aboard the Lively without a Christian covering to your head. And get yourself a new jacket, while you are about it. She is a crack frigate.’
She was a crack frigate, she was indeed; and seeing that a wheel came off Robert’s curricle in a remote and midnight ditch Jack was obliged to go aboard her in the glare of the risen sun, passing through the crowded streets of Chatham – a considerable trial to him after an already trying night. But this was nothing to the trial of meeting Dr Maturin on the water; for Stephen had been inspired to put off from the shore at about the same time, though from a different place, and their courses converged some three furlongs from the frigate’s side. Stephen’s conveyance was one of the Lively’s cutters, which saluted Jack by tossing oars, and which fell under his wherry’s lee, so that they pulled in close company, Stephen calling out pleasantly all the way. Jack caught a frightened glance from Killick, noticed the wooden composure of the midshipman and the cutter’s crew, saw the grinning face of Matthew Paris, an old Polychrest, Stephen’s servant, once a framework knitter and still no kind of seaman – no notion of common propriety in his myopic, friendly gaze. And as Stephen rose to wave and hoot, Jack saw that he was dressed from head to foot in a single tight dull-brown garment; it clung to him, and his pale, delighted face emerged from a woollen roll at the top, looking unnaturally large. His general appearance was something between that of an attenuated ape and a meagre heart; and he was carrying his narwhal horn. Captain Aubrey’s back and shoulders went perfectly rigid: he adopted the features of one who is smiling; he even called out, ‘Good morning to you – yes – no – ha, ha.’ And as he recomposed them to a look of immovable gravity and unconcern, the thought darted through his mind, ‘I believe the wicked old creature is drunk.’
Up and up the side – a long haul after the Polychrest -the wailing of the calls, the stamp and clash of the Marines presenting arms, and he was aboard.
Mathematical precision, rigorous exactitude fore and aft: he had rarely seen a more splendid array of blue and gold on the quarterdeck: even the midshipmen were in cocked hats and snowy breeches. The officers stood motionless, bare-headed. The naval lieutenants, the Marine lieutenants; then the master, the surgeon, the purser, and a couple of black coats, chaplain and schoolmaster, no doubt; and then the flock of young gentlemen, one of whom, three feet tall and five years of age, had his thumb in his mouth, a comfortably jarring note in all this perfection of gold lace, ivory deck, ebony seams.
Jack moved his hat to the quarterdeck, tilting it no more than an inch or so, because of his bandage. ‘We got a rogue,’ whispered the captain of the foretop. ‘A proud son of wrath, mate,’ replied the yeoman of the sheets. The first lieutenant stepped forward, a grave, severe, tall thin man. ‘Welcome aboard, sir,’ said he. ‘My name is Simmons.’
‘Thank you, Mr Simmons. Gentlemen, good morning to you. Mr Simmons, pray be so good as to name the officers.’ Bows, civil mutterings. They were youngish men, except for the purser and the chaplain; a pleasant-looking set, but reserved and politely distant. ‘Very well,’ said Jack to the first lieutenant, ‘we will muster the ship’s company at six bells, if you please, and I shall read myself in then.’ Leaning over the side he called, ‘Dr Maturin, will you not come aboard?’ Stephen was no more of a mariner now than he had been at the
outset of his naval career, and it took him a long moment to clamber snorting up the frigate’s side, propped by the agonized Killick, a moment that
increased the attentive quarterdeck’s sense of expectation. ‘Mr Simmons,’ said Jack, fixing him with a hard, savage eye, ‘this is my friend Dr Maturin, who will be accompanying me.
Dr Maturin, Mr Simmons, the first lieutenant of the Lively.’
‘Your servant, sir,’ said Stephen, making a leg: and this, thought Jack, was perhaps the most hideous action that a person in so subhuman a garment could perform. Hitherto the Lively’s quarterdeck had taken the apparition nobly, with a vexing, remote perfection; but now, as Mr Simmons bowed stiffly, saying, ‘Servant, sir,’ and as Stephen, by way of being amiable, said, ‘What a splendid vessel, to be sure – vast spacious decks: one might almost imagine oneself aboard an Indiaman,’ there was a wild shriek of childish laughter – a quickly smothered shriek, followed by a howl that vanished sobbing down the companion-ladder.
‘Perhaps you would like to come into the cabin,’ said Jack, taking Stephen’s elbow in an iron grip. ‘Your things will be brought aboard directly, never trouble yourself’ -Stephen cast a look into the boat and seemed about to break away.
‘I shall see to it myself at once, sir,’ said the first lieutenant.
‘Oh, Mr Simmons,’ cried Stephen, ‘pray bid them be very tender of my bees.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ said the first lieutenant, with a civil inclination of his head.
Jack got him into the after-cabin at last, a finely-proportioned, bare, spacious cabin with a great gun on either side and little else but the splendid curving breadth of the stern-windows: Hamond was clearly no Sybarite. Here he sat on a locker and gazed at Stephen’s garment. It had been horrible at a distance; it was worse near to – far worse.
‘Stephen,’ he said, ‘I say, Stephen. . . Come in!’
It was Paris, with a rectangular sail-cloth parcel. Stephen ran to him, took it from his arms with infinite
precaution and set it on the table, pressing his ear to its side. ‘Listen, Jack,’ he said, smiling. ‘Put your ear firmly to the top and listen while I tap.’ The parcel gave a sudden momentary hum. ‘Did you hear? That shows they are queen-right – that no harm has come to their queen. But we must open it at once; they must have air. There! A glass hive. Is it not ingenious, charming? I have always wanted to keep bees.’
‘But how in God’s name do you expect to keep bees in a man-of-war?’ cried Jack. ‘Where in God’s name do you expect them to find flowers, at sea? How will they eat?’
‘You can see their every motion,’ said Stephen, close against the glass, entranced. ‘Oh, as for their feeding, never fret your anxious mind; they will feed with us upon a saucer of sugar, at stated intervals. If the ingenious Monsieur Huber can keep bees, and he blind, the poor man, surely we can manage in a great spacious xebec?’
‘This is a frigate.’
‘Let us never split hairs, for all love. There is the queen! Come, look at the queen!’
‘How many of those reptiles might there be?’ asked Jack, holding pretty much aloof.
‘Oh, sixty thousand or so, I dare say,’ said Stephen carelessly. ‘And when it comes on to blow, we will ship gimbals for the hive. This will preserve them from undue lateral motion.’
‘You think of almost everything,’ said Jack. ‘Well, I will wear the bees, like Damon and Pythagoras – ho, a mere sixty thousand bees in the cabin don’t signify, much. But I tell you what it is, Stephen: you don’t always think of quite everything.’
‘You refer to the queen’s being a virgin?’ said Stephen.
‘Not really. No. What I really meant was, that this is a crack frigate.’
‘I am delighted to hear it. There she goes – she lays an egg! You need not fear for her virginity, Jack.’
‘And in this frigate they are very particular. Did not
you remark the show of uniforms as you came aboard -an admiral’s inspection – a royal review.’
‘No. I cannot truthfully say that I did. Tell me, brother, is there some uneasiness on your mind?’
‘Stephen, will you for the love of God take off that thing?’
‘My wool garment? You have noticed it, have you? I had forgot, or I should have pointed it out. Have you ever seen anything so deeply rational? See, I can withdraw my head entirely: the same applies to the feet and the hands. Warm, yet uncumbering; light; and above all healthy – no constriction anywhere! Paris, who was once a framework knitter, made it to my design; he is working on one for you at present.’
‘Stephen, you would favour me deeply by taking it right off. It is unphilosophical of me, I know, but this is only an acting-command, and I cannot afford to be laughed at.’
‘But you have often told me that it does not matter what one wears at sea. You yourself appear in nankeen trousers, a thing that I should never, never countenance. And this’ –
plucking at his bosom with a disappointed air