The Wine-Dark Sea Read online

  Dr Maturin and his assistant had the usual seamen's diseases to treat and a few wounds to dress, not from the recent battle, which had been a mere point-blank butchery of an enemy caught in a narrow rocky defile, but from the wear and tear of dragging guns up and down a jungly mountainside. They also had one interesting case of a sailor who, less sure-footed by land than by sea, had fallen on to the pointed end of a cut bamboo, which let air into the cavity of his thorax, into his pleura, with the strangest effect on one lung. This they discussed at length, in Latin, to the great satisfaction of the sick-berth, where heads turned gravely from one speaker to the other, nodding from time to time, while the patient himself looked modestly down and Padeen Colman, Dr Maturin's almost monoglot Irish servant and loblolly-boy, wore his Mass-going reverential face.

  They never heard the orders that attended the swaying-up of the new topgallantmast, an anxious business at such a height and with such a swell; nor did they hear the cry of 'Launch ho!' as the bosun's mate at the topmast head banged the fid home through the heel of the topgallantmast, thus supporting it on the topmast trestle-tree. The complex business of securing the long unhandy pole escaped them too - an exceedingly complex business, for although before the swaying-up the shrouds had been placed over the head of the mast, followed by the backstays, the preventer-stays and the very stay itself, they all had to be made fast, bowsed upon and set up simultaneously with all possible dispatch so that they exerted an equally-balanced force fore and aft and on either side. The rigging of the topgallant yard with all its appurtenances also passed unnoticed; so did two typical naval illogicalities, for whereas by tradition and good sense only the lightest of the topmen laid out on the lofty yard to loose the sail, this time, once it was loosed, sheeted home and hoisted, the Captain, with his acknowledged sixteen stone, ran aloft with his glass to sweep what vague horizon could still be distinguished through the growing haze.

  But the medical men and their patients did make out the cheer as the ship returned to her former course, and they did feel her heel as she gathered way, running with a far more lively motion, while all the mingled sounds of the wind in the rigging and the water streaming along her side took on the urgent note of a ship chasing once more.

  Almost immediately after the Surprise had settled into her accustomed pace, shouldering the strange-coloured sea high and wide, the hands were piped to dinner, and in the usual Bedlam of cries and banging mess-kids that accompanied the ceremony, Stephen returned to the quarterdeck, where the Captain was standing at the windward rail, gazing steadily out to the eastward: he felt Stephen's presence and called him over. 'I have never seen anything like it," he said, nodding at the sea and the sky.

  'It is much thicker now than it was when I went below,' said Stephen. 'And now an umber light pervades the whole, like a Claude Lorraine run mad.'

  'We had no noon observation, of course,' said Jack. 'There was no horizon and there was no sun to bring down to it either. But what really puzzles me is that every now and then, quite independent of the swell, the sea twitches: a quick pucker like a horse's skin when there are flies about. There. Did you see? A little quick triple wave on the rising swell.'

  'I did, too. It is extremely curious,' said Stephen. 'Can you assign any cause?'

  'No,' said Jack. 'I have never heard of such a thing.' He reflected for some minutes, and at each lift of the frigate's bows the spray came sweeping aft. 'But quite apart from all this,' he went on, 'I finished the draft of my official letter this morning, before we came within gunshot, and I should be uncommonly obliged if you would look through it, strike out errors and anything low, and put in some stylish expressions, before Mr Adams makes his fair copies.'

  'Sure I will put in what style there is at my command. But why do you say copies and why are you in haste? Whitehall is half the world away or even more for all love.'

  'Because in these waters we may meet with a homeward-bound whaler any day.'

  'Really? Really? Oh, indeed. Very well: I shall come as soon as our dinner is properly disposed of. And I shall write to Diana too.'

  'Your dinner? Oh yes, of course: I do hope it goes well. You will be changing very soon, no doubt.' He had no doubt at all, because his steward Killick, who also looked after Dr Maturin on formal occasions, had made his appearance, standing at what he considered a respectful distance and fixing them with his shrewish, disapproving eye. He had been with them for many years, in all climates, and although he was neither very clever nor at all agreeable he had, by mere conviction of righteousness, acquired an ascendancy of which both were ashamed. Killick coughed. 'And if you should see Mr West,' added Jack, 'pray tell him I should like to see him for a couple of minutes. I do hope your dinner goes well,' he called after Stephen's back.

  The dinner in question was intended to welcome Grainger, now Mr Grainger, to the gunroom; Stephen too hoped that it would go well, and although he ordinarily ate his meals with Jack Aubrey in the cabin he meant to take his place in the gunroom for this occasion: since in principle the surgeon was a gunroom officer his absence might be taken as a slight. Grainger, a reserved, withdrawn man, was much respected aboard, for although he had not belonged to the Surprise during her heroic days as a privateer, when she recaptured a Spaniard deep-laden with quicksilver, took an American commerce-raider and cut out the Diane from the harbour of St Martins, he was well known to at least half the crew. He had joined at the beginning of this voyage, very highly recommended by his fellow-townsmen of Shelmerston, a port that had provided the Surprise with scores of prime seamen, a curious little West Country place, much given to smuggling, privateering, and chapel-going. There were almost as many chapels as there were public houses, and Grainger was an elder of the congregation of Traskites, who met on Saturdays in a severe, sad-coloured building behind the rope-walk. Although the Traskites' views were controversial, he and the younger men who came aboard with him were perfectly at home in the Surprise, which was an ark of dissent, containing Brownists, Sethians, Arminians, Muggletonians and several others, generally united in a seamanlike tolerance when afloat and always in a determined hatred of tithes when ashore. Stephen was well acquainted with him as a shipmate and above all as a patient (two calentures, a broken clavicle) and he valued his many qualities; but he knew very well how such a man, dignified and assured in his own circle, could suffer when he was removed from it. Pullings would be kindness itself; so would Adams; but kindness alone was not necessarily enough with so vulnerable a man as Grainger. Martin would certainly mean well, but he had always been more sensitive to the feelings of birds than to those of men, and prosperity seemed to have made him rather selfish. Although he was sailing as Stephen's assistant he was in fact a clergyman and Jack had recently given him a couple of livings in his gift with the promise of a valuable third when it should fall in; Martin had all the particulars of these parishes and he discussed them over and over again, considering the possibility of different modes of gathering tithes or their equivalent and improvement of the glebes. But worse than the dullness of this conversation was a self-complacency that Stephen had never known in the penniless Martin of some years ago, who was incapable of being a bore. West he was not sure of. Here again there had been change: the moody, snappish, nail-biting West of their present longitude was quite unlike the cheerful young man who had so kindly and patiently rowed him about Botany Bay, looking for seaweed.

  'Oh, Mr West,' he said, opening the gunroom door, 'before I forget it - the Captain would like to see you for a minute or two. I believe he is in the cabin.'

  'Jesus,' cried West, looking shocked; then recollecting himself, 'Thank you, Doctor.' He ran into his cabin, put on his best coat, and hurried up the ladder.

  'Come in,' called Jack.

  'I understand you wish to see me, sir.'

  'Oh yes, Mr West; but I shall not keep you a minute. Push those files aside and sit on the locker. I had meant to speak to you before, but I have been so taken up with paper-work that I have left it day after day: it
is just to tell you that I was thoroughly satisfied with your conduct through our time at Moahu, particularly your exertion in getting the carronades up that infernal mountain: most officerlike. I have mentioned it in my official letter; and I believe that if only you had contrived to be wounded you might have been fairly confident of reinstatement. Perhaps you will do better next time.'

  'Oh, I shall do my very best, sir,' cried West. 'Arms, legs, anything... and may I say how infinitely I am obliged to you for mentioning me, sir?'

  'Mr Grainger, welcome to the gunroom,' said Tom Pullings, splendid in his uniform. 'Here is your place, next to Mr West. But first, messmates, let us drink to Mr Grainger's health.'

  'Good health,' 'Hear him,' 'Huzzay,' and 'Welcome,' cried the other four, emptying their glasses.

  'My dear love to you all, gentlemen,' said Grainger, sitting down in a good blue coat borrowed from his cousin the carpenter, looking pale under his tan, grim and dangerous.

  But grimness could not withstand Pullings' and Stephen's good will, far less West's surprising flow of spirits: his happiness broke out in an extraordinary volubility - a thoroughly amiable volubility - and he rose high above his ordinary powers of anecdote and comic rhyme; and when he was not proposing riddles he laughed. There was no doubt that Grainger was pleased with his reception; he ate well, he smiled, he even laughed once or twice; but all the time Maturin saw his quick nervous eyes flitting from plate to plate, seeing just how the gunroom ate its dinner, managed its bread and drank its wine. Yet by pudding-time and toasts the anxiety was gone; Grainger joined in the song Farewell and adieu to you fine Spanish ladies and even proposed one of his own: As I walked out one midsummer's morning, for to view the fields and the flowers so gay.

  'From what I could make out here on deck,' said Jack, when Stephen joined him for coffee, 'your dinner seemed quite a cheerful affair.'

  'It went off as well as ever I had hoped,' said Stephen. 'Mr West was in a fine flow of spirits - jokes, riddles, conundrums, imitations of famous commanders, songs - I did not know he possessed such social gifts.'

  'I am heartily glad of it,' said Jack. 'But Stephen, you look a little worn.'

  'I am a little worn. All the more so for having first stepped on deck for a breath of air: the appearance of the ocean appalled me. I asked Bonden what he thought - was it often like this? He only shook his head and wished we might all be here come Sunday. Jack, what do you think? Have you considered it?'

  'I considered it most of the time your Nebuchadnezzar's feast was going on, and I cannot remember ever having seen or read of anything like it; nor can I tell what it means. When you have glanced over my draft, perhaps we might go on deck again and see whether we can make it out.'

  Jack always sat uneasy while his official letters were read: he always broke the current of the reader's thoughts by saying 'The piece about the carronade-slides ain't very elegantly put, I am afraid... this is just a draft, you understand, not polished at all... Anything that ain't grammar or that you don't quite like, pray dash it out... I never was much of a hand with a pen,' but after all these years Stephen took no more notice of it than the thin drifting Irish rain.

  With Jack's voice in the background, the roll and pitch of the ship and the crash of the sea on her weather-bow never affecting his concentration he read a succinct narrative, cast in the wooden service style: the Surprise, proceeding eastwards in accordance with their Lordships' instructions, had been overtaken in latitude 28�31S, longitude 168�1'E by a cutter from Sydney with official information that the inhabitants of the island of Moahu were at war with one another and that the British seamen were being ill-used and their ships detained: Captain Aubrey was to deal with the situation, backing whichever side seemed more likely to acknowledge British sovereignty. He had therefore changed course for Moahu without loss of time, pausing only at Anamooka for water and provisions: here he found the whaler Daisy, recently from Moahu, whose master, Mr Wainwright, informed him that the war between the chief of the northern part of Moahu and the queen of the south was complicated by the presence of a number of French mercenaries on the chief's side and of a privateer under American colours, the Franklin, commanded by another Frenchman allied to the chief, a Monsieur Dutourd. Acting upon this information, Captain Aubrey therefore proceeded with the utmost dispatch to Pabay, the northern port of Moahu, in the hope of finding the Franklin at anchor. She was not there, so having released the detained British ship, the Truelove, together with her surviving crew, and having destroyed the French garrison with the loss of one officer killed and two seamen wounded, he hastened to the southern harbour, which was about to be attacked from the mountains by the northern chief and probably from the sea by the privateer. The Surprise arrived in time: her people had the happiness of defeating the northern land forces without loss before the arrival of the privateer, and Captain Aubrey received the assurance of the Queen's willingness to be a faithful ally to His Majesty. Here followed a more detailed account of the two actions and the letter returned to the appearance of the Franklin next morning -her inferior force - her flight - and Captain Aubrey's hope that in spite of her excellent sailing qualities she might soon be captured.

  'It seems to me a perfectly straightforward seamanlike account,' said Stephen, closing the folder. 'Admirably calculated for Whitehall, apart from a few quibbles I have pencilled in the margin. And I see why West was so happy.'

  'Yes: I thought it due to him; and perhaps I laid it on a little heavy, because I was so sorry about Davidge. Thank you, Stephen. Shall we go on deck?'

  It was indeed a lurid and portentous sight, the sky quite hidden and the diffused glow, now more orange than umber, showed an irregularly turbulent sea flecked as far as the eye could see (which was not much above three miles) with broken water that should have been white and that in fact had taken on an unpleasant acid greenish tinge, most evident in the frigate's leeward bow-wave - an irregular bow-wave too, for now, although the swell was still very much present, rolling strongly from the north-east, the series of crests was interrupted by innumerable cross-seas.

  They stood in silence; and all along the gangway and on the forecastle there were little groups of seamen, gazing in the same attentive way, with a few low murmured words.

  'It is not unlike the typhoon that so nearly did for us when we were running for the Marquesas, south of the line,' observed Jack. 'But there are essential differences. The glass is perfectly steady, for one thing. Yet even so I believe I shall strike topgallantmasts.' Raising his voice he called for the bosun and gave the order; it was at once followed by the wailing of pipes and entirely superfluous cries of 'All hands to strike topgallantmasts. All hands. All hands, d'ye hear me there?'

  Without a word of complaint or a wry look, for they were much of the Captain's mind, the patient Surprises laid aloft to undo all they had done with such pains in the forenoon watch. They cast off all that had to be cast off; they clapped on to the mast-rope and by main force raised the foretopgallant so that the fid could be drawn out again and the whole lowered down; and this they did to the others in succession, as well as running in the jib-boom, making all fast and double-griping the boats.

  'A pretty halfwit I may look, if the poor souls have to sway them up again tomorrow,' said Jack in a low voice. 'But when I was very young I had such a lesson about not getting your upper masts down on deck in plenty of time - such a lesson! Now we are on deck I could tell you about it, pointing out the various ropes and spars.'

  'That would give me the utmost pleasure,' said Stephen.

  'It was when I was coming back from the Cape in the Minerva, a very wet ship, Captain Soules: once we were north of the line we had truly miserable weather, a whole series of gales from the westward. But the day after Christmas the wind grew quite moderate and we not only let a reef out of the maintopsail but also sent up the topgallant mast and yard: yet during the night it freshened once more and we close-reefed the topsails again, got the topgallant yard down on deck and shaped the mast.
'

  'Before this it was amorphous, I collect? Shapeless?'

  'What a fellow you are, Stephen. Shaping a mast means getting it ready to be struck. But, however, while this was in train, with the people tailing on to the mast-rope, the one that raises it a little, do you see, so that it can have a clear run down, the ship took a most prodigious lee-lurch, flinging all hands, still fast to their rope, into the scuppers. And since they hung on like good 'uns this meant that they raised the heel of the mast right up above the cross-trees, so that although the fid was out it could not be lowered down. Do you follow me, Stephen, with my fid and heel and cross-trees?'