The Reverse of the Medal. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ wish someone would try to corrupt me,’ said Jack. ‘When I think of how my account with Hoares must stand at the present moment, I would ship any number of senates to a distant shore for five hundred pounds; and for another ten the whole board of Admiralty too.’

      ‘I dare say you would,’ said Stephen. ‘But you take my meaning, do you not? Were I in your place I should glide over that unhappy brass box and its contents, with just a passing reference to certain confidential papers to salve your conscience. I will come with you, if I may, so that if the Admiral prove inquisitive, I may toss him off with a round turn.’

      Jack looked at Stephen with affection: Dr Maturin could dash away in Latin and Greek, and as for modern languages, to Jack’s certain knowledge he spoke half a dozen; yet he was quite incapable of mastering low English cant or slang or flash expressions, let alone the technical terms necessarily used aboard ship. Even now, he suspected, Stephen had difficulty with starboard and larboard.

      ‘The less said about these things the better,’ added Stephen. ‘I wish...’ But here he stopped. He did not go on to say that he wished he had never seen these papers, had never had anything to do with them; but that was the case. Money, though obviously essential on occasion, usually had a bad effect on intelligence – for his part he had never touched a Brummagem farthing for his services – and money in such exorbitant, unnatural amounts might be very bad indeed, endangering all those who came into contact with it.

      ‘I don’t know how it is, Aubrey,’ said the Admiral, coming back, ‘but I seem to piss every glass these days. Perhaps it is anno Domini, and nothing to be done about it, but perhaps it is something that one of these new pills can set right. I should like to consult your surgeon while Surprise is refitting. I hear he is an eminent hand – was called in to the Duke of Clarence. But that to one side: carry on with your account, Aubrey.’

      ‘Well, sir, not finding the Norfolk in the Atlantic I followed her round into the South Sea. No luck at Juan Fernandez, but a little later I had word of her playing Old Harry among our whalers along the coast of Chile and Peru and among the Galapagos. So I proceeded north, retaking one of her prizes on the way, and reached the islands a little after she had left; but there again I had fairly certain intelligence that she was bound for the Marquesas, where her commander meant to establish a colony as well as snapping up the half dozen whalers we had fishing in those waters. So I bore away westward, and to cut a long story short, after some weeks of sweet sailing, when we were right in her track – saw her beef-barrels floating – we had a most unholy blow, scudding under bare poles day after day, that we survived and she did not. We found her wrecked on the coral-reef of an uncharted island well to the east of the Marquesas; and not to trouble you with details, sir, we took her surviving people prisoner and proceeded to the Horn with the utmost dispatch.’

      ‘Well done, Aubrey, very well done indeed. No glory, nor no cash from the Norfolk, I am afraid, it being an act of God that dished her; but dished she is, which is the main point, and I dare say you will get head-money for your prisoners. And then of course there are these charming prizes. No: a very satisfactory cruise, upon the whole. I congratulate you. Let us drink a glass of bottled ale: it is my own.’

      ‘Very willingly, sir. But there is something I should tell you about the prisoners. From the beginning the captain of the Norfolk behaved very strangely; in the first place he said the war was over...’

      ‘That’s fair enough. A legitimate ruse de guerre.’

      ‘Yes, but there were other things, together with a want of candour that I could not understand until I learnt that he was trying, naturally enough, to protect part of his crew; some of his men were deserters from the Navy and some had taken part in the Hermione ...’

      ‘The Hermione!’ cried the Admiral, his face growing pale and wicked at the mention of that unhappy frigate and the still unhappier mutiny, when her crew murdered their inhuman captain and most of his officers and handed the ship over to the enemy on the Spanish Main. ‘I lost a young cousin there, Drogo Montague’s boy. They broke his arm and then fairly hacked him to pieces, only thirteen and as promising a youngster as you could wish, the damned cowardly villains.’

      ‘We had a certain amount of trouble with them, sir, the ship having been blown off for a while; and some were obliged to be knocked on the head.’

      ‘That saves us the trouble of hanging them. But you have some left, I trust?’

      ‘Oh yes, sir. They are in the whaler, and if they might be taken off quite soon I should esteem it a kindness. We have never a boat to bless ourselves with, apart from my gig, and our few Marines are fairly worn to the bone with guarding them watch and watch.’

      ‘They shall be clapped up directly,’ cried the Admiral, pealing on his bell. ‘Oh it will do my heart good to see ’em dingle-dangle at the yardarm, the carrion dogs. Jason should be in tomorrow and with you that will give us just enough post-captains for a court-martial.’

      Jack’s heart sank. He loathed a court-martial: he loathed a hanging even more. He also wanted to get away as soon as he had completed his water and taken in stores enough to carry him home, and from the obvious paucity of senior officers off Bridgetown he had thought he might be able to sail in two days’ time. But it was no good protesting. The secretary and the flag-lieutenant were both in the cabin; orders were flying; and now the Admiral’s steward brought in the bottled ale.

      It was intolerably fizzy as well as luke-warm, but once his orders were given the Admiral drank it down in great gulps, with evident pleasure; presently the savage expression faded from his grim old face. After a long pause in which the clump of Marines’ boots could be heard, and the sound of boats shoving off, he said, ‘The last time I saw you, Aubrey, was when Dungannon gave us dinner in the Defiance, and afterwards we played that piece of Gluck’s in D minor. I have hardly had any music since, apart from what I play for myself. They are a sad lot in the wardroom here: German flutes by the dozen and not a true note between ’em. Jew’s harps are more their mark. And all the mids’ voices broke long ago; in any case there’s not one can tell a B from a bull’s foot. I dare say it was much the same for you, in the South Sea?’

      ‘No, sir, I was much luckier. My surgeon is a capital hand with a violoncello; we saw away together until all hours. And my chaplain has a very happy way of getting the hands to sing, particularly Arne and Handel. When I had Worcester in the Mediterranean some time ago he brought them to a most creditable version of the Messiah.’

      ‘I wish I had heard it,’ said the Admiral. He refilled Jack’s glass and said, ‘Your surgeon sounds a jewel.’

      ‘He is my particular friend, sir: we have sailed together these ten years and more.’

      The Admiral nodded. ‘Then I should be happy if you would bring him this evening. We might take a bit of supper together and have a little music; and if he don’t dislike it, I should like to consult him. Yet perhaps that might be improper; I know these physical gentlemen have a strict etiquette among themselves.’

      ‘I believe your surgeon would have to give his consent, sir. They probably know one another, however, and it would be no more than a formality; Maturin is aboard at this moment, and if you wish I will speak to him before I pay my call on Captain Goole.’

      ‘You are going to wait on Goole, are you?’ asked Sir William.

      ‘Oh yes, sir: he is senior to me by a good six months.’

      ‘Well, do not forget to wish him joy. He was married a little while ago: you would have thought him safe enough, СКАЧАТЬ