‘In my bosom, Killick,’ answered Stephen in a conciliating tone. ‘It is protecting my watch, itself wrapped in a handkerchief.’
‘Wig in his bosom – wig in his bosom,’ muttered Killick as he gathered up the clothes. ‘Bedlam ain’t in it.’
Jack had shot up the side far quicker than his surgeon, and now he called from the great cabin ‘Why, Stephen, have you. . .’ Then, recollecting that his friend disliked being asked if he had got wet, he coughed and went on in a very cheerful, incongruously cheerful, voice ‘. . . ever had such a miserable God-damned breakfast? Small beer; and greasy mutton-chops on a cold plate. A cold plate, forsooth. I have eaten better in a Dutch herring-buss off the Texel. And not a single God-damned letter – not a note – not so much as a tailor’s bill. But never mind. The wind is backing. It is already come north-north-east, and if it carries on another couple of points or so we shall be in Shelmerston by Wednesday, in spite of the Berenice.’
‘Had you any reason to expect letters, brother?’
‘Of course I had. When we were putting in to Fayal for water we exchanged numbers with Weasel as she cleared the point, homeward-bound. She was sure to report us, and I had hoped for something at least. But no, not a word, though Dundas had a great package. Such a package, ha, ha, ha! Oh Lord, Stephen,’ he said, coming in, for the half-naked Maturin was as free from shame as his ancestor, the sinless Adam. ‘But I beg pardon. I am interrupting you’ – glancing at the letter in Stephen’s hand.
‘Never in life, my dear. Tell me what makes you so happy in spite of your disappointment.’
Jack sat close by him and, in a voice intended to be so low that it would escape Killick’s attentive ear – a vain hope – he said ‘Heneage’s letter had such a charming piece about me. Melville said he was so happy to hear that Surprise was almost in home water –
had always thought it magnanimous in me – that was his very word, Stephen: magnanimous – to accept such an irregular command in spite of having been so shabbily used, and that now he had the opportunity of expressing his sense of my merits – of my merits, Stephen: do you hear me, there? – by offering me a neat little squadron that was putting together to cruise off the West African coast with some fastsailing slops to intercept slavers- you would approve of that, Stephen – and perhaps three frigates and a couple of seventyfours in case of what he called certain eventualities. And I should be a first-class commodore, Stephen, with a broad swallow-tailed burgee, a captain under me and a pennantlieutenant, not like that hard-labour Mauritius campaign, when I almost had to win the anchor myself as a mere secondclass dogsbody. Oh ha, ha, ha, Stephen! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me: I can take care of Tom – he’ll never be made post else:
this is his only chance. And there is no mad hurry. We shall have a month and more at home, long enough for Sophie and Diana to get sick of us. Ha, ha – Shelmerston
– pull ashore, leap into a post-chaise from the Crown and astonish them all at Ashgrove!
What do you say to a pot of coffee at last?’
‘With all my heart: and Jack, let me give you joy in the highest degree of your splendid command’ – shaking his hand
– ‘but as for Shelmerston, why, listen, Jack,’ said Stephen, who had deciphered Sir Joseph’s double-coded message from memory alone, ‘I must be in town as quickly as ever I can fly. I shall have to forgo Shelmerston for now and stay with the Berenice. Not only is she on her way, whereas you will have
to turn to the left for a considerable distance, but only an inhuman brute could go ashore after such an absence, kiss a cheek or two and then leap into a chaise. This, however, I can perfectly well do in Plymouth; where never a cheek awaits me.’
Jack looked at him keenly, saw that he was not to be shifted, and called out ‘Killick.
Killick, there.’
‘What now?’ replied Killick, surprisingly close at hand.
‘Light along a pot of coffee. D’you hear me, there?’
‘Aye aye, sir: pot of coffee it is.’
The order had been long expected, the kettle was hot, the berries ground; and the elegant pot came gleaming in a few minutes later, scenting the whole cabin. Of all the many virtues, Preserved Killick possessed only two, polishing silver and making coffee; but these he possessed to such a high degree that for those who liked their plate brilliant and their coffee prompt, freely roasted, freshly ground and piping hot it was worth putting up with his countless vices.
They carried their cups into the great cabin and sat on the cushioned bench – in fact a series of lockers – that ran the whole width of the noble sweep of stern-windows, and Jack said ‘I am heartily sorry for it. Our homecoming will not be the same, no, not by a very long chalk. Though you must know best, in course. But when you say as quick as ever you can fly, do you mean it literally?’
‘I do too.’
‘Then why not go in the Ringle? Even if the wind don’t back another point she will sail straight to Pompey as it lays, without going about, and get there at least twice as fast as that poor old knacker’s yard of a Berenice.’ Then seeing Stephen’s look of surprise he poured him another cup and went on ‘I never told you – there was no time last night or this morning, with that ass, that thundering great ass, playing off his humours – but I won her from Heneage after supper: a throw of sixes when I was on the very point of being gammoned. He had already borne six men, but he could not re-enter for a great while; and so I won. Tom and Reade and Bonden will run you up-Channel – they handle her beautifully – and I will add a few hands that don’t belong to Shelmerston.’
Stephen made a few customary protests, but very few, since he was thoroughly used to both the Navy’s generosity and rapid decision. Jack swallowed another cup and hurried off, bawling for his gig.
Alone in the great cabin Stephen reflected upon Sir Joseph’s message. It required him to proceed to London without the loss of a minute, and it did so even more briefly than was usual. Joseph Blaine hated prolixity almost as much as he hated Napoleon Buonaparte, yet this extreme curtness perplexed Stephen until, recalling times past, he
turned the halfsheet over and there on the lower left-hand corner found the faintly-pencilled letter pi, signifying many. In this case it meant the Committee, a body made up of the leading men in the intelligence service and the Foreign Office that had sent him to Peru to forestall or rather to outstrip the French in their attempt at winning over the chiefs of the movement for independence from Spain. Clearly they wanted to know what he had accomplished, and in all probability this extreme haste meant that they were having some difficulty in representing the matter in a favourable or even a tolerable light to their Spanish allies. He ran through the long series of complicated events that would make up his account, and as he did so he gazed at the frigate’s wake, a wake, all things considered, that had now attained a perfectly enormous length.
He was still reflecting when Tom Pullings, the ship’s nominal captain – nominal, because of an inept scheme for disguising the Surprise as a privateer under the command of an unemployed half-pay officer in order to deceive the Spaniards
– came in and cried ‘There you are, Doctor. Such news! Berenice hove to and struck soundings clear not half a glass ago, and the Ringle will be alongside directly. Killick, Killick, there. The Doctor’s sea-chest as quick as you like.’
He had scarcely left to see to his own before Jack came swarming aboard again by the stern ladder. ‘There you are, Stephen,’ he cried. ‘Heneage hove his ship to and struck soundings clear – white sand and small shells – and all is laid along aboard the schooner.
Killick, ho. Killick, there. The Doctor’s sea-chest . . .’
‘Which I done it, ain’t I?’ Killick’s voice quivered with indignation. ‘All corded up: nightshirt on top; slippers; common check shirt and trousers for the run up to the South Foreland; white shirt and neckcloth for London and decent black breeches; best wig tucked down in the right-hand forward corner.’ He stumped off, and could be heard shoving the chest about, telling his mate ‘to look alive, there, Bill.’