They talked about the conifers they had seen in New South Wales; they watched the upper-yard men race aloft to set the royals; and Martin, looking round to see that no one was at hand, said in a low voice ‘Tell me, Maturin, why are they said to be set flying?
Flying’? I have been at sea so long I do not like to ask anyone else.’
‘Martin, you lean on a broken reed: we are in the same boat, as reeds so often are. Let us comfort ourselves with the reflexion that not all of our shipmates could tell how an ablative comes to be so very absolute, on occasion.’
‘Sir,’ called West, who was standing on the leeward hammock-nettings with a telescope. ‘I believe I make her out on the rise. I think she may be wearing a pennant; and if so she is the cutter we heard about.’
Pullings relayed this to the Captain, adding ‘When we were in Sydney they spoke of a fast fourteen-gun cutter called the Eclair that was coming up from Van Diemen’s Land.’
‘I heard about her,’ said Jack, training his telescope aft. ‘But I see nothing.’
Noon. The officers took their altitudes: Pullings reported that the sun was on the meridian: Jack allowed that it was twelve o’clock and that the new naval day might now begin. Eight bells struck; the hands hurried to their dinner; and a curious noise they made, not the muffled anxiety of the day before, but still restrained and as it were conspiratorial.
When the din was over and when the hands were perhaps half way through their dinner (oatmeal, ship’s bread and cheese, Monday being a banyan day) West repeated that he was sure of the cutter now, and almost certain of her pennant.
‘You may be right, sir, though I see nothing of it,’ said Jack. ‘But even if you are, there is nothing extraordinary about a cutter being sent to Norfolk Island. There are still quantities of Government stores ashore, and several people, I understand.’
‘Surely they are throwing out a signal, sir?’ cried West a moment later.
‘I do not see it, sir,’ said Jack coldly. ‘Besides, I have no time for idle gossip with a cutter.”
And Davidge, who was quicker than his shipmate, murmured ‘Tace is the Latin for a candlestick, old fellow.’
When the hands and therefore the midshipmen had finished their dinner Jack went below and sent for Oakes. ‘Sit down, Mr Oakes,’ he said. ‘I have been considering what to do with you, and although it is clear that we must part – apart from anything else no women are allowed in the Surprise – I do not mean to discharge you until we reach some reasonably Christian port in Chile or Peru, where you can easily take the passage home.
You will have enough money to do so: there is not only your pay but also the probability of some prize-money. If we should take nothing then I will advance what is necessary.’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘I shall also give you a recommendation to any naval officer you may choose to show it to, mentioning your good and seamanlike conduct under my command. But then there is your
. . . your companion. She is under your protection, as I take it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you considered what is to become of her?’
‘Yes, sir. If you would be so extremely kind as to marry us, she would be free; and if that cutter were to come aboard we could bid them kiss our – we could laugh in their faces.’
‘Have you made her an offer?’
‘No, sir. I supposed . . .’
‘Then go and do so, sir. If she agrees, bring her back here and let me hear her confirm it: be damned to Hell if I allow any forced marriage in my ship. If she don’t, we shall have to find some place for her to sling her hammock. Cut along now. You may be as quick as you like. I have many things to do. By the way, what is her name?’
‘Clarissa Harvill, sir.’
‘Clarissa Harvill: very well. Carry on, Mr Oakes.’
They came panting aft, and Oakes urged her through the cabin door. She had heard of her lover’s summons; she had had time to do what could be done to clothes, hair, face, against all eventualities, and looked quite well as she stood there, slim and boyish in her uniform, her fair head bowed.
‘Miss Harvill,’ said Jack, rising, ‘pray be seated. Oakes, place a chair and sit down yourself.’ She sat, her eyes cast down, her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap, her back quite straight, looking as nearly like one wearing a skirt as possible, and Jack addressed her: ‘Mr Oakes tells me that you might consent to marry him. May I take it that this is so, or is the fish wather to – that is to say, or does he flatter himself?’
‘No, sir: I am quite ready to marry Mr Oakes.’
‘Of your own free will?’
‘Yes, sir: and we shall be infinitely obliged for your kindness.’
‘Never thank me. We have a parson aboard, and it would be most improper for a layman to take his place. Have you any other clothes?’
‘No, sir.’
Jack considered. ‘Jemmy Ducks and Bonden could run you up a smock of number eight sailcloth, the kind we use for royals and skysails. Though perhaps,’ he went on after some thought, ‘canvas might be looked upon as improper – not sufficiently formal.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ murmured Miss Harvill.
‘I have some old shirts, sir, that could perhaps be pieced out,’ said Oakes.
Jack frowned, and raising his voice to its usual pitch called ‘Killick. Killick, there.’
‘Sir?’
‘Rouse out the bolt of scarlet silk I bought in Batavia.’
‘I doubt but we should have to rummage the whole after-hold, my mate and me, with a couple of hands to heave and then put it all back again, all back again,’ said Killick. ‘Hours of heavy toil.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Jack. ‘It is next to the lacquer cabinets in my store-room, packed in matting and then blue cotton. It will not take you two minutes: even less.’ Killick opened his mouth; but weighing up Captain Aubrey’s present mood he closed it again and retired with an inarticulate grunt of extreme displeasure. Jack went on, still addressing Miss Harvill,
‘But I am sure you can sew perfectly well yourself?’
‘Alas, sir, only the plainest of seams, with large stitches, and very slow – scarcely a yard in an afternoon.’
‘That will never do. The gown must be ready by eight bells. Mr Oakes, there are two young men in your division who embroider their shirts uncommon pretty -‘
‘Willis and Hardy, sir.’
‘Just so. They can each take a sleeve. Jemmy Ducks can run up a skirt in half a glass, and Bonden can look after the -the upper part.’ There was a pause, and to fill it Jack, who was always rather nervous with women, said ‘I trust you do not find the weather too hot, Miss Harvill? With squalls brewing astern, it often grows oppressive.’
‘Oh no, sir,’ said Miss Harvill with more animation than her modesty had allowed hitherto.
‘In such a very beautiful ship it is never too hot.’ The words were idiotic, but the inclination to please and to be pleased was evident; and the compliment to the ship could not go wrong.
Killick came in, so pinched with disapproval that he could not bring himself to say anything but ‘Which I took off the matting.’ Jack said ‘Thankee, Killick,’ turning the bolt in his hands.
He opened the blue cotton wrapping and the silk appeared, a heavy, discreetly gleaming silk, deeper than scarlet, extraordinarily rich in texture and above all in colour, with the sun coming diagonally across from the stern-windows. ‘Mr Oakes,’ he said, ‘carry this bolt to Jemmy Ducks: it is a fathom wide, and a suitable length cut from the end square with the leech will cover the young lady from top to toe. Tell Jemmy what is to be done and ask him whether there are any better tailors in the ship, and if so to carry on with their help: there is not a moment to lose. Miss Harvill, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at eight bells.’ He opened the door; she made as though to curtsey, realized the absurdity and gave him a most apologetic look, saying ‘I do not know how to thank you, sir. Lord, it is the most beautiful, beautiful silk I have ever seen in my life.’
The interview, though short, had been curiously wearing, and Jack sat at his ease for some time on the stern-window locker with a glass of madeira at his side. Through the open companion he could hear the usual sounds of the ship: Davidge, the officer of the watch, calling out for an even tauter foretopsail bowline; Dirty Edwards, the quartermaster at the con, telling the helmsman ‘to ease her a trifle, Billy, then luff and touch her’; then Davidge again, ‘I cannot tell you where to put it, Mr Bulkeley. You will have to wait until the Captain comes on deck.’