Clarissa Oakes (17 page)

When Stephen had set off for his evening rounds Jack brought out his half-finished sheet and carried on with his letter to Sophie: 'The gun-room has at last been able to give its long-overdue feast for the Oakeses, thanks to a providential swordfish. He was prime eating—have never tasted a better—and with him we drank a capital light dry sherry of Stephen's, as sound as a nut though it has crossed the Line and both tropics at least twice. Yet I am afraid the party was heavy going, and poor Tom Pullings had but a sad time of it. He is never very happy, as you know, when he is obliged to take the head of a table, having, as he says himself, no genteel conversation. It began badly, with at least three officers doing themselves no credit, though it is true that after a while West gave us a long account of the First of June. Martin, to be sure, was properly hospitable, so was Adams, and so of course was Stephen when he thought of it; but we should have been nowhere without Mrs Oakes, who talked away nobly, never letting that deadly silence descend; and it must have been uphill work with three dumb sullen unsmiling faces opposite her. I smirked and drank wine all round and topped it the agreeable as much as I could, but as you know very well, my dear, I am not much gifted that way, particularly as I began to be oppressed by a set of shockingly unpleasant ideas. I did my best to help things along by perpetually passing dishes, helping people to more, pouring wine, and eating and drinking until I could no more: but what with nausea and the growth of these notions I was a pretty dismal companion by the end of the meal. For they did grow, increasing from a faint half-serious suspicion to something not far short of certainty.

   'It is the very Devil that I cannot speak to Stephen about his messmates. I was in great hopes just now when he asked me whether West's account of the battle was to be taken literally. I had hoped I might lead on from that to the present situation, but when I found that he only wanted to know whether it was sound history I did not dare. If I had asked him, in effect, to peach on his fellow-officers even ever so slightly, he would have brought me up with a round turn—such a round turn! He has a greater contempt for informers than anyone I have ever met. Not that I really want him to peach but rather to give me the benefit of his lights: he knows more about the gun-room and more about mankind in general than I do, being such a very deep old file: but how to separate peaching and the lights is more than I can tell.

   'For some time now, being taken up with writing notes for Helmholtz fair, and some pieces of my own, and dealing with estate papers (by the way, Martin has accepted the two vacant livings and is to have Yarell when it falls in)—I have kept rather to myself, apart from music and backgammon with Stephen; yet from odd words and exchanges on the quarterdeck, or rather from their tone, I had gathered that there was a certain amount of ill-feeling in the gun-room. But I had no notion of how much or how quickly it had developed until this afternoon. Can you imagine three what are ordinarily called gentlemen sitting in a row at a full-dress dinner with guests and never opening their mouths but to eat? It is true that Oakes, though a young fellow of some family and a passable seaman, is completely devoid of the graces and that Davidge had fallen down the companion-ladder. But it was not enough to explain the situation. In any case the livid bruise on the side of his head was like none I have ever seen given by a fall of that kind: it was much more like a blow with a mallet or a man's fist. And gradually it came to seem more and more probable to me that either Oakes or West had in fact hit him—a very heavy blow indeed, almost a knock-out blow.
Why
, of course, I cannot be sure; but this appears to me to be the explanation: nobody would call Mrs Oakes very pretty, but she is certainly good company.

   'As for her having been a convict, which once caused such interest, it is neither here nor there: aboard ship, and I believe it is the same in prison—it certainly was in the Marshalsea, as you know very well, my dear—once you have been shut up together for some time, original differences scarcely matter. In the
Surprise
it is less obvious, because we are nearly all more or less white, but in the
Diane
there were black, brown and yellow men, Christians, Jews, Mahometans, heathens. We had barely doubled the Cape (though far to the south) before one took no notice—they were all blue with cold anyhow, and they were all Dianes. In the same way Mrs Oakes is now a Surprise, or close on; and as I say kind, good-natured, conversible, and a good listener, interested in their stories of the sea; and it so happens that they are all, except for Davidge, tolerably hideous. Most women would recoil from them, but she in her good nature does not. Cousin Diana told me long ago that there was a coxcomb to be found in almost every man, even the most unlikely; and these fellows I believe have misinterpreted her kindness as liking of quite another kind and have grown absurdly jealous of one another. It is not only absurd but where West and Davidge are concerned it is also extraordinarily unwise. They both long to be reinstated in the Service—it is their dearest wish—and having done well hitherto in the
Surprise
they are in a fair road to it: but they have to have my good word, their captain's good word, and my parliamentary influence behind them. What captain is going to speak well of officers who cannot command their passions better than this, let alone use his interest with the Ministry for them? During dinner they were talking about duels—Mrs Oakes had started that hare with the best of intentions, I am sure—and Davidge, coming out of his heavy stupidity, spoke very eagerly about the impossibility of putting up with an affront.

   'I take what comfort I can from the fact that for a great while the ship has either been sitting still, slowly turning in the placid ocean, or swimming very gently along in light variable airs with the people fishing over the side; the weather has been hot and damp, and nobody has had enough to do. Even at quarters it is mostly dumb-show, since with the likelihood of trouble at Moahu I have to husband our powder. But now, thank God, we have a fair breeze, and I shall keep them busy, oh so busy, driving the ship as hard as I dare so far from stores. I believe it will grow to be a long-lasting close-reefed-topsail gale, and by the time it has blown itself out they may have come to their senses. If not I shall have to take very strong measures.

   'I hear Stephen in the coach, trying to climb into his cot: he has already kicked the chair over twice. He dislikes being helped, however. He is in—I hear the steady creak. In this damp weather he has taken to wheezing and grumbling like an old dog: and this evening, when the ship pecked on a double crest, he took a most surprising toss, turning completely over on top of his head like a tumbler, quite unhurt; but how he has survived so long at sea I cannot tell.'

   Jack laid this sheet aside to dry—the wet ink glistened in the lamplight—and took up yet another file of estate papers. Presently he found he was reading the same line twice, so he shut everything into his writing-desk and went to bed.

   Lying there with the fine steady heave of the sea rocking him with a diagonal motion he mused for a while. Sleep did not come. Far from it. 'It is true that Clarissa Oakes is not really pretty,' he said, 'but how I wish she were lying here beside me.' A moment later he slipped out of his cot, put on shirt and trousers and went on deck. A dark, dark night, with warm rain sweeping across from forward: four hands at the wheel, West leaning on the barricade amidships, most of the watch under the break of the forecastle. He walked aft and stood there looking at the glow of the binnacle and the white water racing by under the frigate's lee; and in time the strong wind and rain blowing his long hair out behind like seaweed and soaking him from head to foot, calmed his spirit.

The glass fell, the wind rose, and although Jack Aubrey could not drive his ship as hard as he would have done with a well-equipped dockyard under his lee, he took her to the uttermost limit of what he, with his intimate knowledge of her power, thought reasonable.

   The wind was uncommonly welcome, to be sure, but there was too much east in it and too much rain for anything resembling comfort: day after day the
Surprise
sailed on a taut bowline, tack upon tack under a low racing sky across a sea as grey and white-capped as the Channel, though as warm as milk and phosphorescent by night. She ran fast, generally under double-reefed topsails and the array of staysails that Jack had found best to her liking: yet with both wind and sea inconstant this called for very close attention and her captain was on deck most of the time, as wet as a man could well be.

   Next to the actual pursuit of an enemy, this was the kind of sailing he liked best, and if it had not been for his anxiety about the gun-room he would have been perfectly happy. He shook out a reef whenever he could, and often, as the ship responded with even greater life, leaning over and throwing her bow-wave broader still, the white water tearing aft and Reade's strangled voice calling 'Ten knots one fathom, sir, if you please' he felt a surge of wholehearted joy. He worked his officers and men very hard indeed, but they were used to it: the
Surprise
had sailed as a privateer and most of her people were privateersmen, who sailed more for the profit than the glory; and when Jack started beating to windward with such zeal they smiled at one another and nodded. In the ordinary course of events, when Captain Aubrey was sailing his ship from one place to another without a leading wind he rarely tacked but rather wore her. That is to say he did not bring her up to the wind as close as ever she could be, clap his helm a-lee, swing her head right up into the wind's eye and beyond, so that she filled on the other tack, but on the contrary he let her fall right off, present her stern to the breeze and so come round the other way. Wearing was slower, since the ship had to turn through twenty points of the compass rather than twelve; it looked somewhat old-womanish; and it lost a certain amount of windward distance; but it was much safer and it called for fewer hands, and less violent exertion, whereas tacking, above all in a strong wind and a heavy sea, put spars and sails in danger, as well as requiring the presence of both watches. They smiled even more when he spread so much canvas that even Pullings looked anxiously at him before relaying the order. They were very well acquainted with their skipper, an extraordinarily successful prize-taker who dropped on his prey apparently by intuition, and they were convinced that somehow he had got wind of a merchantman somewhere to the east: a seaman like Captain Aubrey would never gain a little windward distance by tacking in such a sea unless his chase had a beast in view, and they answered the frequent pipe of
All hands about ship
and the subsequent hard labour with perfect good will. 'Helm's a-lee,' they heard that huge familiar voice roar from the quarterdeck, and instantly, in darkness or fine weather, they let go the fore-sheet, fore-topmast staysails and jib sheets and waited for 'Off tacks and sheets', upon which those at their due stations let go the main tack and sheet and all the staysail tacks and sheets abaft the foremast, passing the sheets over the stays. Then came 'Mainsail haul,' and once she was round, with the main tack down and the breast backstays set up, 'Let go and haul.' Furious activity as the fore-tack and head bowlines were raised, the yards braced about just so, the bowlines hauled with the cry of 'One, two,
three
. One, two,
three
. Belay oh!' Some wet officer would hail the quarterdeck 'Bowlines hauled, sir,' the order to coil all gear would come back in reply and the watch below would pad off to drip through their hammocks in the steaming Turkish bath atmosphere of the lower deck.

   His officers were of the same opinion: they too had served under him in the same privateering line; and since the ship, as a letter-of-marque, had carried no midshipmen they were perfectly accustomed to going aloft as reefers; in recent months, however, they had grown soft and now Jack rode them hard. 'Mr West, there: should you like your hammock sent up?' 'Mr Davidge, pray jump into the foretop again: the aftermost starboard deadeye is far from what it ought to be.' His voice became terrible to them.

   The heavy weather brought its crop of injuries and the sick-berth had a number of sprains, cracked ribs, broken bones and a hernia, which together with the usual burns caused by lurching against the galley stove on those days when it could be lit, kept Stephen, Martin and Padeen busy and allowed some interesting developments of the Basra treatment.

   Stephen's little girls, Sarah and Emily, were extraordinarily useful at a time like this. They were not in the least offended or surprised by the more squalid aspects of a sick-berth; they had been brought up to dissecting and to keeping Jemmy Ducks' quarters clean; and neither in their remote Melanesian island nor aboard the
Surprise
had they had a pampered nursery life. Now they carried, fetched, kept the sick men company, comforted, and gave them more informed news of the outside world than could be drawn from the medicoes. To the foremast jacks they talked forecastle English, seaman's English, with a broad West Country burr—'Skipper auled down the main topmast staysail at one bell. "But," says e, "we'm going to ave another atful of wind more easterly soon; so do ee stow it in the fore catharpings, and pass a gurt old gasket round" '—and quarterdeck English to Stephen and Martin. 'Sir, Jemmy Ducks says he is going to ask Old Chucks—' 'Now, Sarey, where's your manners?' asked William Lamb, quarter-gunner, in an aside. 'Beg pardon,' said Sarah. '. . .is going to ask Mr Bulkeley the bosun to suggest to the Captain that hatches might be battened down: we are all aswim forward, and he is afraid for the sitting hen.'