Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

Jack turned his glass on the Bellona, where they were already well on the way to getting the barge over the side -an arduous business, perfectly unnecessary as far as carrying Mr Aubrey to the flagship was concerned, but of the first importance to Captain Aubrey, to the custom of the sea, to the pride of the Bellonas, in their ship and to their concern for their commander's dignity. They were nearly all thoroughly established seamen - often hereditary seamen -and they liked things done proper, particularly in this case, for well over half had served with Jack before, either in the last commission or in other ships entirely: he was a taut captain but very well liked, a capital seaman, much given to battle and above all exceptionally lucky in prize-money (his present legal difficulties affected only himself, not the hands in any way at all, nor the officers). 'Yes, I think so,' he said, and gave orders to gather the fore-sheet aft, gently lessening the tender's pace.

Hurrying below, Stephen found Bonden half in and half out of his formal rig as captain's coxswain. 'Good day, now, Barrett Bonden,' he said. 'Take off that neckcloth; come here under the skylight and let me see your wound. How do you feel within yourself?'

'Tolerably, sir, tolerable, I thank you kindly,' said Bonden, sitting on the stool and submitting his poor head to have the bandages removed. Stephen gazed down at the scalp, quite hairless now, and at the still-angry wound: he pondered, weighing the possibilities. 'That was a cruel unlucky throw,' he said.

'It was indeed, sir. I fair cherished that tail, the finest in the fleet.' Bonden felt behind his neck, where the plait had hung so thick. 'Fair cherished it. But I came home by weeping cross, as they say. It gave me one more wrinkle in my arse, however: which is to the good, no doubt.'

'Do you feel capable of taking the barge across to the flag, Barrett Bonden?'

'Of course I do, sir. What, let the Captain wait upon the Admiral without his coxswain? Never in life.'

'Then I will dress the place again, and you pray cover it with your wig,' said Stephen, nodding towards a shaggy pale yellow object run up aboard from well-combed tow: and while he was busy with his ointment and bandage he said, 'Will you tell me about the wrinkles in your arse?'

The relations between Bonden and Stephen, always close since their first voyage together, when Stephen had taught the coxswain to read quite fluently, had grown closer during this course of treatment and now Bonden spoke with a greater freedom, often using the rakish and even licentious cant expressions of his youth in the London streets and of his prize-fighting days - a familiarity that thoroughly displeased Killick, who thought the terms low, ignorant, disrespectful.

'Why, sir, in Seven Dials everyone knows that each time you learn something new, your arse takes on another wrinkle: well, in the Dripping Pan I learnt that it is better to be as bald as a coot than risk such a fall and such a cruel loss. That's what I learnt, and it was worth the wrinkle.'

Stephen finished the dressing. The tender hooked on to the Bellona's larboard afterchains just as the bosun's pipe guided the barge evenly down to the water on the leeward side and the bargemen - blue jackets, duck trousers, broad-brimmed ribboned hats - ran down into it, joined by Bonden.

Jenkins, the jobbing captain, left the ship with little ceremony after a few minutes of conversation with Jack: Mr Harding, the Bellona's first lieutenant, reported a signal for the Doctor, and Jack, having first urged Stephen to venture the descent before him, ran down and took his seat in the stern-sheets.

Five minutes later the long slim twelve-oared boat reached the flagship's starboard mainchains, and this time Jack was received with all the honours due to a post-captain, the bosun and his mate winding their calls, white-gloved sideboys running down to offer entering-ropes, the Charlotte's Marines presenting arms as he came aboard, and, the moment he had saluted the quarterdeck, her captain, John Morton, advanced to welcome him, to ask him how he did, and to lead him to the Admiral.

Stephen's coming aboard, though less ceremonious, was also less discreditable than some of his old shipmates had feared. Even before Captain Aubrey was out of sight Bonden murmured, 'Right away, Bob: on the roll,' to young Robert Cobbald, a wiry, nimble young man rowing stroke, who stepped across the void, gave Stephen a hand, swung him up a few steps, writhed behind and so ran him up to the entering-port without disgrace.

The Charlotte's lieutenant of the watch and her surgeon greeted him, and to the latter, after the usual civilities, Stephen said, 'Mr Sherman, I rejoice to see you again. I have been reading your paper on the larvae of calliphora with the utmost interest; and apart from that I have a case upon which I should like your opinion.'

'Come with me, dear colleague, and let us drink a glass of madeira while I tell you about my treatment.' He led Stephen to the wardroom, but on seeing some officers playing backgammon he withdrew, saying, 'Perhaps my cabin, such as it is, would be better. There is so much childish prejudice against what are vulgarly known as maggots, even among the educated, that the people in there would look upon us with dislike during my explanation: they might even protest.'

'Pray how do you introduce your larvae into the wound?' asked Stephen when they were sitting in the little cabin. 'I know that Larrey began by simply leaving it open, having first ensured the presence of blow-flies by hanging decayed meat in the ward: but this of course was by land.'

'I encourage my assistants to keep a fair stock,' said Sherman. 'We usually isolate the eggs or the very small larvae, and in appropriate cases we sew them into the wound, leaving a little ventilation, naturally. The result in a really ugly suppurating lacerated wound is sometimes extraordinarily gratifying: I have known gangrenous legs that any surgeon would have amputated without a second thought become perfectly clean and perfectly whole after little more than a month. How I wish I had a few cases to show you: but I am afraid we have seen no action for a great while.'

'Do you experience much resistance to the treatment -reluctance to submit?'

'Tact is called for: even an economy with literal truth and ugly names. But where the hands are concerned we can always fall back on discipline. However, you were speaking of a case that does not quite satisfy you?'

'To be sure. A profound stertorous coma, resolved after some days: no apparent fracture of the skull, but recently I have seemed to detect a slight crepitation: and there is a change in behaviour and vocabulary that strikes one who knows the patient well. At times I feel there may be a certain aberration, and I should be grateful for the opinion of one who has studied the naval mind so much longer than I have done - of the author of the Mental Health of Seamen.'

In the great cabin the Admiral half-rose from his desk, gave Jack a hand and said, 'Well, Aubrey, here you are at last. Good morning to you.'

'Good morning to you, my lord. I trust I see you well?'

'Oh, as for that...' said the Admiral. 'Sit down, Aubrey, and tell me how you come to be so infernally late.'

'Why, sir, I regret it extremely, but by the time your orders reached Woolcombe I had already left on my way to London. I did not receive them until I came back, when I set out directly, boarding the tender in Torbay.'

The Admiral gave him a long, considering look. 'You was going to the House, I collect?'

'Yes, sir. I had to attend a committee deciding on a petition for the inclosure of a common.'

'Simmon's Lea? The common in which my nephew Griffiths is interested? It seems to me very suitable for inclosure. I told him so. I advised him to proceed.'