Patrick O'Brian - The Truelove

Stephen was surprised. He had never heard Martin make such an unreserved and almost licentious observation: perhaps he was now more a medical man than a parson. And perhaps, Stephen reflected as they rolled their pills and Padeen wound the bandages, this was one of the effects of bringing a woman into a celibate community. He was no chemist, but some of his friends were and he had seen a Swedish savant let a single catalysing drop fall into a clear untroubled liquid that instantly grew turbid, separated, and threw down fire-red crystals.

'Come,' said Martin. 'We must not be too late. There are to be great doings on the forecastle. Jack's Alive and hornpipes, of course, and some of the old dances, like Cuckolds All Awry and An Old Man's a Bed Full of Bones. We used to dance them when I was at school.'

'What could be more suitable?' said Stephen.

The Surprise had always been a tuneful ship and much given to dancing, but never to such a degree as this evening, when the crowded forecastle saw the ranks of country-dancers advance, retreat and caper in perfect time despite the swell, while fiddles, horns, Jew's harps and fifes played with barely a pause on the bitts and even perched on the windward cathead. Hornpipes, with several dancing at once, each encouraged by his own division; jigs; the strange evolutions of the Orkney-men, and their rhythmic howls.

'They are enjoying themselves, sir,' said Pullings.

'Let them gather their peasecods while they may,' said Jack. 'Old Monday he's a-dying. They will have a ducking before we muster the watch.' They both glanced up through the cloud of sails at the thickening sky - barely a star showing through. 'But I am just as glad of it. That damned cutter will throw up another blue light in a minute, but we shall not be able to see this one either.'

Indeed, as the current hornpipe was ending in feats of extraordinary agility, two faint blue glows appeared far astern, but the third, completing the conventional signal, could not be made out at all.

'Even so,' said Jack, 'let us keep all standing at eight bells. That fellow is sure to shorten sail for the night: he is not cracking on hot-foot after some thumping great prize. Two escaped convicts without a penny on their heads are not a thumping great prize.'

'He might be after promotion, sir.'

'Very true. But taking two very small absconders would not win him a ha'porth of promotion, whereas cracking on, being brought by the lee and limping home under a jury-rig would certainly earn him some very bitter words indeed, naval stores being what they are in Sydney. No. With topgallants and royals we shall draw so far away from him in the night that I do not believe even promotion would bring him on, supposing there were any. But in any event I am morally certain that in an hour's time he will put down his helm and steer for the north side of the island.' Jack paused, sniffing the air, taking in the whole vast series of strains and stresses acting on the ship. 'Yet with such a top-hamper and the possibility of thick weather ..." A double flash of lightning startled the dancers and a first swathe of warm rain untuned the fiddle-strings. '... I should like you to take the middle watch.'

It was rare that Captain Aubrey misjudged a naval situation, but at first dawn the next day the thump of a distant gun drew him from his sleep and a moment later Reade appeared in the twilight by his cot. 'Captain Pullings' duty, sir, and the cutter is half a mile on our starboard beam. She has thrown out a signal and fired a leeward gun; and she is lowering down a boat.'

'What does the signal say, Mr Reade?'

'We have not been able to make out the hoist yet, sir, the light being so indifferent, but we think governor and dispatch is part of it.'

On deck a somewhat drawn Pullings said 'I am sorry to pull you out of your bed so soon after you turned in, sir, but there you are. She never reduced sail any more than we did: she cracked on to make all sneer again, and she must have crossed our wake about four bells.'

'There is nothing to be done about it. Prepare to receive boarders as civilly as we can. Flog the gangway and preddy the deck as far as possible. I shall put on a uniform. Mr Reade, you will have to change those filthy trousers. They seem to be whipping an extraordinary number of objects over the side,' he added, from the head of the companion-ladder. Below he roused Stephen Maturin and said 'You may call me Jack Pudding if you choose, but that cutter is alongside and I must receive her captain. I shall invite him to breakfast. If you join us, pray do not forget to shave and put on a shirt, a good coat and your wig. Killick will bring hot water.' He then roared for his steward: 'Uniform: tell my cook to prepare a breakfast fit for visitors and to stand by in case they stay dinner. Pass the word for Bonden.' And to Bonden, privately, 'Stow Padeen.' Both Jack and Bonden had had a great deal of experience in pressing hands out of merchantmen, hands hidden, often enough, with wonderful ingenuity; and they were confident that no one, unless he were allowed to fumigate the ship with sulphur, could discover their hiding-place.

The boat came slowly across, taking care to row dry with so many packages aboard, and presently a lieutenant, followed by a midshipman, came aboard to the wail of bosun's calls. He saluted the quarterdeck, which returned the salute, and advanced with his hat tucked under his arm and a waxed-sailcloth packet held in his left hand. 'Captain Aubrey, sir?' he said. 'I am M'Mullen, commanding the Eclair, and I have been honoured with orders from His Excellency to deliver this to you personally.'

'Thank you, Mr M'Mullen,' said Jack, taking the official packet with due gravity and shaking M'Mullen's hand.

'And then, sir, I have a quantity of mail for Surprise that came in two ships, one after another, just after you sailed.'

'That will be very welcome to all hands, I am sure,' said Jack. 'Mr West, pray have it brought aboard. I hope, sir, that you will breakfast with me?'

'I should be delighted, sir,' said M'Mullen, whose red round young face, hitherto solemn and official, now beamed out like the sun.

'And Mr West,' said Jack, looking at the Eclairs long-legged midshipman on the gangway, 'I am sure the gunroom will look after the young gentleman and see that the boat's crew have all they want.'

In the cabin M'Mullen looked about him with the keenest attention, and on being introduced to Stephen shook his hand long and hard, and in the course of breakfast he said 'I had always longed to be aboard the Surprise, and to meet her surgeon, for my father, John M'Mullen, held the appointment in ninety-nine.'

'The year of the Hermione?'

'Yes, sir; and he told me about it in such detail that it seemed almost like Troy, with all the people and the places on the heroic scale.'

'Mr M'Mullen will correct me if I am mistaken,' said Stephen, 'but I can think of no more concentrated heroism in the Iliad. After all, the Greeks had ten years in which to accomplish their feats: the Surprises in 1799 had not as many hours.'

'I should be the last to contradict Dr Maturin,' said M'Mullen. 'For not only do I abound in his sense, but my father has always mentioned him with the greatest respect. He told me, sir, that he looked upon your Diseases of Seamen as the most luminous, perspicuous book on the subject he had ever read.'

'He flatters me far beyond my deserts,' said Stephen. 'May I help you to a slice of bacon, sir, and a double-yolked, delicately browned egg?'

'You are very good, sir,' said M'Mullen, holding out his plate: and when he had emptied it he said to Jack, 'Captain Aubrey, sir, may I beg you to indulge me? I have undertaken to sail for the mainland in half an hour; and if I might spend those minutes in running about the ship with a midshipman - tops, fighting-quarters and so on - and in looking at the sick-berth for my father's sake, it would make me extremely happy.'