The Reverse of the Medal. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ me you would know might I see him at all. I hear no boats are allowed by his ship, but it is the way I have a letter for him from Mrs Aubrey.’

      ‘Is that right?’ said Stephen. ‘Then come with me till I bring you where he is. Mr Richardson, you will not object to another passenger? We might take turns with plying the oars, the weight being greater.’

      The pull across was comparatively silent: Richardson was busy with his sculls; the black man had the gift, so rare in the young, of being quiet without awkwardness; and Stephen was much taken up with this transposition of his most intimate friend; however, he did say, ‘I trust, sir, that you left Mrs Aubrey quite well?’

      ‘As well, sir, as ever her friends could desire,’ said the young man, with that sudden flashing smile possible only to those with brilliant white teeth and a jet-black face.

      ‘I wish you may be right, my young friend,’ said Stephen inwardly. He knew Sophie very well; he loved her very dearly; but he knew that she was quick and perceptive and somewhat more subject to jealousy and its attendant miseries than was quite consistent with happiness. And without being a prude she was also perfectly virtuous, naturally virtuous, without the least self-constraint.

      The young man was not unexpected in the Surprise; the rumour of his presence had spread to every member of the ship’s company except her Captain and he came aboard into an atmosphere of kindly, decently-veiled but intense curiosity.

      ‘Will you wait here now while I see is the Captain at leisure?’ said Stephen. ‘Mr Rowan will no doubt show you the various ropes for a moment.’

      ‘Jack,’ he said, walking into the cabin. ‘Listen, now. I have strange news: there was a fine truthful young black man aboard the Admiral inquiring for you, told me he had a message from Sophie, so I have brought him along.’

      ‘From Sophie?’ cried Jack.

      Stephen nodded and said in a low voice, ‘Brother, forgive me, but you may be surprised by the messenger. Do not be disconcerted. Will I bring him in?’

      ‘Oh yes, of course.’

      ‘Good afternoon to you, sir,’ said the young man in a deep, somewhat tremulous voice as he held out a letter. ‘When I was in England Mrs Aubrey desired me to give you this, or to leave it in good hands were I gone before your ship came by.’

      ‘I am very much obliged to you indeed, sir,’ said Jack, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘Pray sit down. Killick, Killick there. Rouse out a bottle of madeira and the Sunday cake. I am truly sorry not to be able to entertain you better, sir – I am engaged to the Admiral this evening – but perhaps you could dine with me tomorrow?’

      Killick had of course been listening behind the door and he was prepared for this: he and his black mate Tom Burgess came in at once, making a reasonably courtly train, as like a land-going butler and footman as they could manage; but Tom’s desire to get a really good view of the visitor, who sat facing away from him, was so violent that they fell foul of one another just as the wine was pouring. When the ‘God-damned lubbers’ had withdrawn, crestfallen, and they were alone again Jack looked keenly at the young man’s face – it was strangely familiar: surely he must have seen him before. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, breaking the seal, ‘I will just glance into this to see whether there is anything urgent.’ There was not. This was the third copy of a letter sent to the ports where the Surprise might touch on her homeward voyage: it spoke of the progress of Jack’s plantations, the slow indeterminate stagnation of the legal proceedings, and the chickenpox, then at its height; and at the bottom of the page a hurried postscript said that Sophie would entrust this to Mr Illegible, who was bound for the West Indies and who had been so kind as to call on her.

      He looked up, and again this uneasy sense of familiarity struck him; but he said, ‘It was exceedingly kind of you to bring me this letter. I hope you left everyone at Ashgrove Cottage quite well?’

      ‘Mrs Aubrey told me the children were taken with the chickenpox, and she was concerned for them, sure; but a gentleman that was sitting by whose name I did not catch said there was no danger at all, at all.’

      ‘I do not believe my wife quite caught your name either, sir,’ said Jack. ‘At all events I cannot make out what she writes.’

      ‘My name is Panda, sir, Samuel Panda, and my mother was Sally Mputa. Since I was going to England with the Fathers she desired me to give you these,’ – holding out a package – ‘and that is how I came to go to Ashgrove Cottage, hoping to find you there.’

      ‘God’s my life,’ said Jack, and after a moment he slowly began to open the package. It contained a sperm-whale’s tooth upon which he had laboriously engraved HMS Resolution under close-reefed topsails when he was a very young man, younger even than the tall youth facing him; it also contained a small bundle of feathers and elephant’s hair bound together with a strip of leopard’s skin.

      ‘That is a charm to keep you from drowning,’ observed Samuel Panda.

      ‘How kind,’ said Jack automatically. They looked at one another with a naked searching, eager on the one side, astonished on the other. There were few mirrors hanging in Jack’s part of the ship – only a little shaving-glass in his sleeping-cabin – but the extraordinarily elaborate and ingenious piece of furniture that Stephen’s wife Diana had given him and that was chiefly used as a music-stand had a large one inside the lid. Jack opened it and they stood there side by side, each comparing, each silently, intently, looking for himself in the other.

      ‘I am astonished,’ said Jack at last. ‘I had no idea, no idea in the world...’ He sat down again. ‘I hope your mother is well?’

      ‘Very well indeed, sir, I thank you. She prepares African medicines in the hospital at Lourenço Marques, which some patients prefer.’

      Neither spoke until Jack said ‘God’s my life’ again, turning the whale tooth in his hand. Few things at sea could amaze him and he had suffered some shrewd blows without discomposure, but now his youth coming so vividly to life took him wholly aback.

      ‘Will I tell you how I come to be here, sir?’ asked the young man out of the silence, in his deep, gentle voice.

      ‘Do, by all means. Yes, pray do,’ said Jack.

      ‘We removed to Lourenço Marques about the time I was born – my mother came from Nwandwe, no great way off – and there it was that the Fathers took me in when I was a little small boy, and very sickly, it appears. My mother was married to an ancient Zulu witch-doctor at the time – a heathen, of course – so they brought me up and educated me.’

      ‘Bless them,’ said Jack. ‘But is not Lourenço Marques on Delagoa Bay – is it not Portuguese?’

      ‘It is Portuguese, sir, but Irish entirely. That is to say, the Mission came from the County Roscommon itself; and it was Father Power and Father Birmingham took me to England with them, where I hoped I should find you, and so on to the Indies.’

      ‘Well, Sam,’ said Jack, ‘you are very welcome, I am sure. And now you have found me, what can I do for you? Had it been earlier, as I could have wished, it would have been easier; but as I said, I had not the least notion . . . It is too late for the Navy, of course, and in any event . . . yet stay, have you ever thought of being a captain’s clerk? It can lead to a purser’s berth, and the life itself is very agreeable; I have known many a captain’s clerk take charge of a boat in a cutting-out expedition...’

      He СКАЧАТЬ