Book 15 - Clarissa Oakes Read online

  Six bells. The boat had reached the edge of the breakers over by the small island and was working its way westwards along the shore. The triangular sail in front of him, the fore-topmast staysail in all likelihood, filled, and the Surprise began her turn, sailing gently away from the land. Martin, who could take a hint as well as any man, had retired to the mizzen-top, which now commanded an excellent view of Norfolk Island, and Stephen thought of joining him there. But a disinclination for talk combined with the exaggerated movement of the mast now that the ship was heading directly into the swell kept him to the quarterdeck, where he stood at the taffrail and watched the jolly-boat making its way towards the cape that limited the bay, keeping to the edge of the surf—from this level the little boat seemed to be almost in the breaking rollers, and in great danger of being swamped.

  He was still there, pondering, when the jolly-boat reached the far end, hoisted a sail and stood out to sea; and he was so lost in his reflexions that he was quite startled when Jack tapped him on the shoulder, saying with a smile, 'You are in a fine study, Doctor. I hailed you twice. How did your patients do? I see'—nodding at the dried blood on Stephen's hand—'that you have been opening them.'

  'Quite well, I thank you: they are as comfortable as can be expected, and with the blessing they will soon be more so.'

  'Capital, capital. I shall pay them a visit.' Then in a much lower tone he added 'I have been to the head myself. I thought you might like to know.'

  'I am heartily glad of it,' said Stephen, and asked him exact and particular questions; but Jack Aubrey was more prudish than might have been supposed about such matters and he only answered 'Like a horse,' walking forward out of range.

  He brought the ship round again to meet the boat, but Stephen stayed where he was. With the turn the island slid out of view, to be replaced by a vast expanse of ocean; and today the ocean had a horizon as taut and sharp as could be desired, except in the west-south-west, where the early morning's cloudbank had grown, working up against the wind as thunder-clouds and squalls so often did, contrary to all sense of what was right and natural by land.

  'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Reade at his side, 'but the Captain thought you might like me to pour this water over your hand.'

  'God love you, Mr Reade, my dear,' said Stephen. 'Pray pour away, and I will rub. I did wash at one time, I recall; but I dare say I adjusted a dressing afterwards. Fortunately, however, I turned back the cuffs of my coat, or I should be in sad trouble with . . .' He stopped abruptly, for here was Bonden coming up the side.

  'Well, Bonden?' asked Captain Aubrey on the silent, listening quarterdeck.

  'No landing, sir,' said Bonden. 'A wicked surf and a worse undertow, though the tide was on the ebb.'

  'No landing at all?'

  'None at all, sir.'

  'Very good. Captain Pullings, since there is no possibility whatsoever of landing we will hoist in the jolly-boat and make all possible sail on our former course.'

  'On deck there,' hailed the lookout at the masthead. 'A sail right astern. Fore-and-aft, I reckon.'

  Jack took the watch telescope and ran aloft. 'Where away, Trilling?' he called from the crosstrees.

  'Right astern, sir, on the edge of that ill-looking bank,' replied Trilling, who had moved out along the yard.

  'I can't see her.'

  'Why, to tell you the truth nor can I now, sir,' said Trilling in that amused, conversational tone more usual in a letter of marque than a man-of-war. 'She comes and goes, like. But you could see her from the deck, was it to clear a little: she ain't a great way off.'

  Jack returned to the deck by way of a backstay, as he had done when he was a boy. 'As I was saying, Captain Pullings,' he went on, 'we will make all possible sail on our former course. There is not a moment to be lost.'

  The jolly-boat was hoisted in and made fast, the topgallants were sheeted home and hoisted to the strange musical cries of the Orkneymen aboard, the bowlines hauled to the one chant the Royal Navy countenanced 'One! Two! Three! Belay oh!', and Martin said to Stephen 'I was much astonished to hear that the surf made landing impossible. From my vantage-point I could have sworn I saw a relatively smooth stretch just this side of the cape. I hope you are not too deeply disappointed, Maturin?'

  'Faith, if I were to repine at every promising island I have been swept past in my naval career, I should have run melancholy mad long since. We have at least seen the mutton-bird and the monstrous pines, bad luck to them. I think them as ugly as they are tall; the ugliest vegetables known to man except for that vile Araucaria imbricata of Chile, which in some ways it resembles.'

  They talked about the conifers they had seen in New South Wales; they watched the upper-yard men race aloft to set the royals; and Martin, looking round to see that no one was at hand, said in a low voice 'Tell me, Maturin, why are they said to be set flying? Flying? I have been at sea so long I do not like to ask anyone else.'

  'Martin, you lean on a broken reed: we are in the same boat, as reeds so often are. Let us comfort ourselves with the reflexion that not all of our shipmates could tell how an ablative comes to be so very absolute, on occasion.'

  'Sir,' called West, who was standing on the leeward hammock-nettings with a telescope. 'I believe I make her out on the rise. I think she may be wearing a pennant; and if so she is the cutter we heard about.'

  Pullings relayed this to the Captain, adding 'When we were in Sydney they spoke of a fast fourteen-gun cutter called the Eclair that was coming up from Van Diemen's Land.'

  'I heard about her,' said Jack, training his telescope aft. 'But I see nothing.'

  Noon. The officers took their altitudes: Pullings reported that the sun was on the meridian: Jack allowed that it was twelve o'clock and that the new naval day might now begin. Eight bells struck; the hands hurried to their dinner; and a curious noise they made, not the muffled anxiety of the day before, but still restrained and as it were conspiratorial.

  When the din was over and when the hands were perhaps half way through their dinner (oatmeal, ship's bread and cheese, Monday being a banyan day) West repeated that he was sure of the cutter now, and almost certain of her pennant.

  'You may be right, sir, though I see nothing of it,' said Jack. 'But even if you are, there is nothing extraordinary about a cutter being sent to Norfolk Island. There are still quantities of Government stores ashore, and several people, I understand.'

  'Surely they are throwing out a signal, sir?' cried West a moment later.

  'I do not see it, sir,' said Jack coldly. 'Besides, I have no time for idle gossip with a cutter.' And Davidge, who was quicker than his shipmate, murmured, 'Tace is the Latin for a candlestick, old fellow.'

  When the hands and therefore the midshipmen had finished their dinner Jack went below and sent for Oakes. 'Sit down, Mr Oakes,' he said. 'I have been considering what to do with you, and although it is clear that we must part—apart from anything else no women are allowed in the Surprise—I do not mean to discharge you until we reach some reasonably Christian port in Chile or Peru, where you can easily take the passage home. You will have enough money to do so: there is not only your pay but also the probability of some prize-money. If we should take nothing then I will advance what is necessary.'

  'Thank you very much, sir.'

  'I shall also give you a recommendation to any naval officer you may choose to show it to, mentioning your good and seamanlike conduct under my command. But then there is your . . . your companion. She is under your protection, as I take it?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Have you considered what is to become of her?'

  'Yes, sir. If you would be so extremely kind as to marry us, she would be free; and if that cutter were to come aboard we could bid them kiss our—we could laugh in their faces.'

  'Have you made her an offer?'

  'No, sir. I supposed . . .'

  'Then go and do so, sir. If she agrees, bring her back here and let me hear her confirm it: be damned to Hell if I allow any for
ced marriage in my ship. If she don't, we shall have to find some place for her to sling her hammock. Cut along now. You may be as quick as you like. I have many things to do. By the way, what is her name?'

  'Clarissa Harvill, sir.'

  'Clarissa Harvill: very well. Carry on, Mr Oakes.'

  They came panting aft, and Oakes urged her through the cabin door. She had heard of her lover's summons; she had had time to do what could be done to clothes, hair, face, against all eventualities, and looked quite well as she stood there, slim and boyish in her uniform, her fair head bowed.

  'Miss Harvill,' said Jack, rising, 'pray be seated. Oakes, place a chair and sit down yourself.' She sat, her eyes cast down, her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap, her back quite straight, looking as nearly like one wearing a skirt as possible, and Jack addressed her: 'Mr Oakes tells me that you might consent to marry him. May I take it that this is so, or is the fish wather to—that is to say, or does he flatter himself?'

  'No, sir: I am quite ready to marry Mr Oakes.'

  'Of your own free will?'

  'Yes, sir: and we shall be infinitely obliged for your kindness.'

  'Never thank me. We have a parson aboard, and it would be most improper for a layman to take his place. Have you any other clothes?'

  'No, sir.'

  Jack considered. 'Jemmy Ducks and Bonden could run you up a smock of number eight sailcloth, the kind we use for royals and skysails. Though perhaps,' he went on after some thought, 'canvas might be looked upon as improper—not sufficiently formal.'

  'Not at all, sir,' murmured Miss Harvill.

  'I have some old shirts, sir, that could perhaps be pieced out,' said Oakes.

  Jack frowned, and raising his voice to its usual pitch called 'Killick. Killick, there.'

  'Sir?'

  'Rouse out the bolt of scarlet silk I bought in Batavia.'

  'I doubt but we should have to rummage the whole after-hold, my mate and me, with a couple of hands to heave and then put it all back again, all back again,' said Killick. 'Hours of heavy toil.'

  'Nonsense,' said Jack. 'It is next to the lacquer cabinets in my store-room, packed in matting and then blue cotton. It will not take you two minutes: even less.' Killick opened his mouth; but weighing up Captain Aubrey's present mood he closed it again and retired with an inarticulate grunt of extreme displeasure. Jack went on, still addressing Miss Harvill, 'But I am sure you can sew perfectly well yourself?'

  'Alas, sir, only the plainest of seams, with large stitches, and very slow—scarcely a yard in an afternoon.'

  'That will never do. The gown must be ready by eight bells. Mr Oakes, there are two young men in your division who embroider their shirts uncommon pretty—'

  'Willis and Hardy, sir.'

  'Just so. They can each take a sleeve. Jemmy Ducks can run up a skirt in half a glass, and Bonden can look after the—the upper part.' There was a pause, and to fill it Jack, who was always rather nervous with women, said 'I trust you do not find the weather too hot, Miss Harvill? With squalls brewing astern, it often grows oppressive.'

  'Oh no, sir,' said Miss Harvill with more animation than her modesty had allowed hitherto. 'In such a very beautiful ship it is never too hot.' The words were idiotic, but the inclination to please and to be pleased was evident; and the compliment to the ship could not go wrong.

  Killick came in, so pinched with disapproval that he could not bring himself to say anything but 'Which I took off the matting.' Jack said 'Thankee, Killick,' turning the bolt in his hands. He opened the blue cotton wrapping and the silk appeared, a heavy, discreetly gleaming silk, deeper than scarlet, extraordinarily rich in texture and above all in colour, with the sun coming diagonally across from the stern-windows. 'Mr Oakes,' he said, 'carry this bolt to Jemmy Ducks: it is a fathom wide, and a suitable length cut from the end square with the leech will cover the young lady from top to toe. Tell Jemmy what is to be done and ask him whether there are any better tailors in the ship, and if so to carry on with their help: there is not a moment to lose. Miss Harvill, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at eight bells.' He opened the door; she made as though to curtsey, realized the absurdity and gave him a most apologetic look, saying 'I do not know how to thank you, sir. Lord, it is the most beautiful, beautiful silk I have ever seen in my life.'

  The interview, though short, had been curiously wearing, and Jack sat at his ease for some time on the stern-window locker with a glass of madeira at his side. Through the open companion he could hear the usual sounds of the ship: Davidge, the officer of the watch, calling out for an even tauter foretopsail bowline; Dirty Edwards, the quartermaster at the con, telling the helmsman 'to ease her a trifle, Billy, then luff and touch her'; then Davidge again, 'I cannot tell you where to put it, Mr Bulkeley. You will have to wait until the Captain comes on deck.'

  Jack finished his wine, stretched, and came on deck. As soon as he appeared, blinking in the sunlight, Davidge said 'Sir, Mr Bulkeley wants to know where the hands can hoist the wedding garland.'

  'Wedding garland?' said Jack; and glancing into the waist of the ship he saw several men from Oakes's division gazing up. As he looked they mutely raised the traditional set of hoops, all decked out with ribbons and streamers. Where indeed was it to go? If Oakes had been a seaman it would have gone to the mast he belonged to; if he had commanded the ship, then to the maintopgallant stay; but in this case? 'Hoist it to the foretopgallant masthead,' he called down, and walked slowly aft. That garland had not been made during this last half hour. The streamers were not even very fresh. The infernal buggers had known what he would do—had foretold his decision—had made game of him. 'God damn them all to Hell: I must be as transparent as a piece of glass,' he said, but without particular anger. In any case his mind was diverted by the sight of Dr Maturin showing Reade a series of extraordinarily exact and rapid steps from an Irish dance. 'There,' he said, 'that is a way we have of tripping it at a marriage; but you must never wave your arms or show any emotion, far less hoot aloud, as some unhappy nations do: a most illiberal practice. Here is the Captain himself, who will tell you that hallooing as you dance is not at all genteel.'

  'It is an odd thing,' said Jack, when Reade had withdrawn, 'but I seem to bring no news in this ship. The hands have had the garland ready pretty well since we weighed, and here you are showing young Reade how to dance at a wedding, though it was arranged only ten minutes ago. I doubt whether I shall even be able to astonish Mr Martin, when I ask him to officiate. He dines with us today, as I am sure you recall.'

  'How I wish he may not be late: my belly fairly groans for its food. Though that may be the effect of terror. You have noticed the ship pursuing us, I make little doubt? A ship flying a man-of-war's pennant?'

  'I pass over your calling a cutter a ship, but allow me to object to your pursuing. To be sure, she is sailing approximately the same course; and to be sure, she would probably like to speak to us. But she may very well be putting into a bay on the north-western side, the leeward side, of Norfolk Island on some official business; and although she is alleged to be wearing a pennant I believe I may safely ignore her. I have no time for gossiping, and we are sufficiently far apart for it not to be offensively obvious, not court-martial obvious; and we shall certainly stay far enough ahead until nightfall.'

  'Can we not outsail her? Run clean away?'

  'Of course not, Stephen. How can you be so strange? Both vessels are moving through the water at much the same pace, but whereas we, as a ship, a square-rigged ship, can only come up to within six points of the wind, she can come up to five; so all things being equal she must overhaul us in the long run—unless of course we put before the wind, which would put us far out of her reach but which would also be a clear proof of criminal evasion. If she is still there in the morning—if she has not run into the lee of Norfolk Island—and if there is no extraordinary change in the weather, I shall have to heave to. To stop,' he added, for a person who could call a cutter a ship after so many years at sea m
ight need even simpler terms explained. 'But by that time Oakes's companion will be a free woman, Martin having done her business with book, bell and candle.'

  'You would never be forgetting Padeen, I am sure?' said Stephen in a low voice.

  'No,' said Jack, smiling. 'I am not. We have no Judases aboard, I believe; and even if we had it would be a bold cutter-commander who would find him in my ship.' For some minutes he studied the Eclair, the cutter in question, through his glass. She was well handled, and she might in fact be moving a little faster than the Surprise as well as lying closer to the wind; and her pennant was now quite certain when she came about: but she could not reach him by nightfall and the likelihood of her running beyond Norfolk Island into the main ocean was very small indeed even if she was in pursuit of him. He closed the telescope and said 'It is a very surprising thing, you know, the power of a young woman that sits quiet, self-contained and modest, looking down, answering civil—not like a booby, mark you, Stephen—civil, but not very much. A man could not speak chuff to such a girl, without he was a very mere Goth. Old Jarvey could not speak chuff to such a girl.'

  'It is my belief, brother, that your misogyny is largely theoretical.'

  'Ay,' said Jack, shaking his head. 'I love a wench, it is true; but a wench in her right place. Come, Stephen, we must shift our clothes. Tom and Martin will be with us in five minutes.'

  In five minutes Captain Pullings in all his glory and Mr Martin in a good black coat walked into the great cabin: they were at once offered drinks to whet their appetite (a wholly unnecessary form at this time of the day) and as the bell struck they took their places at table. For the first part of dinner both sailors tried to make both medical men understand, really understand, why a craft that came up to within five points of the wind must eventually overtake another, moving at the same speed but coming up only six points, it being understood that they were both sailing close-hauled. After the roast mutton had gone away, a very mere skeleton, Jack in desperation sent for Reade and told him to ask Mr Adams for some bristol card and to cut out two isosceles triangles, the one with an apex of 135°, the other of 112°30'.