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

Jack passed on to the gunners, honest slowbellies for the most part, whom he had found in the usual state of neglect, but whose lives he would make a misery until they learnt to serve their pieces as they ought to serve their God. Young Conroy was the last in the division: a blue-​eyed youth as tall as Jack but much slimmer, with an absurdly beautiful mild smooth girl’s face; his beauty left Jack totally unmoved (this could not be said for all his shipmates) but the bone ring that fastened his handkerchief did not. On the outward face of the bone, a shark’s vertebra, Conroy had worked so perfect a likeness of the Sophie, Jack’s first command, that he recognised her at once. Conroy was probably related to someone who had belonged to her: yes, there had been a quartermaster of the same name, a married man who always remitted his pay and prize-​money home. Was he sailing with an old shipmate’s son? Age, age; dear me. This was no time to speak, and in any case, Conroy, though not dumb, had such a shocking stutter as to make him nearly so. But he would look into the muster-​book when he had a moment.

Now the forecastle, where he was received by the bosun, the carpenter and the gunner, suffering and motionless in their rarely-​worn uniforms; and at once the oppressive feeling of great age fell away, for these were the frigate’s standing officers, and one of them, Rattray, had been with her from the beginning. He had been bosun of the Surprise when Jack was a master’s mate in her, and Jack felt painfully young under his keen, grey, respectful but somewhat cynical eye. He felt that this eye pierced straight through his post-​captain’s epaulette and did not think much of what it saw below, was not deceived by the pomp. Inwardly Jack agreed, but withdrawing into his role he stiffened as they exchanged the formal courtesies, and passed on with some relief to the master-​at-​arms and the ship’s boys, taking a mean revenge in reflecting once more that Rattray had never been much of a bosun from the point of view of discipline and that now he was past his prime in the article of rigging too. The boys seemed spry enough, though here again there were more spots than was usual or pleasant; and one had a monstrous black mark on the shoulder of his frock. Tar. -

‘Master-​at-​arms,’ said Jack, ‘what is the meaning of this?’

‘It dropped on him from the rigging, sir, this last minute: which I see it fall.’ The boy, a stunted little adenoidal creature with a permanently open mouth, looked perfectly terrified.

‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘I suppose we may call it an act of God. Do not let it happen again, Peters.’ Then seeing at the edge of his official gaze that three of the boys in the back row had worked one another into a hopeless pitch of strangled mirth, mutely writhing, he passed quickly on to the larboard waisters and the after-​guard. Here the quality fell off dismally: a stupid, unhandy set of lubbers on the whole, though some of the recent Landsmen might improve. Most of them looked cheerful, good-​natured fellows; only three or four right hard bargains from the gaols; but here again he saw more gloomy, lack-​lustre faces.

The ship’s company was done: not a bad company at all, and for once he was not undermanned. But poor ailing Simmons, his predecessor, had let discipline grow slack before he died; the months in Portsmouth had done no good; and Hervey was not the man to build up an efficient crew. He was an amiable, conscientious fellow, very good company when he could overcome his diffidence, and a profound mathematician; but he could not see from one end of the ship to the other, and even if he had had the eyes of a lynx, he was no seaman. Still worse, he had no authority. His kindliness and ignorance had played Old Harry with the Surprise; and anyhow it would have called for an exceptional officer to cope with the loss of half the frigate’s people, drafted off by the port-​admiral, and their replacement by the crew of the Racoon, turned over to the Surprise in a body on returning from a four years’ commission on the North American station without being allowed to set foot on shore. The Racoons and the Surprises and the small draft of landsmen still had not mixed; there were still unpleasant jealousies, and the ratings were often absurdly wrong. The captain of the foretop did not know his business, for example; and as for their gunnery-

But this was not what he was worrying about as he walked into the galley. He had an enchanting ship, frail and elderly though she might be, some good officers, and good material. No: what haunted him was the thought of scurvy. But he might be mistaken; these dull looks might have a hundred other causes; and surely it was too early in the voyage for scurvy to break out?

The heat in the galley brought him up all standing. It had been gasping hot on deck, even with the blessed breeze: here it was like walking straight into a baker’s oven. But the three-​legged cook - three-​legged because both his own had been shot away on the Glorious First of June, and he had supplemented the two provided by the hospital with a third, ingeniously seized to his bottom, to prevent him from plunging into his cauldrons or his range in a heavy sea. The range was now cherry-​pink in the gloom, and the cook’s face shone with sweat.

‘Very trim, Johnson. Capital,’ said Jack, backing a step. ‘Ain’t you going to inspect the coppers, sir?’ cried the cook, his brilliant smile vanishing, so that in the comparative darkness his whole face seemed to disappear.

‘Certainly I am,’ said Jack, drawing on the ceremonial white glove. With this he ran his hand round the gleaming coppers, gazed at his fingers as though he really expected to find them deeply crusted with old filth and grease. A drop of sweat trembled on the end of his nose and more coursed down inside his coat, but he gazed at the pease-​soup, the ovens and the two hundredweight of plum-​duff, Sunday duff, before making his way to the sick-​bay where Dr Maturin and his raw-​boned Scotch assistant were waiting for him. Having made the round of the cots (one broken arm, one hernia with pox, four plain poxes) with what he intended to be encouraging remarks - looking better - soon be fit and well - back with their messmates for crossing the line - he stood under the opening of the air-​sail, profiting by the relative coolness of 105¡, and said privately to Stephen, ‘Pray go along the divisions with Mr M’Alister while I am below. Some of the men seem to me to have an ugly look of the scurvy. I hope I am wrong - it is far too early - but it looks damnably like it.’

Now the berth-​deck, with an ill-​looking cat that sat defying them with studied insolence, its arms folded, and its particular friend, an equally mangy green parrot, lying on its side, prostrated with the heat, that said ‘Erin go bragh’ in a low tone once or twice as Jack and Hervey paced along with bowed heads past the spotless mess-​tables, kids, benches, chests, the whole clean-​swept deck checkered with brilliant light from the gratings and the hatchways. Nothing much wrong here; nor in the midshipmen’s berth, nor of course in the gunroom. But in the sail-​room, where the bosun joined them again, a very shocking sight - mould on the first stay-​sail he turned over, and worse as the others were brought out.

This was lubber’s work, slovenly and extremely dangerous. Poor Hervey wrung his hands, and the bosun, though made of sterner stuff, was quickly reduced to much the same condition. Jack’s unfeigned anger, his utter contempt for the excuses offered - ‘it happens so quick near the line - no fresh water to get the salt out - the salt draws the damp - hard to fold them just so with all these awnings’ - made a shattering impression on Rattray.

His remarks upon the efficiency required in a man-​of -war were delivered in little more than a conversational tone, but they were not inaudible, and when he emerged after having looked at the holds, cable-​tiers and fore-​peak, the frigate’s people had an air of mixed delight and apprehension. They were charmed that the bosun had copped it - all of them, that is to say, who would not be spending their holy Sunday afternoon in ‘rousing them all out, sir, every last storm-​stays’l, every drabbler, every bonnet: do you hear me, now?’ - but apprehensive lest their own sins he discovered, lest they cop it next; for this skipper was a bleeding tartar, mate, a right hard horse.