‘Is the captain returned, do you know?’
‘No. He won’t be back for hours and hours. You have plenty of time. Come let us have a hand of piquet.’
‘I play very little.’
‘You need not be afraid of him. He’ll be pulling down to Dover against the tide – he’s got a luscious piece there
– won’t be back for hours and hours. A luscious piece, by God: I could wear it. I’d have a mind to cut him out, if he weren’t my captain: it’s a wonder what a red coat will do, believe you me. I dare say I could, too; she invited all the officers last week, and she looked at me. .
‘You cannot be speaking of Mrs Villiers, sir?’
‘A pretty young widow – yes, that’s right. Do you know her?’
‘Yes, sir: and I should be sorry to hear her spoken of with disrespect.’
‘Oh, well, if she’s a friend of yours,’ cried Smithers, with a knowing leer, ‘that’s different. I have said nothing. Mum’s the word. Now what about our game?’
‘Do you play well?’
‘I was born with a pack of cards in my hand.’
‘I must warn you I never play for small stakes: it bores me.’
‘Oh, I’m not afraid of you. I’ve played at White’s -I played at Almack’s with my friend Lord Craven till daylight put the candles out! What do you think of that?’
The other officers came down one by one and watched them play; watched them in silence until the end of the sixth panic, when Stephen laid down a point of eight followed by a quart major, and Pullings, who had been sitting behind him, straining his stomach to the
groaning-point to make him win, burst out with ‘Ha, ha, you picked a wrong ‘un when you tackled the Doctor.’
‘Do be quiet, can’t you, when gentlemen are playing cards. And smoking that vile stinking pipe in the gun-room
– it is turning the place into one of your low pot-houses. How can a man concentrate his mind with all this noise? Now you have made me lose my score. What do you make it, Doctor?’
‘With repique and capot, that is a hundred and thirty; and since I believe you are two short of your hundred, I
must add your score to mine.’
‘You will take my note of hand, I suppose?’
‘We agreed to play for cash, you remember.’
‘Then I shall have to fetch it. It will leave me short. But you will have to give me my revenge.’
‘Captain’s coming aboard, gentlemen,’ said a quartermaster. Then reappearing a moment later, ‘Port side,
gents.’ They relaxed: he was returning with no ceremony. ‘I must leave you,’ said Stephen.
‘Thank you for the
game.’
‘But you can’t go away just when you have won all that money,’ cried Smithers.
‘On the contrary,’ said Stephen. ‘It is the very best moment to leave.’
‘Well, it ain’t very sporting. That’s all I say. It ain’t very sporting.’
‘You think not? Then when you have laid down the gold you may cut double or quits. Sans revanche, eh?’
Smithers came back with two rouleaux of guineas and part of a third. ‘It’s not the money,’
he said. ‘It’s the principle of the thing.’
‘Aces high,’ said Stephen, looking impatiently at his watch. ‘Please to cut.’
A low heart: knave of diamonds. ‘Now you will have to take my note for the rest,’ said Smithers.
‘Jack,’ said Stephen, ‘may I come in?’
‘Come in, come in, my dear fellow, come in,’ cried Jack, springing forward and guiding him to a chair. ‘I have scarcely seen you how very pleasant this is! I cannot tell you how dreary the ship has been without you. How brown you are!’
In spite of an animal revulsion at the catch of the scent that hung about Jack’s coat – never was there a more unlucky present – Stephen felt a warmth in his heart. His face displayed no more than a severe questioning, professional look, however, and he said, ‘Jack, what have you been doing to yourself? You are thin, grey – costive, no doubt. You have lost another couple of stone: the skin under your eyes is a disagreeable yellow. Has the bullet-
wound been giving trouble? Come, take off your shirt. I was never happy that I had extracted all the lead; my probe still seemed to grate on something.’
‘No, no. It has quite healed over again. I am very well. It is only that I don’t sleep. Toss, turn, can’t get off, then ill dreams and I wake up some time in the middle watch – never get off again, and I am stupid all the rest of the day. And damned ill-tempered, Stephen; I sway away on all top-ropes for a nothing, and then I am sorry afterwards. Is it my liver, do you think? Not yesterday, but the day before I had a damned unpleasant surprise: I was shaving, and thinking of something else; and Killick had hung the glass aft the scuttle instead of its usual place. So just for a moment I caught sight of my face as though it was a stranger looking in. When I understood it was me, I said, “Where did I get that damned forbidding ship’s corporal’s face?” and determined not to look like that again – it reminded me of that unhappy fellow Pigot, of the Hermione. And this morning there it was again, glaring back at me out of the glass. That is another reason why I am SO glad to see you: you will give me one of your treble shotted slime-draughts to get me to sleep. It’s the devil, you know, not sleeping: no wonder a man looks
like a ship’s corporal. And these dreams – do you dream, Stephen?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I thought not. You have a head-piece. . . however, I had one some nights ago, about your narwhal; and Sophie was mixed up with it in some way. It sounds nonsense, but it was so full of unhappiness that I woke blubbering like a
child. Here it is, by the way.’ He reached behind him and passed the long tapering spiral of ivory.
Stephen’s eyes gleamed as he took it and turned it slowly round and round in his hands.
‘Oh thank you, thank you, Jack,’ he cried. ‘It is perfect – the very apotheosis of a tooth.’
‘There were some longer ones, well over a fathom, but they had lost their tips, and I thought you would like to get the point, ha, ha, ha.’ It was a flash of his old idiot self, and he wheezed and chuckled for some time, his blue eyes as clear and delighted as they had been long ago: wild glee over an infinitesimal grain of merriment.
‘It is a most prodigious phenomenon,’ said Stephen, cherishing it. ‘How much do I owe you, Jack?’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which he laid on the table, then a handful of gold, then another, and scrabbled for the odd coins, observing that it was foolish to carry it loose: far better made a bundle of.
‘Good God,’ cried Jack, staring. ‘What on earth have you been at? Have you taken a treasure-ship? I have never seen so much money al! at once in my life.’
‘I have been stripping a jackeen that annoyed me: the young nagin, the coxcomb in the red coat. The lobster, as you would say.’
‘Smithers. But this is gaming, Stephen, not mere play.’
‘Yes. He seemed concerned at his loss: a lardish sweat. But he has all the appearance of wealth – all its petulant arrogance, certainly.’
‘He has private means, I know; but you must have left him very short – this is more than a year’s pay.’
‘So much the better. I intended he should smart.’
‘Stephen, I must ask you not to do it again. He is an under-bred puppy, I grant you, and I wonder the jollies ever took him, they being so particular; but the ship is in a bad enough way as it is, without getting a name for gaming. Will you not let him have it back?’
‘I will not. But since you wish it, I shall not play with him again. Now how much do I owe you, my dear?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing. Do me the pleasure of accepting it as a present. Pray do. It was very little, and the prize paid for it.’
‘You took a prize, so?’
‘Yes. Just one. No chance of any more – the Polychrest can be recognized the moment she is hull up on the horizon, now that she is known. I am sorry you were not aboard, though it did not amount to much: I sold my share to Parker for seventy-five pounds, being short at the time, and he did not make a great deal out of it. She was a little Dutch shalloop, creeping along the back of the Dogger, laden with deals; and we crept just that trifle less almighty slow. A contemptible prize – we should have let her go in the Sophie –