said, "Before we tackle the ugly business in the forepeak, let us have this - this rara avis in mara, maro, in."

  The stowaway, a slight young man, was led aft by a Marine sergeant, holding him up rather than holding him in. He was very pale where the dirt and a week-old heard did not obscure his skin: dressed in a shirt and a torn pair of breeches. He made a leg, and said, "Good morning, sir."

  "Don't speak to the Captain," cried the sergeant, in a sergeant's voice, shaking him by the elbow and then hauling him up as he fell.

  "Sergeant," said Jack, "set him on the locker there, and then you may go. Now, sir, what is your name?"

  "Herapath, sir: Michael Herapath, at your service."

  "Well, Mr Herapath, and what do you mean by concealing yourself aboard this ship?"

  Here the Leopard gave a tee-lurch, and the sea, a light green now, swept up beyond the scuttle with sickening deliberation: Herapath turned greener still, clapped his

  hand to his mouth to stifle a dry, vain retching; and between the spasms that shook his whole frame he brought out the words, "I beg pardon, sir. I beg pardon. I am not quite well."

  "Killick," called Jack. "Stow this man in a hammock on the orlop."

  Killick, a wiry, ape-like creature, picked Herapath up with no apparent effort and carried him bodily away, saying, "Mind your 'ed on the door-lamb, mate."

  "I have seen him before,"said Pullings. "lie came aboard just after the convicts were sent down, and wanted to join. Well, I saw he was no seaman - he said as much himself - so I told him we had no room for landsmen, and turned him away - advised him to list for a soldier."

  At that time it was true that the Leopard had no landsmen on her books apart from those in her original draft. A captain of Jack Aubrey's reputation, a taut captain, even a tartar at times, but a fair one and no flogger, and above all a lucky one in the article of prize-money, had no great difficulty in manning his ship: that is to say, no great difficulty in bringing the meagre draft up to its full complement by volunteers, so long as the news had time to circulate. He had only to print a few handbills, set up rendezvous in suitable public houses, and the Leopard's crew was complete. Men who had sailed with him before, prime seamen who by means known to themselves alone had eluded the pressgangs and the crimps, turned up grinning, often bringing a couple of friends, and expecting their names and former ratings to be remembered - rarely expecting in vain. His only difficulty with this crew of man-of-war's men, in which even the waisters could hand, reef and steer, was preserving it from the port admiral. He succeeded up to the very last day, when the port-admiral, receiving orders to send out the Dolphin instantly, whatever the cost, stripped the Leopard of one hundred seamen, replacing them by sixty-four objects from the receiving-ship, quota-men,

  and people who preferred the sea to a county gaol.

  "And then, sir," continued Pullings, "seeing he looked so very down, I told him it would never answer, an educated man on the lower deck - he would never stand the labour, his hands would be flayed in no time at all, he would be started and cobbed by the bosun's mates, might even be brought to the gangway and flogged, and he would never get along kindly with his messmates. But no, he longed to go to sea, he said, and would prove very willing. So I gave him a chit to Warner, of Eurydice, who is a hundred and twenty hands short, and he thanked me very civil indeed."

  Stephen had also seen the young man. He was nearing the Parade Coffee House when Herapath spoke to him, asked him the way, asked him the time, and was very earnest to enter into conversation; but Stephen was a cautious soul; many people had been set upon him before this, some in even stranger form, and although the approach was almost certainly too pitifully naive to be anything in that line, he did not choose to go into the matter, above all in his present state of apathy. He bade Herapath good day, and walked into the coffee-house. He did not mention this now, however, partly because of his secretive nature, and partly because he was thinking about Mrs Wogan, whom he had not yet seen. He attached no great importance to her, and there was time and to spare in a voyage that might last nine months; but even so, it was worth taking care. Had Diana mentioned his name to her? His entire approach would depend on that.

  Jack drained his last cup and said, "We had best get under way."

  They came out into the brilliant daylight of the quarterdeck, the sun well up on the larboard quarter, high white clouds moving in a steady procession north-westwards across a pale blue sky, the washed air sparkling and transparent, a strong but even swell, the waves themselves a deep perfection. The Leopard had recovered from her battering with the most surprising speed: she was close-

  hauled on the larboard tack, and she was making a good seven knots, not, perhaps, with the lithe grace of a well-trimmed frigate - the image of a playful cart-horse crossed Stephen's mind - but with a creditable gait in a two-decker. Her topgallantmasts were still on deck; the bosun had a party out on the head, busy with the bowsprit and getting uncommonly wet as they passed the gammoning-turns; and there were a good many forecastle hands creeping about like great net-bearing spiders, repairing the damaged rigging; yet from her general clean, trim, orderly appearance, no landsman and few sailors would have believed that she had emerged, not five hours since, from as nasty a blow as the Bay could provide.

  Jack took this in with a quick, professional glance; but then his brow clouded. Two midshipmen were leaning on the rail, gazing at the remote hint of Finisterre dark on the horizon as the ship lifted to the swell. Young gentlemen were not encouraged to lean on the rail in any ship commanded by Captain Aubrey. "Mr Wetherby," he said, "Mr Sommers: if you wish to view the geography of Spain, you will find the masthead a more convenient place, a more extensive vista. You will take a spy-glass with you, if you please. Mr Grant, the other young gentleman will join the bosun on the bowsprit."

  The battens and tarpaulins had already been taken from the hatches, and Jack walke ' d forward along the gangway, down the forecastle ladder and so to the main hatchway; then, adjuring Stephen to 'clap on to the rail, there', for the sea was still running high and skittish, he plunged below, turning quick at the bottom of the ladder, just in time to see Stephen hanging by his coat tails, suspended in Pullings's powerful grasp, and extending his limbs like a tortoise. "You really must learn to clap on, Doctor," he said, receiving him in his arms and setting him down on the lower deck. "We cannot have you breaking your neck too. Come now, one hand for yourself and one for the ship.' Aft along the shadowy lower deck, with its massive

  twenty-four-pounders bowsed up against the tight-shut ports; down again to the orlop and the cable tiers, where Jack called for a hold-lantern: only a very dim light came down through the gratings ov
erhead, and since this part of the ship had been fitted up for the convicts he no longer knew just how things lay. He paused at the head of the ladder leading down to the forepeak, and considered.

  Although he was sole captain, under God, aboard the Leopard, this was another world, a living-space inconveniently cut out of his kingdom, and one that was, to be transported to New Holland with the utmost dispatch, there to be emptied and restored to its true function as part of a man-of-war. A self-sufficient world, with its own stores, its own immediate authorities; one with which he came into contact only through the superintendent, who, with his subordinates, dealt with all problems that might arise. A numerous world, however, for although it had at first been considered that half a dozen convicts would serve as a sufficient blind to cover Mrs Wogan's transportation - to make it seem something other than the most exceptional measure that in fact it was - some of the other bodies or departments concerned had been unable to resist adding to the number, so that it had grown to well above a score, with a superintendent, a surgeon, and a chaplain, besides the usual guards or turnkeys, to look after them. And all these people, the convicted and the unconvicted, inhabited the forward part of the orlop and the forepeak, under the waterline, where they could not get in the way of the working or the fighting of the ship, and where, he had hoped, they could be forgotten. The chaplain and the surgeon were allowed to walk the quarterdeck, but the remaining free men, including the furiously indignant superintendent, were obliged to take the air on the forecastle; while they also messed together in what had been the bosun's cabin.

  "That is where the women are stowed," he observed, nodding towards the carpenter's store.

  "Are there many?" asked Stephen.

  "Three," said Jack, "and another farther aft. Mrs XA'ogan is her name.' Ile collected himself, cried, "Below there! Show a glim," set his foot on the ladder and ran down. Forward of the bitt-pins stretched a curving, triangular space, whitened, barred with iron across its after end, and lit with three dim lanterns. Underfoot lay a mass of straw, floating a foot deep in bilge and liquid filth that heaved with the heaving of the ship, and all about it lay men in the various attitudes of extreme prostration; some few squatted against the step of the foremast; many were still uttering the hoarse sounds of sea sickness; all were beyond caring where they lay or crouched; and all were wearing irons. The stench was appalling, and the air so foul that when Jack lowered his lantern the flame guttered,burning faint and blue. The Marines were lined up outside the cage: inside, near the door, stood their sergeant and a couple of guards, standing over the body of the superintendent. The man's head had been battered to a pulp and it was clear to Stephen that he had been dead some time, probably since the beginning of the storm.

  "Sergeant," said Jack, "Jump aft - Mr Larkin and the mate of the hold. Mr Pullings, twenty swabbers immediately. The channels and pump-dales are choked with all this straw: they must be cleared. Sailcloth and the sailmaker for the body. Do you wish to examine it, Doctor?"

  "No further, sir," said Stephen, bending low and rolling back an eyelid. "I know all I need to know. But may I suggest that these men should be be carried up at once, and that a wind-sail should be installed? This air is mortal."

  "Make it so, Mr Pullings," said Jack. "And let a hose be shipped in the head, to lead down through the mangerscuttle: that will give us a clear run to the forward well. Tell the carpenter to leave everything and repair the forward chain-pump.' Turning to the civilians, he said,

  "Do you know who did this?"

  No, they said, they did not: they had looked at all the irons, as far as they could, what with being hardly able to move themselves and having no orders, like, but in all this wet and filth, why, one pair of irons was much the same as another. In a low voice, jerking his head towards a huge raw-boned man who lay almost naked, utterly indifferent as the lapping surge turned his body from side to side, one of them said, "I think it was him, sir. The big 'un. And his mates."

  Mr Larkin, the master of the Leopard, came running down the ladder, followed by the mate. Jack cut their exclamations very short, gave a number of sharp, clear orders, and turning to the hatchway roared, "Swabbers, bear a hand there, swabbers. Bear a hand, God damn you all," in a voice that could be heard on the poop.

  As soon as the sickening work was well in hand, he told the senior turnkey to follow him, and propelled Stephen up the ladder into the comparative light and purity of the cable-tier. Here there was much less water, but on the other hand many more rats were to be seen; for as usual during a really heavy blow, the hold rats had moved up a stage or two, and the Leopard's motion being still so brisk, they had not yet seen fit to go down again. Jack gave one an expert kick as he stopped at the door of the carpenter's storeroom and bade the turnkey open it. Here again was something like the same mess of straw, but the women's pallets had disintegrated less, and it was drier by far: two of the women were barely conscious, but a third, a girl with a broad, simple face, sat up, blinking in the light, and asked 'was it nearly over yet?" adding, "We ain't had no food, gentleman, not for days and days."

  Jack told her it would be seen to, and said, "You must put on your frock."

  "I ain't got no clothes left," she replied. "They stole my blue and the yellow cambric with muslin sleeves my lady gave me. Where's my lady, gentleman?"

  "God help us," he muttered as they made their way aft, past the huge cables, still smelling of Portsmouth mud - plenty of rats among the tiers - past the carpenter's crew working on the forward chain-pump, and towards the after cockpit.

  "This is where we put the other one," he said, "the Mrs Wogan that was to berth alone.' He rapped on the door and called out, "Is all well there?"

  A sound within, but indistinct. The man opened the door and Jack walked in. Ile saw a young lady sitting in a trim cabin, eating Naples biscuits from the top of a locker by the light of a candle. She was looking indignantly, even fiercely, at the door; but when he said, "Good morning, ma'am. I trust I see you well?" she rose, curtsied, and replied, "Thank you, sir. I am quite recovered."

  An awkward pause followed: physically awkward, because the beam of the lower deck that traversed the little cabin, or rather the large cupboard, obliged Jack to adopt a hangdog stoop as he stood there just inside the door, blocking it entirely - the space was so small that he could scarcely advance another yard without coming into direct contact with Mrs Wogan; and morally awkward because he could not think of what to say, could not think how to tell this obviously well-bred young woman, who stood there, looking modestly down, and who had come through so rough a time so creditably - neat bunk, neat counterpane, all dunnage stowed away - that her candle, her only light, could not possibly be countenanced, that showing a naked light, above all a naked light no very great way from the powder-room, was the most criminal act aboard a ship. He gazed earnestly at the flame, and said, "However.' But this led to nothing, and after a moment Mrs Wogan said, "Will not you sit down, sir? I am sorry that I have no more than a stool to offer you."

  "You are very good, ma'am," said Jack, "but I fear I am not at leisure. A lantern, however - just so, a lantern slung from the beam. You would be much better, with a lantern

  slung from the beam. For I must tell you, ma'am, that a naked - that a bare - that is to say, an unprotected flame cannot possibly be countenanced aboard. A flame is little more - little less - than a crime.' Even as he spoke, the word crime, addressed to a female convict, a criminal, seemed to him unfortunate; but Mrs Wogan only said, n a low, penitent voice, that she was much concerned to hear it: she begged pardon, and never would offend again.

  "A lantern will be sent below at once," he said. "Is there anything else that you could wish?"

  "If enquiries might be made for the young woman that attends me, sir, it would be a great comfort; I am afraid the poor creature may have come to harm. And if I might have liberty to take a little air . . . perhaps the request is improper. But if someone would have the goodness to take the rat away, I should be most
infinitely obliged."

  "The rat, ma'am?"

  "Yes, sir, in the corner there. I knocked him on the head at last, with my shoe - it was quite a battle."

  Jack kicked it out of the door, said that these things should be attended to, that the lantern should be sent directly, bade her good day, and withdrew. Sending the turnkey forward to deal with Mrs Wogan's servant, he joined Stephen under the light of the bread-room grating, where he was holding the rat by the tall, examining it with close attention: a gravid rat, near her term, very much infested with fleas, a rat with some anomalous lesions apart from those inflicted by the heel of a shoe.

  "That was Mrs Wogan," said Jack. "I had a curiosity to see her, after what the messenger let fall. What did you make of the lady?"

  "The door so narrow, and your vast bulk filling It," said Stephen, "I saw nothing of her at all."

  "A dangerous woman, they say. It seems she offered to pistol the prime minister or blow up the Houses of Parliament - something very shocking, that was obliged to be played pianissimo; so I had a curiosity to see her. A rare

  plucked 'un, of that I am very sure: an ugly four days' blow, and her cabin as neat as a pin! Lord, Stephen," he said, when he had changed his filthy clothes and they were sitting in the stern-gallery, watching the Leopard's wake race from them, pure white in living blue, "did you ever see such a Godforsaken shambles as the forepeak?" He was extremely depressed: he was conscious of having failed in his duty as far as the forepeak was concerned. He should never have allowed the cage to be so built that it would flood: the deep bottom bar, upon which the uprights rested, had acted as a dam - that was obvious to him now, as obvious as the simple remedy. And he should have sent for a report from the superintendent. Although the man was not required to report to him more than once a week, and although the man had fallen foul of him before they weighed from Spithead, he should certainly have sent. Now the unfortunate, pompous, brutal, pretentious fellow was dead, and that meant that Jack would either have to shuffle the responsibility for the convicts off on to the useless half-witted illiterate turnkeys or assume it himself; and if anything went wrong he would have not only the Admiralty down on him like a hundred of bricks, but also the Navy Office, the Transport Board, the Victualling Office, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, the Home Office, and no doubt half a dozen other bodies, each better than the last at calling for accounts, dockets and vouchers, at handing down reprimands, at holding officers liable for extraordinary sums, and at involving them in endless official correspondence.