Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

In the cabin he was shocked to find Jack Aubrey standing waiting for him, unusually tall, grave and stern, dressed in a fine bottle-green coat and a gleaming newly-tied neckcloth. 'Really, Stephen, what a fellow you are,' he said. 'We are invited to dine in the gunroom and here you are like something sent aboard from the receiving-ship. Padeen, there. Pass the word for Padeen.' And to Padeen, 'Shave and brush your master directly: put out his best coat, black satin breeches, silk stockings, silver-buckled shoes. He will be here in five minutes."

In five minutes he was there, bleeding from three small cuts and looking somewhat confused. Jack dabbed at the blood with his handkerchief, twitched Stephen's wig and waistcoat straight and walked him quickly to the gunroom, where they were welcomed by their hosts as three bells struck in the afternoon watch.

It so happened that this was the first time the captain of the Surprise had dined as a guest in the gunroom since she became a private man-of-war. Before the taking of the Spartan and her prizes the officers had been too poor to invite him and during the strenuous days in Polcombe cove there had been no entertainment possible. It was therefore an unusually splendid meal, all the more so since the gunroom cook was determined to outdo Adi; yet though the table was loaded with such things as lobsters, crayfish, crabs, soles, and mussels in three separate ways - all corruptly obtained from the Tartarus - there were desperately wide spaces between the diners. Jack had known this table for a great many years, always pretty full and sometimes packed with guests elbow to elbow; but now there were no Marine officers, no master, no purser, no chaplain, no guests from the midshipmen's berth or from other ships, and he occupied one whole side to himself, on Pullings' right. On .he opposite side sat Stephen and Davidge, while Martin had the foot of the table; and heavy work they made of it, at least to begin with. Jack Aubrey, though acquainted with West and Davidge and aware of their professional competence, had never known them outside the service and he was not on easy terms with them - nor with any other stranger for that matter, since his trial. For their part they found him intimidating; and they too had been strangely damaged by losing their commissions and with them their livelihood, their future and much of their identity. Then again those who were not going on the cutting-out expedition were strongly aware that in a few hours time the others would be setting off- even more strongly aware than those directly concerned - and they felt that gaiety was out of place. There was tension among those who were going, too, and in Jack Aubrey's case it was a tension he had never known before, although he had seen more action than most sailors of his age. He observed, to his astonishment, that the piece of lobster that he held poised on his fork while he waited for Davidge to finish his period was trembling. He ate it rapidly and continued listening, with inclined head and civil smile, to the wandering tale that was very slowly drawing to its disastrous want of an end: Davidge had travelled in France during the peace; he had wished to dine at a famous eating-house between Lyons and Avignon, but the place was full and he had been told of another just as good, by the cathedral. There he was the only guest, and he entered into conversation with the master of the house; they spoke of this cathedral and other cathedrals and Davidge observed that at Bourges he had been much struck by the extraordinary beauty of one of the choirboys. The inn-keeper, a paederast, had misunderstood him and had made a scarcely veiled proposal; Davidge however had managed to decline without offence and the man had taken it so well that they parted on the best of terms, all payment for the splendid meal being resolutely declined. But Davidge, having at last reached the Rhone by way of innumerable parentheses, suddenly felt that sodomy, as a thing amusing in itself and the justification for any anecdote however long, would not do for his grave, attentive captain, and he tried to give his tale some other turn that would not sound too foolish - a vain attempt from which he was only rescued by the next course, which consisted of soused pig's face (one of Jack's favourite dishes) and a saddle of mutton, the joint being put ' down for Martin to carve. Martin, a chop-house bachelor until his recent marriage, had never carved a saddle of mutton. He did not carve one now, but with a powerful thrust of his fork flung it straight into Davidge's lap. It saved Davidge from his predicament at the cost of his breeches - cheap at the price, he thought - and it was silently passed on to Stephen, who cut it up in the approved surgical manner.

It was good mutton, well hung and roasted to a turn, and with it came a truly beautiful claret, a Fombrauges which so pleased Jack Aubrey that after the first glass he produced one of the very few remnants of his brief education on dry land. 'Nunc est bibendum,' he said with a rather triumphant look at Stephen and Martin, 'and upon my honour, you could not ask a pleasanter vino to bib.'

After this the dinner-party grew easier, though the tension could not be entirely set aside, since two grindstones had been brought up on deck and their high-pitched scream as the armourer and his mate put a fine edge upon cutlasses and boarding-axes necessarily kept the immediate future in mind. Yet even so, the party was not exactly convivial, since it split into two groups: Aubrey and Pullings talking quietly of former shipmates and former voyages, while Stephen and Davidge spoke of the difficulties of remaining alive as an undergraduate at Trinity College in Dublin: Davidge had a cousin there who had been pierced three times, twice by a sword, once by a pistol-bullet.

'I am not a quarrelsome man nor inclined to take offence,' said Stephen, 'yet I must have been out a score of times in my first year. It is better now, I believe, but it was a desperate place in those days."

'So my cousin said. And when he came to see us in England my father and I gave him some lessons: it was riposte, counter-riposte, parry or tierce all through that summer; but at least he survived.'

'You are an eminent swordsman, I find.'

'Not I. But my father was, and he did make me at least competent. It was useful to me later on, when I was in a sad way, having left the service, because Angelo employed me for a while in his salle d'armes.'

'Indeed? It would oblige me extremely if you would exchange a few passes with me after dinner. I am somewhat out of practice, and it would grieve me to be cut down like a simpleton tonight.'

Stephen was not the only man in the Surprise with the same notion, and as the dinner-party came up to take the air on the quarterdeck they heard the steady pop-popping of hands right forward shooting bottles at close range with their pistols, for by now the carronades were all in position, the boats were towing two-abreast astern, and arms had been served out. The sea, the breeze and the sky were much as they had been, gentle, grey and steady: a timeless kind of day.

Jack studied the log-boards, whistling quietly to himself, and then he said to the officer of the watch, 'Mr West, at eight bells we will wear and stand south-east a half east under easy sail.' After a turn or two he fetched his fighting-sword, a heavy cavalry sabre, from the cabin, stood swishing it for a while, and carried it forward to the armourer for a shaving edge.

'Now, Doctor,' said Davidge, 'do you choose to have a bout?'

'I should be very happy,' said Stephen, throwing his cigar-butt into the sea, where it gave a momentary hiss.

'These are Angelo's particular patented pride,' said Davidge, when they were ready, with their coats folded on the capstan and their neckerchiefs loosed. 'They fasten over the point, doing it no harm, so that you can use your real sword. Far, far better than any form of button.'