–
we must watch and quarter them, as we say. And I must find you a servant, as well as one for myself, and a cox’n too. The gun-room cook will do very well.’
‘We will muster the ship’s company, Mr Dillon, if you please,’ said Jack.
‘Mr Watt,’ said James Dillon. ‘All hands to muster.’
The bosun sprung his call, his mates sped below roaring ‘All hands’, and presently the Sophie’s deck between the mainmast and the fo’c’sle was dark with men, all her people, even the cook, wiping his hands on his apron, which he balled up and thrust into his shirt. They stood rather uncertainly, over to port, in the two watches, with the newcomers huddled vaguely between them, looking shabby, mean and bereft
‘All hands for muster, sir, if you please,’ said James Dillon, raising his hat
‘Very well, Mr Dillon,’ said Jack. ‘Carry on.’
Prompted by the purser, the clerk brought forward the muster-book and the Sophie’s lieutenant called out the names. ‘Charles Stallard.’
‘Here sir,’ cried Charles Stallard, able seaman, volunteer from the St Fsorenzo, entered the Sophie 6 May 1795,
then aged twenty. No entry under Straggling, none under Venereals, none under Cloaths in Sick Quarters: had remitted ten pounds from abroad obviously a valuable man He stepped over to the starboard side
‘Thomas Murphy’
‘Here, sir,’ said Thomas Murphy, putting the knuckle of his index finger to his forehead as he moved over to join
Stallard – a gesture used by all the men until James Dillon reached Assei and Assou, with never a Christian-name
between them: able seamen, born in Bengal, and brought here by what strange winds?
And they, in spite of years and years in the Royal Navy, put their hands to their foreheads and thence to their hearts, bending quickly as they did so.
‘John Codlin. William Witsover. Thomas Jones. Francis Lacanfra. Joseph Bussell.
Abraham Vilheim. James Courser. Peter Peterssen. John Smith. Giuseppe Laleso.
William Cozens. Lewis Dupont. Andrew Karouski. Richard Henry
and so the list went on, with only the sick gunner and one Isaac Wilson not answering, until it ended with the newcomers and the boys – eighty-nine souls, counting officers, men, boys and marines.
Then began the reading of the Articles of War, a ceremony that often accompanied divine service and that was so closely associated with it in most minds that the faces of the crew assumed a look of devout blankness at the words, ‘for the better regulating of his Majesty’s navies, ships of war, and forces by sea, whereon under the good providence of God, the wealth, safety and strength of his kingdom chiefly depend; be it enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority•
of the same, that from and after the twenty-fifth day of December, one thousand seven hundred and forty-nine, the articles and orders hereinafter following, as well in time of peace as in time of war, shall be duly observed and put in execution, in manner hereinafter mentioned’, an expression that they retained throughout, unmoved by ‘all flag officers, and all persons in or belonging to his Majesty’s ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanliness, or other scandalous actions, shall incur such punishment as a court-martial shall think fit to impose’. Or by the echoing repetition of ‘shall suffer death’. ‘Every flag-officer, captain and commander in the fleet who shall not . . . encourage the inferior officers and men to fight courageously, shall suffer death . . . If any
person in the fleet shall treacherously or cowardly yield or cry for quarter – being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court-martial, shall suffer death. Every person who through cowardice shall in time of action withdraw or keep back. . . shall suffer death. . . Every person who through
cowardice, negligence or disaffection shall forbear to pursue any enemy, pirate, or rebel, beaten or flying. . . shall suffer death. . . If any officer, manner, soldier or other person in the fleet shall strike any of his superior officers, draw, or offer to draw, or lift up any weapon . . . shall suffer death If any person in the fleet shall commit the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery or sodomy with man or beast, he shall be punished with death.’ Death rang through and through the Articles; and even where the words were utterly incomprehensible the death had a fine, comminatory, Leviticus ring, and the crew took a grave pleasure in it all; it was what they were used to – it was what they heard the first Sunday in every month and upon all extraordinary occasions such as this They found it comfortable to their spirits, and when the watch below was dismissed the men looked far more settled.
‘Very well,’ said Jack, looking round. ‘Make signal twenty-three with two guns to leeward.
Mr Marshall, we will set
the main and fore stays’ls, and as soon as you see that pink coming up with the rest of the convoy, set the royals. Mr Watt, let the sailmaker and his party get to work on the square mainsail directly, and send the new hands aft one by one. Where’s my clerk? Mr Dillon, let us knock these watch-bills into some kind of a shape. Dr Maturin, allow me to present my officers. . . ‘This was the first time Stephen
and James had come face to face in the Sophie, but Stephen had seen that flaming red queue with its black ribbon and he was largely prepared. Even so, the shock of recognition was so great that his face automatically took on a look of veiled aggression and of the coldest reserve. For James Dillon the shock was far greater; in the hurry and business of the
preceding twenty-four hours he had not chanced to hear
the new surgeon’s name; but apart from a slight change of colour he betrayed no particular emotion. ‘I wonder,’ said Jack to Stephen when the introductions were over,
‘whether it would amuse you to look over the sloop while Mr Dillon and I attend to this business, or whether you would prefer to be in the cabin?’
‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to look over the ship, I am sure,’ said Stephen. ‘A very elegant complexity of.. . ‘his voice trailed away.
‘Mr Mowett, be so good as to show Dr Maturin everything he would like to see. Carry him into the maintop -it affords quite a visto. You do not mind a little height, my dear sir?’
‘Oh no,’ said Stephen, looking vaguely about him. ‘I do not mind it.’
James Mowett was a tubular young man, getting on for twenty; he was dressed in old sailcoth trousers and a striped Guernsey shirt, a knitted garment that gave him very much the look of a caterpillar; and he had a marlinspike dangling round his neck, for he had meant to take a hand in the making of the new square mainsail. He looked attentively at Stephen to make out what kind of a man he was, and with that mixture of easy grace and friendly deference which comes naturally to so many sailors he made his bow and said,
‘Well, sir, where do you choose to start? Shall we go into the top directly? You can see the whole run of the deck from there.’
The whole run of the deck amounted to some ten yards aft and sixteen forward, and it was perfectly visible from where they stood; but Stephen said, ‘Let us go up then, by all means.
Lead the way, and I will imitate your motions as best I can.’
He watched thoughtfully while Mowett sprang into the ratlines and then, his mind far away, slowly hoisted himself up after him. James Dillon and he had belonged to the United Irishmen, a society that at different tunes in the last nine years bad been an open, public association
calling for the emancipation of Presbyterians, dissenters and Catholics and for a representative government of Ireland; a proscribed secret society; an armed body in open rebellion; and a defeated, hunted remnant. The rising had been put down amidst the usual horrors, and in spite of the general pardon the lives of the more important members were in danger. Many had been betrayed – Lord Edward Fitzgerald himself at the very outset –
and many had withdrawn, distrusting even their own families, for the events had divided the society and the nation most terribly. Stephen Maturin was not afraid of any vulgar betrayal, nor was he afraid for his skin, because he did not value it: but he had so suffered from the incalculable tensions, rancour and hatreds that arise from the failure of a rebellion that he could not bear any further disappointment, any further hostile, recriminatory confrontation, any fresh example of a friend grown cold, or worse. There had always been very great disagreements within the association; and now, in the ruins of it, it was impossible, once daily contact had been lost, to tell where any man stood.