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

‘Let us turn to the details.’

‘Bonden,’ cried Stephen, ‘take pen and ink, and write -”Write, sir?’ cried Bonden.

‘Yes. Sit square to your paper, and write: Landsdowne Crescent - Barret Bonden, are you brought by the lee?’

‘Why, yes, sir; that I am - fair broached-​to. Though I can read pretty quick, if in broad print; I can make out a watch-​bill.’

‘Never mind. I shall show you the way of it when we are at sea, however: it is no great matter - look at the fools who write all day long - but it is useful, by land. You can ride a horse, sure?’

‘Which I have rid a horse, sir; and three or four times, too, when ashore.’

‘Well. Be so good as to step - to jump - round to the Paragon and let Miss Williams know that if her afternoon walk should chance to lead her by Landsdowne Crescent, she would oblige mc infinitely; then to the Saracen’s Head - my compliments to Mr Pullings, and I should be very glad to see him as soon as he has a moment.’

‘Paragon it is, sir, and Saracen’s Head: to proceed to Landsdowne Crescent at once.’

‘You may run, Bonden, if you choose. There is not a moment to be lost.’

The front door banged; feet tearing away left-​handed down the crescent, and a long, long pause. A blackbird singing for the faint approach of spring in the gardens the other side of the road; the dismal voice of a corn-​cutter chanting ‘Work if I had it - Work if I had it’ coming closer, dying away. Reflections upon the aetiology of corns; upon Mrs Williams’s bile-​duct. The front door again, echoing in the empty house - the Keiths and all their servants but a single crone were away - footsteps on the stairs, continual gay prattle. He frowned. The door opened and Sophia and Cecilia walked in, with Bonden winking and jerking his thumb behind their heads.

‘Lord, Dr Maturin,’ cried Cecilia, ‘you are abed! I declare. Why, I am in a gentleman’s bedroom at last -that is to say, I don’t mean at last at all, but how are you? I suppose you have just come from the bath, and are sweating. Well, and how are you? We met Bonden just as we were going out, and I said at once, I must ask how he does: we have not seen you since Tuesday! Mama was quite -’

A thundering double knock below; Bonden vanished. Powerful sea-​going voices on the stairs - a booming remark about the ‘oakum-​topped piece’ which could only refer to Cecilia and her much-​teazed yellow hair - and Mr Pullings made his appearance, a tall, kind-​looking, loose-​limbed young man, a follower of Jack Aubrey’s, as far as so unfortunate a captain could be said to have followers.

‘You know Mr Pullings of the Navy, I believe?’ said Stephen.

Of course they knew him - he had been twice to Melbury Lodge - Cecilia had danced with him. ‘Such fun!’ she cried, looking at him with great complacency. ‘How I love balls.’

‘Your Mama tells mc you also have a fine taste in art,’ said Stephen. ‘Mr Pullings, pray show Miss Cecilia Lord Keith’s new Titian: it is in the gallery, together with a great many other pictures. And Pullings, explain the battle scene, the Glorious First of June. Explain it in particular detail, if you please,’ he called after them. ‘Sophie, my dear, briskly now: take pen and paper. Write:

“Dear Jack,

We have a ship, Surprise, for the East Indies, and must join at Plymouth instantly. .

ha, ha, what will he say to that?’

‘Surprise!’ was what he said, in a voice that made the windows of the Grapes’ one-​pair front tremble. In the bar Mrs Broad dropped a glass.

‘The Captain’s had a surprise,’ she said, gazing placidly at the pieces.

‘I hope it is a pleasant one,’ said Nancy, picking them up. ‘Such a pretty gentleman.’ The travel-​worn Pullings, discreetly turned to the window as Jack read his letter, spun about at the cry.

‘Surprise! God love my heart, Pullings: do you know what the Doctor has done? He has found us a ship -Surprise for the East Indies - join at once. Killick, Killick! Sea-​chest, portmanteau, small valise; and jump round to the office: insides on the Plymouth mail.’

‘You won’t go down by no mail-​coach, sir,’ said Killick, ‘nor no po’shay neither, not with all them bums lining the shore. I’ll lay on a hearse, a genteel four-’orse-’earse.’

‘Surprise!’ cried Jack again. ‘I have not set foot in her since I was a midshipman.’ He saw her plain, lying there a cable’s length from him in the brilliant sunshine of English Harbour, a trim, beautiful little eight-​and-​twenty, French-​built with a bluff bow and lovely lines, weatherly, stiff, a fine sea-​boat, fast when she was well-​handled, roomy, dry. . . He had sailed in her under a taut captain and an even tauter first lieutenant - had spent hours and hours banished to the masthead - had done most of his reading there - had carved his initials on the cap: were they still to be seen? She was old, to be sure, and called for nursing; but what a ship to command . . . He dismissed the ungrateful thought that there was never a prize to be looked for in the Indian Ocean - swept clear long ago - and said, ‘We could give Agamemnon mainsail and topgallants, sailing on a bowline . . . I shall have the choice of one or two officers, for sure. Shall you come, Pullings?’

‘Why, in course, sir,’ - surprised.

‘Mrs Pullings no objection? No - eh?’

‘Mrs Pullings will pipe her eye, I dare say; but then presently she will brighten up. And I dare say she will be main pleased to see me back again at the end of the commission; more pleased than now is, maybe. I get sadly underfoot, among the brooms and pans. It ain’t like aboard ship, sir, the marriage-​state.’

‘Ain’t it, Pullings?’ said Jack looking at him wistfully.

Stephen went on with his dictation: ‘Surprise, to carry H.M. envoy to the Sultan of Kampong. Mr Taylor at the Admiralty is au courant: has the necessary papers all ready. I calculate that if you take the Bath road and fork off at Dayrolle’s you should pass Wolmer Cross at about four in the morning of the third, thus going aboard during the debtors’ truce of Sunday. I shall wait for you at the Cross for a while in a chaise, and if I am not so fortunate as to see you, I shall proceed with Bonden and expect you at the Blue Posts. She is a frigate, it appears, of the smaller kind; she is short of officers, men, and - unless Sir Joseph spoke in jocular hyperbole - of a bottom.

In haste-

Mend your pace, Sophie. Come come. You would never grow fat as a scrivener. Cannot you spell hyperbole? Is it done at last, for all love? Show.’

‘Never,’ cried Sophie, folding it up.

‘I believe you have put in more than ever I said,’ said Stephen, narrowing his eyes. ‘You blush extremely. Have you at least the rendezvous just so?’

‘Wolmer Cross at four in the morning of the third. Stephen, I shall be there. I shall get out of my window and over the garden wall: you must take me up at the corner.’

‘Very well. But why will you not walk out at the front door like a Christian? And how are you going to get back? You will be hopelessly compromised if you are seen stalking about Bath at dawn.’

‘So much the better,’ said Sophie. ‘Then I shall have no reputation left whatsoever, and shall have to be married as soon as possible - why did I not think of that before? Oh Stephen, you have beautiful ideas.’

‘Well. At the corner, then, at half past three. Put on a warm cloak, two pair of stockings, and thick woollen drawers. It will be cold; we may have to wait a great while; and even then as like as not we shall not see him, which will chill you even more - for you are to consider, that a disappointment on top of the falling damps - hush: give me the letter.’