Patrick O'Brian - Blue at the Mizzen

'Thank God,' said Whewell: and several hands within hearing distance nodded with grave satisfaction.

Even before he had begun to think of himself as part of the Navy (and that, because of strange but extensive areas of physical, mental and spiritual incompetence had been a very long period ) - even before his acceptance of a life as gregarious as that of the honey-bee, Stephen Maturin had had a respect for the service and a kind of puzzled affection for sailors, particularly when they were aboard their own ships, those extraordinary hollow dwellings, sometimes as beautiful as they were comfortless. But never had he been so impressed as he was now, when a war-battered vessel, not a full day away from her bloody victory, produced and lowered down a trim, spotless cutter at no more than three words from the officer and two notes from the bosun's pipe, stepped her mast and sent a boy running up the side to guide him down into the stern-sheets, the cushioned stern-sheets.

'Where away, sir, if you please?' asked the coxswain.

'The Lisbon packet - but tell me, how is your William?' 'Well, sir, he copped it good and hearty, something cruel; but Dr. Jacob hopes to save the leg. Mind your head, sir: we are going about.'

The Isaac Newton's master altered course to close the cutter and within a few minutes Stephen was aboard, clutching his bosom with maniac force lest the papers that had cost so much and that carried so much should escape during his frog-like progress over the gap between the cutter and the packet: he was safe, but he gasped for a while before handing the wrapper to Dobson, his very old friend and, as an entomologist, a familiar of Sir Joseph Banks. Then, though he very earnestly wished them on their way - particularly Sclater and his friend, who were to traverse the isthmus and take ship at Chagres on the Atlantic coast - he received their very hearty congratulations and gave them a brief account of the action, as far as it could be made out from the surgeons' station in the cockpit.

Back aboard the frigate Stephen went straight below to his invalids: Jack, of course, was still asleep, and would be for a good while yet, if poppy and hellebore retained any virtue, but what was much more to the point was that his face had recovered a little something of its youth and happiness -at least it was no longer mortally stricken - while his shoulder, though an undeniably hideous bruise, showed no signs of infection, nor yet did his leg, which was distinctly less swollen. Stephen remembered how once he had spoken of Captain Aubrey's power 'of healing like a young dog'; but under the influence of a certain piety or perhaps of mere sea-borne superstition he brushed the thought aside and hurried into the sick-bay to confer with Jacob, Poll and Maggie - satisfactory upon the whole - and so on to the cabin, where he threw himself into the composition of his letter to the Chilean authorities with great zeal and conviction.

** *

'A very fine letter indeed, dear colleague,' said Jacob. 'Even if I could suggest any change, which I cannot, since it seems to me that you have summed up the situation admirably well, insisting upon the imminence of the Peruvian invasion, the urgency of the Director Supremo's request and the wholehearted support of your political advisers. But even if I could suggest any changes, I say, I should not, because I know how you long to send Ringle away to Valparaiso, and any recopying for the sake, let us say, of a mere subjunctive, would fret your spirit intolerably. Let us seal the letter, direct it to San Martin, and send it off without the loss of a minute.'

'What a good creature you are, Amos,' said Stephen, shaking his hand. 'Pray warm the wax.' And a few minutes later he said, 'Mr. Harding, the Captain is still fast asleep. In his condition, sleep, quietness and rest are of the very first importance and I should be most unwilling to disturb him. Yet the news of the victory should reach Valparaiso as soon as possible, and I am willing to take the fullest responsibility for desiring you to put a letter addressed to the Chilean authorities there aboard Ringle and directing Mr. Reade to deliver it as soon as ever he can.'

'The letter is of course agreed between you and the Captain?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then I shall make Ringle's number at once.'

It was a joy to see the schooner come swiftly, smoothly under Surprise's lee, the stiff breeze being in the west-northwest, pick up the message, repeat the orders, and pelt away southwards under such a press of canvas that she was hull-down before Stephen left the deck.

By all accounts the reception of the news in Valparaiso had been ecstatic - music and dancing all day and all night, speeches, more speeches, heroic drinking on the part of the Royal Navy and some Indians from the inland parts, widespread allegations of unchastity. But the beautiful west winds that Jack Aubrey had so often praised as being perfect for the Strait of Magellan and that had indeed brought Ringle down at such a pace, often touching fifteen knots watch after watch, soon turned foul: dead foul. When they were trying to beat round Cape Angamos the prize lost her mizzen with its top and everything above, which delayed them horribly.

Still, they did arrive to a fair amount of popular enthusiasm, to official speeches by the score, and of course to splendid dinners: and it was while he was preparing for one of these, said to be the last before Carrera's departure, that Jack's ill-temper, his invalid's ill-temper, worried Stephen extremely, as the possible sign of a late-developing complication from one or other of his wounds. He had been extremely active, getting up long before Stephen and Amos thought wise, and throwing himself into the repair of Esmeralda, the refurbishing of O'Higgins and Lindsay's Asp, and the fitting-out of the little squadron of sloops in which he and some of his officers trained the abler young Chileans, a singularly agreeable band. This time he meant to take them on at least part of his surveying of the Chonos Archipelago; but that depended very much on how his plans for the evening went.

Extremely active, and now he was extremely tired, as well as somewhat irritable, not to say cross-grained: he was much thinner, he walked with a stick, and he was more snappish than his oldest shipmates could remember. 'I do wish you would stop pressing the God-damned place,' he said to Stephen, who was dressing the leg again before he put his breeches on. 'It is hellish tender..." He checked himself. Stephen took no notice: he was wholly intent upon searching for proof of the deep infection that he dreaded and that he had seen before in just such a wound; but finding neither confirmation nor disproof he bound up the gash again, whipping the bandage round and crosswise with a wonderful dexterity. 'I could not do that,' said Jack when it was finished. 'Thank you very much. I am sorry I called out just now. You are a forgiving creature, Stephen... I am afraid I need a good deal of forgiving these days, you know. Of course, I am out of sorts, in spite of our battle, with many good men lost, old shipmates, and the frigate so knocked about. But what really worries me, Stephen, is the discontent. The hands have not been paid: the prize-money has not been shared out: and the men will not be able to afford a sailor's pleasure, and you know what that is as well as I do - indeed almost certainly better, from the sick-berth. They know it is dangerous, but they do love it, and if they cannot have it they grow chuff, rough and - pushed too far, downright mutinous.'

'I know very well what you mean.'

'You do, do you?' asked Jack, looking at him intently but asking no questions. 'Yes: and the other officers have seen signs of it. If we were well-found and at sea, I should not worry, but we are likely to be ashore, off and on, for a fair while; and Jack ashore is often an ass. Apart from anything else he can desert: furthermore, as well as many well-tried old shipmates we have some right hard men aboard. We are all right for stores for the next few weeks, and I have told Adams to hand out two dollars a head: but when stores and dollars are gone...'