Patrick O'Brian - The Truelove

East-north-east the frigate sailed, rarely exceeding a hundred miles a day between noon and noon in spite of perpetual close attention to her great array of canvas; but on a Sunday, immediately after church, the south-east trades returned to their duty, and although the royals and flying kites had been taken in, the Surprise awoke to a life she had not known since leaving Sydney Cove. Her deck sloped, she leant her larboard bow well down, overtaking the swell and splitting it with a fine broad slash of white. All the tones of the rigging - quite different for the various sets of stays, shrouds and backstays and of course for all the cordage - rose and rose, and by the first dog-watch the resultant voice of all these sounds combined and sent forth by the hull reached the triumphant pitch that Stephen associated with ten knots. The wind, blowing under a sky beautifully mottled with white and an even purer blue, brought with it flying spray, and an uncommon freshness. At two bells the log was heaved and to his intense satisfaction Stephen heard Oakes report 'Ten knots and one fathom, sir, if you please.'

The satisfaction was general. All hands loved to feel their ship running fast, with this urgent heave and thrust and the water bubbling loud along her side, the bow-wave hollowing out amidships to show her copper. It was not quite the weather for dancing on the forecastle, but they stood all along the weather rail, smiling and looking pleased.

Clarissa Oakes shared in the Surprise's cheerfulness. The awning had been struck long since, but she sat there, her seat made fast to the taffrail, her hair, apart from some flying wisps, done up in a handkerchief and her rather pale face showing much more colour than usual. She was alone for once and Stephen walked over to ask her how she did. 'Very well, sir, I thank you,' she said, and then 'I am glad you are come: I had almost made up my mind to send you a note asking if I might consult you. But perhaps female disorders lie far outside the purview of a naval surgeon?'

'In the nature of things he has little to do with them. But I am also a physician and therefore omniscient. I should be happy to be of service whenever you are at leisure - now, if you choose, whilst we have light and there is time before my evening rounds. Perhaps your husband would like to be present?'

'Oh no,' she said, getting up. 'Shall we go?' And as they passed the binnacle she called 'Billy, the Doctor is so good as to take me now.'

'How very kind of him,' replied Oakes, smiling gratefully at Stephen.

'As for place,' said Stephen on the companion-ladder, 'the sick-bay is clearly out of the question; and female disorders being what they so often are, your own cabin would hardly provide light enough, while in this heat lanterns are most disagreeable. My cabin has much to be said for it, but it wants privacy: every word uttered there may be heard on deck - I do not suggest any deliberate eavesdropping on the part of my shipmates, but the fact is there: within a yard of the skylight stands the helmsman - sometimes two helmsmen - and the quartermaster, to name only the foremast hands.'

'Perhaps we might speak French?' suggested Clarissa. 'I am reasonably fluent.'

'Very well,' said Stephen, opening the door for her and bolting it against intrusion.

'By the way,' she said, pausing with her hand on the fastening of her dress, 'it is true even at sea, is it not, that medical men never talk about their patients?'

'It is true for officers and their wives; but where the hands are concerned there are some diseases that have to be recorded. Where I am consulted personally I speak to no one, not even my assistant or a specialist, without the patient's consent. The same applies to Mr Martin.'

'Oh what a relief,' said Mrs Oakes, and as she slipped off her dress Stephen observed that she now possessed a pair of drawers, made of number ten sailcloth, so windworn and sunbleached as to be almost as soft as cambric, a gift no doubt from the sailmaker, whose perquisite it was - she was very popular among the foremast hands, whose gaze followed her with a fond longing.

At the end of his examination he said 'I think I may assert without much fear of error that your notion of pregnancy is quite mistaken. And I am obliged to add, that the likelihood of any such state is exceedingly remote.'

'Oh what a relief!' cried Mrs Oakes again, but with much greater emphasis. 'Mr Redfern told me that; but he was only a surgeon, and I am so glad to have his words confirmed by higher authority. I cannot tell you what a curse it is to have hanging over one's head. Anyhow, I loathe children.'

'All children?'

'Oh of course there are some dear little creatures, so pretty and affectionate; but I had rather have a pack of baboons in the house than the usual little boy or girl.'

'Sure, there are few amiable baboons. Now I shall send you some physic to be taken every night before retiring, and next month you will come to see me again.'

This conversation was carried on in French, perfectly current on either side, with a slight English accent on Clarissa's and a southern intonation on Stephen's; and no sooner was it finished and the patient gone than Martin walked in. If he had chosen his moment with care he could hardly have given a better proof of the rarity of places for private talk in a man-of-war, for having a confidential matter that he wished to discuss with his friend before their evening duties he said, in Latin, that he would have suggested their climbing to the mizen-top, tertii in tabulatum mali, if there had not been such a wind blowing - nodi decem - that he was afraid to make the ascent; besides, there were papers that might blow away.

He spoke lightly but it was clear to Stephen that he was much agitated. 'Captain Aubrey has just made me the very generous offer of two livings that are in his gift. I know he spoke to you of the matter, but as you may have forgotten the details I have brought them' - passing the sheets - 'As he observed himself, from the worldly point of view neither is at all desirable, but he suggested that the two combined, with a curate looking after the smaller, might answer tolerably well. On the other hand, he added, I might prefer to wait for Yarell, whose present incumbent, a valetudinarian of over seventy, lives in Bath. This page deals with Yarell. And finally, in the kindest way, he told me to turn the matter over in my mind for as long as I pleased. This I have been doing ever since, but I am still undecided. At first I was delighted with the idea of Yarell, which would eventually enable me to do my duty by my family handsomely and which for the immediate future would allow me to devote a few more years to this delightful rambling. It must be admitted that Fenny Horkell, with half a mile of both banks of the Test, was wonderfully tempting; but since I am totally opposed to non-residence I could not possibly hold the remote Up Hellions at the same time; and without Up Hellions, Fenny could barely maintain its parson. The big parsonage was built by a man with ample private means some forty years ago.'

'Il faut que le pretre vive de I'autel, say the French," observed Stephen, thinking of the Martin he had first known, who would have been radiant with joy at the prospect of a benefice of any kind, of a living more modest by far than Up Hellions or even Fenny: but of course he was a bachelor then.

'Very true,' said Martin. 'So there I was, quite happy in my mind about Yarell, when all at once it occurred to me that although Captain Aubrey's prime motive was no doubt to do me a kindness and I honour him for it, there may also have been the wish to set me firmly ashore, to dispose of me by land. For some time, as you know, I have been aware that the Captain does not very cordially like my presence, and alas in the gunroom I have begun to see what it means to be shut up with a man you cannot stand, for months and months, seeing him every day for an indefinite period. It therefore appears to me that I should accept Up Hellions and take myself off as quickly as I can, as soon as this voyage is over. Do you not agree? I should have said earlier that it seemed to me Yarell was mentioned only in passing, as an afterthought.'