Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

‘Did you require a dictionary for French, sir?’

‘No, sir: I had one. These were Blanckley’s Naval Expositor and Du Hamel, Aubin, and Saverien, to understand the hard words in the shipwrecks and manoeuvres, and to know what the travellers were about. I find it quite a help in translation to understand the text, sir; I always prefer it. So I worked away in my handsome room, refusing two or three offers from other booksellers and eating in a chop-​house twice a week, until the day Mr G sent me his young man to say he had thought better of my project of translating Boursicot - that his associates felt the cost of the plate would be too high - and that in the present state of the trade there was no demand for such an article.’

‘Did you have a contract?’

‘No, sir. It was what the booksellers call a gentleman’s agreement.’

‘No hope, then?’

‘None whatsoever, sir. I tried, of course, and was turned out of doors for my pains. He was angry with me for being ill-​used, and he spread tales in the trade of my having grown saucy - the last thing a bookseller can bear in a hack. He even had a harmless little translation of mine abused in the Literary Review. I could get no more work. My goods were seized, and my creditors would have had my person too, if I were not so practised at giving them the slip.’

‘You are acquainted with bailiffs, arrest for debt, the process of the law?’

‘I know few things better, sir. I was born in a debtors’ prison, and I have spent years in the Fleet and the Marshalsea. I wrote my Elements of Agriculture and my Plan for the Education of the Young Nobility and Gentry in the King’s Bench.’

‘Be so good as to give me a succinct account of the law as it at present stands.’

‘Jack,’ said Stephen, ‘your watch is called.’

‘Hey? Hey?’ Jack had the sailor’s knack of going instantly to sleep, snatching an hour’s rest, and starting straight out of it; but this time he had been very far down, very far away, aboard a seventy-​four off the Cape, swimming in a milk-​warm phosphorescent sea, and for once he sat there on the side of his bed, looking stupid and bringing himself slowly into the present. Lord Melville, Queenie, Canning, Diana.

‘What are you going to do with your prize?’ asked Stephen.

‘Eh? Oh, him. We ought to turn him over to the constable, I suppose.’

‘They will hang him.’

‘Yes, of course. It is the devil - you cannot have a fellow walking about taking purses; and yet you do not like to see him hang. Perhaps he may be transported.’

‘I will give you twelve and sixpence for him.’

‘Do you mean to dissect him already?’ - Stephen often bought corpses warm from the gallows. ‘And do you really possess twelve and sixpence at this moment? No, no, I’ll not take your money - you shall have him as a present. I resign him to you. I smell coffee, toast!’

He sat there eating steak, his bright blue eyes protruding with the effort, and with thought and concentration. They were in fact trying to pierce the future, but they happened to be fixed on his captive, who sat mute with dread upon his chair, very secretly scratching and from time to time making little gestures of submission. One of these caught Jack’s attention, and he frowned. ‘You sir!’ he cried in a strong sea-​going voice that brought the poor man’s heart to his mouth and stopped his searching hand. ‘You, sir! You had better eat this and look sharp about it,’ cutting an unctuous gobbet - ‘I have sold you to the Doctor, so you must obey his orders now, or you will find yourself headed up in a cask and tossed overboard. Do you mind me, hey?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I must be away now, Stephen. We meet this afternoon?’

‘My movements are uncertain: I may look into Seething Lane, though it is scarcely worth while until next week.’

The plunge into the Admiralty courtyard; the waiting room, with half a dozen acquaintances - disconnected gossip, his mind and theirs being elsewhere; the staircase to the First Lord’s room, and there, half-​way up, a fat officer leaning against the rail, silent weeping, his slab, pale cheeks all wet with tears. A silent marine watched him from the landing, two porters from the hall, aghast.

Lord Melville had been disagreeably affected by his latest interview, that was plain. He had to collect himself and bring immediate business to mind, and for some moments he leafed through the papers on his desk. He said, ‘I have just been treated to a display of emotion that has lowered the officer extremely in my opinion. I know that you prize fortitude, Captain Aubrey; that you are not shaken by disagreeable news.’

‘I hope I can bear it, my lord.’

‘For I must tell you that I cannot make you post for the Cacafuego action. I am bound by my predecessor’s decision and I cannot create a precedent. A post-​ship is therefore out of the question; and as for sloops, there are only eight-​nine in commission, whereas we have four hundred-​odd commanders on the list.’ He let this sink in, and although there was nothing new about his information- Jack knew the figures by heart, just as he knew that Lord Melville was not being wholly candid, for there were also thirty-​four sloops building as well as a dozen for harbour service and in ordinary - its repetition had a deadening effect. ‘However,’ he went on, ‘the former administration also left us a project for an experimental vessel that I am prepared, in certain circumstances, to rate as a sloop rather than a post-​ship, although she carries twenty-​four thirty-​two-​pounder carronades. She was designed to carry a particular weapon, a secret weapon that we abandoned after trial, and we are having her completed for general purposes: we have therefore named her the Polychrest. Perhaps you would like to see her draught?’

‘Very much indeed, my lord.’

‘She is an interesting experiment,’ he said, opening the portfolio, ‘being intended to sail against wind and tide. The projector, Mr Eldon, was a most ingenious man, and he spent a fortune on his plans and models.’

An interesting experiment indeed: he had heard of her. She was known as the Carpenter’s Mistake, and no one in the service had ever imagined she would be launched. How had she survived St Vincent’s reforms? What extraordinary combination of interest had managed to get her off the stocks, let alone on to them? She had head and stern alike, two maintopsailyards, a false bottom, no hold, and sliding keels and rudders. The drawing showed that she was being built in a private yard at Portsmouth -Hickman’s, of no savoury reputation.

‘It is true that the Polychrest was primarily designed as a carrier for this weapon; but she was so far advanced that it would have been an unjustifiable waste to abandon her too; and with the modifications that you see here in green ink, the Board is of the opinion that she will be eminently serviceable in home waters. Her construction does not allow the carrying of stores for a cruise of any duration, but vessels of this size are always required in the Channel, and I have it in contemplation to attach the Polychrest to Admiral Harte’s squadron in the Downs. For reasons that I shall not enter into, dispatch is called for. Her captain will be required to proceed to Portsmouth immediately, to hasten on her fitting-​out, to commission her, and to take her to sea with the utmost expedition. Do you wish to be considered for the appointment, Captain Aubrey?’

The Polychrest was a theorizing Landsman’s vessel, she had been built by a gang of rogues and jobbers; she was to serve under a man he had cuckolded and who would be happy to see him ruined; Cannings’s offer would never come again. Lord Melville was no fool, and he was aware of most of these things; he waited for Jack’s reply with his head cocked and a considering eye, tapping his fingers on the desk; this was shabby treatment; the Polychrest had already been refused; and in spite of his effort with the rating, he would find it hard to justify himself with Lady Keith - even his own conscience, well seared by years and years of office, gave an uneasy twitch.