‘I believe not, Raffles; though I am very sensible of your kindness. Indeed, as soon as we have sorted through this heap I shall bid you good night. It has been a somewhat wearing day.’
As he passed through the corridor where the secretaries lived he caught the heavy scent of opium, a drug he had used for many years in the more convenient form of laudanum, taking it sometimes for pleasure and relaxation, sometimes for the relief of pain, but above all for dealing with emotional distress. He had abandoned it on his reconciliation with Diana, doing so for many reasons, one of them being his belief that a man ought to
manage without bottled fortitude. Plain fortitude from within, that was the cry; but as he caught that familiar smell it occurred to him that he might well have been tempted to break his resolution if he had happened to have a pint bottle at hand: tonight was going to call for an uncommon constancy of mind. For one thing he had been exceedingly angry, which was no help to sleep at all. For another it was likely that his more loquacious self, in spite of all the discipline he could impose upon it, would, in moments of distraction or near-sleep, certainly torment him with observations on his new poverty -his inability to oblige Diana, to endow a chair of osteology, to
do the handsome thing on occasion, to maintain some of the annuities he had promised, to undertake remote voyages in the Surprise when peace should come at last. And if he slept at all, the waking would be worse, with all these aspects invading his mind afresh; accompanied, no doubt, by others he had not yet perceived.
The event proved him totally wrong in both instances. Sleep came at once, jumbling the last words of his paternoster, a deep sleep in which he lay totally relaxed until in the first hint of light he became aware of the luxury of lying there in a state of almost disembodied ease and well-being; then of the delighted recollection that they had a ship; and then of a massive form between him and the faint source of light and of Jack’s rumbling whisper asking him if he were awake.
‘What if I am, brother?’ he replied.
‘Why, then,’ said Jack, his deep voice filling the room as usual, ‘Bonden has as it were found a little green skiff, and I thought you might like to come with me and look at the raised Dutch sloop whose name I never can recall.’
‘By all means,’ said Stephen, getting out of bed and flinging on his clothes.
‘Of course, I suppose you could waah and shave later,’ said Jack. ‘We are to breakfast with the Governor, you recall.’
‘Aye? Well, I dare say we are, but a wig covers a multitude of sins.’
At this time the citadel of Batavia, which contained the Governor’s residence, was in a somewhat chaotic state, the last Dutch administration having tried to deal with the appalling mortality from fever by doing away with many of the moats, canals and water-defences, and by temporarily diverting others, with the result that Stephen had but to step from his window into the green skiff, and with Bonden’s helping hand to settle himself on a borrowed cushion in the stern, where Jack joined him. They pulled gently along this narrow winding domestic waterway for a hundred yards or so, once looking straight into an astonished kitchen, once into a room from which they averted their blushing faces, then out through the ruined watergate, along the canal through the shallows, running gently with the tide, and so into the open bay. The growing day was perfectly calm, and the few large fishing-proas that were in motion paddled through the mist, singing gently.
Stephen went to sleep again. When he woke Bonden was still pulling with the same steady rhythm, but the sun rising behind them had burnt off all the hazy vapours, the smooth sea was a most delicate united blue and Jack Aubrey was staring right ahead through the brilliance with extreme concentration.
‘There she lays,’ he observed, noticing Stephen’s movement; and Stephen, following his gaze, saw an island with a wharf, and alongside the wharf the hull or body of a dull brown ship, rather small.
‘Oh,’ he cried, before his wits were quite returned, ‘it has no masts.’
‘What sweet, sweet lines,’ said Jack, and in a parenthesis to Stephen, ‘She will be towed to the sheer-hulk in a day or -masts in God’s plenty. Did you ever see sweeter, Bonden?’
‘Never, sir: barring Surprise, in course.’
‘The boat ahoy,’ came the hail.
‘Diane,’ replied Bonden in a voice of brass.
The acting deputy-assistant-master-attendant received the Captain of the Diane with what formality his working-party of four would allow, but the ceremony was wrecked by a vehement and indeed shrewish yell from below ‘John, if you don’t come this directly minute your eggs will be hard and your bacon all burned.’
‘Pray go along and take your breakfast, sir,’ said Jack. ‘I can find my way about perfectly well. His Excellency gave me her plans last night.’
She was in fact perfectly familiar from his last night’s studies, yet as he led Stephen up and down the ladders, along the decks and into the holds he kept exclaiming ‘Oh what a sweet little ship! What a sweet little ship!’ And when they were on the forecastle again, looking back towards Batavia, he said ‘Never mind the paintwork, Stephen; never mind the masts; a few weeks’ work in the yard will provide all that. But only a brilliant hand with noble wood at his command – you saw those perfect hanging knees? – could produce such a little masterpiece as
this.’ He considered for a while, smiling, and then said, ‘Tell me, what was the title poor Fox tripped over during cur first audience of the Sultan?’
‘Kesegaran mawar, bunga budi bahasa, hiburan buah pala.’
‘I dare say. But it was your translation of it that I meant. What was the last piece?’
‘Nutmeg of consolation.’
‘That’s it: those were the very words hanging there in the back of my mind. Oh what a glorious name for a tight, sweet, newly-coppered, broad-buttocked little ship, a solace to any man’s heart. The Nutmeg for daily use: of Consolation for official papers. Dear Nutmeg! What joy.’
Chapter Four
Little that happened in Batavia remained unknown for long in Pulo Prabang, and shortly after the Nutmeg had been brought into service as a post-ship with all the formality that circumstances allowed, a message came from van Buren, congratulating Stephen on his survival, giving news about a young, highly gifted and affectionate orang-utang that had been presented to him by the Sultan, and ending ‘I am particularly desired to tell you that the ship sails on the seventeenth; quite how well provided my informant could not undertake to say, but he hopes that your wishes have been at least in part fulfilled.’
The seventeenth, and the Nutmeg barely had her lower
masts in: her beautifully dry, clean, sweet-smelling holds, scraped to the fresh wood by innumerable coolies and dried, all hatches off, all gun-ports open, in the last fiery parching blasts of the previous monsoon (not a cockroach, not a flea, not a louse, let alone rats, mice or ancient ballast soaked in filth) were so empty that she rode absurdly high, her bright copper showing broad from stem to stern.
The Dutch dockyard officials and above all the Dutch dockyard mateys were highly skilled and conscientious, even by Royal Naval standards; but they formed a close corporation and they could not abide interlopers. They were willing to work as fast as their limited numbers allowed, and even (for a consideration) to work for some hours beyond the allotted time; but no outside artificers were to be taken on, however able (except for the really vile task of scraping, which was confined to a particular caste of Bugis) and no helping hand was required from any Nutmeg whatsoever. In the yard the ship was the mateys’ preserve. If Mr Crown the bosun, dancing with impatience, laid a finger upon a becket that strictly
speaking belonged to the riggers there would be a cry of ‘All out’ and all the guilds in all branches would down tools and walk off, symbolically washing their hands as they crossed the brow, to be recalled only after prolonged negotiations and payment for the hours lost. They might in theory be part of a conquered nation and their yard, timber, cordage and sailcloth might belong to King George, but the impartial observer would hardly have guessed it, and the wholly partial chief victim, old, lined and grey with frustration, roared out ‘Treason – mutiny – hell and death – flog every man-jack of them round the fleet,’ twice or even three times a day.
‘I suppose you gentlemen of the Navy are wholly opposed to corruption,’ observed Raffles.