Patrick O'Brian - The Nutmeg of Consolation

'I am so sorry,' he said, suddenly aware that Hamlyn was speaking to him. 'I was wool-gathering again. I was contemplating on sheep.'

'And I was talking to you about sheep, how droll,' said Hamlyn. 'I was telling you that your vis-�is, Captain Lowe, has imported some of the Saxony merinos to make a new cross.'

'Has he a great many sheep?'

'Probably more than anyone else. It is said he is the richest man in the colony.'

The Flogging Parson, his face redder still, had begun savaging the Pope again, and to shut him out Stephen replied in a louder voice 'Curiously enough it was merinos that I was thinking of, the King's merinos; they are of the Spanish breed, however.'

'Are you talking about merinos?' asked Captain Lowe.

'Yes,' said Hamlyn. 'Dr Maturin here has seen the King's flock.'

'Sir Joseph Banks was good enough to show them to me,' said Stephen.

Lowe looked at him with contempt, and after some thought replied, 'I don't give a... a button for Sir Joseph Banks.'

'I am sure he would be grieved to hear it.'

'Why did he try to prevent Captain Macarthur getting any of the King's sheep? Because Macarthur was from the colony, I suppose.'

'Surely not. Sir Joseph has always had the interests of the colony very much at heart. It was largely his influence that brought it into being, you will recall.'

'Then why did he refuse to receive Macarthur?'

'I cannot suppose that he thought a man with Captain Macarthur's antecedents a desirable acquaintance,' said Stephen in a silence broken only by Colonel MacPherson's long-continuing, even-toned account of the Nawab of Oudh. 'Furthermore, Sir Joseph strongly objects to duels, on moral grounds; and Captain Macarthur was in London to be courtmartialled for engaging in one.'

Lowe did not seem to hear the later words. At the first he flushed a dull red and he said no more until the end of the meal, only muttering 'Undesirable acquaintance' from time to time, much as Stephen muttered within himself 'God give me patience. Dear Mother of God give me patience', for the railing about Irish prisoners had begun again, as tedious as the railing of European women about domestic servants but infinitely more malignant.

By the time they retired for tea and coffee Stephen had, in spite of his deliberate abstraction, heard as much as he could bear; there was a pressure of contained anger that made his hand tremble so that the coffee spilt into its saucer. Yet now came a pleasant interlude: he walked on the drawing-room terrace smoking a cigar and talking to two well-bred, interesting, Gaellic-speaking Hebridean officers of the Seventy-Third, and the tension diminished somewhat.

He and Pullings took their leave of Colonel MacPherson, and while the Colonel kept Pullings back to tell him that he was sorry Captain Aubrey had not been able to come, that although he had official letters for him they could not be given into any hands but his own, and that he would be well advised to take a couple of pints of rice-water, just luke-warm, Stephen walked into the narrow room where the officers put on their swords. There were few left, Tom's regulation lion-headed affair, three with basket-hilts belonging to the Highlanders, and his own. He buckled it on and walked down the steps into pleasant freshness; and standing there on the gravel he saw Captain Lowe, who said to him 'I don't give a bugger for Joe Banks; and I don't give a bugger for you either, you half-baked sod of a ship's surgeon.' He spoke very loud and hoarse and two or three officers turned.

Stephen looked at him attentively. The man was in a choking rage but he was perfectly steady on his feet; he was not drunk.

'Will you answer for that, sir?' he asked.

'There's my answer,' said the big man, with a blow that knocked Stephen's wig from his head.

Stephen leapt back, whipped out his sword and cried 'Draw, man, draw, or I shall stick you like a hog.'

Lowe unsheathed his sabre: little good did it do him. In two hissing passes his right thigh was ploughed up. At the third Stephen's sword was through his shoulder. And at the issue of a confused struggle at close quarters he was flat on his back, Stephen's foot on his chest, Stephen's sword-point at his throat and the cold voice saying above hm 'Ask my pardon or you are a dead man. Ask my pardon, I say, or you are a dead man, a dead man.'

'I ask your pardon,' said Lowe, and his eyes filled with blood.

Chapter Nine

'If it's blood, I must put it in cold water this directly minute,' said Killick, who knew perfectly well that it was blood; the news that the Doctor had run a soldier through, had left him weltering in his gore, ruining the Governor's Bath-stoned steps, ruining the drawing-room carpet, worth a hundred guineas, causing his lady to faint away, had reached the Surprise before the barge, and it accounted for the particular consideration, esteem and gentleness with which he was handed up the side. But Killick liked to have it confirmed, to hear the very words.

'I suppose it is,' said Stephen, glancing at the skirt of his coat, upon which he had unconsciously wiped his sword, much as he wiped his instruments when operating. 'How is the Captain?'

'Which he gave over half an hour ago, as empty as a shaken cask, ha, ha, ha! Lord, he was, at it all night - never a moment's peace, ha, ha, ha!' said Killick; and still smiling he added, 'He has turned in now, and is snoring as loud as ever he...' But feeling that his comparison was not quite genteel he went on, 'I will bring you your old nankeen jacket.'

'Do not trouble now,' said Stephen. 'I believe I shall follow the Captain's example and lie down for a while.'

'Not in them breeches you won't, sir,' cried Killick. 'Nor in them silk stockings.'

Stephen lay in an old patched shirt, so often washed that it was diaphanous in places and wonderfully soft all over. The tension had gone and his body was wholly relaxed; the ship moved beneath him, just enough to show that she was afloat and alive; he fell farther and farther down through the layers of doze, dreaming confusion, sleep, deep sleep, still deeper sleep almost to a coma.

A sleep so profound that he had to climb out of it by stages, reconstructing the events of yesterday, the boredom and the pain of dinner at Government House, the rare violence of its outcome, over in seconds, the obliging discretion of the Highland officers, one of whom picked up his wig, Tom Pullings' mute dismay.

The light increased very slightly and he saw an eye peering through the crack of the opened door. 'What time is it?' he asked.

'Just on four bells, sir.'

'In what watch?'

'Oh, only the forenoon,' said Killick in a comforting tone. 'But Mr Martin was afraid you might be in a lethargy. Shall I bring hot water, sir?'

'Hot water by all means. How is the Captain?'

'Slept all night and now gone ashore, sir, pale and thin.'

'Very good. Now be so good as to prepare a pot of coffee: I shall drink it upstairs. And if Mr Martin should be at leisure, tell him with my compliments that I should be happy to share it with him.'

Martin came into the great cabin, his face lively with pleasure, his one eye shining more than usual; but clearly he was somewhat embarrassed. Stephen said 'My dear Martin, I know your views on the matter, and to ease your mind to some degree I will let you know straight away that this quarrel was forced upon me by gross physical insult, that I took pains to do no more than disable the man, and that if he is kept on a low diet he will be about in a fortnight.'

'How kind of you to tell me, Maturin. Galley-rumour, with unconcealed delight, had represented you as Attila come again. Though to be sure, I do not know how my principles would stand up to gross insult.'

'I hope your afternoon was more agreeable than mine?'