Patrick O'Brian: H.M.S. Surprise

‘He is the gentleman about whom I sent your Lordship a minute last week,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘A minute in a yellow cover,’ added with a very slight emphasis - an emphasis that would have been the equivalent of flinging his ink-​well at the First Lord’s head in Melville’s time.

‘Is it usual for medical men to be given temporary post-​captain’s commissions?’ went on the First Lord, missing the emphasis and forgetting the significance of the yellow cover. All the service members looked up quickly, their eyes running from one to the other.

‘It was done for Sir Joseph Banks and for Mr Halley, my lord, and I believe, for some other scientific gentlemen. It is an exceptional compliment, but by no means unknown.’

‘Oh,’ said the First Lord, conscious from something in Sir Joseph’s cold and weary gaze that he had made a gaffe. ‘So it has nothing to do with this particular case?’

‘Nothing whatsoever, my lord. And if I may revert for a moment to Captain Aubrey, I may state without fear of contradiction that the father’s views do not represent the son’s. Far from it, indeed.’ This he said, not from any hope that he could right the position, but by way of drowning the gaffe - of diverting attention from it - and he was not displeased when Admiral Harte, still hoping to curry favour and at the same time to gratify a personal malevolence, said, ‘Would it be in order to call upon Sir Joseph to declare a personal interest?’

‘No sir, it would not,’ cried Admiral Parr, his port-​wine face flushing purple. ‘A most improper suggestion, by God.’ His voice trailed away in a series of coughs and grunts, through which could be heard ‘infernal presumption - new member - mere rear-​admiral - little shit.’

‘If Admiral Harte means to imply that I am in any way concerned with Captain Aubrey’s personal welfare,’ said Sir Joseph with an icy look, ‘he is mistaken. I have never met the gentleman. The good of the service is my only aim.’

Harte was shocked by the reception of what he had thought rather a clever remark, and he instantly pulled in his horns - horns that had been planted, among a grove of others, by the Captain Aubrey in question. He confounded himself in apologies - he had not meant, he had not wished to imply, what he had really intended - not the least aspersion on the most honourable gentleman.

The First Lord, somewhat disgusted, clapped his hand on the table and said, ‘But in any event, I cannot agree that five million dollars is a trifling expense to the country; and as I have already said, our legal advisers assure me that this must be considered as droits of the Crown. Much as I personally should like to fall in with Sir Joseph’s in many ways excellent and convincing suggestion, I fear we are bound by precedent. It is a matter of principle. I say it with infinite regret, Sir Joseph, being aware that this expedition, this brilliantly successful expedition, was under your aegis; and no one could wish more wealth and prosperity to the gentlemen of the Navy than myself. But our hands are tied, alas. However, let us console ourselves with the thought that there will be a considerable sum left over to be divided: nothing in the nature of millions, of course, but a considerable sum, oh yes. Yes. And with that comfortable thought, gentlemen, I believe we must now turn our attention. .

They turned it to the technical questions of impressment, tenders and guardships, matters outside Sir Joseph’s province, and he leant back in his chair, watching the speakers, assessing their abilities. Poor, on the whole; and the new First Lord was a fool, a mere politician. Sir Joseph had served under Chatham, Spencer, St Vincent and Melville, and this man made a pitiful figure beside them: they had had their failings, particularly Chatham, but not one would so have missed the point - the whole expense in this case would have been borne by the Spaniards; it would have been the Spaniards who provided the Royal Navy with the splendid example of four youngish post-​captains caught in a great shower, a downpour, of gold - the money would not have left the country. Naval fortunes were not so common; and the fortunes there were had nearly all been amassed by admirals in lucrative commands, taking their flag-​share for innumerable captures in which they personally took no part whatsoever. The captains who fought the ships - those were the men to encourage. Perhaps he had not made his point as clearly or as forcibly as he should have done: he was not in form after a sleepless night with seven reports from Boulogne to digest. But in any case, no other First Lord except perhaps St Vincent would have made the question turn on party politics. And quite certainly not a single one of them would have blurted out the name of a secret agent.

Both Lord Melville (a man who really understood intelligence - a splendid First Lord) and Sir Joseph were much attached to Dr Maturin, their adviser on Spanish and especially Catalan affairs, a most uncommon, wholly disinterested agent, brave, painstaking, utterly reliable and ideally qualified, who had never accepted the slightest reward for his services - and such services! It was he who had brought them the intelligence that had allowed them to deliver this crippling blow. Sir Joseph and Lord Melville had devised the temporary commission as a means of obliging him to accept a fortune, supplied by the enemy; and now his name had been brayed out in public - not even in the comparative privacy of the Board, but in a far more miscellaneous gathering - with the question openly directed at the chief of naval intelligence. It was unqualifiable. To rely on the discretion of these sailors whose only notion of dealing with an enemy as cunning as Bonaparte was to blow him out of the water, was unqualifiable. To say nothing of the civilians, the talkative politicians, whose nearest approach to danger was a telescope on Dover cliffs, where they could look at Bonaparte’s invasion army, two hundred thousand strong, camped on the other side of the water. He looked at the faces round the long table; they were growing heated about the relative jurisdictions of the impress service proper and the gangs from the ships - admiral called to admiral in voices that could be heard in Whitehall, and the First Lord seemed to have no control of the meeting whatsoever. Sir Joseph took comfort from this - the gaffe might be forgotten. ‘But still,’ he said to himself, drawing the metamorphoses of a red admiral, egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and imago on his pad, ‘what shall I say to him when we meet? What kind of face can I put on it, when I see him?’

In Whitehall a grey drizzle wept down upon the Admiralty, but in Sussex the air was dry - dry and perfectly still. The smoke rose from the chimney of the small drawing-​room at Mapes Court in a tall, unwavering plume, a hundred feet before its head drifted away in a blue mist to lie in the hollows of the downs behind the house. The leaves were hanging yet, but only just, and from time to time the bright yellow rounds on the tree outside the window dropped of themselves, twirling in their slow fall to join the golden carpet at its foot, and in the silence the whispering impact of each leaf could be heard - a silence as peaceful as an easy death.

‘At the first breath of a wind those trees will all be bare,’ observed Dr Maturin. ‘Yet autumn is a kind of spring, too; for there is never a one but is pushed off by its own next-​coming bud. You see that so clearly farther south. In Catalonia, now, where you and Jack are to come as soon as the war is over, the autumn rains bring up the grass like an army of spears; and even here - my dear, a trifle less butter, if you please. I am already in a high state of grease.’

Stephen Maturin had dined with the ladies of Mapes, Mrs Williams, Sophia, Cecilia and Frances - traces of brown windsor soup, codfish, pigeon pie, and baked custard could be seen on his neck-​cloth, his snuff-​coloured waistcoat and his drab breeches, for he was an untidy eater and he had lost his napkin before the first remove, in spite of Sophia’s efforts at preserving it - and now he was sitting on one side of the fire drinking tea, white Sophia toasted him crumpets on the other, leaning forward over the pink and silver glow with particular attention neither to scorch the crumpet by holding it too close nor to parch it by holding it too far down. In the fading light the glow caught her rounded forearm and her lovely face, exaggerating the breadth of her forehead and the perfect cut of her lips, emphasising the extraordinary bloom of her complexion. Her anxiety for the crumpet did away with the usual reserve of her expression; she had her younger sister’s trick of showing the tip of her tongue when she was concentrating, and this, with so high a degree of beauty, gave her an absurdly touching appearance. He looked at her with great complacency, feeling an odd constriction at his heart, a feeling without a name: she was engaged to be married to his particular friend, Captain Aubrey of the Navy; she was his patient; and they were as close as a man and a woman can be where there is no notion of gallantry between them - closer, perhaps, than if they had been lovers, He said, ‘This is an elegant crumpet, Sophie, to be sure: but it must be the last, and I do not recommend another for you, my dear, either. You are getting too fat. You were quite haggard and pitiful not six months ago; but the prospect of marriage suits you, I find. You must have put on half a stone, and your complexion. . . Sophie, why do you thread, transpierce another crumpet? Who is that crumpet for? For whom is that crumpet, say?’