Patrick O`Brian: THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL

'Thankee, Stephen,' said Jack, setting the bottle on the mantelshelf. Stephen saw that he had no intention of taking it, and that the underlying pain was quite untouched. For to Jack Aubrey the fact of no longer belonging to the Navy counted more than a thousand pillories, the loss of fortune, loss of rank, and loss of future. It was in a way a loss of being, and to those who knew him well it gave his eyes, his whole face, the strangest look.

He still had this detached grey expression on the following Wednesday, as he stood in a bare dirty room on the south side of Cornhill waiting to be led out to the pillory.

The sheriff's men and the constables in charge of him were all clustered together at the window: they were intensely nervous and they kept up a continual flow of talk.

'It did ought to have been done days ago, right after the sentence. The news has had time to go down to the Land's End and up to John o' Groats.'

'And every fucking port in the kingdom: Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Plymouth…'

'Sweeting's Alley is quite blocked up.'

'So is Castle Alley, and more is coming in. They ought to have sent for the soldiers long ago.'

'We have four constables, four scavengers and one beadle in the ward. What can we do with such a crowd?'

'If we get out of this alive, I shall take my wife and children down to live the other side of Epping.'

'They keep pouring up from the river. There are the chaps from the press-tender itself, with their bloody cutlasses and bludgeons, Christ have mercy.' 'They are blocking each side of the Change with carts. God help us.'

'Why don't he give the word? Why don't Mr Essex give the word? They are growing outrageous down there. We shall all be scragged.'

Saint Paul 's and the City churches had tolled twelve some five or ten minutes ago and the crowd in Cornhill was becoming impatient. 'Eight bells,' cried some. 'Eight bells, there. Turn the glass and strike the bell.'

'Bring him out, bring him out, bring him out and let's have a look at him,' shouted the leader of another group. He was the leader of a band hired by some disappointed stock-jobbers, and like his fellows he carried a bag of stones. Bonden turned sharp upon him and said 'What are you doing here, mate?'

'I've come to see the fun.'

'Then just you go and see the fun at Hockley in the Hole, that's where, cully. Because why? Because this is for seamen only, do you see. Seamen only, not landsmen.'

The man looked at Bonden, and at the many closed, dead-serious, lowering faces behind him; brown, tough, often earringed, often pigtailed; he looked at his own people, a pale and weedy crew, and with hardly a pause he said 'Well, I don't care. Have it your own way, sailor.'

Davis, a very big, ugly, dangerous man who had sailed with Jack in many commissions, had an even shorter way of dealing with Wray's gang of genuine bruisers, who stood out most surprisingly in their flash clothes and low-crowned hats among the now almost solid naval mass - most of the citizens, even the apprentices and the street-boys hawking pails of filth had withdrawn beyond the barrier or to neighbouring buildings. Davis, with his four uglier brothers and a dumb Negro bosun's mate, went straight to them and in a thick voice, choking with fury, said 'Bugger off.' He watched them go and then shouldered his brutal way through his shipmates to where Stephen was standing by the steps of the pillory with the few pugilists his thief-taker had managed to engage - men equally conspicuous. To them he said 'And you bugger off too. We mean you no harm, gents, but you bugger off too.' There was white spittle at his mouth and he was breathing very hard. Stephen nodded to his men and they sidled away towards St Michael's. As they reached the church its clock struck the quarter, and Mr Essex gave the word at last.

Jack was led out of the dark room into the strong light, and as they guided him up the steps he could see nothing for the glare. 'Your head here1 sir, if you please,' said the sheriff's man in a low, nervous, conciliating voice, 'and your hands just here.'

The man was slowly fumbling with the bolt, hinge and staple, and as Jack stood there with his hands in the lower half-rounds, his sight cleared: he saw that the broad street was filled with silent, attentive men, some in long togs, some in shore-going rig, some in plain frocks, but all perfectly recognizable as seamen. And officers, by the dozen, by the score: midshipmen and officers. Babbington was there, immediately in front of the pillory, facing him with his hat off, and Pullings, Stephen of course, Mowett, Dundas… He nodded to them, with almost no change in his iron expression, and his eye moved on: Parker, Rowan, Williamson, Hervey… and men from long, long ago, men he could scarcely name, lieutenants and commanders putting their promotion at risk, midshipmen and master's mates their commissions, warrant-officers their advancement.

'The head a trifle forward, if you please2 sir,' murmured the sheriff's man, and the upper half of the wooden frame came down, imprisoning his defenceless f ace. He heard the click of the bolt and then in the dead silence a strong voice cry 'Off hats'. With one movement hundreds of broad-brimmed tarpaulin-covered hats flew off and the cheering began, the fierce full-throated cheering he had so often heard in battle.

'It is understood, then,' said Mr Lowndes of the Foreign Office, 'that you proceed to no action at present, but that unless circumstances are extraordinarily favourable you confine yourself to making contacts in Valparaiso and Santiago; and that the aggregate prizes taken, less ten per cent, shall be deducted from the agreed daily subvention, and that there shall be no other claims on His Majesty's Government.'

'There is also half the fair wear and tear,' said Stephen. 'In a ship of such immense value, and in seas of such unparalleled turbulence, the fair wear and tear is reckoned at a hundred and seventy pounds a month, a hundred and seventy pounds a lunar month: I must insist upon this point; I must insist that it be specifically set down.'

'Very well,' said Mr Lowndes sulkily. He made a note and continued, 'Here you have a list of the notables and military men recommended by the Chilean Council for Liberation and by our own sources of information; and here you have the statement of what munitions and what sums of money the Council may provide. It is also understood that these sums and this material will invariably be assumed to emanate from the Council itself and in no way from His Majesty's Government. And since it is surely unnecessary for me to repeat that in the event of any unsuccessful conflict with the local authorities the whole undertaking will be disavowed and that you will receive no official support whatsoever, I believe that is all, apart from what Colonel Warren and Sir Joseph may have to add.'

'For my part,' said Colonel Warren, who was speaking not as a soldier but as a member of the Committee, to which all three belonged, 'I have only to give Dr Maturin the relevant codes and the names of the people with whom he may communicate. Perhaps you will check them, sir,' he added, passing the packet to Stephen.

'On the naval side there are these two documents,' said Sir Joseph, tapping them with his spectacles. 'A letter of exemption that will prevent the pressing of Dr Maturin's people, and another that will allow him to refit and obtain supplies at His Majesty's yards, paying by ninety-day bills on London at no more than prime cost.'

'In that case,' said Mr Lowndes, standing up, 'it only remains for me to wish Dr Maturin every success.'

'And a happy return - a very happy return,' said the huge colonel in his strange shrill voice, shaking Stephen by the hand with a kindly look.

Sir Joseph saw them to the street door, and as soon as it closed behind them he directed his voice down the back stairs and called out 'Mrs Barlow, you may dish up as soon as you please.'