Patrick O`Brian - THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL

'I have already bespoken Tolland. What now?' -this, testily, to a clerk.

'I ask pardon, sir,' said the clerk, holding up a bottle and a spoon, 'but Dr Quinn said every hour exactly.'

'May it profit you,' said Stephen, standing up. 'There is also something to be said for going to bed. You look destroyed entirely.' 'If I did not have to defend a wretched boy this afternoon I should certainly lie down. But he stole a five-guinea watch - caught in the act - and unless I can persuade the jury that it was worth less than twelve pence he will be sentenced to death. It is only the effects of a late night - it will pass off tomorrow. Besides, I have Quinn's draught.'

'Damn Quinn and his draught,' said Stephen to himself as his hackney-coach threaded through the heavy traffic in the Strand. 'If I could have given him a good comfortable dose of pulvis Doveri I should have felt no anxiety. Ten or even fifteen grains would have answered very well.

Dover: Dr Thomas Dover: he too was a privateer's man. He sacked Guayaquil, if I do not mistake, which is no way for a medical man to behave, but then on the other hand he saved some two hundred of his men, and they stricken with the plague 'The top of his mind reflected upon that enterprising physician and corsair, while all the lower part turned the question of Jack's trial over and over again, with the same ignorant but boding anxiety

At a wine merchant's in St James's Street he sent a dozen of Hermitage to the Marshalsea, and at a grocer's in Piccadilly a great raised pie, a Stilton cheese, and some potted anchovies for relish, then he picked up Pullings at Fladong's and they drove to the Cross Keys, where a carriage had been booked

'This is travelling in style,' said Pullings, looking out at the familiar Portsmouth road 'I never was in a chaise and four but once, and that was when the Captain was carrying dispatches I went along for the ride and the glory, and taking the whole journey we travelled at very near ten miles an hour; but then we never stopped for meals - ate bread and cheese in our hands - and the Captain leaned out of the window much of the way, encouraging the post-boys.'

'It is the only way I know of purchasing time,' said Stephen. 'We shall not stop for meals either. The only

halts I have in mind at all arc at Portsmouth to see Captain Dundas, for whom I carry a message, and possibly to look in on Mr Martin, if we have daylight by then. I had also thought of passing by Ashgrove to pick up Bonden and Padeen, but I question whether their weight and the consequent loss of speed is worth their help in moving the ship. What do you say?'

'They would be very valuable, sir. We are only likely to find a few slack-arsed longshoremen down there, and to carry the barky round to Shelmerston brisk we should have some right taut petty-officers. I am sure Captain Dundas would lend you one or two, and they could come on with Bonden by coach. We should not need them the first day. We could do business first, going post-haste, and they would follow us the next day, do you see?'

'That of course is the answer. Well done, Thomas Pullings. But tell me now, will you, just how disreputable is it, to go a-privateering? And which sounds least offensive to the naval ear, privateer or corsair?'

'They are both pretty low, but since that chap Mowett is always talking about - grandson of the Admiral -,

'Byron.'

'Aye, Byron - wrote his piece, I dare say some young fellows had rather be called corsair. J3ut the Captain would certainly prefer the old-fashioned letter of marque. As for being disreputable, why, it has a bad name, to be sure, like sodomy; but I remember how you told the master of the Defender when he was going on about how they all ought to be burnt alive rather than just hanged - how you told him that there were many good, brave and gifted men among them. And so there are among privateers: some of their ships are run Navy-fashion, so you would hardly know the odds, but for no man-of-war's pennant and no regular uniforms.'

'But in general the word privateer is a reproach in the service, is it not? So do you think that commanding one would he very repugnant to Captain Aubrey? I mean, supposing he were cast out of the Navy.'

'He might find it hard in home waters, among those in the service that don't like him: and there are a good many jealous un-officerlike lubbers he has offended one way or another. Any jumped-up lieutenant commanding a cutter could order him to come aboard and show his papers, and maybe keep him waiting about on deck; any King's officer could press his men and ruin his voyage, if he fell unlucky; any ill-conditioned scrub with a commission might check him and he could not reply. But was he to go far foreign, Madagascar, say, or the Spanish Main, he would either be among friends or, if there were any awkward commanders on the nearest station, he could keep his distance. There is nothing in her class nor near it can catch Surprise when he is sailing her. And any rate, even in home waters it would be better than eating his heart out on shore.' They both looked absently out at the traffic for a while, and then Pullings said in a low and almost secret voice, 'Doctor, how likely is it he will be - what shall I say - be undone?'

'My opinion is not worth the breath to utter it: nothing do I know of the law at all. But I do remember that the Bible likens human justice to a woman's unclean rag - quasi pannus menstruate - and I have little faith in truth as an immediate safeguard, in this world.'

'What I am so afraid of is that they may catch him on a false muster.'

'A false muster, Thomas?'

'It is when you put a friend's son's name down in your ship's books so as to gain him some sea-time, when in fact he is at home, still in petticoats or at school. Then when he comes to pass for lieutenant he can show certificates of having been at sea the full six years. Everyone does it - I could name half a dozen captains offhand - but if some ugly swab with a grudge swears to the fact, swears that the boy never appeared when all hands were piped for muster, why then you are dismissed the service, just as though it were a real false muster - I mean bearing men on your books that don't exist, merely to draw their wages and victuals.'

'Yet surely that is an entirely naval, maritime offence, is it not? Whereas this is a trial by land: a false muster could not affect the Stock Exchange.'

'I don't know, I'm sure. But Captain Dundas will tell us.'

Captain Dundas, however, was not to be seen on the Eurydice's busy quarterdeck when Stephen went aboard her, and the officer of the watch was 'by no means sure he would be at leisure'.

'Perhaps you would be so good as to mention my name, however: Maturin, Dr Maturin.'

'Very well,' said the lieutenant coldly: he called a youngster and then walked off, leaving Dr Maturin by himself. The Navy, upon the whole, liked its visitors to be neat, trim, and reasonably well-dressed: Stephen had not shaved for some time; he had used his rolled-up coat as a pillow during the later part of the journey, and now it was strangely wrinkled and dusty; and his breeches were unbuckled at the knee. Yet none of this made any difference to Captain Dundas's welcome. He came hurrying out of his cabin, dressed in civilian clothes, and cried 'My dear Maturin, how happy I am I was delayed another five minutes and I should have missed you - I am just off to town.' He led Stephen below, asked most anxiously after Jack Aubrey, and dismissed the notion of false muster as irrelevant: what did Maturin think of the case - was there any real danger from the civilian point of view?

'Looking at it from a distance I should have said there was none, but looking at counsel's face, and remembering what has happened in trials with a political side to them, I fear for the outcome. So much so that I am on my way to buy the Surprise.'