‘Do you know the whole of the Coast, Mr Whewell?’ asked Jack.
‘I should not say I was a pilot for the country between Cape Lopez and Benguela, sir, but I am pretty well acquainted with the rest.’
‘Then let us look at this general chart, and work down from the north. I should like you to give me a rough idea of local conditions, currents, breezes of course, active markets and so on. Then another day, with Captain Pullings, the master, and my secretary to take notes, we will go over it all more thoroughly. Now here is Sierra Leone and Freetown. . . Doctor,’ he called, ‘you are very welcome to stay, if you choose; but I must warn you that from now on our discussion is likely to be purely nautical, dull work for a landsman.’
‘What makes you think that I resemble a landsman, Commodore, I beg? I am salted to the bone; a pickled herring. But, however’ – looking at his watch – ‘my sickberth calls me. Good day to you, Mr Whewell. One day I hope you will have time to tell me a little of the West African mammals: I believe there are no less than three species of pangolin.’
The next day was that of the Commodore’s dinner to his captains, a day rendered wearisome beyond expression for those who lived aft by the incessant, ill-tempered and querulous activity of the Commodore’s steward, Preserved Killick, his mate Grimble, the Commodore’s and Captain’s cooks, and as many hands as they could press into their service to turn out, scrub, swab, polish, replace and arrange with a truly forbidding rigour, the whole accompanied by a high-pitched nagging stream of abuse and complaint that drove Jack on to the quarterdeck, where once again he showed the youngsters the right way of handling a sextant and examined the midshipmen’s berth on their knowledge of the chief navigational stars, and Stephen to the orlop, where he read through his assistants’
notes until he was interrupted by a ship’s boy who told him that the Stately’s surgeon had called to see him.
Mr Giffard and Stephen were fairly well acquainted – well enough, in any case, for Giffard’s initial embarrassment to persuade Stephen that this was not an ordinary visit nor a request for the loan of a carboy of Venice treacle or a hundredweight of portable soup and some lint. And indeed, after a tedious discussion of the trade wind, Giffard asked whether they might talk privately. Stephen led him hack to the orlop, to his little cabin, and there Giffard said, ‘This may be considered a proper subject for two medical men, I trust: I think I betray no confidences or offend against professional discretion when I say that our captain is a paederast, that he calls young foremast hands into his cabin by night, and that the officers are much concerned, since these youths are much favoured, which in time will destroy discipline altogether. It is already much loosened, but they hesitate to take any official action, which must necessarily result in ignominious hanging and throw great discredit on the ship; and they hope that a private word to the Commodore would have the desired effect. A medical man, a friend, and an old shipmate . . .’ His voice died away.
‘I will not pretend to misunderstand you,’ said Stephen, ‘but I must tell you that I abhor an informer very much more than I abhor a sodomite: if indeed I can be said to abhor a sodomite qua sodomite at all: one has but to think of Achilles and hundreds more.
It is true that in our society such connexions are out of place in a man-of-war. . . yet you adduce nothing but probabilities. Is a man’s reputation to be blasted on a mere statement of probabilities, and they at secondhand?’
‘There is the good of the service,’ said Gifford.
‘Very true. . .’ said Stephen, breaking off to call out ‘Come In.’
‘Please sir,’ said a ship’s boy, ‘Mr Killick says ain’t you ever going to come and try your frilled shirt? Which he has been standing there with it in his hand this half glass and more.’
‘Mary and Joseph,’ cried Stephen, clapping his hand to where his warning watch should have been had he not left it in the quarter-gallery. ‘Mr Giffard, sir, I beg you will forgive me – may I wait upon you when I have considered?’
The power of running up a cambric shirt to measure, adorning it with a frilled front and then ironing that frill to crisp perfection seemed improbable in so uncouth a creature as Killick; but he was a seaman, and handy with his needle even for a seaman; and neither he nor anyone else thought it out of the way.
It was in this elegant shirt, therefore, that Stephen stood on the Bellona’s quarterdeck to await the arrival of the guests, Thames, Aurora, Camilla, Laurel, as the captains were called,arrived in close order, to be piped aboard and welcomed; and they were all there when the Stately’s barge appeared, steered by Duff’s proud coxswain with a midshipman in a gold-laced hat beside him and pulled by ten young bargemen tricked out to the height. of nautical elegance and splendour – tight white trousers with ribbons down the seams, embroidered shirts, crimson neckerchiefs, broad-brimmed sennit hats, gleaming pigtails. With Giffard’s words in his mind, Stephen looked at them attentively: individually each sailor would have been very well, but since they were all uniformly decorated, he thought it overdone. He was not alone. Jack Aubrey glanced down into the barge after he had received Captain Duff, laughed very heartily and said ‘Upon my word, Mr Duff, you will have to take care of those young ladies’ rig, or coarseminded people will be getting very comical ideas into their heads. They will say “Sod ’em tomorrow” and quote Article XXIX, oh ha, ha, ha, ha!’
The dinner itself went well, and even the Purple Emperor, conscious of his gaffe and devoted to his belly, laid himself out to be agreeable. Attentive trolling from the wardroom lights had provided a handsome young swordfish; the Commodore’s livestock three pair of fowls and a sheep, his cellar a considerable quantity of claret, unavoidably rather warm but of a quality to stand it; and the small Jersey cow a syllabub; while there was still some tolerable cheese, with almond cakes to go with the full tide of port.
Stephen enjoyed himself, sitting next to Howard, with whom he talked of Sappho and the delights of the diving-bell, on the one side, and on the other a Marine officer who knew a surprising number of people in the literary world of London and who, to his intense pleasure, told him about a novel by a Mr John Paulton that everyone was reading at present with great applause, a novel dedicated, curiously enough, to a gentleman of the same name as Dr Maturin, a relative, no doubt.
Captain Duff sat immediately opposite him and they exchanged a few amiable words; but the table was too wide and the sound of talk too powerful for more. Yet from time to time, when his neighbours were engaged elsewhere, Stephen considered his face, demeanour, and conversation: Duff was an unusually good-looking, manly fellow of about thirty-five, rather larger than most, with no hint of those traits usually associated with unorthodox affections; he seemed to have been totally unmoved by the Commodore’s ribaldry and at times Stephen wondered whether the Stately’s officers were not mistaken. He was obviously a friendly man, as were so many sea-officers, willing to please and to be pleased: a good listener. And Stephen knew that he had fought one of his commands, a thirty-two-gun twelve-pounder frigate, with great distinction. Yet there were moments when a certain anxiety seemed to appear, a certain desire for approval.
‘If his officers are right,’ reflected Stephen, when they had drunk the loyal toast,
‘how I hope that Jack’s wholly candid and innocent remark will serve as warning enough.’
The whole gathering took coffee on the poop, standing about with little cups in their hands and delighting in the breeze. Before taking his leave of the Commodore, Duff came over and said he hoped he might see something of Dr Maturin ashore, when they reached Sierra Leone. ‘I hope so too, I do indeed,’ said Stephen, ‘and I very much look forward to making acquaintance with the birds, beasts and flowers. We have a young officer aboard who knows the country well, and I have asked him to tell me about them.’
But it was long, long before Mr Whewell could tell the Doctor what he knew about the West African mammals, since day after day he was closeted with the Commodore and his chief officers as the squadron sailed slowly south.
Ordinarily this was the most agreeable part of a voyage in a well-found ship, this rolling down the Trades in warm but flot yet oppressive sunshine, never touching sheet nor brace, the people making their hot-weather clothes on deck by day and dancing on the forecastle in the evening; but now everything was changed, utterly changed, changed beyond the memory of the oldest hand abroad. The Commodore, well seconded by most of his captains, started working up the squadron. ‘There is not a moment to be lost,’ he observed, having heaved out the Thames’s signal to make more sail; and indeed there was not. Even his own ship, though far superior in gunnery with her strong contingent of old Surprises, was not nearly as brisk as the Thames in lowering, manning and arming all boats, and many a harsh word on this subject did Captain Pullings utter to his lieutenants, master’s mates and midshipmen – words that were earnestly passed on, sometimes with an almost excessive warmth. This lowering down of boats at great speed, like the shifting of topgallantmasts in thirteen minutes fifty-five seconds or striking them in two minutes twenty-five seconds, was one of those harbour exercises that commanders on the West Indies station excelled in; and although the Thames’ people did not seem to know what to do with their boats once they were in the water apart from pulling them, their speed vexed the rest of the squadron to the very heart.