Thursday was the anniversary of the frigate’s launching, and her captain took the afternoon watch. This enabled all the gunroom officers to sit down together, and Stephen, who had not dined with them these many days, took his familiar seat with Padeen stationed behind him. The seat was familiar enough; so were the faces, but the atmosphere was one he had not known before and almost at once he saw what Martin had meant by the disagreeableness of being confined to a ship with a man one could not stand. West and Davidge were obviously on bad terms. Tom Pullings at the head of the table, Adams, the oldest man present in both years and service, in the purser’s place at the foot, and Martin, opposite Stephen, were doing their best to ease things along, while both lieutenants were sufficiently well-bred to be generally civil. But as a feast, a celebration, it was a failure and at one point Stephen found himself saying ‘As I understand it our path across the ocean runs by Fiji. I have great hopes of Fiji,’ to an apathetic table.
‘Oh certainly,’ cried Martin, recovering himself after only a moment’s pause. ‘Owen, who spent some time there, tells me they have a great god called Denghy, in the shape of a serpent with a belly the girth of a tun; but as he pays little attention to human beings they usually pray to much smaller local gods – many human sacrifices, it appears.’
‘They are a cruel lot,’ said Adams. ‘They are the worst man-eaters in the South Seas and they knock their sick and their old people on the head. And when they launch one of their heavy canoes they use men tied hand and foot as rollers. Though it must be admitted they are fine shipwrights in their line of craft, and tolerable seamen.’
‘A man can be a tolerable seaman and a damned fool,’ said Davidge.
‘Man-eaters: so they are too,’ said Stephen. ‘And I have read that on the main island there grows the solanum anthro-pophagorum, which they cook with their favourite meat, to make it eat more tender. I long to see the Fiji isles.’
Stephen dined that day in the gunroom but he supped in the cabin, the two of them eating lobscouse with hearty appetite. ‘I left my messmates arguing about what they should give to the Oakeses when they invite them to dinner,’ he said. ‘Martin was sure there would be hogs in Fiji, and he knew Mrs Oakes was fond of roast pork; but the sailors all said the wind might not carry us so far. Can this be true, brother?’
‘I am afraid so. The trades often fall away before twenty south: even now that fine steadiness has gone. It was very remiss of them not to have sent their invitation long before this: if they had done so before all their sheep died there would have been no talk about these foolish Fiji hogs.’
‘It was a strange sudden pestilence, upon my word. But tell me, Jack, is it possible that I shall not see Fiji at all? It lies in the direct road.’
‘Stephen,’ said Jack, ‘I cannot command the wind, you know, but I promise I shall do my best for you. Keep your heart up with another cup.’
They were by this time drinking their coffee, and when they had followed it with a glass of brandy apiece they took out their scores and music-stands, carefully arranged the lights, tuned their instruments and dashed away with Boccherini in C major, followed by a Corelli they knew so well that there was no need for a score.
Bell after bell they played, taking the liveliest pleasure in their music; and then, just after the changing of the watch, Jack laid down his bow and said ‘That was delightful. Did you notice my double-stopping at the very end?’
‘Certainly I noticed it. Tartini could not have done better. But now I believe I shall turn in.
Sleep is creeping upon me.’
Stephen Maturin valued sleep and wooed it, generally in vain now that he had abandoned laudanum; Jack Aubrey valued it no more than the air he breathed and it came to him at once. His cot had not swung three times before he was lost to the sensible world.
Stephen’s first swings were promising, promising; the verses he recited inwardly had begun to repeat themselves, growing confused; consciousness flickered; and then in the next cabin began that oh so familiar deep powerful shameless snoring, interrupted only by bestial climaxes. Stephen thrust the wax balls deeper into his ears, but it was no good; a barrier three times that depth would not have kept out the din and in any case fury and a pleasant torpor could not inhabit the same bosom. When this happened (and it happened frequently) Stephen usually went down to his official surgeon’s cabin, but tonight he felt a distaste for the gunroom and as sleep was now improbable before the graveyard watch he put on shirt and breeches and went on deck.
It was a dark night: the moon had set, and although there was a fair sprinkling of stars among the high clouds, including a prodigious Jupiter, by far the brightest light came from the binnacles. The warm breeze still flowed in over the frigate’s quarter, and though it had certainly lessened it was still fair for the Fiji islands and the ship was sailing towards them with an easy roll and pitch at perhaps five knots. Before his eyes had grown used to the dimness he began walking aft and almost at once he tripped on a coil of rope. ‘Let me give you a hand, sir,” said the voice of the unseen Oakes who steadied him, begging him ‘to watch out for that goddam sister-block’, and led him to his usual station by the taffrail calling out ‘Clarissa, here’s company for you.’
‘I am so glad,’ said Clarissa. ‘Billy, pray bring the Doctor a chair.’
Stephen usually went to the taffrail to lean over it and either contemplate the birds that followed, particularly in the high southern latitudes, or to lose himself in the hypnotic wake; he had rarely sat looking forward and now the sight of the tall pale topsails reaching up and up into the night sky absorbed him for several minutes. The ship heaved and sighed upon the swell, the voices of seamen talking quietly under the break of the quarterdeck came aft, and an attentive ear could easily catch the sound of Captain Aubrey’s sleep.
‘I hope, Dr Maturin,’ said Clarissa, ‘that when I spoke in that intemperate way about children on Monday you did not feel I was making the slightest reflexion on Sarah and Emily? They are very, very good little girls, and I love them dearly.’
‘Lord no,’ said Stephen. ‘It never occurred to me that you would put a slight on them. I am no great advocate for children in general, but if my own daughter – for I have a daughter, ma’am – grows up as kind, affectionate, clever and spirited as those two I shall bless my fate.’
‘I am sure she will,’ said Clarissa. ‘No. I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffec-tionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her – a little squirrel or a little bunny-rabbit – and prattling away in a baby’s voice. All the children I saw in New South Wales were yahoos.’
In their slow progress, with declining winds, towards Fiji there were several of these night-conversations, for more and more Stephen avoided the gunroom, where the ill-feeling seemed to have spread; but few were as decided as the first, Mrs Oakes being usually as complaisant and anxious to please as could be, agreeing with the views expressed and amplifying them. Occasionally this led to awkwardness, as when she found herself wholly committed to both sides in a disagreement between Stephen and Davidge – for other officers often appeared, sometimes forestalling him – on the relative merits of classical and romantic music, poetry, architecture, painting.
Yet there were times when Stephen happened to be alone with her and she spoke in her earlier manner. From some context that he could not recall Stephen had mentioned his dislike of being questioned: ‘Question and answer is not a civilized form of conversation.’
‘Oh how I agree,’ she cried. ‘A convict is no doubt more sensitive on the point but quite apart from that I always used to find that perpetual inquisition quite odious: even casual acquaintances expect you to account for yourself.’