‘If you please, sir,’ said Reade at the door, ‘the Captain
thinks you might like to know that our guests are under way from Government House.’
‘Thank you, Mr Reade,’ said Stephen. ‘I shall be with you as soon as I have finished this paragraph.’
He was on deck just before the first gun of the Governor’s salute and he observed with gratification but not much surprise that the half-fledged anxious ship he had last seen was now a serene man-of-war, confident that her yards were squared by lifts and braces to within an eighth of an inch, and that her guests could eat off any part of any one of her decks.
In fact they ate off the full extent of Jack Aubrey’s silver, the baize-lined chests being empty but for a pair of broken sugar-tongs; and from behind the Captain’s chair Killick surveyed his triumph with whole-hearted delight, a look that sat strangely on a face set in shrewish discontent.
The guests filed in, and Stephen found that he was to sit between Dr Redfern and Firkins, the penal secretary. ‘How very glad I am that we are neighbours,’ he said to Redfern. ‘I was afraid that after our few words on the quarterdeck we should be torn apart.’
‘So am I,’ said Redfern. ‘And when you consider this table, we could easily have been out of earshot. Heavens, I have never seen such magnificence in a frigate, nor such a sweep of cloth.’
‘Nor have I,’ said Firkins, and in a low tone to Stephen, ‘Surely, Captain Aubrey must be a gentleman of very considerable estate?’
‘Oh, very considerable indeed,’ said Stephen. ‘And he also commands I know not how many votes in both the Commons and the Lords: he is much caressed by the Ministry.’ He added a few more details to sadden Firkins, but only a few, since his heart was aswim with joy; and he spent most of his meal and nearly all the prolonged port and then coffee drinking in conversation with Redfern. The surgeon was no great naturalist: asked, for example, whether he had seen the platypus he looked doubtful. ‘The more modern name is ornithorhynchus,’ said Stephen. ‘Yes, yes, I know the animal,’ said Redfern. ‘I have often heard it spoken of – it is not uncommon – and I was trying to remember whether in fact I had seen it or not. Probably not. Here, by the way, it is called the water-mole: the learned names would not be understood.’ Yet on the other hand he could tell Stephen a great deal about the behaviour of men to one another in New South Wales and the still more dreadful Norfolk Island, where he had spent some time:
the usual but not invariable response to absolute power and the absence of public opinion.
So taken up was Stephen with his conversation and with his inner happiness that he scarcely noticed how the party was going; but when he returned from seeing Dr Redfern back to the hospital and giving his opinion on a hydrocele he said to Jack, sitting alone in the reconstituted great cabin and drinking a tankard of barley-water, ‘How very well that went off – a most successful dinner.’
‘I am glad you think so. I found it devilish heavy going -worked like a horse – and I was afraid other people thought so too.’
‘Not at all, at all: never in life, my dear. Jack, before coming aboard today I met a man from the Madras ship, ha, ha, ha! Oh, but before I forget, is this south-east breeze to be relied on?’
‘Lord, yes. It has been blowing these ten days together, and the glass has never moved.’
‘Then please may I have a cutter early in the morning, and may I be picked up off Bird Island?’
‘Of course,’ said Jack, waving his empty tankard. ‘And should you like some of this?
Barley water.’
‘If you please,’ said Stephen.
‘Killick. Killick, there,’ called Jack, and when he came, ‘Two more cans of barley-water, Killick; and let Bonden know the Doctor wants the blue cutter at three bells in the morning watch.’
‘Two cans and three bells it is, sir,’ said Killick, aiming for the door. ‘Two cans, three bells.’
He struck the jamb a shrewd blow – he was usually drunk after a dinner-party – but he got through upright.
‘What do you expect to find on Bird Island?’
‘No doubt there are petrels; but I do not think of landing there, alas, with so little time to spare.’
‘Then what are you going for?’
‘Am I not to pick up Padeen?’
‘Of course you are not to pick up Padeen.’
‘But Jack, I told you I should warn him. I told you before Martin and I set off, when you said we were to sail on the twenty-fourth. I have warned him, and he will be waiting there on the strand.’
‘I certainly did not understand anything of the kind. Stephen, I have had endless trouble with convicts trying to escape. The officials have harassed and badgered me for that reason among others and have stinted my stores, supplies and repairs, and to avoid anything really ugly I had to warp out into the bay, which delayed everything still farther.
When the Governor came back I went to see him and stated the case as fairly as I could: he admitted that searching the ship without my consent was improper and asked whether I desired an apology. I said no, but that if he would give me an undertaking that nothing of the kind would happen again, I for my part should undertake that no convict would leave Sydney Cove in my ship, and so leave the matter there. He agreed, and we warped in.’
‘We are speaking of a shipmate, Jack. I am committed.’
‘So am I. In any case, how can you ask the captain of a King’s ship to do such a thing? I will make every possible representation in Padeen’s favour, but I will not countenance a convict’s escape. I have turned several away already.’
‘Is that what I am to say to Padeen?’
‘My hands are tied. I have given the Governor my word. It would be said that I was abusing my authority as a post-captain and my immunity as a member.’
Stephen looked at him for some time, weighing the value of any reply: the look conveyed or was thought to convey something of pity and contempt and it stung Jack extremely. He said, ‘You have brought this on yourself.’ Stephen turned, and seeing Kill ick with the tankards he took one, said ‘Thankee, Killick,’ and carried it below.
Davidge was sitting in the gunroom; he told him that Martin was down among the specimens, putting the bird-skins into the brine-tub, and he went on ‘What a wretched dinner that was, upon my word. I am sure that Jack Nastyface, being so disgruntled, poured salt in by the ladle; and any gate the civilians were like a set of funeral mutes. I tried as hard as I could, but they would not be pleased. I dare say it was the same at your end of the table. No wonder you look hipped.’
‘Martin,’ said Stephen when he reached the store-room and the smell of feathers, ‘it appears that there has been a misunderstanding and that I may not take Padeen aboard. I am not quite sure what I shall do. However, the boat will be ready at three bells in the morning watch. Would you care to come with me? I ask, because at dinner Dr Redfern told me that the colonial name for the platypus is water-mole, which I did not know when your friend Paulton told us that water-moles lived in the Woolloo-Woolloo stream. This might be your last chance of seeing one.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Martin, looking into his face by the lantern-light and quickly turning away. ‘I shall be ready at three bells.’
Stephen asked for a hand to get at his chest, took out a fair sum in gold and notes, locked it again, gave Martin the key and said ‘If I should not return to the ship tomorrow will you be so good as to have this sent to my wife?’
‘Of course,’ said Martin.
‘I do not think I have ever felt such strong and conflicting emotions in my life,’ he reflected, walking out of Sydney on the Parramatta road. His intention was to diminish their force by walking far and fast: physical weariness, he had found before, could do away with subsidiary aspects, such as in this case mere exasperation, and after some hours the right course of action would appear. Yet in the hours he walked now nothing of the kind took place. His mind perpetually dropped the problem and flew back to his happiness, his present and future happiness. He walked a great way in the darkness, and that part of his mind which was free to be astonished was astonished