Patrick O`Brian: THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL

'He did not,' said Stephen. 'I am as certain as though I had been there. He is a dear, open, candid young man, but he is no fool. No fool at all; and he would never sow trouble.'

'Yet even so, I am afraid Sophie must have smoked it, looking at his face, black though it is, bless him. You did so right away, or you would never have told me not to be dismayed.'

'There is a very striking resemblance, it must be confessed.'

'Do you think, Stephen,' asked Jack in a somewhat hesitant voice, 'do you think it would answer, was one to mention St Augustine to Sophie? She is a great one for church. And she is much opposed to irregularities of that kind, you know. She could hardly be brought to love

' Here guardian angels stepped in again, one with a gag - for the name Diana had actually formed in his gullet: Diana, Sophie's cousin and Stephen's wife, who had been very irregular indeed on occasion - and the other with an inspiration, so that almost without a pause he went on'… could hardly be brought to love Heneage Dundas, because of his tribe of little bastards, until I told her he had saved me from a watery grave when we were boys.'

'Sure, it could do no harm,' said Stephen. More he could not say, because they were at the hard where the men-of-wars' boats landed and here was Bonden with the frigate's fine new barge, for the Admiral had kept his word and the Surprise was being handsomely supplied. She had already completed her water, bread, beef, and most of her firewood, and that afternoon the powder-boy was to come out to fill her magazines: Mowett, her first lieutenant, and Adams, her purser, and all her people had been kept exceedingly busy, yet even so they had found time to beautify the barge, and the bargemen had spent their watches below beautifying themselves, or at least their clothes. Many captains liked their bargemen to wear uniform clothes, sometimes corresponding to the name of the ship - those of the Emerald, for example, wore bright green shirts; those of the Niger were all black; those of the Argo carried a swab dyed yellow - sometimes to the captain's private fancy: but Jack would have nothing to do with such capers and he issued no orders on the subject. His bargemen however took it upon themselves to dress all alike; it was their obvious duty to do the ship outstanding credit - by no means easy in the West Indies, the home of spit and polish, outward show and brilliantly white sepulchres - and they felt that in the present circumstances this was best done by wearing a very broad-brimmed sennit hat tilted far back, a three-foot ribbon embroidered HMS Surprise floating free from round its crown, a snowy shirt, equally brilliant trousers, very tight round the middle, very loose below and piped at the seams with blue and red, a newly-plaited pigtail down to the waist (eked out with tow if Nature had been near with the hair), a black Barcelona handkerchief knotted loosely round their necks and very small pumps with genteel bows on their huge feet, splayed by so much running about on deck without shoes. In this rig they could decently ferry their Captain across to the Irresistible for the court-martial, a full-dress affair, but they could not jump out on to the filthy hard without endangering the effect; they had therefore hired four little Barbadian boys to run out the gang-board and shove the boat off. It was only a short gang-board, but the bargemen had all sailed with Dr Maturin for a number of years and they all knew what he was capable of in the way of plunging off ladders, out of stern-windows, and over the edges of quays, and they all craned round to watch his cautious unsteady advance over the mud. It was not that they feared for his life on this occasion, the sea being so shallow, but at low tide the water was horribly unclean, and floundering about in it he might splash their clothes. Besides, on being rescued he would certainly drip on them. in any case, he was not a fit companion for their skipper that particular morning: Captain Aubrey was resplendent in blue and gold; a Lloyd's presentation sword hung at his side and the Nile medal from the fourth buttonhole of his coat, while the chelengk, a Turkish decoration in the form of a diamond aigrette, sparkled in his best gold-laced hat, worn nobly athwartships like Nelson's; he had washed and shaved (a daily custom with him, even in very heavy weather), and his hair, having been rigorously brushed, clubbed, and fastened with a broad black band behind, was now exactly powdered. Dr Maturin, on the other hand, had certainly not shaved and had probably not felt the need to wash; he was wearing his breeches unbuckled at the knee, odd stockings, and a wicked old coat that his servant had twice endeavoured to throw away; and he had put altogether too much reliance on his scrub-wig to give him a civilized appearance.

'Perhaps, sir,' said Bonden, 'the Doctor might like to go back to the ship in a Moses. There is one putting off for the barky with vegetables this minute.' He nodded towards the basket-like flat-bottomed craft on the edge of the man-of-war's hard, a much steadier, more suitable Conveyance.

'Nonsense,' said Stephen, stepping on to the gang board. 'I am going to the Irresistible. They receive me in this - this shaloop, this embarkation, like a dog in a game of skittles,' he muttered in a discontented tone, creeping on. A slight tremor from a distant wave traversed the plank; he staggered, uttering a faint shriek, but Jack pinned his elbows from behind, ran him up, over the gunwale and into the boat, where powerful hands passed him aft like a parcel to the stern-sheets.

The same powerful hands propelled him up the flagship's accommodation-ladder, adjuring him to watch his step, to mind out, and to clap on with both hands. Jack, duly piped aboard, had already been received with full ceremony and carried aft; and by the time Stephen reached the quarterdeck he was no longer to be seen. Mr Butcher, lately the surgeon of the Norfolk and now a prisoner of war, was there however and to him Stephen said 'Good day to you now, Mr Butcher; how very kind of you to come. I am much indebted to you.' Butcher was a man of unusually wide experience and although he was not particularly learned nor, outside his profession, particularly wise, he also possessed a gift for diagnosis and prognosis that Stephen had rarely seen equalled.

'Not at all,' he said, 'I am only too happy to repay some small part of your kindness to poor Captain Palmer.' He took snuff, and observed, 'Mr Martin is already gone below.'

'Perhaps we should join him,' said Stephen.

'I guess we should,' said Butcher. 'But before we go, allow me to ask you why you operated here, rather than sending the patient to hospital? In Jamaica, with its miasmas and yellow jack, I should understand it, but in so healthy an island as Barbados..

'The truth of the matter is that he is a little difficult, and he has fallen out with almost all his medical colleagues, including those belonging to the hospital.'

'Oh, in that case I understand his reluctance. Besides, although a hospital is far more convenient for operating, surviving is quite another matter: for my part I had rather he at sea. I have known a whole ward of amputations die in a week, whereas several of the men who had to be kept aboard for want of room lived on. Some arc living yet.'

The patient did not seem particularly difficult. He thanked Mr Butcher for his visit, congratulated him on his coming release - the Swedish ship that was to Convey the American officers home on parole had dropped anchor that morning - and sent messages to friends in Boston. But he felt that the question of his survival had been raised and he was acutely aware of Butcher's impartial judging eye upon him; he felt that the eye condemned him and he talked faster and faster to prove that the eye was mistaken, that he was quite well, that this issue from his wound and the slight recurrence of fever was of no importance. 'Laudable pus,' he said, searching their faces. 'Nothing but laudable pus. I have seen it a thousand times.'