The Mauritius Command (21 page)

He had tried several before the Grappler came back, bearing Stephen, loaded with intelligence, a chest of the best coffee in the world, and a new machine for roasting it: he had tried open provocation and lame- duck ruses, but Hamelin would not bite, the cunning dog; the French lay there at their ease, and the squadron was obliged to be content with its steady routine of beating to and fro with only the prospect of Christmas to encourage them.

By no means all the news that Stephen brought was good: the frigate Astrie was expected from France; the disaffection of the commandant of St Paul's had much diminished since General Desbrusleys" death; and an important body of regulars with fervently Buonapartist officers had arrived. La Reunion would be much harder to take with the promised three thousand troops from India than it would have been with half that number from the Cape some weeks earlier. In the opinion of the French officers it could not be successfully attacked, even with good weather for landing, by less than five thousand men. On the other hand, he had learnt a great deal about Mauritius, the more important island of the two by far, with its splendid ports: among other things, a considerable part of the French garrison was made up of Irish troops, prisoners of war or volunteers who still believed in Buonaparte. And Stephen had many contacts to make, some that might be of the greatest value. "So," said he, "as soon as you can let me have the Nereide, with Clonfert's local knowledge and his black pilot, I should like to begin the work of preparation. Apart from other considerations, our broadsheets need time to have their effect; and some well-chosen rumour, some indiscretion in the proper place, might conceivably bring your French frigates out."

Jack freely admitted the importance of the task in hand. "Yet do you think me weak, Stephen, when I say how I regret the days when we were of no account--when we cruised by ourselves, pretty busy at times, but often free for our hand of piquet in the evening and our music. You shall have Nereide tomorrow, if you choose, since Venus has chosen this moment to heave down, and the Manche shows signs of doing much the same, so I can spare a ship; but at least let us have this evening to ourselves. While you were away I transposed the Corelli for violin and "cello."

The music tied them back to what seemed a very distant past, one in which no commodore's secretary with his heap of papers had to be kept away for a few hours" peace; a past where no susceptible captains had to have their feelings managed, and where what little administration the first lieutenant left to his captain could be settled out of hand, among people he knew intimately well. But the morning brought Mr Peter back with a score of documents; the Magicienne was very much afraid that she would have to ask for a court martial upon her yeoman of the sheets for an almost unbelievable series of offences, starting with drunkenness and ending with a marlin-spike struck into the ship's corporal's belly; and the Sirius was running short of wood and water. Stephen crossed to the Nereide after no more than the briefest farewell.

He found Clonfert in high spirits, delighted to be away on his own, delighted to be away from the Commodore's rigid discipline: for although there were many things in which Jack and Lord St Vincent did not see eye to eye, including politics and free speech, they were at one in their notions on keeping station and on prompt, exact obedience to signals. They walked the quarterdeck in the forenoon, and as they strolled up and down the windward side, with the high wooded shore of Mauritius gliding by and shimmering in the heat, Stephen took in the atmosphere of the ship. There were few original Nereides left, since Clonfert had brought all his officers together with most of the Otter's crew, and there was the same feeling in the frigate as there had been in the sloop. In many ways it was much like that in any man-of-war: that is to say, the hands' activities, the employment of their strictly-regulated time, the almost fanatical regard to neatness, were much the same as he had observed in other ships. Yet in none of Jack Aubrey's commands had he ever heard the captain's orders followed by suggestions that things might be better otherwise; and this as it were consultation appeared to be customary right down the hierarchy, from the officer of the watch to Jemmy Ducks, who looked after the poultry. With his limited experience, Stephen could not say that it was wrong: everybody seemed brisk and cheerful and when a manoeuvre was decided upon it was carried out promptly: but he had supposed this loquacity and tergiversation to be confined to the navy of the French, that lively, articulate nation.

The exception seemed to be the warrant-officers, the master, the bosun, the gunner and the carpenter- grave men who adhered to the Royal Navy's tradition as Stephen had seen it, particularly the magnificent granite faced Mr Satterly, the elderly master, who appeared to regard his captain with a veiled affectionate indulgence and to run the ship with scarcely a word. The commissioned officers and the young gentlemen were far less mute; they obviously desired Clonfert's favour and attention, and they competed for it partly by activity and partly by a curious mixture of freedom and something not far from servility. The words "my lord" were always in their mouths, and they pulled off their hats with a marked deference whenever they addressed him; yet they addressed him far more often than was usual in any ship that Stephen had known, crossing to his side of the quarterdeck unasked and volunteering remarks of no great consequence, unconnected with their duty.

Perhaps high spirits did not suit Clonfert quite so well as low. When he led Stephen to his cabin he showed its furnishings with a somewhat tiresome exultation, though insisting that this arrangement was merely temporary: "not quite the thing for a post-captain--passable in a sloop, but a trifle shabby in a frigate." The cabin, like most of those in rated ships, was a strikingly beautiful room: in Corbett's time it had been bare scrubbed wood, gleaming brass, shining windows, and little more; now that Spartan interior, rather too large for Clonfert's possessions, looked as though a brothel had moved into a monastery, and as though it had not yet settled down. The size of the room was increased by two large pier-glasses that Clonfert had brought with him from the Otter, one to port, the other to starboard: he strode to and fro between them telling Stephen the history of the hanging lamp in some detail; and Stephen, sitting cross-legged upon the sofa, noticed that at each turn Clonfert automatically glanced at his reflection with a look of inquiry, doubt, and complacence.

During dinner the Captain ran on about his Turkish and Syrian experiences with Sir Sydney Smith, and at some point Stephen became aware that for Clonfert he had ceased to be a table-companion and had turned into an audience. It was quite unlike their friendly discourse of some days before, and presently Stephen grew sadly bored: lies or half-lies, he reflected, had a certain value in that they gave a picture of what the man would wish to seem; but a very few were enough for that. And then they had a striving, aggressive quality, as though the listener had to be bludgeoned into admiration; they were the antithesis of conversation. "They can also be embarrassing," he thought, looking down at his plate, for Clonfert was now astride that unfortunate unicorn: it was a handsome plate, with the Scroggs crest engraved broad and fair upon the rim; but it was a Sheffield plate, and the copper was showing through. "Embarrassing and hard work; since in common humanity one must keep the man in countenance. What a state of nervous excitement he is in, to be sure."

Yet although Stephen kept Clonfert decently in countenance, mutely acquiescing in the unicorn and a variety of unlikely feats, he did not put such violence upon himself as to encourage a very long continuation; eventually Clonfert grew conscious that he had somehow missed the tone, that his audience was not impressed, was not with him, and an anxious look came into his eye. He laid himself out to be more agreeable, speaking once again of his gratitude for Stephen's care of him during his seizure. "It is a wretched unmanly kind of disease," he said. "I have begged McAdam to use the knife, if it would do any good, but he seems to think it nervous, something like a fit of the mother. I do not suppose the Commodore ever suffers from anything of that kind?"

"If he did, I should certainly not speak of his disorder, nor the disorder of any other patient under my hands," said Stephen. "But," he added more kindly, "you are not to suppose that there is anything in the least discreditable in your malady. The degree of pain exceeds anything I have seen in any tormina, whatever their origin." Clonfert looked pleased, and Stephen went on, "It is a grave matter, indeed; and you are fortunate in having such an adviser as Dr McAdam in daily reach. I believe, with your leave, that I shall wait upon him presently."

"Honest McAdam, yes," said Clonfert, with a return to his former manner. "Yes. He may be no Solomon, and we must overlook certain frailties and an unfortunate manner; but I believe he is sincerely devoted to me. He was somewhat indisposed this morning, or he would have paid his respects when you came aboard; but I believe he is up and about by now."

McAdam was in his sick-bay, looking frail. Fortunately for the Nereides his mate, Mr Fenton, was a sound practical ship's surgeon, for McAdam had little interest in physical medicine. He showed Stephen his few cases, and they lingered a while over a seaman whose inoperable gummata were pressing on his brain in such a manner that his speech followed an inverted logic of its own. "The sequence is not without its value," said McAdam, "though it is scarcely in my line. For that matter there is little scope for my studies in a ship of war. Come away below, and we will take a drop." Far below, in the smell of bilge-water and grog, he went on, "Mighty little scope. The lower deck is kept far too busy for much to develop apart from the common perversions. Not that I would have you understand that I agree for a moment with the wicked old Bedlam chains and straw and cold water and whipping; but there may be some fancies that in the egg cannot stand a wee starting with a rope's end, nor close company. At any rate I have not had a decent melancholia from the lower deck this commission. Manias, yes; but they are two a penny. No: it is aft that you must look for your fine flower of derangement, not forgetting the pursers and clerks and schoolmasters, all mewed up more or less alone; but above all your captains--that is where the really interesting cases lie. How did you find our patient?"

"In a high flow of spirits. The helebore answers, I believe?"

For some time they discussed valerian, polypody of the oak, and stinking gladwin, their effects, and Stephen recommended the moderate use of coffee and tobacco; then McAdam branched off to ask, "And did he speak of Captain Aubrey, at all?"

"Barely. In the circumstances it was an omission that I found remarkable."

"Aye, and significant too, colleague, most significant. He has been on about Captain Aubrey these last days, and I took particular notice of the sudor insignis that you pointed out. It coincides within an hour or so. He was obliged to shift his coat after every bout: he has a chestful, and the right side of each one is pale from scrubbing away the salt, the right side alone."

"It would be interesting to analyse that salt. Belladonna would suppress the sweat, of course. No more grog, I thank you. But it appears to me that for our patient truth is what he can persuade others to believe: yet at the same time he is a man of some parts, and I suspect that were you to attack him through his reason, were you to persuade him to abandon this self-defeating practice, with its anxiety, its probability of detection, and to seek only a more legitimate approval, then we should have no need for belladonna or any other anhidrotic."

"You are coming into my way of thinking, I find: but you are not come far enough. The trouble lies much deeper, and it is through unreason that the whole nexus must be attacked. Your belladonna and your logic are pills from the same box: they only suppress the symptom."

"How do you propose to attain this end?"

"Listen now, will you," cried McAdam, slopping out a full tumbler and drawing his chair so near that his breath wafted in Stephen's face, "and I will tell you."

In his diary that night Stephen wrote, "if he could carry out a reconstruction of the Irish political and social history for the last few ages which has formed our patient, and then a similar rebuilding of his mind from its foundation in early childhood to the present day, McAdam's scheme would be admirable. Yet even for the second part, what tools does he dispose of? A pickaxe is all. A pickaxe to repair a chronometer, and a pickaxe in drunken hands at that. For my part I have a higher opinion of Clonfert's understanding if not of his judgment than has my poor sodden colleague."

This higher opinion was confirmed the next evening, when the Nereide made her way through a wicked series of reefs off Cape Brabant and the gig put Stephen and the captain ashore in a little creek; and the next, when the black pilot not only took them into a still lagoon but also guided them through the forest to a village where Stephen had a conversation with a second potential ally; and again some days later during a stroll behind Port South-East with a packet of subversive papers.

As he told Jack on rejoining the Boadicea, "Clonfert may not be his own best friend in some ways, but he is capable of a steadiness and a resolution that surprised me; and I must observe that he perpetually took notes of the depth of the water and of the bearings in what I am persuaded you would call a seamanlike manner."

"So much the better," cried Jack, "I am delighted to hear it, upon my word and honour. I have been doing something in that line myself, with young Richardson: he promises to be a capital hydrographer. We have laid down most of the nearby coast, with double angles and any number of soundings. And I have discovered a wateringplace on Flat Island, a few leagues to the northwards; so we shall not have to be perpetually fagging out to Rodriguez."

"No Rodriguez," said Stephen in a low voice.

"Oh, you shall see Rodriguez again," said Jack. "We still have to put in there for stores, turn and turn about; but not quite so often."