Clarissa Oakes by Patrick O'Brian

  It was the little girls, smiling and bobbing, dressed in new frocks with blue bows on their sleeves. 'You said you would like to see us when we were ready,' said Sarah.

  'And very fine you are too,' said Stephen. 'Turn round, will you?' They slowly revolved, holding their arms well away from their stiff skirts. 'The elegant frocks of the world, so they are. But Emily, my dear, what is that in your cheek?'

  'Nothing,' said Emily, beginning to grizzle.

  'Put it out, put it out: would you shame us all by chewing tobacco before the King of the Friendly Islands himself?' He held out a waste-paper basket and slowly, unwillingly, Emily let drop her quid. 'There, there,' he said, kissing them, 'blow your nose and run along. You must not keep Mr Martin waiting: there is not a moment to be lost.'

  'You will come along, sir, won't—will not—you, if ever you can?' asked Sarah.

  '. . . I saw him in Holland House,' wrote Stephen; and leaning back for a fresh vision of the scene he heard Jack, in another world, address the crowded deck; to starboard the liberty men, who had somehow, after a day of strenuous toil, found time and energy to put on their shore-going clothes of brass-buttoned light-blue jackets, white duck trousers, embroidered shirts, broad-brimmed ribboned hats, neat little shoes with bows; to larboard those now jaded souls who had had their fun the night before and a cruel hard day on top of it. Those who were to go ashore—and already the fires were burning for the feast—could hardly wait for their Captain to be done: they jigged up and down as they stood, as they jigged so the stolen nails, bolts, pieces of old iron for trading, jangled in their places of concealment. 'I repeat, shipmates,' he said loud and clear, 'we weigh with the first of the ebb. All hands are to repair to the boats the moment the second rocket goes up; they will have five minutes from the first in which to take their leave. And there are to be no women aboard the ship. No women at all, d'ye hear me there?'

  'What about Mrs Oakes?' called a half-drunk voice from the sullen larboard.

  'Take that man's name, Mr West,' said Jack, and those who had been close to the butcher moved away from him with expressionless faces, leaving him isolated. 'Gig's crew away,' called Jack: a few moments later he went down the side in some state and Stephen returned to his letter.

  'I saw him in Holland House during the peace, when he had just come back from the Paris embassy. As the door opened Lady Holland was saying in that loud metallic voice of hers "How I worship that Napoleon". Some people looked embarrassed but for a moment he stood there in the shadow of the doorway with his hands clasped and his face shining as though he had been granted the beatific vision; then he composed himself and walked in with the ordinary commonplace remarks. Lady Holland ran to meet him: "What news from Paris? Tell us all about your dinner with the divine First Consul."

  'Now this man shared in Ledward's and Wray's dirtiest parties, but although he had been to school with Ledward he never acknowledged him in public; nor of course Wray. But the point that carried total conviction with me was that their code for him was Pillywinks, and the name we found so often but could not interpret in Wray's criminally negligent papers.

  'To carry the same conviction to your mind, let me tell you about my source: she is the lady who blew Mr Caley's head off with a double-barrelled gun some years ago; and as you will recall (which I did not at the time) our fellow-member Harry Essex had her sentence commuted to transportation. It was therefore in New South Wales that she joined our company.'

  There followed a succinct account of their voyage, its interruption and its present aims: a more detailed account of his walk with Clarissa in which he could not refrain from the briefest notice of Sir Joseph's beetles; and then as detailed an account as he could remember of their conversation about Ledward, Wray and the lame man, both at the first mention of their names and during the walk down to the strand, a long walk, and made longer by the blister. The exact sequence was not always easy, and to fix it he sometimes gazed out of the window. The frigate lay stern-on to the shore, a shore lined with fires and as brilliant as could be: no moon to interfere: leaping flames above an incandescent heart, white sand, dark green looming behind, a blue-black sky; the whaler clearly lit upon his right; and all along the line straight young brown bodies dancing to the sound of rhythmic song and drums. But dancing in a series of exact, perfect evolutions that would have put the Brigade of Guards to shame. Advance, retreat and twirl; twirl, retreat, advance; a half turn and so back again, the close ranks and files interchanging, all with a perfect simultaneity of pace and waving arms. In the middle, beyond the fire, a temporary roof of palm fronds had been set up, and here by the chiefs' side sat Jack: then other notables: to their right Clarissa and her husband, then Wainwright and Dr Falconer, Reade, Martin and the little girls, now hung with wreaths of flowers, staring with amazement and delight. They were all slowly, absently sipping kava in coconut cups from the ancestral bowl in front of the chief.

  Back to his coding, the fires dazzling in his eyes, and he struck out several lines in which the sequence was mistaken. To convey the perfectly convincing, ingenuous, nature of her words was, he feared, beyond his powers; but certainly their exact, inconsequential train might do something towards it.

  When next he looked up he realized that for some time he had been hearing neither song nor drums but a confused din not unlike the roar of a bull-fight: it was in fact a boxing-match. He had heard of the sport for ever, but curiously enough he had never seen a formal contest—nothing more than scuffles among the boys in earlier commissions or dockside brawls. Yet this appeared to be a singular battle. He took up his small spyglass, never far from hand, and his first astonished impression was confirmed. There were two fine upstanding young women setting about one another with bare fists. Violent, wholehearted blows, and judging from the cries of the onlookers, well given and well received. Clarissa was laughing; the little girls hardly knew how they liked it; some of the seamen and all of the islanders backed one girl or the other with the greatest zeal. Yet at the very climax, and for no reason that Stephen could see, when neither was giving an inch, the old chief beat the kava-bowl, an attendant blew on a conch, the chief's sister intervened, the two young women fell back and walked off, one rubbing her cheek, the other her bosom: there was a cry of disappointment from the seamen who had enjoyed it, but almost immediately afterwards, from one end of the line to the other, came baked hogs, baked dogs, fishes and fowls wrapped in leaves, yams, plantains, breadfruit.

  Stephen's watch uttered its tiny silver chime, and looking at the pile of sheets he had so inconsiderately filled he said 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, I shall never get all this recoded in time: and already my poor boiled eyes are dropping out of my head.' He put on his green shade, wiped away his tears, changed his spectacles and opened the new code-book.

  He did not look up again until a great howl plucked him from his task, his mechanical work. There was Awkward Davies flat on his face with a burly islander sitting on him, pinning him down with an arm-breaking hold. Davies presumably gave some sign, uttered some word, for the islander got off, helped him up, and led him back to his friends in the kindest way.

  Again Stephen's watch struck and while it was still striking the first rocket soared up. 'Oooh,' cried all the people, and 'Aah!' followed by cheers as it burst.

  The second rocket, not a quarter of a page later, was followed by nautical cries and then by the arrival of the boats. Some few hands had contrived to get drunk on the chief's kava, but most came aboard very quietly, welcomed in a low voice by the harbour-watch.

  When his sheep had been counted Jack looked into the cabin. 'Am I interrupting you?' he asked from the doorway.

  'Never in life, my dear. I am only copying: let me finish my group and I am with you.' Many years before this Jack, no fool at sea, had perceived that Stephen was more than a ship's surgeon, more even than a man whose political advice would be sought by a captain where relations with foreigners were concerned; and gradually his close connexion with intelligence had becom
e so evident that there was nothing strange about his coding messages, sometimes of surprising length.

  The group finished, Stephen put a small lead weight upon the place and said 'I trust you had an agreeable evening.'

  'Very agreeable indeed, thank you. The chief did the thing handsomely, uncommon handsomely: and then nobody ran, there were no harsh words, the only fighting was in play, and we ate like aldermen—such turtle, Stephen! But I am afraid Bonden and Davies will need your attention in the morning; and Emily was sick.'

  'What happened to them?'

  'Bonden boxed with an islander, and his nose is knocked sideways: Davies was cruelly wrenched and twisted in wrestling; and somebody told Emily how the kava she had drunk was made.'

  'Then she is now wiser than I am.'

  'Why, they sit round an enormous pot, chewing kava-root, and when it is chewed enough they spit it in, going on until there are gallons of it; and then they let it ferment. The notion made her vomit; though it is true she had already eaten an extraordinary amount of sugar-cane, and was already looking green about the gills.'

  'She may survive.'

  'I am just going to write Sophie something of a letter before turning in. Have you any message?'

  'Love, of course. I had hoped to write to Diana, but I doubt I shall have time for anything more than the briefest note.'

  'Then I shall not keep you a moment longer,' said Jack, moving over to a table at the far end of the broad cabin. Their pens scratched away bell after muffled bell: at one point Stephen heard Jack tiptoe off to his sleeping cabin; and slowly the first code turned into the perhaps impenetrable second.

  At last, when his eyes could not bear the darting from one page to another any more, he took off his spectacles, covered his eyes with his hands and pressed hard for several minutes. While he was in this state of coruscating darkness he heard the bosun's pipe and his fine determined voice 'All hands unmoor ship. All hands, there. Tumble up, tumble up, you dormice,' and when he took his hands away he saw the first hint of coming day on the shore.

  With a fresh urgency he recoded the words. 'How it can be accomplished I do not know, but I shall try to get her back to England with another copy of this: may I rely upon you to protect her? Little do I know of the law, but although she is now married to a naval officer I fear she may be molested as having returned before her time. She has already given us this piece of information, one of the most valuable that has ever come into our hands; she is potentially a valuable source of more, if handled with extreme discretion; and in any event I have a great kindness for her. Immunity would be politically sound; privately obliging. Lastly, my dear J, may I beg you to send the enclosed scribble down to my wife?'

  All this last hour there had been confused roaring and bawling, beyond the reach of his concentrated attention. Now as he ranged his papers the cry of 'Heave and awash' came from forward: the cabin was already full of light. Mr Adams knocked at the door: 'Captain's compliments, sir, and if you have anything for Sydney, we should wrap it now. I have his own dispatch still open, and as soon as Mr Wainwright has seen us through the channel he will take it back to the Daisy.'

  'Will you clap on to that God-damn cat-fall, there? Are you asleep?' asked Captain Aubrey, very strong and clear, very far from pleased.

  Dr Maturin and Mr Adams looked at one another, startled: they had both of them heard many more orders than were usual in unmooring ship, more, louder and angrier, but none so severe as this; and in a low tone Stephen, waving his last sheet, said 'Let us allow the ink to dry, and I am with you.'

  They wrapped, sealed, taped, tied and sealed again: Oakes came below to ask if they were ready. 'In four minutes,' they said; and when they came on deck they found Captain Aubrey looking at his watch, Mr Wainwright poised by the gangway and his boat's crew looking anxiously up. Hurried farewells and the whaleboat shoved off: the Surprise filled her foretopsail, and holding her breath she weathered the outermost spur of the reef.

  Stephen stood right aft, watching Annamooka diminish astern, and then, quite small now, swing steadily round until it was abreast as the Surprise crossed that clearly-marked line in the sea, that sudden change from aquamarine to royal blue, which marked the limit of the local tides and breezes on the one hand and the steady wind from the east-south-east on the other; the long even turn, in which the ship was accompanied by three moulting man-of-war birds, brought the wind upon the beam, and Captain Aubrey, having increased sail steadily until she was under topgallants, gave the course north-north-east a half east and went below, leaving a nervous silence behind him.

  His breakfast was ready, but although two places were laid his usual companion was not there. 'Which he is still in the sick-berth,' said Killick, 'setting Davies and Bonden to rights. I could fetch him in a moment.' Jack shook his head and poured himself a cup of coffee. 'Infernal lubbers,' he muttered to himself.

  In point of fact Stephen was rolling pills in the dispensary and listening with half an ear to Martin's reasons for having deserted him in favour of Falconer. They were untrue; and Martin, feeling that they did not persuade, plunged deep into circumstantial detail, which diminished him in Stephen's opinion. He was not much opposed to falsehood in itself nor offended by its skilful use; but one of Martin's most amiable characteristics had been an ingenuous candour.

  In the sick-berth itself, where Bonden and Davies were lying in as much comfort as could be expected, medical art having done what little it could, visitors had come below to tell them how lucky they were to have escaped the wrath on deck. 'I never seen him so wexed since he came back to the barky off the Dry Tortugas and found Mr Babbington had let her get a foul hawse,' said Plaice.

  'A round turn and an elbow it was,' said Bonden in the voice of one with a very heavy cold or a nose newly broken, 'an horrible sight. He choked poor Mr Babbington off till he nearly cried, quite pitiful to see.'

  'But that was nothing to this,' said Archer. 'That was ignorance and folly, the fruit of youth as the Bible says. This was ill-will between the oakapples and the rest, and it very nearly made us miss our tide. I shouldn't wonder if he flogged the whole ship's company, come Monday, with bosun touching up his mate.'

  'My conscience is quite clear, any gate,' said Williams.

  'That will be a great comfort to you when you get a bloody shirt on Monday, mate.'

  'He had the smiting-line set up seven times before he was satisfied: swore something cruel.'

  'Smiting-line, ha, ha. You'll grow acquainted with a smiting-line come Monday,' said Awkward Davies with his rare grating laugh.

  Martin, abandoning justification as unprofitable and feeling shy of telling Maturin about his expedition with Dr Falconer, turned to the frightful din of the early morning, oaths such as he had never heard, objurgations. 'You were no doubt asleep with balls of wax in your ears,' he said, 'otherwise you could not have failed to hear the thunder of the captains and the shouting. It appears that the manoeuvres were so ill-executed that Captain Aubrey became uneasy for his tide—that in another five minutes the land-breeze would have headed us. I wonder that an officer of his experience . . .'

  'Be so good as to pass me the quicksilver. We shall be needing it soon, no doubt. You know as well as I do that it is the one true specific for the pox.'

  Martin reached the bottle across, and looking anxiously at Stephen he said 'I hope I have not offended you?'

  'As far as I am concerned Captain Aubrey is wholly infallible in the conduct of a ship. Pray tell me about your walk with Dr Falconer.'

  'It was not nearly so successful as I had hoped. While we were taking a short cut over a tumble of black rocks, Dr Falconer fell, twisted his ankle and broke his spy-glass. We could not go on, neither could we go back until the extreme pain had diminished, so we sat there on the rocks in the sun, talking about volcanoes; for this formation, it seems, was of recent igneous origin. Presently we decided to eat and above all to drink; but it was found that although we had collecting-bags, nets and specimen-cases in ple
nty, the knapsack and the bottles had been left behind. He desired me to go to some palms right down by the shore and bring back some coconuts; and when at last I came back empty-handed in spite of my most earnest endeavours to climb even the most oblique of the little grove, he was surprisingly impatient.

  'Yet in time he recovered his equanimity and told me at length about the frequent volcanic activity in these regions. He believes there is an intimate connexion between eruptions, particularly submarine eruptions, and those great waves that devastate so many shores, wrecking ships and drowning thousands; and he was exceedingly put out by having to leave Moahu before he had climbed the volcano there, since he had hoped to establish a relation between its intermittent rumbling and the level of the sea. He had made his way up a far more important, far more active volcano in the Sandwich Islands, one of many; and I heard a great deal about scoriae, ashes, incandescent dust, the various forms of lava, lapilli and vitreous pumice. You will remember that Dr Falconer has an unusually loud voice: it seemed louder still under that torrid sun, and perhaps there was an effect of echo. We saw no birds, apart from two very distant boobies and a common sooty tern. Yet on our slow and halting return, which took us through gentler, more shaded country, I found him more interesting: he spoke of the importance of volcanoes to the Polynesians. Apart from anything else they are visible gods, and sacrifices are often made to them in the hope of evading the usual fate of the poor and lowly-born, whose souls are slowly eaten by the evil spirits who dwell inside the craters.'

  'Why, Stephen, there you are!' cried Jack, his grim face breaking into a smile. 'I have kept half a pot of coffee for you, but I am sure you could do with another, having watched so late. Your eyes are as red as a ferret's. Killick! Killick, there. Another pot for the Doctor.'