‘You never told me this.’
‘You never asked. But there is nothing to it, you know, once you get used to their grappling. You feel good, and worthy – deserve well of the republic, and so on, for a while, which is agreeable, I don’t deny; but there is really nothing to it – it don’t signify. I should go in for a dog, let alone an able seaman: why, if it were warm, I dare say I should go in for a surgeon, ha, ha, ha! Mr Parker,
I think we may rig the sheets tonight and get the stump of the mizzen out first thing tomorrow. Then you will be able to priddy the deck and make all shipshape.’
‘It is all ahoo at present, sir, indeed,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘But I must beg your pardon, sir, for not receiving you aboard in a proper fashion just now. May I offer my congratulations?’
‘Why thank you, Mr Parker: an able seaman is a valuable prize. Bolton is one of our best upper-yardsmen.’
‘He was drunk, sir. I have him in my list.’
‘Perhaps we may overlook it this once, Mr Parker. Now the sheers can go with one foot here and the other by the scuttle, with a guy to the third hoop of the mainmast.’
In the evening, when it was too dark to work but too delightful to go below, Stephen observed, ‘If you make it your study to depreciate rescues of this nature, will you not find that they are not valued? That you get no gratitude?’
‘Now you come to mention it, I suppose it is so,’ said Jack. ‘It depends: some take it very kind. Bonden, for example. I pulled him out of the Mediterranean, as I dare say you remember, and no one could be more sensible of it. But most think it no great matter, I find. I can’t say I should myself, unless it was a particular friend, who knew it was me, and who went in saying “Why, damn me, I shall pull Jack Aubrey out.” No. Upon the whole,’ he said, reflecting and looking wise, ‘it seems to me, that in the article of pulling people out of the sea, virtue is its own reward.’
They lapsed into silence, their minds following different paths as the wake stretched out behind and the stars rose in procession over Portugal.
‘I am determined at last,’ cried Stephen, striking his hand upon his knee, ‘I am at last determined – determined, I say – that I shall learn to swim.’
‘I believe,’ said Jack, ‘that by the setting of the water tomorrow, we shall have our bentincks drawing.’
‘The bentincks draw, the bentincks draw, the bentincks draw fu’ weel,’ said Mr Macdonald.
‘Is the Captain pleased?’ asked Stephen.
‘He is delighted. There is no great wind to try them, but she seems much improved. Have you not remarked her motion is far more easy? We may have the pleasure of the purser’s company once more. I tell you, Doctor, if that man belches of set purpose just once again, or picks his teeth at table, I shall destroy him.’
‘That is why you are cleaning your pistols, I presume. But I am glad to hear what you tell me, about these sails. Perhaps now we shall hear less of selvagees and booms -the inner jib, the outer jib – nay, to crown all, the jibs of jibs, God forbid. Your mariner is an honest fellow, none better; but he is sadly given to jargon. Those are elegant, elegant pistols. May I handle them?’
‘Pretty, are they not?’ said Macdonald, passing the case. ‘Joe Manton made them for me.
Do these things interest you?’
‘It is long since I had a pistol in my hand,’ said Stephen. ‘Or a small-sword. But when I was younger I delighted in them – I still do. They have a beauty of their own. Then again, they have a real utility. In Ireland, you know, we go out more often than the English do. I believe it is the same with you?’
Macdonald thought it was, though there was a great difference between the Highlands and the rest of the kingdom; what did Dr Maturin mean by ‘often’? Stephen said he meant twenty or thirty times in a twelvemonth; in his first year at the university he had known men who exceeded this. ‘At that time I attached a perhaps undue importance to staying alive,
and I became moderately proficient with both the pistol and the small-sword. I have a childish longing to be at it again. Ha, ha – carte, tierce, tierce, sagoon, a hit!’
‘Should you like to try a pass or two with me on deck?’
‘Would that be quite regular? I have a horror of the least appearance of eccentricity.’
‘Oh, yes, yes! It is perfectly usual. In the Boreas I used to give the midshipmen lessons as soon as I had finished exercising the Marines; and one or two of the lieutenants were quite good. Come, let us take the pistols too.’
On the quarterdeck they foined and lunged, stamping, crying ‘Ha!’ and the clash and hiss of steel upon steel seduced the midshipmen of the watch from their duty until they were banished to the heights, leaving their happier friends to watch the venomous wicked dart and flash entranced.
‘Stop, stop! Hold – belay, avast,’ cried Stephen, stepping back at last. ‘I have no breath – I gasp – I melt.’
‘Well,’ said Macdonald, ‘I have been a dead man these ten minutes past. I have only been fighting speeritually.’
‘Sure, we were both corpses from very early in the battle.’
‘Bless us all,’ said Jack, ‘I had no notion you were such a man of blood, dear Doctor.’
‘You must be uncommon deadly when you are in practice,’ said Macdonald. ‘A horrid quick murdering lunge. I should not care to go Out with you, sir. You may call me pudding, and I will bear it meekly. Do you choose to try the pistols?’
Jack, watching from his side of the quarterdeck, was wholly amazed: he had no idea that Stephen could hold a sword, nor yet load a pistol, still less knock the pips out of a playing-card at twenty paces: yet he had known him intimately. He was pleased that his friend was doing so well; he was pleased at the respectful silence; but he was a little sad that he could not join in, that he stood necessarily aloof – the captain could not compete – and he was obscurely uneasy. There was something disagreeable, and somehow reptilian, about the cold, contained way Stephen took up his stance, raised his pistol, looked along the barrel with his pale eyes, and shot the head off
the king of hearts. Jack’s certainties wavered; he turned to look at his new bentincks, smoothly filled, drawing to perfection. Finisterre would be under their lee by now, some sixty leagues away; and presently, about midnight, he would alter course eastward –
eastward, for Ortegal and the Bay.
Just before eight bells in the first watch Pullings came on deck, pushing a yawning, bleary-eyed Parslow before him.
‘You are a good relief, Mr Pullings,’ said the master. ‘I shall be right glad to turn in.’ He caught the yawn from the midshipman, gaped enormously and went on, ‘Well, here you
have her. Courses, main and fore tops’ls, forestays’l and jib. Course nor-nor-east, to be altered due east at two bells. Captain to be called if you sight any sail. Oh, my dear cot, how she calls. A good night to you, then. That child could do with a bucket of water over him,’ he added, moving towards the hatchway.
Deep in his sleep Jack was aware of the changing watch – sixty men hurrying about in a ship a hundred and thirty feet long can hardly do so in silence – but it did not stir him more than one point from the deepest level of unconsciousness; it did not bring him half so near the surface as the change of course, which followed one hour later. He swam up, between sleeping and waking, knowing that his body was no longer lying in the same relationship to the north. And that the Polychrest was going large: the quick nervous rise and fall had given way to a long, easy glide. No roaring or calling out on deck. Pullings had put her before the wind with a few quiet remarks: all wool and no cry: how fortunate he was to have that good young fellow. But there was something not quite right. The sails had been trimmed, yet feet were pattering about at a great rate: through the open skylight he caught quick excited words, and he was fully awake,
quite prepared for the opening of his door and the dim form of a midshipman beside his cot.
‘Mr Pullings’ duty, sir, and he believes there is a sail on the larboard bow.’