The Ionian Mission Page 3

  'Our number, sir,' said the signal-midshipman, his glass trained on the flagstaff. 'And now Worcester proceed to sea.' Another hoist, and the midshipman searched madly in his book. 'Without further . . . further . . .'

  'Delay,' said Jack without taking his eye from his telescope. 'Acknowledge. Mr Pullings: strike the Blue Peter. All hands to weigh.' He saw a woman pass the reins to a man, leap from the box and run down to the boats, followed by a small black figure from the body of the coach, carrying an enormous parcel. 'Sophie,' he said, loud over the bosun's pipes and the pounding of feet, 'ain't that Diana?'

  'I am sure it is,' said she, looking through the glass. 'I can recognize her sprigged muslin from here. And that is poor Stephen, with the parcel.'

  'At last,' said Jack. 'At last. The usual hell-fire drama. Thank God he has someone to look after him, even if it is only Diana. Mr Pullings, our skeleton crew may take some time to win the anchor, though I am sure it will be done with every appearance of alacrity. Sweetheart, it is over the side with you, alas.' He handed her down to the quarterdeck, where the bosun's chair was swung inboard, waiting to lower her into the Arethusa's barge, lent by their friend Billy Harvey.

  'Goodbye, my dearest,' she said, smiling as well as she could, the great tears welling. 'God bless and keep you.'

  'God bless you too,' said Jack, and in a hard, unnatural voice he called 'A whip for the children.' One by one they were lowered down like little bundles to their mother, their eyes closed and their hands tightly clasped. 'Mr Watson,' he said to the midshipman in charge of the boat, 'be so good as to speak my gig as you pull in, and tell 'em to spread more canvas, to spread every stitch they possess. My compliments and best thanks to Captain Harvey.'

  He turned to give the orders that would carry the Worcester into the offing on the very tail of the ebb: he had ten minutes in hand, which might just suffice with this breeze, Bonden being a capital smallcraft sailor; and these ten minutes must be spent in persuading the sharpest eyes in the Navy that the Worcester was in fact obeying orders with all imaginable zeal rather than sitting there with her hands in her pockets. Ordinarily he would have left all this to Tom Pullings, his first lieutenant, an old and trusted shipmate; but he knew that there was not a man aboard who was not perfectly well aware of his motions, the ship having a small temporary crew of old experienced hands, all men-of-war's men, and since the seamen delighted in deception, above all any deception intended to blear the port-admiral's eye, he was afraid they might overact their parts. It was a ticklish business, managing this tacit connivance at disobeying a direct order while at the same time maintaining his reputation as an efficient officer, and perhaps there was a little too much brisk running about to be quite convincing. At one point a gun from the shore brought his heart into his mouth, much as it had leapt when he was a youngster and the same Admiral, then a commander, had caught him playing the fool rather than attending to the exact trim of the outer jib; but it was only the great man emphasizing his desire that Andromache should send a lieutenant to his office: Andromache had spent more than forty seconds hoisting out a boat. Even so, Jack dared not risk the same reproof in the face of the fleet, and the Worcester was well under way, her best bower catted, her topsails sheeted home (though faintly), and her topgallants loose in the brails by the time the gig crossed her wake under a press of canvas and shot up her starboard side. Out here the flood was cutting up an awkward, high-chopping sea against the breeze and hooking on would require the most accurate judgement. However, Bonden was a most accurate judge of these things: he might decide to wait until the ship was clear of the Wight, but in any case there was no danger of the boat being stove alongside.

  Jack was still angry: he was also cold and unhappy. He glanced down at the heaving boat, the bowman poised with his hook, Bonden at the tiller gauging the scend of the sea, alternately filling a trifle and then luffing up, and at Stephen, looking meek in the stern-sheets, nursing his box: he sniffed, and went below without a word. The Marine sentry at the cabin door changed his smile to a look of remote wooden respect as he passed.

  On the quarterdeck Mr Pullings said to a midshipman, 'Mr Appleby, jump down to the purser and ask him for half a pint of sweet oil.'

  'Sweet oil, sir?' cried the midshipman. 'Yes, sir, directly,' he said, seeing a hint of brimstone in the first lieutenant's eye.

  'Pin her, Joe,' said Bonden. The bowman hooked on at the mainchains, the big lugsail came down with a run, and speaking in a curt, official voice Bonden said, 'Now, sir, if you please. We can't hang about all day under the barky's lee. I'll look after your old parcel.'

  The Worcester was a wall-sided ship and the way into her was a series of very shallow smooth wet slippery steps that rose vertically from the waterline, with no comfortable tumblehome, no inward slope, to help the pilgrim on his way; still, they had manropes on either side and this made it just possible for very agile, seamanlike mariners to go aboard: but Dr Maturin was neither agile nor yet seamanlike.

  'Come on, sir,' said the coxswain impatiently as Stephen crouched there, hesitating with one foot on the gunwale. The gap between the ship and the gig began widening again and before it should reach proportions of a chasm Stephen made a galvanic spring, landing on the lowest step and grasping the manropes with all his might. Here he stood, gasping and contemplating the sheer height above: he knew he had behaved very ill, and that he was in disgrace. Bonden, though an old friend, had greeted him without a smile, saying 'You have cut it precious fine, sir. Do you know you have very nearly made us miss the tide? And may yet.' And in the passage from the shore he had heard a good deal more about 'missing the tide, and a roaring great old spring-tide too,' and about the Captain's horrid rage 'at being made to look a ninny in the face of the whole fleet—like a flaming lion all through the ebb; which if he misses of it at last, there will be all Hell to pay, and with boiling pitch at that.' Harsh words from Bonden, and no kindly stern-ladder or even bosun's chair to bring him aboard . . . here the Worcester gave a lee-lurch, heaving her ugly larboard flank so high that the copper showed, while the starboard, with Stephen on it, sank to a corresponding depth. The cold sea surged deliberately up, soaking his legs and the greater part of his trunk. He gasped again, and clung tighter.

  As she rolled back again vigorous, impatient hands seized his ankles, and he found himself propelled up the side. 'I must remember to pay the proper compliment to the quarterdeck,' he reflected, when he was very nearly there. 'This may attenuate my fault.' But in his agitation he forgot that he had earlier pinned his hat to his wig, to preserve it from the wind, and when on reaching the holy space he pulled it off—when both rose together—his gesture had more the appearance of ill-timed jocularity than of respect, so much so that some of the young gentlemen, two ship's boys, and a Marine, who did not know him, dissolved in honest mirth, while those who did know him did not seem mollified at all.

  'Upon my word, Doctor,' said Mowett, the officer of the watch, 'you have cut it pretty fine, I must say. You very nearly made us miss our tide. What was you thinking of? And you are all wet—sopping wet. How did you get so wet?'

  Mr Pullings, standing by the weather rail, looking stiff and remote, said, 'The rendezvous was for the height of flood two tides ago, sir,' with no kind word of greeting.

  Stephen had known Mowett and Pullings since they were mere snotty reefers of no consequence whatsoever, and at any other time he would have snapped them as tight shut as a snuff-box; but now their vast moral superiority, the general strong mute disapprobation of the Worcester's company, and his own wet misery left him without a word, and although in the depths of his mind he was half aware that this harshness was at least in part assumed, that it belonged to the naval idea of fun he had so often suffered from, he could not bring himself to respond.

  Pulling's grim expression softened a little. He said, 'You got a ducking, I see. You must not stand there in wet clothes: you will catch your death of cold. Has it reached your watch?'

  Very, very often i
n Dr Maturin's career, it—that is to say the sea, that element so alien to him—had reached his watch when he came aboard, and indeed sometimes it had closed over his head; but every time the fact astonished and distressed him. 'Oh,' he cried, groping in his fob, 'I believe it has.' He took out the watch and shook it, shedding still more water on the deck.'

  'Give it here, sir,' said Pullings. 'Mr Appleby, take this watch and put it in the sweet oil.'

  The cabin door opened. 'Well, Doctor,' said Jack, looking even taller than usual and far more intimidating. 'Good morning to you, or rather good afternoon. This is a strange hour to report aboard—this is cutting it pretty fine—this is coming it tolerably high, I believe. Do you know you very nearly made us miss our tide? Miss our tide right under the Admiral's front window? Did not you see the Blue Peter flying all through the forenoon watch—nay, watch after God-damned watch? I must tell you, sir, that I have known men headed up in a barrel and thrown overboard for less: far less. Mr Mowett, you may round in and set the jib and forestaysail at last. At last,' he said with heavy emphasis, looking at Stephen. 'Why, you are all wet. Surely you did not fall in, like a mere lubber?'

  'I did not,' said Stephen, goaded out of his humility. 'The sea it was that rose.'

  'Well, you must not stand there, dripping all over the deck; it ain't a pretty sight, and you may take cold. Come and shift yourself. Your sea-chest is in my cabin: at least it had some notion of punctuality.'

  'Jack,' said Stephen, shedding his breeches in the cabin, 'I beg your pardon. I am very sorry for my lateness. I regret it extremely.'

  'Punctuality,' said Captain Aubrey: but then, feeling that this, the beginning of a homily on the great naval virtue, was hardly generous, he shook Stephen's free hand and went on, 'Damn my eyes, I was like a cat on hot tiles all through this vile morning and afternoon; so I spoke a little hasty. Join me on deck when you are shifted, Stephen. Bring the other glass, and we will take a last look at the shore before we round the Wight.'

  The day was sparkling clear, the powerful telescopes showed the Sally Port sharp and bright, the inn and its white balcony, and on the balcony Sophie and Diana side by side, Jagiello tall on Diana's arm, his arm in a sling, and next to Sophie a diminishing row of heads that must be the children: a flutter of handkerchiefs from time to time. 'There is Jagiello,' said Stephen. 'I came down in his coach. That was the source of the trouble.'

  'But surely Jagiello is a most prodigious whip?'

  'Sure he is Jehu come again: we fairly swept out of London, and he driving in the Lithuanian manner, standing up and leaning out over his team, encouraging them with howls. This was very well for a while, and Diana and I were able to have a word in peace, because he and his cattle spoke the same language; but when we came to change horses the case was altered. Furthermore, Jagiello is not used to driving in England: Lithuania is an aristocratic country where the common people get out of the way, and when the slow wagon from Petersfield declined to pull over he was so displeased that he determined to shave it very close, by way of reproof. But the wagoner fetched the off-hand leader such a puck with his whip that we swerved, took a post and lost a wheel. No great harm, since we did not overturn, and once we had roused out a smith and he had lit his forge all was well in a couple of hours, apart from Jagiello's arm, which had a sad wrench. I have rarely seen anyone so vexed. He told me privately that he would never had exceeded a hand-canter if he had known he was to drive in a mere howling democracy. That was scarcely just; but then he was horribly cast down, with Diana watching.'

  'Excitable foreigners,' said Jack. 'Jagiello is such a fine fellow that sometimes you almost forget it, but at bottom he is only a foreigner, poor soul. I suppose you took the coach on?'

  'I did not. Diana took it, so she did, the sun being up by then. She is a far better fist with a four-in-hand than I am, the creature.'

  He had the creature clear in his glass, and the sun full on her. All the years he had known her she had struggled against unkind circumstances: an expensive, fashionable way of life in her girlhood with no money to support it; then worse poverty still, and dependence; then difficult, troublesome, passionate and even violent lovers; and all this had worn her spirited temper, rendering it mordant and fierce, so that for a great while he had never associated Diana with laughter: beauty, dash, style, even wit, but not laughter. Now it had changed. He had never known her so happy as she had been these last few months, nor so handsome. He was not coxcomb enough to suppose that their marriage had a great deal to do with the matter; it was rather her setting up house at last, with a wide and varied acquaintance around her and the rich easy life she led there—she adored being rich; yet even so a visible, tangible husband was not without an effect, even if he were not of the right race, birth, shape, religion, or tastes—even if he were not what her friends might have wished her at an earlier time. Jack was perfectly silent, wholly concentrated on Sophie far over the water: she was now stooping to the little boy at her side; she held him up high, clear of the rail, and he and his sisters all waved again. He caught the twinkle of their handkerchiefs through the yards of Ajax and Bellerophon, and behind the eyepiece of his telescope he smiled tenderly, an expression rarely seen by his shipmates. 'Do not suppose,' said Stephen, continuing his inward discourse, 'that I am in any way favourable to children'—as though he had been accused of a crime—'There are far too many of them as it is, a monstrous superfluity: and I have no wish, no wish at all, to see myself perpetuated. But in Diana's case, might it not settle her happiness?' As though she were conscious of his gaze she too waved to the ship, and turning to Jagiello she pointed over the sea.

  The Agamemnon, homeward-bound from the Straits, crossed their field of view, a great cloud of white canvas; and when she had passed Portsmouth was gone, cut off by a headland.

  Jack straightened, snapped his telescope to, and looked up at the sails: they were trimmed much as he could wish, which was scarcely surprising since he himself had formed young Mowett's idea of how a ship should be conducted, and they were urging the Worcester's one thousand eight hundred and forty-two tons through the water at a sedate five knots, about all that could be expected with such a breeze and tide.

  'That is the last we shall see of the comforts of shore for some considerable time,' observed Stephen.

  'Not at all. We are only running down to Plymouth to complete,' said Jack absently, his eyes fixed aloft: the Worcester's pole-topgallantmasts were too taunt, too lofty by far for her slab-sided hull. If he had time in Plymouth he would try to replace them with stumps and separate royal-masts.

  He deliberately set his mind to the problem of shipping these hypothetical royals abaft the cap and quite low, to relieve the strain on the notoriously ill-fastened ship in the event of a Mediterranean blow: he knew the wicked force of the mistral in the Gulf of Lions, and the killing short seas it could raise in under an hour, seas quite unlike the long Atlantic waves for which these ships were presumably designed. He did so to deaden the pain of parting, so much stronger than he had expected; but finding the sadness persist he swung himself up on to the hammock-netting and, calling to the bosun, made his way aloft, high aloft, to see what changes would have to be made when his stump topgallantmasts came aboard.

  He was still aloft, swinging between sea and sky with the practised, unconscious ease of an orang-utang, close in technical argument with his dogged, obstinate, conservative, greybearded bosun, when a hundred feet and more below him the drum began to beat Roast Beef of Old England for the officers' dinner.

  Stephen walked into the wardroom, a fine long room with a fine long table down the middle, lit by a great stern-window right across its breadth, a room which, despite the lieutenants' cabins on either side, offered plenty of space for a dozen officers, each with a servant behind his chair, and as many guests as they chose to invite. Yet at the moment it was sparsely inhabited: three Marines in their red coats by the window, the master standing in the middle, his hands on the back of his chair, quite lest in th
ought, the purser looking at his watch, Pullings and Mowett by the door, drinking grog and evidently waiting for Stephen.

  'Here you are, Doctor,' cried Pullings, shaking his hand. 'On time to the second.' He was smiling all over his tanned friendly face, but there was more than a hint of anxiety in his eye, and in a low voice he went on, 'Poor Mowett is afraid he upset you, sir, playing off his humours when you came aboard: it was only our fun, you know, sir, but we were afraid you might not have twigged it, being, as I might say, so uncommonly damp.'

  'Never in life, my dear,' said Stephen. 'What are you drinking?'

  'Two-water grog.'

  'Then pray give me a glass. William Mowett, your very good health. Tell me, when will the other gentlemen appear? I was deprived of my breakfast, and I raven: have they no sense of time, at all?'

  'There ain't no other gentlemen,' said Pullings. 'We only have a skeleton crew, and so,'—laughing heartily, since the conceit had only just come to him—'we have only a skeleton wardroom, ha, ha. Come, let me introduce the others right away: I have a surprise for you, and I long to show it. I fairly gripe to show you my surprise.' Mr Adams the purser had seen the Doctor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the Commissioner's ball, and was very happy to see him again; Mr Gill the master, a sad contrast to the purser's fat round-faced jollity, claimed an acquaintance from the days when he was a master's mate in the Hannibal, and Stephen had repaired him after the battle of Algeciras—'though there were too many of us for you to remember me,' he said. Captain Harris of the Marines was amazingly glad to be sailing with Dr Maturin: his cousin James Macdonald had often spoken of the Doctor's skill in taking off his forearm, and there was nothing so comfortable as the thought that if one were blasted to pieces there was a really eminent hand aboard to put one together again. His lieutenants, very young pink men, only bowed, somewhat awed, for Stephen had a great reputation as a raiser of the dead and as the invariable companion of one of the most successful frigate-captains in the service.