Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

‘On the face of it,’ said Stephen, ‘I do not think you have. I feel extremely for your very great distress, but... no, I should have to summon more powers than I can call upon at present, to justify a war, even a war against a dictatorial system, an open denial of freedom; and I shall only say that I feel it must be fought. And since it has to be fought it is better that it should be fought, at least on one side, with what humanity war does allow, and by officers of your kind. I shall play the doctor so far as to send you a box of pills that will give you two nights’ heavy sleep. If, having slept, you wish to hear my reasons, I hope I shall have them fairly well arranged; and after that you must be your own physician.’

Chapter Three

That night the wind backed steadily until by two bells in the graveyard watch it was a little south of west, where it steadied, strengthened and carried them right through the Strait - no more piping of all hands every other glass or two, but a sweet passage to the Rock itself and their accustomed moorings.

Stephen and Jacob were heartily glad of it because three of their badly injured men had taken a serious turn for the worse: in one case a leg could no longer be saved, in another a resection was imperatively necessary, and in the third trephining on a solid table was preferable to the same operation on a moving deck. They and all but the slightly wounded men were taken to the hospital, where in any event more surgeons were called for, one of the immense cranes on the new mole having collapsed, very heavily loaded, on a gang of workmen.

They had finished, they had taken off their bloody aprons and they were washing their hands when a midshipman from the Surprise arrived with a note from the Commodore desiring them to come aboard at once.

It was a quiet, serious, hurried boat that carried them out, and the midshipman, young Adams, looked particularly grave: both surgeons were silent too - they were sadly worn - but Stephen did notice the Blue Peter at Surprise’s masthead and he did notice the curious, bedraggled appearance of the usually trim and more than trim Pomone, with yards all uneven, sails drooping, sagging in the breeze, rope-ends here and there. He had never seen a man-of-war look so desolate.

As they approached the pennant-ship they saw a captain’s barge at the starboard gangway and so pulled round to the other side. By the time Stephen reached the deck - a slow process, with no side-ropes - the officer had taken leave of the Commodore and his barge was shoving off.

‘There you are, Doctor,’ said Jack. ‘Come and take a draught. How are our people?’

‘The usual reply, I am afraid, my dear: “as well as can be expected”, after that cruel bucketing of going about in a heavy head-sea. But poor Thomas could not keep his leg. We had it off in a trice, with barely a moan.’

‘Well done. It will be a cook’s warrant for him, if I and my friends have any influence. I wish my news were as good. While you were in the hospital there was a shocking accident aboard Pomone. Most unhappily poor Hugh Pomfret was cleaning his pistols - we are ordered to sea directly - and by some wretched mischance one was loaded. It blew his brains out. Then the Admiral sent for me. He commended what the squadron had done very handsomely indeed and he will do us full justice in his dispatch, sending it by the same courier that brought him orders to send the squadron to sea immediately - the Ministry are much perturbed by the attitude of the Balkan Muslims. He was deeply concerned about Pomfret’s death; but he has a young man of his own at hand, John Vaux, who distinguished himself at the taking and above all the arming of the Diamond Rock in the year four and who should have been made post long ago - that was the man you saw leaving the quarterdeck when you came aboard. His barge will carry Pomfret’s body to the cemetery but our orders are so urgent that the Admiral and his staff will take care of the funeral. As soon as the barge is back we unmoor and proceed to Mahon, where we shall ship our Marines. Captain Vaux will already have Pomone out of mourning and shipshape - you have seen her yards all a-cockbill, I am sure, and her scandalized mizen? Very proper, of course, but horrible to see.’

The squadron had received no more damage than the bosuns and carpenters, with some help from the dockyard, could repair within the day; and by early evening, with the shattered gun aboard Surprise replaced, they took advantage of the kind north-wester to make sail for Mahon, where they would refit more thoroughly, take in stores, and above all learn the most recent intelligence from the Adriatic, the eastern Mediterranean and the convoys to be protected. By the time they had sunk the land, the full-topsail gale was so steady from the west-north-west that the ship was making ten knots and more, never touching a sheet or brace; and after retreat the smoking-circle formed in the galley, the only place where smoking was allowed.

Although most of the Surprises had sailed together long before this, there were many who preferred to chew their tobacco, there were some who liked fishing over the side, and there were some who were too bashful to attend; for this was not an assembly for just any boy, landman or ordinary seaman - not that there were many aboard - nor for those who were not at ease in conversation, particularly cheerful conversation, enlivened by anecdotes.

Yet this particular evening began in a positively lugubrious fashion. Mrs Skeeping, though professionally neat as a wren, contrived to trip over the cheese of wads that served as her chair and flung her fresh-filled boiling teapot into Joshua Simmons’ lap and bosom. She begged his pardon, mopped him more or less dry, hung his waistcoat in the ratlines and assured him with a laugh that now he was at least clean in places, while the waistcoat was as good as new: but Joshua Simmons - commonly known as Old Groan and tolerated only because he had served at the Nile with Jack Aubrey, under Nelson again at Copenhagen, and finally at Trafalgar - was not to be amused, nor comforted; no, nor mollified neither. After a while he said, ‘Well, this is a fine beginning - an unlucky squadron if ever there was one. Those bloody Indiamen never gave so much as a brass farthing between us, though we saved their lives and fortunes; and now there is this wicked self-murder in Pomone. How can there be any luck in such a commission? Which is doomed from the bleeding start.’

‘Balls,’ said Killick.

‘Now then, Preserved Killick,’ cried Maggie Cheal, the bosun’s wife’s sister, taking her short clay pipe from her mouth so that her words were mixed with smoke. ‘None of your coarse Seven Dials kind of talk, if you please, with ladies present.’

‘How do you know it was self-murder?’ asked the cook, jerking his chin at Simmons. ‘You was not there.’

‘No, I was not; but it stands to reason.’

‘Gammon,’ cried Killick. ‘If it had been self-murder he would have been buried at the crossroads with a stake through his heart. And was he buried at the crossroads with a stake through his heart? No, mates, he was not. He was buried in a Christian grave in the churchyard, with the words said over him by a parson, the Admiral in attendance, the union flag on his coffin, and a volley fired over him. So be damned to Old Groan and his bad luck.’

Simmons gave a bitter sniff, unpinned his waistcoat and walked off, deliberately feeling in its pockets and glancing back at his companions.

‘In any case,’ Killick went on, ‘even if he had done himself in a dozen times over, we have a gent aboard that brings in luck by wholesale. Luck? I never seen anything like it. He has a unicorn’s horn in his cabin, whole and entire - a unicorn’s horn as is proof against all poisons whatsoever, as some people know very well -, glancing at Poll, who nodded in a very emphatic and knowledgeable manner ‘- and which is worth ten times its own weight in guinea-gold. Ten times! Can you imagine it? And not only that, mates, not only that. He likewise has a Hand of Glory! There’s luck for you, I believe.’