Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

then where shall we be? Pray put some woollen garment on your head and shoulders; you will find the sea-air pierce you, after this mephitis. I cannot recommend shoes of that nature: the motion is far more violent upstairs. Half-boots, or list slippers, or indeed bare feet, are the proper wear.

Mrs Wogan turned, privately blew her nose, reached for a blue cashmere shawl, kicked off her redheeled shoes, and thanking Dr Maturin a thousand times for his goodness, declared that she was perfectly ready.

He led her up ladder after ladder towards the main hatchway. At one point they both fell with a soft dump on to a heap of studdingsalls, but eventually they emerged on to the quarterdeck. The afternoon was more brilliant than ever, and the steady wind swept in over the hammock nettings, salt and full of life. Babbington and Turnbull, the officer of the watch, were talking by the starboard hances; three midshipmen were busy with their sextants on the old lopsided moon, measuring her angular distance from the sun, now well to the west over the splendid empty sea. The talk instantly stopped; the sextants drooped; Babbington straightened to his full five foot six and darted an old clay pipe into his pocket; the Leopard came up half a point, her headsalls gave a hint of a shiver, and Turnbull roared, "Full and by, there, God damn your eyes. Quartermaster, mind your con. Come no near.' Stephen led Mrs Wogan across the sloping deck to the fife-rails and pointed out the gangway. "That is the gangway," he said, "and there you will walk in inclement weather."

A low whistle came from a party of men at work in the waist, and Turnbull cried, "Clarke, take that man's name at once. You, sir, jump up to the head and back seven times. Clarke, start him hearty."

"And this is the quarterdeck," continued Stephen, turning about. "The upper level over there, is called the poop, where you may walk today, and when it is fine. I shall

conduct you by these stairs."

The wardroom goat and Babbington's Newfoundland left the hencoops by the wheel and paced across to meet them. "Do not be afraid, ma'arn," cried Babbington, approaching with a smile that would have been even more winning if youthful folly had left him more in the way of teeth, "he is as gentle as a lamb."

Mrs Wogan made no reply other than a gentle inclination of her head. The dog smelt her proffered hand and walked after her, wagging its tall.

The poop was empty, and Mrs Wogan walked up and down it, stumbling now and then when the Leopard gave one of her cumbrous skips. Stephen, having watched a sheerwater until it vanished astern, leant on the taffrail and considered her. Barefooted and with that shawl, her misty eyes and a little dark hair showing, she looked wonderfully like the young Irishwomcn of his youth, and sorrowful too, as he had seen so many and many after the rising of 'ninety-eight. The sadness surprised him, for although there was plenty of cause for it, with fifteen thousand miles of sea before her and a most unenviable fate at the far end, he had expected her spirits to rise when she was brought out into. the sun.

"You must allow me to warn you against any indulgence in lowness,"he said. "Were you to give way to melancholy, you would certainly pule Into a decline."

She managed a smile, and said, "Perhaps it is no more than the effect of Naples biscuits, sir. I must have eaten a thousand, at least."

"Unrelieved Naples biscuit? Do they not feed you at all?"

"Oh yes, and I am sure I shall come to relish it soon. Pray do not think I complain."

"When did you last eat a. square meal?"

"Why, it must have been quite a long time ago . . . in Clarges Street, I believe."

No hint of consciousness in that Clarges Street, he observed; and he said, "A diet of Naples biscuits alone--

that would account for the yellowness.' lie took a dried Catalan sausage from his pocket, skinned the end with his lancet, and said, "Are you hungry, now?"

"Oh dear me, yes! Perhaps it is the sea air.

lie fed her slices, advising that they should be chewed very thoroughly, and he noticed that she was very near tears again - that she secretly glided some pieces to the Newfoundland, and that those she swallowed would scarcely go down. Babbington's head appeared on the larboard poop ladder: he mounted, went through the motions of looking for his dog, feigned to catch sight of it, came over, and said, "Come, Pollux, you must not make a nuisance of yourself. I trust he has not been importuning you, ma'am?"

But Mrs Wogan said no more than 'No, sir," in a very low voice, looking down and away; and Babbington, under the cold fire of Stephen's eye, was unable to hold his ground. Turnbull, who succeeded him, was in a better postion; he had brought a quartermaster and a bosun's mate to do something to the ensign-staff. But before he had given even the first of his orders he bawled out, "You sir! What the bloody hell do you think you are doing here?" at a young man who came running up on to the poop with a look of radiant delight on his face. The look changed; the man stopped. "Get along forward," shouted Turnbull. "Atkins, start that man.'The bosun's mate darted forward, his triple rattan high; the man dodged a blow or two, and then vanished.

This kind of brutality was familiar enough to Stephen, but he turned to see what effect it would have on Mrs Wogan. To his astonishment he saw that she had flushed a bright pink: there was no yellowness in that face turned studiously away to contemplate the horizon, and when he spoke to her again he beheld an equally surprising change of expression, a brilliant eye, an evident hurry of spirits, a sudden volubility, an unavailing attempt at disguising some very strong and pleasurable emotion. Would Dr

Maturin have the extreme kindness to tell her the name of that rope, the mast over there, these sails? What a great deal he knew; but then of course he was a sailor. Might she presume to beg for just one more slice, a very little slice of that delicious sausage? At times she endeavoured to stop, but after a slight pause the words would come bubbling out, in remarks that were not always perfectly coherent.

"That went down better,"he observed; and although the words were not particularly droll, Mrs Wogan laughed in reply, a gurgling laugh that went on and on, so deeply amused, so natural and so absurdly fetching, that he felt hismouth broaden, and he said to himself, "No, no; this is no hysteria; this has none of the shrill flightly morbid ring of hysteria.' Meeting his eye she collected herself, grew grave, and said, "I beg you will not think me impertinent, sir, but is it not a shame to put that sausage into your pocket - so very greasy, and such a handsome coat?"

Stephen looked down: yes, indeed, his idiot servant must have put out his best gold-laced coat for today's dinner; and now there was a broad grease mark on its side. "I was not aware," he said, spreading the grease with his fingers. "It is my best coat."

"Perhaps if you were to wrap it in a handkerchief? You have no handkerchief? Here: pray hold it out by the string.' She plucked a handkerchief from her bosom, wrapped it neatly about the sausage, tied its ends, and said, with a look that could scarcely be described as anything but affectionate, "Should you like me to carry it, sir? It would be a sad shame for the coat to grow greasier still; though to be sure a chalkball will soon get it out."

"What is a chalk-ball?" asked Stephen, still looking sadly at his coat. And then, "Come, come, there is not a moment to be lost. See the sentry going forward. In two minutes they will beat to quarters: our time is done.' He handed her to the steps, where the wind, wanton and indiscreet at the break of the poop, caught her petticoats. But every eye on the quarterdeck was fixed forward in rigid propriety,

for Jack was at the windward rail; and when, having mastered her skirt at the bottom of the steps, she said, "And the sausage, sir?" Stephen put his finger to his lips. fie led her below, told her that she must never never speak on the quarterdeck when the tall gentleman, the Captain, was there; that she must eat the sausage herself, and that she must try to accustom her stomach to the ship's fare, "which was wholesome, though rough, and which use would render palatable, to a well-thinking mind'; and hurried away to his action-station in the cockpit as the drum volleyed and thundered over his head.