Desolation island

by Patrick O'Brian

  improving the speed and accuracy of the Leopard's fire; but he could not hope to fight all his guns and manoeuvre her at the same time until the Cape should furnish him with a hundred and thirty hands, far less board and carry a determined enemy of the size of the Waakzaamheid. Of the prime seamen who had served with him before and who were used to his notions of how a gun should be handled, he had enough to provide captains and crews for one full upper-deck broadside: for the moment the lower deck had to do as best it could with the rest, with thin crews so supplemented with Marines that no soldiers would be available for small-arms fire until the invalids should recover; and these crews were so disposed that the least efficient were amidships, in what was known as the slaughterhouse because in action most of the enemy's fire was concentrated upon it. The weaker crews on the lower deck: for although her twenty-four-pounders could bite hard, sending a ball through two feet of solid oak at seven hundred yards, the Leopard carried her lower gun-ports no higher from the water than the other ships of her class, and if she were brought to action with much of a sea running, they would necessarily be closed on the leeward side, and perhaps on the windward too.

  He had a good gunner in Mr Burton, one who thoroughly agreed with his Captain's practice of firing live, rather than confining himself to the dumb show of running the pieces in and out. He had a dozen excellent captains, and he was perfectly seconded by Babbington on the lower deck, and by Moore the Marine; while the older midshipmen, who loved this kind of exercise, with its bang and briskness and excitement and competition, paid great attention to their divisions. But Grant was a dead weight. His service had been limited to transports, harbour duties, and exploration, and through no fault of his own he had never been in battle; he was a good navigator, but he could not know the inward nature of a fight at sea: nor did he seem willing to learn. It was as though he did not really

  believe in the possibility of action or the need for anything but formal preparation for it; and his attitude, his tolerably obvious attitude, infected many of those whose idea of battle was as hazy as his own - a general smoke and thunder at close quarters, with the Royal Navy winning as a matter of course.

  After one or two private interviews with Grant which did not succeed in shaking the older man's obstinate self -complacency, in spite of his perfectly correct 'Yes, sir' at every pregnant pause, Jack wrote him down as Just one more burden to be borne, by no means inconsiderable, but far less important than the herd of landsmen on the lower deck; and he carried on with the task of turning the Leopard into a fighting-machine as efficient as his means would allow, entirely changing his methods, suiting them to his strange little crew and, as he put it himself, "cutting his coat according to his cloth."

  The forenoon sessions took place in the great cabin itself. Here there stood Jack's own brass nine-pounders, ordinarily housed fore and aft, to take up less room. They were part of the spoils of Mauritius, light, beautiful guns, and he had had them carefully rebored to take English nine-pound shot: he had also had them painted a dull chocolate-brown, to do away with some of the incessant polishing that took up so much time in a ship - time that could be far better spent. But this humane, sensible move ran counter to some deep naval instinct: Killick and his mates, taking advantage of a few small chips in the paint round the lock and the touch-hole, had gradually increased the area of visible brass until the guns now blazed from muzzle to pomellion. Now Jack spoilt the beauty of the great cabin by causing Mr Gray to build the equivalent of a deep wing-transom, with the corresponding knees, massive enough to withstand the recoil of his brass nine-pounders, so that by removing the stern windows as though to ship deadlights, together with some of the gingerbread-work from the gallery, he could use them as

  chasers, firing from a higher station than the more usual gunroom ports. And this he did almost every day under his own immediate supervision, bringing in different teams, sometimes of officers alone, led by himself - how he loved pointing the gun - sometimes of midshipmen, but more often of the two extremes of the lower deck, the first and second captains on the one hand, and the boobies, the downright creeping lubbers on the other, in the hope that the best might grow better and the worst learn the exercise at least well enough to be of some use to the ship. This firing of the stern chase had the great advantage of allowing him to shoot at empty casks bobbing away in the wake, so that those who aimed them could see the results of their aiming at various ranges; and all this without heaving the ship to for the boats to tow out a target.

  On the other hand, it made a shambles of the cabin. Most Captain's stewards would have cried out at seeing their housekeeping blasted to every wind that blew, their cherished brass, paintwork, checkered sailcloth, deck, windows, desecrated as though by battle; and Killick, old in insubordination and dumb insolence, indulged for old times' sake and grown tyrannical, was perhaps the most crabbed steward in any rated ship, an Attila to the swabbers and ship's boys under his sway, and a source of anxiety to his Captain. But Jack was happily inspired to invite him to touch off the first discharge, and after that the glory of the cabin might go hang - deck-rings and metal slides might wreck the checkered cloth, garlands of hammered shot, wet swabs, and sooty worms might ruin the unvarying symmetry of this drawing-room, adorned with swords on one hand and with telescopes on the other, the pistols forming a tasteful sunburst in between and the chairs and tables always just so, taking their bearings from the mahogany wine-cooler by the starboard quarter-gallery door, and the whole place might reek of powder smoke - Killick was there, eyeing the slow-match that was to fire

  the gun, much as a terrier might eye a rat or a groom his bride. A single shot would make him civil, and even obliging, for a week.

  Apart from this banging and belching of morning fire, life aboard quickly resumed the agreeable monotony of a man-of-war on passage. Jack and Stephen returned to their music, sometimes playing out on the stern-gallery in the warm night, with the wake ploughing a line of phosphorescence far behind them in the velvety sea, flecked with the distorted images of the southern stars, while the steady trade sang overhead. Sometimes birds, rarely to be identified, would dart at the stern-lanterns, and sometimes a whole acre of the surface would erupt in a brief firework-display as a school of flying fish escaped from some unseen enemy. The daily routine went on, and although the decks looked rather thin, this thinness, and the presence of so many bald-headed languid invalids, soon began to seem the natural order of things: what is more, the bald heads, shaved in the fever, grew first a bristly cap, and then a dense upright fur, so that they looked less abnormal. Stephen became intimately acquainted with the first lieutenant's carious teeth and indifferent digestion, and with the bosun's ague, first caught at Walcheren; and he wormed the entire midshipmen's berth.

  In this same resumption of their former days, he returned to his walks with Mrs Wogan, while the surviving convicts exercised upon the forecastle. Now they did so with far less restraint than in the early days; the men voluntarily heaved at the pumps and lent a hand with the simpler tasks - they no longer belonged to an entirely foreign, reprobated world, and sometimes they received illicit gifts of tobacco.

  The slight stock of fresh provisions from Recife soon disappeared; iced puddings were an insubstantial dream; the wardroom went back to its ordinary fare - less monotonous than that of the lower deck, but still pretty

  tedious, with the inept catering of young Mr Byron, whose notion of pudding varied only from figgy-dowdy to plum-duff and back again. And in the wardroom Grant began to assert his authority as president of the mess, doing his utmost to abolish oaths and bawdy and to discourage cards, thereby coming into conflict with Moore, a jovial soul, who feared he must be reduced to total silence and inactivity.

  Throughout the unsleeping four and twenty hours the watches changed, the log was heaved, the winds, the course, and the distance run recorded: none of the distances was spectacular, since the breezes, though in general steady, hung so far to the east of south that the Leopard was
perpetually as close-hauled as she could be, her bowlines twanging taut; and still she trailed her mass of doldrum weed.

  An uneventful series of days, an ordered monotony spaced by bells, among them that which the loblolly-boy pealed daily at the foremast, when those who felt pale reported to the surgeon.

  "At this present rate, we shall exhaust our venereals as well," he said, washing his hands. "How many does that make, Mr Herapath?"

  "Howlands is the seventh, sir," replied his assistant.

  "The gaol-fever might fox me," said Stephen, "but the lues venerea never can: pox in all its forms is as familiar to the seafaring medical man as the common cold to his colleague by land. These are all recent infections, Mr Herapath; and since our Gipsy woman is continence itself, sure the only source is Mrs Wogan's servant Peg. For you are to observe that although a protracted voyage may bring about a wonderful increase in sodomitical practices, these are the wounds of Venus herself. A fireship is among us, and her unlucky name is Peggy Barnes."

  Stephen brushed this aside. "How do they get at her? and how can she be rendered chaste? A serricunnium, a belt for that purpose, is not provided in ships of the fourth

  rate; nor, perhaps, in others. And this, when you reflect upon the number of women to be found in some vessels with captains of a different humour, is a strange lacuna. Our captain, however, obeys the letter of the law, happy to do so, since he maintains that women are a source of discord in a ship. Perhaps the sailmaker, or the armourer, that ingenious man . . . I shall speak to the Captain."

  Stephen did indeed speak to the Captain, and it so happened that he did so at a moment when Jack was particularly inflamed against the sex. "They make a sorry heart, an heavy countenance, a wounded mind, weak hands, and feeble knees," he said, to Stephen's unspeakable astonishment. "And that is in the Bible: I read it myself. Damn them all. There are only three women aboard, but they might as well be a troop of basilisks."

  "Basilisks, joy?"

  "Yes. You must know all about basilisks: they spread pests by glaring at people. There is this Peggy of yours, that will reduce the whole ship's company to a parcel of noseless, toothless, bald paralytics unless she is headed up ina barrel with no bunghole. There is your vile witch of a Gipsy, that has told one of the Portuguese hands the ship is unlucky, so unlucky that the two-headed fetch of a murdered sheriff's man haunts the bowsprit netting: all the people have heard the tale, and the morning watch saw this ghostly bum sitting on the spritsall yard, mopping and mowing at them - every hand on the forecastle came racing aft, tumbling over one another like a herd of calves, never stopping until they reached the break of the quarterdeck, and Turnbull could not get the headsalls trimmed. And then there is your Mrs Wogan. Mr Fisher was with me just before you came. He thinks it would be far more proper for the chaplain to walk her on the poop rather than the surgeon or the surgeon's young man. His admonition would have more weight if he had the sole control of her movements; her reputation would no longer suffer from certain rumours that are current; and most of the other

  officers were of his opinion. How do you like that, Stephen, eh?" Stephen spread his hands. "Now I may not see much farther through a brick wall than the next man," Jack went on, "but I know damned well that for all his black coat, that man wants to come to her bed - I only speak to you like this, Stephen, because you are directly called in question. Since I have a respect for the cloth, all I said was, that I did not relish having my orders canvassed in the wardroom or anywhere else, that it was not customary in the service to dispute a captain's decisions nor to carry dirty rumours to the cabin, and that I expected my directions to be promptly obeyed."

  "Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward: that too is in the Bible, Jack," said Stephen. "I shall do what I can to lay the pox and the ghost. I also bring you some consolation, brother. The young Marine, Lieutenant Howard: he plays the flute."

  "The German flute has been the bane of the Navy ever since I was a youngster," said Jack. "Every midshipmen's berth, every gunroom, and every wardroom I have ever lived in has had half a dozen blockheads squeaking away at the first half of Richmond Hill. And after what he said about Mrs Wogan, Howard is not a man I should ever willingly entertain, or admit to my table other than in the service way."

  "When I say he plays, I mean that he plays to calm the billows and to still brute-beasts in their fury. Such control! Such modulation! Such legato arpeggios! Albioni could do no better - nay, not so well. The man I cannot heartily commend: his lungs and lips alone I praise. When he plays, that brutish military face, the staring oyster eye, the - but I must not speak unkindly - all disappear behind this pure stream of sound. He is possessed. When he puts down his flute, the glow departs; the eye is dead once more; the vulgar face returns."

  "I am sure it is as you say, Stephen; but you must forgive me - I could take no pleasure in playing with a man

  who could speak so ill of women.

  "Women are not without defence, however," reflected Stephen, passing forward along the orlop to remonstrate with Peggy and Mrs Boswell for their thoughtless conduct. Herapath had recently led Louisa Wogan down from the poop, and through the scuttle in her cabin door came the painfully familiar sound of a man being passed under the harrow.

  Though passionate, the voice was low; in the most fluent French it told Herapath that he was a fool, that he understood nothing, nothing at all - he had never understood anything, at any time. He had not the least notion of tact, discretion, delicacy, or sense of timing. He abused his position most odiously. Who did he think he was?

  Stephen shrugged and walked on. "Salubrity Boswell," he said, "what are you about? How comes a woman of your sound judgement to act so thoughtlessly as to tell a mariner he is in an unlucky ship? Do not you know, ma'am, that your mariner is the most superstitious soul that ever breathed? That by telling him his vessel is unlucky, even haunted, you cause him to neglect his duty, to hide away in the dark when he should adjust the sails and pull the ropes? That in consequence the ship becomes indeed unlucky - it turns upon the unseen rock, it bursts, it is taken all aback. And then where are you, ma'am? Where is your baby, tell?"

  He was told that if people crossed her palm with false silver, they must expect a dark fortune for their pains: he left her sullen and remote, muttering crossly at her pack of cards, but he knew that his words had gone home, and that what little she could do to remove the phantom bailiff would be done. It would not be enough, however: the ghostly bum would probably resist all common exorcism.

  "Bonden," he said, "pray remind me: where is the bowsprit netting?"

  "Why, sir," said Bonden, smiling, " 'tis where we stow the foretopmast staysall and the Jib."

  "I shall desire you to carry me there, after quarters and the exercise."

  Bonden smiled no more. "Oh sir, it will be dark by then," he said.

  "Never mind. You will procure a little lantern. Mr Benton will be happy to lend you a little lantern."

  "I doubt it would ever do, sir. "Tis right out there, beyond the head, right plumb over the sea, if you understand me, with nothing to clap on to, bar the horses. It would be far too dangerous for you, sir: you would surely slip. The most dangerous place in the barky, with all them old sharks, a-ravening just below."

  "Stuff, Bonden. I am an old sea-hand, a quadrimane. We shall meet here, by this - what is its name?"

  "The knighthead, sir," said Bonden, in a low, despondent voice.

  "Exactly so - the knighthead. Do not forget the lantern, if you please. I must rejoin my colleague."

  In fact neither Bonden nor Dr Maturin was at the rendezvous, let alone the lantern. The coxswain sent his respectful duty by a boy: the state of the Captain's gig was such that Bonden could not be allowed the least liberty. And Stephen's interview with his colleague Herapath lasted far into the night.

  "Mr Herapath," he began, "the Captain invites us both to dine with him tomorrow, to meet Mr Byron and Captain Moore - come, we must run. There is not a minute to be lost."<
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  The urgent beating of the drum for quarters made him utter the last words in a shriek, and they hurried aft to their action station in the cockpit. There they sat while the ritual went on far above their heads, and they sat in silence. Herapath made one or two attempts at a remark, but affected nothing. Stephen looked at him from behind a shading hand; even by the light of the single purser's dip,

  the young man was very pale: pale and woe-begone. His hair lank and dispirited, his eyes quite sunk.

  "There go the great guns," said Stephen at last. "I believe we may walk off. Come and take a glass in my abode: I have some whiskey from my own country."

  He sat Herapath in one corner of his triangular cabin, among the jars of squids in alcohol, and observed, "Littleton, the hernia in the starboard watch, caught a fine coryphene this afternoon; I mean to spend all the daylight hours dissecting it, so that the flesh may still be palatable when I am done. I will therefore beg you to look after our fair prisoner again."

  Stephen had his own curious limits. He had had no intention of inviting the young man in order to loosen his tongue with drink, nor of provoking his confidence. Yet had that been his design, he could not have succeeded better. Having choked over the unaccustomed drink - 'it was very good - as grateful as the finest Cognac - but if he might be allowed a little water, he would find it even better'- Herapath said, "Dr Maturin, quite apart from my regard and esteem, I am under great obligations to you, and I find it painful to be uncandid - systematically disingenuous. I must tell you that I have long been acquainted with Mrs Wogan. I stowed away to follow her."