Patrick O'Brian - The Truelove

'But ain't you going to stay dinner?' cried Jack.

'Sir, I regret it exceedingly; nothing would have given me greater pleasure,' said M'Mullen. 'But alas my hands are tied.'

'Well,' said Jack, and called 'Killick. Killick there.'

'Which I'm just behind your chair,' said Killick.

'Then pass the word for Mr Oakes,' said Jack, with a look that meant 'Tell him not to look too squalid, for the honour of the ship.'

The moment Mr M'Mullen had left the cabin with Oakes, Tom Pullings came in and said 'Sir, the officers and men are very urgent with me to beg you will open the mail.'

'No more urgent than I am, Tom,' said Jack, hurrying out on to the half deck, where there stood a surprising heap of boxes, chests and bags. With no pleasure Jack recognized the bulk of it as legal papers in corded legal trunks: he heaved them to one side and seized the undoubted mail-sacks. He broke the seals, emptied the contents on to the broad, wide stern-window locker, and hurrying through them for Sophie's well-known hand he called for his clerk. 'Mr Adams,' he said, 'pray sort these for me, will you. Those for the lower deck may go forward at once.'

He carried his own little heap and the official packet away to his sleeping-cabin: there he opened the waxed sailcloth first from a sense of duty; as he had expected it contained three large Admiralty enclosures for Stephen together with a cover from the Governor - compliments, no doubt - and then he laid them all aside for his letters from home. Dear Sophie had at last learnt to number her envelopes, so he was able to read them in order; and this he did with a happy smile set on his face and his soul ten thousand miles away, watching his son's progress in Latin under the Reverend Mr Beales and in horsemanship under his cousin Diana (a female centaur), and his daughters' in history, geography and French under Miss O'Mara, in dancing, drawing and deportment at Mrs Hawker's establishment in Portsmouth, progress all more or less supported by notes in their own hands, proving that they were now at least partially literate. But the smile abruptly left his face when he came to a later reference to Diana, to their cousin Diana, Stephen's wife. Sophie had always been most unwilling to say anything disagreeable about anyone, and when it came to her cousin the adverse criticism was so hedged about, qualified and softened that its meaning was not at all easy to catch. Something was amiss, but a second reading did not make it clear and he had no time for a third before Oakes knocked at the door and said 'If you please, sir, Mr M'Mullen wishes to take his leave.'

'Thank you, Mr Oakes: pray let the bosun know.' Jack came on deck and found M'Mullen poised to go, the Eclair lying to within pistol-shot.

'I thank you very heartily indeed, sir,' he said, 'and give you joy of the finest sixth-rate I have ever seen, finer even than my father told me.'

They parted on the kindest terms: the cutter put before the wind and spread her wings. When last seen she was setting topgallant studdingsails, tearing away to a young woman in the suburbs of Sydney. But long before this Jack had returned to the great cabin, followed by all the officers, and when he had handed round their post he said 'Gentlemen: although Mr Oakes may leave us at the next convenient port in South America, since the Surprise carries no wives, in the meantime he remains a midshipman and must be treated by all hands with the respect due to anyone who walks the quarterdeck. The same of course applies to Mrs Oakes. I intend inviting them to dinner and I look forward to the pleasure of your company.'

They all bowed, said they would be charmed, delighted, very happy, and hurried off to read their letters. Jack, having passed the massive enclosures to Stephen, went back to his sleeping cabin; and he was about to return to Ashgrove Cottage and this question of Diana when the Governor's envelope, addressed to Captain Aubrey, Royal Navy, MP, FRS, etc. etc., struck him as larger than usual for even very flowery compliments.

Yes, indeed. These were orders, wholly official and direct; and like most orders they left the door ajar, so that the man who carried them out could be blamed for either closing or opening it. There had been trouble in Moahu, an island to the south of the Sandwich group: British ships had been detained and British mariners misused. It appeared that there was a war in progress between the queen of the southern part and a rival from the north: Captain Aubrey would proceed to Moahu without a moment's loss of time and take appropriate measures to secure the release of the ships and their crews. It appeared that the forces were evenly balanced. The presence of His Majesty's ship would no doubt decide the issue. On mature consideration Captain Aubrey would decide which side was the more likely to acknowledge British sovereignty and receive a resident counsellor with an adequate guard, and he would bring his influence to bear in favour of that side: it was desirable that there should be only one ruler for Government to deal with. Although any unnecessary bloodshed was to be deprecated, if moral force proved insufficient to induce compliance, Captain Aubrey would consider other arguments. Moahu was of course British, Captain Cook having taken possession of the archipelago in 1779; and Captain Aubrey would bear in mind the importance of the island as a base for the fur-trade between north-west America and Canton on the one hand and for a potentially far more important commerce with Korea and Japan on the other. He would also reflect upon the benefits likely to accrue to the inhabitants from British protection, a settled administration... superstition, barbarous customs, undesirable practices... medical instruction... enlightenment... missionary stations... commercial development. Jack's eye skimmed over the usual set piece at the end, but he did notice that it had been written in haste and that although the variation about the end justifying the means had been thought better of, there had been no time to write the whole afresh and the words had been attempted to be scratched out, which gave them a ghostly emphasis.

Moahu. Jack walked into the great cabin, to the chart table, and having pored over it he returned to the quarterdeck and said 'Mr Davidge, we will alter course, if you please: north-north-east. Spritsail and spritsail topsail; the staysails I need not name.'

The guests - there were only seven of them - gathered in the coach, normally Stephen's sleeping-cabin when he did not prefer to go down to his little booth opening off the gunroom and at all times his study, but now tweaked and scrubbed into the likeness of an ante-room; and when Stephen himself appeared Martin said to him 'I am so sorry about Easter Island.'

'So am I,' said Stephen. 'I was vexed to the heart when first the Captain told me, but now I count it as just one more disappointment in a radically miserable life; and I console myself that the ornithology of these new islands has barely been touched upon. I understand that Moahu is no great way from Hawaii, which is known to possess a wide variety of honeysuckers and even a gallinule with a scarlet forehead.'

'Yes. And presently you will also have the consolation of seeing Mrs Oakes in the remarkable scarlet gown I told you about.'

The door opened, but no scarlet gown appeared. The blue cotton that protected Jack's bolt of silk had been transformed by Heaven knows what ingenuity and pains into a dress that looked very well with a seaman's black shore-going Barcelona handkerchief worn over it as a fichu. Jack stepped forward to welcome Mrs Oakes and her husband, and in due course he led her, followed by all the rest, into the great cabin: it was more than usually splendid, for although the long table, ablaze with silver, was laid for eight, and they spread well apart, there was still a great deal of space on every hand, a space filled with the sun reflected from the wake and the dancing sea, vivid and full of life, flooding in through the stern sash-lights, a range of windows running across the whole width, a fourth and inwardly slanting wall of bright glass panes that made the cabin the most beautiful room in the world. Clarissa Oakes looked about her with evident pleasure, but she said nothing as he sat her on his right hand and the other chairs began to fill: Davidge was opposite her and Reade was on her right with Martin over against him. Tom Pullings was of course at the foot of the table with Oakes on his right hand and Stephen on his left. There were few seamen servants and no red-coated Marines, only Killick behind Jack's chair and his mates to carry dishes and bottles, Padeen behind Stephen's, and a young foretopman each for Pullings and Davidge, but the scene had a seamanlike grandeur in which a twelve-pounder on either side did not look at all out of place.