The patient, comforted by the thought of this resource, will pass the first ten minutes or so in placid contemplation, ignoring the slight excitement, and then he will plunge into an oblivion as deep as that of the Seven Sleepers, or deeper. I flatter myself that this deep peace, this absence of vexation and irascibility, will allow the organs to carry on with their usual task unhindered, responding to my cholagogues, eliminating the vicious humours and restoring the former equilibrium.’
The Seven Sleepers however had not been brought up from boyhood with a ship’s bell. At the second stroke in the morning watch Jack Aubrey flung himself from his cot on the leeward roll and staggered, dazed and half blind, to the starboard chain-pump, where the hands were gathering. He took his place, tall there in the twilight with the warm air wafting his nightshirt. He said ‘Good morning’ to his dimly-apprehended neighbours, spat on his hands and cried ‘Way oh!’
This horrid practice had begun long ago, well north of Capricorn, so long ago that the people no longer looked upon it as a grievance but rather as part of the nature of things, as inevitable and perhaps as necessary as dried peas – so long ago that Jack’s hands were now as horny as his shipmates’. Stephen’s would have been equally harsh and rough, for since he had unwittingly set the whole process in motion he felt morally obliged to rise and toil; and he did rise and toil; nearly destroying himself, until the Captain very kindly told him that it was his duty to keep his hands as smooth as a fine lady’s, in order to be able to take a leg off like an artist rather than a butcher’s boy.
‘Way oh!” he cried, and the water gushed along the pump-dales, shooting clear of the side. On and on, an exuberant flood; in half an hour he was dripping sweat on to the deck and his wits were gathering themselves together through the clouds of Stephen’s five and
thirty drops. He recalled the events of yesterday, but without much emotion; on the edge of his field of vision he noticed that the tide of wet, followed by sand, followed by holystones and then by swabs was coming steadily aft; at length he said ‘Some zealous fool must have kept the sweetening-cock open half the watch’, and he began to count his strokes. He had nearly reached four hundred when at last there came the welcome cry,
‘She sucks’.
They stood away from the pump-brakes and nodded to one another, breathing hard. ‘The water came out as clear and sweet as Hobson’s conduit,’ said one of his neighbours.
‘So it did,’ said Jack, and he looked about him. The Surprise, still on the same tack, but under topsails alone, had drawn in with Norfolk Island, so that the nearer shore could be seen on the rise, and along the heights the outlines of monstrous trees stood sharp against the sky – a sky that was as pure as ever, apart from a low cloud-bank right astern: the lightest night-blue overhead changing imperceptibly to aquamarine in the east, with a very few high clouds moving south-east on the anti-trade, much stronger up there than its counterpart below. Down here the breeze was much the same as before: the swell if anything heavier.
‘Good morning, Mr West,’ he said when he had examined the log-board. ‘Are there any sharks about?’ He handed the log-board back – it had told him exactly what he expected –
and tossed his sodden nightshirt on to the rail.
‘Good morning, sir. None that I have seen. Forecastle, there: are there any sharks about?’
‘Never a one, sir: only our old dolphins.’ And as the cry came aft so the sun sent up a fine brilliant orange sliver above the horizon; for a moment it could be looked at before eyes could no longer bear it, and a simile struggled for life in Jack’s mind, only to be lost as he dived from the gangway, utterly forgotten in the long bubbling plunge with his hair streaming out behind in the pure water, just cool enough to be refreshing. He dived and dived again, revelling in the sea; and once he came face to face with two of the dolphins, cheerful creatures, inquisitive but discreet.
By the time he came aboard again the sun was well clear of the sea, and it was full day, glorious indeed, though lacking that sense of another world entirely. There was Killick, too, standing by the stanchion with a large white towel and a disapproving look on his face. ‘Mr Harris said it would close the pores, and throw the yellow bile upon the black,’ he said, wrapping the towel about Jack’s shoulders.
‘Is high water the same time at London Bridge and at the Dodman?’ asked Jack, and having stunned Killick with this he asked him whether the Doctor were about. ‘Which I seen him in the sick-bay,’ said Killick sulkily.
‘Then go and ask him whether he would like to have a first breakfast with me.’
Jack Aubrey had a powerful frame to maintain, and this he did by giving it two breakfasts, a trifle of toast and coffee when the sun was first up and then a much more substantial affair shortly after eight bells – any fresh fish that happened to be at hand, eggs, bacon, sometimes mutton chops – to which he often invited the officer and midshipman of the morning watch, Dr Maturin being there as a matter of course.
Stephen came even before Killick’s return. ‘The smell of coffee would bring me back from the dead. How kind to let me know: and a very good morning to you, my dear sir. How did you sleep?’
‘Sleep? Lord, I went out like a light, and remember nothing at all. I did not really wake up until the ship was pumped almost dry. Then I swam. What joy! I hope you will join me tomorrow. I feel a new man.’
‘I might, too,’ said Stephen without conviction. ‘Where is that mumping villain Killick?’
‘Which I am coming as quick as I can, ain’t I?’ cried Killick: and then, putting down the tray,
‘Jezebel has been rather near with her milk.’
‘I am afraid I shall have to leave you very soon,” said Stephen after his second cup. ‘As soon as the bell strikes we must prepare two patients for surgery.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Jack. ‘I hope it is not very serious?’
‘Cystotomy: if there is no infection – and infection at sea is much rarer than in hospital –
most men support it perfectly well. Fortitude is called for, of course; any shrinking from the knife may prove fatal.’
The bell struck. Stephen quickly ate three more slices of toasted soda-bread, drank another cup of coffee, looked at Jack’s tongue with evident satisfaction and hurried away.
He did not emerge until quite well on in the forenoon watch, and as he came up he met a usual morning procession that had just reached the quarterdeck from the leeward gangway: Jemmy Ducks bearing three hencoops, one empty; Sarah carrying the speckled hen in her arms; and Emily leading the goat Jezebel, all bound for the animals’ daytime quarters abaft the wheel.
Greetings, smiles and bobs; but then Emily said in her clear child’s voice ‘Miss is weeping and wringing her hands, way up forward.’
Stephen was thinking ‘How well animals behave to children: that goat is a froward goat and the speckled hen a cross ill-natured bird, yet they allow themselves to be led and carried without so much as an oath’, and it was a moment before he grasped the force of her remark. ‘Ay,’ he replied, shaking his head. They moved on with their livestock, greeted by a great quacking of ducks, already installed in a coop with legs.
He was considering Miss Harvill, the island (much closer now), its cliffs, its tall and strangely ugly trees, when he heard Jack cry ‘Jolly-boat’s crew away,’ and he became aware of the tension on the quarterdeck. All the officers were there, looking unusually grave, and from the forecastle and along the gangways the people gazed steadily aft. All this must have been in train for some time, since getting even a jolly-boat over the side was a laborious business. The hands ran down to their places: the bowman hooked on and they all sat there looking up as boat and ship rose and fell.
‘There is a Norfolk Island petrel,’ said Martin at Stephen’s elbow; but Stephen only gave the bird a passing glance.
‘Pass the word for my coxswain,’ called Jack.
‘Sir?’ said Bonden, appearing in a moment.
‘Bonden, take the jolly-boat into the bay between the cape and the small island with the trees on it and see whether it is possible to land through the surf.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘You had better pull in, but you may sail back.’