Patrick O'Brian - The Nutmeg of Consolation

One bell in the first dog-watch; the conversation had grown more general again, a steady hum of talk at the upper end, and Welby, his face now matching his scarlet coat, had engaged the Corn�e's monoglot third lieutenant in a far more confident and comprehensible French than any of his shipmates had expected, when from the glum far end came Goffin's voice, loud, somewhat out of control: 'Well, seeing that many of us are out of favour in Whitehall, I'll give you a toast: here's to the Navy's black sheep, and may they all soon be whitewashed with the same brush.'

They took it remarkably well: both West and Davidge contrived a smile, and they all drank their wine and drew on every reserve of anecdote or remark about tide, weather, current - anything to prevent a silence, Welby coming out unusually strong with an account of the Pentland Firth, and Martin and Macmillan keeping up a fine flow on the subject of scurvy, its cure and prevention. But it was a relief when after pudding - a noble great spotted dog and the best dish of the meal - they heard Jack say 'Doctor, please would you explain to your neighbour that we are just about to drink His Majesty's health; that it will be perfectly in order for him not to join us; but if he should choose to do so, we are privileged to drink it seated.'

The Corn�e's third lieutenant did so choose; so did Jean-Pierre, who even added the words 'God bless him'; and shortly after this Jack suggested that they should take their coffee on the quarterdeck.

Coffee, no great amount of brandy, and then farewells, obscurely righteous and indignant on Gof fin's part, most affectionate upon that of the Nutmegs, who were to carry a whole sheaf of letters to Canton, and loving upon Jean-Pierre's.

'I am afraid that was a most unsuccessful dinner,' said Jack, as they stood watching the boats pull away, Horse-Flesh being sick over the side. 'They are delicate things: I have noticed again and again that in parties of this kind one man can wreck it all.'

'He is a gross fellow,' said Stephen. 'He cannot hold his wine.'

'He is losing it now, by God,' said Jack. 'Tell me, do our invalids really have to eat that-dreadful soup?'

'It was mixed four times too strong, and then was attempted to be disguised with some of the original broth, itself made of decayed swinesflesh in the first place and then burnt. But it is not the soup that is making him vomit so; it is the black choler.'

'Ah? I am sure you are right. Perhaps I should have made the invitation easier to refuse.

When I was in his case I dare say I wrecked many a party with my gloom, before I learnt to have previous engagements. It is hardly to be believed, how important a man's rank becomes to him - I mean his place in our world, our wooden world - after he has served twenty years or so, and its order, laws, customs and God help us even clothes have grown second nature. And poor Horse-Flesh -Lord how he pukes - must have served nearer thirty. He was second of the Bellerophon in ninety-three, when I took passage in her; and he stood five places above me on the post-captains' list.'

'Yet he broke one of its laws.'

'Oh yes - false muster. But I meant its important laws: instant obedience, high discipline, exact punctuality, cleanliness and so on. I always thought them of the first importance and now that I am back - I thank God for it every day - I have still more respect for them, and even for the lesser rules too. Discipline is all of a piece, said St Vincent, and I do not think I could bring myself to put anyone's name on the books; unless indeed your daughter should prove a son with a taste for the sea. Captain Pullings, I believe you have something to say.'

'Yes, sir, if I may be so bold. When we have won our anchor and parted company, the people would take it kindly, was you to go round the ship...'

'That is exactly what I have in mind, Tom. Quarters, though without a clear run fore and aft, as soon as we are under way; and then I go round.'

'Yes, sir. Just so, sir. But what I mean is, in square rig. They have not seen a gold-laced coat except for mine, and that only twice since Lisbon, which don't really signify, me being only a volunteer.'

Jack was much attached to the crew of the Surprise, a difficult but highly seamanlike body made up of man-of-war's men and privateers, with a sprinkling of merchant seamen; and they were much attached to him. Not only had he done them exceedingly proud in the article of prizes when the Surprise sailed as a letter of marque, but he had won them protection from impressment; and although in the course of the present voyage he had been snatched away at Lisbon to command another ship, he had also been very publicly restored to the Navy List; so now he returned in the gold-laced splendour of a post-captain, conferring a delightful respectability on the frigate and her people. Privateering ships had a shocking reputation upon the whole - in fact some were hardly to be distinguished from pirates - and the privateersmen aboard - rejoiced in their new status, their freedom from criticism; and they loved to see the massive symbol of it, with the Nile medal in his buttonhole and his number one scraper on his head. The general feeling aboard was that the Surprises now had the best of both worlds, the relative freedom and equality of a letter of marque on the one hand, and on the other the honour and glory of the King's service: a charming state of affairs, particularly when it was coupled with the possibility of very great rewards. But so far their Captain had scarcely made his official entrance.

From far over the water came the sound of bosun's calls as the prizes and their guardians prepared to ship capstan bars.

'Very well, Tom,' said Jack. 'But this coat is killing me. I shall go below, take it off, and see whether I can grow a little cooler. When you and the other officers have shifted into nankeens, let us get under way; then I will ask the people how they do. Doctor, will you come with me? Do not you feel the heat?'

'I do not,' said Stephen. 'Sobriety and moderation preserve me from plethory; they preserve me from discomfort in what is after all but a modest warmth.'

'Sobriety and moderation are capital virtues and I have practised them from my earliest youth,' said Jack, 'but they are sadly out of place in a host, who must encourage his guests to eat and drink by example; so there is a Roland for your...'

In his shirt-sleeves and stretched out on the locker by the open stern-windows, Jack loosened his waist-band and reflected for a while. The name Oliver floated up out of a score of others and he called 'Killick. Killick, there.'

'What now?' cried Killick, also in his shirt-sleeves; he had worked exceedingly hard to clear the table and he was not pleased at being torn from his enormous washing-up, far too delicate to be trusted to seamen who would use brick-dust on plate the minute they were left unwatched.

'Roland and Oliver: have you ever heard of them?'

'There is a Roland, sir, gunsmith off of the Haymarket; and there are Oliver's Warranted Leadenhall Sausages. Many an Oliver's Warranted Leadenhall Sausage have I ate at the Grapes when we was ashore.'

'Well,' said Jack, unconvinced. 'I may drop off. If I do, give me a call when we are under way.'

He heard the pipe All hands unmoor ship followed by its invariable sequence: the muffled thunder of running feet, orders, pipes, the steady click of pawls, the stamp and go of those manning the bars and the shrill fife on the capstan-head; and his mind tried to recapture the exact state of the ship's company, her complete-book, as it stood when he left her in Portugal, but so much had happened since then, and he had eaten and drunk so heartily at dinner, that his mind refused its duty, and at the distant cry of thick and dry for weighing he went to sleep. During the extraordinarily active period that had followed dropping anchor in this road, with the repairing of the Nutmeg, the disposal of the French prisoners, the inspection of the prizes, the transfer of his and Stephen's possessions to the Surprise, and his farewell to his former shipmates, who cheered him in the kindest way when he went down the side for the last time - in these hours of continual running about he had of course seen the Surprises, but only in a fleeting way, exchanging very few words except with his bargemen, who pulled him from ship to ship in the warm calm sea. He slept; but his sleep was pervaded by an anxiety: few things wounded a foremast jack more than having his name forgotten and it was an officer's duty to remember it.