The Ionian Mission. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ this minute, sir.’

      Chapter Two

      At a broad table on the Worcester’s quarterdeck sat her first lieutenant, with the Captain’s clerk, the surgeon, the purser, the bosun, and her other standing officers on either side of him. Over to starboard stood a vague heap of men, most of them poorly clothed, most of them looking lost and miserable, all of them smelling of soap, the receiving-ship having scrubbed them until they shone; but a few seemed quite at home, and when Mr Pullings called out ‘Next’ one of these stepped up to the table and touched his knuckles to his forehead and stood there swaying gently, a middle-aged man in loose trousers and a torn blue jacket with metal buttons, a bright red handkerchief round his neck. He looked horribly dissipated and he had certainly been fighting the night before; Pullings gazed at him with great satisfaction and said, ‘Well, Phelps, are you come to add to our burden?’

      ‘That’s right, sir,’ said Phelps, and then very rapidly to the clerk, ‘Ebenezer Phelps, born at Dock in sixty-nine, dwelling at Gorham’s Rents, Dock, thirty-four years at sea, last ship Wheel ’em Along, sheet-anchor man.’

      ‘And before that Circe and Venerable,’ said Pullings. ‘And a damned bad character from both. Rate him able. Phelps, you had better take a caulk below, before the Captain sees you. Next.’

      A powerful bosun’s mate led up a pale knock-kneed man in breeches and part of what was once a coachman’s great-coat: his name was William Old.

      ‘What was your trade, Old?’ asked Pullings kindly.

      ‘I don’t like to boast,’ said Old, gathering confidence, ‘but I was a trifler.’ There was a momentary hush; the clerk looked up from his book with a frown; the bosun’s mate whispered, ‘Mind your luff, mate,’ in a hoarse growl, and Old added, ‘Not a sadware man, sir, nor a hollow-ware man, but a trifler, a journeyman trifler. But the whole pewter trade, sadware and all, is gone to the dogs, and – ’

      ‘Have you ever been to sea?’ asked Pullings.

      ‘I once went to Margate, sir.’

      ‘Rate him landman, if he passes the Doctor,’ said Pullings. ‘He may be some use as armourer’s crew. Next.’

      ‘Oh sir,’ cried the journeyman trifler, about to be led off by the bosun’s mate, ‘Oh sir, if you please: may I have my bounty now, your honour? My wife is waiting there on the quay, with the children.’

      ‘Explain to him about the ticket, Jobling,’ said Pullings to the bosun’s mate. ‘Next.’

      Now it was the turn of the pressed men, several right seamen among them, some taken far out in the offing from homeward-bound merchant ships by Mowett in the barge, others captured ashore by the gang. The first of them, a man called Yeats, looked more like a prosperous gardener, which indeed he was, as he explained to the lieutenant: a nurseryman. He had half an acre under glass – his business going well – would be ruined if he were pressed – his wife did not understand the trade, and she was expecting. His extreme distress was evident; so was his sincerity.

      ‘What is that anchor doing on your hand?’ asked Pullings, pointing to the mark, tattooed blue and red. ‘You have been to sea: do not deny it.’

      Yes, he had been to sea when he was a boy, five months in Hermione, sick almost all the time, and when she was paid off here in Hamoaze he had walked inland as far as ever he could and had never come near the shore again until Thursday, when the press-gang took him as he was crossing the bridge to visit an important customer at Saltash. His business would be ruined if he did not go home.

      ‘Well, I am sorry for it, Yeats,’ said Pullings. ‘But the law is the law: any man that has used the sea may be pressed.’ In cases like this some officers would make observations about the necessity for manning the fleet, about serving – preserving – the country, even about patriotism, for the general edification of the ship’s company: others would turn harsh or gruff. Pullings only said, ‘Go along with the Doctor,’ shaking his head. Yeats cast a desperate look at the seated men, clasped his hands, and went along without another word, too disheartened to speak.

      Behind the canvas screen Stephen told him to take off his clothes, poked him in the belly and groin, and said, ‘You lift heavy weights in your trade.’

      ‘Oh no, sir,’ said Yeats in a low spiritless voice, ‘we only carry – ’

      ‘Do not presume to contradict me,’ said Stephen sharply. ‘You answer questions when they are asked and not before, do you hear?’

      ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ said Yeats, closing his eyes.

      ‘You lift heavy weights. Here are the signs of an incipient hernia. I am afraid we shall have to refuse you. It is not serious yet, but you are to drink very little ale or wine, and no strong waters at all; you are to forswear tobacco, that nasty vice, and are to be let blood three times a year.’

      In the great after-cabin, the Captain’s drawing-room, music-room, refuge and delight, Jack paced to and fro, dictating to a knowing old confidential clerk, lent by his friend the Commissioner: ‘Captain Aubrey presents his best compliments to Lord Alton and very much regrets that the Worcester is not a suitable ship for a young gentleman the age of his lordship’s son; she carries no schoolmaster, and the nature of her present duties precludes – precludes my acting as a goddam dry-nurse: use that excellent expression you thought of for the others, Mr Simpson, if you please. But if the boy were put to a good mathematical school when he is twelve and taught the rudiments of trigonometry, navigation, English and French grammar for a year or so, Captain Aubrey would be happy to attend to his lordship’s wishes in the event of his being appointed to some more eligible command.’

      ‘Lord Alton has a good deal of interest with Government you know sir,’ observed the clerk, an acquaintance of many years standing.

      ‘I am sure he has,’ said Jack, ‘and I am sure he will soon find a more biddable captain. Now much the same to Mr Jameson: but in this case his boy is too old. He may be very good at Latin and Greek, but he does not know the difference between a logarithm and a log; besides, very few young fellows take well to the sea at fifteen. What next? Tell me, do you know anything about this nephew of Admiral Brown’s?’

      ‘Well, sir, he seemed a heavy young gentleman to me: his last captain turned him on shore, and I am told he failed to pass for lieutenant at Somerset House.’

      ‘Ay, I dare say. I saw him make a sad cock of putting the yawl about when he was in Colossus: he was drunk at the time. But I believe I must take him. His uncle was very good to me when I was a boy. We will try to sharpen his wits: then he may pass at Gibraltar, and perhaps the Admiral will make him for his uncle’s sake – they were shipmates in the time of the Spanish Armament, I recall,’ said Jack, gazing out of the stern-window and seeing the Hamoaze of more than twenty years ago, just as crowded with men-of-war even then, and himself a brand-new lieutenant, shedding happiness all round him like the rising sun, taking the two officers in question ashore in the gig. ‘I will write that letter myself,’ he said. ‘As for young Savage and Maitland, they may certainly come. But now there is this very delicate confidential semi-official letter to Admiral Bowyer about the remaining lieutenants: Mr Collins and Mr Whiting I know nothing of, except that they are very young, near the bottom of the list; but Mr Somers I will not have if I can possibly avoid it.’

      ‘The Honourable Mr Somers,’ said Simpson in a significant tone.

      ‘No doubt, СКАЧАТЬ