Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"Mr Fisher, sir,"he said a moment later. "I do not believe I have had the honour of being introduced to you. I am Maturin, the surgeon.' And after an exchange of civilities he said, "I am delighted to have another colleague aboard,

for since the spiritual and the physical are so inseparably entwined, perhaps the chaplain and the surgeon may be so called, quite apart from their necessary collaboration in the cockpit. Pray, sir, have you read physic, at all?"

No, Mr Fisher had not: he would have done so had he been collated to a country benefice: manv country clergymen did so, and he should certainly have followed their example: a knowledge of medicine would have enabled him to do good - even more good. A shepherd must know how to use his tar-box both literaliv and figuratively; for as Dr Maturin so rightly observed, the disorders of his sheep might partake of two natures at the least.

This statement threw a slight chill upon the atmosphere; yet on the whole the wardroom's opinion of Mr Fisher was favourable: he was eager to please and to be pleased; and although they did not care for being regarded as a parcel of sheep, a remark of that nature was excusable in a parson.

Their opinion was echoed in Stephen's diary, which he wrote in his nasty cabin on the orlop during the intervals between dinner and the burial service, after which he was to review the convicts with the chaplain and make his report. He might have had part of Jack's splendour, a spacious region of his own, as he had done before, when he was the Captain's guest; but in the Leopard he did not wish the surgeon to seem unduly privileged; and in any case he was singularly indifferent to his surroundings. "I met the chaplain today," he wrote. "He is a conversible man, and of some reading: not perhaps very sensible, and possibly somewhat given to enthusiasm. But he may not do himself justice. He is nervous, and ill at case; he lacks composure. Yet he may prove a valuable addition to the mess. I feel moderately drawn to him, and if I were on land I should say that I intended to continue the acquaintance. At sea there is no choice.' fie continued with a description of his symptoms - the reviving appetite - the specificity of the intense yearning somewhat diminished -

the crisis of the weaning perhaps behind him. "To be so caught," he wrote, "and by so old a friend! The two Winchester quarts in the late Mr Simpson's chest, do they represent a danger or rather a safeguard, a standing evidence of resolution - indeed, of freedom recovered?" I le pondered over this point, sinking into a deep meditation, his lips pursed, his head on one side, his eyes stretched wide, staring at his 'cello case. After having beaten on Stephen's door for some time in vain, the midshipman who had been sent to fetch him on deck opened it and said, "I hope I do not disturb you, sit; but the Captain thought you would wish to be present at the burial."

"Thank you, thank vou, Mr - Mr Byron, is It not?" said Stephen, holding his lantern towards the young man , s face. "I shall come upstairs directly."

He reached the quarterdeck in time for the last words and the four splashes: surgeon, superintendent, and two convicts; the last being the only cases he had ever known of actual death from seasickness. "Though no doubt," he observed to Mr Martin, "partial asphyxia, near starvation, a vicious habit of body, and a prolonged confinement were contributory causes."

The Leopard's logbook wasted no time on causes, nor comments: it confined itself to facts: 'Tuesday, 22d. Wind SE. Course S27W. Distance 45. Position 42'40'N 10'I VW, Cape Finisterre E by S 12 leagues. Fresh gales, clear weather. People variously employed. At 5 committed bodies of William Simpson, John Alexander, Robert Smith, and Edward Marno to the deep. Swifted foretopmast futtocks. Killed a bullock weight 522 lb.' While for his part her captain, in his serial letter to his wife, confined himself to effects: there was nothing like a funeral for sobering the crew. This evening none of the midshipmen would go skylarking, which was just as well, since the youngsters who had never been to sea before simply were not up to racing to the masthead and sliding down a backstay with anything like safety if there was a sea

running. The child Boyle had brought Jack's heart into his mouth in the chops of the Channel by trying to reach the main-truck, with the ship pitching like a young horse being broke. "There are ten of them altogether," he said, I andI am responsible to their parents: it makes me feel like an anxious hen. Not that some of them are in much danger, except of a beating. The boy I rated captain's servant for Harding's sake, is an odious little villain - I have already had to stop his grog - and there are a couple more among the oldsters, nephews of men who were kind to me, that are more like vermin than anything I like to see on my quarterdeck. But to go back to the funeral. Mr Fisher, the chaplain, read the service in a very proper manner, which pleased all hands; and although I do not care for parsons aboard, it seems to me that we could have done much worse. He is a gentlemanlike fellow; he seems to understand his duty; and at present he is about to sort out the convicts in the forepeak with Stephen, poor unfortunate creatures. As for Stephen, he is grown devilish crabbed, and I am afraid he is far, far from being happy. There is a female convict aboard, the very spit of Diana, and it seems to me that the reminder wounds him: said there was no likeness at all - rapped it out sharp and brought me up all standing. A most striking young woman, and no doubt a person of some consequence, since she berths alone and has her servant, while the others, God help them, live and mess in a hole where we would not keep our pigs. But we have fine weather now, after our blow, and the south-easter I had been praying for. The dear Leopard proves remarkably stiff, and weatherly as well. As I write, we have the wind one point free, and she has been tearing off her nine miles in the hour ever since this morning. At this rate (for I believe the wind is settled in that quarter) we may raise the Island in a fortnight, in spite of our lying-to, and Stephen will have sun and swimming and curious spiders to cheer his heart again. Sweetheart, in the night I was thinking of the stable

drains, and I beg you will desire Mr Horridge to make sure they are really deep, and brick-lined ...."

Jack was right about the gravity that the burial-service induced, and about the verminous nature of some of his young gentlemen; but as to the survey of the convicts he was mistaken. The sight of the Atlantic rising, rising, andslowly falling had undone Mr Fisher, and although by a noble effort he got through his duty, he was obliged to excuse himself immediately afterwards, and retire; Stephen had made his tour alone, and he was now standing immediately above Jack's head, on the poop, talking to the first lieutenant, and smoking a cigar.

"That young man at dinner, Byron. Is he related to the poet?,

"The poet, Doctor?"

"Aye. The famous Lord Byron."

"Oh, you mean the admiral. Yes, I believe He is a grandson, or maybe a great nephew."

"The admiral, Tom?"

"Why, yes. The famous Lord Byron. They still call him Foul-weather Jack: the whole Navy knows about him.

There's fame for you! My grandad sailed with him when he was only a midshipman, and then again when he was an admiral, bosun of the Indefatigable; and many a crack they had about their days on Chile after the Wager came to grief. How the Admiral did relish a blow! Almost as much as our Captain Jack. Would crack on regardless, laughing ha, ha, ha; but I don't recall he was ever much of a hand in the poetry line. It was hearing about him that first made me long to go to sea: and my grandad's tales of the wreck."

Stephen had read an account of the loss of the Wager in the cold, stormy, uncharted waters of the Chiloe archipelago: he said, "Yet surely it was but a dismal wreck? No Cytherea, with coral strands, palm-trees , and dusky maidens to fill the horn of plenty? No Crusoe stores at hand? As I recall, they ate a drowned seaman's liver."