Desolation Island (31 page)

'Christ, Stephen, how I wish Tom Pullings were here,' said Jack, and drifted off to sleep.

in the wardroom Bryon and Babbington were playing chess while Moore and Benton looked on. Fisher took Stephen aside and said, 'What is all this I hear about the Captain's intellects being disturbed?'

Stephen looked at him for a moment and said, 'It is no part of my function to discuss my patients' maladies, and if the Captain's mind were in any way affected I should be the last to say so. But as it is not, I may tell you that Captain Aubrey, though weak from loss of blood, is intellectually a match for any two men here. Nay, any three or four. Bread and blood, sir,' he cried. 'What do you mean by questioning me? Your manner is as offensive as your matter. You are impertinent, sir.' He took a quick step forward and Fisher fell back, appalled. He was sorry to have offended - he had meant no harm - if a natural concern had led him into impropriety he would most willingly withdraw. With this he edged round the table and hurried from the room.

'Well done, Doctor,' said Captain Moore. 'I love a man who can bite, if vexed. Come and have a glass of grog.'

Stephen turned his cold glare on the Marine; but although he had had a wicked night of it and great responsibility, and although his anxiety for Jack had made him savage, Moore's round red good-humoured friendly face brought a smile to his own. 'Why, no,' he said. 'I was too hasty, too hasty by half.'

'To be sure,' said Moore, near the bottom of his glass, 'for a moment the Owner's wits were all astray, and small wonder, when you consider the knock he had. You may not believe me, but when I gave him joy of the victory, he said he could take no joy in it at all. The captain of a fifty-gun ship to take no joy in sinking a seventy-four! Clearly, for the moment he was all to seek. But from that to say his intellects are disturbed, why..

The door opened, letting in a blast of freezing air, and Turnbull appeared, calling for a hot drink. He was covered with snow, which he distributed pretty liberally about the wardroom, beating it from his cloak in thick clots. 'It has come on to snow,' he said. 'Would you believe it? Half a foot on deck, and falling fast.'

'How is the wind?' asked Babbington.

'Dropping all the time; and the snow has flatted the sea amazingly. It began with rain, and then turned to snow. Would you believe it?'

Grant came out of his cabin, and Turnbull told him that it had come on to snow. At first it had been rain, but now there was half a foot of snow on deck; and both wind and sea had dropped amazingly.

'Snow?' said Grant. 'When I was in these waters I never came south of thirty-eight, and there was no snow. The forties are nothing but strong winds, storms, and pestilence: believe me, and I speak with thirty-five years' experience, a prudent commander will never go south of thirty-nine degrees. He will find no snow up there, I believe.'

Stephen found no snow in forty-three degrees either, when he came on deck early the next morning; but it was extremely cold and he did not linger more than the few minutes needed to show him that the swell, though heavy, had no breakers upon it, that the sky was low and dark, that the clouds moved evenly across it, at no great pace, and that the albatross out there on the starboard beam was a young bird, perhaps in its second or third year. He turned to walk into the cabin, and as he turned he saw Herapath's head coming up the hatchway: Herapath caught sight of him and dodged back, his face quite altered.

Stephen sighed privately. He liked Herapath; he regretted this young man's provoked and necessary betrayal, with its consequent suffering. But there was a friendlier face on the far side of the rail; an open, welcoming grin. 'Good morning, Barret Bonden,' he said. 'What are you at?'

'Good morning, sir; new puddening for the mizen. A fine bright morning for the time of the year, sir.'

'I find it disagreeably chill; a dank and cutting air.'

'Well, perhaps it is a little parky, too. Cobb here says he can smell ice. He was a whaler, and they can smell ice a great way off.' They both looked at Cobb, and the whaler blushed, bending low over his puddening.

'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 mizen-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.'