Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

Fortunately Mr Bates, whose talents would never have recommended him anywhere, had a thoroughly efficient master’s mate and yeoman of the signals: between them they whipped the flags from the locker, composed the hoist and ran it aloft. It had barely broken out before another intelligent young master’s mate, the recently-joined John Daniel, murmured to Mr Whewell, Surprise’s third lieutenant, ‘I beg pardon, sir, but Pomone is asking permission to fire a few rounds.’

Mr Whewell confirmed this with his telescope and the yeoman; then stepping across to Jack Aubrey he took off his hat and said, ‘Sir, if you please, Pomone requests permission to fire a few rounds.’

‘Reply As many as you can afford: but with reduced charges and abaft the beam.’

Captain Vaux was of a wealthy, open-handed family and he dreaded having the appearance of one who owed his early promotion to his connexions: he wanted his ship to be a fighting-machine as efficient as the Surprise, and if a few hundredweight of powder would advance her in that direction he was perfectly willing to pay for them, particularly as he could renew his supplies in Malta.

A few minutes after the Commodore’s signal, therefore, the gunfire began again, starting with single chasers, the occasional carronade, and then fairly regular broadsides that surrounded the frigate with a fine cloud of smoke - broadsides that grew perceptibly more regular as time went on.

The stabbing flame and the heart-shaking din of a great gun exercise of this kind nearly always spread cheerfulness and high spirits - the noise alone was exhilarating, and exhilaration has some affinity with joy. Yet although Pomone’s cannon roared and bellowed prodigiously, there was precious little joy aboard her near neighbour the Surprise.

Even after dinner (two pounds of fresh Minorcan beef a head) and dinner’s charming grog, and even after supper, the general gloom persisted. Killick’s misfortune was known to the last detail; the wretched boy’s capers were recounted again and again; and the dreadful fall, the shattering of the precious horn.

It was much the same the next day, and the next; and even when Mahon was far astern, beneath the western horizon from the main royal masthead, the squadron holding its course for Malta with a steady, gentle topgallant breeze on the starboard quarter.

No joy among the people of Surprise, for the luck had gone out of the ship together with the broken horn: for what could be expected of a broken horn, however expertly repaired? Many a time did the older hands mutter something about virginity, maidenhead; and this, with a melancholy shake of the head conveyed all that was to be conveyed. No joy among those of Pomone, either; for not only did their new skipper prove a right Tartar, keeping them at the great-gun exercise morning, noon and night, stopping the grog of a whole gun-crew for the least trifling mistake, but some of those badly hurt by recoil, powder-flash or rope-burn, had to be taken across to the pennant-ship, their own surgeon being so far gone with the double-pox that he did not choose to risk his hand on the delicate cases, and aboard Surprise the Pomones soon learnt what had happened. Nor among the Ringles, their captain having dined with the Commodore and his boat’s crew having spent the afternoon among their friends and cousins. No joy.

Yet the officer in command of the Surprise’s Royal Marines, Captain Hobden, had a long-legged, rangy, limping yellow dog, Naseby, whose mother had belonged to the horse-artillery and who absolutely delighted in the smell of powder, even that which came wafting faintly across from Pomone, the laborious Pomone. He was a friendly young creature, used to shipboard life and scrupulously clean, though somewhat given to theft: but he at least was thoroughly cheerful, the animal. He was fond of Marines and their familiar uniform, of course, but he also liked seamen; and as Captain Hobden was much given to playing the German flute (an abomination to dogs) while his other ranks spent their free time cleaning their weapons, polishing, brushing and pipeclaying their equipment, Naseby very soon found out the smoking-circle in the galley. It was not a very jovial, lively place at present, but they were kind to him and the women might give him a biscuit or even a piece of sugar; and in any case it was company.

‘Well, Naseby, here you are again,’ said Poll, when they were far and far from land, the stars beginning to prick. ‘At least it wasn’t you.’ She gave him an edge of cake and went on ‘...there they were, the Doctor and his mate, or rather the two doctors as I should say, stamping up and down in a horrid passion and uttering words which I shall not repeat them in mixed company, like a pair of mad lions.’

At this point Killick came in with an improbable pile of shirts in his arms, kept there by his pointed chin - linen to be aired in the galley when the fires were drawn. He had been washing, ironing and goffering (where appropriate) all Jack’s and Stephen’s shirts, neck-cloths, handkerchiefs, waistcoats, drawers and duck trousers, and polishing the great cabin’s silver to an unearthly brilliance in the hope of forgiveness: but from the great cabin to the galley and even to ship’s heads he was still looked upon with a sour, disappointed dislike: and none of the women, nor even the ship’s boys, called him Mr Killick any more.

But even in a pitch of distress that had cut his appetite, his pleasure in tobacco and his sleep, his intense curiosity lingered on and now he asked why the doctors were swearing so.

‘Well, Killick,’ said Poll Skeeping. ‘I am surprised you should not know, being it was your so-called Hand of Glory, that was to make us all so rich.’

‘Oh no,’ whispered Killick.

‘Oh yes,’ cried Poll, tossing her head. ‘As you know very well, the doctors kept it in a jar of double-refined spirits of wine so that it should stay fresh and clean: and what happened? I’ll tell you what happened, if you really need to be told. Some God-damned villain or villains had been drawing off the spirit and replacing it with water, so now it’s just bloody water and damn all else, while the Hand has grown gamy, like. It is all up with the finer tissues, but at least they have put it out to dry and they hope to draw the tendons and wire the bones together tomorrow evening.’

Alas for their hopes. When in one of their few free moments (Pomone’s working-up was proving quite exceptionally bloody; and a surprising crop of boils, disturbingly like the Aleppo button, had broken out in Surprise) the medical men approached the table next to a scuttle where the poor hand had been left to dry - indeed to desiccate - they found nothing but a very faint bloody trace, the wooden dissecting board and the print of a large dog’s right forefoot on the padded stool.

‘Your beautiful present utterly desecrated, deep in the maw of that vile mongrel’ - ‘All our work wasted,’ they cried, and they cursed the dog with extreme violence in Berber and Gaelic.

Stephen found Hobden in the gunroom, fingering his unlucky flute while the two off-duty lieutenants played backgammon. ‘Sir,’ he said, pale with anger, ‘I must have your dog. He has stolen my preserved hand and I must either open him or exhibit a powerful emetic before it is too late.’

‘How do you know it was my dog? There are all the ship’s cats, thieves to a man.’

‘Come with me to the galley and I will show you.’

Naseby was indeed in the galley, comfortably installed among the women, who started up. Stephen seized the dog, raised his deeply-scarred right fore-paw, showed it to Hobden and said, ‘There’s your proof.’

‘You never stole anything, did you, Naseby?’ asked Hobden. Naseby was a clever dog: he could find a hare and do all sorts of things like counting up to eight beUs and opening a latched door; but he could not lie. Perfectly aware of the accusation, he drooped ears and body, licked his lips and confessed total guilt.