Treason's Harbour (9 page)

She looked very far indeed from paltry. The broad brass ring surrounding the bell's glass top was over a yard across, and it gazed up at them like the eye of an enormous expectant cheerful simple-minded god: Jack returned its gaze with a sinking heart.

'It seems quite large, in that confined space,' said Stephen. 'But that is an optical illusion. When it is pulled up you will see that it is remarkably small.'

'Three foot six across the top, five foot across the bottom, eight foot deep,' said the master with great satisfaction. 'Holds nigh on sixty cubic foot, and weighs thirty-nine hundredweight odd pounds.'

Jack had meant to take his friend aside and tell him privately that it would not do; that the machine would be obliged to be set ashore or sent home; that Jack was tolerably fly, not having been born yesterday, and was not to be taken in by a fait accompli; but these very shocking figures so startled him that he cried 'God help us! Five foot across - eight foot high - close on two ton! How can you ever have supposed that room could be attempted to be made for such a monstrous thing on the deck of a frigate?' All around him the smiling faces turned grave and closed and he was aware of a strong current of moral disapproval: the Dromedaries were obviously on Stephen's side.

'To tell the truth,' said Stephen, 'I engaged for it when you had the Worcester.'

'But even in a seventy-four, where could it conceivably go?'

Stephen had thought that it might prove an acceptable ornament upon the poop, where it would be ready to be launched, or rather roused, over the side whenever the ship was not actively engaged.

'The poop, the poop...' began Jack; but this was no time for a description of the horrid effects of a wind-resistant two tons perched so far aft and so high above the centre of gravity, and he went on 'But there is no question of a ship of the line: we are speaking of a frigate, and a small frigate at that; and perhaps I may be permitted to observe, that no frigate yet built has ever had a poop.'

'Why, that being so,' said Stephen, 'what do you say to the convenient little space between the foremast and the front rail?'

'Two tons right over her forefoot, pressing on her narrow entry? It would make an angel gripe: it would cut two knots off her rate of sailing on a bowline. Besides, there is the mainstay, you know, and the downhauls; and how should I ever win my anchors? No, no, Doctor, I am sorry to say it will never do. I regret it; but had you spoken of it earlier, I should have advised against it directly; I should have told you at once that it would never do in a man-of-war, except perhaps in a first-rate, that might just find room for it on the skids.'

'It is Dr Halley's model,' said Stephen in a low voice.

'But on the other hand,' said Jack with an unconvincing cheerfulness, 'think what a boon it would be to a shore establishment! Lost cables, hawsers, anchors... and I am sure the port-admiral would lend you a broad-bottomed scow from time to time, to look at the bottom with.'

'For my part I shall always acknowledge a great debt to Dr Halley, whenever I take the altitude of a star,' said the master of the Dromedary.

'All mariners must be grateful to Dr Halley,' said his mate; and this seemed to be the general opinion aboard.

'Well, sir,' said the master, turning to Stephen with a most compassionate air, 'What am I to do with your poor bell - with poor Dr Halley's bell? Set it ashore as it stands, or take it to pieces and strike it down into the hold until you have considered in your mind? One or the other I must do to clear my hatchway, and double-quick, do you see, for the lighters will be putting off the moment the Clerk of the Cheque reaches Admiralty Creek. There he is, just by Edinburgh over there, nattering with* her skipper.'

'Pray take it to pieces, Captain, if that should not be too laborious,' said Stephen. 'I have some friends in Malta upon whose attachment I believe I can rely."

'No trouble at all, sir. A dozen bolts, and Bob's your uncle, if you will excuse the expression.'

'If it takes to pieces,' said Jack, 'the case is altered. If it takes to pieces it may come aboard and travel below, being put together on suitable occasions,during dead calms, or in port, or when the ship is lying to. I shall send my barge at once.'

'It is an odd thing,' he reflected as their dghaisa skimmed towards the dockyard, 'but if I had been standing on my own quarterdeck they would, never have presumed to prate about Dr Halley. I felt like Julian the Apostate in the midst of a bench of bishops - should have dismissed it out of hand aboard my own ship - authority very much a matter of place - meek in my father's house - most people are, I dare say.' Yet his own daughters were not outstandingly meek: he thought of their shrill bawling 'Oh Papa, Papa, do come on, Papa. We shall never get up the hill at this rate. Pray, Papa, do not be such a slug.' Early it would have been 'goddam slug', they having caught a free way of speaking from the seamen who formed part of the household, but since the last voyage or two Sophie had taken the matter in hand, and now girlish cries of 'infernal swab' or 'short-arsed cullion' were to be heard only in the remoter parts of Ashgrove wood.

'I wonder what Graham will give us,' said Stephen, speaking suddenly from the silence.

'Something good, I am sure,' said Jack, smiling. Professor Graham was known to be careful of his pennies, but those who called him parsimonious illiberal avaricious niggardly penurious near close or mean were mistaken, and when he gave a feast, in this case a farewell dinner to his former shipmates of the Worcester and the Surprise and to some friends and relations in the Highland regiments ? he did so very handsomely indeed.

'It will be strange if you do not get a spotted dog. He particularly asked me to tell him your favourite dishes.'

'I shall look forward to that', his voice rose effortlessly to an enormous volume as he called out 'Come athwart my hawse and I shall ride you down, you half-baked son of an Egyptian fart,' to a wool-gathering jolly-boat; and it echoed from either shore.

'But now I come to think of it,' he went on, 'I have a mind to pull over to the Edinburgh and borrow Dundas's launch. It is remarkably beamy, much more suitable than our barge and since he is lying in ten fathom water, much more suitable than Surprise's fetid puddle, I make no doubt he will clap a tackle on to your bell and give you a dip: though it might be as well to let a ship's boy or a midshipman go down first to make sure it works.'

'Professor Graham, sir, a good evening to you,' said Dr Maturin, walking into his colleague's room. 'I am come from walking on the bottom of the sea.'

'Aye,' said Graham, looking up from his papers. 'So I understand. They were watching you from the Baracca with perspective glasses, bubbling away in your inverted cauldron: Colonel Veale laid two and a half to one you would never corne up again.'

'I trust with all my heart he lost, the inhuman wretch.'

'Of course he did, since you are here,' said Graham impatiently. 'But you are being facetious again, no doubt. The bottom of the sea must have been a sad stinking muddy place, to judge from your shoes and stockings.'

'So it was too, a great stretch of yellowish-grey mud rippling away in that wonderfully strange light; but the annelids, my dear Graham, the annelids! Hundreds, nay thousands of annelids of at least six and thirty several kinds, some plumed and others plain. And wait until I tell you about my holothurians, my sea-slugs," my sea-cucumbers..."

'Cucumbers, aye,' said Graham, making a note; and at the first real pause he said, 'Just cast a wee glippet on this listie, and give me the benefit of your lights. I have settled the dinner pretty nearly to my satisfaction, but not the seating of my guests; as well as the sea-officers, with their own hierarchy, there are some Highland gentlemen coming, belonging to various clans, and I must take notice both of precedence within the clan and the precedence of the clans themselves, or there will be wigs on the green. Can you imagine a McWhirter giving place to any MacAlpine? For in an informal gathering of this kind mere army rank does not apply with us; though to be sure the officers of the Forty-Second are very unwilling to yield to those of any other Scotch regiment whatsoever.'

'You must number the chairs and let each man draw his number from a hat. You may pass this off with a graceful witty remark.'

'A graceful witty remark? Heuch. I wish it were all over.'

'Sure, you will like your dinner once you are well set to it,' said Stephen, looking at the bill of fare. 'What are bashed neeps?'

'Neeps hackit with balmagowry. It is not so much the dinner that I wish to be over and done with... no. It is the whole of it. I shall be glad to get home, to the quiet of my study and my lectures. I shall miss your company, Maturin, but apart from that I shall be glad to leave: I do not like the smell of Malta. From the point of view of intelligence, you understand. There are too many people at work and too many of them are poor loose-tongued clacking bodies. There are schemes for the Barbary Coast that I do not like at all; and when you consider Mchemet Ali's real sentiments with regard to the Sublime Porte, this Red Sea business seems but a dubious undertaking. There are many things I do not like at all." He paused, looking steadily at Maturin. 'Did you ever hear tell of a man named Lesueur, Andre Lesueur?' he asked.

Stephen considered. 'I connect the name with intelligence: with Thevenot's organization. But I know nothing about him and I have never seen him.'

'I saw him in Paris during the peace; one of our agents pointed him out. And I am almost certain I recognized him in the Strada Reale today, walking about as though he were at home, while you were in your boatie. I turned as discreetly as I could and tried to follow him, but the crowd was too thick.'

'What is he like?'

'A small pale man, narrow-shouldered, rather bowed, gloomy, black coat with cloth buttons, buff breeches: forty-five or thereabouts: the appearance of a man of business or a not inconsiderable merchant. Since you were not in the way and since I have my doubts about the discretion of the secretariat, I went straight to Mr Wray.'

'Ah? And what did he say?'

'He listened very attentively - he is a far more intelligent man than I had supposed - and he desired me to mention it to no one else. He is gathering all his threads to make a single, decisive coup de filet.'

'I wish he may succeed. I have the impression that the French are as well installed here in Malta as we were in Toulon in 1803: no movement of ships or troops or munitions but we knew within four and twenty hours.'

'I wish he may. But that will not do away with the rivalry between soldiers and sailors on the island, the divided counsels, the loose talk, and the perpetual coming and going of foreigners and discontented natives. Nor with the perhaps untimely zeal of the new Commander-in-Chief and his followers.'

'Maybe we shall know more of that, more of the whole situation, when he holds his conference. As no doubt you are aware, he has been signalled to the west of Gozo, and a change of wind might bring him in tomorrow or the next day.'

'I doubt it will tell us much. A meeting of this kind, with Sir Hildebrand and his soldiers present and with several of the members seeing one another for the first time is not likely to produce anything but platitudes. Who is going to pour out his heart on confidential matters before strangers, whatever their credentials? I am very sure Mr Wray will confine himself to generalities; and I shall say nothing whatsoever. I should say nothing even if it were not for the presence of that long-eared looby Figgins Pocock.'

Stephen was aware that Mr Pocock, a distinguished orientalist who accompanied Admiral Sir Francis Ives as adviser on Turkish and Arabic affairs, had disagreed with Professor Graham over an edition of Abulfeda, that each had written pamphlets, attaining a rare degree of personal abuse, and that this might colour Graham's view of the Commander-in-Chief's eastern policies; but even so he felt inclined to agree when Graham said 'The atmosphere in Valletta is most unhealthy: even if Mr Wray deals with the immediate situation, it is likely to remain most unhealthy, with divided authority at the top, ill will and rivalry at all levels, and fools in charge; and since as I understand it you are to remain a while, might you not do well to keep your distance, and mind your physic, your natural philosophy, and your bell?'

'I might indeed,' said Stephen, staring at his feet. 'But for the moment I must mind my shoes and stockings. I am bid to an elegant soiree, to Mrs Fielding's concert-party, and must go without further loss of time; yet I perceive that in drying they emit a most offensive smell. Do you think ihat by rubbing I might get them clean?'

'I doubt it,' said Graham, inspecting them more closely.

'There is an unctuous quality about the undried parts that precludes any such measure.'

'My coat I can shift, and even my shirt and stockings,' said Stephen. 'But these are my only good shoes.'

'You ought to have put on an old pair, if you wished to go a-diving,' said Professor Graham, who had not studied moral philosophy in vain. 'Or even half-boots. I should not be altogether unwilling to lend you a pair, although they have silver buckles; but they must necessarily be too big.'

'That is of no importance,' said Stephen. 'They can be stuffed with handkerchiefs, paper, lint. So long as the heels and toes press against a firm but yielding support the external dimensions of the shoe do not signify.'

'They were my grandsire's,' said Professor Graham, taking them from a cloth bag, 'and at that time it was usual for men to add a couple of inches to their stature by the means of cork heels.'

Stephen's 'cello, though bulky in its padded, sea-going sailcloth case, was not a heavy instrument, nor had he any shyness about carrying it through the public streets. It was not weight or embarrassment that made him pause and gasp and sit down on steps so often, but mere agony. His theory on the size of shoes was mistaken and it had proved to be so within a very short space of time, the evening being uncommonly warm, while his only clean, wearable stockings were made not of silk but of lamb's wool. His feet, already cramped by the unnatural heels, swelled in the course of the first two hundred yards, and began to chafe, blister, and grow raw even before he reached the crowded, cheerful Strada Vescovo. His staggering progress gave the impression that he was drunk, and a little group of whores and street boys kept him company, hoping eventually to profit from this state of affairs.