Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

'What could be more perfect?' murmured Sophie; but her husband, deep in his thoughts, went on, 'I do not like to refuse employment in wartime - I never have done so -and I certainly should not now, was it an active command: I should leap at a heavy frigate on the North American station, for example. But this time I believe I shall beg to decline, with many, many thanks for their lordships' kind consideration and a strong proviso that I shall be perfectly well as soon as any fighting ship comes up: though it is almost certain to be a liner, you know. The Orion would not do: I should be perpetually to and fro between Plymouth and London, seeing Skinner about this legal business. No. Let us clear that out of the way, and then look about for a decent command: they can hardly refuse me one.' He paused, considered, and went on, 'I do not like to whine, Sophie, but I think they might have been a little more handsome: after all, it is not every day a man sinks a ship like the Waakzaamheid with a decrepit fourth rate. You will say it was only a chance shot, and the wicked sea did the rest, but even so - '

'I will say nothing of the sort,' cried Sophie. 'They should certainly have made you a baronet, if not a peer, and have given you the naval medal right away, like dear Sir Michael Seymour. But perhaps they will: they are always very slow.'

'Why, as for that, sweetheart, you know what I think of titles - a weight round a man's neck, as often as not, particularly hereditary ones. You have to be twice as tall as everybody else, and unless you are a Nelson or a Hood or a St Vincent or even a Keith you can't be twice as tall, not four and twenty hours a day, but only when your luck is in and everything is just so. However, I did think there was just a possibility they might give me the Marines: there was a vacancy.'

'Marines, Captain Aubrey?'

'It would have been Colonel Aubrey if they had. Have I never told you about the Marines, sweetheart? It is a plum they give you when you have done well. They cannot promote you - there is no such thing as promotion out of turn once you are a post-captain, and even the King could not make you an admiral over the heads of the captains above you on the list - if he did, half his senior officers would resign. So since they cannot promote you, and since you cannot eat a baronetcy or the naval medal, they make you a colonel of the Royal Marines instead, and you draw a colonel's pay, without doing anything for it.'

'But is that not corruption, Jack? You were always very much against corruption when you were young, I mean younger.'

'So I am still: corruption in others is anathema to me. But you would scarcely credit the depths of turpitude I should descend to myself for a thousand a year; and a colonel's pay is rather better than that. Let me see: eighty pound five and fourpence multiplied by thirteen; for they go by lunar months too, you know ...one thousand and forty-three, three and fourpence, which is better than a shove in the eye with a dry stick. No, my dear, that ain't corruption; it is an understood thing, quite above-board, a reward of merit. But I don't suppose I am meritorious enough, nor senior enough - after all, I am not much more than half way up the captain's list yet.' Then, as he turned to the other letters, he said in a much more serious voice, 'No, but real corruption, corruption in the dockyards, the dirty jobs with contractors and private ship-builders, that is the real goddam bane of the Navy ...This one is from Stephen's man, Mr Skinner.' He read, nodding with approval at each paragraph. 'I am very pleased with him. A capital man of business, clear-headed, and as brisk as a bee. He is carrying the war into their camp, the infernal dogs: that is what I like to see. Says a writ of duces tecum will compel them to show the paper I signed, and put an end to the uncertainty; and he has already sued one out. Duces tecum: that's the stuff.'

'What does it mean?' asked Sophie.

'I never was much of a fist at Latin,' said Jack. 'Not like Philip Broke. But I do remember dux, a leader, an admiral as you might say: and the plural is duces. So you could construe duces tecum as the admirals are with thee; and I don't ask better than that. Excellent Mr Skinner.' He passed over the sheets and turned to the remaining letters. 'This is from Grant,' he said, frowning.

'I hate him,' said Sophie. This was a rare, almost an unprecedented remark for her; but Mr Grant, an elderly, embittered lieutenant, had left Jack in the Leopard when that unfortunate ship struck an iceberg in the high southern latitudes and appeared to be sinking; he had reached Cape Town in the launch and England in a man-of-war; and he had written to Sophie to tell her, as he had already told his superiors, that there was no hope for Captain Aubrey - that his obstinancy in staying on board a sinking ship must have fatal consequences.

'The man has run mad,' said Jack. 'He says I have been spreading rumours that he behaved badly. And that is completely untrue, Sophie: I distinctly told Admiral Drury that Grant left with my permission, and that I was satisfied with his conduct up to that time. I went out of my way to do it. I never liked the fellow, though he was a good seaman, but I went out of my way to make the statement, because I thought it was due to him. Now he is unemployed - I don't wonder at it: the affair caused a good deal of comment in the service - and he says it is all my fault. He says that unless I immediately retract and do him justice, stating that I ordered him to leave - which is not the case: I only gave him permission - he will consider it his duty to his own character to lay the true facts of the case before the public and the Admiralty, including a number of circumstances such as my incapacity after the action and my keeping of false musters. Poor fellow: I am afraid his intellects are very much astray. I shall not answer; you cannot properly answer a letter of that sort. He would never have wrote it in his right mind: perhaps he was drunk at the time.' He laid it aside. 'Now here is one from Tom Pullings; I know his hand. Yes. He and Mowett and Babbington and young Henry James were all dining together in Plymouth, and they join in congratulations on my return and best wishes and everything that is kind. Beg to be remembered to you and Stephen, and have drunk to us in three times three. They wish us increase ...They mean it kindly, I am sure, but three is quite enough, with wheat at a hundred and twenty-six shillings a quarter,' he said, turning the page. 'No. I am out - they wish us increase of health and wealth and happiness. That's more the mark. Honest fellows.' These young men had all been on Jack's quarterdeck as midshipmen and officers and they had followed him from ship to ship whenever it was possible: he was thinking of them with a smile on his face as he considered the next letter, turning it in his hand. He did not know the handwriting or the seal, and even when he had opened it some seconds passed before he realized that it was for him - that it was neither a joke nor a mistake. Miss Smith embraced this opportunity of a transport going home to write to her hero - a wounded officer of the 43rd Foot would put it in the post the moment he landed, for she was sure her hero would rejoice to learn that their love was to bear fruit ere long - if it was a girl she should call it Joanna - she was sure it would be a little girl. As soon as there was a place in a packet she should fly to his arms; but perhaps he might prefer her to come home in a man-of-war - a simple note to any of his friends on the North American station would surely be enough - she hoped Mrs A would prove more understanding than Lady Nelson - he was to tell her at once whether he preferred the packet or a man-of-war -she was sure he could not wait to fold her to his bosom -that should he be prevented from flying to meet her by the requirements of the service, she would quite understand -there would be no womanly reproaches: the service must come first, even before Love - and would her hero be so good as to place say five hundred pounds in Drummond's hands? She could not move until she had paid her debts in Halifax - they had mounted surprisingly, perhaps because she had always scorned accounts - and she did not like to ask her brother. She did not in the least mind asking her hero, however; she felt no false shame, because it showed how entirely she was his - if the roles had been reversed, how delighted she would have been with this mark of confidence! He was to write immediately: she would sit on the quay every morning, scanning the horizon like Ariadne.