The Wine-Dark Sea (20 page)

'When you speak of a passage,' said Geary, 'I presume the gentleman is not the usual indigent surgeon's mate?'

'Never in life. He is an Anglican clergyman with two livings; and he has done well in prize-money. If you were to look into the bay you would see two captured ships, a clearly-determined share of which belongs to him.'

'I say this only because our captain, a paragon of nautical virtue and of many others, is answerable to his owners, insatiable men who know nothing of charity or good-will. Yet since there is no question of either, why does not your patient sail in the Three Graces'? We have two empty state-rooms amidships; and she is a remarkably steady ship.'

'This is very precipitate, Francis Geary,' said Stephen.

'So it is,' replied Geary, 'but the voyage itself will be tranquil and deliberate: Captain Hill very rarely spreads royals; we are to touch at Iquique and Valparaiso and perhaps at another port in Chile - so many pauses for refreshment on shore - and we are to prepare ourselves at the entrance to the Magellan Straits at the very best time of the year for the eastward passage. Captain Hill does not choose to risk his owners' spars off the Horn: furthermore, he is an acknowledged expert on the intricate navigation of the channel - has threaded it again and again. It would be infinitely more suitable for a man in a delicate state of health. Will you not come with me and look at the ship?'

'If you please, sir,' said Jemmy Ducks, 'the tide is on the turn: which we ought to shove off directly.'

'Jemmy Ducks,' said Stephen, 'when you have drank a moderate dram, you shove off by yourself. I am going to walk to the dockyard to see the Liverpool ship.'

'My dear love to you, sir,' said Jemmy Ducks, lowering a quarter of a pint of Peruvian brandy without a wink, 'and my duty to the gentleman.'

As they walked back from the tall headland from which they had waved to the Three Graces for a great while as she sailed away into the south-west, Stephen, Padeen and the little girls were low in their spirits, mute. It was not that the tropical day was oppressive, for an agreeable breeze blew in from the sea, but the dry hard pale-yellow ground under foot had nothing whatsoever growing on it, no life of any kind, and the arid sterility had a saddening effect on minds already disappointed. The distance to their lofty cliff had been greater than they thought, their pace slower; the Liverpool ship was already clear of the coast by the time they got there, and even with Stephen's spy-glass they could not be sure they had seen Martin, though he had gone aboard with no more than a hand to help him over the gangway and had promised to sit there by the taffrail.

In silence they walked, therefore, with the ocean on their left and the Andes on their right, both admittedly majestic, indeed sublime, but perhaps beyond all human measure, at least to those who were sad, hungry and intolerably dry; and it was not until their stark plateau fell abruptly away, showing the green valley of the Rimac far below, with Lima apparently quite close at hand, sharply defined by its walls, and in the other direction Callao, the busy port, the dockyard and the exactly squared town, that they came to sudden cheerful life, calling out to one another 'There is Lima, there is Callao, there is the ship, poor thing' - for to their astonishment she was already in the yard, stripped to the gant-line and partially heaved down - 'And there," cried Sarah, pointing to the shipping along the mole, 'there is the Franklin's handmaiden.'

'You mean tender,' said Emily.

'Jemmy Ducks says handmaiden,' replied Sarah.

'Sir, sir,' cried Emily, 'she means the Alastor's big schooner-rigged launch, lying there next to the Mexico ship.'

'With the barky all sideways, will there ever be tea?' asked Padeen, with quite extraordinary fluency for him.

'There will certainly be tea,' said Stephen, and he stepped forward briskly to the path winding down the slope.

He was mistaken, however. The Surprise was in far too much of a hullaballoo for any form of quiet enjoyment. The word that she might be heaved down without waiting for her turn had reached Tom Pullings only after Stephen set out, and he and the carpenter and the only valid bosun's mate were already as busy as bees among the port's stores of copper, cordage, ship's timber and paint, with Jack's words 'Spend and spare not' in their ears when the launch appeared, sent in to carry out a large number of men for the short-handed Franklin.

'We had foreseen it, in course,' said Pullings, receiving Stephen on the sloping deck, 'The Captain would not have had enough people to send a prize in, else. But it came at an awkward moment, before we could arrange for a gang of dockyard mateys. As soon as I heard we could dock well before our time, I hauled alongside the Alastor and shifted all your things and the sick-berth into her: and then when we were in dock and barely half stripped, the launch brought her orders and everything had to be changed. She also brought a hand by the name of Fabien, who belonged to the Franklin and who helped Mr Martin when he was aboard; the Captain had meant to send him across before we parted company, but he forgot. Oh, Doctor," he cried, striking his forehead, 'here am I, forgetting likewise - when we were all ahoo a clergyman came aboard, the same that we saw on the way out; the gentleman very like the Captain, only rather darker. He had heard the Captain was wounded - was much concerned - enquired for you - said he would come again at noon tomorrow - begged for paper and ink and left you this note."

'Thank you, Tom," said Stephen. 'I shall read it aboard the Alastor. May I beg for a boat? And perhaps the man the Captain sent might come with us."

In the Alastor's great cabin, now thoroughly clean at last and smelling only of sea-water, tar and fresh paint - there had been a truly shocking carnage - Stephen sat drawing in sips of scalding tea, a drink he ordinarily despised, though not as much as he despised Grimshaw's coffee, but one that he found comforting after the high Peruvian desert; and as he did so he re-read the note.

My dear Sir,

When I came back from a retreat with Benedictines of Huangay last night I heard that the Surprise had put into Callao once more, and I had great hopes of news of you and of Captain Aubrey. But on sending to your agent in the morning it appeared that although he had indeed been aboard her he was now in the captured American privateer Franklin: at the same time to my consternation I learnt that he had been wounded in taking the infamous Alastor. I hurried down to the port at once where Captain Pullings reassured me to some degree and told me of your very welcome presence.

I propose therefore to do myself the honour of waiting on you at noon tomorrow, to assure you that I remain, dear Sir, your most humble, obliged, and obedient servant,

Sam Panda

Neither Jack nor Sam acknowledged the relationship in so many words but it was clearly understood by both, as it was by all those members of the crew who had first seen the younger man come aboard the Surprise in the West Indies: it was indeed obvious to anyone who saw them together, for Sam, borne by a Bantu girl after Jack had left the Cape station, was an ebony-black version of his father: somewhat larger, if anything. Yet there were differences. Jack Aubrey neither looked nor sounded sharply intelligent unless he were handling a ship, fighting a battle, or speaking of navigation: in fact he also possessed uncommon mathematical powers and had read papers on nutation to the Royal Society; but this did not appear in his ordinary conversation. Sam, on the other hand, had been brought up by singularly learned Irish missionaries; his command of languages, ancient and modern, did the Fathers infinite credit; and he had read voraciously. Stephen, a Catholic himself with a certain amount of influence in Rome, had procured him the dispensation necessary for a bastard to be ordained priest, and now Sam was doing remarkably well in the Church: it was said that he might soon become a prelate, not only because at present there were no black monsignori - some yellowish or quite dark brown, to be sure, but none of such a wholehearted gleaming black as Sam - but also because of his patristic learning and his exceptional and evident abilities.

'I look forward to seeing him,' said Stephen; and after a pause in which he drank yet another cup of tea, 'I believe I shall walk along the road to Lima and meet him half way. Who knows but what I may see a condor?' He hailed William Grimshaw, Killick's mate, who had been detached to look after him, in spite of the fact that Tom Pullings had a perfectly good steward of his own. 'William Grimshaw,' he said, 'pray desire the Franklin the Captain sent to step below.' And when the Franklin appeared, a tall, thin, nervous young man with receding hair, he went on, 'Fabien, sit down on that locker. I understand you were an apothecary's assistant in New Orleans - but first tell me which language you speak more readily.'

'They are much the same, sir,' said Fabien. 'I was apprenticed to a horse-leech in Charleston when I was a boy.'

'Very well. Now I understand you helped Mr Martin when he was aboard your ship.'

'Yes, sir. Since the surgeon and his mate were both killed I was all he could find.'

'But I am sure you were very useful to him, with your experience as an apothecary: indeed I seem to remember his mentioning you with commendation, before he grew so ill.'

'It did not amount to much, sir: most of my time in the shop I spent skinning or stuffing birds, or drawing them, or colouring plates. Yet I did learn to make up the usual prescriptions - blue and black draught - and I did help Monsieur Duvallier in his practice - just the simple things.'

'In New Orleans, is it customary for apothecaries to stuff birds?'

'No, sir. Some like to have rattlers in the window or a baby in spirits, but we were the only one with birds. Monsieur Duvallier had a school-friend who engraved them and he wanted to compete with him, so when he found me drawing a turkey-buzzard and then setting it up, he offered me a place.'

'The horse-leech's calling did not please you?'

'Well, sir, he had a daughter.'

'Ah.' Stephen made himself a ball of leaves and said, 'No doubt you were well acquainted with the birds of your country?'

'I read what I could find to read - Bartram, Pennant and Barton - but it did not amount to much; yet still and all,' -smiling - 'I reckon I had an egg and some feathers of every bird that nested within twenty miles of New Orleans or Charleston; and drawings of them.'

'That must have interested Mr Martin.'

Fabien's smile left him. 'They did at first, sir,' he said, 'but then he seemed not to care. The drawings were not very good, I guess. Monsieur Audubon took little notice of them - said they were not lively enough - and Monsieur Cuvier never answered when my master sent two or three he had touched up.'

'I should like to see some when we are at leisure; but at present I still have a few patients in the sick-berth. My engagements may take me away from the ship, and until I have made proper arrangements for them on shore I should like to leave a man aboard to whom I can send instructions. There are no longer any urgent cases: it is a matter of changing dressings and administering physic at stated intervals. I have an excellent loblolly-boy, but although he understands English quite well he speaks little, and all the less in that he has a severe stammer; and he can neither read nor write. On the other hand he has a great gift for nursing, and he is much loved by the people. I should add that he is enormously strong, and although mansuetude, although gentleness is written on his face, he is capable of terrible rage if he is provoked. To offend him, and thus to offend his friends, in a ship like this would be mortal folly. Come with me till I show you our sick-berth. There are only three amputations left, and they are in a very fair way, they will need dressing for a week or two more, and some physic and lotions written on a sheet with their times. You will meet Padeen there, and I am sure you will conciliate his good will.'

'I certainly shall, sir. Anything for a quiet life is my motto.'

'And yet you were in a privateer.'

'Yes, sir. I was running away from a young woman: the same as when I left the Charleston horse-leech.'

The road to Lima ran between great irrigated mud-walled fields of sugar-cane, cotton, alfalfa, Indian corn, and past carob-groves, with here and there bananas, oranges and lemons in all their variety; and where the sides of the valley rose, some distant vines. At times it followed the deep-cut bank of the Rimac, now a fine great roaring torrent from the snows that could be seen a great way off, and here were palms, strangely interspersed with fine great willows of a kind Stephen had not seen before. Few birds, apart from an elegant tern that patrolled the quieter side-pools of the river, and few flowers: this was the dry season of the year, and except where the innumerable irrigation-channels flowed nothing but a grey wiry grass was to be seen.

There was a good deal of traffic: casks and bales travelling up from the port or down to it in ox- or mule-drawn wagons that brought the Spain of his youth vividly to mind - the same high-crested yokes, the same crimson, brass-studded harness, the same ponderous creaking wheels. Some few horsemen, some people sitting on asses, more going by foot: short, strong Indians with grave or expressionless copper faces, sometimes bowed under enormous burdens; some rare Spaniards; many black Africans; and every possible combination of the three, together with additions from visiting ships. All these people called out a greeting as they passed, or told him that 'it was dry, dry, intolerably dry'; all except the Indians, who went by mute, unsmiling.

It was Stephen's custom, particularly when he was walking in a flat country, to turn his face to the zenith every furlong or so, in order not to miss birds soaring above the ordinary range of vision. When he had been walking for an hour he did this again after a longer pause than usual and to his infinite delight he saw no less than twelve condors wheeling and wheeling high in the pale sky between him and Lima. He walked a few paces more, sat on a mile-stone and fixed them with his pocket-glass. No possibility of error: enormous birds: not perhaps as wide as the wandering albatross but more massive by far- a different kind of flight, a different use of the air entirely. Perfect flight, perfect curves: never a movement of those great wings. Round and round, rising and falling, rising and rising still until at the top of their spiral they glided away in a long straight line towards the north-east.