The Wine-Dark Sea (14 page)

'Why, gentlemen,' he cried on entering the gunroom, 'I am afraid I was almost late.'

'It is no matter,' said Grainger. 'We had another whet and feel the better for it. But now I will ask Mr Martin to say grace, and we will set to.'

Martin had been moved to make room for two more Shelmerstonians from the prize and now he was on Stephen's right. He was looking ill and thin and when they sat down Stephen said to him in a low voice, 'I trust I see you tolerably well?'

'Perfectly so, I thank you,' said Martin without a smile. 'It was only a passing malaise.'

'I am glad to hear it; but you must certainly stay on deck this evening,' said Stephen; and after a pause, 'I have just made a discovery that I think will please you. In the frigate-bird the symphysis of the furcula coalesces with the carina and the upper end of each ramus with the caracoid, while in its turn each caracoid coalesces with the proximal end of the scapula!' His look of modest triumph faded as he saw that Martin's anatomy did not appear to reach so far, or at least not to grasp at the consequences, and he went on, 'The result, of course, is that the whole assembly is entirely rigid, apart from the slight flexion of the rami. I believe this to be unique among existing birds, and closely related to the creature's flight.'

'It is of some interest, if your example was not a sport,' said Martin, 'and perhaps it justifies taking the bird's life away. But how often have we seen hecatombs that yield nothing of significance - hundreds and hundreds of stomachs opened, all with much the same result. Even Mr White of Selborne shot very great numbers. Sometimes I feel that the dissection may take place merely to warrant the killing.'

Stephen had often known patients eager to be disagreeable: a common morbid irritability, especially in putrid fevers. But it was almost invariably kept for their friends and relations, rarely extending to their medical men. On the other hand, although Martin was undoubtedly sick, Stephen was not in fact his physician; nor was it likely that Martin would consult him. He made no reply, turning to Mr Grainger with praise of the squid soup; but he was wounded, deeply disappointed, far from pleased.

Opposite him sat Dutourd, apparently in much the same unenviable state of mind. Both men however kept up a creditable appearance of urbanity for some time: they even exchanged remarks about the squid, though it was clear to most of the table that not only was Dutourd's nose out of joint but that he held the Doctor in some degree responsible. For Grainger, Vidal and the rest, privateers or man-of-war's men, taking or being taken was as much part of sea-going life as fair weather or foul and they accepted these things as they came; but they knew that this was the first time Dutourd had been stripped -relatively stripped - and they treated him with a particular deferential gentleness, rather as though he were recently bereaved. This had the effect of making him more loquacious than usual: towards pudding-time his voice rose from the tone of conversation to something nearer that of public address and Stephen realized with dismay that they were to hear a discourse on Rousseau and the proper education of children.

The plum-duff vanished, the cloth was drawn, the decanters moved steadily round, Dutourd boomed on. Stephen had stopped listening several glasses back: his mind turned sometimes with glowing joy to his discovery, more often with intense irritation at Martin's obvious desire to wound. It was true that Martin was much more an observer of birds - an accurate, highly experienced observer - than a systematic ornithologist, basing his taxonomy upon anatomical principles, yet even so...

Dr Maturin had curiously pale eyes, which he often covered with blue spectacles. He was not wearing them at present, and this pallor was much accentuated by the mahogany tan of his face on the one hand and on the other by the cold displeasure with which he reflected upon his assistant, now sitting by him in dogged silence.

He was gazing straight before him in one of these reveries when Dutourd, pouring himself yet another glass of port, caught his eye and taking the glare as a personal reflexion he said, 'But I am afraid, Doctor, that you do not share our opinion of Jean-Jacques?'

'Rousseau?' said Stephen, returning to the immediate present and composing his features to a more sociable amenity or at last adopting a less grim and even sinister expression. 'Rousseau? faith, little do I know of him, apart from the Devin du Village, which I enjoyed; but his theories have been floating about me for ever, and once an admirer made me swear to read the Confessions. I did so: an oath is sacred. But all the time I was reminded of a cousin, a priest, who told me that the most tedious, squalid and disheartening part of his duty was listening to penitents who having made the act of contrition recounted imaginary, fictitious sins, unclean phantasms. And the most painful was the giving of an absolution that might be blasphemous.'

'You surely did not doubt Rousseau's truthfulness?'

'Out of common charity I was obliged to do so.'

'I do not understand you, sir.'

'You will recall that in this book he speaks of four or five children his mistress bore him, children that were at once dismissed to the foundling hospital. Now this does not agree very well with his praise of the domestic affections, still less with his theories of education in Emile. So unless I was to think of him as a hypocrite where bringing up the young was concerned, I was compelled to regard him as a begetter of false babies.' The ransomer merchants at the end of the table, earthy creatures who unlike their serious hosts had been growing more and more restless, burst into a great horse-laugh at the words false babies, and clawing one another on the back they called out, 'Hear him. Very good. Hear him.'

'Those children can perfectly well be explained to a candid mind,' cried Dutourd over the hubbub, 'but where there is a fixed prejudice, an evident hatred of progress and enlightenment, a love of privilege and outworn custom, a denial of the essential goodness of man, a settled malevolence, I have nothing to say.'

Stephen bowed, and turning to the troubled acting first lieutenant he said, 'Mr Grainger sir, you will forgive me if I leave you at this point. Yet before I go, before I sling my hook, allow me to propose a toast to Shelmerston. Bumpers, gentlemen, if you please; and no heel-taps. Here's to Shelmerston, and may we soon sail in over her bar with never a scrape.'

'Shelmerston, Shelmerston, Shelmerston for ever,'they cried as he walked off, returning to the great cabin and feeling the ship's much stronger pitch and roll as he went. He found Jack well into his dinner and sat down beside him. 'Will I confess a grave sin?" he asked.

'Do, by all means,' said Jack, looking at him kindly. 'But if you managed to commit a grave sin between the gunroom and here you have a wonderful capacity for evil.'

Stephen took a piece of biscuit, tapping it mechanically, brushed away the weevil-frass, and said, 'I was in a wicked vile temper, so I was too, and I flew out at Dutourd and Rousseau.'

'He was in an ugly frame of mind as well, very willing to have a fight. He could only just be civil when I made him give up the Franklin's money; yet God knows it was natural enough.'

'So you took his money away? I did not know.'

'Not his money - we left him his purse - his ship's money: booty from her prizes, cash carried for stores and supplies. It is always done, you know, Stephen. You must have seen it scores of times. The chest came aboard in the forenoon watch.'

'Oh certainly, certainly. Only I was not on deck at the time, and I do not believe anybody mentioned the fact. Yet I did observe a general gaiety; and Sarah stated that Dutourd's nose was out of joint.'

'Indeed he took it very ill. He had a great deal of money aboard. But what could he expect? We are not a philanthropic institution. Adams and I and two of the hands were telling it all the morning: there were some very curious pieces, particularly among the gold. I kept this little heap to show you.'

'Little do I know of money,' said Stephen, 'but these are surely bezants; and is not this very like an archaic gold mohur? Pierced and worn as a charm, no doubt.'

'I am sure of it,' said Jack. 'And what do you make of this broad piece? It is rubbed almost smooth, but if you hold it sideways to the light you can make out a ship with a forward-raking mast, very heavy shrouds, and an absurd high-perched poop or after-castle.'

In time Jack finished his dinner, and when they were drinking their coffee Stephen said, 'I made a remarkable discovery this morning. I believe it will make a great stir in the Royal Society when I read my paper; and Cuvier will be amazed.' He described the extraordinarily unyielding nature of the frigate-bird's bosom, contrasting it with that of other fowl, no more rigid than an indifferent wicker basket, and spoke of its probable connexion with the creature's soaring flight. As it was usual with them when they spoke of the lie of the land, naval manoeuvres or the like he traced lines on the table with wine, and Jack, following with keen attention, said, 'I take your point, and I believe you are right. For this, do you see' - drawing a ship seen from above - 'is the mainyard when we are close-hauled on the starboard tack. It is braced up sharp with the larboard brace - here is the larboard brace - the sheet hauled aft, the weather leeches hauled forward with bowlines twanging taut, and the tack hauled aboard, brought down to the chess-trees and well bowsed upon. When all this is done in a seaman-like manner there is precious little give - flat as a board - and a stiff, well-trimmed ship fairly flies along. Surely there is a parallel here?'

'Certainly. If you will come next door I will show you the bones in question and their coalescence, and you will judge the degree of rigidity yourself, comparing it with that of your sheets and chess-trees. I was called away before the dissecting was quite complete - before everything was as white and distinct as a specimen or example mounted for an anatomy lesson - but you will never dislike a little blood and slime.'

Stephen was not a heavy, impercipient man in most respects, yet he had known Jack Aubrey all these years without discovering that he disliked even a very little blood and slime extremely: that is to say, cold blood and slime. In battle he was accustomed to wading ankle-deep in both without the least repulsion, laying about him in a very dreadful manner. But he could scarcely be brought to wring a chicken's neck, still less watch a surgical operation.

'You will take the exposed furcula between your finger and thumb,' Stephen went on, 'and all proportions guarded you will gauge its immobility.'

Jack gave a thin smile: seven excuses came to his mind. But he was much attached to his friend; and the excuses were improbable at the best. He walked slowly forward into what had once been his dining-cabin and was now, to judge from the reek, a charnel-house.

He did indeed take the exposed furcula as he was desired to do, and he listened to Stephen's explanations with his head gravely inclined: he looked not unlike a very large dog that was conscientiously carrying out an unpleasant duty: but how happy he was when the duty was done, when the explanations came to an end, and when he could walk out into the fresh air with a clear conscience!

'Everything is laid along, sir,' said Vidal, meeting him at the head of the companion-ladder. 'The chest is up, the Frenchmen ordered below, and Mr Adams is by the capstan with the muster-book.'

'Very good, Mr Vidal,' said Jack, breathing deep. He glanced at the sky, he glanced aft, where the Franklin lay on the frigate's quarter a cable's length away, throwing a fine bow-wave. 'Let us take in royals and topgallant studdingsails.'

Vidal had hardly relayed the order before the topmen were racing aloft: the royals and topgallant studdingsails vanished, the ship's way sensibly decreased, and Jack said, 'All hands aft, if you please.'

'Mr Bulkeley, pipe all hands aft,' said Vidal to the bosun, who replied, 'All hands aft it is, sir,' and instantly wound his call -sharp blasts followed by a long quavering shriek.

This was the first official information to reach the foremast hands, but if anyone aboard was so simple as to expect them to be surprised at the news he was wholly mistaken: they had all contrived to be clean, shaved, sober and properly dressed; they all had their hats; and now they all swarmed aft along the larboard gangway, overflowing on to the quarterdeck in the usual shapeless heap. There they stood grinning and sometimes nudging one another, and Jack called out, 'Now, shipmates, we are going to proceed to a provisional sharing-out. But this is all to be by silver, Spanish dollars or pieces of eight, shillings and bits, or by gold that everybody knows: guineas, louis d'or, ducats, joes and the like. The old-fashioned, outlandish pieces will be sold by weight and shared accordingly. Mr Wedell, hands out of beckets.' The unhappy boy blushed crimson, whipped his hands from his pockets and crept behind the taller Norton with what countenance he could summon. 'Paper notes and bills, and of course hull, fittings, goods and head-money, come in the final reckoning.'

'If spared,' murmured Mr Vidal.

'Just so,' said Jack. 'If spared. Mr Adams, carry on.'

'Ezekiel Ayrton,' cried Mr Adams, his finger on the open muster-book, and Ayrton, foretopman, starboard watch, came aft, happy though somewhat conscious of being alone and in the public gaze. He walked across the quarterdeck, taking off his hat as he came, but instead of passing straight on beyond the Captain to the windward gangway and so forward as he would have done at an ordinary muster, he advanced to the capstan. There, upon the capstan-head, Adams paid down two guineas, one louis d'or, two ducats (one Venetian, the other Dutch) and enough pieces of eight and Jamaica bits to bring the sum to twenty-seven pounds six shillings and fourpence. Ayrton swept them into his hat with a chuckle, moved on two paces and touched his forehead to the Captain. 'Give you joy of them Ayrton,' said Jack, smiling at him. So it went throughout the alphabet, with more laughter and outbursts of wit than would have been countenanced in a more regular man-of-war, until a minute after John Yardley, yeoman of the sheets, had joined his jocose, wealthy companions on the forecastle, when all merriment was cut to instant silence by the hail from the masthead: 'On deck there: object fine on the starboard bow. Which I believe it is a barrel.'

Chapter Five

The barrel, the first inanimate object they had seen outside their own wooden world for what already seemed an age, was watched intently by all hands as it bobbed closer; and when at last it came aboard, seized with some difficulty by Bonden and Yardley, tossing on the choppy sea in the Doctor's skiff, most of the Surprise's former whalers came as far aft alongside the gangway as was decent, for the cask was seen to be bound with withies, not with iron hoops, not man-of-war fashion nor even that of a China-going ship.

'Mr Vidal,' said Jack, 'you have been in the South Sea fishery: what do you make of it?'

'Why, sir,' said Vidal, 'I should say it is a Yankee barrel; but I sailed out of London River, and never was in those ports. Simon and Trotter would know more.'

'Pass the word for Simon and Trotter,' said Jack, and they instantly stepped on to the quarterdeck.'

'Martha's Vineyard,' said Trotter, turning the barrel in his hands.

'Nantucket,' said Simon. 'I was married there, once.'

'Then how come it has Isaac Taylor's mark?' asked Trotter.

'Well, any road,' said Simon, looking fixedly at Jack, 'this here is a Yankee barrel, sir, what they call a Bedford hog in New England; and it has not been in the water a couple of days. There is no sea-clummer on it. And the dowels is sound. They would never have heaved it over the side without they had a full hold. A full hold and homeward bound.'

All within earshot nudged one another, grinning: their prize-money clanked in their loaded hats; they were delighted at the idea of even more.

Jack considered the sky, the set of the sea, the breeze and the current. The whole ship's company, eminently professional, did the same. The only exception was Dr Maturin, who considered a thin line of birds, high and remote: when he had fixed them in his pocket-glass (no simple feat with the increasing swell) he put them down as southern cousins to the kittiwake: they were gliding steadily east-south-east. For a moment he thought of offering Martin the little telescope; but he decided against it. For their part Martin and Dutourd were contemplating the seamen, their profoundly serious, concentrated weighing of the sea, the weather, the possibilities of a capture, and Stephen heard Martin say, 'Homo hominis lupus.'

Jack called the Franklin up by signal and when she was within half a cable's length he stepped right aft and called out, 'Tom, we have picked up a barrel, seemingly fresh, perhaps from a Yankee whaler. Bear away to leeward and let us sweep on our former course.'

Not a great deal was left of the tropical day, but until the very dipping of the sun every masthead was manned and relieved each bell; and some lingered on throughout the brief twilight. Even the most sanguine had known that the chance of finding a ship in this immensity of ocean with no more than a barrel and the known habits of South Sea whalers for guidance was very remote, although hope was sustained by the presence of sea-birds (rather uncommon in these blue waters) travelling in the same direction. The chief basis of this hope was a fervent desire that it should be fulfilled, and it sank steadily with the coming of the night, sweeping up deep purple from the east, already flecked with stars. Now, in the last dog-watch, as the last men came slowly down, dispirited, it revived, rising high above its former merely speculative pitch, for the Franklin, far over to leeward, sent up a blue flare, followed shortly after by a night-signal, a hoist of lanterns.

Reade was signal-midshipman, and with his telescope poised on Wedell's shoulder he read off the hoist to his Captain in a firm, official voice. 'Telegraphic, sir: alphabetic. K. R. E. N. G. Kreng, sir: I hope I have got it right,' he added in a more human tone.

'Kreng, ha, ha ha!' cried a dozen voices on the gangway; and the helmsman, in a low, kindly murmur said to Reade, 'That's what we call a corpus, sir: a carcass with his head emptied of spermaceti and the blubber all stripped off.'

Jack took the Franklin's bearing, said, 'Mr Reade, acknowledge and make the signal Course SSE by E: close-reefed topsails .'

This same course took the Surprise past the dead whale soon after the moon had risen: white birds whirled and flashed through the beams of the stern lantern. They could scarcely be identified - some pied petrels and possibly a few of the small albatrosses, apart from gulls - but on the other hand the huge carcass, rolling in the phosphorescent sea, was perfectly clear. 'I reckon he would have been an old eighty-barrel bull,' observed Grainger, standing at the rail by Stephen's side. 'They are not as troublesome as the young ones, not being so nimble, but they sound mighty deep - I have known one take out the line of four boats an-end, eight hundred fathom, can you imagine it? - and when they come up they are apt to turn awkward and snap your boat in two. But may I say, Doctor,' he added in a hesitant murmur, 'I saw your mate catting over the side - to windward, poor soul - and then he went below, looking right sickly. Could he have eaten something, do you suppose?'

'Perhaps he may. Though possibly it is the lively motion of the ship, with these short sudden seas and all this spray.'

'To be sure, the breeze is dead against the current now: and the stream has grown stronger with the main not so very far away.'

However, Martin seemed reasonably well for their morning rounds, though the sea was livelier still, and the ship pitched with more than ordinary force as they sailed large under mere topsails and they close-reefed, sweeping as wide an expanse of the somewhat hazy sea as ever they could, perpetually looking for their quarry or to their consort for a signal. Theoretically each could see at least fifteen miles in all directions; and even with the necessity for keeping within clear signalling distance they covered a vast area, but the veering wind brought low scud and it was not until early in the forenoon watch, with the misty sun two spans above the horizon, that the exultant hail 'Sail ho!' came down from the masthead, echoing below, even into the sick-berth itself.

'We've found them!' cried Martin with a triumph that contrasted strangely with his now habitually anxious, withdrawn, cheerless expression.

'Go along, my dears,' said Stephen to the little girls, whose duties were already over, and with the sketch of a bob they flitted away into the dark orlop, scattering rats and cockroaches as they ran, invisible but for their white pinafores. Stephen finished rubbing blue ointment into Douglas Murd, washed his hands, tossed Martin the towel, called to Padeen, 'Let the glasses dry of themselves,' and ran on deck, joining almost all the ship's company who were not aloft.

'Ho, Doctor,' called Jack from the starboard rail, 'here's an elegant spectacle.' He nodded forward over the short tossing angry sea, and as he nodded a sperm whale rose not ten yards out, blew a fine spout, breathed audibly and dived, a great smooth roll. The spout swept aft along the deck and beyond it Stephen saw the whaler clear, directly to windward: beyond her, two boats close together, and farther still, a mile and more to the east, three more. 'They were so busy with their fish they did not see us till a moment ago. The boats in the north-north-east have not seen us yet. But look at the men on board the ship - parcel of old women.' He passed the telescope and at once that remote deck sprang close, sharp and distinct, visibly dirty and disordered even from here. Not many people still aboard, but those few running about with great activity and little apparent purpose, while a person in the crow's nest waved his arms with uncommon vehemence, pointing to the south.

'Mr Grainger,' called Jack, 'pray explain the situation to the Doctor.' He took back his telescope, slung it, and ran up to the masthead like a boy.

'Why, sir,' said Grainger in his comfortable West Country voice, 'those far-off boats away to the eastward are fast to a gurt old bull, running like a coach and six on a turnpike. George, tell our William to bring my other spyglass, and bear a hand, bear a hand. Now, do you see,' he went on, when it came, 'there is the headsman standing in the bows with his lance, to kill the whale when he rises. It was the boat-steerer sent the harpoon home, of course; and now he is in the stern again.'

'A very broad-shouldered man.'

'They generally are. The other boats are standing by, right close, ready to pass their lines in case he sounds again and deeper still. Now if you look back to the ship, sir, you will see they have had a fine morning: two whales killed and fast to a third. They are emptying the first one's head alongside now, or were until they saw us and started their capering; and an awkward time they were having of it, with the short seas breaking over all. And the two boats close to are towing in the second fish. Those fast to the gurt old bull ain't seen us yet, watching so eager; but I dare say the ship will give them a gun presently.'

Stephen gazed and gazed, the little figures hurrying and jerking about in the distant whaler, though clear, were perfectly mute, inaudible, which added a ludicrous side to their distress: some, including a man who was presumably the master, since he beat and cuffed the others, were struggling round the great try-pots set up amidships to melt the blubber - struggling to get a gun clear of all the trying-out gear, the casks and the general whaler-like disorder.

'The man in the crow's nest seems very earnest in urging them to go away to the right. He leaps up and down.'

'Why, yes, sir. The Franklin lies there in the west, Ain't you noticed?'

'To tell you the truth, I had not. But why should he want them to go to her?'

'Because she is wearing American colours, in course, whereas we wear the ensign. That is the Captain's guile, do you see? In any case they certainly know her, she having been a-privateering in these waters since March; and the look-out wants them to make sail for her while there is yet time: they do not know she is took. As the breeze lays now we should need two long boards or tacks if you follow me to come up with her, and by then she could just squeeze under the Franklin's lee.'

'Little good would it do them.'

'None at all, Doctor. But they don't know it. Nor they don't know what metal we carry.'

'Would it not mean abandoning their friends over there in the east?'

'Oh yes. And it would mean abandoning three good fish, enough to break a whaler's heart. I doubt they do it: they are more likely to wait for the Franklin to come up, and then brazen it out the two of them, either hoping we will sheer off, or putting before the wind and running for it, the one supporting the other. But her master might possibly think it worth while to save a full hold; and then you know, sir,' said Grainger in a low confidential tone, 'a whaler's crew ships by the lay - no wages but a share in the profits - so the fewer come home the more the survivors gain. Oh, by God, they are doing it!' he cried. 'They are leaving their friends behind.' Indeed, the hands had dropped the gun for the yards and braces; and the nearer boats, having cast off their whale, were racing for the side, tearing through the broken sea. The sails dropped, the yards rose up, the ship's head turned, and as the men from the two boats scrambled aboard she gathered way. She had a fine topgallant breeze on her quarter and she moved at a surprising pace.

Her people packed on sail faster than would have been believed possible for so few hands, and their calculations were right: the whaler, wearing American colours on every mast, reached the Franklin well before the Surprise, which had paused to take the eastern boats in tow.

When the whaler was within pistol-shot the Franklin hauled down her Stars and Stripes, hoisted the ensign and sent a twenty-four-pound ball skipping across the whaler's forefoot. She let fly her sheets and Tom Pullings hailed her in a voice of brass: 'Strike your colours and come under my lee.'