Patrick O'Brian - The fortune of war

'If I no longer love Diana,' he wrote, 'what shall I do?' What could he do, with his mainspring, his prime mover gone? He had known that he would love her for ever - to the last syllable of recorded time. He had not sworn it, any more than he had sworn that the sun would rise every morning: it was too certain, too evident: no one swears that he will continue to breathe nor that twice two is four. Indeed, in such a case an oath would imply the possibility of doubt. Yet now it seemed that perpetuity meant eight years, nine months and some odd days, while the last syllable of recorded time was Wednesday, the seventeenth of May. 'Can such things be?' he asked. He knew from examples that this had often happened to other men; and that other men also lost their minds or contracted cancer. Could it be that he was not, as he had implicitly supposed, exceptionally immune?

'Perhaps it is only an intermittence du coeur, no more.' That was extremely probable - a quasi-physical condition, allied to air and diet, anxiety, over-wrought anticipation, and a hundred other conspiring causes. He wrote another paragraph, with instances of strange, apparently inexplicable changes of set purpose, abdications, temporary loss of faith, that could in fact be set down to a vicious habit of body, mere body, the mind's dwelling-place - cowardice in brave men whose liver was disordered, the passing mental derangement of parturient women. He added some reflections on the effect of mind upon body too, such as eczemas, false pregnancies, and the actual production of milk, carefully sanded his last sheet, gathered the others, put them all into the dying fire, watched it flare up, turn and writhe, and fall into black, unmeaning ashes. He was not entirely convinced, and the contradictor in his mind observed that there were many men, and medical men at that, who palpated their tumours and pronounced them benign; but still it was a comfort to his undecided willing mind and with it he went to his bed. In the lower part of the building a man was singing 'Oh oh the mourning dove' as if his heart would break: Stephen listened to the song, until the rising tide of laudanum-sleep engulfed him.

The morning broke bright and clear, with a fine breeze in the north-north-west. Jack had been watching since dawn, and before breakfast he saw the expected sail stand into the bay; the light was exceptionally pure, the air transparent, and he soon identified the Shannon. She stood on and on, closer in than he had ever seen any of the blockading squadron, so close that he could see the officer up there with his telescope at the foretopgallant jacks. He could not swear to it, but he was almost sure that he recognized Philip Broke, who had had the Shannon these last five years. Closer still, until at last the gunners on Castle Island threw a high-pitched mortar-bomb right over her: at this she wore, but the little figure reappeared on her quarterdeck and mounted to the mizen cross-trees, the gleaming brass still levelled upon Boston harbour and the American men-of-war. A little later she filled and stood out into the offing on the larboard tack, while two hoists of signals broke out high above her topsails. Jack could not read them, but he knew very well what they had to say, and shifting his glass to the horizon he saw the Shannon's consort bear up, crowd sail and run fast away east-southeast, right out into the Atlantic.

'Where is the doctor?' he asked, when breakfast appeared.

'Sure he's sleeping yet,' said Bridey, 'and we will let him lie. He had the cruel hard bloody operation yesterday, and is quite destroyed.'

Stephen was lying still when Mr Evans called on Jack, bringing a friend. 'I will not sit down,' said Mr Evans. 'Dr Choate says you are not allowed visitors. But I could not resist coming up just for five minutes with Captain Lawrence, who has a message for you. Allow me to name Captain Lawrence, formerly of the Hornet, now of the Chesapeake. Captain Aubrey, of the Royal Navy.'

The captains expressed their pleasure, but it was difficult to see much of it on Lawrence's shy, embarrassed face, and the name of Hornet struck all cheerfulness from Jack's. However, he assumed a decent appearance of cordiality and in spite of their protests called for coffee and sweet biscuits - 'or cookies, as I should say', looking at Lawrence with a smile. He liked the look of him, a big, open-faced man in a white coat, a man with a modest, well-bred air, and obviously a sailor. Lawrence returned the smile - there was clearly a mutual liking in spite of the awkwardness of the situation - and said, 'A little while ago, sir, I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Mowett of your service, and he particularly desired me to wait on you, to bring his respects, to ask how you did, and to tell you that he was coming along very well in the hospital at New York.'

Mowett had been one of Jack's midshipmen many years before, and Lawrence had met him in the course of the murderous action in which the Hornet sank the Peacock. As they talked of the young man, who had had three ribs stove in by a splinter of the Peacock's rail, it became clear that Lawrence and he had gone along very well together during their long voyage from the Demerara river and that Lawrence had been kind to the wounded lieutenant; Jack's heart warmed to him - he was much attached to Mowett.

The five minutes passed, another five, another pot of coffee, and eventually Choate came in and put them out. Jack returned to his telescope, Evans to the dismantled Constitution, and Lawrence to the Chesapeake.

The morning wore on, and part of the afternoon, a brilliant, cheerful day, and at last Stephen came in, still dull and heavy, frowzy from his sleep. 'You look much better, Jack,' he said.

'Yes, I feel it, too. Shannon looked into the port this morning, found the birds flown, all, except Chesapeake and -,

'Did you hear that?' said Stephen, walking to the window.

'The glum-sounding bird?'

'The mourning-dove - there she flies. I dreamt of her. Jack, forgive me. I must go. Diana has invited me to dinner, with Johnson and Louisa Wogan.'

'I trust - I trust she is well?' said Jack.

'Blooming, I thank you: she asked after you most particularly,' said Stephen. There was a pause, but he said no more; and having waited until it was certain that no more would be said, Jack asked, 'Would you like my razor? I stropped it this morning until it would split a hair in four.'

'Oh no,' said Stephen, running his hand over his meagre bristly face. 'This will do very well. I shaved yesterday, or the day before.'

'But you have forgot your shirt. There is blood on it - there is blood on the collar and the cuffs.'

'Never mind. I will pull up my coat. The coat is perfectly respectable; I took it off for the operation. A very pretty operation, too.'

'Stephen,' said Jack earnestly, 'be a good fellow for once, will you now, and humour me? I should be really unhappy if one of my officers dined in an enemy town, looking anything but trim. It could be taken that he was beat, and had no pride in the service.'

'Very well,' said Stephen, and took up the razor.

Trim, shaved and brushed, he hurried through the town: the sharp air cleared his foggy mind, and by the time he reached the hotel his wits were pretty well at his disposition. He was early, which was a relief to him, for a Presbyterian clock, differing as much in time as in doctrine from the many other clocks of Boston, had given him an unpleasant shock: indeed, he was so early that there was no one to receive him. They were still dressing, said the monumental slave, as she showed him into an empty drawing-room.

Here he stood for a while, looking at Johnson's pictures: the bald eagle, the Carolina chickadee, his old friend the black-necked stilt. Then he moved out on to the long balcony, to see whether it might command another public clock - neither he nor Jack possessed a watch. There was one, a great way down the street, but it was obscured by a group of workmen at the far end of the balcony, hauling up lime and sand for some repair, and having craned for some time he gave it up - what did the time matter, after all? From some way along in the other direction, where a curtain streamed from an open window, he heard Diana's voice raised in that familiar tone of reproach he knew so well she was passing Johnson under the harrow. In a more gentlemanly mood Stephen would have moved away at once, but he was not feeling gentlemanly and after a moment he heard Johnson cry, 'My God, Diana, sometimes you are as loud as a hog in a gate.' The voice was strong and exasperated, and it was followed by the slamming of a door.