Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

My dear Sir,

This is to tell you that I have reached Portsmouth a day earlier than I had proposed; to solicit the indulgence of not reporting aboard until this evening; and to beg for the pleasure of your company at dinner.

I am, my dear Sir,

Your affectionate humble servant,

Stephen Maturin

He folded the paper, wrote ‘Captain Aubrey, RN, HM Sloop Polychrest’, sealed it and rang the bell. ‘Do you know where the Polychrest lies?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes, sir,’ replied the man with a knowing smile. ‘She’s getting her guns in at the Ordnance; and a rare old time of it she had, last tide.’

‘Then be so good as to have this note taken to her directly. And these other letters are to be put into the post.’

He turned back to the table, and opening his diary he wrote, ‘I sign myself his affectionate humble servant; and affection it is that brings me here, no doubt. Even a frigid, self-​sufficing man needs something of this interchange if he is not to die in his unmechanical part: natural philosophy, music, dead men’s conversation, is not enough. I like to think, indeed I do think, that JA has as real an affection for me as is consonant with his unreflecting, jovial nature, and I know mine for him - I know how moved I was by his distress; but how long will this affection withstand the attrition of mute daily conflict? His kindness for me will not prevent him from pursuing Diana. And what he does not wish to see, he will not see: I do not imply a conscious hypocrisy, but the quod volunt credere applies with particular force to him. As for her, I am at a loss -this kindness and then the turning away as though from an enemy. It is as though in playing with JA she had become herself entangled. (Yet would she ever part with her ambition? Surely not. And he is even less marriageable than I; less a lawful prize. Can this be a vicious inclination? JA, though no Adonis by my measure, is well-​looking, which I am not.) It is as though his ludicrous account of my wealth, passing through Mrs Williams and gathering force by the conviction in that block-​head’s tone, had turned me from an ally, a friend, even an accomplice, into an opponent. It is as though - oh, a thousand wild possibilities. I am lost, and I am disturbed. Yet I think I may be cured; this is a fever of the blood, and laudanum will cool it, distance will cool it, business and action will do the same. What I dread is the contrary heating effect of jealousy: I had never felt jealousy before this, and although all knowledge of the world, all experience, literature, history, common observation told me of its strength, I had no sense of its true nature at all. Gnosce teipsum - my dreams appal me. This morning, when I was walking beside the coach as it laboured up Ports Down Hill and I came to the top, with all Portsmouth harbour suddenly spread below me, and Gosport, Spithead and perhaps half the Channel fleet glittering there - a powerful squadron moving out past Haslar in line ahead, all studdingsails abroad - I felt a longing for the sea. It has a great cleanliness. There are moments when everything on land seems to me tortuous, dark, and squalid; though to be sure, squalor is not lacking aboard a man-​of-​war.

‘I am not sure how far JA practised upon Mrs Williams’s avid credulity: pretty far, to judge by her obsequious reception of me. It has had this curious result, that JA’s stock has risen with her in almost the same proportion as mine. She would have no objection to him if his estate were clear. Nor, I swear, would Sophie. Yet I do believe that that good child is so firm in the principles she has been taught, that she would wither away an old maid, rather than disobey her mother - marry without her consent. No Gretna Green. She is a dear good child; and she is one of those rare creatures in whom principle does not do away with humour. This is no time for roaring mirth, to be sure, but I remember very well to have noted, again and again at Mapes, that she is quietly and privately jolly. A great rarity in women (Diana included, apart from an appreciation of wit and now and then a flash of it), who are often as solemn as owls, though given to noisy laughter. How deeply sorry, how more than sorry I should be if she were to take the habit of unhappiness: it is coming on her fast. The structure of her face is changing.’ He stood looking out of the window. It was a clear, frosty morning, and the blackguardly town looked as well as it could. Officers passed in and out of the Port Admiral’s house, over against the inn; the pavements were full of uniforms, blue coats and red, church-​going officers’ wives in pretty mantuas, with here and there a fur pelisse; scrubbed children with Sunday faces.

‘A gentleman to see you, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘A lieutenant.’

‘A lieutenant?’ said Stephen; and after a pause, ‘Desire him to walk up.’

A thundering on the stairs, as though someone had released a bull; the door burst inwards, trembling, and Pullings appeared, lighting up the room with his happiness and his new blue coat. ‘I’m made, sir,’ he cried, seizing Stephen’s hand. ‘Made at last! My commission came down with the mail. Oh, wish me joy!’

‘Why, so I do,’ said Stephen, wincing in that iron grip, ‘if more joy you can contain - if more felicity will not make your cup overflow. Have you been drinking, Lieutenant Pullings? Pray sit in a chair like a rational being, and do not spring about the room.’

‘Oh say it again, sir,’ said the lieutenant, sitting and gazing at Stephen with pure love beaming from his face. ‘Not a drop.’

‘Then it is with present happiness you are drunk. Well. Long, long may it last.’

‘Ha, ha, ha! That is exactly what Parker said. “Long may it last,” says he; but envious, like, you know - the grey old toad. Howsomever, I dare say even I might grow a trifle sour, or rancid, like, five and thirty years without a ship of my own, and this cruel fitting-​out. And he is a good, righteous man, I am sure; though he was proper pixy-​led before the captain came.’

‘Lieutenant, will you drink a glass of wine, a glass of sherry-​wine?’

‘You’ve said it again, sir,’ cried Pullings, with another burst of effulgence. (’You would swear that light actually emanated from that face,’ observed Stephen privately.) ‘I take it very kind. Just a drop, if you please. I am not going to get drunk until tomorrow night - my feast. Would it be proper for me to propose a sentiment? Then here’s to Captain Aubrey - my dear love to him, and may he have all his heart desires. Bottoms up. Without him I should never have got my step. Which reminds me of my errand, sir. Captain Aubrey’s compliments to Dr Maturin, congratulates him upon his safe arrival, and will be very happy to dine with him at the George this day at three o’clock; has not yet shipped paper, pens, or ink, and begs to be excused the informality of his reply.’

‘It would give me great pleasure if you would keep us company.’

‘Thankee, sir, thankee. But in just half an hour I am taking the long-​boat out off of the Wight. The Lord Mornington Indiaman passed Start Point on Thursday, and I hope to press half a dozen prime seamen out of her about dawn.’

‘Will the cruising frigates and the Plymouth tenders have left you anything to take?’

‘Love you, sir, I made two voyages in her. There are hidey-​holes under her half-​deck you would never dream of, without you helped to stow men into ‘em. I’ll have half a dozen men out of her, or you may say, “black’s the white of your eye, Tom Pullings.” Lieutenant Tom Pullings,’ he added, secretly.

‘We are short-​handed, so?’

‘Why it’s pretty bad, of course. We are thirty-​two men short of our complement, but ’tis not so short as poor. The receiving-​ship sent us eighteen Lord Mayor’s men and twenty-​odd from the Huntingdonshire and Rutland quotas, chaps taken off the parish and out of the gaols -never seen the sea in their life. It’s seamen we’re short of. Still, we do have a few prime hands, and two old Sophies among ‘em - old Allen, fo’c’sleman, and John Lakey, maintop. Do you remember him? You sewed him up very near, the first time you ever sailed with us and we had a brush with an Algerine. He swears you saved his - his privates, sir, and is most uncommon grateful would feel proper old fashioned without ‘em, he says Oh, Captain Aubrey will lick ‘em into shape, I’m certain sure. And there’s Mr Parker seems pretty taut; and Babbington and me will have the hide off of any bastard as don’t attend to his. duty - the Captain need not fear for that.’