Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

A shocked silence, but for the even song of the ship.

‘What’s a Hand of Glory?’ asked a nervous voice.

‘Why, you lemon: don’t you even know what a Hand of Glory is? Well, I’ll tell you. It is one of the hangman’s prime perquisites.’

‘What’s a perquisite?’

‘Don’t you know what a.. . ? You’re ignorant, is all. Dead ignorant.’

A voice, ‘The same as vails.’

Another, ‘Advantages on the side, like.’

‘There is the rope, of course. He can get half a crown an inch for a rope that hanged a right willain. And there are the clothes, bought by them that think a pair of pissed and shitten breeches...’

‘Now then, Killick,’ cried Poll, ‘this ain’t one of your Wapping ale-houses or knocking-kens, so clap a stopper over that kind of talk. “Soiled linen” is what you mean.’

are worth a guinea, for the sake of the luck they bring. But most of all it is the Hand of Glory that makes the hangman so eager for the work. Because why? Because it too is worth its weight in gold... well, in silver.’

‘What’s a Hand of Glory?’ asked the nervous voice.

‘Which it is the hand that did the deed - ripped the young girl up or slit the old gentleman’s throat - and that the hangman cuts off and holds up. And our Doctor has one in a jar which he keeps secret in the cabin and looks at by night with his mate, talking very low.’

The uneasy silence was broken by a hail from the forecastle lookout: ‘Land, ho. Land fine on the starboard bow.’

It was the island of Alboran, almost exactly where it ought to be but slightly earlier than Jack had expected. He altered course a trifle and stood straight on for Mahon.

There were some rather dull sailers in Jack Aubrey’s squadron, and it was not until Tuesday afternoon that they rounded Ayre Island, standing for Cape Mola and the narrow entrance, with the breeze just before the beam and the larboard tacks aboard.

The Commodore knew Port Mahon intimately well and he took the lead, beginning his salute at exactly the right distance from the great batteries and sailing on until the port-captain’s boat hailed him, desiring him to take up his old moorings with the others astern of him.

‘How very little it has changed,’ he said, gazing about with lively pleasure as they glided down the long, long inlet and raising his voice to carry above the prodigious reverberations of the fort’s reply, echoing from shore to shore.

‘It is even finer than I had remembered,’ said Stephen.

On, past the lazaretto, past the hospital island: but now the warm breeze, meeting the flank of La Mola, hauled aft, blowing so gently that even with topgallants abroad the squadron took just over an hour to reach the moorings at the far end of the port, just under the steep-pitched town and a cable’s length from the wharf, where the Pigtail Steps ran down from the main square, sailing all the way under a pure sky, intensely blue at the zenith and passing through imperceptible gradations to a soft lapis lazuli just above the land.

It was as beautiful a run, or rather a living glide, as could be imagined. Ordinarily the northern side of the great harbour was somewhat harsh, even forbidding, but now in the very height of Mediterranean spring it was green, countless varieties of green, all young and delightful - even the grim scrub-oak looked happy. And if they turned to contemplate the much nearer, much more cultivated land to larboard, there were orange-groves, with the round-topped, exactly spaced little trees like the most charming embroidery imaginable; and from them wafted the scent of blossom - fruit and blossom on the tree together.

They did not speak, except to point out a known house or inn or once, on Stephen’s part, an Eleonora’s falcon, until they were very near the man-of-war’s end of the great wharf, when Jack, exchanging a happy smile with Stephen, said to the master, ‘Let us moor ship, Mr Woodbine.’

‘Aye-aye, sir,’ said Woodbine, and he roared to the bosun, just at hand, ‘All hands to moor ship.’

The bosun and his mates repeated the order louder still, emphasizing it with an extraordinarily shrill piping, as though the entire ship’s company had not been poised for the exercise ever since the mooring buoys were seen - a roaring and piping repeated right down the squadron’s line and even aboard the little Ringle, a biscuit-toss to leeward.

‘We will furl in a body, if you please, Mr Woodbine: and let us square by the lifts and braces.’

Meeting Bonden’s questioning look, Jack nodded, and said to Stephen, ‘I hope you will accompany me? I must pay my respects to the Spanish commandant.’ It was known throughout the Surprise - always had been known - that the Doctor spoke foreign to a remarkable extent, and was always called upon to do the civil thing in case of need: today he was to present the Commodore’s ceremonial compliment to the senior officer who represented his country’s sovereignty, a purely nominal sovereignty at present, since with the full agreement of her Spanish ally, Great Britain’s Royal Navy carried on with the unrestricted use of the great naval base.

While his barge was lowering down, Jack lingered on the quarterdeck, watching the other ships as they too furled in a body and squared their yards. It was toilsome, but it did look trim; and, he hoped, would to some extent redeem the slowness of his passage.

‘Now, sir,’ said Killick at his side, ‘all is laid along, together with your presentation sword. But, sir,’ - lowering his voice - ‘the Doctor can’t go ashore in that there rig. Which it would bring discredit on the barky.’

Stephen was in fact wearing an old black frock-coat in which he had obviously been either operating or dissecting without an apron; and although late last night Killick had privately taken his shirt and neck-cloth from beside his cot, the Doctor had obviously found where they were stowed.

Some years before this, the Sick and Hurt Board had ordained a special uniform for surgeons, a blue cloth coat with blue cloth lapels, cuffs and embroidered collar, three buttons on cuffs and pockets, white lining, white cloth waistcoat and breeches: the garments existed, they having been made by the naval tailor who had always looked after Jack, but Stephen had doggedly resisted hints that he should wear them, even when the gunroom gave a ceremonial dinner to welcome Mr Candish, their new purser.

Now, however, Jack’s argument that for the sake of the Adriatic cruise and all that it entailed they must both look like grave, responsible beings, after their call on the Spaniard, when they waited upon Admiral Fanshawe, his secretary and his political adviser, good relations being of the first importance - an argument that was expressed with great earnestness - overcame Stephen’s reluctance, and they both went over the side soberly magnificent.

‘Lord,’ said Jack, pausing for breath at’the top of the Pigtail Steps, ‘I must get back to my way of running up to the masthead at least once every morning. I am growing old, unsound in wind and limb.’

‘You are growing obese: or rather you have grown obese. You eat far too much. I particularly noticed the shameless way you indulged in the soused pig’s face at our feast to welcome Mr Candish.’

‘I did so deliberately, to encourage him. He is somewhat bashful, though he is a very fine fellow. I am delighted to have him: though how Mr Smith ever came to propose him, I cannot tell.’

‘When the convoy’s captains came aboard there was a certain lack of candles, as you may recall.’

‘Well, what of it?’

‘And perhaps Mr Smith may have heard one of our sailors call out “if only we had a real purser, there would not be all this Bedlam running about and shouting every single time we want a bloody dip”. And one of the Indiamen’s officers asked “What, ain’t you got a real purser?”