Polyphemus, burly and thick, liked to close and batter ribs, chest and if possible flanks.
Young Surprise, more agile, kept his distance, throwing in some very pretty lefts at Polyphemus’ bleeding face. But for three gasping rounds he could not hit the stolid youth’s chin hard enough to throw his head back. Jack’s and Stephen’s whispered prayers and audible advice had no effect until the fifth round, when Polyphemus, with lowered guard, sought to avoid a shocking blow on his nose, jerked back, head and all, exposed his throat and received the final, disabling, choking blow.
Jack congratulated both gasping, exhausted combatants, awarded the minute silver cup; then learnt that Polyphemus had crushed Surprise in the pulling race for cutters round the port; and all hands cheerfully adjourned for a general feast (provided by Surprise) at which Harding presided, the Captain being taken up with paper-work, seeing that they were now to weigh at the height of flood.
Chapter Six
‘We therefore commit his body to the deep,’ said Captain Aubrey, ‘to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the Sea shall give up her dead) and the life of the world to come, through Our Lord Jesus Christ; who at His coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself…’ and Harding, the first lieutenant, gave the watching bosun a barely perceptible nod. As all hats whipped off, the hatch-cover tilted, shooting its burden into the advancing roller, which swallowed it with barely a sign; and Henry Wantage, master’s mate, sank instantly, sewn into his hammock with four round shot at his feet.
‘I went through those words not ten days out of Freetown,’ said Jack in the cabin, ‘and I have said them after many an action, God knows: yet they move me every time, so that I am like to stumble towards the end. Particularly for poor Wantage, who had such a wretched time of it in Funchal.’
Stephen poured him more coffee. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘and I grieved for those two sad, wasted yellow-fever boys: to the end I thought Jacob and I might save them: but it was not to be.’
‘Apart from a really uncommon bloody action, I do not remember to have seen a midshipmen’s berth so mauled. We have only one master’s mate, and at present poor old Mr. Woodbine is scarcely fit to stand a watch.’ He pondered, drank more coffee, and rang the bell. ‘Pass the word for Mr. Hanson,’ he said.
‘Mr. Hanson it is, sir,’ replied Killick; and the name resounded through the ship
‘Sir?’ asked the boy, the very young man, who had obviously been weeping.
‘Sit down, Mr. Hanson,’ said Jack. ‘A little while ago Mr. Adams pointed out to me that you have an uncommon amount of sea-time against your name.’
‘Yes, sir. My Uncle was good enough to enter me on the books of Phoenix and some other ships before I was breeched.’
‘Just so. Many captains do the same: the result is that although you are still quite young you are legally senior to most of the people in the berth. And since your navigation is better than most of theirs I am going to take advantage of your nominal service to appoint you master’s mate. Mr. Daniel is older than you, and perhaps more able: but with your sea-time he cannot be promoted over your head, and I am sure he has enough experience of the service to accept the apparent injustice without bearing you any ill-will.
You and he will be a great support to Mr. Woodbine. You will take poor Mr. Wantage’s place in the last dog watch today.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir,’ said Horatio, looking confused, embarrassed, far from happy.
‘Cut along, then: and tell the berth that I have issued those words as a direct order. You may not like it, and they may not like it: but you will have to give them a feast on the last day of the month. If you choose to invite Ringle’s mates, I shall give them a bottle of wine apiece, for the honour of the ship: it is the custom, you know.’ When Horatio had gone, Jack said, ‘That is a good boy. He don’t like it; and they won’t like it. But I do not think they will tear him to pieces, now that he has shown what he is made of. In any case John Daniel would not allow it; he has real authority in the berth, although he has not been aboard very long.’
The appointment was indeed received with some murmuring in the berth: but it was greeted with general approval by the lower deck, which set an even higher value on physical courage than on the finer points of seamanship – not that Mr. Hanson was so deficient in them, either.
‘My dear Christine,’ wrote Stephen on page seventeen of the serial letter that would be sent to Dorset from Rio de Janeiro or by the good offices of the first homeward-bound ship they met, ‘I think it would please you to watch the formation of a community so close-packed and eventually so tight-knit as the crew of a ship, above all of a man-of-war, which has so many more people to serve the guns, and a far more rigid hierarchy. Remarkably strong and lasting friendships are formed, particularly on very long voyages; but even in a commission so recent as ours the process is evident. Young Hanson, whom I have mentioned before, is, I understand from Jack, really talented as far as the mathematics are concerned, and Mr. Daniel, a master’s mate, has helped him in their practical application to the guidance of the ship’s course – even to determining her exact position on the trackless ocean, for all love. They have become close companions, which could scarcely have been the case on land, their origins, nurture, and manner of speech being so very far apart. When we were in Freetown they were inseparable, wandering about together, taking the bearings of capes and headlands, the height of towers, minarets, fortifications and so on, together with depths and tides. And now, since Mr. Woodbine’s health failed him two or three weeks from the Guinea coast, the two have been devotedly attentive to the ship’s motions – longitude, latitude and the like – throughout the long course of unpredictable, varying winds that torment the mariner in the Gulf – until at last we reached the blessed north-east trade, before which we are now bounding at a rate of I think ten knots in the hour; and now they can draw breath at last.
‘There are few things more pleasing to see than that rise and growth of a natural, spontaneous liking, sometimes, indeed often, (as in this case), accompanied by similar tastes, abilities and studies: but by no means always, nor by an equality in age, and it would give me the liveliest pleasure to find you and Brigid friends. A very little notice on your part would overcome her timidity, and I know you would not find her wanting in affection, though it has been somewhat damped: the older girls do not show her much kindness, and although I do not advance this as anything more than a conjecture, I have the impression that they regard her as an intruder. And since infant emotions are rarely disguised with any skill I believe I may say that their mother’s attentions and her kindnesses to Brigid quite certainly excite their jealousy, that most corrosive of passions, and the most unhappy. There, my dear, I hear the imperious bell – our life is ruled by bells
– that marks the beginning of my rounds, and if I do not go at once I shall have sour disapproving looks – not perhaps from Amos Jacob, but certainly from Poll Skeeping and her mate, from all the patients, straightened in their cots, their sheets smoothed tight, their modest comforts hidden, and their faces washed, and not improbably from the ship’s two cats, who came secretly aboard at Freetown, and who have grown wholly accustomed to the rigour of naval life, disliking the slightest variation – worthy, scrupulous cats, who regularly visit their little trays of ashes, set out in the galley by the equally severe and righteous cook. My dear, farewell for a moment …”
‘My dear, the moment is passed,’ he wrote, squaring up to his desk, braced against the frigate’s rhythmic heave and roll, ‘and I am happy to tell you of a real improvement in the master’s health: he has eaten, and retained, two copious meals, the first of fresh flying-fish, the second of a moderately rich lobscouse. This may be connected with the ship’s much more even pace, her greater speed, and the general air of satisfaction aboard – the brisk (though warm) and lively air. But I do not like to mention any of these factors, the master being a through-and-through mariner, choleric, and convinced of his own diagnosis: incipient leprosy, overcome by total abstinence from salt, alcohol, tobacco. I wish I could convey the delight of a well-found, well-handled man-of-war, sailing with all reasonable sail abroad, a steady, urgent wind coming in over her larboard quarter, her prow (or I think I should say cutwater) throwing a fine sheet of spray to leeward with each even measured pitch: there is a generally-diffused happiness aboard; and since this is a make-and-mend day, the front part of the vessel is littered with hands busy, some with shears, many more with needles, cutting out their lengths of duck and sewing the pieces together, making their hot-weather clothes with wonderful dexterity. And each time the log is heaved they pause, ears cocked for the midshipman’s report to the officer of the watch.