point of view. Adanson saw and dissected the potto, and I fairly long to have the same happiness.’
‘Adamson of the Thetis?’
‘No, no. Adanson, with an n. A Frenchman, though to be sure he was of Scotch origin. Surely, Jack, I have told you of Adanson?’
‘I believe you have mentioned the gentleman’s name,’ said Jack, concentrating on the peg of his D string, always awkward and crossgrained in this rough old sea-going instrument, above all in damp weather.
‘He was a very great naturalist, as zealous, prolific and industrious as he was unfortunate. I knew him in Paris when I was young, and admired him extremely; so did Cuvier. At that time he was already a member of the Academic des Sciences, but he was very kind to us. When he was little more than a youth he went to Senegal, stayed there five or six years, observing, collecting, dissecting, describing and classifying; and he summarized all this in a brief but eminently respectable natural history of the country, from which I learnt almost everything I know of the African flora and fauna. A valuable book, indeed, and the outcome of intense and long-sustained effort; but I can scarcely venture to name it on the same day as his maximum opus – twenty-seven large volumes devoted to a systematic account of created beings and substances and the relations between them, together with a hundred and fifty volumes more of index, exact scientific description, separate treatises and a vocabulary: a hundred and fifty volumes, Jack, with forty thousand drawings and thirty thousand specimens. All this he showed to the Academy. It was much praised, but never published. Yet he continued working on it in poverty and old age, and I like to think he was happy in his immense design, and with the admiration of such men as Jussieu and the Institut in general.’
‘I am sure he was,’ said Jack. ‘We are under way,’ he cried, as the ship took on a fresh, more lively motion; and Stephen, following his gaze astern, saw the Thames, Awure and Camilla drop their topsails and fetch the Bellona’s wake as the squadron, headed by the Stately, moved south-eastward into the coming night and a sudden violent squall of rain. Jack tuned his restrung fiddle: they talked for a while about pitch and how some people maintained that A should sound thus – Jack played the note and said ‘I cannot bear it. I hate to think that our grandfathers should be such flats.’ After a moment he chuckled, reflecting upon the double meaning of the word, and said ‘That was pretty good, Stephen, don’t you think? Suchflats. You smoked it, of course. But can you think of Corelli playing in that moaning, small-beer-and-water kind of whine?’ Then, changing his tone entirely he went on, ‘I tell you what, Stephen: being tantamount to a flag-officer is very hard work –
infinitely solitary care and toil – and if your expedition don’t answer the expectations of a parcel of coves that have never been to sea in their lives you are flogged to death and buried at the crossroads with a stake through your heart; but it has its compensations.
There is Tom and everybody else aboard, everybody in all His Majesty’s ships and vessels under my command, skipping about, getting wet – look how it is coming down now! – hauling aft – tally and belay – laying aloft – coiling down – bees ain’t in it – while we sit here like fine gentlemen, ha ha, ha! Come, she’s on an even keel now; let me call for lights, fetch your ‘cello, and we’ll have a tune.’
At half-past four in the morning Stephen was woken by an agitated Mr Smith: Abel Black, foretopman, starboard watch, a perfectly ordinary cracked fibula (had stumbled over a misplaced bucket in the dark) was on the point of bursting. There had been retention of urine from a wholly unrelated cause – a common calculus – ever since he was brought below; but he was a shamefaced man, and being far from his mesamates, lying there between a couple of unknown larbowlines belonging to the afterguard, he had not liked to mention it early on, while in the night watches he had not liked to disturb the doctors: and now modesty had brought him to a very elegant pass indeed. Stephen knew the condition well, a frequent concomitant of some other seaman’s maladies; he was also used to dealing with sailors’ wonderfully uneven and complex forms of delicacy; and having dealt with the situation for the time being, he returned to bed. But not to sleep, for just as
he was well into his cot and swinging easy, some dreadful voice from the depths said ‘Maturin, Maturin, you had already bored poor Jack Aubrey cruelly with your tedious account of Michel Adanson years ago, prating away in the same earnest even enthusiastic moral improving fashion for half an hour on end and he sitting there smiling and nodding politely saying “Oh, indeed?” and “Heavens above” oh for shame. You may well blush, but blushing does no good. It is mere remorse of conscience.’
He could not recall the longitude or latitude in which he had done this, nor even in what ocean; but he could hear the sound of his own zealous voice going on and on and on, and Jack’s civil replies. ‘Do I often do this?’ he asked in the darkness. ‘Is it habitual, God forbid, or only advancing age? He is a dear, well-bred man, the creature; but will my heart ever forgive him this moral advantage?’
He slept at last, but the recollection was with him, strong and fresh, when he woke.
To dispel it he washed and shaved with particular care – it was, after all, Sunday – and went on deck to take the air. To his astonishment there was no land at all to be seen to
larboard nor any of the smaller vessels. The squadron now consisted of the two-deckers and the frigates, and they were all, in a beautifully exact, evenly-spaced line standing something west of south under topgallantsails with the breeze one or two points free. As he stood there a midshipman reported his reading of the log: ‘Eight knots and half a fathom, sir, if you please; and Mr Woodbine reckons the current due easterly a full knot.’
The officer, Mr Miller, made some reply, but Stephen missed it, his attention being wholly taken up by an eddy of wind from the forecourse that brought the scent of coffee and toast, of bacon and perhaps of flying fish, freshly fried.
He hurried aft. He had meant to give himself a certain countenance by repeating the pace of the ship and the current, but greed and affection overcame him and he cried
‘Good morning, Jack, God and Mary be with you, and would that be flying fish, freshly fried, at all?’
‘A very good morning to you, Stephen. Yes, it is. Pray let me help you to a pair.’
‘Jack,’ said Stephen, after a while. ‘I was astonished to see neither land nor the mass of our smaller companions. Would it be improper to ask how this can have come about? Have they lost their way in the dark, at last? It is but too probable.’
‘I am afraid so,’ said Jack. ‘Yet I am sure that at least one of them had a compass aboard; and in any event, if it is broke they can always follow our light. We have three splendid green lanterns behind, as you have no doubt observed, and I dare say someone lit them.’ He raised his voice ‘Killick. Killick, there. Light along another pot of coffee, will you?’
‘Which I already got it in my hand, ain’t I’ said Killick, outside the door.
‘Another cup, Stephen?’
‘If you please.’
‘We separated when the breeze shifted three points in the middle watch. The brigs and schooners, keeping so much closer to the wind, are sailing right along the coast for Philip’s Island when they can and beating when they can’t; they are followed by Laurel and Camilla, a little farther offshore; and we are making a long south-westerly leg, meaning to go about in the afternoon watch, strike the coast beyond the island and snap up any brutes that might be trying to escape or to bear a hand if there is any trouble in the harbour, which I doubt.’ Stephen digested this for a while, and then he said, ‘Jack, last night it suddenly came to me that I had told you all about Adanson before, and at great length – his assiduity, his countless books, his misfortune. I beg your pardon.
There is nothing more profoundly boring, more deeply saddening, than a repeated tale.’
‘I am sure you are right in general. But I do assure you,
Stephen, that in this case I never noticed it. To tell the truth, I was so much taken up with my D string, which kept slipping,