down the cleft on a rope, and collect half a dozen empty nests. And I must say I should like to net one or two of the birds, to examine their toes. But come, I have not asked you how the match went. Did we Win?’
‘I am happy to say we all won. It was a draw. They made more runs than we did, but they could not manage to get Fielding and the bosun out before stumps were drawn.
Fortunately we had Edwards as a neutral timekeeper, so there were no wry looks, no murmurs about flogging the glass; and we all triumphed.’
‘Certainly everyone looked very cheerful as I came through the camp; though the Dear knows it must have been a wearing form of sport, in this breathless heat. Even pacing slowly under the trees, I was all aswim, to say nothing of running about after a hard and wicked ball in the sultry glare, God forbid.’
‘Yet I am sure all hands will turn to the better for it tomorrow; I am sure I shall. And from the look of the sky we shall have an east wind. I hope so, indeed. There is a great deal of long-sawing to be done – exhausting work even with a breeze to take away the dust and let the bottom-sawyer breathe
– but once we start planking her it will encourage the people amazingly, and we may le able to put to sea before St Famine’s Day. Come down to the slip and I will show you what remains to be done.’
The camp, with its ditch and earthwork trim again after the typhoon, was laid out after the fashion of a man-of-war, and to avoid disturbing the foremast hands who were sitting about talking outside their tents at the farther end of the rectangle Jack stepped on to the carriage of the brass nine-pounder dominating the seaward approach and jumped over, giving Stephen a hand. It was a fine gun, one of the much-loved pair that had gone
overboard with the rest when they were lightening ship in an attempt at heaving her off the reef, and the only one to be found, wedged between the rocks, at low tide, by a fishing party: a very fine gun, but of less use than the two light carronades, even if there had been quantities of powder, because the single round-shot that was still in place when it was recovered was the only nine-pound ball they possessed.
‘Sir, sir!’ called Captain Aubrey’s two remaining lieutenants, gasping up the hill towards him. ‘The midshipmen have caught a turtle, out by the point.’
‘Is it a true turtle, Mr Fielding?’
‘Well, sir, I trust it is, I am sure. But Richardson thinks it looks a little strange; and we hoped the Doctor would tell us if it could be ate.’
They went sloping right-handed down the valley, skirting the mass of rock and earth which had slid down the hillside at the height of the typhoon – a mass in which some trees and bushes were still growing happily, others withering as they stood – across the dry bed of the watercourse the torrent had scooped out, providing them with a commodious building-slip, and out along the strand, almost to the place where the precious wreck had come ashore. The whole midshipmen’s berth was there, all standing silent in the roar of the surf: two master’s mates, the one midshipman proper (the other had been drowned), the two youngsters, the Captain’s clerk and the assistant surgeon. Like the other officers they had changed out of their fine Sunday clothes; they were now in ragged trousers or breeches undone at the knees: some had no shirts to their nut-brown backs: no shoes of course: a poverty-stricken, hungry group, though cheerful.
‘Should you like to see my turtle, sir?’ cried Reade from a hundred yards or more. His voice had not yet broken and it carried high above the sea’s growl and thunder.
‘Your turtle, Mr Reade?’ asked Jack, coming nearer.
‘Oh yes, sir. I saw him first.’
In the Captain’s presence Seymour and Bennett, the tall young master’s mates who had turned the turtle, could do no more than exchange a look, but Reade, observing it, added,
‘Of course, sir, the others helped a little.’
They gazed for a while at the pitiful flippers swimming powerfully in the air. ‘What do you think is wrong with the turtle, Mr Richardson?’ asked Jack again.
‘I can hardly put my finger on it, sir,’ said Richardson, ‘but
there is something about his mouth I do not quite like.’
‘The Doctor will set us all right,’ said Jack, raising his voice over a triple crash of breakers: the ebb was well under way, and the rip-tide, combined with the current, was cutting the steady swell off the point into a series of chaotic cross-seas.
‘He is the green turtle, sure,’ said Stephen equally loud in spite of his aching head but in quite a different pitch, higher, disagreeably metallic. ‘And a very fine green turtle: two
hundredweight, I should say. But he is a male, and of course his face is displeasing – he would be rejected on the London market – he would never do for an alderman.’
‘But is he edible, sir? Can he be ate? He ain’t unwholesome? He is not like the soft purple fish you made us throw away?’
‘Oh, he may be a little coarse, but he will do you no harm. If you have any doubts, and Heaven knows I am not infallible, you may desire Mr Reade to eat some first and then watch him for a few hours. But in any event, I do beg you will take the animal’s head off directly. I hate seeing them strive and suffer. I remember one ship where they had scores made fast on deck, and the creatures’ eyes were red as cherries, unwatered by the sea. A friend and I went round sponging them.’
Reade and Harper ran up to the camp for the carpenter’s broad axe. Aubrey and Maturin walked back along the hard-beaten sand to the building-slip. ‘That is a very horrid tide-race,’ observed Jack, nodding out to sea: and then, ‘Do you know, I very nearly said a good thing just now, about your cock and hen turtles. It was on the lines of sauce – sauce for the goose being sauce for the gander, you understand. But it would not quite take shape.’
‘Perhaps, my dear, it was just as well. A facetious lieutenant is good company, if he happens to be endowed with wit; a facetious commander among his equals, perhaps; but may not the post-captain who sets the quarterdeck in a roar conceivably lose some of his Jovian authority? Did Nelson crack jokes, at all?’
‘I never heard him, to be sure. He was nearly always cheerful, nearly always smiling – he once said to me “May I trouble you for the salt, sir?” in such a kind way that it was far better than
wit. But I do not remember him making downright jokes. Perhaps I shall save my good things, when they happen, for you and Sophie.’
They walked along in silence, Stephen regretting his unkind words, his remorse much increased by the mildness of the response: he saw an unmistakable Philippine pelican overhead, but fearing that he might be even more of a bore with his birds than Jack with his puns, clenches and set pieces he did not point it out: besides his head was about to split.
‘But tell me,’ he said at last, ‘what did you mean by St Famine’s Day? Here we have a boar of ten score and a two hundredweight turtle.’
‘Yes, it is charming: a little over a pound a head for two days, and that would be high living if there were ship’s bread or even dried peas to go with it. But there ain’t. I blame myself very much for not rousing out more biscuit, flour, salt beef and pork while there was yet time.’
‘Dear Jack, you could not foretell the typhoon; and the boats never ceased going to and fro.’
‘Yes, but it was the envoy’s things that went first, and his followers’. Killick, God forgive him, privately shipped the silver in your skiff: it should have been dried peas. First things first: for as you have said yourself, the hogs are hardly to be found now, nor even the apes. We are six upon four already. There are almost no coconuts left, and fishing
produces almost nothing safe to eat, but all that to one side: it is amazing how little food you absolutely need – you can keep going and work hard on old boots, leather belts and the most unlikely things if you are in spirits. No. When I speak of St Famine’s Day I mean the day when I have to tell them there is no more tobacco and no more grog. You cannot believe how they hold to those two things. And that will be in less than a fortnight.’