The explanation was interrupted by the arrival of the casks of rhubarb: then by important quantities of round shot and a little chain; and then by the necessity of hauling off into the fairway, so that once the galley fires were doused and every living spark aboard extinguished, the powder-hoy could come alongside and deliver her deadly little copper-ringed barrels to the gunner and his mates.
With a fair wind and a flowing sheet the Surprise, stores and water all completed – no stragglers, no drunken hands taken up by the Funchal police – bore away a little east of south; and by the time stern-lanterns and top-lights were lit, those hands who were inclined to smoke their tobacco rather than chew it gathered in and about the galley, where in addition to the pleasure of their pipes they had the much-appreciated company of women, perfectly respectable women, Poll Skeeping, Stephen’s loblolly-girl, and her friend Maggie, the bosun’s wife’s sister.
‘So it seems the Doctor’s mate has come aboard again,’ said Dawson, the captain of the head, who knew it perfectly well but who liked to hear the fact confirmed.
‘Was he carrying another Hand of Glory? How I hope he was carrying another Hand of Glory, God bless him, ha, ha, ha!’
‘No, nor another unicorn’s horn; that will be for next time.’
All those who had shared in the Surprise’s most recent and most glorious prize laughed aloud; and a Shelmerston-ian, who had not been there of course, said, ‘Tell us about it again.’
They told him about it again, about those splendid barrels brim-full of prize-money, with such vehemence and conviction, most of them speaking at once, that the blazing gold seemed almost to be there before them.
‘Ah,’ said one, in the ensuing silence, ‘we’ll never see days like that again.’ A pause, and a general sigh of agreement; though many spoke with very strong approval of the doctors and the luck they brought.
‘So we are bound for Freetown,’ observed Poll Skeeping.
‘Yes,’ said Joe Plaice, one of Killick’s friends and a fairly reliable source of information.
‘Which the Doctor – our doctor – is sweet on the Governor’s lady: or, as you might say, his widow. She lives there still, in a house.’
‘What, an ugly little bugger like him, and that lovely piece?’ cried Ebenezer Pierce, foretopman, starboard watch.
‘For shame, Ebenezer,’ said Poll. ‘Think of your arm he saved.’
‘Still,’ said Ebenezer, ‘you can be a very clever doctor and still no great beauty.’ And in the inimical silence he walked aft, affecting unconcern, and tripped over a bucket.
‘I wish the Doctor well, by God,’ said a carpenter’s mate. ‘He’s had it cruel hard.’
Chapter Five
‘ “Governor welcomes Surprise: should be happy to see Captain, gunroom and midshipmen’s berth at half-past four o’clock”,’ called the signal midshipman to the first lieutenant, who relayed the message to Captain Aubrey, three feet from its source.
‘Very kind in him, I am sure,’ said Jack. ‘Please reply “Many thanks: accept with pleasure: Surprise.” No: scrub that. “With greatest pleasure: Surprise.” You know the moorings as well as I do, Mr. Harding: carry on, if you please, bearing the surf and our number one uniforms in mind.’
The captain and the officers of the frigate had done pretty well – even very, very well – out of their Barbary prize, but from the depths of their beings rose an anxious care for the outward marks of their rank, insignificant in comparison with those of their fellows in the army (often well-to-do), but of the first importance to a sailor living or attempting to live on his pay. Another fact that tempered their delight in the invitation was the Royal Navy’s custom of feeding its midshipmen (as much as it fed them at all, apart from their private stock, stores, and family pots of jam) at noon; the officers rather later; and the captain whenever he chose, usually at about one or half-past. So as usual, in response to an official, land-borne invitation, the Surprises approached Government House, groomed to the highest state of cleanliness and polish, but slavering with greed or with appetites wholly extinguished. Yet at least this time their precious uniforms, thanks to a little new jetty or pier, were still immaculate; and as soon as they had been properly introduced to
Sir Henry, given their glass of sherry and seated, the officers with a female partner and the midshipmen promiscuously, their spirits began to revive.
Jack’s partner was of course Lady Morris: Stephen’s, apparently without any regard for his humble service rank, was Christine Wood. This was obviously the result of a deliberate manoeuvre on Lady Morris’s part – she said something about ‘common interest in birds’ as Christine made her curtsey and Stephen his bow, and was sure that dear Mr. Harding would forgive her when she introduced him to the ADC’s ravishing young wife – would forgive her on the grounds of a previous acquaintance, in spite of his seniority.
Previous acquaintance or not, they were painfully embarrassed, tongue-tied and awkward as they sat there, crumbling bread and responding to the usual civilities from their other neighbours. It was only when a plantain-eater uttered its horrible screech that Stephen cried, ‘Surely it is too far north for that creature?’ and she replied almost sharply that in spite of Hudson, Dumesnil and others Sierra Leone was by no means the northern limit of the plantain-eaters – two pairs had bred in her garden this year and there were reports of others well beyond the river, even. This re-established them on their former basis of scientific candour, and he told her of his anomalous nuthatch in the Atlas, of the numerous bodies of lions that would gather to roar at one another from either side of a river in those parts, of the extraordinary wealth of flamingos: presently their earlier friendship, affection and more than affection flowed back like a making tide on an open strand, flowed imperceptibly but without the least question. Like civilised creatures they paid proper attention to their other neighbours; but to the observant part of the company in general their particularity was so evident that a Mrs. Wilson, whose daughter was on Stephen’s left, was heard to say, ‘Really, the gentleman seems quite besotted with that Mrs. Wood.’
Her friends replied that a rich widow would naturally seem very desirable to a penniless naval surgeon.
When they parted he said, ‘I am so very glad to have seen you again. I am a most indifferent writer and I am only too painfully aware that my answers to your dear letters – to one above all – have been painfully inadequate. May I presume to call upon you tomorrow? I long to see your latest remarks on Adanson: and then again there is all the northern shore of the marsh that we had to leave unexplored – did you in the end fix our porphyria as a breeding species?’
‘I should be very happy to see you,’ she said, a little nervously. ‘Shall we say at about ten, if your duty allows? You know where I live, I presume?’
‘I do not.’
‘It is the rather brutal square building below Government House, perhaps half a mile to the north, almost at the edge of the water: I bought it myself as a holiday place – in no way official, and as I said, near the shore. I shall send Jenny, in case you should miss the way.’
Well before ten Jenny came alongside in a skiff expertly rowed by Square, a beaming Kruman who had accompanied Stephen on his earlier visit, and who now hailed the ship with such pleasure that all who heard him smiled.
‘Dear Square, how happy I am to see you again,’ said Stephen, descending with his usual grace, saved at the last minute by a powerful hand.
‘The lady said I was to see you safe aboard, oh mind them thole-pins.’ Square seized him again, and somehow balancing the frail craft while Jenny slid forward, set him down in the stern.
‘Easy does it, Square,’ called Jack, voicing the anxiety of all aboard.
And in fact easy did it: in time they saw Dr. Maturin creep up the few remaining steps of a solid, unmoving ladder (the tide was almost full) and walk firmly away into the town. ‘What possessed me not to lay on my own barge I cannot imagine,’ said Jack to his first lieutenant, who shook his head, unable to offer any comfort.
‘Should you like a hammock, sir?’ asked Square, meaning one of those drooping cushioned nets, extended by poles and a yoke, which served as sedan chairs or hackney coaches in Freetown.
‘I had as soon walk,’ said Stephen. ‘But let us skirt the market-place, and perhaps Jenny will buy us each a length of sugar-cane.’
This they did, gazing over the great crowded, immensely vociferous square on the right hand, piled with glorious fruit, fish-slabs with half the wealth of the Atlantic, decently shrouded booths beyond, holding dark, nameless flesh; while away on the left, spotted with disconsolate camels and asses, an anonymous pasture stretched beyond the walls right down to the water’s edge – varying waters, salt, fresh, and semi-liquid mud among the mangroves, with the brutal square building in its garden a great way off but quite distinct.