Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen Gun Salute

Mrs Broad came in to say good day and to bring more bacon and a dish of Leadenhall sausages, three of which Stephen instantly devoured. 'No one would think,' he said indistinctly through the third, 'that I had had a good dinner yesterday, and an excellent supper.'

'The club's port was the best I have drunk for years,' said Jack. 'Fox stood it remarkably well: never a tremor as he went downstairs, which is more than could be said for Worsley and Hammond and some other members. What did you think of him?'

'Sure my first impression was good, and he is certainly an intelligent, knowledgeable man; but this impression did not last quite as well as I could have wished. He laid a great compliment on his speech, as though he wished us to love him; and perhaps he talked a little too much, as barristers so often do. But then until you know a man well it is hard to know how much to put down to nervousness, and it is a nervous thing to be outnumbered three to one. Sir Joseph, who is better acquainted with him, rates his abilities very high - likes him too, I believe. And it was pleasant to hear him speak with such generous enthusiasm of his friend in Batavia, Raffles.' He rang for more coffee, and pouring Jack a cup he went on, 'Few men like to be trampled upon, but it seems to me that some go too far in avoiding it, and try to assume a dominating position from the start or at least as soon as the first civilities are over. Dr Johnson said that every meeting or every conversation was a contest in which the man of superior parts was the victor. But I think he was mistaken: for that is surely wrangling or hostile debate, often self-defeating - it is not conversation as I understand it at all, a calm amicable interchange of opinions, news, information, reflexions, without any striving for superiority. I particularly noticed that Sir Joseph, indulging in several of his masterly flashes of silence - rather prolonged flashes - remained quite obviously the most considerable man among us.'

Jack nodded and breakfasted on: he had now reached toast and marmalade, and when he had emptied the nearer rack he said, 'Years ago I should have thought he was a great man and excellent company. But I have grown more reserved since then - a cantankerous old dog rather than a friendly young one - and although he may indeed be a great man I shall not make up my mind till I know him better. You did not hear us arranging his accommodation in Diane? He has exactly Mr Stanhope's ideas of the importance of an envoy, the direct representative of the Crown. We shall mess separately, except for particular invitations, though the extra bulkheads will make clearing the ship for action a longer, more complicated affair. And, by the way, you have not told me how you prefer to travel, as physician to the envoy and his suite or as my guest'

'Oh as your guest Jack, if you please It would be so much simpler, and they can always ask for my services, if they need them.'

'I am sure you are right,' said Jack. 'Stephen, I am away to Buckmaster's in five minutes: my uniform no longer fits. Will not you come with me? You could do with a decent coat.'

'Alas, brother, I am taken up this morning. I have an interesting, delicate operation with my friend Aston at Guy's; and you will be at the House in the afternoon. But let us meet in the evening and go to the opera if Sir Joseph will lend us his box. They are playing La Clemenza di Tito.'

'I shall look forward to it,' said Jack. 'And perhaps tomorrow we will take a boat down to Greenwich.'

Stephen's operation went well, although throughout its not inconsiderable length the patient cried 'Oh God, oh Jesus, oh no no no, no more for God's sake. Oh God, oh God, I can't bear it,' the rapid flow of words broken by screams, for the frailty of his teeth and the state of his nose forbade the efficient use of a gag; and this Stephen found unusually tiring, so instead of cabling on Sir Joseph Banks at Spring Grove as he had intended he sat in an easy chair by the window in his room at the Grapes and looked first for van Buren's essay on the spleen in primates (the zoological primates) in the Journal des S�ans and found that it was indeed dated from Pub Prabang. Then he searched back among those diaries he had preserved - some had been taken, sunk or destroyed - and he found that of the year in which he first met Jack Aubrey.

He had not used this particular code for a great while and at first it offered some difficulty; but in time he was reading fluently enough. 'Yes,' he said, 'even as late as that I was stunned entirely, I find - no feelings at all but sorrow, and even that a dull grey: music the only living thing.' He read on, going faster now and catching the mood of his former self not so much from the entries as from all the associations they brought back to vivid present life. 'Sure I have changed from the man who could speak such words to Dillon,' he said, 'but it is rather a recovery from an enormous blow, a reversion to a former state, than an evolution. The change in Jack is in fact more considerable, for even the most prescient eye could scarcely have seen the present Captain Aubrey in the wilful, indeed wanton, undisciplined Jack of those days, somewhat profligate and so impatient of restraint. Or do I exaggerate?' He turned the pages, running through his first contacts with naval intelligence- dear John Somerville, the fourth generation of a family of Barcelona merchants, a member of the Germandat, the Catalan brotherhood struggling against the Spanish, the Castilian, oppression of their country - the Catalans' hatred for the French armies that had burnt Montserrat and ravaged towns, villages, and even remote isolated mountain farms, destroying, raping, murdering - the Germandat's total refusal when in 1797 the Castilians deserted their English allies and joined the French - the appalling successes of Buonaparte's campaigns and Stephen's realization that the only hope for Europe was an English victory, which must be won at sea; and that this victory was a necessary condition for both Catalan autonomy and Irish independence. The diary recorded his connexion with Somerville after his early days in the Sophie and with Somerville's English chief, one of Blaine's best agents until his horrible death in France: recorded it in much too much detail, and though to be sure the code never had been broken some of the entries made him shudder even now. What insane risks he had run before he came to understand the true nature of intelligence!

Lucy brought him abruptly back to the present by knocking at the door and saying in a voice that showed neither pleasure nor approval that there was a black man downstairs with a letter for Dr Maturin.

'Is he a seaman, Lucy?' asked Stephen, his bemused mind turning to some one of the black members of the Surprise's crew, now thousands of miles away.

'No, sir,' said Lucy. 'He is more like a native.' And leaning forward she added in a low tone, 'He has black teeth.'

'Pray bring him up.'

It was Fox's Ahmed; and although his teeth were indeed quite black from the chewing of betel, his face was only a moderate brownish yellow. At this juncture it wore an anxious expression, and he stood there bowing in the doorway, holding the letter in both hands. He was wearing European clothes and in many parts of the town, particularly down by the Pool or Wapping, he would have passed unnoticed; but the Liberties of the Savoy was not one of them. In fact legally it was not part of London or Westminster at all, but of the Duchy of Lancaster, and culturally it was a self-contained village, with no notion at all of natives, nor even of people from the Surrey side.

'Ahmed,' said Stephen, 'come in.' The letter was a friendly note from Fox, saying how much he had enjoyed their dinner and enclosing a testimonial from Mrs Wailer, who gave Ahmed an excellent character but said that he found England a little cold and damp in the winter, that he would probably thrive better on his native heath and that in any case she was obliged to reduce her household. 'I see,' said Stephen. 'Ahmed, how much English do you speak? And has Ali explained the situation to you?' Ahmed said he spoke little but understood more: Ali had explained everything. And on being asked when he could leave his place said, 'Tomorrow, tuan,' bowing again.