Patrick O'Brian - The Commodore

'Of the Gormanston family. I must tell you about their manner of death one day. Pray go on.'

'D'Arcy Preston succeeded him for a short while, and then Nelson, commodore at the time, appointed Henry Hotham, a right taut disciplinarian, for the Blanche was still in wretched bad order. Indeed, the people were so far gone in disobedience and loving their ease that they would not receive him. They said he was a damned Tartar and would neither receive him nor hear his commission read: they pointed the forecastle guns aft and turned him out of the ship. Eventually Nelson himself came over, bringing Hotham with him: he told the Blanche's people that they had the best name of any frigate's crew in the Navy - they had taken two heavier frigates in fair fight - and were they now going to rebel? If Captain Hotham used them ill, they were to write him a letter and he would support them. On this they gave three cheers and returned to their duty, while he went back to his ship, leaving Hotham in command. But it did not last: as a crew they were beyond recall, the rot had gone so deep; and as soon as they reached Portsmouth they petitioned to be given another captain or another ship.'

'Were they indulged in either?'

'Of course not. They would have been scattered among any number of short-handed ships. As for our case, or what looks something like our case, I shall advise with James Wood when we reach Freetown, and see what can be done by a thorough

shake-up and perhaps some more transfers. But for now let us have another glass of wine - the port stands up wonderfully well in this heat, don't you find? - and go back to our Boccherini.'

They did so; but Jack played indifferently - his heart was no longer in the music, and Stephen wondered how he could have been so heavy, knowing his friend's devotion to the service, as to raise the subject in spite of his own misgivings. He consoled himself with the reflexion that salt water washes all away, that another hundred miles of this perfect sailing would raise Jack's spirits, and that Freetown would see his difficulties resolved.

Freetown on a fine clear afternoon, the immense harbour dotted with ships belonging to the Royal Navy and some Guineamen, who began saluting Commodore Aubrey's pennant with seamanlike promptitude. The Ringle had been sent ahead of the squadron, carrying word to the Governor? and as soon as the Bellona was comfortably anchored and the whole squadron trim, with yards squared by lifts and braces, Jack, followed by his subordinate commanders, went ashore in style to wait upon his Excellency number one uniform, presentation sword, gold-laced hat, Nile medal for as soon as the ship had made his number Government House had thrown out the signal inviting him and his captains to dinner. The Bellona's barge was a fine spectacle, new painted, pulled by as neat a set of bargemen as any in the fleet, most of them Jack's followers from ship to ship, and steered by Bonden, grave, conscious of the occasion, in exactly the same rig as Tom Allen, Nelson's coxswain, whom he resembled, with Mr Wetherby beside him, an infant from the gunroom, who had to be shown how to deal with such ceremonies.

The Bellona's barge (it was in fact her launch, but being rowed by bargemen and acting as a barge, it assumed the somewhat grander name) pulled fourteen oars, and when these fourteen men were not wholly taken up with the exact regularity of their stroke they looked aft with a certain disapproval: their surgeon and his man had come for the ride, and they let the side down - shabby, unbrushed, and carrying an old green umbrella, badly furled. 'Why that idle sod Killick ever let him out looking like George-a-Green, I cannot tell,' whispered bow oar.

'Never mind,' replied his mate out of the side of his mouth.

'He ain't going to the palace.'

He and Square were in fact going to the market-place to seek out Houmouzios at the earliest possible opportunity and then to hurry over the swamp, there to sit under his umbrella, contemplating the long-legged wading birds - even perhaps the fishing vulture - with his perspective-glass; and he was strangely dashed when, on coming to the money-changer's stall, they found only Socrates, who said that Mr Houmouzios was gone on a journey into the interior, but would be back on Friday.

Stephen was strangely dashed, strangely put about; but having considered for a while he told Square to go and rejoice with his family and walked slowly off in the direction of the fetid swamp, much reduced in this dry season, but still fetid, still a swamp, and with the birds concentrated in a smaller area. And what might he not hope for? Adanson had worked extremely hard, but he had been farther to the north, on the banks of the Senegal; and even Adanson had not turned every egg.

'Doctor, Doctor!' they cried, hallooing far behind.

'They are calling for a doctor, the creatures,' he reflected. 'Don't they wish they may find one? Does the chanting goshawk come so far south, I wonder?'

'Doctor, doctor!' they called, hoarse with running, and at last he stopped.

'The Commodore says pray come directly,' gasped a midshipman. 'His Excellency invites you to dinner.'

'My compliments and thanks to his Excellency,' said Stephen, 'but regret I am unable to accept.' He moved on towards the fetid swamp.

'Come, sir, that won't do,' said a tall sergeant. 'You will be getting us into cruel trouble. Which we have orders to escort you back, and we shall be brought to the triangle and flogged, else. Come sir, if you please.'

Stephen looked at the three breathless but determined master's mates, the powerful Marine, and gave in.

'My dear sir,' cried the Governor, 'I beg you will overlook the short notice, the unceremonious invitation, but the last time you were here I did not have the pleasure, the honour, of meeting you; and when my wife heard that Dr Maturin, Dr Stephen Maturin, had been in Sierra Leone without dining here she was infinitely distressed, desolated, quite put out.

Allow me to introduce you.' He led Stephen up to a very good-looking young woman, tall, fair, agreeably plump, smil ing at him with the utmost benevolence.

'I ask your pardon, ma'am, for appearing before you in this squalid...'

'Not in the very least,' she cried, taking both his hands. 'You are covered, covered with laurels. I am Edward Heatherleigh's sister, and I have read all your lovely books and papers, includ ing your address to the Institut, which Monsieur Cuvier sent over to Edward.'

Edward Heatherleigh, a very shy young man, a naturalist and a member (though rarely seen) of the Royal Society, with a moderate estate in the north of England, where he lived as quietly as possible with this sister, both of them collecting, botanizing, drawing, dissecting, and above all comparing. They had articulated skeletons of all the British mammals, and Edward had told Stephen, one of his few intimates, that she knew bones far better than he did - she was unbeatable on bats. This passed through or rather appeared in his mind so rapidly that there was no measurable pause before his reply of 'Miss Christine! I am delighted to see you, ma'am; and now I do not mind my squalor in the least.'

Captain James Wood, the Governor, possessed a maiden sister who had looked after much of his official entertaining before his marriage, which was just as well; for although Mrs Governor kept remembering her duty, and doing it, few sailors could engage her real attention when a famous natural philosopher was by.

'You must certainly come tomorrow,' she said as they parted, 'and I will show you my garden and my creatures - I have a chanting goshawk and a brush-tailed porcupine! And perhaps you might like to see my bones.'

'Nothing could possibly give me greater pleasure,' said Stephen, pressing her hand. 'And perhaps we might walk by the swamp.'