observed Stephen. ‘She has not been on deck since it began to blow: but unhappily it seemed that she hurt her head in the rough weather, and must stay below for a while. I asked Oakes whether he would like me to see her, but he says it was only a bruise and a shaking – a lee-lurch, no doubt.’
‘The hound,’ said Martin in a low, vehement voice, his face quite changed, ‘the infernal young hound, he beats her.’
Captain Aubrey had not been making game of them. Day after day the Surprise tried to work to windward, and sometimes by favour of the tide or a stronger breeze she gained a little, so that the ship at Annamooka could be seen even from the deck, only to lose it in the flat calm of the night.
Although food was uncomfortably low, Jack did not like to bear away for Tongataboo while a possible prize lay in sight. A seaman and even more an officer of the Royal Navy was deeply attached to prizes, the only possible source of a fortune. But that love was not to be compared to the privateer’s consuming passion, for his prize-taking was his whole way of life, his sole raison d’etre. The Surprises therefore now sailed the ship with the closest possible attention to every shift in the breeze, anticipating orders and keeping her full, in spite of the fact that as the hours and days went by the likelihood of that distant whaler being fair prize grew steadily less. She showed a provoking stolidity, a disinclination to try to escape by night: morning after morning she was still there, her yards crossed, her sails bent. The mood in the Surprise changed from cheerfulness to something not far from restless discontent, with a tendency to be quarrelsome.
On the evening of Thursday, after quarters, Mrs Oakes came on deck again, sitting in her usual place by the taffrail. She had a black eye of some days age, now ringed with yellow and green, and as a partial shade she wore a piece of cloth over her head, as though a close-reef topsail breeze were blowing.
‘I hope I see you well, ma’am,” said Stephen, bowing. ‘Mr Oakes told us you had had a fall, and I should have called, had he not dissuaded me.’
‘I wish you had, dear Doctor,’ said Mrs Oakes. ‘I have been sadly bored. It was nothing to make anyone keep her bed -only this squalid, ignoble black eye – but even if the dreadful weather had not kept me below, I felt I could not show myself looking like a female prize-fighter. I should not really appear now, if dark were not falling fast.’
Jack came aft, made civil enquiries and returned to his task of making a little windward progress in the most untoward circumstances. Pullings, Martin and West appeared and they talked with a fair amount of animation, but it appeared to Stephen that whereas their dislike of one another or at least the tension between them had increased, their attentiveness to Clarissa had declined in much the same proportion as her looks. She, for her part, was particularly agreeable to them all, particularly winning.
On later reflection it seemed to him that this was too simple. There was also another emotion abroad, perhaps best defined as a want of regard: just on whose part he could scarcely say. Nor could he recall any specific instance.
Yet the impression was there, and it was strengthened next day not only by the tone of the officers but by the attitude of some of the hands. Although many, indeed most, smiled upon her with the same genial warmth, there were some faces whose look was questioning, puzzled, even deliberately expressionless. The great matter of this next day however was the changing of the sails, each in turn for its lighter brother. Jack Aubrey, as sensitive as a cat to changes in the weather, had had the pricking of his thumbs confirmed by the barometer; but so far he could not tell the direction of the coming breeze, and rather than disappoint all hands he had merely given the order. And since the Surprise owned a full wardrobe of well over thirty, a great deal of activity was called for; quite why, Stephen could not make out – the present suit of sails seemed perfectly adequate to him –
but what he could make out, and make out quite clearly, was that when the Captain was not on deck there was much more damning of eyes and limbs than usual, and much more of the wrangling and contention and reluctant obedience not uncommon in a privateer but rare and very dangerous in the Royal Navy.
He also made out the fact that for one foremost jack who looked askance at Clarissa, there were half a dozen who cast a cold eye on Oakes. Yet it was not when Oakes was on duty that Jack, leaning over the side with Adams to measure the salinity, heard a voice float down from the fore crosstrees in answer to the cry ‘Don’t you know you must pass the selvagee first, damn your eyes?’ a low voice but perfectly distinct: ‘Who the Devil cares what you say?’ Jack looked up, said ‘Mr West, take that man’s name,’ and carried on with his task.
His breeze began to blow from the south, right on the frigate’s beam, late in the forenoon watch. By the time the hands were piped to dinner the water was singing down her side, her deck had a slope of some ten or twelve degrees and the whole mood aboard had changed: laughter, merriment.
By the time the hands had eaten their dinner the island was so much nearer that it filled the eighth part of the horizon, and a fine great pahi, a double canoe with a deckhouse,
could be seen putting off the shore, hoisting its immense peaked sail and coming out to meet them on the opposite tack.
‘Killick,’ said Jack, ‘rouse out my box of red feathers, the chest of island presents, and whatever we have left in the way of sweetmeats.’
‘Sir,’ said Oakes, ‘masthead says there is a white man aboard.’
‘In a coat?’
‘Yes, sir: and a hat.’
‘Very good, Mr Oakes: thank you. Killick, the lightest coat you can find, number three scraper and a clean pair of duck trousers. And pass the word for Captain Pullings. Tom, you know the South Sea islanders as well as I do. They are delightful creatures, but nobody is to be allowed below except those that I invite into the cabin, and anything movable on deck is to be screwed down, including the anchor. Doctor, of our people, who do you think speaks South Seas best, being at the same time intelligent, if possible?’
‘There is the bosun; but he might prove a little over-facetious as an interpreter. I should suggest Owen or John Brampton or Craddock.’
Tom Pullings had barely time to make the ship presentable, and Captain Aubrey had spent no more than five minutes on the spotless deck in his spotless trousers before the swift-sailing pahi was within hail. The Surprise heaved to with her main topsail laid to the mast and the canoe, with naval politeness, ran under her stern and came close up along her leeward side.
Smiling brown faces gazed up, and an anxious white one; a young woman threw a sheaf of some strong-smelling green herb on deck; lines were passed and the white man came up the side, accompanied by an islander.
‘Captain Aubrey, sir, I believe?’ said the white man, advancing and taking off his hat. ‘My name is Wainwright, master of the Daisy whaler, and this is Pakeea, the under-chief of Tiaro. He brings you a present of fish, fruit and vegetables.’
‘How very kind of him,’ said Jack, smiling at Pakeea, a tall stout beautifully tattooed young man shining with oil, who smiled back in the friendliest manner. ‘Please thank him heartily for me. Nothing could have been more welcome.’ And having named his officers and asked Pullings to have the presents brought aboard, Jack went on, ‘Will you step into the cabin?’
In the cabin Killick handed some little round farinaceous objects fresh from the galley, spread with marmalade, and madeira; and after a few insignificant remarks Jack opened a drawer, showed Wainwright a bunch of red feathers, asking in an aside, ‘Are they adequate?”
‘Oh Lord yes,’ said Wainwright.
‘Oh Lord yes,’ said Pakeea.
Jack handed them to him, together with a piece of scarlet cloth and a small magnifying glass. Pakeea raised the gifts to his head with a face full of pleasure, and made quite a long speech in Polynesian.
‘I am afraid I do not understand you, sir,’ said Jack, having listened attentively.
‘Pakeea says he hopes you will come ashore. He does not speak English, but he can echo the last words he hears with wonderful accuracy.’