It was into a strange unnatural stillness therefore that Stephen stepped out of the tent a little before noon. Macmillan had gone to the galley to see about broth in due course; Ahmed had left much earlier in search of fresh young coconuts; and Stephen, feeling quite well though absurdly weak, had to go to the necessary house.
‘I hope I see you well, sir,’ said the gunner in a hoarse whisper.
‘Very much better, I thank you, Mr White,’ said Stephen. ‘And you should be happy with this fine dry breeze.’
In a somewhat grudging tone the gunner said that in a couple
of days he might be able to barrel it up, and then louder and
with much more conviction ‘But you never ought to of got up
– walking about in your nightshirt with an east wind blowing
–
if you had given me a hail I should have made that idle
lobcock Killick bring a utensil.’
The gunner, like Dr Maturin himself, was a warrant-officer, and although he was not of wardroom rank he was entitled to express his opinion. The rope-makers were not, but Stephen met with so many disapproving looks and shaken heads as he went down and then up the rope-walk that he was quite glad to be back in the tent. Macmillan brought him a bowl of babirussa soup thickened with pounded biscuit (turtle being thought too rich), congratulated him on his recovery, pointed out, with a shade of reproach, that there was a close-stool in the far corner, and said that as Ahmed was sure to be back any minute – he was only going to the west point – while Killick was now within earshot, he meant to take a little sleep; and with deference he suggested that the Doctor should do the same.
This the Doctor did, in spite of a distant roar of merriment down by the slip at noon, where the babirussa turned on its spit before a noble drift-wood fire; and he did not wake until he heard first Malayan voices that he did not recognize and then Killick’s saying ‘Ha, ha, mate. Tell ’em there’s plenty more in the other chest. I could have spread out twice as much if I had more room.’
Ahmed translated this, adding that Captain Aubrey was very enormously rich, very enormously important, a kind of raja in his own country; and then, answering a curiously high-pitched voice – a eunuch’s? a boy’s? – he explained what the gunner was doing with the powder, and why. There were several other voices, English and muted, for although Ahmed had repeatedly been told ‘He is much better, mate: walked to the head like a fairy’
he had as often been told ‘But he is asleep now, so you want to talk low.’
The high-pitched voice, however, felt no need at all to talk low. It questioned Ahmed closely, insistently about the gunpowder – was that all? – was it ready? – when would it be ready? – would it be good? Eventually Stephen slipped out of his hammock, put on his shirt and breeches, and walked out. The high-pitched voice at once fell into the natural pattern of things: it belonged to a slim young woman – well, youngish -whom he took to be a Dyak from her handsome, animated face and her fine complexion. She wore a long tight skirt that gave her the swaying willowy gait of a Chinese woman with bound feet and a little jacket that did not conceal her bosom, nor was it intended to conceal her bosom. To the sailors’ delight it often fluttered open in the capricious, strengthening breeze. She had an ivory-hilted krees thrust into her waistband and her second incisors (not the middle ones) were filed to a point, so that she appeared to have two pairs of dog-teeth: perhaps, reflected Stephen, it was this that made her expression so remarkably vicious. It did not deter the seamen and the few Marines remaining in the camp, however. They gathered about her, gazing like a herd of moon-calves; and the gunner, though he did not quite
abandon his heap, now so powdery as to be almost ready, was particularly eager to satisfy her curiosity.
Stephen greeted the newcomers, and the young woman and her grey-headed companion replied with all the formal civility usual among those who speak Malay, but in an accent and with some variations he had never heard before. Ahmed stepped forward with his explanation: when he reached the west point in his vain search for coconuts he found them landing from a small proa with five companions; they asked him what he was about and when he explained the situation they gave him these coconuts – pointing to a little net.
The tide was on the ebb, and together with the current it made such a rip that the proa could not have come up the coast even with the most favourable breeze, so he had brought these two by the middle path. ‘How did she walk, in that skirt?’ asked Stephen in English – a quick aside. ‘She took it off,’ said Ahmed, blushing.
‘I admire your krees,’ said Stephen to her. ‘Never was a hilt made for so small and delicate a hand.’
‘Give me your honoured forearm,’ said the young woman, with her startling smile, and drawing her krees, a straight-bladed damascened krees, she shaved a stretch as bare and smooth as any barber could have done.
‘Tell her to do me,’ cried the gunner, starting forward; and as he left the sailcloth so the east wind took it, enveloping his mate and scattering the powder far to leeward, an impalpable, irrecoverable cloud of dust. ‘Look what you’ve made me do, Tom Evans, you infernal lobcock,’ roared Mr White.
‘Ahmed,’ said Stephen, ‘coffee in the tent, if you please. Silver pot, four cups, and a cushion for the young lady. Preserved Killick, run down as fast as ever you can and tell the Captain with my compliments that there are two sea-Dyaks here.’
‘And leave my silver? And with my poor leg?’ cried Killick, sweeping his arm round the improbable array all blazing in the sun. ‘Oh sir, let young Achilles go. He can run faster than any man in the fleet.’
‘Very well. Pray cut along, Achilles; you will never forget my compliments, sure.’ And as Achilles leapt the breastwork and bared down the slope he continued ‘Do not you trust your shipmates, Killick?’
‘No, sir,’ said Killick. ‘Nor these strangers. I do not like to say anything against a lady, but when they first came they called out “Hey there” in their own language and looked very wishful – God love us, how they stared at the soup tureens!’
They looked wishful still as they walked past the display, but having exchanged a couple of words in a language that was not Malay they averted their eyes and passed on into the tent.
The grey-haired man was obviously the woman’s inferior; he sat on the ground at a distance, and although what he said was urbane enough, in the Malayan way, it was nothing like so urbane nor nearly as copious as her conversation, a steady, lively flow, not of anything so coarse as direct enquiry but of remarks that would have elicited information if Stephen had chosen to give it. He did not choose, of course: after so long
a course of discretion his mind would scarcely agree to give the exact time without an effort. But obvious unwillingness to speak was quite as indiscreet as blabbing, and he now replied with what she must already know – replied at such length that he was still prosing away about the advantages and disadvantages of a warm climate when Jack came in, redder in the face than usual, having pounded up the hill in Achilles’ wake.
Stephen made the introductions with all proper formality:
Killick furtively covered the close-stool with a blue peter, upon which Jack Aubrey sat; the coffee appeared; and Stephen said. ‘The Captain does not understand Malay, so you will forgive me if I speak to him in English.’
‘Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to hear the English language,’ said the young woman. ‘I am told it is very like that of birds.’
Stephen bowed and said ‘Jack, first may I beg you not to gaze upon the young woman with such evident lubricity; it is not only uncivil but it puts you at a moral disadvantage.
Secondly shall I ask these people will they carry a message to Batavia for a fee? And if so, what shall the message be?’
‘It was a look of respectful admiration: and who is calling the kettle black, anyway? But I will turn my eyes elsewhere, in case it should be misunderstood.’ Jack drank coffee to give himself a countenance and then went on, ‘Yes, do please ask whether they will go to Batavia for us. With this leading wind set in so steady it should not take them above a couple of days. As for what the message should be, let me think while you settle the first essential point.’