Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

'But I am sorry you should have been hurt, sir,' said Pullings. 'I only hope it is not as bad as it looks.'

'No, no. It is a trifle: the Doctor himself says it is a trifle, and I never felt it at the time - a pike-thrust, a glancing pike-thrust. We suffered very little. But God's my life, how they did maul one another, Spartan and Azul; as bloody a little engagement as ever I saw - the gundecks of both were aswim with blood. Aswim. There were only two boat-loads of Azuls left, capable of walking, and I don't think we took over two score Spartans, apart from the wounded. It is true they had sent a great many men away in their five big prizes, yet even so it was a most shocking butchery.'

'Here is the bosun, sir,' said Killick.

'Sit down, Mr Bulkeley,' said Jack. 'What I wished to ask you was, have we plenty of French colours?'

'Not above three or four, I believe, sir.'

'Then you might consider making a few more. I do not say you are to make a few more, Mr Bulkeley, for that might be coming it a trifle too high; I only say that you might bear it in mind.'

'Aye-aye, sir. Bore in mind it is,' said the bosun, taking his leave.

'Now, Tom,' said Jack, 'returning to prizes, there is not a minute to be lost. The Doctor will curse, I know," nodding through the stern window to an islet upon which Stephen and Martin were creeping on all fours, having left the wounded to their respective surgeons, 'but as soon as the Spartan is in a state to make sail - and she is very well found in cordage and stores of every kind - we must bear away for Fayal as fast as ever we can pelt, cracking on to make all sneer again, because the end of the month and the Constitution are coming closer every day. We must bear away for Fayal: the Spartan's five prizes are lying there in Horta harbour. The Spartan appears in the offing, accompanied by something that looks very like the Azul. Of course the Spartan don't choose to come down that long bay and lose time clawing out; but the Merlin, the Merlin they know so well, stands in, gives them a couple of guns and the signal for departure; they slip their cables, and join us well out at sea, where we remove the prize-crews and carry the prizes home, hoisting French colours aboard each one, to fox the Constitution if she should heave in sight. Do you take my meaning, Tom?"

CHAPTER FOUR

Dr Maturin and his assistant stood in a druggist's warehouse, checking their purchases for the Surprise's medicine-chest. 'Apart from the portable soup, the double retractors and a couple of spare crowbills for musket-bullets, which we will find at Ramsden's, I believe that is everything,' said Stephen.

'You have not forgotten the laudanum?' asked Martin.

'I have not. There is still a reasonable quantity aboard: but I thank you for putting me in mind of it.' The reasonable quantity was in wicker-covered eleven-gallon carboys, each representing more than fifteen thousand ordinary hospital doses, and Stephen reflected upon them with some complacency. 'The alcoholic tincture of opium, properly exhibited, is one of the most valuable drugs we possess,' he observed, 'and I take particular care not to be without it. Sometimes, indeed, I use it myself, as a gentle sedative. And yet,' he added, having looked through his list again, holding it up to the light, 'and yet, you know, Martin, I find its effects diminish. Mr Cooper, how do you do?'

'And how doyou do, sir?' replied the druggist, with unusual pleasure in his voice and on his yellow, toothless face. 'Surprisingly well, I trust, ha, ha, ha! When they told me the surgeon of the Surprise was in the shop, I said to Mrs C. "I shall just step down and wish Dr Maturin joy of his surprising prosperous voyage." "Oh, Cooper," she says to me, "you will never take the liberty of being witty with the Doctor?" "My dear," says I, "we have known each other this many a year; he will not mind my little joke." So give you joy, sir, give you joy with all my heart.'

'Thank you, Mr Cooper,' said Stephen, shaking his hand.

'I am obliged to you for your amiable congratulations.' And when they were in the street again he went on, 'Its effects diminish remarkably: I cannot account for it. Mr Cooper is reliability in person, so he is, and I have used his tincture voyage after voyage - always the same, always equal to itself, always extracted with decent brandy rather than raw alcohol. The answer must lie elsewhere, but where I cannot tell; so as I am resolved never to exceed a moderate dose, except in case of great emergency, I must resign myself to a sleepless night from time to time.'

'What would you consider a moderate dose, Maturin?' asked Martin, in a spirit of pure enquiry. He knew that the usual amount was twenty-five drops and he had seen Stephen give Padeen sixty to do away with extreme pain; but he also knew that habitual use might lead to a considerable degree of tolerance and he wished to learn how high that degree might be.

'Oh, nothing prodigious at all, for one accustomed to the substance. Not above... not above say a thousand drops or so.'

Martin checked his horrified exclamation and to conceal even its appearance he hailed a passing hackney-coach.

'But consider,' said Stephen, 'the rain has stopped, the sky is clear, and we have only a mile, an English mile, to walk: colleague, is not this close to extravagance?"

'My dear Maturin, if you had been so poor, and so poor for so very long a time as I, you too might revel in the pomp of high living, when your fortune was made at last. Come, it is a poor heart that never rejoices.'

'Well,' said Stephen, first putting his parcel into the coach and then climbing in after it, 'I wish you may not be growing proud."

They stopped at Ramsden's, ordered the remaining supplies and so parted, Martin going to match a piece of watered tabby for his wife, and Stephen going to his club.

The porters at Black's were a discreet set of men, but there was no mistaking their significant smiles and becks or the pleasure with which they wished him good day and gave him a friendly note from Sir Joseph Blaine, once more the true head of naval intelligence, welcoming him to London and confirming an appointment for that evening.

'Half after six,' said Stephen, looking at the tall Tompion in the hall with one eye. 'I shall have time to ask Mrs Broad how she does.' To the hall-porter he said 'Ben, pray keep this parcel until I come back, and do not let me go to see Sir Joseph without it." And to the hackney-coachman, 'Do you know the Grapes, in the liberties of the Savoy?'

'The public that was burnt down, and is building up again?"

'The very same place.'

Had the day been foggy, as it often was down there by the river, or had the evening been far advanced, the Grapes might indeed have been the very same place, for it had been rebuilt without the smallest change, and Stephen could have walked into his own room blindfold; but the new brick had not yet had time to acquire its coat of London grime, while the unglazed upper windows gave the place a sinister air that it most certainly did not deserve; and it was not until he walked into the snuggery that he felt really at home. Here everything always had been spotlessly clean, and apart from the smell of fresh plaster the newness made no difference. It was an inn that he knew particularly well - he had kept a room there for years - a quiet inn, convenient for the Royal Society, the Entomologists and certain other learned bodies, and one whose landlady he particularly esteemed.

At this moment however his esteem for Mrs Broad was a little shaken by the sound of her voice, some storeys up, raised in a very shrill and passionate harangue. Railing in women always made him uneasy and now he stood there with his hands behind his back, his head bowed, and an unhappy expression on his face; it also had much the same effect on the two glaziers who now came down the stairs, directing submissive words to the torrent behind and above them: 'Yes, ma'am: certainly, ma'am: directly, ma'am, without fail.' In the doorway they squared their paper hats on their heads, exchanged a haggard look, and hurried silently away.