H.M.S. Surprise (14 page)

Nicolls. The flow, the burst of confidence, hingeing upon what chance word? Something tolerably remote, since he could not remember it, had led to the abrupt statement, 'I was ashore from the time Euryalus paid off until I was appointed to the Surprise; and I had a disagreement with my wife.' Protestants often confessed to medical men and Stephen had heard this history before, always with the ritual plea for advice - the bitterly wounded wife, the wretched husband trying to atone, the civil imitation of a married life, the guarded words, politeness, restraint, resentment, the blank misery of nights and waking, the progressive decay of all friendship and communication - but he had never heard it expressed with such piercing desolate unhappiness, 'I had thought it might be better when I was afloat,' said Nicolls, 'but it was not. Then no letter at Gibraltar, although Leopard was there before us, and Swiftsure: every time I had the middle watch I used to walk up and down composing the answer I should send to the letters that would be waiting for me at Madeira. There were no letters. The packet had come and gone a fortnight before, while we were still in Gibraltar; and there were no letters. I had really thought there must be a remaining... but, however, not so much as a note. I could not believe it, all the way down the trades; but now I do, and I tell you, Maturin, I cannot bear it, not this long, slow death.'

'There is certain to be a whole bundle of them at Rio,' said Stephen. 'I, too, received none at Madeira - virtually none. They are sure to be sent to Rio, rely upon it; or even to Bombay.'

'No,' said Nicolls, with a toneless certainty. 'There will be no letters any more. I have bored you too long with my affairs: forgive me. If I were to rig a shelter with the oars and my shirt, would you like to sit down under it? Surely this heat will give you a sunstroke?'

'No, I thank you. Time is all too short. I must quickly explore this stationary ark - the Dear knows when I shall see it again.'

Stephen hoped Nicolls would not resent it later. Regular confession was far more formal, far less detailed and spreading, far less satisfactory in its unsacramental aspect; but at least a confessor was a priest his whole life through, whereas a doctor was an ordinary being much of the time -difficult to face over the dinner-table after such privities.

He returned to his task, thump, thump, thump. Pause: thump, thump, thump. And as the crevice slowly widened he noticed great drops falling on the rock, drying as they fell. 'I should not have thought I had any sweat left,' he reflected, thumping on. Then he realised that drops were also falling on his back, huge drops of warm rain, quite unlike the dung the countless birds had gratified him with.

He stood up, looked round, and there barring the western sky was a darkness, and on the sea beneath it a white line, approaching with inconceivable rapidity. No birds in the air, even on the crowded western side. And the middle distance was blurred by flying rain. The whole of the darkness was lit from within by red lightning, plain even in this glare. A moment later the sun was swallowed up and in the hot gloom water hurtled down upon him. Not drops, but jets, as warm as the air and driving flatways with enormous force; and between the close-packed jets a spray of shattered water, infinitely divided, so thick he could hardly draw in the air. He sheltered his mouth with his hands, breathed easier, let water gush through his fingers and drank it up, pint after pint. Although he was on the dome of the rock the deluge covered his ankles, and there were his boxes blowing, floating away. Staggering and crouching in the wind he recovered two and squatted over them; and all the time the rain raced through the air, filling his ears with a roar that almost drowned the prodigious thunder. Now the squall was right overhead; the turning wind knocked him down, and what he had thought the ultimate degree of cataclysm increased tenfold. He wedged the boxes between his knees and crouched on all fours.

Time took on another aspect; it was marked only by the successive lightning-strokes that hissed through the air, darting from the cloud above, striking the rock and leaping back into the darkness. A few weak, stunned thoughts moved through his mind - 'What of the ship? Can any bird survive this? Is Nicolls safe?'

It was over. The rain stopped instantly and the wind swept the air clear; a few minutes later the cloud had passed from the lowering sun and it rode there, blazing from a perfect, even bluer sky. To westward the world was unchanged, just as it always had been apart from white caps on the sea; to the east the squall still covered the place he had last seen the ship; and in the widening sunlit stretch between the rock and the darkness a current bore a stream of fledgling birds, hundreds of them. And all along the stream he saw sharks, some large, some small, rising to the bodies.

The whole rock was still streaming - the sound of running water everywhere. He splashed down the slope calling 'Nicolls, Nicolls!' Some of the birds - he had to avoid them as he stepped - were still crouching flat over their eggs or nestlings; some were preening themselves. In three places there were jagged rows of dead terns and gannets, charred though damp, and smelling of the fire. He reached the spot where the shelter had been: no shelter, no fallen oars: and where they had hauled up the boat there was no boat.

He made his way clean round the rock, leaning on the wind and calling in the emptiness. And when for the second time he came to the eastern side and looked out to sea the squall had vanished. There was no ship to be seen. Climbing to the top he caught sight of her, hull down and scudding before the wind under her foretopsail, her mizen and main-topmast gone. He watched until even the flicker of white disappeared. The sun had dipped below the horizon when he turned and walked down. The boobies had already set to their fishing again, and the higher birds were still in the sun, flashing pink as they dived through the fiery light.

CHAPTER SIX

It was the barge that took him off at last, the barge under Babbington, with a powerful crew pulling double-banked right into the eye of the wind.

'Are you all right, sir?' he shouted, as soon as they saw him sitting there. Stephen made no reply, but pointed for the boat to come round the other side..

'Are you all right, sir?' cried Babbington again, leaping ashore. 'Where is Mr Nicolls?'

Stephen nodded, and in a low croak he said, 'I am perfectly well, I thank you. But poor Mr Nicolls.

Do you have any water in that boat?'

'Light along the keg, there. Bear a hand, bear a hand.'

Water. It flowed into him, irrigating his blackened mouth and cracking throat, filling his wizened body until his skin broke out into a sweat at last; and they stood over him, wondering, solicitous, respectful, shadowing him with a piece of sailcloth. They had not expected to find him alive: the disappearance of Nicolls was in the natural course of events. 'Is there enough for all?' he asked in a more human tone, pausing.

'Plenty, sir, plenty; another couple of breakers,' said Bonden. 'But sir, do you think it right? You won't burst on us?'

He drank, closing his eyes to savour the delight. 'A sharper pleasure than love, more immediate, intense.' In time he opened them again and called out in a strong voice, 'Stop that at once. You, sir, put that booby down. Stop it, I say, you murderous damned raparees, for shame. And leave those stones alone.'

'O'Connor, Boguslavsky, Brown, the rest of you, get back into the boat,' cried Babbington. 'Now, sir, could you take a little something? Soup? A ham sandwich? A piece of cake?'

'I believe not, thank you. If you will be so good as to have those birds, stones, eggs, handed into the boat, and to carry the two small boxes yourself, perhaps we may shove off. How is the ship? Where is it?'

'Four or five leagues south by east, sir: perhaps you saw our topgallants yesterday evening?'

'Not I. Is she damaged - people hurt?'

'Pretty well battered, sir. All aboard, Bonden? Easy, sir, easy now: Plumb, bundle up that shirt for a pillow. Bonden, what are you at?'

'I'm coming it the umbrella, sir. I thought as maybe you wouldn't mind taking the tiller.'

'Shove off,' cried Babbington. 'Give way.' The barge shot from the rock, swung round, hoisted jib and mainsail and sped away to the south-cast. 'Well, sir,' he said, settling to the tiller with the compass before him, 'I'm afraid she was rather knocked about, and we lost some people: old Tiddiman was swept out of the heads and three of the boys went adrift before we could get them inboard. We were so busy looking at the sky in the west that we never had a hint of the white squall.'

'White? Sure it was as black as an open grave.'

'That was the second. The first was a white squall from due south, a few minutes before yours: it often happens near the line, they say, but not so God-damn hard. Anyhow, it hit us without a word of warning - the Captain was below at the time, in the sail-room - hit us tops'l high - almost nothing on the surface and laid us on our beam-ends. Every sail blown clean out of its bolt-rope before we could touch the sheets or halliards; not a scrap of canvas left.'

'Even the pendant went,' said Bonden.

'Yes, even the pendant went: amazing. And main and mizen topmasts and foretopgallant, all over to leeward, and there we were on our beam-ends, all ports open and three

guns breaking loose. Then there was the Captain on deck with an axe in his hand, singing out and clearing all away, and she righted. But we had hardly got her head round before the black squall hit us - Lord!'

'We got a scrap of canvas on to the foretopmast,' said Bonden, 'and scudded, there being these guns adrift on deck and the Captain wishful they should not burst through the side.'

'I was at the weather-earing,' said Plumb, stern-oar, 'and it took me half a glass to pass it; and it blew so hard it whipped my pig-tail close to the boom-iron, took a double turn in it, and Dick Turnbull had to cut me loose. That was a cruel hard moment, sir.' He turned his head to show the loss - fifteen years of careful plaiting, combing, encouraging with best Macassar oil, reduced to a bristly stump three inches long.

'But at least,' said Babbington, 'we did fill our water-casks. Then we rigged a jury mizen and maintopmast; and we've been beating up ever since.'

An infinity of details - Babbington's low anxious inquiries after Nicolls - the surprisingly ready, philosophical acceptance of his death - more details of yards sprung, bowsprit struck by lightning, great exertions day and night - and Stephen slept, the piece of cake in his hand.

'There she lays,' said Bonden's voice through his dispersing dream. 'They've sent up a foretopgallant. Captain will be main glad to see you, sir. Said you could never last on that - rock; on deck all day and night - hands 'bout ship every glass. God love us,' he said with a chuckle, remembering the ferocious compulsion, the pitiless driving of men three parts dead with fatigue, 'he was quite upset.'

He had indeed been quite upset, but the news from the mast-head that the returning barge carried an animate surgeon reassured the greater part of his mind: he was still in strong anxiety for Nicolls, however, and the two emotions showed on his face as he leant over the rail - gravity, and yet a flush of pleasure and a smile that would be spreading. Stephen came nimbly up the side, almost like a seaman. 'No, no, I am perfectly well,' he said, 'but I am deeply concerned to tell you, that Mr Nicolls and the boat vanished entirely. I searched the rocks that evening, the next day and the next: no trace at all.'

'I am most heartily sorry for it,' said Jack, shaking his head and looking down. 'He was a very good officer.' After a moment he said, 'Come, you must go below and to bed. M'Alister shall physic you. Mr M'Alister, pray take Dr Maturin below -,

'Let me carry you, sir,' said Pullings.

'I will give you a hand,' said Hervey.

The whole quarterdeck and the greater part of the ship's company were gazing at the resuscitated Doctor, his older shipmates with plain delight, the others with heavy wonder: Pullings went so far as to push between the captain and the surgeon and to seize him by the arm. 'I have not the least wish to go below,' said Stephen sharply, twitching himself away. 'A pot of coffee is all that I require.' He moved a little way aft, caught sight of Mr Stanhope, and cried, 'Your Excellency, I must beg your pardon for not having kept my engagement with you on Sunday.'

'Allow me to congratulate you upon your preservation,' said Mr Stanhope, advancing and shaking hands; he spoke with more than his ordinary formality, for Stephen was mother-naked; and although Mr Stanhope had seen naked men before, he had never seen one with eyes so reddened by the salt and the intolerable sun that they shone like cherries, nor one so wizened, so wrinkled in his loose blackened skin, so encrusted and cadaverous.

'I wish you joy of your rescue, Doctor,' said Mr Atkins, the only man aboard who was not pleased to see the barge return: Stephen was attached to the mission in an artfully vague capacity, and the envoy's instructions required him to seek Dr Maturin's advice; Mr Atkins's advice or indeed presence was nowhere mentioned and he was consumed with jealousy. 'May I fetch you a towel or some other garment?'- with a look at Stephen's scrofulous shrunken belly.

'You are very officious, sir; but this is the garment in which I shall appear before God; I find it answers pretty well. It may be termed my birthday suit.'

'That has choked the bugger off,' said Pullings to Babbington, just above his breath, out of a motionless face. 'That is one in his bleeding eye.'

In the morning he appeared, eager and sharp-set at the breakfast-table, on the first stroke of the bell. 'Are you sure you should not stay abed?' cried Jack.

'Never in life, soul,' said Stephen, reaching for the coffee-pot, 'am I not telling you for ever that I am well? A slice of that ham, if you please. No, in all sobriety, if it had not been for poor unhappy Nicolls, I should have been glad to be marooned. It was uncomfortable - I was roasted, to be sure - but it has done extraordinary things to my sinews, more than the waters of Bath in a hundred years. No pain, no awkwardness! I could dance a jig, and an elegant jig. And quite apart from that, what else would have allowed me day after day of detailed observation? The arthropods alone... Before I went to bed last night, before I turned in, I threw down a mass of undigested notes, and merely for the arthropods there were seventeen pages! You shall see them. You shall have the maidenhead of my observations.'

'I shall be very happy; thank you, Stephen.'

'Then I sponged myself repeatedly, from head to foot, with fresh water, your blessed fresh water; and I slept -I slept! It was like falling slowly into a bottomless void, so deep that this morning I had difficulty in recalling the events of yesterday - a vague recollection of the sick-bay that I had to piece together from fragments that came swimming up. I fear I shall have a sad report for you when I have made my rounds this morning.'

'Certainly you look less like a burnt-offering than you did yesterday,' said Jack, peering affectionately into his face. 'Your eyes are almost human. But,' he said, feeling that this was not perfectly civil, 'they will behold a charming sight on deck - we have picked up the south-east trade at last! It is coming more southerly than I could wish, but I believe we shall weather Cape St Roque. At all events we shall cross the line before noon - we have been making seven and eight knots since the beginning of the middle watch. Another cup? Tell me, Stephen, what did you drink on that infernal rock?'

'Boiled shit.' Stephen was chaste in his speech, rarely an oath, never an obscene word, never any bawdy: his reply astonished Jack, who looked quickly at the tablecloth. Perhaps it was a learned term he had misunderstood. 'Boiled shit,' he said again. Jack smiled in a worldly fashion, but he felt the blush rising. 'Yes. There was one single pool of rainwater left in a hollow. The birds defecated in it, copiously. Not with set intent - the whole rock is normally deep in their droppings - but enough to foul it to the pitch of nausea. The next day was hotter, if possible, and with the reverberation the liquid rose to an extraordinary temperature. I drank it, however, until it ceased to be a liquid at all; then I turned to blood. Poor unsuspecting boobies' blood, tempered with a little sea-water and the expressed juice of kelp. Blood... Jack, this Cape St Roque, of which you speak so anxiously, is in Brazil, is it not, the home of the vampire?'

'I beg your pardon, sir, for interrupting you,' said Hervey, appearing at the door, 'but you desired me to let you know when the maintopgallant was ready to be swayed up.'

Left alone Stephen looked at his nail-less hand, flexed it with great complacency - remarkable intension: precise, unwavering - carried out a delicate operation on the ham

with his pocket-lancet, and walked forward to the sick-bay, observing, 'I could not have done that before I was broiled alive, desiccated, mummified: bless the sun in his power.'

They crossed the line that day, but with muted ceremonies. It was not only the loss of their shipmates and of Mr Nicolls - a loss emphasised by the sale of their clothes at the capstanhead - but there was not much spirit of fun in the ship. Badger-Bag came aboard with his trident, shaved the boys and the younger hands in a perfunctory manner, mulcted Stephen, Mr Stanhope and his people of six and eightpence a head, splashed a fair amount of water about the forecastle and the waist of the ship, and withdrew.

'That was our Saturnalia,' said Jack. 'I hope you did not dislike it?'

'Not at all. I am wholly in favour of innocent mirth; but I wonder you suffered it, with so much work on hand - all these spars, ropes and sails lying about half destroyed, and time, as you tell me, so precious.'

'Oh, you must not interfere with custom. They will work double-tides tomorrow - they will be in much better heart. Custom -,

'You are hag-ridden by custom, in the Navy,' said Stephen. 'Bells; an esoteric language - I will not say jargon; unmeaning ceremonies. The selling of poor Nicolls's clothes, for example, seemed to me gross impiety. And to Mr Stanhope, too. He is a far more interesting man than you might suppose; reads; plays a delicate flute. But I am not come here to be prating of the envoy. I have something far graver to tell you. The incessant labours of the last week have exhausted the men; many who showed no signs of scurvy at the last examination are now affected:

here is my list. Virtually all the Racoons, many Surprises, and four landsmen. What is worse, the squall, in wrecking my store-room, has made the strangest magma of my drugs, to say nothing of the remaining and more than doubtful lime juice. I tell you officially, my dear, and will put it in writing if you choose, that I cannot be answerable

for the consequences unless green vegetables, fresh meat and above all citrus fruits are provided within a few days. If I understand you, you mean to skirt the extremity of eastern Brazil; and eastern Brazil,' he cried, looking greedily through the open port westwards, 'is notoriously supplied with all these commodities.'

'So it is,' said Jack. 'And with vampires.'

'Oh, do not imagine I have not examined my conscience,' cried Stephen, laying his hand on Jack's bosom. 'Do not suppose I am unaware of my eagerness to set foot upon the New World at the earliest possible moment. But come and look at my suppurating five-year-old amputation, my re-opening once-healthy wounds, my purulent gums, imposthumes, low fevers, livid extravasations.'

'I was hardly serious,' said Jack. 'But. the fact is, there are many things I have to take into account.' There were indeed. This was a very long voyage, and already he had lost a great deal of time. With the Cape in the hands of the Dutch again he must get right down to the forties, to the great unfailing westerlies that would carry him into the Indian Ocean at two hundred miles a day, to catch the tail of the south-west monsoon somewhere about the height of Madagascar. His orders required him to touch at Rio, which was not much above a thousand miles away, no great distance if the hardwon trades held true; whereas if he stood in with the land he might lose them. He would certainly be entangled with the Portuguese officials if he called at Recife, for example: interminable delay at the best, and at the worst some ugly incident, detention, even violence, they being so very jealous of a foreign man-of-war anywhere but Rio. Delay, perhaps a row, and even then no certainty of supplies. And although Stephen was speaking in good faith, the dear creature was so passionate a philosopher, with his bugs, vampires-