The commodore, p.10
The Commodore, page 10
Stephen spoke of shrikes he had known, particularly the woodchat shrike of his boyhood, at some length; and he offered to show Jack the difference between the chiffchaff and the willow-wren, several of which were flitting about in the leaves just overhead. But finding that the Commodore was sunk in a grim reverie, perhaps on the subject of frigates, inferior ships of the line, and the criminal levity of those who sent some thousands of men to sea with no consistent plan, no intelligent preparation, no adequate forewarning, he refrained.
They rode in silence as far as the bridge to Portsea Island, where Jack cried 'Good Lord, we are at the bridge already. Stephen, you have lost your tongue, I find: you have been in a deep study: we are already at the bridge.' The discovery pleased him disproportionately; so did the proof of the gelding's remarkably easy pace. He had digested his ill-humour, and they rode through the familiar, squalid outskirts of the town, through the still more squalid streets quite cheerfully and so to the Keppel's Head, the favourite inn of Jack's days as a midshipman. Here they put up their horses and walked on to the Hard as the clocks were striking ten: Bonden was waiting for them, with many a well-known smiling face among Jack's bargemen, and they pulled with the exactly-dipped oars and the stately pace of a flag-officer's boat, scorning the smallcraft that threaded the great harbour in all directions.
A long pull, since the Bellona was lying right over by Haslar, and Stephen's mind, lulled by the steady rhythm, swam far, far back to woodchat shrikes again, to the sunbaked Catalan side of his childhood; and he was thinking in the language when Jack, to his coxswain's disappointment, said 'Larboard.'
This was no time to be worrying a busy ship, still taking in stores, still somewhat shorthanded, with a ceremonial arrival on the starboard side; but it grieved Bonden, who, like Killick, dearly loved pomp and ceremony where his officer was concerned, dearly relished the stamp and clash of the Marines presenting arms when Jack was piped aboard to a quarterdeck full of attentive officers and midshipmen, and who had hoped that Stephen might be shown the Commodore's present glory. Yet since he had no choice he brought the barge round, in order that Jack might join his ship discreetly.
Discreetly, but not unnoticed. Of course the boat had been seen putting off, and of course Captain Pullings was there to receive him, and of course there were side-boys, scrubbed pink, offering man-ropes as he came nimbly up, which was just as well, since he was immediately followed by Dr Maturin, as impervious to sea-lore as Mr Aubrey was to elegant literature - more so, indeed, since Jack had read Macbeth aloud, enchanting his daughters, not long since, while Stephen had not thought of ships or the sea since he set foot on shore, and had contrived to forget almost all of what little he had ever acquired: furthermore, he had only been aroused from his dreamlike state a moment before, when the barge came alongside and the even motion stopped. Bonden and most of the bargemen were well acquainted with his occasional absences and perfectly aware of the weakness of his nautical acquirements; and although the sea was duck-pond calm they anxiously propped him from behind adjuring him 'to clap on to them manropes sir, them padded things' and placing his feet successively on the steps; and they got him aboard dryfoot - something of a triumph.
Yet once there he stared about in a very simple, moon-struck fashion. For a great while now, and the whole breadth of the world, his ship had been a small frigate; and although, years before, he had been in a ship of the line for a short while the recollection had entirely faded: his scale was that of the Surprise, and the hugeness of the Bellona, the presence of a poop and of all these people quite bewildered him. He was at a disadvantage, and his face took on a cold, withdrawn expression; but his old friend Tom Pullings, now advancing to shake his hand and welcome him aboard, was even better acquainted with the Doctor's vagaries than the bargemen, and speaking very loud and clear, told him that two of his assistant surgeons had reported aboard last night and were now waiting for him in the sick-berth: perhaps he would like to see them before Tom named the officers to him. 'Mr Wetherby,' he said to a fresh-faced youngster in brand-new uniform, 'pray show the Doctor to the sick-berth.'
Down to the upper deck with its long ranges of eighteenpounders on either side; down again by the after-ladderway to the gundeck, dim at present with the gunports closed for painting - 'That is where I live, sir,' said the youngster, pointing to the gunroom. Stephen was in civilian clothes; he presented no marks whatsoever of following the sea in any capacity, and the child explained things to him. 'I am not yet rated midshipman, you know, sir, so I mess with the gunner with half a dozen other coves, and the gunner's wife is very good to us. She shows us how to mend our clothes. Now, sir' - guiding Stephen forward - 'Here - pray mind your step - beyond that piece of screen is where the people sleep, all of them jam-packed, chock-a-block, when hammocks are piped down. And the screened bit is what we call the sick-berth.'
In the darkness stood two figures, dim themselves, but clearly nervous. 'Good morning, gentlemen,' said Stephen. 'I am the ship's surgeon, Maturin.'
'Good morning, sir,' they replied, and the first assistant said 'My name is Smith, sir, William Smith, formerly of the Serapis and of the hospital at Bridgetown.'
The second, blushing, said that he was Alexander Macaulay, that after his apprenticeship he had studied at Guy's, where he was dresser to Mr Findlay for nearly five months: this was his first appointment.
'And are we indeed in the Bellona's sick-berth?' asked Stephen, shocked. 'Mr Wetherby, be so good as to jump up to the quarterdeck and ask the officer of the watch if I may have a gunport open.'
He had barely spoken before there was a creak, a heave, and the nearest port rose up, letting in a square flood of light and showing two beaming faces, Joe Plaice and Michael Kelly, both Jack Aubrey's followers since the time of his first command, the brig Sophie, and both very old friends of Stephen's.
'Joe Plaice and Michael Kelly,' said Stephen, shaking their hands through the gunport, 'I rejoice to see you. Joe, how is the headpiece?'
The seamen looked sharply up at some order from on high. 'Aye aye, sir,' they cried to the distant officer, winked privately at Stephen, and vanished.
Stephen returned to the immediate abomination. 'Can such things be?' he cried, looking at the partially folded canvas screen, the few bare cots, a little more hanging sailcloth, ragged at the bottom, and then the vast cavern of the lower deck, empty now but for the rows of thirty-two-pounders and the mess tables hanging between them, but crammed at night with all the hundreds of seamen and Marines apart from the watch on deck, snoring and breathing, above all breathing the very small quantities of air and exhaling it in a vitiated condition pernicious to themselves and even more so to invalids. 'Can such things be? It is archaic: it belongs to the Dark Ages. This is the unhealthiest part of the ship - unbreathable air - impossible for a sick man to go to the head - hands trampling to and fro, shouting and bawling, at every meal, every change of the watch - and the present stench, although the deck has been cleaned: for it is still wet, another evil point.' He sniffed, sniffed again, and recognized both the scent and the distant hurdles: the ship's pigs, right forward, in their sty. He had heard of it in ships of the past and he had seen it once, at the very beginning of his career. 'This cannot be. Where are the men in the sick-list?'
'I believe they were all removed to Haslar, sir, when the late surgeon died. An alcoholic coma, I am told.'
'Infamous,' said Stephen, not so much at the alcoholic coma as at the monstrous surroundings. 'Let us look at the dispensary, and then I can make my report. Mr Wetherby, pray show the way.'
The child led them forward to a ladderway, from which the sty was even clearer, the smell much stronger - the pigs looked up at them, their little intelligent eyes full of curiosity - down into the darkness of the orlop, beneath the water-line, where by the faint gleam of reflected light that filtered down through grating after grating and by an occasional lantern they groped aft to the cockpit, the midshipmen's berth, a noisy, noisome place. There were only four young gentlemen, one ape and a bulldog in it at present, but they could be heard a great way off, and the youngster said 'I should not dare go in, sir, if you was not with me. Mind your step, I beg.'
'What would happen, were you to go in?' asked Stephen.
'The oldsters and the master's mates would scrag me, sir, and feed me to the bulldog.' He opened the door and stood aside.
'Gentlemen, good day,' said Stephen into the abrupt silence. They were disparate creatures: one a dark, fierce-looking man sitting on the deck trying to read by a purser's dip; two gangling youths with their wrists and ankles starting from their clothes; and a devilish little fourteen-year-old trying to show the ape how to stand on its head. But they instantly saw that it would not do to play off their humours on this visitor and they returned his greetings, standing up with what grace they could summon, while the devilish boy quite unnecessarily strangled the bulldog, advancing to pay its respects. Stephen looked round the cockpit, which was his action-station and which would be his operating-theatre in the event of a battle: a fine spacious theatre, since it ordinarily housed a score of young men - and walked on aft.
'Oh sir,' cried Mr Wetherby again, 'pray mind your step.' And well might he cry: the hatch to the after powder-room was open, and the gunner's face framed in it, a foot above the deck. The face, ordinarily grave, spread in a smile and his right hand reached up. 'Why, Doctor,' he cried, 'we heard you was coming, and right glad we were. Rowley, gunner's mate in the old Worcester.'
'Of course,' said Stephen, shaking his hand. 'A nasty splinter-wound in the gluteus maximus. How does it come along?'
'You would never know it, sir. I showed it to my old woman when I came home. I showed her the scar, what there was of it, and I said "Kate, if you could sew as good as the Doctor, I should put you out to work, and live at my ease, ha, ha, ha!' With this he vanished like an inverted Jack-in-a-box, and the hatch clapped down over him.
Smith opened the dispensary door, and a strong light came out, coming from the operating lantern that hung within. 'I hope you will not think me over-busy, sir,' said he. 'But last night the purser told me that some stores had come down from the Sick and Hurt Board, and rather than leave them lying in his steward's care I have been putting them in the medicine-chest. I was still at it when your boat came alongside, so I left things as they were. I am afraid they will not all go in.' The hatch opened abruptly: the gunner's beaming face reappeared. 'I said, "Kate, if you could sew as well as the Doctor, I should put you out to work and live at my ease," and clapped to again over his laughter.
'You did perfectly well, Mr Smith,' said Stephen, looking into the miniature apothecary's shop with its drawers, bottle racks and recesses. 'But I am afraid you are in the right of it. These' - nodding at the powders, dried roots, drugs, ointments, bandages, dressings, tourniquets and the like that covered the floor - 'will never go in. We shall be obliged to put - to stow - them in the starboard dispensary.'
'By your leave, sir,' said Smith after a hesitation, 'there is no starboard dispensary.'
'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' cried Stephen. 'Five hundred and ninety souls to be dosed out of one miserable cupboard, four foot by three at the most! All, all of a piece throughout. Very well, gentlemen: be so good as to put them into my cabin here' - opening the door of a room measuring six foot by four - 'while I go and make my report to the Captain. Oh such a report, by God.'
'Why, Doctor, what's amiss?' cried Tom Pullings as he burst in upon them.
'Stephen, have you had a fall?' asked Jack, starting up and taking him by the arm, for he was unnaturally pale, and his eyes glared extremely.
He looked coldly at each in turn, and then in a carefully controlled voice he said 'I have just discovered that this - this vessel, for I will not call it a vile hulk, has a sick-berth that would disgrace a Turk, a sick-berth that a parcel of Hottentots would blush for, so they would. It is a sick-berth so horrible that I cannot consent to be associated with it, and' - his voice now rising with passion - 'if it cannot be converted into something less like Golgotha, more designed to kill rather than to save, I wash my hands of it entirely.' He washed his hands, glaring at their shocked faces. 'I wash my hands, I say: the shame of the world.'
'Pray, Stephen, sit down,' said Jack gently, leading him to a chair. 'Pray sit down and drink a glass of wine. Do not be cross with us, I beg.'
Pullings was too upset to say anything, but he poured the madeira; and they both looked at Stephen with infinite concern. He was still pale, still furious. 'Have either of you ever been in this odious travcsty of a sick-berth?' he asked, his glare piercing first the one and then the other. Oh, the moral force of that wholly unfeigned wholly disinterested and righteous anger!
Jack slowly shook his head, his conscience clear on at least that point. Tom Pullings said 'I suppose I must have walked through, on my way to see the pig-sties; but since all the invalids were discharged to the hospital before ever I came aboard there was nobody there: so I did not notice it was so very wrong.'
Stephen told them that a sick-berth with no peace, no light, no air, could not possibly be right in any particular whatsoever: he told them in vehement detail; and, his energy subsided a little, he told them that the only ship-of-the-line sick-berth he would consent to be associated with must of necessity banish the swine in favour of the Christian sick, must lie right forward under the forecastle, and must have light, air and access to the head according to the plan of the eminently ingenious and truly benevolent Admiral Markham.
'Doctor,' cried Tom, 'say but the word and I shall send for Chips and all his crew this moment. If you will direct them, you shall have your Markham sick-berth before the evening gun.'
The tension fell; Stephen took a little wine; his colour, though still disagreeably sallow, returned to a natural pallor rather than one blanched by fury; he smiled at them; and Captain Pullings sent for the carpenter.
'Stephen,' said Jack diffidently, 'I had thought of carrying you round the other ships, so that you might meet their captains and officers; but I dare say making a proper sick-berth would take up most of your time.'
'So it would too,' said Stephen, 'and all my energy. Tom, you have joiners of your own, have you not? I could wish to install a full dispensary there where the swine gambolled and wantoned at their ease, rather than send down to the after cockpit every time I need a black draught. Jack, I beg you will excuse me if I put off the meeting until your dinner for all these gentlemen.'
Chapter Four
When Captain Aubrey, his steward and coxswain were at sea, Ashgrove Cottage retained much of its naval quality because of their former shipmates who lived in and around the place, carrying out their usual duties of swabbing, scrubbing and painting everything in sight in as seamanlike a manner as their age and missing limbs would allow, to the admiration of all housewives within calling or gossiping distance; but the family house, Woolcombe, which Jack had recently inherited, always relapsed into a mere landsman's dwelling. Mrs Aubrey spent most of her time at Ashgrove, Woolcombe being left in the care of Manson, the hereditary butler, and a few servants on board wages.
Yet when Jack was at home, and when there was a good deal of entertaining - particularly polished civilian entertaining - to be done, Manson was brought up to Hampshire, where he had a wretched time of it. He did understand the chief duties of a butler admirably well, caring for the wine in the wood, mulling it, racking it, bottling it, cherishing the bottles and eventually decanting their contents, bringing the wine to table in excellent condition; and he performed the ornamental part of his functions with proper dignity. But the seamen did not value him a bean for any of his skills; they despised him for his neglect of Woolcombe, which was turned out only once a year, in spring, instead of every day at dawn; and they resented the least hint of any infringement upon their rights, privileges or sea-going customs.
The sound of one of these disagreements brought Sophie running nimbly to the dining-room on the day of the captains' dinner. As she opened the door the sound increased quite shockingly: Killick, his disagreeably yellow face now almost white with fury, had Manson in a corner, threatening him with a fish-slice and telling him in a high shrewish screech that he was not all that a good man should be - telling him with such a wealth of detail and such vehement obscenity that Sophie clapped the door behind her in case the children should hear. 'For shame, Killick, for shame!' she cried.
'Which he touched my silver,' replied Killick, his quivering fish-slice now pointing to the noble, gleaming spread on the dining-table. 'He shifted three spoons with his great greasy thumbs and I seen him hurr on this here slice.'
'I was only giving it the butler's rub.'
'Butler's...' began Killick with renewed fury.
'Hush, Killick,' said Sophie. 'The Commodore says you are to stand behind his chair in your best blue jacket and Manson behind him in his plum-coloured coat; and Bonden is to see to the proper gloves. Now hurry along, do. There is not a moment to lose.'
There was not, indeed. The invitations had been marked half past three for four and she knew from long experience of naval punctuality that between thirty and thirty-five minutes after the hour there would be a sudden flood of guests. She glanced along the table, all ablaze, all exactly squared; rearranged one bowl of roses; and hurried off to put on a glorious dress made of the scarlet silk, Jack's present, that had survived its almost intolerably arduous voyage from Batavia unharmed.
She was sitting in the drawing-room looking beautiful and with what she hoped was a convincing appearance of calm, pleasurable anticipation when Jack led in the first of his captains, William Duff of the Stately, a tall, athletic, exceptionally good-looking man of perhaps thirty-five. He was followed by Tom Pullings and Howard of the Aurora; Thomas of the unwelcome Thames; Fitton of the Nimble; and presently the tale was complete - almost complete.
