Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

But then you very nearly lost your patient. Like a fool I strayed out of bounds: a little chap heaves in sight, sings out, ‘Captain A!’ and I say, ‘This claps a stopper over all: Jack, you are brought by the lee.’ But, however, it was orders to join the Lively.

She is only a temporary command, and of course as acting-​captain I do not take my friends with me; but I do beg you, my dear Stephen, to sail with me as my guest. The Polychrests will be paid off- Parker is to have the Fanciulla, in compliment to me, which is as cruel a kindness as the world has seen since that fellow in the play, but I have looked after the Polychrest’s people - so there will be no difficulty of any kind. Pray come. I cannot tell you what pleasure it would give me. And to be even more egotistical in what I am afraid is a sadly egotistical letter, let me say, that having had your care, I should never trust my frame to a common sawbones again - my health is far from good, Stephen.

She is a crack frigate, with a good reputation, and I believe we shall have orders for the West Indies -think of the bonitoes, the bosun birds, the turtles, the palm-​trees!

I am sending Killick with this - heartily glad I am to be shot of him too, such a pragmatical brute he has grown, with his physic-​spoon - and he will see our dunnage round to the Nore. I am dining with Lord Melville on Sunday; Robert will run me down in his curricle, and I shall sneak aboard that night, without touching at an inn. Then, I swear to God, I shall not set foot ashore until I can do so without this wretched fear of being taken to a sponging-​house and then to a debtor’s prison.

Yours most affectionately

‘Killick!’ he shouted.

‘Sir?’

‘Are you sober?’

‘As a judge, sir.’

‘Then pack my shore-​going trunk all but my uniform and number one scraper, take it down to the Nore, aboard the Lively, and give the first lieutenant this chit: we join her on Sunday night, temporary command. Then proceed to the Downs: give this letter to the Doctor and this to Mr Parker - it has good news for him, so give it into his hands yourself. If the Doctor chooses to join the Lively, take his sea-​chest and anything else he wants, no matter what - a stuffed whale or a double-​headed ape got with child by the bosun. My sea-​chest, of course, and what we saved from the Polychrest. Repeat your instructions. Good. Here is what you will need for the journey, and here is five shillings for a decent glazed hat: you may skim the other into the Thames. I will not have you go aboard the Lively without a Christian covering to your head. And get yourself a new jacket, while you are about it. She is a crack frigate.’

She was a crack frigate, she was indeed; and seeing that a wheel came off Robert’s curricle in a remote and midnight ditch Jack was obliged to go aboard her in the glare of the risen sun, passing through the crowded streets of Chatham - a considerable trial to him after an already trying night. But this was nothing to the trial of meeting Dr Maturin on the water; for Stephen had been inspired to put off from the shore at about the same time, though from a different place, and their courses converged some three furlongs from the frigate’s side. Stephen’s conveyance was one of the Lively’s cutters, which saluted Jack by tossing oars, and which fell under his wherry’s lee, so that they pulled in close company, Stephen calling out pleasantly all the way. Jack caught a frightened glance from Killick, noticed the wooden composure of the midshipman and the cutter’s crew, saw the grinning face of Matthew Paris, an old Polychrest, Stephen’s servant, once a framework knitter and still no kind of seaman - no notion of common propriety in his myopic, friendly gaze. And as Stephen rose to wave and hoot, Jack saw that he was dressed from head to foot in a single tight dull-​brown garment; it clung to him, and his pale, delighted face emerged from a woollen roll at the top, looking unnaturally large. His general appearance was something between that of an attenuated ape and a meagre heart; and he was carrying his narwhal horn.

Captain Aubrey’s back and shoulders went perfectly rigid: he adopted the features of one who is smiling; he even called out, ‘Good morning to you - yes - no - ha, ha.’ And as he recomposed them to a look of immovable gravity and unconcern, the thought darted through his mind, ‘I believe the wicked old creature is drunk.’

Up and up the side - a long haul after the Polychrest -the wailing of the calls, the stamp and clash of the Marines presenting arms, and he was aboard.

Mathematical precision, rigorous exactitude fore and aft: he had rarely seen a more splendid array of blue and gold on the quarterdeck: even the midshipmen were in cocked hats and snowy breeches. The officers stood motionless, bare-​headed. The naval lieutenants, the Marine lieutenants; then the master, the surgeon, the purser, and a couple of black coats, chaplain and schoolmaster, no doubt; and then the flock of young gentlemen, one of whom, three feet tall and five years of age, had his thumb in his mouth, a comfortably jarring note in all this perfection of gold lace, ivory deck, ebony seams.

Jack moved his hat to the quarterdeck, tilting it no more than an inch or so, because of his bandage. ‘We got a rogue,’ whispered the captain of the foretop. ‘A proud son of wrath, mate,’ replied the yeoman of the sheets. The first lieutenant stepped forward, a grave, severe, tall thin man. ‘Welcome aboard, sir,’ said he. ‘My name is Simmons.’

‘Thank you, Mr Simmons. Gentlemen, good morning to you. Mr Simmons, pray be so good as to name the officers.’ Bows, civil mutterings. They were youngish men, except for the purser and the chaplain; a pleasant-​looking set, but reserved and politely distant. ‘Very well,’ said Jack to the first lieutenant, ‘we will muster the ship’s company at six bells, if you please, and I shall read myself in then.’ Leaning over the side he called, ‘Dr Maturin, will you not come aboard?’ Stephen was no more of a mariner now than he had been at the outset of his naval career, and it took him a long moment to clamber snorting up the frigate’s side, propped by the agonized Killick, a moment that increased the attentive quarterdeck’s sense of expectation. ‘Mr Simmons,’ said Jack, fixing him with a hard, savage eye, ‘this is my friend Dr Maturin, who will be accompanying me. Dr Maturin, Mr Simmons, the first lieutenant of the Lively.’

‘Your servant, sir,’ said Stephen, making a leg: and this, thought Jack, was perhaps the most hideous action that a person in so subhuman a garment could perform. Hitherto the Lively’s quarterdeck had taken the apparition nobly, with a vexing, remote perfection; but now, as Mr Simmons bowed stiffly, saying, ‘Servant, sir,’ and as Stephen, by way of being amiable, said, ‘What a splendid vessel, to be sure - vast spacious decks: one might almost imagine oneself aboard an Indiaman,’ there was a wild shriek of childish laughter - a quickly smothered shriek, followed by a howl that vanished sobbing down the companion-​ladder.

‘Perhaps you would like to come into the cabin,’ said Jack, taking Stephen’s elbow in an iron grip. ‘Your things will be brought aboard directly, never trouble yourself’ -Stephen cast a look into the boat and seemed about to break away.

‘I shall see to it myself at once, sir,’ said the first lieutenant.

‘Oh, Mr Simmons,’ cried Stephen, ‘pray bid them be very tender of my bees.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said the first lieutenant, with a civil inclination of his head.

Jack got him into the after-​cabin at last, a finely-​proportioned, bare, spacious cabin with a great gun on either side and little else but the splendid curving breadth of the stern-​windows: Hamond was clearly no Sybarite. Here he sat on a locker and gazed at Stephen’s garment. It had been horrible at a distance; it was worse near to - far worse. ‘Stephen,’ he said, ‘I say, Stephen. . . Come in!’