Clarissa Oakes (3 page)

   'It would be strange if I had not.'

   'I mean, if you will forgive a gross expression, with importunate pricks?'

   'Sure, I understand you. There is little in the pharmacopoeia to help them. Sometimes'—waving his lancet—'I propose a simple little operation—a moment's pang, perhaps a sigh, then freedom for life, a mild sailing on an even keel, tossed by no storms of passion, untempted, untroubled, sinless—but when they decline, which they invariably do, though they may have protested that they would give anything to be free of their torments, why then unless there is some evident physical anomaly, all I can suggest is that they should learn to control their emotions. Few succeed; and some, I am afraid, are driven to strange wild extremes. But were the case to apply to you, brother, where there is a distinct physical anomaly, I should point out that Plato and the ancients in general made the liver the seat of love:
Cogit amare jecur
, said the Romans. And so I should reiterate my plea for more sea-bathing, more going aloft, more pumping of an early morning, to say nothing of a fitting sobriety at table, to preserve the organ from ill-considered freaks.' He closed the vein, and having washed his bowl in the quarter-gallery he went on, 'As for the blue devils of which you complain, my dear, do not expect too much from my remedies: youth and unthinking happiness are not to be had in a bottle, alas. You are to consider that a certain melancholy and often a certain irascibility accompany advancing age: indeed, it might be said that advancing age equals ill-temper. On reaching the middle years a man perceives that he is no longer able to do certain things, that what looks he may have had are deserting him, that he has a ponderous great belly, and that however he may yet burn he is no longer attractive to women; and he rebels. Fortitude, resignation and philosophy are of more value than any pills, red, white or blue.'

   'Stephen, surely you would never consider me middle-aged, would you?'

   'Navigators are notoriously short-lived, and for them middle-age comes sooner than for quiet abstemious country gentlemen. Jack, you have led as unhealthy a life as can well be imagined, perpetually exposed to the falling damps, often wet to the skin, called up at all hours of the night by that infernal bell. You have been wounded the Dear knows how many times, and you have been cruelly overworked. No wonder your hair is grey.'

   'My hair is not grey. It is a very becoming buttercup-yellow.'

   Jack wore his hair long, clubbed and tied with a broad black bow. Stephen plucked the bow loose and brought the far end of plait round before his eyes.

   'Well I'm damned,' said Jack, looking at it in the sunlight. 'Well I'm damned; you are quite right. There are several grey hairs . . . scores of grey hairs. It is positively grizzled, like a badger-pie. I had never noticed.'

   Six bells.

   'Will I tell you something more cheerful?' asked Stephen.

   'Please do,' said Jack, looking up from his queue with that singularly sweet smile Stephen had known from their earliest acquaintance.

   'Two of our patients have been to the two islands you mean to pass. That is to say Philips has been to Norfolk Island and Owen has been to Easter Island. Philips knew the place before it was abandoned as a penal station, and he knew it extremely well, having spent—I believe Martin said a year, for it was to him that Philips spoke about the place—in any event a great while after the ship to which he belonged was wrecked. I forget her name: a frigate.'

   'That must have been the
Sirius
, Captain Hunt, heaved on to a coral reef by the swell in the year ninety, much as we were so very nearly heaved on to the rocks of Inaccessible on the way out. Lord, I have never been so terrified in my life. Was you not terrified, Stephen?'

   'I was not. I do not suppose there is my equal for courage in the service: but then, you recall, I was downstairs, playing chess with poor Fox, and knew nothing of it until we were delivered. But as I was saying, Martin was delighted to hear that the mutton-birds would be there by now. He loves a petrel even more than I do; and the mutton-bird, my dear, belongs to that interesting group. He very much hopes that we may go ashore.'

   'Certainly. I should be happy to oblige him, if landing is possible: sometimes the surf runs very high, by all accounts. I shall have a word with Philips; and I shall ask Owen to tell me all he knows about Easter Island. If this breeze holds, we should raise Mount Pitt on Norfolk tomorrow morning.'

   'I hope we shall be able to go ashore. Apart from anything else there is the famous Norfolk Island pine.'

   'Alas, I am afraid it was exploded years ago. The enormous great spars would not stand even a moderate strain.'

   'To be sure: I remember Mr Seppings reading us an excellent paper at Somerset House. But what I really meant was that so prodigious and curious a vegetable as the Norfolk pine may well harbour equally prodigious and curious beetles, as little known to the world in general as their host.'

   'Speaking of Martin,' said Jack, who did not give a pinch of snuff for beetles, however singular, 'I thought of him twice yesterday. Once because while I was going through the mass of estate-papers with Adams, trying to get them in some kind of order—they came from seven different lawyers after I had paid off my father's mortgages, and the children had tumbled them about to get at the stamps—he pointed out that I had three advowsons and part of a fourth, with the right of presenting every third turn. I wondered whether they would interest Martin.'

   'Are they of any value?'

   'I have no idea. When I was a boy, Parson Russell of Woolcombe kept his carriage; but then he had private means and he had married a wife with a handsome dowry. I have no notion of the others, except that the vicarage at Compton was a sad shabby little place. I went to sea when I was no bigger than Reade, you know, and hardly ever went back. I had hoped that Withers' general statement of the position would reach me in Sydney: that would give all the details, I am sure.'

   'What was the second circumstance that brought Martin to your mind?'

   'I was restringing my fiddle when it occurred to me that love of music and the ability to play well had nothing to do with character: neither here nor there, if you follow me. Martin's two Oxford friends, Standish and Paulton, were perfect examples. Standish played better than any amateur I had ever heard, but he was not really quite the thing, you know. I do not say that because he was perpetually seasick or because he ratted on us; nor do I mean he was wicked; but he was not quite the thing. Whereas John Paulton, who played even better, was the kind of man you could sail round the world with and never a harsh word or a wry look all the way. What astonished me is that Martin should have played with two such very capital hands and that neither should ever have persuaded him to tune somewhere near true pitch.' Jack regretted this fling against Stephen's friend as soon as it was out—it sounded malignant—and he quickly went on, 'And it is odd that they should both have become Papists.'

   'You find it odd that they should revert to the religion of their ancestors?'

   'Not at all,' cried Jack, feeling low. 'I only meant it as though there were an affinity between music and Rome.'

   'So we are to have divisions tomorrow,' said Stephen.

   'Yes. I was sorry to miss them last week. They have a good effect in pulling the crew together after a long run ashore, and they allow one to take the ship's pulse, as it were. The people have surely been behaving rather strangely, simpering, making antic gestures . . .'

   Jack's tone was that of enquiry, but Stephen, who knew perfectly well why the people were simpering and making antic gestures, only said 'I must remember to shave.'

The
Surprise
, in her present state, carried no Marines and a much smaller crew than a regular man-of-war of her rate—no landsmen, no boys, and very little in the way of gold lace and glory: but she did possess a drum, and at five bells in the forenoon watch, the ship being under a great spread of sail with the gentle, steady breeze one point free, the sky perfectly clear and Mount Pitt in Norfolk Island sharp on the horizon at twelve or thirteen leagues, West, the officer of the watch, said to Oakes, the mate of the watch, 'Beat to divisions.' Oakes turned to Pratt, a musically gifted seaman, and said, 'Beat to divisions,' whereupon Pratt brought his poised drumsticks down with a fine determination and the generale boomed and roared throughout the ship.

   This surprised no one: shirts and duck trousers had been washed on Friday, dried and prettied on Saturday; during the long breakfast of Sunday morning the word 'Clean to muster' had been passed, and in case anyone had not seized the message Mr Bulkeley the bosun had bawled down the hatches 'Do you hear there, fore and aft? Clean for muster at five bells.' While his mates, even louder, called 'D'ye hear there? Clean shirt and shave for muster at five bells.' Long before this the forenoon watch had brought up their clothes-bags and had stowed them in a hollow square on the quarter deck abaft the wheel, leaving a space over the companion to let daylight into the cabin; and at four bells the watch nominally below brought up theirs and made a pyramid of them on the booms before the boats, not without a good deal of jocular shoving and calling out, laughter and jokes about Mr O in the middle watch. It would never have done for the Royal Navy, and some of the old man-of-war's men tried to quieten their privateer shipmates: but by the time their officers had lined them up, and by the time each had reported his division 'present, properly dressed and clean, sir' to Pullings they really looked quite presentable, and Pullings was able, with a clear conscience, to turn to Captain Aubrey, take off his hat, and say 'All the officers have reported, sir.'

   'Then we will go round the ship, if you please,' replied Jack, and all fell mute.

   The first division was the afterguard, under Davidge, who saluted and fell in behind his captain. All hats flew off, the seamen stood as straight and as motionless as could be in the heavy swell, and Jack walked slowly along the line, looking attentively into the familiar faces. Most retained their ceremonial expression—Killick, standing there with his mouth set in disapproval, might never have seen him before—but in a few he thought he detected a look of something he could hardly name. Amusement? Knowingness? Cynicism? In any case a lack of the usual frank amiable vacuity.

   On to West—poor noseless West, a victim of the biting frost far south of the Horn—and his division, the waisters; and as Jack inspected them, so down in the sick-berth one of their number, an elderly seaman named Owen, absent from divisions because of illness, said 'And there I was on Easter Island, gentlemen, with the
Proby
clawing off the lee shore and me roaring and bawling to my shipmates not to desert me. But they were a hard-hearted set of buggers, and once they had scraped past the headland they put before the wind—never started a sheet until they crossed the Line, I swear. And did it profit them at all, gentlemen? No, sirs, it did not; for they was all murdered and scalped by Peechokee's people north of Nootka Sound, and their ship was burnt for the iron.'

   'How did the Easter Islanders use you?' asked Stephen.

   'Oh, pretty well, sir, on the whole; they are not an ill-natured crew, though much given to thieving: and I must admit they ate one another more than was quite right. I am not over-particular, but it makes you uneasy to be passed a man's hand. A slice of what might be anything, I don't say no, when sharp-set; but a hand fair turns your stomach. Howmsoever, we got along well enough. I spoke their language, after a fashion . . .'

   'How did that come about?' asked Martin.

   'Why, sir, it is like the language they speak in Otaheite and other islands, only not so genteel; like the Scotch.'

   'You are familiar with the Polynesian, I collect?' asked Stephen.

   'Anan, sir?'

   'The South Sea language.'

   'Bless you, sir, I have been in the Society Islands this many a time; and sailing on the fur-trade run so long, to north-west America, when we used to stretch across to the Sandwiches in the winter when trading was over, I grew quite used to their way of it too. Much the same in New Zealand.'

   'Anyone can speak South Seas,' said Philips, the next patient on the starboard side. 'I can speak South Seas. So can Brenton and Scroby and Old Chucks—anyone that has been in a South Seas whaler.'

   'And then I had a girl, and she helped me to a lot of their words. We lived in a house, built by the old uns a great while ago, and ruined, though our end was sound enough: it was a stone house shaped like a canoe, about a hundred foot long and twenty wide, with walls five foot thick.'

   'On Norfolk Island me and my mates cut down a pine two hundred and ten foot high and thirty round,' said Philips.

Captain Aubrey, accompanied by Mr Smith the gunner and Mr Reade, reached the end of the next division, made up of the captains of gun-crews, quarter-gunners, and the armourer; and as he looked attentively at the bearded Nehemiah Slade, the captain of the gun called
Sudden Death
, the ship, impelled by a freakish double crest, gave a great lee-lurch. Although Jack had been at sea from his boyhood, even his childhood, he could still be caught off balance, and now, while the gunners were all heaved back to leeward against the hammock-netting, he plunged into Slade's bosom.

   The general roar of honest mirth that followed this might account for the amusement in the next division, the fore-topmen, the youngest, brightest, most highly decorated members of the ship's company, who were led by Mr Oakes. Although he was a plain, thick-faced youth he was unusually popular; he was often drunk, always jolly, with a great flow of animal spirits; he never tyrannized nor did he report any sinner; and although he was no great seaman in the navigational or scientific way he would run up to the iron crosstrees with the best of them and there hang upside down.

'And then another wonderful thing about Easter Island,' said Owen, 'is what they call moles.'