Some time after this, an aged, shabby gentleman wearing the clothes of another age and followed by two porters carrying a copper tube wandered hesitantly towards the accommodation-ladder: mounting it with some difficulty, he said to the officer of the deck,
‘Sir, my name is Wright: Captain Aubrey was so kind as to invite me, but I fear I may be a little late.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ said Whewell. ‘May I show you the way to the cabin, and unburden your men? Wilcox, Price, come and take this tube, will you?’
‘You are too kind,’ said Mr Wright, and he followed Whewell aft. But the two porters would not be unburdened:
they carried right on with their tube, entering the already somewhat crowded great cabin with their tube and thrust it across the table, regardless of cloth, glasses and silver, saying loud and clear, ‘One and fourpence, sir, if you please.’
‘Eh?’ cried Mr Wright, from the midst of his conversation with the Commodore and Dr Maturin.
‘One and fourpence, or we carry it away.’
Harding whipped round the table, gave them half a crown and in a low, very(very vicious tone desired them to get out of the ship. Killick and his mate Grimble, together with the more presentable gunroom servants, smoothed the snowy cloth, rearranged the glasses and silver and watched as Mr Wright, wholly unconscious of inconvenience, untimeliness and fuss, unsealed one end of the tube, gave the other end to the Commodore to hold, and withdrew the gleaming narwhal’s horn, perfect in its curves and spirals, without a hint of repair. ‘I cannot detect the slightest join,’ cried Stephen. ‘It is a masterpiece. Thank you, sir: thank you very much indeed.’
All this, to the bitter grief of the Commodore’s cook, had delayed the beginning of dinner quite shockingly; but in time they were all seated. Jack at the head of the table, Admiral Fanshawe on his right, then Reade, the Marine officer, the Admiral’s secretary, Harding at the foot, then Stephen with Mr Wright next to him; then came the Admiral’s political adviser and lastly Dr Jacob – a pretty large party for so small a frigate, but with the table set athwartships and the guns trundled into the coach and the sleeping-cabin it could be done. And done it was, with great success: the news of the horn’s perfect restoration, of its being in an even finer state of beauty than before – Mr Wright, with his delicate burrs and buffs having given it the gleam of fine old ivory – spread rapidly through the frigate: the ship’s luck was aboard again. Killick’s unattractive, shrewish face beamed once more, his messmates (he had very nearly been expelled from their society) smiled, winked and nodded at him in the cabin and slapped him on the back as he travelled to and from the galley.
Good humour is a charmingly infectious state anywhere, particularly aboard a ship that has recently had a very rough time of it and that is now in port, moored fore and aft.
Conversation at table very soon rose to a fine volume of sound, and Mr Wright had to strain his quavering old voice to give Stephen an account of the many mathematical calculations and even advanced physical studies in a current of strongly-flowing water, to determine the effect of the narwhal horn’s spirals and tori on the animal’s progress, all to no effect – to no effect yet: but so important a process must have a function, almost certainly a hydrodynamic function, and either plodding science or one of those beautiful intuitions – or perhaps Mr Wright should say sudden illuminations – would give the solution.
Harding and the Admiral’s secretary agreed very well; and although the Royal Marine found it difficult to get beyond ‘An uncommon fine day, sir’ to William Reade on his left, they somehow discovered that they had both been at Mr Willis’s school together when they were little boys; and from that moment on, except when common good manners required that they should say something to their other neighbours or drink a glass of wine with an acquaintance on the other side of the table, it was a series of ‘Old Thomas and the mad bulldog, of how kindly the maids would hand out yesterday’s cold suet pudding from the back windows of the kitchen, of the famous thrashing Smith major had given Hubble’.
The Admiral had known Jack time out of mind, and they had a great deal of naval news and recollection to exchange, while Jacob and the politico got along reasonably well together, once they had established a neutral ground which they could speak with no fear of compromising anybody at all and where no unguarded word could do harm.
‘God love us,’ said Joe Plaice, taking his ease on the quarter-deck, a little abaft the wheel, ‘what a din they do make, to be sure. You would think it was the snuggery of the William at Shelmerston of a Saturday night.’
‘Never mind, mate,’ said his cousin Bonden, ‘the port decanters are just putting on the table, and once they have drunk the King, they will be quieter. They have eaten two whole sucking-pigs, which weigh on the stomach.’
There was indeed a pause after all present had murmured ‘God bless him’ and drunk their wine; and when the talk had regained a moderate pitch Jacob said to the politico, ‘I believe my colleague is anxious to have a word with you.’
‘And I with him, as you may ‘imagine: we have had hardly any news from the other side since the sea went mad.’
In a reasonably subtle manner which other people – their neighbours and the servants standing behind their chairs – would not understand, they arranged for a private meeting somevrhat later in the day: but their professional cunning was cast away entirely, when the party came to an end and the Admiral quite openly asked Stephen to come with him and speak about his experiences on the Barbary coast and the present state of affairs in Algiers itself.
This he did, in as plain and straightforward manner as he could, and Admiral Fanshawe listened gravely, with close attention, never interrupting. ‘Well,’ he said when Stephen had finished, ‘I am sorry for Omar Pasha: he was a likeable ruffian. But that is one of the risks a Dey must run: and from the political point of view I think the Commander-inChief will think that we gain from the change. Ali Bey has always been mbre in our favour than otherwise, and many English merchantmen have had reason to be grateful for his moderation, and indeed his kindness on occasion. But I am afraid you must have had but a weary time of it, over there.’
‘Well, sir, that too is one of the risks of my calling: and I did see some very glorious spectacles in the Atlas. The only thing I really did regret, and regret most bitterly, was the spectacle of Surprise’s tender trying in vain to beat against that shocking wind when I needed so desperately to bring my news to Mahon. Yet even that extreme vexation of spirit faded when Captain Aubrey assured me that the same blast must necessarily have confined the Moorish galley to her port, so that my anguish had no real basis.’
‘It was a shocking blast indeed. All the East India and Turkey ships were blocked in Lisbon, and Lord Barmouth only just managed to get into Gibraltar.’
‘Lord Barmouth, sir?’
‘Why, yes: he has superseded Lord Keith, and it is to him that you will have to address your report.’
‘Lord Barmouth,’ cried Stephen, startled out of his usual equanimity. ‘Oh yes. I remember Lady Keith telling Captain Aubrey that her husband did not wish for a long tenure, but that they should retire to a house near the Governor’s cottage until the weather in England grew more tolerable. But I had not expected it so soon. Nor had I expected Lord Barmouth.’
‘You are displeased, Dr Maturin?’ asked the Admiral, smiling.
‘I beg pardon, sir,’ said Stephen. ‘I have not the slightest right to an opinion on the matter: but I did know that Lord and Lady Keith had a long-standing friendship for Captain Aubrey, and I had hoped that the Admiral would do everything possible and impossible to reinforce his scattered squadron, to make the capture of the Arzila galley more probable.’
‘Oh, I am sure that Lord Barmouth will do his utmost,’ said Admiral Fanshawe. ‘But as you know, the forces at his disposal are precious thin on the ground. Still,’ he said, rising after a pause, ‘I do wish you the best of success; and at least you have a fair wind for your voyage.’
Chapter Nine
This was the kind of sailing that Stephen liked: with a gentle breeze a little north of east the Surprise, with her tender under her lee, made a steady four and a heif knots under all plain sail or a trifle less, with a pitch and roll that he scarcely noticed. At first he had wondered at the absence of kites – of royals, studdingsails in all their interesting variety –