Patrick O'Brian - The Commodore

'Even in two and a half feet they could barely sit upright, let alone stand.'

'No, sir. And it is often less.'

'How many might there be, at all?'

'Broadly speaking, as many as they can cram in. The usual reckoning is three for every ton the ship gauges, so the Elkins, that I was in, could stow five hundred, she being a hundred and seventy ton; and that may answer for a quick passage. But there are some that force them in so tight that if one man moves all must move; and then unless there are leading winds most of the way, the result is terrible.'

'When are they let out?'

'Never at all when they are within swimming distance of the land; at sea, by groups in the daytime.'

'What of cleanliness by night?'

'There is none, sir; none whatsoever. Some ships turn a hose on the filth and man the pumps in the forenoon watch, and some make the negroes clean up and then wash on deck - they are all stark naked - with vinegar in the water; but even so a slaver stinks a mile and more to leeward.'

'Surely,' said Stephen, 'with such filth, such crowding in such foul air and this heat, surely disease must ensue?'

'Yes, sir, it does. Even if the blacks have not suffered very much when they are captured and then marched down to the coast and kept in the barracoon, and even if they don't have to sit waiting cooped up on the slave-deck for a week or so until the cargo is completed, the flux very often starts the third or fourth day, about the time the sea-sickness stops, and then they generally start dying: sometimes, it seems, of mere misery. Even in a reasonably careful ship where they whipped the slaves that would not eat and made them run about the deck for the air and exercise, I have known twenty a day go over the side, a week out from Whydah. It is not reckoned extraordinary if a third of the cargo is lost.'

'Do no intelligent masters calculate that a more humane policy might be more profitable? After all, a stout negro fetches from forty to sixty pounds at the auction block.'

'There are a few, sir: men that pride themselves on presenting prime stock, as they put it. Some even have fattening farms, with medical care. But most find it don't answer. The profits, even with a third loss, are so great now the trade is illegal, that they think it best to cram full every time, whatever the risk; and there is always the chance of a fair wind out of the Bight and a quick and healthy run.'

'What kind of vessels are they are present?' asked Jack.

'Well, sir, after the passing of the act abolishing the trade and the coming of the preventive squadron, most of the ships gave up. There are a few fast-sailing brigs on the Bahia or Rio voyage from the Bight - I say nothing about the old-fashioned Portuguese south of the line, because they are protected - but most of the slavers now are schooners, faster on a wind and more weatherly, from quite small craft up to the new threehundred-ton Baltimore clippers, sailing under Spanish colours, often false, with a more or less American crew and a master that says he is a Spaniard, the Spaniards not being subject to our law. But now, since the preventive squadron was withdrawn, some of the old hands have come back, patching up their old ships, more or less, and making the Havana run. They usually know the coast very well, and the chiefs, and sometimes they run in where a stranger would not dare to go. Yet the larger craft have to load through the surf by canoes in many places. It is all inshore work on a very low coast all the way down to the Bight of Biafra, mangrove swamps and mud for hundreds of miles and mosquitoes so thick you can hardly breathe, particularly in the rainy season: though every now and then there are inlets, little gaps in the forest if you know where to look, and that is where the smaller schooners go, sometimes taking a full cargo aboard in a day.'

'Do you know the whole of the Coast, Mr Whewell?' asked Jack.

'I should not say I was a pilot for the country between Cape Lopez and Benguela, sir, but I am pretty well acquainted with the rest.'

'Then let us look at this general chart, and work down from the north. I should like you to give me a rough idea of local conditions, currents, breezes of course, active markets and so on. Then another day, with Captain Pullings, the master, and my secretary to take notes, we will go over it all more thoroughly. Now here is Sierra Leone and Freetown... Doctor,' he called, 'you are very welcome to stay, if you choose; but I must warn you that from now on our discussion is likely to be purely nautical, dull work for a landsman.'

'What makes you think that I resemble a landsman, Commodore, I beg? I am salted to the bone; a pickled herring. But, however' - looking at his watch - 'my sickberth calls me. Good day to you, Mr Whewell. One day I hope you will have time to tell me a little of the West African mammals: I believe there are no less than three species of pangolin.'

The next day was that of the Commodore's dinner to his captains, a day rendered wearisome beyond expression for those who lived aft by the incessant, ill-tempered and querulous activity of the Commodore's steward, Preserved Killick, his mate Grimble, the Commodore's and Captain's cooks, and as many hands as they could press into their service to turn out, scrub, swab, polish, replace and arrange with a truly forbidding rigour, the whole accompanied by a high-pitched nagging stream of abuse and complaint that drove Jack on to the quarterdeck, where once again he showed the youngsters the right way of handling a sextant and examined the midshipmen's berth on their knowledge of the chief navigational stars, and Stephen to the orlop, where he read through his assistants' notes until he was interrupted by a ship's boy who told him that the Stately's surgeon had called to see him.

Mr Giffard and Stephen were fairly well acquainted - well enough, in any case, for Giffard's initial embarrassment to persuade Stephen that this was not an ordinary visit nor a request for the loan of a carboy of Venice treacle or a hundredweight of portable soup and some lint. And indeed, after a tedious discussion of the trade wind, Giffard asked whether they might talk privately. Stephen led him back to the orlop, to his little cabin, and there Giffard said, 'This may be considered a proper subject for two medical men, I trust: I think I betray no confidences or offend against professional discretion when I say that our captain is a paederast, that he calls young foremast hands into his cabin by night, and that the officers are much concerned, since these youths are much favoured, which in time will destroy discipline altogether. It is already much loosened, but they hesitate to take any official action, which must necessarily result in ignominious hanging and throw great discredit on the ship; and they hope that a private word to the Commodore would have the desired effect. A medical man, a friend, and an old shipmate...' His voice died away.

'I will not pretend to misunderstand you,' said Stephen, 'but I must tell you that I abhor an informer very much more than I abhor a sodomite: if indeed I can be said to abhor a sodomite qua sodomite at all: one has but to think of Achilles and hundreds more. It is true that in our society such connexions are out of place in a man-of-war... yet you adduce nothing but probabilities. Is a man's reputation to be blasted on a mere statement of probabilities, and they at secondhand?'

'There is the good of the service,' said Giffard.

'Very true...' said Stephen, breaking off to call out 'Come In.'

'Please sir,' said a ship's boy, 'Mr Killick says ain't you ever going to come and try your frilled shirt? Which he has been standing there with it in his hand this half glass and more.'

'Mary and Joseph,' cried Stephen, clapping his hand to where his warning watch should have been had he not left it in the quarter-gallery. 'Mr Giffard, sir, I beg you will forgive me - may I wait upon you when I have considered?'