Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

"Well, sir," said Captain Putnam, taking the hand with no great eagerness, "I am obliged to you, but - 'he caught the whiff of fresh-brewed coffee, coming from Jack's booth, coughed, and went on, "You mean here on shore, I guess? Why, then, I don't mind if I do."

He was a tall, spare, able-looking man with a blue nose and a blue, piercing eye: one side of his face much swollen. Taciturn and reserved, if not wary: from time to time he put his hand to his cheek, and his lips clamped tight with pain.

He was two and a half years out of Nantucket, had done tolerably well in whale-oil and spermaceti and sealskins, and was going home as soon as he had picked up a load of cabbages for the run: he had a good deal of scurvy aboard, he said; scurvy and a good deal of other sickness.

"You must let my surgeon look at your invalids," said Jack.

"You have a surgeon aboard, have you?" cried Captain Putnam. "We lost ours off South Georgia, with the griping

of the guts."

"Yes, and a rare hand he is with scurvy; while as for sawing off a leg, he can beat any surgeon in the fleet."

Putnam made no reply for some time. "Well, to tell you the truth, sir," he said, with another twitch of pain, "I do not care to ask a favour of King George's navy."

"Ah?" said Jack.

"And I will tell you this, sir, that I should not care to set foot aboard the Leopard neither. We recognized her the moment we came in. I do not say this for you, sir, because she had another captain in the year seven, when she killed my cousin in the Chesapeake, pressing men out of her, but I had rather see the Leopard at the bottom of the ocean, than sailing on its surface. I reckon that is the view of most Americans."

"Well, Captain,"said Jack, "I am heartily sorry for it.' He was too: most heartily sorry. He was well aware of the incident that rankled in the skipper's mind: in 1807 the Leopard, then commanded by Buck Humphreys, had fired three broadsides into an unprepared American man-of-war, the Chesapeake, killing or wounding a score of her men and forcing her to strike: had he been an American he would never have forgiven or forgotten such an insult. He too would have wished the Leopard at the bottom of the sea. For h Is own part he utterly condemned the whole business: he would never have gone to such lengths to take a few deserters nor even a hundred of them. But he could not say this to a foreigner, a pretty inimical foreigner at that. Instead he proposed another cup of coffee - the La Fayette had drunk the last of hers south of the Horn - and said something more in praise of Dr Maturin. "He also has an American assistant," he added - 'They are the gentlemen your boat rescued last night."

"I reckoned they might not be seamen," said Captain Putnam, with something nearer to a smile than anything he had yet achieved. He stood up, thanked Captain Aubrey for his hospitality, and said he reckoned the

American surgeon's mate might find himself in a tolerably awkward situation when the war broke out, if indeed it had not already been declared.

"You think it likely, then?"

"If the English go on hampering our trade and stopping our ships and taking whatever men they choose to consider British, how can it be prevented? We are a proud nation, sir, and we have whipped you before. If I had been President Jefferson, I should have declared war right away, the minute your Leopard fired on the Chesapeake. And let me tell you, sir, we have frigates built and building now that can whip anything you have in the same class; so when we do declare, we shall be able to wipe off a long, long score. Yes, sir.' He grew angrier as he spoke; he looked Jack straight in the eye with a fiery glare, and after the last emphatic 'Yes, sir' he stalked off to his boat, accompanied by his mate, who had remained sHent throughout the interview.

Later in the day the whaler's collective attitude became if anything yet more apparent. Her boats came in, to what the whalers evidently considered their own private beach, and the men made their way up the slopes behind to gather their own eggs and their own cabbages. Jack had taken measures to ensure that those Leopards who were ashore should not enter into conflict with the whalers, but there was little need. The whalers walked by without any greeting apart from an offhand grunt, communicating only indirectly, by remarks intended to be overheard - 'That's the - old Leopard', "Remember 1807', "Stole half our - cabbages, the sods', and the like. They were a very tough-looking set of men, many so bearded that they looked like bears: yet to an attentive eye it was clear that some were not in the prime of strength; the higher slopes made them gasp and pause fo~ breath, and though few carried more than half a hundredweight they bent under their nets of cabbages as they came down, eating the raw leaves on their way.

During this time Jack watched not only the whalers but also their brig, from whose galley chimney there poured a fine stream of black smoke, rising without a doubt from coal. What line of conduct to adopt he could not tell: any whaler, working far from land for months and even years, must have a forge; but he could not run the risk of a direct refusal to let the Leopard use it. In his present frame of mind, Putnam certainly would refuse, and that would be the end of negotiations. Moore was all in favour of the strong hand: the Marines seizing the whalers on shore, taking their boats and boarding the brig. "There would be little or no resistance," he said. "I have seen a good many invalids creeping about her deck: and after all, it is only to borrow their forge - they would scarcely cut up rough in such a case."

"I doubt that," said Jack. Captain Putnam had already run out his four six pounders and rigged boarding netting: a natural precaution in a sperm-whaler frequenting the cannibal islands of the great South Sea, but more significant by far off Desolation. At all events, in such a time of tension, the use of force would certainly cause a diplomatic incident, if not provoke an actual war, the Leopard having such an unlucky name and reputation. Yet it might be the only solution: furthermore, war might already have been declared, and in that case he would be perfectly justified - the brig would be a fair prize, forge and all. It was extremely tempting. And he must act soon, for the whaler would be away as soon as she had gathered her greenstuff. "Pass the word for Dr Maturin," he said.

At this time Dr Maturin and his assistant were on Paradise again, grubbing up the lower mosses, Herapath in a state of extreme but suppressed excitement. He was much less concerned with botany than the likelihood of war, which he turned in all directions with a wealth of hypotheses; and he was very urgent with Stephen to intercede with the Captain to allow him to visit the La Fayette in spite of this morning's order.

"But since you are yourself American," said Stephen, "the Captain would never be able to bring you back without violating international law; and as you know, the Leopard is terribly short-handed."

"It is true, then, that an American citizen, born in the States, cannot be removed from an American ship?"

"Gospel true."

"But I leave a hostage on shore: I should never, never leave her behind, as you know."

"I know that, but Captain Aubrey does not. Poor Mrs Wogan. It must go hard with her, to see freedom floating not half a mile away: for she too would be out of the reach of English law, once she set foot upon an American deck. Perhaps it would be as well not to mention this, however, lest she should break out in some wild, unconsidered act. She may not know it, and - hush, I hear a voice."

He would have to have been stone deaf not to hear it. Allan had by now developed the full bosun's roar, and he was hailing the mossy slopes of Paradise with all his might from the jolly-boat - the Captain wished to see the Doctor.