Graham Swift - England and Other Stories

There was no evil in the world but uselessness and no good but its opposite. This he understood, if he would never, precisely, understand his father’s words. He knew that his present disease could only be cured by a series of remedies. It would be eased, a little, by the first sight of his ship, then, more so, by first stepping upon it, but it would only be fully purged (and only then with much retching and wishing to be dead) once that ship had drawn up its chain. Now he was denied even the weakest of those medicines. He did not even know if his ship was at anchor.

He might have enquired at once of the innkeeper, he might enquire of anyone, but he did not want to suffer the naval indignity of having to ask the whereabouts of his vessel. He went to the window and, craning his neck, saw the lights across the water. He imagined himself foolishly asking, ‘Is any one of those the Temeraire ?’

He would surely know at dawn anyway by the evidence of his own eyes. A Second Rate would be unmistakable. And the sight of it, the pride of it, even under veiling drizzle, would surely chase away this malady. He had never served before in anything so mighty. Even his sisters had understood. And the fact that their lordships had assigned him to a ship of the line must mean that he had not gone entirely unnoticed and was deemed to have some worth. It might even be the preliminary to a captaincy and a frigate.

But he had heard of the Temeraire . The name itself was an audacity. Quite so. A French name when they were fighting the French. Napoleon himself might be styled ‘ téméraire ’. More to the point, and as everyone knew (even his sisters knew and forbore to mention it), mutiny had been committed on this ship. Men had dangled from its yardarms. And for all its guns and its belligerent name, the Temeraire had never seen action. Its timbers had been damaged by storm and dishonoured by sedition, but never been struck by shot.

Well, it was like him then. He had not seen action either. Action: it was the very word of validated existence. He had received such promotion as he had neither by grace and favour (perhaps the whole fleet knew who, or what, he really was) nor by exploit. Their lordships must have dispatched him to the Temeraire because of his competence at gun practice. What else was there to do on the blockade? Gun practice, and more gun practice.

Now he would command a bigger battery of guns on a bigger gun deck. But as a proportion of the ship’s sum of guns his command would be less than what it had been on a Fourth Rate. And on the same gun deck, commanding the other battery, might be another lieutenant — call him Lieutenant Lanyard — and Lieutenant Lanyard might be a squeak of eighteen, and have seen action.

But the Temeraire had seen no action save mutiny.

Why, every time, must he suffer these forebodings, like Jonah going down to Joppa — and now be posted to a ship accordingly?

He turned from the window back to the fire. He might go out into the dripping lamp-lit darkness, to stretch his coach-cramped legs, to breathe at least the salt-flavoured air, to soothe his spleen. But he did not want, for some reason, to walk, as he would have to, among seamen, though he would walk among them continually soon — let it be soon — on a heaving deck. He had noticed, even as the coach rolled in, that there were many of them. He had not before seen Plymouth so crowded, nor felt — but this was some sixth sense and not a matter of the eyes — the place so pregnant with preparation. So, it would not be so long perhaps.

His reluctance was not from any cocked-hatted nicety. They would of course make way for him and touch their temples, and should he wish (but he would not) to snap at them they would jump. As sailors ashore they were not technically under the full articles of war, but it was not in their interest not to look lively. Everyone minded their interest.

It was more that such contact, or non-contact, might only make him think of his hidden respect for them, or even — and this was mutinous thinking indeed — his kinship. Aboard ship it was different. You acted within timber bounds and iron laws. A sea creature? More a sea mechanism. You did not think. This was precisely his affliction now. He was thinking.

But it was one thing the Navy had taught him, or confirmed in him. He was not, essentially, different from them. Mutinous meditation indeed. Perhaps his competence in the matter of gunnery, his quality of leadership in this regard, his ability at least to achieve what others achieved, but without threats of the lash or other fulminations — with only firmness of voice and no other tyranny than that of his pocket watch — owed itself to this inadmissible fact. Again, boys, and again! And yet again, till you are but part of your guns. As if, as he commanded them, he were really proclaiming: Know your place, know your place. Neither God nor man will find any other place or use for you than this. It is what you are for.

But he had not known action. He knew about noise and smoke and hissing steam that became as great as the smoke. He knew about powder in the mouth and nostrils. But he did not know about splinters. He trusted that, should the occasion arise and they were flying about, he would not lose his power of command. He would not lose his voice. He would not flinch or duck or wish to cover his face, not just because this would be unexemplary, but because he had been led to understand that whatever you did it made no difference.

He had not seen action, but some other sixth sense — a seventh sense — told him that this time might be the occasion. He trusted, simply, that he would do his duty. As he had done his careful, grateful, unmutinying duty to his father and (if such she was) his mother.

My dearest Mama. . My dearest. .

He stabbed the fire. All boldness and lustre had fled from his heart. He chewed his fingers savagely. He was himself like one of his mother’s empty grates.

Temeraire . It was a mocking name, it was an inglorious, ill-fated ship.

IT EMBARRASSED HIM now, so many years later, to say he was a vicar’s son, that he’d been raised in a vicarage. It was like saying he’d been raised in some cosy cottage in the country — even if the vicarage had been in one of the less appealing suburbs of Birmingham. It was an ordinary house with a bay window. If you stood by the window you could see the church a little way along the road on the other side. ‘A stone’s throw’ was what his father always said, they were a stone’s throw. It was a common enough expression, but when he was small he always used to picture someone actually lifting their arm and tensing their back to throw a stone. He’d wonder whether the throwing was from or to the church. He was troubled by the idea of anyone throwing a stone at a church, or even from one.

He could still summon up now, though it was long ago, his father’s keen but gaunt face. His father had died when he was still small, so it was always the same unageing face that he saw, while his own face in more than fifty years had changed immensely. There was something about that time, when he was only eight and when his father, though no one knew it yet, was dying, that was imprinted on him. He couldn’t picture nearly so clearly, though he’d actually known him for longer, the face of Peter Wilson, his stepfather. And he’d never known, though the question remained, if when his father had been dying Peter Wilson had been just his mother’s friend and a friend of the family or something more, even at that time. And if his father had known it.

It was like picking up a stone and trying to guess its weight. And not knowing, even now, which way to throw it. His mother knew, but had never said. Why should she? And now that she was old and frail and losing her memory he had even less reason to press her. He could only wonder if it all still pressed upon her anyway.