liable to catch me unawares with a lee-lurch and fling me into the scuppers while my friends call out “butcher” and the sailors hide their mirth. Do not think I am discontented with my lot, Maturin, I beg. I am passionately fond of long sea-voyages and all the charming possibilities that may ensue – the flame-tree on the banks of the São Francisco, the vampires at Penedo itself! But from time to time I long to sit on my native element the earth, from which I rise like a giant refreshed, ready to face a close-reefed topsail blow or the sickening reek of the orlop in the damp oppressive heat of the doldrums with no breath of air and the ship rolling her masts out. It seems to me an age since I sat in a chair that could be trusted; for although we passed many and many an island in our crossing of this enormous expanse of ocean, we did most emphatically pass them. Contrary winds and vexing currents had made us late for our various rendezvous: the only hope was this last one, and Captain Pullings drove the ship in a most pitiless manner -harsh words, peremptory orders, no longer the modest, amiable young man we knew but a sea-going Bajazet – and of course with no thought of stopping, even if sulphur-crested cassowaries had been seen on shore. But tell me, Maturin, is
Sweeting’s Island indeed so very poor and barren? I have never even heard of it.’
‘Nor, Heaven knows, had I until Captain Aubrey spoke its name. It was a cousin on his mother’s side discovered it, Admiral Carteret, who sailed round the world with Byron and then again with Wallis, but this time as captain of the Swallow, a rather small ship that became separated from Wallis in thick weather off Tierra del Fuego, not I believe without a certain glee on the part of Carteret, since it allowed him to discover countries of his own, including this island, which he named after the midshipman who first sighted it. It was no Golconda, nor even a Tahiti, being inhabited by a surly, burly, ill-favoured set of naked black men with deep-set eyes, filed teeth, receding chins and a great mop of coarse frizzled black hair dyed more or less successfully light brown or yellow. They spoke no recognizable dialect of the Polynesian language, and it was thought they were more nearly related to the Papuans . .
‘We are never to see the shores of Papua, it appears,’ said Martin with a sigh. ‘But I beg pardon: I interrupt.’
‘Nor we are. As I understand it the Captain’s intention, for reasons to do with wind and current and tortuous navigation in the Torres Strait, was to leave New Guinea far on the right hand, strike away into the main ocean as far as this Sweeting’s Island, there refresh, and then turn down to bring us to the region of the south-east trades, and so, sailing on a bowline, in which the Surprise excels all other ships, slant down to Sydney Cove, blue-water sailing almost all the way, which he loves beyond anything. Nor does he mean to touch at the Solomons, still less to go inside the Great Barrier Reef, or anywhere near it.’
They both shook their heads sadly, and Stephen went on, ‘From what Sir Joseph told me of New Guinea, it is no great loss. He and Cook went ashore, wading through a vast extent of mud to an indifferent strand, where. without a word, the natives instantly set
upon them, firing off what appeared to be crackers, calling out in the most offensive way, and throwing spears. He only had time to collect three
and twenty plants, none of them really interesting. And as for the Barrier Reef, I do not wonder at our shunning it, after
Cook’s dreadful experiences: that is not to say I do not regret the necessity. It wounds my heart.’
‘Perhaps the wind may drop, so that we can reach some part of the Barrier by boat.’
‘I hope so indeed, particularly at that island from the top of which Cook and Banks surveyed a vast expanse of the reef and on which Banks collected some of the many lizards. But to return to Sweeting’s Island – and now I believe I can make out a slight nick on the horizon – Captain Carteret found no gold-dust, no precious stones and no very amiable inhabitants, but he did find a considerable wealth of coconuts, yams, taro, and fruit of various kinds. There was only one village, for although there is reasonably fertile land inshore the people make the greater part of their living from the sea and they congregate in the island’s single cove: all its other sides are more or less sheer-to and I imagine it is an ancient volcanic upheaval, or conceivably a sunken, degraded crater. In any event, disagreeable though the people looked, and uninviting, they were induced to trade and Captain Carteret came away with stores that kept his people in health until the Straits of Macassar. He fixed its position with the utmost care and took spundings; but it is very far from being a well-known island and although Captain Aubrey tells me that far-ranging South Sea whalers sometimes call, I do not remember to have seen it on any map.’
‘Perhaps it is inhabited by sirens,’ said Martin.
‘My dear Martin,’ said Stephen, who could be as obtuse as ten upon occasion, ‘a moment’s reflexion will tell you that all the sirenia require shallow water and great beds of seaweed; and that the only members of that inoffensive tribe found in the Pacific are Steller’s sea-cow in the far north and the dugong in the more favoured parts of New Holland and the South China Sea. I have no hopes of anything but greenstuff and fresh fruit: which reminds me – will you sup with us tonight? We are to eat a mango preserve.’
Again Martin excused himself; and late that evening, when the mango preserve was finished and they were sitting down to their music Stephen said ‘Jack, I ask this perhaps impertinent
question only to save myself from uttering unwelcome invitations: is there disharmony between you and Martin?’
‘Heavens, no! What makes you imagine such a thing?’
‘I have sometimes asked him to sup with us, and he has always declined. He will soon be out of plausible excuses.’
‘Oh,’ said Jack, laying down his bow and considering, ‘It is true I cannot forget he is a parson, so I have to take care what I say; and then again I hardly know what to say in any case. I have a great respect for Martin, of course, and so have the people, but I find him hard to talk to and I may seem a little reserved. I cannot rattle away to a learned man as I can to you and Tom Pullings – that is to say, I do not mean you are not as learned as Job, far from it upon my word and honour, but we have known one another so long. No. Martin and I have never had a cross word. Which is just as well, because it is very unpleasant to be shut up for an indefinite period with someone you dislike – much worse in the gunroom of course where you have to see his goddam face every single day, but quite bad enough in the cabin too; though some captains do not seem to mind. Perhaps he feels I have neglected him. I shall ask him to dinner tomorrow.’
Tomorrow, and the Surprise stood in for Sweeting’s Island with the breeze two points abaft the beam. She had lain to all through the middle and much of the morning watch, for although Jack Aubrey had his cousin’s chart and soundings clear in his mind, conditions might have changed since 1768 and he wanted clear light for the passage into the lagoon.
He had it now as he sat there, comfortably filled with breakfast, conning the ship from the foretopsail yard. The sun had climbed forty-five degrees into the perfect eastern sky and it was sending its light well down into the clear water, so clear that he saw the flash of a turning fish far below, perhaps fifty fathoms. There was nothing else to see, no hint of bottom; and according to Admiral Carteret’s chart there would be none until they were within musket-shot of the reef, the shore being so very steep-to.
The ship was standing in for a typical passage through the
reef with a typical lagoon beyond; this was slack-water, the breeze was steady, the ship had plenty of steerage-way under foretopsail alone, she was pointing just so, with an allowance for her trifling leeway, and he had plenty of time to survey reef (broad and thickly set with coconut-palms), lagoon and island. Not one of those slightly domed islands made of coral sand that he had seen often enough in the eastern South Sea but a more rocky affair altogether, with a mass of trees and undergrowth, a variegated and often vivid green, rising in a steep semi-circle immediately behind the village on its crescent above high-water mark, and both sending back the brilliant morning light. A fairly typical village, with canoes ranged on the sand; but most of the space was taken up by one very long house built on stilts, of a kind that he had not seen before.