Book 15 - Clarissa Oakes Read online

  'Tom,' said Jack, 'we left that odious wench in the starboard cable-tier. I dare say Oakes has fed her, but she cannot stay there watch after watch: she had better be stowed forward with the little girls until I have made up my mind what to do with her.'

  This was one of the few Sundays when no guests had been invited to the cabin, the Captain feeling so out of sorts, one of the few Sundays when Dr Maturin dined in the gun-room, and Aubrey sat in the solitary splendour usual in some captains but rare in him—he liked seeing his officers and midshipmen at his table and particularly his surgeon. Not that Stephen could in any way be called a guest, since they had shared the cabin these many years, and until recently he had actually owned the ship.

  He might have been expected for coffee, but in fact Jack saw nothing of him until the evening, when he walked in with a dose and a clyster: he and Martin had spent the intervening hours describing the more perishable specimens from their tour in the bush, and writing to their wives.

  'Here's a pretty kettle of fish,' cried Jack. 'An elegant God-damned kettle, upon my word.' Solitude and a heavy afternoon sleep had increased his ill-humour, and Stephen did not at all like the colour of his face. 'What's afoot?' he asked.

  'What's afoot? Why, the ship is turned into a bawdy-house—Oakes has had a girl in the cable-tier ever since we left Sydney Cove—everybody knew, and I have been made a fool of in my own command.'

  'Oh, that? It is of no great consequence, brother. And as for being made a fool of, it is no such matter but rather a mark of the people's affection, since they wished to avoid your being placed in a disagreeable posture.'

  'You knew, and you did not tell me?'

  'Of course I did not. I could not tell my friend Jack without at the same time telling Captain Aubrey, authority incarnate; and you are to observe that I am not and never have been an informer.'

  'Everyone knows how I hate a woman aboard. They are worse than cats or parsons for bad luck. But quite apart from that, quite rationally, no good ever came of women aboard—perpetual trouble, as you saw yourself at Juan Fernandez. She is an odious wench, and he is an ungrateful scrub.'

  'Have you seen her, at all?'

  'I caught a glimpse of her in the cable-tier just after leaving you this morning. Have you?'

  'I have, too. I went along to ask the little girls how they did and to hear them their piece of catechism and there I found a midshipman with them, a young midshipman I did not know, a handsome youth: then I perceived that he was a young woman and I begged her to sit down. We exchanged a few words—her name is Clarissa Harvill—and she spoke with a becoming modesty. She is clearly a woman of some family and education: what is ordinarily called a gentlewoman.'

  'Gentlewomen do not get sent to Botany Bay.'

  'Nonsense. Think of Louisa Wogan.'

  Jack gave the unanswerable Louisa a passing glance and returned to his fury. 'Bawdy-house,' he cried. 'It will be the lower deck full of Portsmouth brutes next, and a Miss in every other cabin—discipline all to pieces—Sodom and Gomorrah.'

  'Dear Jack,' said Stephen, 'if I did not know that your liver was speaking rather than your head or God preserve us your heart this righteous indignation and solemnity would grieve me, to say nothing of your broadside of first stones, for shame. As you told me yourself long ago the service is a sounding-box in which tales echo for ever, and it is perfectly well known throughout the ship that when you were about Oakes' age you were disrated and turned before the mast for hiding a girl in that very part of the ship. Surely you must see that this pope-holy sanctimonious attitude has a ludicrous as well as a most unamiable side?'

  'You may say what you please, but I shall turn them both ashore on Norfolk Island.'

  'Pray take off your breeches and bend over that locker,' said Stephen, sending a jet from his enema through the open stern window. A little later, and from this position of great moral advantage, he went on 'What surprises me extremely in this whole matter is that you should so mistake the people's frame of mind; but then in many ways, as their surgeon, I am closer to them than you are. It appears to me that you do not sufficiently distinguish between the ethos of the man-of-war and that of the privateer. The prevalent feeling or tone of this community is far, far more democratic; consensus is required; and whatever the law may say, you command the Surprise, the Surprise as a privateer, only because of the respect the people have for you. Your commission is neither here nor there: your authority depends wholly upon their respect and esteem. If you were to order them to put a callow youth and a slip of a girl down on a virtually abandoned island and sail on with me and Padeen you would lose both. You have many old followers on board who might say My Captain, right or wrong; but you have no Marines, and I do not think the followers would prevail, with the community as it now stands and with its overriding sense of what is fair and right. You may put your breeches on again.'

  'Damn you, Stephen Maturin.'

  'And damn you, Jack Aubrey. Swallow this draught half an hour before retiring: the pills you may take if you do not sleep, which I doubt.'

  Chapter Two

  Like most medical men Stephen Maturin had seen the effects of addiction, full-blown serious addiction, to alcohol and opium; and like many medical men he knew from inner experience just how immensely powerful that craving was, and how supernaturally cunning and casuistical the deprived victim might become. It was therefore only with the greatest reluctance that he had included one small square case-bottle of laudanum (the alcoholic tincture of opium, alas) in his medicine chest. Once laudanum had come aboard by the carboy, and indulgence in it under stress had very nearly wrecked his own life and Padeen's; now, although he was reasonably sure of himself he had not the same confidence in Padeen, and this single bottle, often disguised and sometimes filled with an emetic, was kept in an iron box, far from the ordinary drugs.

  A ship had to be provided with a certain amount, since there were cases in which the tincture alone would give relief; and the square bottle was the very smallest that could still be called reasonable—that could be reconciled with Stephen's medical conscience. 'It is a curious thing,' he said to Martin, turning the key in the iron box, 'that a man who knows perfectly well that in decency he must not practise on his friends has not the slightest hesitation in doing so when it comes to medicine. We give strongly-coloured, strongly-flavoured, physically inoperative draughts, pills, boluses in order to profit by the patient's belief that having been dosed he now feels much better—a belief whose invaluable physical effects you have often seen. In this case I exhibited the tincture in the unusually powerful dose of five and thirty drops, disguising it with asafetida and a little musk and suppressing its name, since the patient has a horror of opium, while at the same time, to deal with the initial stimulation that often accompanies the ingestion of narcotics by those unaccustomed to them, I provided four pills of our usual pink-tinted chalk, to be taken in the event of wakefulness. The patient, comforted by the thought of this resource, will pass the first ten minutes or so in placid contemplation, ignoring the slight excitement, and then he will plunge into an oblivion as deep as that of the Seven Sleepers, or deeper. I flatter myself that this deep peace, this absence of vexation and irascibility, will allow the organs to carry on with their usual task unhindered, responding to my cholagogues, eliminating the vicious humours and restoring the former equilibrium.'

  The Seven Sleepers however had not been brought up from boyhood with a ship's bell. At the second stroke in the morning watch Jack Aubrey flung himself from his cot on the leeward roll and staggered, dazed and half blind, to the starboard chain-pump, where the hands were gathering. He took his place, tall there in the twilight with the warm air wafting his nightshirt. He said 'Good morning' to his dimly-apprehended neighbours, spat on his hands and cried 'Way oh!'

  This horrid practice had begun long ago, well north of Capricorn, so long ago that the people no longer looked upon it as a grievance but rather as part of the nature of things, as inevitable and perhaps
as necessary as dried peas—so long ago that Jack's hands were now as horny as his shipmates'. Stephen's would have been equally harsh and rough, for since he had unwittingly set the whole process in motion he felt morally obliged to rise and toil; and he did rise and toil; nearly destroying himself, until the Captain very kindly told him that it was his duty to keep his hands as smooth as a fine lady's, in order to be able to take a leg off like an artist rather than a butcher's boy.

  'Way oh!' he cried, and the water gushed along the pump-dales, shooting clear of the side. On and on, an exuberant flood; in half an hour he was dripping sweat on to the deck and his wits were gathering themselves together through the clouds of Stephen's five and thirty drops. He recalled the events of yesterday, but without much emotion; on the edge of his field of vision he noticed that the tide of wet, followed by sand, followed by holystones and then by swabs was coming steadily aft; at length he said 'Some zealous fool must have kept the sweetening-cock open half the watch', and he began to count his strokes. He had nearly reached four hundred when at last there came the welcome cry, 'She sucks'.

  They stood away from the pump-brakes and nodded to one another, breathing hard. 'The water came out as clear and sweet as Hobson's conduit,' said one of his neighbours.

  'So it did,' said Jack, and he looked about him. The Surprise, still on the same tack, but under topsails alone, had drawn in with Norfolk Island, so that the nearer shore could be seen on the rise, and along the heights the outlines of monstrous trees stood sharp against the sky—a sky that was as pure as ever, apart from a low cloud-bank right astern: the lightest night-blue overhead changing imperceptibly to aquamarine in the east, with a very few high clouds moving south-east on the anti-trade, much stronger up there than its counterpart below. Down here the breeze was much the same as before: the swell if anything heavier.

  'Good morning, Mr West,' he said when he had examined the log-board. 'Are there any sharks about?' He handed the log-board back—it had told him exactly what he expected—and tossed his sodden nightshirt on to the rail.

  'Good morning, sir. None that I have seen. Forecastle, there: are there any sharks about?'

  'Never a one, sir: only our old dolphins.' And as the cry came aft so the sun sent up a fine brilliant orange sliver above the horizon; for a moment it could be looked at before eyes could no longer bear it, and a simile struggled for life in Jack's mind, only to be lost as he dived from the gangway, utterly forgotten in the long bubbling plunge with his hair streaming out behind in the pure water, just cool enough to be refreshing. He dived and dived again, revelling in the sea; and once he came face to face with two of the dolphins, cheerful creatures, inquisitive but discreet.

  By the time he came aboard again the sun was well clear of the sea, and it was full day, glorious indeed, though lacking that sense of another world entirely. There was Killick, too, standing by the stanchion with a large white towel and a disapproving look on his face. 'Mr Harris said it would close the pores, and throw the yellow bile upon the black,' he said, wrapping the towel about Jack's shoulders.

  'Is high water the same time at London Bridge and at the Dodman?' asked Jack, and having stunned Killick with this he asked him whether the Doctor were about. 'Which I seen him in the sick-bay,' said Killick sulkily.

  'Then go and ask him whether he would like to have a first breakfast with me.'

  Jack Aubrey had a powerful frame to maintain, and this he did by giving it two breakfasts, a trifle of toast and coffee when the sun was first up and then a much more substantial affair shortly after eight bells—any fresh fish that happened to be at hand, eggs, bacon, sometimes mutton chops—to which he often invited the officer and midshipman of the morning watch, Dr Maturin being there as a matter of course.

  Stephen came even before Killick's return. 'The smell of coffee would bring me back from the dead. How kind to let me know: and a very good morning to you, my dear sir. How did you sleep?'

  'Sleep? Lord, I went out like a light, and remember nothing at all. I did not really wake up until the ship was pumped almost dry. Then I swam. What joy! I hope you will join me tomorrow. I feel a new man.'

  'I might, too,' said Stephen without conviction. 'Where is that mumping villain Killick?'

  'Which I am coming as quick as I can, ain't I?' cried Killick: and then, putting down the tray, 'Jezebel has been rather near with her milk.'

  'I am afraid I shall have to leave you very soon,' said Stephen after his second cup. 'As soon as the bell strikes we must prepare two patients for surgery.'

  'Oh dear,' said Jack. 'I hope it is not very serious?'

  'Cystotomy: if there is no infection—and infection at sea is much rarer than in hospital—most men support it perfectly well. Fortitude is called for, of course; any shrinking from the knife may prove fatal.'

  The bell struck. Stephen quickly ate three more slices of toasted soda-bread, drank another cup of coffee, looked at Jack's tongue with evident satisfaction and hurried away.

  He did not emerge until quite well on in the forenoon watch, and as he came up he met a usual morning procession that had just reached the quarterdeck from the leeward gangway: Jemmy Ducks bearing three hencoops, one empty; Sarah carrying the speckled hen in her arms; and Emily leading the goat Jezebel, all bound for the animals' daytime quarters abaft the wheel.

  Greetings, smiles and bobs; but then Emily said in her clear child's voice 'Miss is weeping and wringing her hands, way up forward.'

  Stephen was thinking 'How well animals behave to children: that goat is a froward goat and the speckled hen a cross ill-natured bird, yet they allow themselves to be led and carried without so much as an oath', and it was a moment before he grasped the force of her remark. 'Ay,' he replied, shaking his head. They moved on with their livestock, greeted by a great quacking of ducks, already installed in a coop with legs.

  He was considering Miss Harvill, the island (much closer now), its cliffs, its tall and strangely ugly trees, when he heard Jack cry 'Jolly-boat's crew away,' and he became aware of the tension on the quarterdeck. All the officers were there, looking unusually grave, and from the forecastle and along the gangways the people gazed steadily aft. All this must have been in train for some time, since getting even a jolly-boat over the side was a laborious business. The hands ran down to their places: the bowman hooked on and they all sat there looking up as boat and ship rose and fell.

  'There is a Norfolk Island petrel,' said Martin at Stephen's elbow; but Stephen only gave the bird a passing glance.

  'Pass the word for my coxswain,' called Jack.

  'Sir?' said Bonden, appearing in a moment.

  'Bonden, take the jolly-boat into the bay between the cape and the small island with the trees on it and see whether it is possible to land through the surf.'

  'Aye aye, sir.'

  'You had better pull in, but you may sail back.'

  'Aye aye, sir: pull in and sail back it is.'

  Jack and Bonden had served many years together; they understood one another perfectly well, and it appeared to Stephen that in spite of their matter-of-fact words and everyday expression some message passed between them; yet though he knew both men intimately he could not tell what that message was.

  They pulled away and away, and once it had set a rise of the swell between itself and the ship the jolly-boat disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, reappeared, smaller each time, heading straight for the land, two miles away. White water on the small island with trees close inshore to the east; white water between that island and the iron-bound coast; white water on the headland to the west; and the bay between had a fringe of white. Yet whereas all the rest of the coast in sight had cliffs dropping almost sheer, this bay possessed a beach, probably a sandy beach, running well back to a moderate slope; and there seemed to be a fairly clear passage in.

  They watched intently, saying little; but at five bells Jack, turning abruptly from the weather-rail, said 'Captain Pullings, we will stand off and on until the boat returns.' And pausing
on the companion-ladder he added 'On the inshore leg we might try for soundings' before hurrying below.

  'Philips tells me that there are also parrots, parakeets, gannets and pigeons on the island,' said Martin. 'How I hope we may go ashore! If we cannot land on this side, do you think we may be able to do so on the other?'

  For once Stephen found Martin a tedious companion. Was it possible that the man did not know what landing on Norfolk Island might entail? Yes: on reflexion it was quite possible. Just as Captain Aubrey had been the last person to know that there was a woman aboard his ship, so Nathaniel Martin might be the last to know that this woman and her lover were in danger of being marooned there. The threat was after all very recent: the officers were unlikely to have discussed it in the gun-room and it could scarcely have reached Martin from the lower deck—Martin had no servant of his own and Padeen was hardly capable of telling him even if he had wished to. On the other hand it was possible that Martin, having heard of the threat, did not take it seriously. For his own part Stephen did not know what to say. There were times when Jack Aubrey was as easy to read as a well-printed book; others when he could not be made out at all, and this formal, public dispatch of the boat seemed to Stephen incomprehensible, in total contradiction with the cheerful, familiar, sea-wet Jack of early breakfast.

  The Surprise edged nearer to the wind and Pullings gave orders for the deep-sea line. Stephen walked along the gangway to the bows: as he reached the forecastle the hands gathered round the bitts fell silent and slowly dispersed. From the rail he had a perfect view of the bay, and his pocket-glass showed him the jolly-boat's crew pulling steadily in; they were more than half way now, and as he watched Bonden took the boat round a sunken rock with an ugly swirl of water over it. The ship barely had steerage-way and although the shrouds gave a creaking sigh each time the long swell raised her up or let her down there was very little noise in the bows. He heard the cry of 'Watch, there, watch,' as each man in succession along the side let go his last turn of the deep-sea line, and then Reade's shrill report 'Sixty-eight fathom, sir: coral sand and shells.'