Clarissa Oakes Part 11

Stephen opened the box and tilted it to the filtered light. 'Here's glory for you!' he cried. 'Longicorns to a man: no, these must belong to the Cleridae - such colours! How they will make Sir Joseph stare: and how grateful I am. They are all dead, I find.'

'Yes. I cannot bear that perpetual hopeless striving to escape, the scrabbling noise. So I pa.s.s them through spirits of wine.'

'Gentleman, dear, himself is upon us,' said Padeen in a nervous whisper and of course in Irish, thrusting his head through the hatch like a rabbit and withdrawing it at once.

'Perhaps I should tell you that Captain Aubrey means to invite you to dine with Pullings, the Oakeses and myself,' said Stephen.

'Oh, thank you,' said Martin with a hara.s.sed smile. 'Now that I am forewarned I believe I can keep my countenance for the s.p.a.ce of a dinner.'

Yet when Jack, having gone through the motions of inspecting the sick-berth, said 'Mr Martin, may we hope for the pleasure of your company at dinner today?' Martin replied 'Alas, sir, I must beg to be excused. I am very far from well, and shall absent myself even from church: but allow me to say how very sensible I am of your goodness. Far from well -indeed, a man must be uncommonly disordered to decline an invitation from both his patron and his commanding officer.'

The refusal of a captain's invitation to dinner was extremely unusual in the service - an act a.s.sumed to be a declaration of hostility, very near neighbour to mutiny if not to high treason - but Jack, who could not look upon either Martin or Stephen as a truly maritime animal, took it quite calmly, suggested that perhaps he had ate something in Annamooka, recommended lying down - 'A man's pillow is his best medicine: though I should not say so in the present company' - asked his advice on the more lowering psalms, and carried on with his inspection.

As he and Pullings walked forward along the cable-tier a rat crossed their path and Jack cried 'Bless me! It was here that we found Mrs Oakes, looking like a boy. That was in fact no great while ago in time or course made good, if you consider; yet now she seems as much part of the s.h.i.+p as the figurehead.' Pullings, who wors.h.i.+pped and detested the figurehead equally and in torment, uttered a murmur of a.s.sent, and after a while Jack went on 'Where did she get those trousers from, do you imagine? They were much too small for Oakes.'

'They belonged to poor Miller, sir,' said Pullings, speaking of a mids.h.i.+pman killed in Jack's most recent action, 'and when his things were sold at the mainmast Reade bought the uniform, hoping he would grow into them when we were in New South Wales. But, however, he did not; and I suppose he pa.s.sed them on - I only speak at a venture, sir. I have no real knowledge,' he added, unwilling to have the air of an informer.

'It is very likely,' said Jack, calling young Miller to mind. 'They were much of a size.'

He said no more until they were in the light of day once more, a light so brilliant that it caused them to narrow their eyes, but that also made it clear to the s.h.i.+p's people that nothing had happened below to change their skipper's state of mind, and that they still had a right Tartar on their hands.

Jack Aubrey's large open florid blue-eyed face could not by any contortion be made to look shrewish or mean, but indignation for his s.h.i.+p and deep anger against the men who could have used her so gave it a leonine ferocity that had a wonderfully daunting effect. It did not change during divine service, an austere ritual unrelieved by the presence of the Reverend Nathaniel Martin, who though no hand at a sermon added a greater humanity than was present today: after the regulation prayers, read in a strong, unforgiving tone, and the sin-confessing psalm, the Surprises heard their captain raise his already powerful voice a pitch or two and run through the dreadful Articles of War in a tone less forgiving still. He dwelt with more than usual emphasis on the words '. . .if any officer, marine, soldier, or other person in the fleet, shall presume to quarrel with any of his superior officers, being in the execution of his office, or shall disobey any lawful command of any of his superior officers, every such person being convicted . . . shall suffer death.' And on 'If any person in the fleet shall quarrel or fight with any other person in the fleet, or use reproachful or provoking speeches or gestures, tending to make any quarrel or disturbance, he shall, upon being convicted thereon, suffer such punishments as the offence shall deserve . . .' And on 'No person in or belonging to the fleet shall . . . negligently perform the duty imposed upon him, or forsake his station, upon pain of death.'

Mrs Oakes and the little girls being present he skipped Article XXIX, which dealt with sodomy by hanging the sodomite, but he came out strong on x.x.xVI: 'All other crimes not capital . . . which are not mentioned in this act, or for which no punishment is hereby directed to be inflicted, shall be punished according to the laws and customs in such cases used at sea,' ending with a glare at the congregation that reminded them of the more brutal customs used at sea, such as keel-hauling, and that caused Emily, who was less stout than Sarah and who had seen Jemmy Ducks' change of countenance, to start grizzling again.

After this and the midday observation he dismissed them to eat their dinner with what appet.i.te they could summon with the help of grog, and began the most recent in a long, long series of measured miles on the windward side of his quarterdeck.

Heart of Oak beat for the diminished gunroom dinner: Martin retired to his cabin with two concealed biscuits: the Captain paced on and on in his elegant white waistcoat, as grave as a hanging judge. It did not foretell a particularly cheerful dinner-party.

Yet Jack had a high notion of hospitality: apart from anything else, on his first introduction to the Navy he had served under a nephew of the amiable Admiral Boscawen, a commander who carried on his uncle's tradition, famous throughout the service - a tradition that suited the natural bent of Captain Aubrey's genius, so that when Killick came to tell him that the Doctor was square-rigged and powdered, that his Honour's coat was hanging on the back of his chair, and that his guests were at single anchor, he brightened at once, hurried down the companion-ladder and into what was officially his sleeping-place, now for so small a party turned into his dining-cabin, with its usual blaze of silver (Killick's joy) among the orchids and his own coat hunched at the head of the table. He put it on, splendid with gold lace and epaulettes, gave the table and the great cabin a quick glance and walked into the coach, where his meagre store of gin, bitters and madeira stood ready to receive his guests.

They arrived in a body, and a little civil war of declining precedence could be heard on the half-deck: the war was lost before it began, however, and they walked in according to established order. Mrs Oakes, the Scarlet Woman, as the Sethians and some others called her, came first, in a modified version of her wedding-dress; she dropped Aubrey the prettiest straight-backed curtsy, exactly timed to the frigate's roll, and made room for Tom Pullings, almost as glorious as a post-captain; then came Stephen, who as a mere surgeon, a warrant-officer, had no lace at all on his plain blue coat, though he was allowed an embroidered b.u.t.ton-hole to his collar; and last of all Oakes, who had no precedence of any kind and whose only ornament was the extreme brilliance of his polished b.u.t.tons.

He was nevertheless the most cheerful of the band, smiling and chuckling to himself; he had obviously fortified himself for the encounter with grog, and when Jack asked Clarissa what he might bring her she said she would be happiest if she might be allowed to share her husband's madeira in so wifely a manner that the married men, even Killick and his mate, smiled inwardly. But when on the stroke of the bell they moved into the dining-cabin Clarissa was seated on Jack's right, with Pullings opposite her and Stephen at her side; Oakes was on Pullings' left, removed from her by a broad expanse of tablecloth. It is true that he often looked at her with a doglike devotion, and her glance sometimes made him call 'Belay' when Killick had not even half filled his gla.s.s.

Yet neither being stinted of his wine nor the foreboding atmosphere in the s.h.i.+p affected his spirits and it appeared to Stephen, his vis-a-vis, that something must very recently have pa.s.sed between him and Clarissa: a new understanding, perhaps physically ratified.

'Doctor,' he said, leaning over the table with a smile. 'You are a very learned cove; but do you know what it is, that the more you cut of it, grows still the longer?'

Stephen considered, with his head on one side, took a sip of wine, and in the expectant silence he asked 'Would it be celery, at all?'

'No, sir. Not celery,' said Oakes, with great satisfaction.

Others suggested hay, a beard, nails; and Killick whispered in Stephen's ear 'Try horseradish, sir.' But none would do and in the end, as soup was clearing away, Oakes had to tell them that the more you cut of a ditch the longer the ditch grew. They confessed it; even Pullings, rising from his state of guilt at the frigate's present condition, said it was very clever - one of the cleverest things he had heard; and Jack looked at Oakes with a new esteem. On the half-deck, as the fish was coming aft, Killick could be heard explaining the apparent paradox to his mate and Jack Nasty face.

Oakes wore his triumph modestly throughout the fish, a n.o.ble creature like a bonito but with crimson spots; and during this time Jack explained the theory of trade winds to Clarissa, while Pullings listened with a fixed look of polite attention and Stephen attended to the fish's anatomy. 'Doctor,' said Oakes, having wiped his plate, 'do you remember the Bathurst tavern in Sydney? Well, there was a soldier that used to come down with a couple of friends and we played halfpenny whist; and after every two or three rubbers he would call for a pipe of tobacco. Then one day, no pipe. "Ain't you going to smoke?" we asked him. "No," says he. "I lit my pipe last night with a broadsheet ballad folded lengthways, and there has been a singing in my head ever since. I am sure it is the ballad still."'

Stephen noticed an anxious expression on Clarissa's face, but her husband, enchanted by the reception of his piece, missed her look and plunged on into an account of a man who wore his hair over his shoulders and who, on being asked by a bald companion why he let it grow so long, answered, it was to see if his hair would run to seed, that he might sow it on bald pates.

'Very good, very good, Mr Oakes,' cried Jack, beating his hand on the table. 'A gla.s.s of wine with you, sir.'

During the roast pork he drank to each of his guests, particularly to Clarissa, whose looks he thought much improved from their exposure to the sun and the breeze. 'So returning to my trade winds, ma'am,' he went on, 'presently I hope we shall meet those blowing from the north-east; and then you will see what the s.h.i.+p can do, for we shall have to beat to windward, tack upon tack, and she is a good plyer - there is nothing she loves better than sailing close-hauled into a fine steady gale.'

'Oh I should love that,' said Clarissa. 'There is nothing so - so exalting as clinging on with both hands when the s.h.i.+p leans right over and the spray comes das.h.i.+ng back right along the side.' She spoke with unfeigned enthusiasm and he gave her an approving look - more than approving, indeed, and he quickly dropped his eyes in case his admiration should be seen. 'Doctor,' he called down the table, 'the bottle stands by you.'

Oakes had been silent for some time. He was silent while the plum-duff was pa.s.sing round; he was silent while it was being eaten; but on swallowing his last spoonful he raised his gla.s.s and smiling happily round at the company he said

'So long as we may, let us enjoy this breath For naught doth kill a man so soon as death.'

On the other hand there was little merriment on the forecastle in the last dog-watch though the evening was calm, beautiful and in every way fit for the dancing so usual at this time of day on a Sunday: only the little girls played the northern version of hopscotch they had learned from the Orkney-men - played it quietly, watched by the seamen with barely a comment.

There was if anything less on the quarterdeck, and when Stephen came up a little before sunset he found Davidge, the officer of the watch, standing by the barricade, looking haggard, middle-aged, wretched, and Clarissa sitting in her usual place by the taffrail, quite alone.

'I am so glad you have appeared,' she said. 'I was growing as melancholy as a gib cat, which is ungrateful after such a splendid dinner; and very strange too, because I never minded being by myself when I was a girl and I longed for nothing so much as solitude in New South Wales. Perhaps I feel it here because I do so dislike being disliked . . . Reade and Sarah and Emily - we were such friends, and I cannot think how I have offended them.'

'The young are notoriously fickle.'

'Yes. I suppose so. But it is disappointing. Look, the sun is about to touch the sea.' When the last orange rim had gone and the rays alone were shooting up into the lemon-coloured haze, she said 'I suppose a sea-captain's life must be a very lonely one. Of course it is different for Captain Aubrey with you aboard, but for most of them, cooped up with n.o.body to talk to ... Do many take their wives or mistresses to sea?'

'Wives are uncommon - almost unheard-of on long voyages, I believe. And mistresses are in general disapproved of by everyone, from the Lords of the Admiralty to the ordinary seamen. They take away from an officer's character and his authority.'

'Do they really? Yet neither seamen nor naval officers are famous for chast.i.ty.'

'Not by land. Yet at sea a different set of rules comes into play. They are neither particularly logical nor consistent, but they are widely understood and observed.'

'Really? Really?' she asked leaning forward with intense interest: then she sighed and shook her head, saying 'But then, as you are aware, I know so little about men - men in the ordinary sense, in ordinary everyday life: men by day rather than by night.'

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Monday dawned pure and fair, lighting the starboard watch as they worked aft, cleaningthe deck with wetted sand, then with holystones, and then with swabs. The sun heaved up as they neared the capstan, on which West was sitting, his trousers rolled up to keep them from the flowing tide: sunrise was usually the moment for a certain amount of discreet cheerfulness and ancient witticisms such as 'Here we are again, s.h.i.+pmates!' and 'Are you happy in your work?' But nothing was to be heard today apart from the conscientious grating of the stones, the clash of buckets, and a few low warnings: 'Watch out for sweepings under that old grating, Joe.' And this in spite of the brilliance of the day, the s.h.i.+p's fine long easy pace, slanting across the swell with a lively rise, and of the favourable easterly breeze that ruffled the sea, bringing an exquisite freshness with it.

At seven bells hammocks were piped up and the larboard watch came running on deck in the most exemplary manner, each carrying his tight, exactly-lashed cylinder, which the quartermaster stowed in the nettings, numbers uppermost, with the meticulous regularity usual before an admiral's inspection. There was no merriment among the larbowlines either: none at their first appearance in the sunlight, none half an hour later, when all hands were piped to breakfast.

The old Surprises, that is to say those who had sailed with Captain Aubrey in earlier commissions, naturally messed together, even though this entailed the often disagreeable and sometimes dangerous company of Awkward Davies; and they listened in silence to his description of the skipper's coming on deck at first light, his good morning to Mr West, cold enough to freeze his b.a.l.l.s off - 'Just as well too,' said Wilson - his gazing sternly to windward, and his pacing fore and aft in his nights.h.i.+rt, like a lion seeking whom he might devour.

'They can do nothing to me," said Plaice. 'I only done what my officer told me to do. "Belay there, Plaice, G.o.d d.a.m.n your eyes" says he. So I belayed, though I knew it would bring us by the lee. Then "Let go, let go, forward there. Let go, Plaice, G.o.d d.a.m.n your limbs," calls t'other, so I let go. It would have been mutiny else. I am as innocent as a drove of lambs.'

With some difficulty Padeen said that G.o.d had never created a more beautiful morning nor a more propitious wind: it would soften the heart of Hector or Pontius Pilate himself.

Padeen was esteemed for his kindness in the sick-berth and for his cruel hard times in Botany Bay; he was also thought to have absorbed wisdom from the Doctor, and some people took comfort from his words.

It was a flimsy sort of comfort, however, and it quite disappeared a little before six bells in the forenoon watch, when the officers and mids.h.i.+pmen appeared on the quarterdeck in their uniforms and c.o.c.ked hats, wearing swords or dirks. Pull-ings gave orders to rig the grating, and Mr Adams came hurrying up the companion-ladder with the Articles of War. As soon as the sixth bell had struck, the bosun's mates piped All hands to witness punishment and the frigate's people flocked aft in a confused body, from which there arose a sense of collective guilt.

'All women below,' called Captain Aubrey. Sarah and Emily disappeared, and Pullings, at his side, said 'Mrs Oakes is already with the Doctor, sir.'

'Very well. Carry on, Captain Pullings.'

In her present state the Surprise carried no master-at-arms and Pullings himself called the wrongdoers from the throng, stating the crime of each to the Captain as he advanced. The first was Weightman. 'Insolence and inattention to duty, sir, if you please."

'Have you anything to say for yourself?' asked Jack.

'Not guilty, your honour, upon my sacred oath," said the butcher.

'Have any of his officers anything to say for him?' He waited for a moment: the breeze sang through the rigging: the officers looked into vacancy. 'Strip,' said Jack, and Weightman slowly took off his s.h.i.+rt. 'Seize him up.' The quartermasters tied Weightman's wrists to the grating rather above shoulder-height and cried 'Seized up, sir.'

Adams pa.s.sed the Articles. Jack, followed by the officers and mids.h.i.+pmen, took off his hat; he then read ' "No person in or belonging to the fleet shall sleep upon his watch, or negligently perform the duty imposed on him, or forsake his station, upon pain of death or such other punishment as the circ.u.mstances of his case shall require." Twelve strokes.' And to the senior bosun's mate, 'Vowles, do your duty."

Vowles drew the cat from its red baize bag, phlegmatically took up his stance, and as the s.h.i.+p reached the height of her roll he laid on the first stroke. 'Oh my G.o.d,' cried Weightman, enormously loud.

Mrs Oakes and Stephen looked up. 'There is punishment carrying out forward,' he said. 'Some of the people behaved amiss in pulling up the anchor.'

'So Oakes told me,' she replied, listening to the successive shrieks with no apparent emotion. 'How many does the Captain usually give?'

'I have never known him give more than a dozen, and rarely so many. Flogging is uncommon in s.h.i.+ps under his command.'

'A dozen? Lord, that would make them stare in New South Wales. There was a horrible parson, a magistrate, who only dealt in hundreds. Dr Redfern hated him.'

'I know it, my dear. So did I. Breathe deep, will you now, and hold it. Very well. That will do,' he said at last. 'You may put your clothes on again.'

'You say that in just the same tone as dear Dr Redfern,' said Clarissa from under the folds of her blue cotton dress: and emerging, 'How I adored that man when he told me that I was neither pregnant nor . . . nor diseased. I might well have been both. I had been raped often enough.'

'I am so sorry; so very sorry,' said Stephen.

'For some girls it would have been dreadful: it meant little to me, so long as there were no consequences.'

Flogging was indeed rare in Jack Aubrey's commands, but this time the s.h.i.+p had been outraged and humiliated and he punished severely, flogging seven and stopping grog right and left. Of those who were seized up, none called out except for Weightman; but none came away unmarked. As each was cast loose, Padeen stepped forward, tears streaming down his face, and sponged his s.h.i.+pmate's back with vinegar, while Martin swabbed the wheals with lint and pa.s.sed the man's s.h.i.+rt, a gesture much appreciated. All this was done with the customary man-of-war formality - charge, response, evidence of character, attenuating circ.u.mstances, Captain's decision, relevant Article, sentence, punishment - and although the later sentences never exceeded six strokes, the whole took up a great deal of time which Stephen and Clarissa, for their part, spent in talking quite placidly about men in general, everyday men in their ordinary life.

The last of those to be beaten presented an unusual case. He was James Mason, a bosun's mate; he was a good seaman, and the officer spoke in his favour. But his offence had been very gross - direct disobedience - and Jack had him brought to the grating. 'In view of what your officers say, it will only be half a dozen,' he said. 'Mr Bulkeley, do your duty.' It was of course the bosun's duty to flog his mates, but the occasion very rarely arose: Bulkeley had not been called upon to officiate for years; he had lost the habit; and taking the cat from Vowles he stood there for a moment, combing its b.l.o.o.d.y tails through his fingers in a sad state of indecision. He was fond of young James, they got along well together; but the s.h.i.+p's company was watching most attentively and he must not be seen to favour his mate. No, indeed: and his first blow jerked a great gasp out of Mason, rock of fort.i.tude though he was. When he was cast loose he staggered for a moment, wiped his face, and cast a reproachful look at the bosun, the embarra.s.sed, confused and uneasy bosun.

In Stephen's cabin the conversation had moved on by way of a discussion of pain to the extraordinary difficulty of defining emotions or a.s.signing to them any quant.i.ty quality volume or force. 'Harking back to pain,' said Stephen, 'I recall that when Captain Cook was here he used to flog the islanders for stealing: it was no use, said he: one might just as well have flogged the mainmast. And I saw Aborigines in New South Wales who utterly disregarded burns, blows and cruel thorns that I could never have borne; while in the Navy a seaman will generally take his dozen without a murmur. Yet even when all things are considered, youthful resilience, fort.i.tude, pride, habituation and so on, I wonder that your experience did not beat the softer, kinder emotions out of you entirely, leaving you sullen, morose and withdrawn.'

'Why, as for the softer emotions, perhaps I never was very well endowed; I disliked most cats, dogs and babies; I never cared for dolls or pet rabbits and sometimes I violently resented being crossed; but I never was sullen then and I am not sullen now. Nor am I morose and withdrawn: I think I am fairly kind, or mean to be fairly kind, to people who are kind to me or those who need kindness; and I know I like being liked - I love good company and cheerfulness.

Sic erimus cuncti postquam nos auferet Orcus ergo vivamus dum licet esse, bene.

And I also know I am not a monster incapable of affection," she said, laying a hand on Stephen's knee and flus.h.i.+ng a little under her tan. 'Only I cannot connect it with that toying, striving, gasping - what can I call it without being gross? -with anything of a carnal nature. They seem to me poles apart.'

'I am sure they do. Sic erimus cuncti ... so that was where Mr Oakes had his couplet yesterday? I wondered.'

'Yes. It was a doggerel version I made when I was putting on my gown. But I was astonished he should remember it.'

Stephen's only patients that afternoon were the butcher and the bosun's mate, both of whom, but particularly Mason, needed dressing. Martin had applied the ordinary pads, but he had had little experience with this kind of wound, the Surprise's temper being ordinarily so mild, and a more practised hand was required to wind the cingulum that would enable them to move with something approaching ease.

Yet it was clear to the practised hand that he might have a well-populated berth quite soon. Not only was Jack tautening the s.h.i.+p in all points, but on excusing himself for missing dinner - 'he would take an extra bite this evening, and with the wind going down like this they might very well have some fresh fish with their music' - he had also thrown out a remark about a flying column. Quite what he meant by that Stephen had not gathered; but basing himself upon the axiom that what goes up must necessarily come down, he antic.i.p.ated a fine crop of broken limbs, ribs, even skulls.

He reflected upon this as he dined in the gunroom, a rather silent gunroom, but one in which the malignance had been largely replaced by anxiety and even by a certain fellow-feeling. Martin ate wolfishly, twice desiring Pullings 'to cut him just a little more of this excellent roast pork, but when at last his empty plate was taken from him before pudding he told Stephen that he had seen a remarkable number of b.o.o.bies towards the northern horizon, and that old Macaulay, who knows these seas, had confirmed him in his notion that this meant great shoals of fish. They might go a-fis.h.i.+ng if the evening fell calm.

'You medicoes may go a-fis.h.i.+ng,' said Pullings. 'But I very much doubt whether we do anything but exercise until next Christmas.'

Truer words he never spoke. The Surprise had by no means pa.s.sed through the variables, and in the afternoon watch the breeze, which had been boxing the compa.s.s for some time, died away almost entirely; yet it did not do so until it had brought the s.h.i.+p within a mile or so of the zone where the b.o.o.bies were fis.h.i.+ng, and Stephen's skiff had long since been lowered down.

They rowed laboriously out, with rods, hand-nets, sieves for animalculae, pots and jars, baskets, all of which got in the way, impeding their artless progress and making them even slower, even hotter in the damp, unmoving air. Stephen, who had little sense of shame where nakedness was concerned and who had so often exposed his entire person that he feared no sunburn, took off his clothes; Martin, more shamefast by far, only unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt, rolled up his trousers, and suffered.

But it was worth their toil. The fis.h.i.+ng-ground was sharply defined, and as soon as they were over its border and among the b.o.o.bies they found that it possessed at least two levels, a turmoil of squids pursuing pelagic crabs and the free-swimming larvae of various forms of marine life that neither could identify, though they were fairly confident of the pearl oyster, and two or three fathoms below these, clearly to be seen, particularly under the shade of the boat, swam schools of fishes, crossing and recrossing, all of the same mackerel-shaped kind, all flas.h.i.+ng as they turned, and all feeding upon a host of fry so numerous that they made a globular haze in the clear green water. The b.o.o.bies preyed on both, either making a slight skimming dive to s.n.a.t.c.h up a squid just under the surface, or plunging from a height like so many mortar-bombs to reach the depth where the fishes cruised. They took no notice whatsoever of the men, sometimes diving so close to the boat that they splashed water into it; and after some time the men, having cla.s.sified the birds (two species, neither particularly rare), took no notice of the b.o.o.bies. They scooped up the squids with their hand-nets and found that they belonged to at least eleven different kinds, two of which they could not name; they sieved great quant.i.ties of the squids' food, which they put into well-closed pots; and they caught the fishes - handsome fellows, weighing a couple of pounds - baiting their hooks with pork rind cut in the shape of a minnow.

'Paradise must have been very like this,' observed Martin, putting another into their basket: and then 'How happy they will be when we bring back our catch. There is nothing like fresh -' Here he looked towards the s.h.i.+p and his face changed entirely. 'Oh,' cried he, 'she has lost a mast!'

Certainly she looked horribly lopsided, or rather deformed; but Stephen replied 'Not at all, at all.' He reached among his clothes for a little pocket spy-gla.s.s, pointed, focussed, and continued 'Never in life, my dear sir: they are only s.h.i.+fting topmasts.'

He saw from the great activity in the maintop, where topmast shrouds were being set up afresh, that they had begun aft and were working forward in one of the most strenuous exercises known to man.

Pullings and Oakes were on the forecastle; Davidge was in the foretop; West was perched in the maintopmast crosstrees; they and all the hands under their command were all in a state of extreme activity; and Jack Aubrey, with Reade on one hand and Adams on the other, was timing them with his open watch.

'I believe you have not seen it done before,' said Stephen, pa.s.sing the gla.s.s. 'Will I tell you what they are at?'

'If you would be so good.'

'First they unbend the topgallantsails and send them down and the yard after them; then they strike the topgallant mast, a manoeuvre we are all familiar with - a matter of minutes for skilful mariners, attentive to their duty. But then they do the same to the great topsail, its mighty yard and then the very mast itself, a heavy task indeed. This they have evidently done to the mizenmast and the main; now they are operating on the foremast, and I perceive from the forms creeping along the bowsprit that they contemplate s.h.i.+fting the jibboom too, the creatures.'

'Do they look for flaws and change the defective pieces?'

'I suppose they do. But I believe the real aim is to make them brisker, to confirm them in their seamanlike activity, and perhaps to strengthen their sense of combined, exactly synchronous effort. Sometimes it is done, not from any desire to enforce discipline and instant compliance with orders but out of a spirit of compet.i.tion if not indeed of vainglory and showing away. The old Surprise, with a crew that had been together a great while, all men-of-war's men, was extraordinarily good at it; and I remember that once, in the West Indies, s.h.i.+fting topmasts at the same moment as the Hussar, considered a crack s.h.i.+p, she did so in one hour and twenty-three minutes, the hands dancing hornpipes on the forecastle before the wretched Hussars had even crossed their main topgallant yards. See, the topmast is swaying up - it rises, rises, the capstan turns - higher, higher, secured by a complex system of ropes - high enough - Tom cries "Launch ho!" - it is ridded and safe - they fling themselves upon the shrouds and cast off this and that - the brave topgallant-mast follows ..."

So it did; and once the frigate looked like a Christian s.h.i.+p again - for the s.h.i.+fting of the jibboom was neither here nor there to the medicoes - they returned to their squids, more active now than ever. 'I am almost certain that over there we have a species quite unknown,' said Martin. He leaned out with his long-handled net, but before he had even dipped it he started back. 'Oh,' he said in a shocked voice. 'Do not move. Do not hang your arm over the side. My image of Paradise was only too exact. The Evil One is with us too.'

They peered cautiously over the gunwale, and there under the frail skiff they saw the familiar form of a shark: one of the many kinds of Carcharias no doubt, though to tell just which they would have to look at its teeth; yet it seemed larger than most: far larger.