Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

'But what about the awkward sods you turned away, your honour?'

'Lord love you, their places were filled up that very evening. No. Let your boy come and see me or Captain Pullings when everything is settled, in about a fortnight's time, and we will have a look at him. What is his name?"

'Abel Hayes, sir, if you please. Abel. Not Seth,' said the boatman with a particularly significant look: its significance was quite lost on Jack, who said, 'Just pull me round the ship, will you, before going alongside.'

The skiff passed the frigate's stern at about a cable's length and moved up her immaculate starboard side: immaculate but for the name Seth painted neat and clear on the white band, amidships, between the black ports of guns twelve and fourteen. Jack made no observation, but his face, which had regained something of its former habitual pink-gilled gaiety during their journey down, tightened, became grey and humourless once more. 'Larboard mainchains,' he said after a pause: and arriving there he ran up the side to the quarterdeck, which he saluted, every quarterdeck having carried a crucifix less than three hundred years before: the salute was returned by Davidge and West and by Martin, who had reported on Saturday, to avoid the Sunday travelling that disturbed neither Jack nor Stephen. All three were much better dressed than when first they joined the ship and evidently far more prosperous; yet they all had anxious, careworn expressions. 'Good evening, gentlemen,' said Jack. 'I am going below, Mr Davidge, and shall be happy to hear your report in five minutes time.'

There were several letters and messages for him in the cabin, most of them requests to be taken aboard, but others brought congratulations and good wishes from old shipmates, some of them as far afield as Greenwich Hospital. He was still reading one of these when Davidge came in and said 'Sir, I am truly concerned to have to report a mutiny aboard.'

'A mutiny, eh? But from the look of the ship I presume it is far from being general.' He had indeed noticed the absence of cheerful talk and laughter as he came aboard and the presence of glum and apprehensive looks; but nothing in the least like ill-will. Man and boy he had known several mutinies quite apart from the great outbreaks at Spithead and the Nore and he had heard of many more - they were surprisingly common in the Navy - but never aboard a prosperous, busy ship, with plenty of shore-leave and all the delights that money could buy just at hand. 'Who are the men concerned?'

'Slade, the Brampton brothers, Mould, Hinckley, Auden and Vaggers, sir.'

'Oh dear me.' These were among the best of the Shelmerstonians, two of them quartermasters, one a gunner's mate, the others thorough-going seamen, quiet, solid fellows: prize hands. 'Sit down, Mr Davidge, and give me a short account of the affair.'

Davidge however was incapable of giving a short account that was also sequential, coherent and inclusive; his mind did not work that way. Although he was a competent officer, who had no hesitation in giving a rapid series of orders to deal with a dangerous situation in foul weather on a lee-shore, he wandered sadly in his narration and Jack was by no means sure that he had the whole at his command when Davidge's repetitions and parentheses came to an embarrassed close. What he did gather was that on Sunday morning the seven men, who were all Sethians-'What are Sethians, Mr Davidge?' 'Oh, a kind of Ranters or Methodies I believe, sir: I did not go into that' - Sethians from Old Shelmerston, a village a little way inland, had gone to their meeting-house. They had then had dinner on shore and on returning to the ship some or all of them had gone out on the stage that was still hanging over the starboard side and had there painted the offending word. Davidge had not noticed it at once, because the gunroom was entertaining Mrs Martin to dinner, her first visit to the ship; but on returning from seeing the Martins ashore he had of course seen the word standing out from a great distance, the ship having swung with the turn of the tide, and he had at once ordered it to be removed. Nobody seemed to know who had done it; nobody seemed willing to scrape it off or paint it out - endless excuses: the brushes had been cleaned - Sunday - best clothes - just going to the head - bowels upset by eating crab. Eventually Auden acknowledged having painted the name. He refused to remove it - said he was unable to do so in conscience - and in this he was backed up by the other six. He was not violent or abusive - no foul language - nor was he obviously drunk - but he and the others stated that if any hand attempted to remove the name, his first stroke would be his last. Davidge and West had had no support from the bosun, gunner or carpenter, still less from any of the hands, who, though in no way riotous, were clearly heard to say that they would do nothing to bring bad luck on the ship. For fear of making the position even worse, Davidge had therefore given no further direct, unmistakable orders: nor, having no Marines of course, had he put the seven men in irons. Since the Articles of War did not apply, and since the ship was not at sea, neither he nor West had been certain what to do. He had nevertheless suspended the men from duty pending the captain's arrival and had forbidden them to come on deck. Perhaps he should have sent them ashore directly; if he had done wrong he was heartily sorry for it; but he appealed to Captain Aubrey's candour.

'Did you consult Mr Martin?' asked Jack. 'No, sir. He only returned a few minutes before you." 'I see. Well, I think you did tolerably well in a difficult situation. Pray ask the doctors if they can spare me a moment." In the short time he had to wait various possibilities flashed through his mind, but the arguments for and against each were still equally balanced when the cabin door opened. 'Mr Martin,' he said, 'you have no doubt heard about the present trouble. Please tell me all you can about these Sethians. I have never heard of them.'

'Well, sir, they descend from the Valentinian Gnostics, but the descent is so long, remote and obscure that there would be little point in tracing it. In their present form they are small independent communities with I believe no governing body; but it is difficult to be sure of that, since they were in danger of persecution as heretics for so long that they are naturally reserved; and there is still something of the air of a secret society about them. They believe that Cain and Abel were brought into being by angels, whereas Seth, who, as you will recall, was born after Abel's murder, was the Almighty's direct pure creation, and not only the ancestor of Abraham and all men now living, but the prototype of our Lord. They have the utmost veneration for him, and believe he watches over Sethians with particular care. But they have little opinion of angels, holding that by their - how shall I express it? - that by their mutual impurities they brought about Noah's flood. This should have wiped out their descendants, but some crept into the ark; and they, not Seth, are the ancestors of the wicked.'

'It is odd that I should never even have heard of them. Do they often go to sea?'

'I imagine not. Most of the few I have come across or heard of live in small scattered groups in remote inland parts of the West Country. They sometimes carve the name Seth on their houses; and they fall into two schools, mutually hostile, the old school that writes the S backwards and the new that writes it as we do. Apart from that and an unwillingness to pay tithes, they have a reputation for holding together and for being honest, sober and reliable, not unlike the Quakers. Yet unlike the Quakers they have no dislike for warfare.'

'But they are Christians, are they not?'

'As for that,' said Martin, looking at Stephen, 'there are some Gnostics who would puzzle St Peter.'