Patrick O'Brian - The Nutmeg of Consolation

Stephen went to sleep again. When he woke Bonden was still pulling with the same steady rhythm, but the sun rising behind them had burnt off all the hazy vapours, the smooth sea was a most delicate united blue and Jack Aubrey was staring right ahead through the brilliance with extreme concentration.

'There she lays,' he observed, noticing Stephen's movement; and Stephen, following his gaze, saw an island with a wharf, and alongside the wharf the hull or body of a dull brown ship, rather small.

'Oh,' he cried, before his wits were quite returned, 'it has no masts.'

'What sweet, sweet lines,' said Jack, and in a parenthesis to Stephen, 'She will be towed to the sheer-hulk in a day or two - there we'll find masts in God's plenty. Did you ever see sweeter, Bonden?'

'Never, sir: barring Surprise, in course.'

'The boat ahoy,' came the hail.

'Diane,' replied Bonden in a voice of brass.

The acting deputy-assistant-master-attendant received the Captain of the Diane with what formality his working-party of four would allow, but the ceremony was wrecked by a vehement and indeed shrewish yell from below 'John, if you don't come this directly minute your eggs will be hard and your bacon all burned.'

'Pray go along and take your breakfast, sir,' said Jack. 'I can find my way about perfectly well. His Excellency gave me her plans last night.'

She was in fact perfectly familiar from his last night's studies, yet as he led Stephen up and down the ladders, along the decks and into the holds he kept exclaiming 'Oh what a sweet little ship! What a sweet little ship!' And when they were on the forecastle again, looking back towards Batavia, he said 'Never mind the paintwork, Stephen; never mind the masts; a few weeks' work in the yard will provide all that. But only a brilliant hand with noble wood at his command - you saw those perfect hanging knees? - could produce such a little masterpiece as this.' He considered for a while, smiling, and then said, 'Tell me, what was the title poor Fox tripped over during our first audience of the Sultan?'

'Kesegaran mawar, bunga budi bahasa, hiburan buah pala.'

'I dare say. But it was your translation of it that I meant. What was the last piece?'

'Nutmeg of Consolation.'

'That's it: those were the very words hanging there in the back of my mind. Oh what a glorious name for a tight, sweet, newly-coppered, broad-buttocked little ship, a solace to any man's heart. The Nutmeg for daily use: of Consolation for official papers. Dear Nutmeg! What joy.'

Chapter Four

Little that happened in Batavia remained unknown for long in Pulo Prabang, and shortly after the Nutmeg had been brought into service as a post-ship with all the formality that circumstances allowed, a message came from van Buren, congratulating Stephen on his survival, giving news about a young, highly gifted and affectionate orang-utang that had been presented to him by the Sultan, and ending 'I am particularly desired to tell you that the ship sails on the seventeenth; quite how well provided my informant could not undertake to say, but he hopes that your wishes have been at least in part fulfilled.'

The seventeenth, and the Nutmeg barely had her lower masts in: her beautifully dry, clean, sweet-smelling holds, scraped to the fresh wood by innumerable coolies and dried, all hatches off, all gun-ports open, in the last fiery parching blasts of the previous monsoon (not a cockroach, not a flea, not a louse, let alone rats, mice or ancient ballast soaked in filth) were so empty that she rode absurdly high, her bright copper showing broad from stem to stern.

The Dutch dockyard officials and above all the Dutch dockyard mateys were highly skilled and conscientious, even by Royal Naval standards; but they formed a close corporation and they could not abide interlopers. They were willing to work as fast as their limited numbers allowed, and even (for a consideration) to work for some hours beyond the allotted time; but no outside artificers were to be taken on, however able (except for the really vile task of scraping, which was confined to a particular caste of Bugis) and no helping hand was required from any Nutmeg whatsoever. In the yard the ship was the mateys' preserve. If Mr Crown the bosun, dancing with impatience, laid a finger upon a becket that strictly speaking belonged to the riggers there would be a cry of 'All out' and all the guilds in all branches would down tools and walk off, symbolically washing their hands as they crossed the brow, to be recalled only after prolonged negotiations and payment for the hours lost. They might in theory be part of a conquered nation and their yard, timber, cordage and sailcloth might belong to King George, but the impartial observer would hardly have guessed it, and the wholly partial chief victim, old, lined and grey with frustration, roared out 'Treason - mutiny - hell and death - flog every man-jack of them round the fleet,' twice or even three times a day.

'I suppose you gentlemen of the Navy are wholly opposed to corruption,' observed Raffles.

'Corruption, sir?' cried Jack. 'I love the word. Ever since my very first command I have corrupted any dockyard or ordnance or victualling board officer who had the shadowiest claim to a traditional present and who could help get my ship to sea a little quicker and in slightly better fighting-trim. I corrupted as far as ever my means allowed me to, sometimes borrowing for the purpose; I do not think I seriously damaged any man's character, and I believe it paid hands down, for the service, for my ship's company and for me. If only I knew the ropes here, or if I had my putser or clerk, both experts in the matter at a lower level, I should do the same in Batavia, saving your respect, sir, and do it on a far larger scale, being far better provided now than I was then.'

'It is a pity none of our Indiamen are due for a couple of months. Their captains understand the matter perfectly well. Yet even so, I think that if my clerk of the works had a word with the superintendent something might come of it. Of course neither you nor I can appear, and I certainly cannot use official funds; but unofficially I will do anything in my power to help you get away as soon as possible. I deplore the necessity for oiling wheels that should run of themselves, but I recognize its existence, especially in this part of the world; and in the case of the Nutmeg I am willing to give all the support I can.'

'I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir; and if by means of your worthy clerk I can learn roughly the cost of the solution, I shall do my best to raise it with what I have here. And if I cannot, there may be some commercial house that will accept a draught on London.'

'Who do you bank with, Aubrey?'

'With Hoare's, sir.'

'You did not change, like poor Maturin?'

'No. No, by God,' said Jack, striking his fist into his palm. 'That was the worst day's work I ever did in my life, and I curse the day I ever told him about Smith and Clowes. For my part I had a few thousand with them for convenience; but all the rest I left with Hoare's.'

'In that case Maturin's friend and mine, Shao Yen, will accommodate you.'

Shao Yen did so accommodate Captain Aubrey, and the various guilds concerned were so thoroughly persuaded to abandon their ancient practices for a while that within thirty-six hours the ship swarmed with eager workers, including all the Nutmegs who could find standing space Jack and his officers had often, very often had to drive a crew - Fielding was uncommonly good at it, and Crown was no laggard - but never before had they to urge such restraint, to beg their men not to over exert themselves in this damp, unhealthy weather, or to run such risks up there. Those Nutmegs, the afterguard and their like, who had no highly technical duties to perform, painted ship, supervised from a distance by Bennett, that most unlikely survivor from the battle, who hovered in a skiff, calling 'Half an inch more below the gun-sill' as the Nutmeg assumed the Nelson chequer, in Jack Aubrey's opinion the only pattern for a man-of-war, and one whose exact paint he found in plenty at Batavia; for although the Royal Naval presence was now reduced to a single lieutenant and a score of clerks and ratings, a very considerable squadron had been in the port and might well come back again. A wealth of supplies, most of them captured, had therefore been left; and from this wealth Jack Aubrey fitted out the Nutmeg, wandering at large in AliBaba's cave, or rather caves, for the vast selection of new cables was kept well away from the gunpowder in its vaulted stores: everything in its place, everything a sailor's professional heart could long for.