‘Very well, Mr Meares,’ said Captain Pullings, and the shrill gun went off: its smoke had barely swept astern before the starboard target appeared, three masses of casks and worn-out sailcloth flying on upright spars, each representing the forecastle, waist and quarterdeck of a ship of the line, the whole towed on a long cablet by the boats of the squadron. And at a two-minute interval came the larboard set, also travelling at an easy pace within three hundred yards.
‘From forward aft, fire as they bear,’ called Pullings from the quarterdeck, and on the gun-deck the second lieutenant
echoed his words. Jack set his stop-watch.
Two long heaves, with the ship rolling seven degrees, all her teeth showing; and on the next rise the gun-deck bow thirty-two pounder uttered its enormous sullen roar, shooting out a stab of flame that lit the whole jet of smoke, and its ball struck barrel-staves from the target: cheers down the line from both decks, but the bow-gun’s crew had no time for such things – they held the gun at its full recoil, sponged, loaded with cartridge and
then ball, rammed the wad home with furious speed, heaved the fifty-five-hundredweight monster out again with a crash and raced across to the larboard side, where the second captain had all ready for them to point their massive piece at the next. By this time the firing had run half way down both gun and upper decks on the starboard side. The shattering din, the billowing smoke had already confused Stephen’s spirits and the perception, but now the uproar redoubled as the larboard guns came into play and still another set of targets moved within range. He had an impression of enormous, overwhelming noise, shot through and through with fierce jets of intense, concentrated labour where he could see the gun-crews in the waist, shining with sweat as they heaved and pointed and fired their gun before leaping across to the other, never getting in one another’s way, never stumbling – almost no words – gestures, nods immediately understood.
Then, with a last deliberate thirty-two pounder right aft, it was all over, and silence fell on the deafened world. The smoke-bank drifted to leeward, clear of the squadron. Jack looked at the anxious Tom and said ‘I am afraid it was not quite the equivalent of three broadsides in five minutes, Captain Pullings.’
‘I am afraid not, sir,’ said Tom, shaking his head.
‘Yet it was not very far off; and we shall soon work up to something a little brisker,’
Jack went on. ‘And in any case it
did give a general idea of what may be expected, a moderately good general idea.
What did you make of it, Doctor?’
‘I had no idea that fighting both sides was so very strenuous,’ said Stephen in that rather loud voice usual after heavy gunfire, ‘nor so very skilled and dangerous, with the cannon recoiling on either hand, with such shocking force. The single broadside I have seen often enough, and it called for surprising agility, but this passes all imagination. I watched them at their frightful task in the waist’ – nothing over the quarterdeck barricade down to the upper-deck eighteen-pounders, now being housed and all their implements made fast – ‘but below, in the gun-deck itself, with those vast pieces booming in one’s ear on either side and all the smoke, it must have been very like Hell itself.’
‘Use makes master,’ observed Jack. ‘It is wonderful what one can grow accustomed to. Not many people could stand your saws and buckets of blood, but you do not turn a hair.’ He turned to walk back to the cabin and Stephen was about to follow him when the senior assistant surgeon approached. ‘Forgive me, sir,’ he said, ‘but we are much concerned at Mr Gray’s condition – the first lieutenant – Macaulay thinks it may be a very sudden and acute attack of the stone; and with submission I agree.’
‘I will come at once, Mr Smith,’ said Stephen; and as they passed down, deck after deck, so the patient’s strangled cries became more evident. Stephen’s coming was some relief, and Gray stopped for the length of a quick examination – quick, since there was no doubt about the matter – but as soon as he was eased back the groaning began again, though he bit on sheet and blanket with all his strength, his body arched and quivering with the pain. Stephen nodded, went to his dispensary, took out his untouched tincture of laudanum (once his own solace and delight, and very nearly his destruction, it being a liquid form of opium) and some leeches, poured a dose that made his assistants stare, gave them instructions about instruments and bandages, placed half a dozen leeches, told the young men in Latin that he entirely agreed and that as soon as the patient was in a fit state – should he survive that far – he would operate, probably early in the morning:
The carpenter would have the necessary chair prepared: there was a measured drawing in Archbold.
He returned to the quarterdeck and there paced for a while in the sweet evening.
The squadron was standing south-southeast under an easy sail and from the forecastle of the Stately, next astern, came the sound of music, the hands dancing in the last dog-watch. At one point he saw Killick in the halfdarkness, who said to him ‘There will be a rare old duck for supper tonight, sir,’ in a kindly, protective tone before padding along the gangway to the forecastle: thence by way of the shrouds, he reached the foretop, that broad, comfortable platform high above the deck, with folded studdingsails for cushions and a splendid view of the leading ships steering for Africa under courses and single-reefed topsails beneath a sky already filling with starts. But Killick was as indifferent to the stars as he was to the beauty of the Laurel, the lovely little twenty-two-gun ship just ahead. He had come aloft by appointment, to one of the very few places in the ship (zoo people and more in a space 170 feet long by 46 feet 9 inches wide at the most and almost entirely filled with stores, provisions, water, guns, powder and shot) where men could talk privately, to see his old friend Barret Bonden, with whom he had scarcely exchanged two words since the Ringle joined; and he looked at the young seamen who were also sitting there, playing draughts, with great displeasure.
‘Bugger off, mates,’ said Bonden to them, quite kindly, and they went at once, the authority of the Commodore’s coxswain leaving them not a moment’s choice.
‘What cheer?’ asked Killick, shaking Bonden’s hand.
‘All a-tanto,’ replied Bonden, ‘All a-tanto, thankee. But what’s come over the barky?’
‘You want to know what’s come over the barky?’
‘That’s right, mate. Everything is changed. Anyone would think Old Nick was aboard, or Old Jarvey – wry looks, never a smile, officers nervous, people jumping to it like the day of doom or an admiral’s inspection. She had not been really worked up, nor the people had not really shaken down when we left Pompey, but there were a power of old shipmates aboard, right seamen, and on the whole she was a happy ship. What has come over her?’
‘Why,’ said Killick, and he searched for a striking, even an epigrammatic reply; but eventually, giving up the attempt, he said ‘It’s not just the Purple Emperor and his right discontented ship – which she could not meet a Yankee brig-of-war and take her if the brig was anything like smart – nor it’s not that old Stately with her parcel of pouffes aboard; though all that helps. No. It is domestic infelicity that done it. Domestic infelicity that has overflowed into the barky, an awkward barky in any case, whatever you may say, with so many dead ignorant green hands, a heap of miserable pressed men, and a first lieutenant too sick to do his duty. Domestic infelicity.’
‘What do you mean, with your domestic infelicity?’ asked Bonden in a stern voice.
‘I mean that the Capt – the Commodore and Mrs A have parted brass rags. That’s what.’
‘God Almighty,’ whispered Bonden, sinking back against the top-rim, for Killick’s words carried complete conviction for the moment. But after a pause he said ‘How do you know?’
‘Well,’ said Killick, ‘you notice things. You can’t help hearing things, and you put them together. No one can call me nosey. . .’ Bonden made no comment.’. . . and no one can say I ain’t got the Captain’s best interests at heart.’
‘That’s right,’ said Bonden.
‘Well, while we was in the East Indies, and Botany bloody Bay, and Peru and so on, Mrs A looked after what we have here, at Ashgrove, in Hampshire, I mean; and she looked after the Woolcombe estate the Captain inherited from the General: which Mr Croft, Lawyer Croft, was not quite exactly in his intellects, being so ancient. And down there there is a family called Pengelley.’