Patrick O'Brian: Desolation island

"We have brought it off," said Stephen. "Sir James is absolute: Scarborough, or we cannot answer for the consequences; and the patient is to travel under the care of an attendant belonging to Dr Lettsome."

"Well, I am happy the old lady is to be looked after so well," said Jack, chuckling. "Come and look at my latest purchase."

"She is a fine creature, to be sure," said Stephen, as they watched the filly being led up and down. A fine creature, perhaps a shine too fine, even flashy; slightly ewe-hocked; and surely that want of barrel would denote a lack of bottom? An evil-tempered ear and eye. "Will I get on her back?" he asked.

"There will never be time," said Jack, looking at his watch. "The dinner-bell will go directly. But - 'casting an admiring backward eye as he hurried Stephen away - 'is she not a magnificent animal? Just made to win the Oaks."

I am no great judge of horseflesh," said Stephen, "yet I do beg, Jack, that you will not lay money on the creature till you have watched her six months and more."

"Bless you," said Jack, "I shall be at sea long before that, and so will you, I hope, if your occasions allow it - we must run like hares - I have -great news - will tell you the moment the medicoes are away.'The hares blundered on, gasping. Jack cried, "Your dunnage is in your old room, of course," and plunged up the stairs to shift his coat, reappearing to wave his guests to the dining table as the clock struck the first stroke of the hour.

"One of the many things I like about the Navy,"said Sir James, half way through the first remove, "is that it teaches a proper respect for time. With sailors a man always knows when he is going to sit down to table; and his digestive organs are grateful for this punctuality."

"I could wish a man also knew when he was going to rise from table," observed Jack within, some two hours later, when Sir James's organs were still showing gratitude to the port and walnuts. He was boiling with impatience to tell Stephen of his new command, to engage him, if possible, to sail with him once more on this voyage, to admit him to the secret of becoming enormously rich, and to hear what his friend might have to say about his own affairs - not those which had filled his recent absence, for there Stephen was no more loquacious than the quieter sort of tomb, but those which were connected with Diana Villiers and the letters that had so lately been carried up to his room. Yet aloud he said, "Come, Stephen, this will never do. The bottle is at a stand.' Although Jack's voice was loud and clear, Stephen did not move until the words were repeated, when he started from his reflections, gazed about, and pushed the decanter on: the two physicians looked at him attentively, their heads on one side. Jack's more familiar eye could not make out any marked change: Stephen was pale and withdrawn, but not much more so than usual; perhaps a little drearmer; yet even so Jack was heartily glad when the doctors excused themselves from taking tea, called for their footman, were led into the coach-house by Stephen for a grisly interval with a saw, bundled a shrouded object into the back of the chariot (it had carried many another - the footman and the horses were old hands in the resurrection line), reappeared, pocketed their fees, took their leave, and rolled away.

Sophie was alone in the drawing-room with the tea-urn and the coffee-pot when at last Jack and Stephen Joined her. "Have you told Stephen about the ship?" she asked.

"Not yet, sweetheart," said Jack, "but am on the very point of doing so. Do you remember the Leopard, Stephen?"

"The horrible old Leopard?"

"What a fellow you are, to be sure. First you crab my new filly, the finest prospect for the Oaks I have ever seen - and let me tell you, old Stephen, with all due modesty, that I am the best judge of a horse in the Navy."

"I make no doubt of it, my dear: I have seen several naval horses, ha, ha. For horses they must be called, since they generally have the best part of four legs, and no other member of the animal kingdom can call them kin.' Stephen relished his own wit, and for some little time he uttered the creaking sound that was his nearest approach to laughter, and said, "The Oaks, forsooth!"

"Well," said Jack, "and now you say "the horrible old Leopard". To be sure, she was something of a slug, and a ramshackle old slug, when Tom Andrews had her. But the Dockyard has taken her in hand - a most thoroughgoing overhaul - Snodgrass's diagonal braces - new spirketting - Roberts's iron-plate knees throughout - I spare you the details - and now she is the finest fifty-gun ship afloat, not excepting Grampus. Certainly the finest fourth-rate in the service!" The finest fourth-rate in the service: perhaps.

But as Jack knew very well, the fourth-rates were a poor and declining class; they had been excluded from the line of battle this last half-century and more; the Leopard had never been a shining example of them at any time. Jack knew her faults as well as any man; he knew that she was laid down and half built in 1776; that she had remained in that unsatisfactory state, quietly rotting in the open, for ten years or so; and that she had then been taken to Sheerness, where they eventually launched her on her undistinguished career in 1790. But he had watched her overhaul with a very attentive, professional eye, and although he knew she would never be an outstanding performer he was sure she was seaworthy: and above all he wanted her not for herself but for her destination: he longed for unknown seas, and the Spice Islands.

"The Leopard had quite a number of decks, as I recall," said Stephen.

"Why, yes: she is a fourth-rate, so she is a two-decker - roomy, almost as roomy as a ship of the line. You will have all the room in the world, Stephen; it will not be like being crammed up tight in a frigate. I must say that the Admiralty has done the handsome thing by me, for once."

"I think you should have had a first-rate," said Sophie. "And a peerage."

Jack gave her a very loving smile and went on, "They offered me the choice between Ajax, a new seventyfour on the stocks, or the Leopard. The seventy-four will be a very fine ship, as good a seventy-four as you could wish; but she would mean the Mediterranean, under Harte; and there's no distinction in the Mediterranean nowadays. Nor no fortune, either.' Here again Jack was a little devious, for although it was quite true that at this stage of the war there was little for a sailor in the Mediterranean the presence of Admiral Harte had more importance than he chose to explain. In former days Jack had cuckolded the Admiral, an unscrupulous, revengeful man who would not hesitate to break him if he could. During his naval career,

Jack had made a great many friends in the service, but he had also made a surprising number of enemies for so amiable a man: some had been jealous of his success; some (and these were his seniors) had found him too Independent, even insubordinate in his youth; some disliked his politics (he hated a Whig); and some had the same grudge as Admiral Harte, or fancied they did.

"You have all the distinction a man could wish, Jack," said Sophie. "Such dreadful wounds: and quite enough money.

"If Nelson had been of your mind, sweetheart, he would have cried quits after St Vincent. We should have had no Nile, and where would Jack Aubrey have been then? A mere lieutenant to the end of his days. No, no: a man can't have enough distinction in his line of service. And I don't know he can ever have enough money either, if it comes to that. But, however, Leopard is bound for the East Indies - not that there is likely to be much fighting there," he added with a glance at Sophie, "and the charming point about it is that a curious situation has arisen at Botany Bay. Leopard is to go south about, deal with the state of affairs in those parts, and then join Admiral Drury somewhere in the neighbourhood of Penang, making observations on her way. Think of the opportunities, Stephen - thousands of miles of almost unknown sea and coastline - wombats on shore for those that like them, because although this is not one of your leisurely exploring voyages, I am sure there would be time for a wombat or a kangaroo, when some important anchorage is to be surveyed - islands never seen, for sure, and their positions tobe laid down - and in about a hundred and fifty east, twenty south, we should be in the full path of the eclipse, if only our times coincide - think of the birds, Stephen, think of the beetles and cassowaries, to say nothing of the Tasmanian Devil! There has not been such an opportunity for a philosophical chap since the days of Cook and Sir Joseph Banks."