The frigate therefore sailed into a vast unfrequented pool, traversed by whales and creatures of the deep and by young boobies in the season of the year, but by little else: its centre bay far to the south of Cape Clear in Ireland, and here, if the day should prove as peaceful as they hoped, the Surprises meant to carry on with their titivating and above all to deal with the piebald blackstrake. The weather was ideal: a dying air from the southwest and the remains of a long easy southern swell, but barely a ripple on the surface. It was one of those
early mornings when there is no horizon, when sea and sky blend imperceptibly in a nameless band of colour that strengthens to pale blue at the zenith; and many hands thought they might have a little fishing over the side before they started on the blackstrake
– this was a most promising time for codlings.
But before that they were to have breakfast; and presently eight bells, the bosun’s call, the general hurrying about and banging of mess-kids told Stephen that they were in the act of taking it. His own would come soon, when Jack smelt the coffee, the toast and the frying
bacon. Aubrey had stayed up until the middle watch, studying Humboldt’s observations and working out the best form to record his own, and now as usual he was sleeping right through the din that followed eight bells
– nothing but a change of wind, the cry of ‘Sail ho!’ or the smell of breakfast would wake him.
Had he been sailing alone as captain of the Surprise he would have enjoyed no less than three apartments of his own, the great cabin right aft, a noble room flooded with light from the stern-window that stretched across almost its whole width, and just forward of that much the same amount of space divided down the middle into the coach on the larboard side and the bed-place on the starboard. But since he was not alone he and Stephen shared the great cabin and Stephen had the coach to himself. As the frigate’s surgeon, Maturin also had a cabin below, a stuffy little hole which, like those of the other officers, opened on to the gunroom: he used it on occasion, when Jack, the other side of the frail partition, snored beyond all bearing; but at present, in spite of a steady volume of sound, he was sitting there with his papers, chewing a few cocaleaves.
He had woken not long since from a most unusually explicit and vivid erotic dream; they had become increasingly frequent of late, with the laudanum dying even in its remotest lingering effects, and the vehemence of his desire quite distressed him. ‘I am becoming a mere satyr,’ he said. ‘Where should I be without my coca-leaves? Where indeed?’
He reached out for the letters the pilot had brought and read them again. The bank regretted that it appeared to have no trace of the vouchers mentioned in his esteemed communication of the seventh ultimo; it would be obliged if Dr Maturin’s verbal instructions to Mr McBean might be confirmed in writing, a necessary formality without which the business could not proceed; it was concerned to say that the requested dispatch of guineas to Mrs Maturin had not yet been able to be effected, the premium for gold now having risen from five to six shillings in the pound and Dr Maturin’s direct written consent, naming this increased sum, being required for the transaction; and awaiting the favour of his further instructions it begged to have the honour of remaining his most humble obedient etc. ‘Buggers,’ said Stephen, using a word that he had quite often heard aboard but that rarely came to his mind as a term of reproach. A little surprised at himself, he took up the small heavy parcel that had been delivered at the same time. He had recognized the hand when first he saw the address, and in any case the sender’s name was written on the back – Ashley Pratt, a surgeon and fellow member of the Royal Society who had for some time laid himself out to be agreeable. Stephen could not like him. It was true that Sir Joseph Banks thought highly of Pratt and often entertained him; but Sir Joseph’s judgment of a plant or a beetle was more to be relied upon than his judgment of a man; his general kindness sometimes led him into acquaintances that his friends regretted and his general obstinacy confirmed him in them. Stephen had seen something of an obsequious, bullying fellow named Bligh, a naval officer alas, whose government of New South Wales had ended in very great discredit for everyone concerned; yet Banks still countenanced the man. Stephen was fond of Sir Joseph and he thought him an excellent president of the Society, but he did not feel that judgment was his most outstanding quality – indeed Stephen disliked almost everything he had ever heard about the management of the colony, generally looked upon as Banks’s child. And though Pratt was a fashionable and no doubt fairly able surgeon,
Stephen would never trust him with a popliteal aneurism, having seen what he had done to a patient in Baits. However, it was benevolent in Pratt to send him this present, a peculiarly strong magnet or combination of magnets designed to extract splinters of cannon-ball from wounds, particularly from wounded eyes: Pratt had praised the device at their last meeting.
‘It might answer, especially if one could direct the force, and make out the path of entry. If Jack is not stirring in seven minutes’ – booking attentively at his watch – ‘I shall call for coffee and breakfast by myself: perhaps a lightly boiled egg. Perhaps two lightly boiled eggs. In the meantime I shall put Pratt’s object in the medicine-chest.’
Emerging from the medicinal smell of his part of the orlop, he became aware both of the eddying smell of coffee (which had in fact roused the Captain) and of a confused noise and excitement on deck. As he reached the gunroom door he met Standish, recognizable by his bandaged head; he was carrying a cup of tea and he cried, ‘Doctor, they were quite right. The Captain has hit the very place. Come and see. You can make her out even from the quarterdeck.’
They climbed two ladders and they reached the quarterdeck, Standish still carrying his cup of tea unspilled, and there in that golden morning were all the officers at the leeward rail – leeward, but only just, so gentle was the moving air. West, as officer of the watch, was dressed with some formality; the others were in trousers and shirt; they all, like the hands along the gangway and on the forecastle, were gazing fixedly to the north-east; and the dew dripped on them from the yards and rigging.
Martin took the telescope from his one eye, and offering Stephen the glass he said with a beaming smile, ‘Just below where the horizon ought tà be. You can make her out quite clear when the haze shifts. I never said good morning,’ he added. ‘How rude I am – greed reduces man to a very brutal state, I am afraid. Forgive me, Maturin.’
‘So you think she is a lawful prize?’
‘1 have no notion at all,’ said Martin, laughing happily.
‘But everyone else seems sure of it – all the seasoned mariners. And what small part of her ballast is not silver is pure double refined gold in bars.’
‘Masthead, there,’ called Jack, drowning any conversation around him. ‘What do you make of her now?’
It was Auden, a middle-aged experienced Shelmerstonian, who was up there; and after a moment he replied, ‘No. She’s not one of ours. I’ll take my davy on that, sir. It is my belief she is a Frenchman. Most uncommon massy yards. She is gathering her boats as quick as ever they can pull. A very guilty conscience there, I fear. Oh, conscience does make cowards of us all.’
Standish looked up at the masthead with some surprise, and Stephen said, ‘Auden is what would be called a lay-preacher among the Sethians, I believe.’ He then returned to his examination of the distant vessel. On this sea so calm that whole stretches were glassy and even the smallest air made ripples, it was easy to hold a telescope still; and now that the sun was gaining strength – warm, even hot through their shirts
– the air grew so clear that he could distinguish the flash of the separate oars as the boats raced home, and even, he thought, the net of silver fishes passing up the side.
‘GOOd morning, gentlemen,’ said Jack, turning. ‘Have you seen the snow?’
He spoke in perfectly good faith; he had not the least intention of astonishing the poor unfortunate landlubbers; but he had so often felt put down by their literary remarks that now it quite pleased him to see the look of utter stupidity on all three faces.