H.M.S. Surprise (15 page)

'Let me consider of it, Stephen,' he said. 'I will come to the sickbay.'

'Very well. And as we go, pray consider of this, too: my rats have vanished. The squall did not take them. Their cage was undamaged, but its door was open. I turn my back for five minutes to take the air on St Paul's Rock, and my valuable rats disappear! If this is one of your naval customs, I could wish you all crucified at your own royal-yards; and flayed alive before you are nailed up. This is not the first time I have suffered so. An asp off Fuengirola: three mice in the Gulf of Lyons. Rats I had brought up by hand, cosseted since Berry Head, crammed with best double-refined madder in spite of their growing reluctance - and now all is lost, the entire experiment rendered nugatory, utterly destroyed!'

'Why did you feed them with madder?'

'Because Duhamel tells us that the red is fixed and concentrated in their bones. I wished to find the rate of penetration, and to know whether it reached the marrow. I shall know in time, however: M'Alister and I will dissect all suitable subjects, for the effect will be passed to those that ate them, of course; and I tell you soberly, Jack, that if you persist in this dogged, self-defeating hurry, hurry, hurry, clap on more sails, not a moment to be lost, then most of the people will pass through our hands, including, no doubt, that black thief whose very bones will blush for shame.' He uttered these words in a high shriek at the entrance to the sick-bay, to make himself heard above the armourer's forge, where they were fashioning a new iron-horse, to replace that carried away in the squall.

Jack looked at the crowded berth; he breathed the fetid air that no wind-sail would carry away; he stood by while Stephen and M'Alister undid bandages and showed him the effects of scurvy upon old wounds; he did not give an inch even when they led him to their chief witness, the five-year-old amputated stump. But when they showed him a box of teeth and sent for their walking cases to see how easily even molars came out and to make him palpate their rotting gums he said he was satisfied and hurried aft.

'Killick,' he said, 'I shall not be having any dinner today. Pass the word for Mr Babbington.' Here at least was something pleasant to take the charnel-house smell away. 'Ah, Mr Babbington, there you are: sit down. I dare say you know why I have sent for you?'

'No, sir,' said Babbington instantly. It was worth denying everything as long as he could.

'I low is your servitude coming along, eh? You must be close on your time.'

'Five years, nine months and three days, sir.' After six years on ships' books a midshipman might pass for lieutenant, might change from a reefer, a nonentity discharged or disrated at pleasure, to a godlike commissioned officer; and Babbington knew the date to the very hour.

'Yes. Well, I am going to give you an order as acting-lieutenant in poor Nicolls's place. By the time we reach the Admiral you will have your time and you can sit your board; and I dare say the Admiralty will confirm the appointment. They will never fail you on seamanship, I am very sure, but it might be wise to beg Mr Hervey to give you a hand with your double altitudes.'

'Oh thank you, thank you, sir,' cried Babbington, suffused with joy. It was not wholly unexpected (he had bought one of Nicolls's coats on the off-chance), but it had been far from certain. Braithwaite, the other senior midshipman (who had bought two coats, two waistcoats, two pair of breeches) had as good a claim to the step; and some sharp words had passed between Babbington and his captain at Madeira ('This ship is not a floating brothel, sir'), sharper still about relieving the watch in time. It was an exquisite moment, and the kind words with which Jack finished - 'shaping well - responsible, officerlike - should feel as easy with Babbington keeping a watch as any officer on the ship' - brought tears to Babbington's eyes. Yet in the midst of his joy his heart smote him, and pausing at the door after the usual acknowledgements he turned and said, in a faltering voice, 'You are so very kind to me, sir- always have been - that it seems a blackguardly thing.

You might not have done it, if... but I did not exactly lie, however.'

'Eh?' cried Jack, astonished. In time it appeared that Babbington had eaten of the Doctor's rats; and that he was sorry now. 'Why, no, Babbington,' said Jack. 'No. That was an infernal shabby thing to do; mean and very like a scrub. The Doctor has been a good friend to you - none better. Who patched up your arm, when they all swore it must come off? Who put you into his cot and sat by you all night, holding the wound? Who - ' Babbington could not bear it; he burst into tears. Though an acting-lieutenant he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and through his sobs he gave Jack to understand that unknown hands had wafted these prime millers into the larboard midshipmen's berth; that although he had had no hand in their cutting-out - indeed, would have prevented it, having the greatest love for the Doctor, so much so that he had fought Braithwaite over a chest for calling the Doctor 'a Dutch-built quizz' - yet, the rats being already dead, and dressed with onion-sauce, and he so hungry after rattling down the shrouds, he had thought it a pity to let the others scoff the lot. Had lived with a troubled conscience ever since: had in fact expected a summons to the cabin.

'You would have been living with a troubled stomach if you had known what was in 'em; the Doctor had -'

'I tell you what it is, Jack,' said Stephen, walking quickly in. 'Oh, I beg your pardon.'

'No, stay, Doctor. Stay, if you please,' cried Jack.

Babbington looked wretchedly from one to the other, licked his lips and said, 'I ate your rat, sir. I am very sorry, and I ask your pardon.'

'Did you so?' said Stephen mildly. 'Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Listen, Jack, will you look at my list, now?'

'He only ate it when it was dead,' said Jack.

'It would have been a strangely hasty, agitated meal, had he ate it before,' said Stephen, looking attentively at his list. 'Tell me, sir, did you happen to keep any of the bones?'

'No, sir. I am very sorry, but we usually crunch 'em up, like larks. Some of the chaps said they looked uncommon dark, however.'

'Poor fellows, poor fellows,' said Stephen in a low, inward voice.

'Do you wish me to take notice of this theft, Dr Maturin?' asked Jack.

'No, my dear, none at all. Nature will take care of that, I am afraid.'

He wandered back to the sick-bay, and there, when he had carried out some dressings, he asked M'Alister how many lived in the larboard midshipmen's berth. On being told six he wrote out a prescription and desired M'Alister to make it up into six boluses.

On deck Stephen was conscious of being closely, furtively watched; and after dinner, at a time when he was judged to be in a benevolent frame of mind, he was not surprised to receive a deputation from the young gentlemen, all washed and wearing coats in spite of the heat. They, too, were very sorry they had eaten his rats; they, too, begged his pardon; and they should never do so again.

'Young gentlemen,' he said, 'I have been expecting you. Mr Callow, be so good as to take this note, with my best compliments to the Captain.' He wrote 'Can the services of the young gentlemen and the clerk be dispensed with for a day?', folded it and handed it over. In the interval he gazed at Meadows and Scott, first-class volunteers aged twelve and fourteen; the captain's clerk, a hairy sixteen with his wrists far beyond the sleeves of his last year's jacket; Joliffe and Church, fifteen-year-old midshipmen: all thinner, hungrier than their mothers could have wished. And they gazed covertly back at him, their habitual thoughtless merriment quenched, turned to a pasty solemnity.

'The Captain's compliments, sir,' said Callow, 'and he says with the greatest possible ease. A week, if you choose.'

'Thank you, Mr Callow. You will oblige me by swallowing this bolus. Mr Joliffe, Mr Church..

The Surprise lay hove-to, the precious trade-wind singing through her rigging, fleeting away unused. Broad on her starboard beam Cape St Roque advanced into the sea, a bold headland, so thickly covered with tropical forest that not a patch of bare earth, not a rock could be seen except at the edge of the sea, where the surf broke upon a shining beach, indented here and there with creeks that ran into the trees.

One of these inlets had a stream - its turbid waters could be seen mingling with the blue, spreading on either side of the little bar - and by following its course one could make out the roofs of a village some way inland. Just these roofs, nothing more: the whole of the rest of the New World was ancient luxuriating forest, a solid mass of different shades of green - not a wisp of smoke, not a hut, not a track. Jack's telescope, poised on the hammock-cloth, brought the forest so close that he could see half-fallen trunks, held in a tangle of gigantic creepers, new trees pushing through, even the flashing scarlet of a bird, the very colour of a blaze of flowers a little to the right; but most of the time he kept it fixed upon the roofs, the stream, hoping hour after hour to surprise a movement there.

His idea had seemed brilliant in the morning light, with Brazil looming in the west: they would not go to Recife nor any other port, but coast along and send the launch ashore at the nearest fishing village; no trouble with any authorities, almost no loss of time. Stephen was convinced that any cultivated stretch of this shore would provide what he needed. 'All we require is greenstuff,' he said, looking at Cape St Roque. 'And what, outside

the Vale of Limerick, could he greener than that?' Then they saw these canoes running up the creek, and the roofs beyond. As Stephen was the only officer aboard who spoke Portuguese and who could be sure of the sick-bay's needs, it was sensible that he should go; but he had had to be persuaded, and on leaving, with a partially-concealed wild secret grin on his face, he had sworn upon his honour that he was uninfluenced by vampires - that he should not bring a single vampire aboard.

Behind Jack the work of the ship was going on; they were taking advantage of this pause to new-reeve most of the rigging on the mainmast and to re-stow the booms; but it was going forward slowly, with the bosun and his mates driving the sparse, dispirited crew with more noise and less effect than usual. The sound of distant wrangling came from the carpenters in the forward cockpit; and Mr Hervey was in an unusual passion, too. 'Where have you been, Mr Callow?' he cried. 'It is ten minutes since I told you to bring me the azimuth compass.'

'Only at the head, sir,' said Callow, glancing nervously at the Captain's back.

'The head, the head! Every single midshipman gives me that lame old excuse today. Joliffe is at the head, Meadows is at the head, Church is at the head. What is the matter with you all? Have you eaten something, or is it a wicked falsehood? I will not have this skulking. Do not trifle with your duty, sir, or you will find yourself at the masthead pretty soon, I can tell you.'

Six bells struck, and Jack turned to keep his appointment to drink tea with Mr Stanhope. He liked the envoy more the better he knew him, though Mr Stanhope was one of the most ineffectual men he had met; there was something touching about his anxiety to give no trouble, his gratitude for all they did for him in the way of accommodation, his hopelessly misdirected consideration for the hands, and his fortitude - never a word of complaint after the squall and all its wreckage. Once he had established that Jack and Hervey were connected with families he knew, he treated them as human beings; all the others as dogs - but as good, quite intelligent dogs in a dog-loving community. He was ceremonious, naturally kind, and he had a great and oppressive sense of duty. He greeted Jack with renewed apologies for doing so in the Captain's own cabin. 'You must be sadly cramped, I am afraid,' he said. 'Quite miserably confined; a great trial,' and poured him a cup of tea in a way that reminded Jack irresistibly of his great-aunt Lettice: the same priestly gestures, the same droop of the wrist, the same grave concentration. They talked about His Excellency's flute, a quarter-tone too high in this extraordinary heat; about Rio and the refreshments to be expected there; about the naval custom of having thirteen months in the year; and Mr Stanhope said, 'I have often meant to ask you, sir, why my naval friends and acquaintance so often refer to the Surprise as the Nemesis. Was her name changed - was she taken from the French?'

'Why, sir, it is more a kind of nickname that we have in the service, much as we call Britannia Old Ironsides. You may remember the Hemione, sir, in '97?'

'A ship of that name? No, I believe not.'

'She was a thirty-two-gun frigate, on the West Indies station; and I am sorry to say her people mutinied, killed their officers, and carried her into La Guayra, on the Spanish Main.'

'Oh, oh, how deeply shocking. I am distressed to hear it.'

'It was an ugly business; and the Spaniards would not give her up, either. So, to put it in a word, Edward Hamilton, who had the Surprise then, went and cut her out. She was moored head and stern in Puerto Cabello, one of the closest harbours in the world, under their batteries, which had some two hundred guns in 'em; and the Spaniards were rowing guard, too, since the Surprise had stood in with the land, and they were aware of her motions. Still, that night he went in with the boats, hoarded her and brought her away. He killed a hundred and nineteen of her crew, wounded ninety-seven, with very little loss, though he was shockingly knocked about himself - oh, it was a most brilliant piece of service! I would have given my right hand to be there. So the Admiralty changed Hermione's name to Retribution, and in the service people called the Surprise the Nemesis, seeing that... ' Through the open skylight he heard the masthead hail the deck: the launch had put off from the shore, followed by two canoes. Mr Stanhope went on for some time, gently prosing away about nemesis, retribution, just deserts, the inevitability of eventual punishment for all transgressions - crime bore within it the fatal seeds of the criminal's undoing - and lamenting the depravity of the mutineers. 'But no doubt they were led on, incited by some wretched Jacobin or Radical, and plied with spirits. To attack properly-constituted authority in such a barbarous fashion -! I trust they were severely dealt with?'